Pig Bride 2 by KookHwa Huh and SuJin Kim: B+

July 27, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Si-Joon Lee is still not used to the idea that the girl in the pig mask that he agreed to marry as a child is really his fiancée. The girl, Mu-Yeon, calmly yet tenaciously ignores his demands to leave him alone, and it gradually occurs to Si-Joon that she is actually protecting him from an unknown and dangerous third party with a grudge against his family. Meanwhile, Doe-Doe, the girl Si-Joon likes and mistakenly believes is sweet, schemes to make him hers, which means finding out Mu-Yeon’s secrets.

The greatest appeal of Pig Bride is its fairy tale feel, which grows even stronger with this volume, as Si-Joon begins to experience dreams of a past life with a woman who reminds him of Mu-Yeon. Images from the dream recur in his waking hours and begin to impact how he feels about his fiancée. Although he does get angry at her and attempt to push her away, it’s apparent that it’s mostly his own confusion that is the problem. The developing relationship between these two is handled well and is easily the most compelling thing about the story.

Less successful is the treatment of the threat against Si-Joon’s life, which still makes very little sense two volumes in. Doe-Doe’s plotting, too, offers little of interest, though at least her antagonistic presence seems poised to bring about revelations about either Mu-Yeon’s appearance or the nature of the mask she wears. Possibly both.

Even with its vagueness on the villain front, Pig Bride is still a very entertaining tale. It’s definitely worth a read.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Manhwa, Supernatural Tagged With:

Pig Bride 1 by KookHwa Huh and SuJin Kim: B+

July 25, 2009 by 6 Comments

pigbride1From the back cover:
Lost in the mountains on a trip to summer camp, eight-year-old Si-Joon fears he’ll never make it out alive. When a strange girl in a pig mask appears before him, he follows her to a house deep in the woods, where he is told that he must marry the pig-faced girl to atone for the sins of their ancestors. Si-Joon’s not too keen on getting married, but that wedding feast looks so delicious! It’s only afterward that he realizes what he’s done and… wakes up. Now in high school, Si-Joon Lee has been dreaming about the pig bride for as long as he can remember. But it’s all just a dream, right?

Review:
The only son of a rich and elite family, eight-year-old Si-Joon Lee has, once again, been sent away to summer camp due to his parents’ busy schedules. Bored and miffed that his games and cell phone have been confiscated, he heads off into the mountains and gets lost. He encounters a girl wearing a pig mask and, when she drops it and flees, runs after her to return it. The chase leads him to a house where a woman announces that she’s been waiting for him. She tells Si-Joon about a folk tale wherein a man marries an ugly shrine maiden who then protected him, and that he is the descendant of that man while the girl in the pig mask, Mu-Yeon (also cursed with a hideous face), is a descendant of the shrine maiden. His marrying Mu-Yeon will release her from the curse but, more importantly, he’ll then be able to partake of the sumptuous feast prepared for the wedding festivities. He complies.

The next day, Si-Joon is rescued by a search party and, in the intervening eight years, has managed to convince himself the entire experience was a dream. Mu-Yeon, however, had promised to return to him on his sixteenth birthday and proceeds to do just that, knocking at his door and announcing, “I have come to consummate our marriage.” Si-Joon persists in thinking it’s a dream for a while, but mostly just a) wants her to go away since he likes someone else and b) wants to know what she looks like. His roommate Ji-Oh is a little more savvy, realizing both that the girl Si-Joon likes is not wholesome and sweet like she appears to be and that Mu-Yeon seems to be protecting Si-Joon from an unseen supernatural threat.

While there are a few problems with this volume—it’s extremely unclear why Si-Joon is being targeted and also very obvious that his love interest, Doe-Doe, is a Mean Girl—I ended up enjoying it quite a lot. Si-Joon could’ve been an unlikable character, with his stated dislike of strong women and preference for someone quiet and gentle, but his genuine puzzlement over why girls make such a fuss over him makes it clear that it’s not feminine strength that he objects to, really, but just the shrill pushiness that he faces day in, day out as girls try to curry his favor by hurling boxes of homemade cookies at him. I also quite like Mu-Yeon’s calm competency and aura of mystery as well as Ji-Oh’s discerning nature and level of participation in the story.

