Category: Books

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Reading: A Note About Digital Manhwa

I know I write often of comics, manga, and manhwa, but I wanted to make a fuss about how digital illustration has really changed how comics look now, and has made manhwa (comics from South Korea) in particular so attractive to me as a person who used to work in architecture.

I previously wrote about A Not So Fairy Tale by Hyobin on Webtoon. Look at this scene:

Just a scene of one character waiting in a restaurant for another character to show up. (She won’t.)

Look at the details. The textures. The shadows that the evening sun makes on the floor (which has a sort of wood parquet treatment). This level of effort in webtoons is VERY appealing to me. And is spoiling me a bit.

Even if/when the characters are highly stylized in unnatural ways, the rendering of the world they live in – backgrounds, the interior design, the furniture, the foliage – these have some remarkable details. Some appear to be produced by specialists who just create castles, modern cities, European rococo ballrooms, etc. Others appear to be photo-to-illustration conversions of some sort (but that works only for places based on real settings).

Drawings produced at this level when I was still in architecture would have been award-winning marvels of the profession: now they are the routine product of manhwa studio artists!

I admire the effort (and artifice) that goes into producing these scenes.

I have other favorite scenes to express my admiration for, but I haven’t reviewed those particular manga yet, so they’ll likely turn up in a few weeks.

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Book (Manhwa): Monster Duke’s Daughter by Han Ocean, Chal Lan

Art for Monster Duke's Daughter by Han Ocean, Chal Lan
Wholesome father-daughter scene

Monster Duke’s Daughter
by Han Ocean, Chal Lan
published by Webtoon (151 chapters, ongoing)
2022 – present

Tiny Lotilucia is transported away from her beloved mother, who was still trapped in their eternally snowy forest home/prison, to the estate of her unknown father, Duke Frodium. She knows her mother said a forever goodbye, and she knows that her father factually accepts her existence, but isn’t entirely sure how to relate to her.

As she tries to maintain a low profile (out of sight, out of danger?) and learns to read, she finds a book in the library. A book about a little girl named Lotilucia, whose father is also Duke Frodium, and who… dies very young, without every being fully accepted by her father. In the story, she is replaced in her father’s improved affections by a new adopted daughter, who appears to be the true heroine of the book, and who resembles Lotilucia’s lost mother. Despite being a tiny-but-literate girl, she decides that she won’t allow the book to determine her fate, and strikes out to really live – this includes forging a bond with her surprised father, preventing her untimely death, and perhaps becoming the lead character of her own story.

As she grows, she realizes she can do more than just survive – she may be able to protect her father’s secret (he’s a demon protecting the human world from the demon world), use rare powers she inherited from her mother to protect her loved ones – including her friends, one of who is growing up into a handsome boy, and is secretly a dragon – and become a protector of the human world and ally to the emperor as her father’s successor.

There are sci-fi technologies in this fantasy story, questions about whether Lotilucia is living in a real world or if the book was the real world, and scenes that were supposed to be flashbacks, but where the participants (or at least one important participant) can see Lotilucia and interact with her in what should just be a memory…

Our child heroine really has too much on her shoulders, and has to exceed the abilities and expectations of other so much, it’s unfair! Despite her young start, she is SO DETERMINED and so unnaturally skilled, that she is pulling off improbable rescues and stirring up trouble much larger than herself. The giant-eyed child does grow up over the course of the story, so her body catches up (mostly) with her enormous eyes.

I’m 151 chapters in, and the fact that I’m 151 chapters in tells you that I’m committed! This is a cute fantasy story about being true to yourself, thinking you are old enough to make independent decisions when you are four years old (you are not), making your own future, caring about your parents, worrying your father, and having everyone say you make a good-looking couple with your dragon guy pal.

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Book: Heat by Jean Wei

Heat
by Jean Wei
published by Peow Books (Jean Wei)
2023

This is a COMPLETELY ADORABLE comic about a fire demon who wakes up on a farm and is adopted by the farm family as seasonal help and a friend.

Auntie Ann and Katy don’t think twice about taking Red in, taking Red to a friend to make some soft clothes suitable for an eight foot tall fire demon. They just… accept Red as they are: a nice, helpful, large, warm being.

Have I mentioned this is completely adorable?

Cats can’t resist Red, a cosy fire demon who is always warm. Awwwwwwwww. Beyond cute!

I can often resist things that are cute, but this is so…. not just cute, but soothing. Sweet. Homey. Gentle.

We could all use some sweetness.

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Book: Creepy Cat Volume 1 by Cotton Valent

Creepy Cat volume 1
by Cotton Valent
published by Star Seas Company and Kodansha
2019

Cover art for Creepy Cat Volume 1 by Cotton Valent

This is an adorable, gothic visual comic collection about a lovely goth girl named Flora who inherits a mansion inhabited by a “cat.”

