Book (Manhwa): The Dark Lord’s Confession by Topseoung

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The Dark Lord’s Confession
by Topseoung
published by Webtoon (100+ chapters, ongoing)
2022 – present

Lapis is a girl living in a world divided between people naturally marked with a symbol of good / holy magical power, ordinary people, and unfortunate people naturally marked with the symbol of an incurable curse and magical powers. Those with the mark of the curse are automatically deemed evil as a result of their potentially contagious illness, and must live in hiding or risk being murdered at any age upon discovery. Their murderers blame their victims for being inhuman, so that they can feel better about slaughtering their own friends and neighbors who bear the mark. Those who survive by hiding their mark will inevitably turn into literal monsters if they don’t kill themselves first.

Lapis has the curse. Optimistically, after living with two sweet girls who have their own sad backstories, Lapis is determined to go to a holy school to become a holy knight – surely, if she can master holy powers, she can find a cure!

After failing the entrance exam for knight school countless times, Lapis is attacked by monsters while practicing magical symbols, and accidentally summons the Dark Lord, the being who is supposedly responsible for the curse. When holy soldiers turn up to see what all the ruckus is, Lapis… somehow barely passes the holy power test, and can study to be a Holy Knight!

If anything goes wrong, Lapis will be murdered in cold blood by her classmates and teachers. If things go right, Lapis will be forced to murder innocent people who bear the curse, something she is far too kind and ethical to do.

Illustration of Lapis and Calla dressed up in a scene from The Dark Lord's Confession by Topseoung
Lapis and Calla dressed up in a scene from The Dark Lord’s Confession by Topseoung. Topseoung’s style is fun – the characters are so bold, Calla’s hair goes on in curls for many panels, and women warriors are giants!

Meanwhile, the Dark Lord, to the extent she can be trusted, is telling Lapis that holy and magical powers are the same, and that the curse CAN be undone – but the holy knights and will try to prevent that from happening. Lapis has a role to play in fixing the world, saving those with the mark, and exposing the thousand year old plot that made the world this way – if she can survive in the heart of a holy place founded by the Dark Lord’s rival.

This is a story of religious corruption, a goddess from outer space, cults with their own agendas, lasting traumas over murdered loved ones, the persecution of minorities, land poisoned with curses/diseases/magic based on Roman mythology, health crises, girls swooning over handsome women, secret basements, broken swords, unique powers, dancing with romantic interests who would kill you without a moment’s hesitation if they knew which mark you had, violent sibling rivalries, betrayals, arena duels, the unconditional love of friendship, and falling stars.

I didn’t want to put it down (see me recharging my phone after hours of reading), and read through 100+ chapters in three sessions – and I’m eager for more! I like high stakes fantasy tales, and look forward to this story continuing.

Book (Manhwa): I Am the Villain by Sejji

Cover art for I Am the Villain by Sejji

I Am the Villain
by Sejji
published by Webtoon (51 chapters – ongoing)
2023 – present

I mentioned in an earlier post that I appreciate the background art for many of these full color, digital manhwa, and that’s what I’d like to emphasize in this review.

Sejji’s work in this story is SO GORGEOUS. I Am The Villain is the sort of comic you just stop scrolling through to appreciate the background art. Let me show you:

Beautiful backgrounds in Sejji's I Am the Villain manhwa
When I write that I am being spoiled by the quality of the art, especially architectural forms, this is what I mean.

Yes, Lucy wakes up in a friend’s novel as the doomed villainess, but LOOK AT THE DRAWINGS! Oh my goodness! The gardens! The interiors! The rooms where the heroine walks in beside enormous flower arrangements! It is so LOVELY.

It’s not only about the scenery and architecture: the attractive characters are also drawn with love and enthusiasm, and each has a different style of costume with different levels of ornament.

A collage of Sejji's attractive characters in I Am the Villain
The lovely characters each have a different style, and I appreciate the effort to distinguish their costumes. Meanwhile, look at the room that Lucy is in, once you can take your eyes away from her gaze. It’s SO PRETTY.

There are other comics I’m reading which are more traditional simplified drawing style – strangely proportioned, exaggerated, very limited colors, very simple costumes – and works like this feel like an entirely different category.

The heroine in this story feels more like a ‘normal’ person: she struggles with her isekai (falling into another world) situation. She makes decent decisions to improve her ability to survive (without making much progress), yet is also burdened by a sense of being a fraud (she is a modern person, not the rich woman whose body she is in) worried about the ethics of making life decisions for someone who may… come back? Also, she’s a bit too trusting, though that would fit in with the sheltered woman whose life she has taken over.

