Tag: manhwa

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Reading: In Progress

Books I’m reading now:

  • The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin (audiobook): a futuristic tale of how cities become their own life forms, but must be defended against ancient eldritch creatures who prey upon young cities. Humans act as the City champions. There is a sequel, which I already have on paper.
  • Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil: non-fiction about how algorithms are both poorly designed, intentionally opaque, and then misused to deny people good things, like jobs and healthcare.

I have some promising sci-fi recommendations, but some of those are also a series, and I’m considering waiting until that is complete before I start.

Also: I’m very eagerly waiting for the third book in William Gibson’s Jackpot Trilogy. The line between eager and impatient is written in smearing graphite for me: I’ll be so excited when it is released! (Also: more of The Summer Hikaru Died, which you are getting the blow-by-blow of here because I can’t contain myself.)

I’m also still reading entirely too many manhwa, including new seasons of those I endorsed earlier, plus many that I’ve started (described below) but may not finish. The two most likely to keep my attention are in bold.

  • A Savage Proposal (Webtoon), in which the young princess of a defeated kingdom agrees to marry the infamous warlord who defeated her armies, sacrificing her happiness to prevent the wholesale slaughter of her subjects, only to discover that he is… young, really hot, and more respectful to her than the creepy men of her own kingdom.
  • I Will Become the Villain’s Poison Taster (Tappytoon), an isekai story in which a modern girl winds up in the body of a villain, decides the villains might be her only safe allies if she wants to survive, and begins to suspect that the heroes are up to no-good. (Silly dialogue, naive heroine.)
  • Frost will Always Fall (Tappytoon – age restricted), in which a directionless modern girl with a shamanic family has flashbacks to her past lives, where she is torn between two men, at least one of whom she has hot sex with in both the past and present. One of the men has killed her (past) and/or will kill her again (future), though she isn’t sure which.
  • The Villainess Empress’ Attendant (Tappytoon), in which a knight runs away from her kingdom and royal boss, and winds up a servant to the empress of her adoptive homeland – and swears to use her powers to protect the lovely-but-gaslit empress against some unexpectedly close and evil foes with terrifying powers. (The crown prince is pretty. This always helps.) This is wholesome.
  • The Young Emperor Is Obsessed With Me (Tappytoon), in which a mage who prevented the destruction of the world by sealing an interdimensional gate used by evil invaders is adored by a sociopathic boy, who grows up to be a sociopathic emperor; he burns down her house & enchanted forest to force her to live with him (oh-oh); she may be the key to defeating a returning threat to the world, if she can overcome the traumas of all she lost.
  • To My Husband’s Mistress (Tappytoon), in which an innocent young woman falls for a love scammer who kills her father and then has his girlfriend kill her; she takes on a new identity for a multi-year plan to bring her killers and their accomplices to ruin while drinking too heavily, loathing herself, and being bankrolled by a frequently shirtless prince with his own revenge plans.
  • You Can’t Kill Me: The Secret Bride of the Black Wolf (Webtoon), a woman abused by a powerful husband in the afterlife dies (?) there horribly, but relives her earth death and has a new chance at her underworld afterlife (?) by marrying a different, random underworld nobleman; her new husband is patient about her PTSD, but doesn’t know her true situation, nor that he is interacting with her past-afterlife-abuser.

The overarching theme is: women in unusually bad situations having a do-over in some form. Let’s not wonder why I am drawn to these stories, or if we must, emphasize that most of them will likely have a happy-ish ending.

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Book (Manhwa) Update: I Tamed My Ex-husband’s Mad Dog By: CMJM, Jagae, Jkyum – now Complete

This story is 92 chapters of revenge, self-denying-relationship-dynamics, and a fear that a loving couple has no future because of flaws within each of their characters.

I endorsed this comic at chapter 71, and I endorse it still. It is suspenseful all the way through!