This series is off to a very promising start and I’ll be interested to see where it goes from here.

Pig Bride is published by Yen Press. Volume one is available now and volume two will technically be available in August 2009, though Amazon shows it as in stock. The series is complete in Korea with a total of five volumes.

Filed Under: Manhwa, Supernatural Tagged With:

Hissing 6 by Kang EunYoung: B+

March 30, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Ten years ago, when Sun-Nam’s father and Da-Eh’s mother had an affair, the result was Da-Hwa, their half brother. In high school, Sun-Nam and Da-Eh began dating without being aware of their family connection, but in volume five all of that came out into the open. Da-Eh reacted badly, saying some nasty things to Da-Hwa that she immediately regretted. When he was hit by a car and hospitalized, his family rallied to his side.

Volume six picks up with Da-Hwa’s awakening in the hospital. Da-Eh makes good on her vow to treat him more kindly and fusses over him in a major way. It’s very sweet to see all of his siblings get together and lavish attention on him, though he is still so eager to please that he tells them he feels fine even when he’s in pain. The scenes of all of them together are happy indeed but so fraught with tension that I had to flip ahead to see what was going to happen.

As far as final volumes go, this is a very satisfying one. There’s a good balance between humorous and more emotional moments. Every subplot is resolved, but not in a way that feels too tidy. The only complaint I could make is that Sun-Nam’s irritating brothers made it all the way through the series without contributing much of anything to the story.

I started off disliking Hissing, but by the end I kind of loved it. That’s pretty amazing.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Manhwa Tagged With:

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa: B-

March 27, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Even if you haven’t consumed it in any format, any otaku worthy of the name has at least heard of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The anime has been released by Bandai Entertainment, Yen Press is putting out the manga, but now, courtesy of Little, Brown and Company (also part of the Hachette Book Group along with Yen Press) we finally have the story in its original light novel form. Because I generally tend to like the first incarnation of a tale more than its adaptations, it was the light novel that most appealed to me.

The story is told from the retrospective point of view of a teenage boy known only as Kyon. As a kid, Kyon dreamed of fighting aliens—preferably as a sidekick rather than someone who had to actually engage in combat—and encountering a mysterious transfer student with extraordinary powers. He eventually grew out of such ideas, but he discovers that not everyone his age has done the same when, on the first day of high school, his classmate Haruhi Suzumiya uses her class introduction to instruct all aliens, time travelers, and espers to seek her out.

Haruhi spurns contact with normal humans, but Kyon’s able to get through to her by talking about the topics that actually interest her. He seals his own fate when he suggests to Haruhi, despondent over not finding any clubs that deal with her interests, that she create a club of her own. He’s instantly drafted as the first member of the “SOS Brigade” and caught up in Haruhi’s obsession to seek out and observe mysterious happenings.

As the story progresses, the other members of the club confess to Kyon that they actually are an alien, a time traveler, and an esper and provide proof to back up their claims (ultimately fulfilling Kyon’s childhood dreams). They’ve each come to study Haruhi, for she unknowingly has the ability to make her wishes reality, and the current world exists as it does because of her. Kyon’s job is to make sure she stays satisfied with this world and doesn’t seek to recreate it. One thing I never realized before reading the novel is that the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is actually a dangerous thing. The title doesn’t refer simply to her dissatisfaction with the mundane, but to the destruction that begins to occur when she grows despondent.

There are some elements of the writing and the story that work for me—like some snicker-worthy bits and the creative backstories for the other club members—but likewise there are things that bug me. For example, the prose is liberally sprinkled with cheesy similes that compare smiles to sunflowers in a grassy field, exhalations to fluttering butterflies, et cetera. I’m not sure if that’s Tanigawa’s idea of good writing or if it’s supposed to be Kyon’s view of same.

Too, I’m quite bothered by Haruhi’s treatment of Mikuru Asahina. Haruhi nabs Mikuru because she believes that every story features a moe character, so having Mikuru around will increase the chances of something interesting happening. She forces Mikuru to dress in skimpy costumes and is continually groping her and photographing her in provocative poses. This element of the story shows several characters in their worst light: Haruhi as bossy and thoughtless, Mikuru as weepy and simpering, and Kyon as a creepy horndog who finds Mikuru’s distressed reactions appealing and saves a folder of her risqué photos for his “private viewing pleasure.”

