Bad Translation of a Weird Story in the Omegaverse
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Warning:
There will be spoilers for the manhua series The Trapped Beast.
Content Warning: There maybe references to war, enslavement, sexual assault, violence, sexism (specifically based on secondary sex), death, murder, blood, hostage situation, mentions of forced marriage (not between the main couple), mentions of forced polygamy (not between the main couple, queen and concubines), gossiping, kidnapping, imprisonment, drugging, poisoning, dubcon/noncon, mentions of arranged marriage (not between the main couple), genocide, self-deprecation, misuse of medication, dehumanization, power imbalance, forced pregnancy (through fake birth control), self-harm, forced marking, male pregnancy, excessive drinking, capital punishment, surgery, gun violence, mentions of suicide, attempted forced abortion, animal death (including due to abuse/cruelty), anti-abortion rhetoric, torture, manipulation, PTSD, suicidal ideation, extortion, colonization, overwork, birth, politics, chronic illness and injury, ableism, child abuse, and arson, as they appear in the manhua.
Synopsis:
Kingdoms are at war. Tadelville and Ethelanian have a long history dating back to when the kingdoms were united under a single ruler. Back then, the king was greedy. He had an Ethelanian wife, but then he found a village of the Tadelville people. These people have the Heaven’s People bloodline, which, when it manifests in chosen people, enables them to wield nearly unstoppable magic. Hoping to integrate this bloodline with his own, the king took a Tadelville woman as a concubine. While he figured all of this would go his way, he didn’t anticipate his wife and his concubine starting a war of their own.
With this rivalry between the Tadelville concubine and the Ethelanian bride, the two separate bloodlines have formed their own kingdoms and are now at war. Unfortunately, Ethelanian has taken control, decimating all of the alphas of the Tadelville royal line, enslaving the omegas, and preparing to entirely annex what remains of the kingdom. What they don’t realize is that one of the omegas they’ve captured is actually the youngest prince, Crispin, an alpha in disguise. And the moment he gets a chance, he breaks out of his imprisonment and takes the youngest prince of Ethelanian and omega, Hill Ethelanian, hostage.
Crispin doesn’t necessarily intend to hurt the omega prince, but if this ends up being his first step toward revenge, then so be it. What Crispin doesn’t anticipate, though, is being shot with heat-inducing smoke bombs that effectively cause Hill to throw himself at Crispin. Unable to hold back, Crispin has his way with the young prince, marks him, and ends up being recaptured by the Ethelanian family. Thankfully, his life has been spared for the time being, as Hill needs his alpha’s pheromones. This sets in motion the twisted fate not only for Hill and Crispin but for their kingdoms as a whole.
Review:
Now, I usually like to start with the art, but there is a glaring issue that I want to get out of the way first: the translation. Having read a ton of manhwa and manga at this point, I am used to at least decent-quality translations, but, as with many manhua, this is abysmal by comparison. I don’t know why manhua seems to get such shoddy treatment, but this is another one to add to the pile. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were just that some of the wording is clunky, but some lines are nearly unintelligible. There are also typos galore, which is just the cherry on top of this messy translation. Tapas has comments on their platform, and looking through them as I read this, I saw a lot of people saying it was reminiscent of old school Google Translate fan translations or just generally bad machine translations, and while I am inclined to agree, the typos later on suggest this is more just bad human translation. Regardless, this is a very tough read, and much of the emotion is ruined by the poor translation.
But enough about the translation, let’s talk about the art. Most manhua art has a very dreamy, airy quality to it. If I hadn’t gone in knowing this was a manhua, I feel confident I would’ve been able to guess it from the art style alone (having the hilarious “touched” emotion-fx helps, too). This has that very soft manhua-style quality, which is lovely, but overall, it’s very inconsistent. The characters sometimes give fish vibes, with eyes super far apart when facing forward, for example. But even beyond the fish eyes, the body proportions are a bit wonky at times. If you don’t care about consistency, then you probably won’t be all that bothered, but if you want perfection, that isn’t here.
I gotta give credit where credit is due, though, this might be the best manhua in terms of sexual content. Unfortunately, due to censorship, a lot of manhua will censor even kisses between men, and while this isn’t uncensored by any means, we do get to see what I would call softcore scenes. There are the usual shiny, shimmering branches and leaves conveniently placed to block all the goods, but it is much more titillating than I would’ve ever expected from a manhua. It was a nice change of pace from what I usually see in these comics. I hope to see more like this one day.
But while the sex scenes are good, the story in this is painfully lacking. It doesn’t start off too bad. I like the idea of a royal captive being kept alive simply because he marked the prince, and then ends up becoming a pawn to breed someone with his special bloodline into the enemy one. However, after the shift happens, when Hill runs off and is taken in by Crispin to give birth, things start to fall apart. Don’t get me wrong, everything in this is pretty fantastical, as it should be in a fantasy. But there are “poisonous smoke bombs” that are then brushed off as just sleep bombs. Crispin is told he will die if he uses his magic again, but then uses it and acts like nothing’s wrong in the next panel. Hill disguises himself and integrates into Crispin’s life again, and is bewildered that he was already caught from the very beginning when all he did was put on some wire frames and dye his hair. It is all just very silly and corny, ignoring the rules and rushing through plotlines to get to a very disappointing ending.
Results:
This was a mess. It has good aspects, don’t get me wrong, but for its length, the price, and the time sink, it just isn’t worth it. There are much better manhua out there, and some are at least translated properly. I don’t know if this is machine translated or just a poor human translation; either way, it is 3,000x worse because of the translation. I’m not sure it would’ve been much more enjoyable if it had been well-translated, but at least it would’ve been easier to read. I wouldn’t personally recommend this one, but if you are just desperate for some unique fantasy omegaverse series, there is this one.
Have you read The Trapped Beast? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!
