I suppose the fact that it's historical means it has to show that women were supposedly inferior to men when it came to positions of power. So, I suppose this story isn't for me.

The cast might seem large, but it's not like they're all important characters. I didn't feel confused reading about them, and they're all drawn pretty well. It's easy to who's who.

I guess I don't really like reading about a guy who's sleeping around while married. He's a piece of shit for that, but apart from that I guess I can sympathize with him for why he's afraid of harming the female lead. The female lead is pretty cool. I wouldn't call her a Mary Sue, because she does have her flaws explored in the story.

I am pretty divided over this one. As a novel adaptations, it's simply too large in scope and complicated for a comic book format. It can be done, but I somehow don't like it how they did it here, with sometime overpretentious voice-overs and verses. Sometimes it works, but mostly it's simply too much. And boy, this manga bwcomes too much very sooN! There are to many tribes, to many people, it's hard to finally catch all the characters. It took me about 50 chapters for that, and boy that ain't good! However, once you finally get it, it does become more coherent and interesting. But that's adapting novels for you!

Another downfall of being a novel adaptation - The manga doesn't have room to breathe. Things happen so fast and all the time and some charm of the manga and the world-building is lost in the process. But, to flip the coin, the storyline is a level up compared to many other mangas. We have a well constructed imaginary world patterned after the Middle east, with tribes, wars, political machinations, drama, ionate love, thwarted dreams, grand palaces, poor masses, nomads, falcons (hence the title), and so much more. It does hook you and keep you interested till the end.

The art is gorgeous. I myself am not a fan of this style of drawing faces and avoid mangas with this style, but the sheer attention to details, the beautiful clothes and architecture made it more than palatable! Some s are truly to gaze upon, and a mystical Middle eastern atmosphere is languidly achieved.

While I mentioned the story-line to be solid (nothing outstanding in the of political machinations genre, but very solid and with strong humanistic undertones, which is good IMHO), it's the characters that have bugged me. I just didn't feel that much for either the Raja or Mia. Mia especially was a typical Mary Sue - wonderful singer, a great looked, capable leader, always with pure intentions... Meh, she was boring., The Raja was a bit better but not by much (we do get an insight into his complex family background and hos if affects him, but he's still a unrealistically positive character, considering his rank and status).
The character killed this for me. Taga Min was the one character that comes out as a bit more outside the box and interesting. On the other hand, Simeya was very badly drawn. I could not either understand nor feel anything for her. She does have some cool moments, but isn't a well structured villain.

overall, this was a roller-coaster ride and enjoyable in several aspects, but still short of being a great piece of manhwa.

Art = 9/10
Some proportions are off at times, but otherwise it is beautiful.

Characters ?/10

Plot ?/10

Will update my rating as I get through this, but I’m on chapter 30 now and it’s hard to get through. The text bubbles kinda appear randomly on each page so it’s hard to tell who is talking. And there are a LOT of tribes, so it’s difficult to figure out the politics and plot. I think the author needed a with some simple infographics like:

Min Tribe = The Lannisters (Game of Thrones reference) + headshots of each person in this tribe
Run Tribe = traitors + head shots of the people from this tribe
Paho Tribe = bad guys + a headshot of the big bad
Mu Tribe = mysterious nomadic tribe called on during emergencies for their military prowess, what relation do they have with our FL!?!? + grayed out mystery headshots
Etc.

I don’t necessarily think it needs to be dumbed down, but I do think the medium of a comic isn’t enough to fully explain the nuances of what’s going on. It works better in a written format, but I can see how this could lose readers bc the world-building could be boring.

Will update this with in-depth ratings on characters and plot the further I get into this. Right now though it feels like a chore to read.

It's been a while since I read something awesome like this, which reminds me dearly of Sora wa Akai Kawa no Hotori! Sure, some of the storyline/plot (which are very political and scheming) and action scenes can be confusing and difficult to follow, but the art is amazing and the heroic adventures of war are so exciting! Maybe this is just my jam though, which might not be yours. Anyhow, I found this series very fascinating and binged it within a day. Surprised at the low ratings. I really enjoyed it.

One of the most beautiful manhwas, if not the most beautiful I have read so far.

The art is one of the best I have seen....especially if you like each character in your story to look like a runway model lolz! Regarding the story- its fairly formulaic with the gorgeous badboy king who despite his playboy ways is a capable and deadly ruler; the female lead is a gorgeous (of course! ever heard of an average looking female lead?!?! pshhh!) .....some person of importance. They meet, fall in love, kill of the bad guys and manage to survive court intrigues etc etc (not sure of the last part since the story isn't completely translated) all the while affirming their deep love for each other.

The female is gorgeous and skilled in archery (honestly! despite being a "general/commander of the troops" how come she doesn't have even ONE battle scar or calluses on her fingers from drawing the bow and arrow?!?!?!