Customer Reviews

Not So Bad Vol. 1 (v. 1)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great BL title. The art has the crazy detail of manhwa, as well as the really streamlined quality of contemporary manga. The dark quality of the art makes it all the more beautiful. The story also has an interesting twist with the whole idea of the perfect body temperature. The main character Cain is also very endearing, but seems to have a dark underside that has yet to show. I'm very interested to see where this story will go from here.

An engaging "shonen ai" from Korea, in two volumes. It is a character-driven romance with a touch of the surreal. The publisher, NETCOMICS, will let you preview the first chapter on their website.

The main character is a famous but depressed Korean actor who in a weak moment takes in a beat-up drifter. The new guy doesn't clean up after himself, drinks all the beer, snuggles next to our hero while he is sleeping without a by-your-leave, and gets all hurt and indignant at hints to move out. When the actor finds himself falling for this feckless moocher, he is at a loss as how to express it, and terrified the drifter will drift on before he figures it out.

I honestly picked this up because I figured it would be BAD. I had work to do, and I wanted something that would distract me, but not TOO much. I ended up enjoying it a lot more than most Japanese shonen-ai I've read so far. The characters are more real and more likable. The focus is on genuine character growth and interaction, rather than pursuit/resistance or contrived misunderstandings. The plot revolves around a whimsical device involving the drifter's recurrent insomnia, but the author's interest, as she says, is in examining "the characters emotions and mental states" rather than story or incident. The stream-of-consciousness narration really draws you in, and illuminates the difficulty that the characters have expressing and understanding themselves. This is very true to life, and is the source of both the humor and the drama.

In the forward, E. Hae mentions her belief that human relationships should be good for people, and that attitude comes through in the story. There is also an interesting scene where the actor bad-mouths a certain director for valuing brutal contrivance over emotional honesty - which struck me as an expression of the author's own artistic views.

I liked NOT SO BAD even better on the second reading than on the first, and better yet on the third. Definitely one of my few "keepers". The art was odd to me at first, but I now find it quite beautiful, and I don't think the covers do it justice.

This is rated 16 + for adult themes and some sexual content -- usually handled in conversation or in non-graphic scenes.

This Korean manhwa on the love between a famous actor and a vagabond is a great surprise. It is tastefully done and interlaced with emotions, which is not lost in the solid translation.
Vol 1 did a fine job exploring these 2 young men's characters and the development of their need for one another. There are some sweet moments in their sleeping habits which developed to the point when each could not sleep without the other.
The artwork is pleasing though it took some time to get use to, as well as reading from left to right, a problem after being used to the Japanese manga style.
Definitely getting Vol 2.

Eunhee is at last living the life he worked so hard for. Finally having reached the height of his acting career, he has money, fame, women, and a nice place to live. What he doesn't have is a special someone, but as he can't stand sharing his personal space, especially his bed, with another person he simply deals with his loneliness by hanging out and bedding a sex friend and then returning to his own place. Things change though the day he meets Gain collapsed against his front door, badly beaten from a mugging. He takes the young man in, and before he knows it, this free spirited stray cat has moved into his house and crept into his bed. Eunhee is flabbergasted at the young man climbing into his bed to sleep, claiming the sofa is too cold, but strangely, he too is able to sleep with this person beside him. Soon, he finds himself looking forward to returning home to spend his time with Gain and begins to fear the day this free spirit decides to move on. Why is that, and what will happen to him should Gain suddenly disappear from his life?

I have to admit that while I enjoy a good BL title, I was a little worried about reading one that happened to be manwha. In the past I've read some truly great offerings, such as Let Dai, but further exploration of the manwha field often showed me great disappointments in the genre, such as the protagonist "rightly" choosing a girl over the man he actually loved for purely publicly held moral values, gay men suddenly realising they were mistaken and were actually straight after going to marriage interviews, and other such things that brought the whole purpose of reading a BL to a moot point (and one wonders why they penned such a beautiful romance only to destroy it preachingly). I went half expecting this to end up the same way. I must say, this title revived my faith in Korea's BL market, as what I got was a sweet tale of gentle love where the main character indeed wrestles with the fact that the "one" who completes his life for him is male, but comes to understand that love knows no such distinctions. Even better, the cast of side characters hold more modern attitudes towards love, sex, and relationships, so the whole moralistic pariah issue doesn't really come up.

Manwha creator E. Hae's art is delicate, taking on aspects of the Japanese bishounen style yet maintaining trademarks generally found only with manwha, with even the "manly" men sporting beautifully detailed eyes with sweeping lashes seen on close up. He panels sare uncluttered, and well ordered, with anon confusing lay out that drew the eye naturally left to right which is a real bonus because as a manga reader, I often find myself trying to read non manga comics backwards out of habit. To be able to grab the eye and have such a reversal to normal reading order without thought is actually quite the gift so I heap my kudos on for the accomplishment. Likewise, her dialogue and thought prose are well conceived, and the translation flows smoothly without any odd phrasing or stilting. If one did not know better, one might assume it was originally penned in English, such is the translation quality.

Being manwha, there are of course a few different conventions to manga that fans of K-drama will be familiar with. That is, if things are going well, disaster must strike the protagonist in the most severe way possible and cause the most gut wrenching angst. Now, done right, it provides a great plot catalyst, but done wrong, one ends up with a ridiculous soap opera plot that leaves one staring in disbelief and perhaps resorting to derisive laughter. Luckily, Hae knows how far to travel down this road, and actually sticks to a statically probable cause of conflict to propel her story forward in a meaningful fashion. Altogether, a highly entertaining story that finds itself on my to buy list for my bookshelf.

Available both as a paperback from major manga/manwha retailers such as Amazon and The Book Depository (non US buyers note BD has free shipping to worldwide), as well as to rent online from Netcomics for $0.25 a chapter. The first chapter is always free, and the site is open to non US readers worldwide. Volume one has five chapters, so represents good value at only $1, making it ideal as a complete read before you decide to buy if reading the free first sample chapter is not enough to make a decision. I'd like to thank Netcomics for providing me with my review copy.

Despite the other glowing reviews, I was very disappointed with this book.
There are a lot of very "Wha...?" moments as a reader, where you check back to see if you missed a page or something didn't translate well. It's very abrupt and confusing for the reader while you flip back and forth, wondering when a dream sequence starts (in the middle of a page) or a flashback ends. Or suddenly a scene changes and the characters are in bed together after being separated?!?!
And there are parts where the dialog doesn't make sense, and you try to figure out what prompted strange decontextualized remarks. Or where the hell the stalker comes from, and the random unanswered "are you a gigilo?" question.
The art is ok, but inconsistant in quality. Since a lot of it isn't very detailed, you aren't sure of the visual sense of the characters... sometimes they look their age (27), sometimes teens, occationally the look like 5 year olds (not the *bam* one panel embarassment-cartoon type either.)
I'd skip this and look for more consistant titles. "Boy Princess" by the same publisher is much better. Not great, but much better.