The Fall 2024 K-Comics Guide

Mistaken as the Monster Duke's Wife

What's It About? 

When Lia Dellis comes across a dying man in need of help, she never could have imagined a curse would drive him to attack her. That's why she hits him over the head with a rock! Feeling guilty, Lia nurses him back to health only to realize that he's Dillian Synaize, the ruthless monster duke. To make matters worse, Dillian has lost all his memories and inexplicably thinks Lia is his wife. Can Lia escape the grasp of this so-called monster before he remembers that she was the one who hit him?

Mistaken as the Monster Duke's Wife has art by saeyeon and is adapted from a novel by Jin Soye, with English translation by Kakao Ent. Published by Tapas.

Is It Worth Reading?

Pro-tip: don't take romantic advice from owls. It's probably not a great plan to put yourself in a position where that's the only option. Still, Dillian can't help it – suffering from a curse and left for dead in the forest, his life-draining thorns were about to attack Lia and kill her, meaning that her only option was to bash him over the head with a rock. That knocked him out and robbed him of his memories. When Lia wasn't forthcoming with answers, he began to create his own. The major one? That he and Lia were in love before his memory loss, a delusion amply bolstered by talking owl (or rather, owl-shaped divine beast) Nadan, who has read way too many romance novels. It's a comedy of errors that doesn't fully get off the ground until most of the way through the first twenty chapters, but once it hits, it hits hard.

Mistaken for the Monster Duke's Wife is part of the isekai genre, but only in tangential ways. Lia is technically from our world, reborn as a side character in a novel doomed to end in tragedy, and the author of that destruction is none other than Dillian. But the story isn't really about that; it's about how she and the so-called monster duke live together in her house in the forest, her desperately hoping he never regains his memory, and him jumping to all the wrong conclusions. Dillian may have a monstrous reputation, but that's due to his horrible curse, which has shaped the way he's seen and how he interacts with the world. But there are hints that he's not that bad. When Lia finds him in the woods, he's bleeding profusely and unconscious, his curse having gone berserk. Later on, when his retainers discover him, they tell us that he was attacked much earlier that same day, and they'd tucked him into bed in an inn. That Dillian left before his curse could activate and kill everyone in his vicinity says that he didn't want to hurt anyone, belying his “monster” nickname. And his personality seems to be fairly intact while he's with Lia – he can be imperious and frightening, but he has a good, caring heart. The “monster” seems to be something other people made him, not who he is.

He's got much more personality than Lia at this point. She's primarily worried during these chapters, about Dillian, her life, and the general trajectory of the novel she's now living in. That's not great, as it can make her feel a bit like a self-insert character (possibly the point), but the story still has a lot of fun with misunderstandings even with her lack of strong traits; she and Dillian are almost always having two different conversations without being at all aware of it, something the art does a good job of enhancing. By the time these chapters end, the story has reached a point where it's hard not to want to know what happens next. It's a slow start, but worth getting through.

God, I hate amnesia stories so much. They are probably one of the most contrived plot points ever put to paper. Here we have a kind woman forced to share an enclosed space with what was originally supposed to be a cruel and evil man. However, surprise, due to circumstance, he doesn't remember that he was a cruel and evil man. I roll my eyes at the premise, but I will give the story this, it does utilize that plot point as a genuine element of tension in the narrative. There are some moments where you're not sure if he is recovering his memories or if things are just framed in a way to give the impression that's what is happening, when in reality, he's just going about things a different way. There were some genuine points throughout the story when I was caught a bit off guard, and I have to give it credit for taking a relatively tired trope and actually executing it in a suspenseful way.

Actually, I say our main character is generally kind, and while she is compared to the monster duke, I appreciate the fact that she's got a really good head on her shoulders. She's proactive, a little bit jaded, and is willing to do what she can in order to guarantee her own survival. You can tell she's entertaining the current situation more out of self preservation rather than any initial explicit romantic interest. If anything, there are some funny scenes where she seems downright put off by the current situation, and that puts a smile on my face.

The art really does help. The series feels engaging despite the fact that the locations are rather limited compared to a lot of the other series on this guide. Our main character gets some good goofy expressions while our duke gets those intimidating panels. There's some nice artistic direction that helps the rather lengthy exposition scenes feel a bit easier to swallow. I particularly like the thorned branch motif that stretches throughout the pages with accompanying lines to represent curses. Considering that curses in the series almost feel like infections that need to be treated, it definitely was pleasant to look at. Overall this was a pleasant surprise and definitely a lot better than I originally thought it was going to be.