Book (Manhwa): I Tamed My Ex-husband’s Mad Dog by CMJM, Jagae, Jkyum – Books and Coffee
I Tamed My Ex-husband’s Mad Dog by CMJM, Jagae, Jkyumpublished by Tappytoon (71 chapters, in season 3, ongoing)2022 (?) – present

I’ve already described it, but can add that devoting one’s second-chance at life solely to revenge is not sensible. Also, self-loathing about the decisions one makes to have revenge can sabotage a relationship even more than stealing and mutilating a body together does. (Does this sound like a lesson that applies to you? If so, let’s NOT hang out!)

Beyond avoiding self-loathing, the story suggests that honesty, open communication, avoiding saddling your love with army-borrowing-related-debt, and perhaps even admitting to bearing your loved one’s children rather than hiding in another territory could all improve your love life. This… feels like solid general relationship advice. Fringe, yet accurate. While this story is marked with the “romance” tag of Tappytoon, such stories are usually more upbeat and don’t involve as many years of not speaking to each other or even being in the same region as this story does. (There is some realism in this, however.)

It is suspenseful – a character coming close to using magic to erase their life, inconveniently located cliffs, inconveniently deadly monsters, attempted assassinations, children running away with armies, a man bullying a younger man who may seek to avenge himself later, and the very real risk of a murder breaking a fragile, restored trust continue through the penultimate chapter. (Penultimate: a good name for a fountain pen shop, especially if it is second-to-last on a block.)

I truly enjoyed this violent, suspenseful, revenge-centric fantasy. This is a riveting adventure story of good people doing gory / bad things and suffering for it for many years before admitting their faults and choosing love. I continue to recommend it.

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Book (Manhwa): The Tyrant Wants to Be Good by Ramguel, KAKON

Cover art for The Tyrant Wants to Be Good by Ramguel, KAKON

The Tyrant Wants to Be Good
by Ramguel, KAKON
published by Webtoon (80 chapters so far, ongoing)
2023 – present

Dorothea Millanaire had a rough life, but once she murdered her sweet-but-hapless brother to become the empress, she was certain things would go her way.

Consistent with the rest of her sad life to that point, however, things did not go her way at all. When her most loyal supporter offered to save her at her execution, she turned him down – she was too heartbroken to continue living.

Dorothea doesn’t take it well when she wakes up AS A BABY VERSION OF HERSELF. A pissed off, world-weary baby. Oh, the indignity of being snuggled by the toddler version of her doting older brother (whom she had murdered in adulthood in her prior life!)!!

Yes, this is yet another second chance novel, but the first one I’ve read in which the protagonist TRULY has to start life over – all the way over – IN INFANCY. With the full guilt of her misdeeds weighing upon her memory-filled mind, there is a poignant mix of humor (a frustrated toddler isn’t strong enough to kill people whom she believes deserve it), frustration (she is a neglected and unloved daughter again), frivolity (classic younger sister chafing at her clingy older brother feelings), and sadness (six-year-old Dorothea looking at the child-version of her past-life-dead-husband with such profound, age-inappropriate despair that he is haunted by it).

Unlike other second-chance stories, Dorothea isn’t especially determined to survive this life. She feels she must make amends, but expects no rewards, and still doesn’t feel she belongs. Her father still treats her with contempt, she is still mocked in society for not having <the superficial sign of power that her family uses to justify its authority>, and she chooses to hold her prior-life’s love at a mournful, adult-arm’s-length distance, even though this version of him appears sincerely fond of her. The same society that punished Empress Dorothea for trying to end dangerous child labor is going to punish this younger, non-empress version of her for the same efforts, proving it is hard to be good in a society that is so bad.

The difference in this go-round is that she has a handful of people who love her. Including one who loves her so much, he would support her in violently taking the throne AGAIN.

I started reading on a lark to see a vengeful baby with adult memories, but am now 80 chapters in, and the characters have aged into legal adults. This is another tale of a neglected child attempting to break a cycle of violence in a cruel, feudal world of extreme poverty and lavish palaces, in which the power of chosen-family love might not be enough to save anyone.

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

Screenshot

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.

