Review: Elegant Courtly Life of the Tea Witch Vol. 1
I received this book from the publisher in exchange of an honest review.
I was definitely curious about this one! I love tea! I love witches~ I was also hoping for a little bit of F/F romance, haha. So of course I had to request this manga, and I am happy I did. Though when I learned of the princess’s age I was not looking forward to romance. On the cover she looked like 15-16, but she is twelve. Yeah, no.
OK, I had to get into it at first because apparently being a Tea Witch isn’t the best witch you can be and she is constantly scorned despite being totally epic at the job. I would think it was pretty cool, especially when she can enchant the teas to be even better and help out with fatigue and the likes. Not to mention she can with just one pot change the contents of the tea to fit with everyone’s tastes, which is just SO COOL, and I would love that power too. Plus, as the story continues we see that it is seemingly a cover, because what she did to a maze, well, I can tell you that is not what someone who is a lowly tea witch should be able to do. Or when there was mentioning of gardening and I fully expected her to go gardening but what actually happened was cool magic and I really don’t want to get on Remy’s bad side, haha.
Not to mention she is desperately trying to fall off the radar, but there is Princess Stella, who calls our Tea Witch by her first name, who is very friendly, and even proposes to be friends. Yes, you can imagine Remy’s feelings. On the one hand she is fangirling inside, on the other hand she knows that her cover/her staying under the radar is not going to happen. And Stella is determined to be with Remy no matter what. And she will use her charm, her puppy eyes, and all her cuteness (and maybe a couple of threats) to make Remy forget her protestations, which make me laugh.
Add to that other characters, like Remy’s friend and court mage Alicia (who I am still not sure is a guy or a girl, Remy thinks a girl, I think a boy, and Alicia is pretty much in the: “I’m beautiful and adorable, so it doesn’t matter”-front which I loved), or Balian the mage of flames (who I didn’t mind seeing much more often, teehee). Or Dale, a team aide who is also constantly around Remy at one point.
I love that Remy was determined to make the princess happy and protect her. She wasn’t happy when she found out about the proposal, and there are also other things lurking in the dark, and I loved that Remy was so feisty about it. Then again, as I said, she may look like a lowly tea witch, but I feel for those coming in the way of the princess her happiness.
That date! I don’t want to ship them together because surely Remy is 18-20, and the princess is 12, but it was still so cute!
But please, can we have review copies we good quality art. I don’t need the best of the best, 4k, high def, but at least better than this one that feels like someone scanned it twenty times over. Details just vanished, everything was just the bare minimum and felt more like one of those cheap colouring pages you see for kids.
But all in all, I am very happy with this read, I loved seeing Remy kick ass and serving tea and knowing all about it, the princess was cute, there were a ton of fun characters, and story was fun! I would recommend it and I cannot wait to read more of it~