The actual sci-fi plot of the story is fairly intriguing and the book is a quick and easy read. Unfortunately, because it is a light novel, it never gets as dark or as deep as I personally would’ve liked. Still, because Haruhi is capable of shaping the world to her liking, there are a lot of places the story could go from here.

The back cover blurb notes that Tanigawa is currently working on the tenth installment in the series.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Books, Light Novel, Sci-Fi Tagged With:

Very! Very! Sweet 3 by JiSang Shin and Geo: B

March 23, 2009 by Leave a Comment

When volume two left off, Tsuyoshi’s girlfriend from Japan, Erica, had made the trip to Korea to see him. In this volume, it’s made clear that the relocation is permanent and she enrolls in the school that he and Be-Ri attend. She proceeds to be incredibly irritating for the duration of the volume.

While I dislike Erica extremely, she is at least useful in prompting some cool moments from the two leads. For instance, it’s very satisfying when Be-Ri criticizes her for not caring about anything but Tsuyoshi, saying, “It’s sad that you think the most fun thing in life is a guy. Personally, I think it’s disgusting.” Similarly pleasing is the scene where Tsuyoshi calmly informs her that coming to Korea is “a life-changing decision” for him and that he’d like her to stay out of the picture.

On the negative side, it seemed that Be-Ri is more crude and profane in this volume than she has been before, though it never really approaches the point of tastelessness. And even I had to giggle at the discovery that the precious ceramic item treasured by Tsuyoshi’s family as an heirloom of their Korean ancestry is actually a chamber pot.

When a series can be consistently entertaining despite the intrusion of an unlikable character, I’d say that makes it a keeper.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Manhwa Tagged With:

Moon Boy 1-6 by Lee YoungYou: C+

March 10, 2009 by Leave a Comment

When boy-crazy Myung-Ee Joo was in the fifth grade, she picked a fight with her popular classmate, Yu-Da Lee, after he warned her to stay away from an older boy with a bad reputation. She told him to meet her in the alley behind school after class, intending to apologize, but he never showed up. Even weirder, the next day at school no one but Myung-Ee remembered he had ever existed!

Five years later, Myung-Ee’s family has relocated and she has transferred into a high school rumored to have many attractive male students. There, she runs into Yu-Da again—now a member of the student council—but he claims to have no memory of her. Later, one of the other student council members, Sa-Eun Won, turns up at Myung-Ee’s house to have another go at erasing her memory and ends up telling her the whole story: both she and Yu-Da are descended from a species of rabbits that once lived on the moon. That’s why their eyes glow red at night. Their predators are the fox tribe, who feed on the blood and livers of the rabbits.

Yu-Da is a very special type of rabbit—the “black rabbit”—whose liver, when fully grown, has the ability to grant immortality to the one who consumes it. Back in fifth grade, the fox tribe kidnapped him and altered his personality. The other members of the student council are all foxes ordered to guard him until his liver reaches maturity, at which point it will be used to awaken their queen.

Myung-Ee, like any plucky heroine, vows not to let them hurt Yu-Da and soon meets up with some members of the rabbit army. Over the course of subsequent volumes, she works on improving her fighting skills so that she can save him. Of course, even though she is very human in appearance and considered inferior by the other rabbits, she makes incredible progress and soon can hold her own in battles with low-level foxes. While the main plot essentially stagnates until volume six, there are a few other subplots, including revelations about Yu-Da’s personality and abilities, a couple of boys with feelings for Myung-Ee, and the introduction of some mysterious new characters who claim to want the rabbits and foxes to live in peace but have a rather violent way of showing it.

Moon Boy has a lot of flaws, but the unifying theme among them is inconsistency. The exact nature of Yu-Da’s personality, for example, changes a few times before the final version of the facts is set forth in volume five. Belated additions and story tweaks are sprinkled throughout, too, like in volume four when Yu-Da’s liver, originally useless until fully grown, suddenly becomes “deathly poisonous” before that time. Also, the story shifts radically in tone from serious combat to unfunny comedy, including the most banal school festival chapters I’ve ever read (and trust me, I’ve read plenty).