I’ll wait to write more about the story once a full season has been released, but I recommend this manhwa now for its art quality.

Book (Manhwa): The Spark In Your Eyes by Muro

Cover art for The Spark in Your Eyes by Muro

The Spark In Your Eyes
by Muro
published by Webtoon (144 chapters, 1 complete season, ongoing)
2022 – present

Finally, I’m writing about a comic that is NOT about modern gals being transported into books or any character getting a second chance at living the same life!

Hildegard, as her captors rename her, is just a little girl who bleeds (and possibly dies) on a sacred altar during her village’s capture. Her blood activates the altar, and she receives the powers of the sun goddess. The King of the Mormerattan invaders wanted the goddess’ power for himself, but takes the girl, forces her to learn his people’s language, and crafts her into a child-weapon, holding her people’s fate hostage to her performance on the battlefield.

Hilde can feel pain when grievously injured, but will not die – she can repair herself from horrific damage, and blast light that can burn away material things, from castle walls to people. Forced to wear a mask, she is an anonymous and lonely young goddess of death, who must lose the few dear friends she has on the battlefield on behalf of the nation who stole her. She grows numb and ages during the long war with the north. The king wants to exploit her power against foreign rivals in battle forever. Meanwhile, his domestic rivals believe Hilde is a crime against nature that must be destroyed. Even in immortality, she has no real safety or peace.

Erkin is a strapping, peaceful, blue-eyed boy devoted to his parents’ herbalist-medical arts. Told his parents died at Hildegard’s hands, he leaves his defeated homeland to head south, in hopes of (somehow) avenging their deaths. He winds up being hired by a mysterious noble to treat an illness he is not allowed to see with his own eyes, and finds purpose and friendship in the country that conquered his people, but still perceives him as a threat.

I’d like to tell you that they meet in therapy, but therapy hasn’t been invented yet in this brutal feudal fantasy world.

This is a story of people who die too young, of greedy elders who exploit soldiers and captives, of rumors, sabotage, jealousy, and hunger for power that destroys countless lives. Plus, a story about the exploited heroine, the innocent-but-vengeful northerner, and the community of survivors around them who struggle to live in a fragile and perilous peace in a quiet corner of a restive kingdom.

This story has gorgeous clouds, and many sad scenes of death and war. I was completely engrossed at the heroine’s reluctant survival, the pain of her losses, revelations of the many betrayals she has suffered, and her hazy memory of being told by just one person to live on…

examples of pretty backdrops (skies and landscapes) from The Spark in Your Eyes by Muro

I like that the major characters talk to each other: they keep secrets, but also can reveal them; they have revelations about communications misunderstandings before people die over them; they help each other, but can also be manipulated by concern for their families (a recurring theme). This is a high stakes story about people with capacities for both compassion and brutality, who are too often put in difficult situations. I am eager for the next season!

Film: The Witcher (Seasons 1-3)

The Witcher
published by Netflix
2019 (Season 1), 2021 (Season 2), 2023 (Season 3)

The Witcher is a “fantasy” TV series, set in a ‘feudal Europe-type world’ (kings, queens, elves, fairies) world in which magic and its related technologies are real. Notable characters include Geralt, a feared, modified person with beyond-human abilities capable of defeating monsters; Yennifer, an abused girl who transforms into a powerful mage, and is constantly involved in political mage warfare; and Ciri, a princess who is accidentally tied to Geralt by fate; and a collection of well-dressed villains and allies.

The stakes are survival: humans versus monsters, army versus army, and gloomy empire versus other kingdoms.

The series starts very strong in separate character development for the leads and world-building to establish the forces of mostly-good and mostly-evil. As the series progresses and the lead characters connect and become involved with each other, the emphasis switches to the fight for the continent and the sacrifices each side makes to win the battles. The battles are more visually dramatic and satisfying than the manipulation and politics, but the action-to-exposition ratio is good for much of the series. The first two series were especially clear in narrative.

Geralt and Yennifer are both active, motivated, and interesting characters. Jointly and separately, they have more going for them than Ciri, who is a child struggling with her (really interesting) mothers’ death, the destruction of her hometown, being hunted by obvious villains, abstract prophecies about her role, and trying to grow up in this chaos.

The complexities of mage life were of special interest (flunking out is… pretty dire), and the idea that powerful people with strong rivalries becoming political enemies seems completely plausible. The ethics of creating Witchers are pretty dubious, though the results are compelling!

I enjoyed it, though any additional series will need to offer tighter narrative structure (and perhaps fewer characters?) to satisfy me as much as the first two seasons did.