This”cat” defies the laws of physics, consumes people, levitates, stretches endlessly into room-filling forms, periodically swallows Flora…

Creepy Cat is both adorable and… a monster of some undetermined kind. But it is so… fluffy! (Life lesson: you can get away with a lot if you are fluffy.)

The stories are brief, a few panels or pages long, and are stylishly adorable. The tone is great; Flora is charming; Creepy Cat lives up to its name. Flora is sometimes in danger, and it appears Creepy Cat may periodically eat or harm Flora, but doesn’t necessarily like when anyone else does that. (Yay for possessiveness?)

There is an adorable brief comic at the end in which Valent tells the story of how this comic came to be.

This is a lovely, consistent, stylish, attractive work. And there are more volumes out there, which is good news.

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Book (Manga): The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumokuren

English language cover of The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumokuren

The Summer Hikaru Died volume 1
by Mokumokuren
published in English by Yen Press
2023

Hikaru went missing in the mountains. And then… Hikaru came back.

But the Hikaru that came back is not the same lifelong friend that Yoshiki has always had at his side. This Hikaru admits that he is… something else, something that has never been human before. It has Hikaru’s memories, but is feeling everything in Hikaru’s body for the first time. And in a moment of stress, he/it loses some of Hikaru’s form, and Yoshiki can see things he should not be able to see.

But Yoshiki has missed his dear friend so badly, that maybe this other Hikaru is enough. Maybe.

The cicadas chirps fill the air, the summer heat makes the boys sweat on their walks to school, and Yoshiki gets warnings that something dark is taking over the town, from others who have seen the forms the darkness can take…

This is broad-daylight-spooky. I can’t wait to read the next two volumes!

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Life / Reading Notes of the moment

  • The comics I await most eagerly are:
  • While weekly serialization feels brutal on the artists’ side for being too fast for them to produce the work, this pace remains slow for readers. It is jarring to open a chapter in a middle of a conversation when I can’t remember who was even involved… I’m definitely going to have to re-read many of these to write about them once they are complete. Or delay reading them until I can do so in larger sets of chapters.
  • Most of my comics are about women, and that’s because I’m picking those out of the adventure, drama, and romance sections because action heroines are fun (I’ve had decades of male-centered stories!) and prefer their art.
    • There is more gender balance in the women-led stories – so many male characters all around in various roles (not just as romantic leads, but also as allies, fans, supported, fathers, villains…) where the reverse isn’t always true for the man-led ones.
    • There are more elaborate artsy details in most of the stories I choose. I skim lots of types of comics, and reject many of the heroine stories if the art doesn’t call me (or if they are beautifully drawn but ramble about strategic agriculture!), but I have this problem more frequently with the action hero stories. Those are generally illustrated much more simply, and I’m less interested in those art styles.
  • The ‘boys love’ comics I’ve chosen combine drama and adventure successfully with romance elements. (Love IS love!) As I was telling a friend about them, everyone is remarkably good-looking, plus, there is sex, drama, and adventure – what’s not to love?

Reading current Korean comics has become a proper hobby. And I get excited when I see other people reading comics from the same publisher on the train, but am hold myself back from asking for their recommendations… for now.

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Book (Manhwa): Winter Wolf by soonmu, cheong yong, rubyche

Cover art for Winter Wolf by soonmu, cheong yong, rubyche

Winter Wolf
by soonmu, cheong yong, rubyche
published by Tappytoon (2 seasons; 61 chapters, complete)
Undated

I’ve read the first season (through chapter 36) of this spooky mansion romance. Because, as a former redhead, I feel obligated to read manhwa about other redheads. (You know, for the cartoon sisterhood.)

The revolution arrived, and Lysithea is on the losing side. Her family members and others in the nobility have been executed or will be once they are found. She is paying smugglers to get her out of the country by sea, so she can live abroad with a foreign aunt. But while she is exhausted from being in hiding and on the run, her horse takes off, and she finds herself traveling on foot through the snow to an abandoned mansion, where her next ‘broker’ (smugglers are fussy about their professional nicknames) awaits her.

Her broker is expecting her, but her next step required the horse she just lost, plus getting to port before the ice does. Also, the abandoned mansion they are sheltering in has a reputation for being haunted. Her broker insists that the moaning and cries for help she hears at night are just her imagination. As her lack of sleep wears down her sanity, she fears she may need an escape from her own escape plans…

This story has classic horror movie tropes delivered well, and a heroine who is both brave enough to investigate things that go bump in the night and exhausted enough to periodically choose to just stay in bed and pretend not to hear the moaning – I respect her deeply for BOTH of these attitudes. There are very few characters in the story, and they are all suspicious! There is plenty of suspense at the end of the first season. (The fact that there are two seasons is something of a spoiler, I suppose. But: you’ll live.)