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Book (Manhwa): Turning the Mad Dog into a Genteel Lord by V_An, Yepbee, zuisha

Cover art for Turning the Mad Dog into a Genteel Lord by V_An, Yepbee, zuisha

Turning the Mad Dog into a Genteel Lord
by V_An, Yepbee, zuisha
published by Tappytoon (28 chapters, ongoing)
2024 – present

This is another comedy that makes me laugh out loud (so I read it when I’m alone, as I don’t want people to fear me on BART), and one I eagerly await new episodes for.

Diarin is a priestess who always gets the worst assignments. Her new project is to take a magically-brainwashed, berserker veteran soldier from a notoriously murderous military unit, and spruce him up so he can be a regional noble.

It’s… an impossible task, and one that puts her own life at risk – she is dealing with a man who can hear a heart beating from a great distance away, and then seek that heart out to kill – but Diarin will try with a smile! Especially since she gets to live in a mansion with her charge who, despite is formidable size and strength, she protectively comes to think of as an unruly puppy.

As with other manhwa, I want to point out the effort that went into the background art:

Attractive architectural backgrounds in Turning the Mad Dog into a Genteel Lord
It’s not just the details of the building, but also the reflection of the sun, the dappled shadows, the elements in shade, the different shadows on the sculptures of peacocks and shadows from the stairs… Goodness. (Yes, I can’t unsee the size of the guards, but the landing is really deep so they are in perspective, okay?)

Diarin is extremely expressive, and I laugh at her reactions to being blinded by someone attractive (illustration below), her eyes bulging at her first sight of Ceres’ attempts to write, or her mental process after attractively-built Ceres stands naked in front of her (pieces of fruit on a table have never been funnier). The use of exaggeration is well executed.

Left: being exposed to an especially attractive person; right, an argument about taking on additional work.
Before reading manhwa, I hadn’t realized how I also want cartoon letters to float around me for emphasis, though I admit they would create problems for me professionally.

This is a light, fun, well-executed comedy about an ambitious, optimistic clergy member trying to re-train a dangerous man-puppy whose head has been magically reprogrammed in what might be some kind of trap. It’s fun! I recommend it.

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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.

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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!

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Book (Manhwa): I’m the Queen In This Life by Themis

Cover art for I'm the Queen In This Life by Themis

I’m the Queen In This Life
by Themis, Omin
published by Webtoon (106 episodes, ongoing)
2022 – present

Ariadne desperately loves Cesare, and will do anything to win his approval and become his wife – including regicide. She is also willing to wait, and wait, and wait for their engagement to lead to an actual wedding after her dirty deeds open the throne to him. Cesare and her half sister betray her, however, and as she lay dying, she asks for another chance at life… She is offered one more chance – WITH CONDITIONS.

Ariadne wakes up in her distant past as her desperate, 17-year old self, living on a farm in isolation from her powerful Cardinal father. She knows her father is going to send for her and pass her off to Cesare, which she can’t allow to happen. She also knows she can’t just live a normal life: this time around, she has to make up for the evil deeds she did last time.

So much is asked of second-chance heroines, and Ariadne gets this treatment at an unusual level. She has to be multilingual, pious, must bravely confront a heretic pastor in the national cathedral, prevent an assassination, survive her conniving and evil family, impress her highly political father, and NOT under ANY circumstance, wind up being handed off to Cesare like property. Oh, and be NICE, which isn’t something she had much practice in within her predatory surroundings.

Her efforts don’t always work out – she is actively being sabotaged by her stepmother, her stepsisters, jealous servants, Cesare, local gossips, and even assassins from a neighboring kingdom! People die on her. Plots succeed against her. Rumors swirl because of an issue with the color of her dress as a masquerade… Her new love is pledged to marry someone else. But she wearily fights on.

I can tell you that the title of this comic doesn’t seem like it will become true anytime soon 100 episodes on! But there is hope, and she’s going to keep fighting. (I want to buy this girl a drink and give her a hug.). There’s still a possibility it won’t literally happen, but she’s been through so much personal growth that she deserves a crown.

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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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