Gusts Of Popular Feeling: A comic take on Kim Yu-na

For those who haven't read that blog post, I think it's worth while for me to talk about.

Compare the manhwa illustration of Kim Yuna to her real-life photo:

The manhwa version doesn't come close to looking the real Kim! How can the artist justify Kim's green eyes, brown hair, and a Caucasian nose? Indeed such features would better suit the tastes of the average manga/manhwa fans, although a comic like this would be read mostly by kids who will only become confused by this inaccurate depiction of her race. The drawing just looks really annoying to me.

(In Korean: 월요일 소년)

Myung-ee Joo's story begins from around the time when she is in 5th grade. Her passion is handsome mature men; she has a pretty boy picture collection & more impressively blogs about the male sex. Apparently Myung-ee just transferred to a new school; she meets the class president, Yu-da Lee (i.e. Eee; Lee is Chinese spelling), for the first time when she accidentally pushes him over on the way to school. Yu-da is a very popular boy, but some kids avoid him because he does not have mom and dad.

On the way back home, Myung-ee is revealed by Yu-da that they are similar in some ways. For one thing, their eyes turn red and become itchy at night. Soon they reach Yu-da's home, where Yuda's grandfather greets them. Myung-ee turns away in shock when the old man makes some mean jokes about her looks, and she bumps into a tall and handsome 10th grade guy by name of Ryu (Japanese name?). He is supposedly the most popular guy in a nearby high school, and strangely he offers to go out with Myung-ee the next day.

To her disappointment, Ryu does not come to pick her up after school. Ryu is in fact a fox (what?) who likes to eat the livers (what?!?) of rabbits (what!?!) from the moon (...the fox should also like other things i.e. insects), which would include Myung-ee and Yuda. Luckily for Myung-ee, Ryu is severely wounded or killed by a female humanoid rabbit (humanoid rob.. robo... robot) while attempting to eat Yuda.

Yuda then recovers a forgotten memory of how his parents died. He cries and collapses.

The story fast-forwards to Myeong-ee's transfer to a high school in 10th grade. She is still obsessed with handsome boys, as expected, and she takes pictures of them with her camera phone.
Myeong-ee also learns that Yu-da attends this school, and he is the class secretary and a member of the student council. Although Myeong-ee seems to want to dislike Yu-da, she admits that he is kind of cute and takes picture of him along with the other student council members. When she tries to approach him, however, Yu-da says he does not know her or even the elementary school that they had gone together with. This surprises and angers Myeong-ee because she thinks that Yu-da is trying to ignore her, but she eventually realizes that Yu-da is being honest with her.

That night Myeong-ee is visited (or rather attacked) by Sae-eun Won, who is one of the student council members. Luckily another rabbit wearing a mask of Robot Taekwon V comes to her rescue. The "fox" flees, and Myeong-ee presses Mr. Tae-kwon V to explain to her about the deal with rabbits being food for the foxes, etc. So basically, rabbits used to live on the moon long ago, but when they were invaded by the foxes they had to flee to Earth. The foxes followed them to Earth, and so the rabbits formed the "Soon-la Army" to counter the foxes (...y didn't they do that on the moon to begin with?). 2 of the 3 members of the student council (Jin-soo Jung and Sae-eun Won) are foxes, but Yu-da is a rabbit. The foxes let Yu-da leave because he is a special type - a black rabbit. They erased his memory and is protecting him until he is a full-grown adult, so that their queen, Hang-ah, can regain her powers that she had lost after drinking an elixir of immortality. Sae-eun is always around Yu-da as a watch guard but pretends to be Yu-da's best friend.

The next day Myeong-ee is bullied by some girls for having been a bit too emotional around Yu-da the day before. They take away her underwear and post it on a bulletin in a hallway. Yu-da makes them hand over the underwear to him so that he can return it to Myeong-ee and puts it in a bag. When Myeong-ee sees Sae-eun standing near Yu-da, she calls Sae-eun a "dog" and a "shaggy," and tells him to get lost. In response, Sae-eun takes out the panty and teases her about its strawberry patterns, causing Myeong-ee to lash out at him in tears. Yu-da holds her back and apologizes for his "friend," saying that Sae-eun does not mean to hurt her.

Meanwhile, Sae-eun is engaged in a fight with another boy, whose voice Myeong-ee recognizes to be Mr. Tae-kwon V's. The fight is interrupted when a strong wind reveals Myeong-ee's bottom naked; Mr. Tae-kwon V starts crying and apologizes, "I'm sorry! .... I saw your bumbum."

• Visual quality: 8/10
• General plot: 6.5/10
• Comedy elements: 6/7
• Action elements: 3/4
• Mystery elements: 2/2
  
• Otaku elements: 5.5/6
• Realness: 2/4

Overall: (7.7/10)

(In Korean: 악의 꽃)

(SPOILERS)

Continuing on Seh-wa’s new friendship with Sung-chan (who I found out is rlly cauled Sung-joon/성준), volume 4 starts off with them going over to Sung-chan’s house at night. Sung-chan’s uncle is quiet taken aback by the sight of Seh-wa (not because she’s pretty, or maybe so -_- ) because having just the girl over by herself late at night is strictly contrary to Confucian morals (and pretty much every other ethical standards). Seh-wa actually wants a sleep-over (she’s ridiculously daring in a cute way, like Danbi in Love SOS), but I’m not sure to what extent Seh-wa is expecting that she’d be able to do that.