Season 1 of Winter Wolf is enjoyable.

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Book (Manga): Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden by Yuu Watase

cover for Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden by Yuu Watase
Screenshot

Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden
by Yuu Watase
published in English by Viz (40 chapters, complete)
2003 – 2013

Teenager Takiko Okuda’s mother is dying of TB, her father only cares about his career, and her love for an older man is unrequited. Both luckily and unluckily for her, her father’s research led him to translate and transcribe a prophesy that can take Takiko into another time and place, the Universe of the Four Gods, where she has the power to save a country and its people.

In the ancient country of Bei Ja, Takiko manifests as the Priestess of Genbu, whose duty is to find and assemble the Celestial Warriors and summon the god Genbu to save the country. This isn’t an easy task: the arrival of either the priestess or the warriors is a sign of disaster to locals. As a result, they are dreaded, shunned – and worse. But our heroine is determined to save this harsh world at any cost, and works hard to persuade the reluctant warriors to assemble and save the country.

Panel from Fushigi Yûgi: Genbu Kaiden
Kind and determined women with long weapons – my favorite kind of women!

With supportive allies who have faith in her, kind strangers, a dragon, and her first and favorite warrior to love at her side, Takiko will give everything to be useful to her comrades in arms and to save her troubled, adopted homeworld.

Author and Artist Yuu Watase’s monochrome art style (known to me from the comedy Absolute Boyfriend) is enjoyable (the hair on these characters!), and her work on the regional costumes as the characters travel show a zeal that grounds the mythical (western China-like) continent in its vastness, with its differing cultures and customs. I appreciate great, lovingly-drawn costumes!

The story is serious; the characters are troubled by past traumas and ongoing family dramas; the nation seems doomed; and the stakes are high for all involved. Young people risking – and giving up – their lives for others is touching, and (if the grown-ups were running the world properly) should not be necessary – there are some serious adult mismanagement of the world going on here. The message that how you chose to live matters, and that a life of service can be profoundly meaningful comes through well in this story.

This story took Watase a decade to complete, as the artist (X-gender with she/her pronouns) had many other publishing commitments as a prolific manga artist. I enjoy her notes in between volumes (reproduced in the Viz English editions) about the toll long hours take on her health, and the interruptions to her progress. The story feels continuous and uninterrupted in all the best ways – it is quite an accomplishment!

I enjoyed this as a standalone story, knowing it is a prequel to an even longer work by Watase that was published in the 1990s, Fushigi Yûgi. There is a sequel to FY:GK coming in the future, once Watase recovers from the toll of all of this drawing called Fushigi Yûgi: Byakko Senki. I will wait patiently for it to be complete!

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Book (Manhwa): The King and Me by W.Y.

Cover for The King and Me by W.Y.
Cover for The King and Me

The King and Me
by W.Y.
published by Tappytoon (74 chapters so far, ongoing)
2022 (?) – present

My subscription page notes that I’m trending into gay male fantasy/adventure stories (known in the industry as “Boys’ Love”), and it’s time for me to write about one!

Li visits an archeology site at Ebiz, and winds up bleeding in an ancient ruin, being set upon by grave robbers, and then rescued by a statue that his blood brought to life. His handsome stone rescuer seems to know and want to communicate with Li, whose interest grows until the man crumbles to dust before him. Somehow, Li finds himself back in time in the ancient (Egyptian-style) city of Ebiz at its peak, where he suspects that the stone man is the handsome but also casually murderous King Mehemis.

If Li can survive the tyrant king’s challenges and earn his trust, perhaps he can get to know why his stone man seemed so sweet toward him in the distant future. Mehemis, meanwhile, has political fights to win, a power-hungry religion to suppress, dangerous rival relatives, and a mysterious army of the dead to defeat, so there is plenty to do!

You’re waiting for me to write that ‘they had me at beautiful men with eyeliner,’ but that merely drew me in: this is a fun adventure story! Li has skills (archery competitions paid off!) and modern scientific concepts; Mehemis has abs forever and yet somehow is convinced that he is disguised while wearing a wig; and Mehemis’ most loyal male servants are an attractive gay couple that offer loyalty, friendship, emotional support, a model of a happy relationship, and even fantastic tactical competence when our boys need it. (Women are visible in the story, but are not central characters.) The drawing style is charming (Li’s sweet facial expressions while looking up at Mehemis are ADORABLE), the costumes are flattering, the hair is long and flowing, the eyeliner colors are specific to the characters, and there are plenty of humorous chibi comedy asides to address awkward moments in the Li-Mehemis romantic tension.

I adore this comic, and look forward to more!

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