Review of 'The Flower of Evil' Volume 2


(In Korean: 악의 꽃)

(SPOILERS)

The second volume of The Flower of Evil continues the interesting story (i.e. differently new, because of its incestuous theme) with much stronger drama. Having established certain unusual points with the readers in the first volume (or else we would have been confused), the manhwaga is free to develop the personalities and the plot more aggressively here.

A rumor about Seh-wa and Seh-joon kissing each other spreads in school, but Seh-wa is nonchalant and persistent in loving her brother. In fact I think the crisis only heightens the drama as Seh-wa speaks more eloquently to defend her right to love him:

As you can see, it's not the same kind of wine brewing from the last book. The drawing style hasn't changed, but it's strange how just the words can make so much difference in a comic.

About the drawing quality... I gave it 9/10 like last time. For comparison, I usually gave Goong 12/12, LOVE SOS 7.5/10, and Metal Heart 8.5/10. I admire how the characters are drawn realistically as the ones in Goong, but I don't like how the pages aren't filled with enough details and shading as in Goong and Metal Heart.

Seh-joon gets "filthy" with his girlfriend (I forgot her name), but the scenes were covered and brief, barely enough for us to get the point.

I thought this scene here was pretty accurate with how Korean high schools look & "feel" (heh, wrong grammar) like in a usual, late afternoon:



Yi Hyunsook (the manhwaga, a female I assume) introduced several new people but didn't build on them (I remember making a similar observation regarding one of the LOVE SOS volumes). Sung-chan is shown living with his uncle in the 1st chapter, but the uncle doesn't appear afterward (except maybe once more in the last chapter - was that the uncle?). The girl dressed like "whore" (from Vol. 1) who's interested in Sung-chan (who used to be called Gi-hoon) appears like just once here. So far, they were just space fillers that left me expecting something but not getting anything and feeling disconnected.

Although romance should be a major part of the story, it's not. There's just a lot of negative energy (i.e. jealousy) but not much constructive stuff to build on the relationships.

I didn't get what was funny with the author's note at the end of the manhwa here:

  • Visual quality: 9/10
  • General plot: 7.5/10
  • Comedy elements: 2/3
  • Action elements: 2/4
  • Romance elements: 3/5
  • Mystery elements: 2/3
  • Sophistication: 3.5/5
  • Realness: 4/6

Overall: (7.2/10)

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