Fortunately or unfortunately (it'd have been more interesting), she leaves the house when she finds photos of her & her brother in one of Sung-chan's collections. Seh-wa goes home on a taxi, only to get a call from Sung-chan that he's waiting outside the her house. He waits there until the next morning & follows Seh-wa to school & on the way he tries to explain that he has taken pics of her & her brother b/c he simply likes them a lot. How she responds is funny:



On her way back to school, Seh-wa is attacked by a group of girls for being liked by Sung-chan. They leave her having cut her hair & her fingers up with a knife (she doesn't lose her fingers though, but still it's a sight). Seh-wa calls Sung-chan for help, and when he finds her sitting in the alley, he tries to take her to a hospital, but interestingly she begs him to take her to a hair salon first. Of course, Sung-chan takes her to the hospital before the hair salon. The chapter (13) ends with a really interesting scene that I won't spoil in this review.

After accompanying Seh-wa home, Sung-chan meets his previous girlfriend, Choi (or Chwae) Soo-jin b/c he suspects that she is mainly responsible for the cruelty. When she admits having hurt Seh-wa, Sung-chan basically threatens Soo=jin so she won't go near Seh-wa again. Personally, I don't think Sung-chan sounds threatening enough even for a girl, but Soo-jin does get really scared as willed by the manhwaga (i.e. manhwa artist).

Chapter 14 ends w/ Sung-chan getting rlly frustrated while conversing with Seh-wa about what she says at end of Chapter 13. He goes to a PC cafe (i.e. PC bang, "a" as in "bah") & plays a computer game that might be starcraft.

• Visual quality: 10/11
• General plot: 8/10
• Comedy elements: 3/4
• Action elements: 2.5/3
• Romance elements: 3/4
• Mystery elements: 1/1
• Sophistication: 5/6
• Realness: 5/6

Overall: (8.3/10)

(source: Janimes)

Yi Do-yeong (이도영) (1884-1933) "[expressed]... his ideas in... form of manhwa through ... [a] popular daily newspaper [(Dehanminbo, 대한민보)]... [in] 1909." He was mostly known for opposing Japan's colonization of Korea through his works.

I know there are some very bizarre myths out there about pretty much anything (i.e. Kiss My Kimchi!: Coreans are Caucasians???). Well, ppl, if u were assuming manhwa came from Japanese manga, now u know it didnt!

Watch more Tagstory videos on AOL Video

Kiss My Kimchi!: SICAF!

This was like... 2008/05/30

Seoul International Cartoon Animation Festival

This is a spray I made for Counter Strike: Source. : ) I hope to make a wallpaper as something similar. The scene's from Goong.

This is my forum signature.

(In Korean: 악의 꽃)

(SPOILERS)

Reading this volume made me wonder if the scanlators were too thorough in their cleanups of Vol. 1 & 2 scans because the scanlation of Volume 3 is filled in more & looks much nicer.

(I like how this scene here. It's how Corea feels like at night)

(I like how Seh-wa's drawn on the right - a cute curious face)

I love all the patterns & details that were in the drawing. People at soompi said The Flower of Evil was beautifully drawn, but I didn't really get what they meant until I read this volume.

(Probably this page was colored in by the scanlators. Very nicely : ) )

Meat Street
Originally uploaded by sharilynanderson

So, the story goes like this. Seh-wa asks Seh-joon to demonstrate his love for her by killing himself, so Seh-joon gets in front of a car speeding down the road and is hospitalized. (Interesting plot, but still -1 for realness) Seh-wa feels so terrible for what she's done that she promises to never bother Seh-joon again. When Seh-joon recovers, his girlfriend Shi-yeun (who I think is older than Seh-joon b/c he addresses her as "sunbae," the Korean equivalent of "sempai" in Japanese; Seh-wa, who should be of same age as Seh-joon, refers to her as "unni," literally meaning "older sister.") comes home with Seh-joon & enjoys spending time with him. She visits few times more (like 1 more, I don't quite remember), and this makes Seh-wa mad. She breaks everything in her room and leaves home, planning to tire herself out by wandering in the streets. She's followed by Sung-chan, who walked home with Seh-wa from school and was waiting outside hoping that she'd get come out again because of Shi-yeun. Seh-wa wants to get rid of him, but she can't and eventually tires herself out. Eventually he baits her into a fast food place (like Lotte or McDonald's), & when she falls asleep he calls Seh-joon to pick her up. The next day, Seh-wa draws a lot of attention by walking out of a window on third floor & when Sung-chan comes to the scene she jumps on him, injuring his arm... (Again, very interesting, but still -1 for realness)

Anyhow, Yi Hyunsoo did a much better job overall with volume 3. She made Seh-wa more likable; her personality is very cute in a teasing way.

P.S. I found out Seh-joon & Seh-wa's last name - "Eun," (은) like "en" in "gotten."

• Visual quality: 10/11
• General plot: 8/10
• Comedy elements: 2.5/3
• Action elements: 2.5/3
• Romance elements: 3/4
• Mystery elements: 2/2
• Sophistication: 5/6
• Realness: 4/6

Overall: (8.2/10)

Download @ mangatraders

(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)

Download @ mangatraders