Manhwa Monday: Ghostly Holidays

Last week could be considered a slow one in the realm of manhwa reviews, but what was there was well worth reading, making my choice for today’s feature quite difficult! In the end, I went with Joy Kim’s review of ghost story series Time and Again from Yen Press.

Though Joy admits that the first volume stumbles a bit, she still finds it to be, “… one of the most promising series openers that I’ve seen in a long while.” The series’ strength, in her view, is the two leads. “Though Baek-On and Ho-Yeon are very peripheral in some of the chapters … they are easily one of the best things about the book … The odd couple humor works, and there’s just enough mystery about their pasts to pique readers’ interest.”

Besides Joy’s review, one of my favorite reads last week was at Slightly Biased Manga, where Connie consumed all six volumes of Totally Captivated (Netcomics) in one sitting and reviewed the first three. Here are the reviews: One, two, three. As a big fan of this BL series, I was thrilled to see Connie’s enthusiasm. I hope she encourages more fans of the genre to check it out!

There may not have been many reviews last week, but what was there provided some nice variety! Amidst her Totally Captivated binge, Connie also read volume five of I.N.V.U. (Tokyopop). The Yaoi Review recommends Let Dai (Netcomics). At Heart of Manga, Laura takes a look at volume 3 of Pig Bride (Yen Press). Rob at Panel Platter reviews volume one of Click (Netcomics) Harry Markov talks about volumes 1-6 of Tarot Cafe (Tokyopop) at Fantasy & SciFi Lovin’ News & Reviews.

Some manhwa series also made it into a few of the “Best of…” lists that have begun popping up over the blogosphere, including one from the crew at Manga Recon (where you’ll find picks from yours truly) and Kate Dacey’s list at Manga Critic, where Netcomics’ Small-Minded Schoolgirls earned an honorable mention. Keep an eye out for next week’s column here for more 2009 lists!

That’s it for the week!

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