The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

My Happy Marriage

What's It About? 

Miyo Saimori is the eldest daughter of the noble Saimori family, but as the un-Gifted daughter of her father's despised first wife, she's treated like a servant by her stepmother and half-sister. When escape comes in the form of being offered in marriage to the infamously cold Kiyoka Kudou, Miyo barely has enough left in her to hope, assuming that because she lacks Spirit-Sight she'll be rejected and die on the streets as her parents intended. But contrary to everyone's expectations, Miyo is not universally loathed, and her betrothal offers her the most precious chance of all: to learn to stop hating herself.

My Happy Marriage is based on the light novel series by Akumi Agitogi and Tsukiho Tsukioka. The manga is drawn by Rito Kohsaka, with English translation by Jasmine Bernhardt, and Square Enix Manga & Books has released its first volume both digitally and physically for $7.99 and $12.99 respectively.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

You've probably met Miyo before, when she was called Cinderella. My Happy Marriage is a classic Cinderella A story (Cinderella B is more commonly known as Catskin or Donkeyskin and is the one with an incest element), where a noble girl is ignored by her father and abused by her stepmother and half-sister. While the manga is much less vicious than the light novel it's adapted from (the prose short story in the back of the book shows this pretty well), it's still abundantly clear that Miyo was very ill-used by her family, blamed by her stepmother for having the audacity to exist and mistreated by her father and half-sister under the stepmother's lead. The fact that she doesn't have a Gift (psychic power) is all the excuse the three of them need to make her life a hell she blames herself for.

Seeing how beaten down Miyo is by the time the story starts is hard. We get glimpses of her early life, both before her mother's death and right after, and that gives us a pretty good idea of who she used to be. Her childhood friend is the only person who still sees her as worthwhile, but since he's what my mother terms “a weenie,” he can't bring himself to stand up for her, and ends up agreeing to marry Kaya, her younger half-sister. That he's been bullied into this by Miyo's dad is again fairly obvious, and a conversation between his father and Miyo's implies that he was, in fact, supposed to marry her, not Kaya. His father's desire for Miyo's bloodline is anything but altruistic (her mother was from powerful stock), but the whole situation still says more about the friend than anything – especially since he knows that her father plans to foist her off on a man he hopes will kill her or toss her out onto the street.

Fortunately for both Miyo and the readability of the story, Kiyoka turns out to be anything but the monster society gossip paints him as. He's also not an idiot, and watching him quickly figure out that Miyo's demeanor isn't intended to ingratiate or even her natural state of being is a highlight. He's smart enough to realize (with a little prodding from his longtime servant Yurie) that Miyo won't know what to do with kindness, and he begins to slowly try to show her that she's both safe in his home and worthy of things like “clothes that aren't rags” and “eating.” While it can feel a bit like he's the white knight to her damsel in distress, that's also something that she needs right now: someone to show her that she's a worthwhile human being who doesn't have to apologize for existing. And based on the entirety of the first light novel (this covers half of it), once she learns that, she's got the wherewithal to start to move on her own.

With its classic Cinderella A storyline and delicate, detailed art, this is a solid adaptation. It's also a safe choice if you don't like graphic depictions of cruelty, because the novel really is about a step further than the manga. Either way, it's worth reading this story ahead of its anime adaptation – it's a good one.