Manhwa Monday, Mid-November Mix

Welcome to this week’s Manhwa Monday! Today I’m featuring Michelle Smith’s review of the first two volumes of Small-Minded Schoolgirls by Toma (published by NETCOMICS), the answer to Michelle’s question, “What do you get when you combine some admittedly funky art with excellent characterization and a slice-of-life story about the romantic woes of a pair of professional women?”

Though Michelle does express initial reservations about the art style, her review is very enthusiastic about the series overall. Here’s another quote: “Small-Minded Schoolgirls is definitely a character-centric tale that hinges more on the subtleties of interaction and personal foibles than big dramatic moments … The series is full of keen observations on human nature and achieves poignancy and humor in equal measure.” Sounds like a winner to me.

The week offered a great variety of discussion on manhwa around the web, including this article from Shojo Your Mojo over at the TOKYOPOP journals where the author talks about manhwa and introduces some favorites, including titles from TOKYOPOP, Dark Horse, and Yen Press.

Speaking of Yen Press, they recently announced a graphic novel adaptation of James Patterson’s novel Daniel X to be drawn by manhwa artist Seung-hui Kye, whose series Recast was published in English by TOKYOPOP.

This week was heavy on reviews from quite a few sources. In addition to her review of Small-Minded Schoolgirls, Michelle Smith also looked at volume 9 of The Antique Gift Shop (Yen Press) over at Manga Recon. Other offerings from MR include Jennifer Dunbar’s review of Goong (Yen Press) volume seven (also reviewed by Tiamat’s Disciple along with volume six) and Connie C.’s look at the first volume of Please, Please Me (NETCOMICS).

Julie at Manga Maniac Cafe checked out both volume one of Comic (Yen Press) and volume three of Shaman Warrior (Dark Horse). Noah Berlasky reviewed the first two volumes of Click (NETCOMICS) at The Hooded Utilitarian, Diana Dang read volume two of Jack Frost (Yen Press) at Stop, Drop, & Read, and I talked about the first volume of a new series, Time and Again (Yen Press) here at Manga Bookshelf. I’m not the only one reading Time and Again either. Check out Brigid Alverson’s take over at Robot 6!

Many thanks to all these writers for giving me so much to link to in this week’s installment! Tune in next week for more!

Is there something I’ve missed? Leave your manhwa-related links in comments!