Manhwa Bookshelf

Today’s featured review comes from Kate Dacey over at The Manga Critic, for Sirial’s trippy all-ages tale One Fine Day (Yen Press). Kate begins her review with the definition of “whimsical,” a word that I expect even the series’ detractors must agree best fits the bill. As Kate says, “One Fine Day is whimsical in the fullest sense of the word, at once ‘lightly fanciful’ and ‘subject to erratic behavior or unpredictable change.'”

As a fan of the series myself, I especially appreciate Kate’s description of its most fanciful scenes, such as one in which “No-Ah and friends throw a lavish party for his grandparents’ antique furniture, here represented as beautiful fairies and enormous woodland creatures.” If you’ve been wondering if One Fine Day is for you, I highly recommend checking out Kate’s review.

Meanwhile, out in the cold of cyberspace, ReversedMiso laments the demise …

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Hello Manhwa Monday readers! This week’s featured review comes from Kate O’Neil at Mania.com, where she takes a look at volume one of Gyojeong Kwon’s The Adventures of Young Det, published in English by NETCOMICS.

The unusual thing about this series, as the reviewer notes, is that the first volume is very clearly a prologue which does not yet feature the series’ main characters. “Hopefully, this isn’t wasted time and some of this information will prove important later in the story.” For the most part her comments are positive. “It sketches a well thought out fantasy world…” she writes. “It’s a refreshing change of pace for fantasy readers, and it’ll be interesting to see where the story leads.”

I first became aware of this series via Michelle Smith, who listed it as one of her favorite manhwa of 2009. Check it out in print, or online at NETCOMICS.com. …

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One of my favorite reviews this week came from David Welsh over at the newly-renamed Manga Curmudgeon, for JiUn Yun’s Time and Again (Yen Press). Though this book has been featured here before, his review is so delightful, I simply can’t help myself.

David begins his review by likening the book to a character played by a young Barbara Stanwyck, “… sexy, funny, moving and often ruthless. It’s about an exorcist-for-hire who seems more inclined to give his clients what they deserve than what they request.” This description of the title’s lead character, Baek-On, is so apt, I wish I’d written it myself. Also this, “… his skills with the unquiet dead are virtually moot in balance with his indifference towards the unquiet living.”

Check out David’s review for further insight and wit. …

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First things first! The winner of last week’s giveaway is commenter Eva D., who will receive volume one of Yen Press’ Goong: The Royal Palace! Eva, drop me an e-mail with your address and I’ll send it right out!

This week’s featured review is Noah Berlatsky’s thoughtful look at the first six volumes of Dokebi Bride (NETCOMICS) over at Comixology. Though he spends a surprising amount of time trying to reconcile the series within Japanese demographic categories which seems, at best, a pointless exercise, it is a beautiful review of a gorgeous series that remains, to this date, sadly unfinished. “The book, like many ghost stories, is about grief and dislocation and how the two circle around each other like black, exhausted smudges,” he says early on in the review–an observation indicative of the its eloquence as a whole. The review is honestly a great read and I’d recommend it whether you’ve read the series or not. …

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Happy New Year, Manhwa Monday readers!

Last week at Manga Bookshelf, I invited some friends to help me build a list of our Favorite Manhwa of 2009. Now, to start the year off right, I’m giving away one copy of the first volume of the most popular manhwa on that list, Goong: The Royal Palace. If you’ve not yet been bitten by the manhwa bug, or if you just haven’t gotten around to this addictive girls’ manhwa from Yen Press, here’s your chance!

Just leave a comment to this entry and you’ll automatically be entered in the drawing! You may also enter by sending an e-mail to mj@mangabookshelf.com with the subject line: “Goong.” The winner will be announced in next week’s column. Note: You must be age 13 or older to enter.…

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Welcome to a special year-end edition of Manhwa Monday! With “best of” lists popping up all over the manga blogosphere, I thought it might be fun to put together a manhwa-specific list of favorites for the year. Then when Michelle Smith expressed dismay over the lack of a manhwa category in this year’s Manga Recon round-up, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to invite some other bloggers along! So I asked a few of my favorite manga bloggers, Michelle Smith (Soliloquy in Blue, Manga Recon), Danielle Leigh (Comics Should Be Good), and Connie C. (Slightly Biased Manga) to talk about up to five of their favorite series for the year, with one special mention, one special discussion topic, and a few words about what they’d like to see in 2010. To see what they came up with (and how we broke the rules), read on!…

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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.” …

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Welcome! Today I’m featuring one of my own reviews, mainly as an excuse to talk more about one of the most enjoyable manhwa series I’m reading right now, One Thousand and One Nights from Yen Press. Last week, I reviewed volume nine, which features fourteenth-century Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms as its story-within-a-story. “Though what appears here is obviously just a tiny fragment of the original Chinese epic (which stands at 800,000 words and 120 chapters) it is more than enough to entice readers to seek out the source material for more. This was, apparently, a strong motivation for its inclusion in the story, as the volume’s endnotes reveal writer Jeon JinSeok’s desire to introduce the testosterone-heavy novel to a new generation of female readers who may not have been otherwise encouraged to check it out.” …

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Happy December, manhwa readers! Today’s featured review comes from Clive Owen at Animanga Nation, for volume eight of Park Joong-Ki’s Shaman Warrior from Dark Horse. After coming in late to the series, Mr. Owen has become a big fan, though now he laments the fact that the series’ final volume is nearly upon us. I have to admit that his review has gotten me excited about reading the series myself. Check out this quote: “It’s good to see that after eight volumes the series manages to keep up the same action-packed momentum … Park Joong-Ki not only knows how to tell a story but also develop the characters enough that you’ll actually care about them. On top of that there’s the gorgeous art that makes the fights look absolutely stunning.” Sounds like a winner to me! Read the full review for more!

Before I get to the rest of this week’s reviews, let me draw your attention to …

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Welcome to another installment of Manhwa Monday! First off, our featured review this week comes from Snow Wildsmith at the School Library Journal’s Good Comics for Kids, discussing volumes one and two of Sugarholic. Here’s a bit of what Snow says about this fish-out-of-water tale: “Readers … will be intrigued … as they are caught up in the whirlwind storyline. Even two volumes is not enough to get all of the characters completely introduced and the major plot points outlined. There’s a sort of controlled chaos going on in the story, where the plot is always on the edge of falling apart, but somehow still manages to hold together. There aren’t many answers in these two volumes, but the questions are interesting enough to make readers head for volume three and beyond.” Check out her review for more!

As a follow-up to last week’s post, Troisroyaumes posted a rebuttal to Daniella Orihuela-…

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Today’s featured review is Lori Henderson’s recent Comics Village write-up of the latest issue of Yen Plus which features many of Yen Press’ strong manhwa offerings each month and is a great starting point for those who’d like to sample a variety of manhwa, manga, and OEL titles. The manhwa titles in November’s issue include Pig Bride, Time and Again (which begins full volume releases in December), Jack Frost and One Fine Day. “These are all strong titles, making this side of the magazine most enjoyable,” Lori says about the OEL/manhwa side of the magazine. I’m personally a fan of both sides, but I’ll definitely agree that the manhwa in this magazine is strong.

I’ll start the linkage today by looking outside the online comics world where people are talking about manhwa in a couple of contexts. First off, Karl Urban talks about his role in the upcoming film adaptation of Priest (published in English by TOKYOPOP) with Jenna Busch at the Huffington Post. …

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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. …

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