The art exhibits a similar problem. I’m not a big fan of the style in general—some of the characters look way too young, others have astoundingly improbably hair, and the combat scenes are very hard to follow—but it gets even more unattractive in the “comedy” segments. Occasionally, though, there’ll be a panel or page out of nowhere that actually looks pretty good.

And, really, the same can be said for the story as a whole. Yes, it has many problems, but sometimes it’s almost good. Invariably, these are the more serious moments, and I have to wonder how much better I’d enjoy this series if all attempts at comedy were excised. Volume six had the least comedy of any so far, and is probably the best of the lot. I just wish I could believe that the latest story developments are really heading to something satisfying instead of another meandering excursion to Dawdleville.

Review copies for volumes four through six provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Fantasy, Manhwa Tagged With:

Moon Boy 6 by Lee YoungYou: C+

March 8, 2009 by 3 Comments

From the back cover:
The Black Rabbit disappears again, this time leaving behind the Fox Tribe’s only means of tracking him! Worried that the tribal elders will discover the truth, student council members Sa-Eun and Jin-Soo split up in a frantic search for their ward… only to find themselves facing off against the most improbable of enemies! After this battle, will the student council ever be the same?

Review:
Wow, things actually happened in this volume. Unfortunately, they weren’t the most coherent of things, but progress is progress, I suppose.

The most major event is that Yu-Da stops acting like he’s still under the foxes’ spell and allies himself with… some people. I cannot tell whether they’re foxes or rabbits or what, but their leader is the same guy (now possessing a schoolgirl’s body) who made it possible for Yu-Da to regain his own consciousness at age fifteen. They’ve liberated a bunch of low-level, animal-like foxes and have some kind of agenda. That’s about as specific as I can be about it, since it’s all very muddled.

Belatedly, some backstory is superimposed upon a couple of the foxes on the student council, but it’s rather too little too late. It would’ve been nice if either of these two had had much personality before one ends up betraying the other, or if we’d had some notion of the real depth of their history together before that happened.

Moon Boy really has a making-it-up-as-I-go-along kind of feel to it. True, we’ve seen a couple of members of this new gang for a little while now, and heard about the leader, too, but it just doesn’t feel… final. This volume is a lot more serious than those before it, which I appreciate, but I’d like it more if I could feel confident that we’re approaching a planned-out ending, and not just veering randomly down another ambling path.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Filed Under: Fantasy, Manhwa Tagged With:

Moon Boy 5 by Lee YoungYou: C

March 7, 2009 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
Having survived the battle with the Soon-La renegades, Myung-Ee can’t remember anything about the fight! In her quest to know what really happened, she finds herself crossing paths with Sa-Eun more than once. Though he stays silent about the battle, he lets slip a shocking secret about himself to his rabbit adversary! Meanwhile, Yu-Da has returned safely with the help of two mysterious friends… who appear to be intent on wreaking havoc on both the Rabbit and Fox tribes! Is the Black Rabbit slipping away from Myung-Ee for good?

Review:
The plot of this series really is meandering now. Here we are in volume five, and nothing has really happened. Yes, Myung-Ee’s skills are developing. But otherwise Yu-Da’s exactly where he was (in the Fox tribe’s clutches) and nothing has progressed at all.

We do get clarification that Yu-Da really is faking the sunny personality he has around the foxes, since the spell on him wore off when he turned fifteen. This isn’t really inconsistent with what’s come before, but I don’t even care, since at least it makes Yu-Da’s present situation clear at last. One does wonder, however, if Yu-Da is himself and has all these powers, why doesn’t he, like, escape?

It seems like there’s less of the unfunny comedy in this volume, but maybe that’s because the last few chapters actually weren’t that bad and I’ve managed to forget some of the stupid crap that happened early on. One thing that bugs me is that one of the newly-arrived rabbit reinforcements is really about eleven years old but is taking a growing potion in order to attend high school with Myung-Ee and the others. And yet he’s drawn in a “sexy” way in some of the splash pages. It’s disconcerting.

