Ntr Manhwa

Awaiting an official translation for this very niche series – potentially picked up by a smaller digital publisher. So far it’s been in the wild west of fan translations. I check Mangaupdates every now and then to see if anyone has taken it on. The page for the manga lists out all known reading sources (legit & otherwise) so for the time being it’s a good page to check for the manga not on Manga Plus or Viz etc.

Just thought I'd add my 2 cents to all of these great suggestions. My bookmarks are a hot mess of randomly added sites that I have no idea how to search for by name.

Instead, I highly recommend another completed series which does not get enough love: July Found by Chance. It is a webtoon, so pretty pictures and updates when the author posts. This is not an infidelity story, as the cheating romantic partner is beaten senseless by the truly aggrieved love interest. Instead, it is a story about the ultimate betrayal: that of fate and the author of the protagonist’s story. When the protagonist of July Found by Chance realizes that she is a character in a novel, she is horrified to realize that her life and the love she felt to be real were all just a farce, set up by the author in order to create a tragic, even worse, manipulated romance for her.

The core of the story is the main female lead trying to search for agency in a story where she is just a pawn in the author's predetermined script. The story is a meta take on the betrayal trope and as a result the earned romance outside of the cheating of the cheating story feels even more authentic. The art is clean and nice to read and I particularly enjoyed how it could express the main character's deep frustration, existential dread, and her unrelenting search for freedom. It's a great cheating romance story that deconstructs the destiny of a forced romance, and stays with you long after the story is over.

My two cents: Chapter 7 writing improved dramatically. Sharper dialogue and more vivid descriptions of scenes. I wonder if the author has suddenly “hit his stride” or if someone else is suddenly contributing to the writing. Perhaps, it is a collaboration that started with one writer and has recently been influenced by a writer friend who is more technically sound. These kinds of style changes occur frequently in online serials because the author receives feedback immediately and the writer adapts to that feedback as he writes. The author is not a fixed entity. Rather, he is a process.

A tag I double-check before clicking on. Netorase or NTRS (for the English speakers out there) stands for consensual cuckolding, and since the ‘S’ in NTRS can get mixed up with other tags, I figured I’d clarify. The stories found within this genre focus on relationships where one or the other person gets off on their partner having sex with others, and thus we delve into the taboo topic and psychology of such desires. While you may not find any of this in mainstream shonen anime, you will find a multitude of adult-oriented fiction, often quite erotic in nature, which expresses the emotions of the characters more so than the act itself. Anguish, euphoria, confusion – however you want to feel it – is all displayed on the page, and can be quite exhausting to read, often relying on the reader to tolerate the author’s manipulation of emotions within a gray moral area. Myself, I have a complicated love-hate relationship with the genre. Some of the works are incredibly poignant, while others are simply crass attempts at shock value.

Of course, the biggest variety within this category are probably the titles that hybridize different genres in interesting ways. So for example an infidelity manhwa with fantasy elements, like the FL possibly getting supernatural assistance or possibly be reincarnated into a new body, would, if done right, be able to provide a very pure form of wish-fulfillment for the kind of story where the FL seeks revenge or recovery from an ex’s betrayals. And here the main interest lies in the various and creative ways in which the special rules that govern such fantasy stories can result in spectacular, unambiguous comeuppance for the lecherous hero, or in a deeply moving and satisfying recovery for the woman.

On the other hand, a very realistic take on a manhwa can be so satisfying because it’s so, so, real. A bittersweet ending where the FL is happier but scarred for life is so much more satisfying than a mushy ending where everything is wrapped up all neat and pretty. The FL’s ex may not get his comeuppance but he can be shown to be mediocre for the rest of his life, which is very satisfying to read. Again, it comes back to what the reader is looking for in a story. Are they looking for a way to escape reality or do they want to read about reality and how people can heal from their pasts in realistic ways? The ending should be satisfying in that it feels like it belongs to the story. The ending should feel like it grew from the story’s own soil, not from some other story.

The primary emotional throughline of this piece is one of cold fury. The anger of the protagonist has been locked into a perpetual state and fuels the protagonist, never waning to the point of losing control. What is scary about the avenger is that he is not hot-headed. A hot-headed character seeking revenge is a rather predictable, even clichéd, storyline. But a cold, calculating character is far scarier because you have no idea when the blow will come. His interactions lack the heat of rage and thus come across as clinical, even as if he were cutting with a surgeon’s scalpel. The detachment from his hatred is more disturbing than if he were raging and screaming. His hatred is so deep, so fundamental, that it has become a part of his operating system. Thus, the protagonist is not seeking revenge; he is revenge incarnate. He just happens to be wearing the skin of a transfer student.

An ultimate “deal with the devil” story, where instead of the usual dark lord, the main antagonist is a flaky RPG system. The NTR system trades off in an evil fashion, but the hero just happens to have a higher value for his “talent” than normal, so he’s just best at this stuff.

So the ‘Suffering’ resource that others may have stored away might be generated by the Protagonist in especially intense and emotional scenes. This resource can then be used to cast the more powerful versions of his ability. The talent of the Protagonist could act as a multiplier for his ability to generate this special resource.

The result is an unusual pacing where moments of intense drama are also moments of resource gathering for the character. Rather than simply reading through a scene of the character dealing with heartbreak, for example, he is grinding for Grief Crystals. The unusual blend of genres to create this world is, to some people’s minds, fascinating in its audacity.

Does anyone use Tachiyomi for Android? It lets you add dozens of sources, including scanlation groups and some official ones. For 'Trapped', for example, you can find it listed by various sources, including some that post the official free chapters on WEBTOON. Note that Tachiyomi is not an app you can find in app stores, it's a GitHub project that you sideload to your Android device. The setup is a bit of a kerfuffle, but once you've got it up and running, it's an utterly beautiful, ad-free reading experience. It even tracks your progress and notifies you of updates for dozens of series.

The boundaries of ethics for reading on Tachiyomi depend heavily on the source extension(s) that you use to read. Some extensions simply pull official free chapters from the service in question. Others pull in fan translated chapters that have been locked down by the creator, which has its own set of moral implications. As for the app itself, it’s an excellent, flexible reader for Android that I highly recommend to people who are comfortable with a little tech setup to read all of their comics in one place. Just be sure to find out where the content is actually coming from.

I’m here for the art. Some of these panels are literal wallpaper. I mean that in the best possible way. The lighting in “Like Wind on a Dry Branch” is just really beautiful. And the costume details in “The Fantasie of a Stepmother” are incredible. Sometimes I find myself reading a story just to slowly scroll through the pages to take in all of the art. The romance reads intensely when every glance is beautifully framed. Is anyone else here reading for aesthetic reasons?