Culinary Chronicles of the Court Flower: Volume 1

Actual rating: 3.5★

Rounded up because the art is pretty, and while it's a bit cliche in many ways, it's only the beginning of what seems to be a promising series. I only picked it up for the culinary aspect, but it offers a lot more court politics than expected. It reminds me a little of The Apothecary Diaries, but with food instead of medicines and poisons.

As of volume 1, our heroine Rimi is a rather bland character due to her personality and upbringing. While she does have a few prominent traits, such as her drive to feed people good food and her questionably insulting Konkokuan, for now it's still heavily overshadowed by various stereotypes and her own nonchalance. Hopefully she'll be developed more in the next installments and have more growth as a character.

Volume 1 focuses on introducing Rimi to life in the rear palace, her meeting with Shusei, as well as the emperor's issue with his half-brother.