Some other random things bugged me, too. At one point, Myung-Ee resolves that she’s not being true to herself if she doesn’t tell Yu-Da’s one secret advantage (that the foxes’ spell on him wore off) to one of the foxes. Why the hell?! Thankfully, she doesn’t do it (yet). Also, there are some really annoying fan girls of Yu-Da and his fox buddy, with whom Myung-Ee has clashed several times. But yet she can send a text message to this fan club president, meaning she’s actually asked for this girl’s cell phone number? Perhaps I’m thinking too much about some stupid gag, but it irks me.

Some new characters are introduced and some new facts are revealed about existing characters, but I really just do not care. Probably you won’t either, so I’ll spare you the details.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Filed Under: Fantasy, Manhwa Tagged With:

Moon Boy 4 by Lee YoungYou: C-

March 6, 2009 by 1 Comment

From the back cover:
Myung-Ee succeeds in enraging the student council—especially Sa-Eun—by confronting them about Yu-Da. But when the Black Rabbit is kidnapped during the school festival, she finds herself transported to a strange place… with none other than Sa-Eun! As an attack from an unexpected assailant forces the two enemies into a corner, will they be able to put their differences aside and fight for their lives together?!

Review:
Ugh. School festival. If I never read another school festival chapter ever again, it’ll be too soon. This one is especially stupid, since it’s a transparent attempt to get the two male leads in drag.

There are more problems than just that, however.
1. The character Mok-Hee is utterly useless. He’s ostensibly an accomplished spy but does nothing except ogle women. I gather this is supposed to be funny, but it’s just really, really stupid.

2. The story is beginning to show internal inconsistencies. In an earlier volume, it was mentioned that Yu-Da’s transformation from happy-go-lucky (the personality imprinted upon him by the fox tribe elders) and his true self takes a long time. Now he can seemingly switch back and forth with ease, and there’s some throwaway line about how the spell on him lifted when he turned seventeen. Also, all we had ever heard about Yu-Da’s precious liver was that it would be at its most effective (in its immortality-granting powers) when he reaches adulthood. Suddenly, a new reason for the wait is introduced: now his liver is supposedly “deathly poisonous” until fully developed.

3. Towards the end there’s a fight scene and I have absolutely no idea what is going on.

This is the first volume published by Yen Press and they’ve done a good job replicating Ice Kunion’s packaging. Too bad the cover image is so garish. I can’t even begin to describe it; we’d need James Lileks for the job.

The only slightly good scene is when Myung-Ee confronts the foxes about what they’re doing to Yu-Da, since he is supposedly their friend. Any merits are completely obliterated by the sudden, laughably bad crying jag her words elicit from one of the foxes, however.

I had hoped this series would get better as it went along, but now it seems it’s on the opposite path.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Filed Under: Fantasy, Manhwa Tagged With:

Hissing 4-5 by Kang EunYoung: B

February 23, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Da-Eh Lee is an aspiring manhwa artist and takes her work seriously. Her feisty attitude attracts the attention of two highly sought-after boys in school—Sun-Nam, who is kind at heart but tries to act tough, and Ta-Jun, who is listless, taunting, and angsty simultaneously. After many antagonistic encounters, Da-Eh and Sun-Nam begin dating, but just as things seem to be going well, Sun-Nam realizes that the half-brother he’s been searching for (the product of his father’s affair with another woman) is Da-Eh’s little brother, Da-Hwa.

Hissing was a hard series for me to get into at first; I was turned off by the blond and sultry looks bequeathed to practically every male character (including ten-year-old Da-Hwa) and by the disjointed nature of the narrative. Somewhere along the way, though, it really grew on me. Certain things still annoy me—Da-Eh’s reaction to the big revelation of the family connection is pretty nonsensical, for instance—but overall, I enjoy it. Da-Eh and her admirers remind me a bit of Tsukushi Makino and the F4 from Boys Over Flowers, which may be part of the appeal. Hissing can also be amusing, but not so much in these two volumes, which are more serious in tone.

It’s also hard not to sympathize with Da-Hwa. Neglected by his family but solicitously eager to earn their attention, he doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere and always blames himself when things go wrong. Even though he appears less often than the other characters, he really is the heart of the series.

Hissing definitely has its flaws, but they grow less glaring with time. The fact that I disliked volume one but am now eager to read the sixth and final volume is proof of that.

Review copies provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Filed Under: Manhwa Tagged With:
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