Type: Manhwa
Score: 2.5/10
Date modified: Dec 20, 2025
Ice Lamp never felt like it would be anything more than a basic shojo manhwa but I was looking to gulp down some slop and I guess it did its job in that department but don't expect for that to stop me from complaining. It definitely tries its best to fit in everything it wants to say within its surprisingly short 74 chapters but I think it does flounder a bit. To me up until near the end of season 2 it felt as if the author assumed they'd have a lot more time to tell their story but sometime around the timeskip they realised, fuck, we have 20 chapters to tell 60% of what we want, leading to lots of strange moments and forgotten plotlines. The whole bit about Kira's mother really shouldn't have been included at all because its told and then paid of within like five chapters so when we find out that one guy (forgot his name) killed her mum it wasn't really some big ahah moment because I really didn't have time to ruminate on Kira's mother being some genius commoner or whatever. I also found that much of Mufi's actions confused me, maybe I'm just a little dumb but I really don't have a clue as to why he was being a dick to Kira for a while. I also found it gross that Kira seemed to have a crush on him for a while when he was introduced as a big brother character (not that he did much big-brotherly activities) and it didn't even matter because that whole plot was cut off and Kira never ended up with anyone. I have to assume Mufi ended up with that noble lady but I can't know for sure because she disappeared immediately after being introduced as she was just a way to push along some pointless drama. The whole supernatural element was never really paid off either, I had almost forgotten about it and it seemed the author did too because right at the end it was suddenly like, "oh yeah and there's a dragon that hatched from your head thanks bye" and that is just about as much explanation as you get. I was a little pissed off when a huge point, her pretending to be a man, was just kind of brushed off. It was really weird, to me at least, that nobody even seemed to care about that. They also just randomly kill the king in like a three chapter span and then get away with no consequences but that's neither here nor there. The art is pretty middle of the road but the fights at least are slightly above average for shojo at least so that's cool I guess. This whole write-up is a mess, the story was a mess, I'm writing this while watching Weapons so I really just don't care. Sorry to the single Ice Lamp fan.