This review copy was kindly provided by Yen Press

About the Mangaka

This time around I was able to find something out about them

Shin JiSang and Geo are actually a couple (as in they live together), and they collaborated on the project, with Geo doing the art, and Shin doing the story.

About the Manga

This is another title I was looking forward to, sadly this time it does fail to live upto expectations, and even worse the fault seems to lie on Yen Press!!

Like other Korean stories, the guys and most of the girls in this series are either babes or hunks. To be honest I’m finding it a bit grating now, just once I’d love to read a story like this where the leads were nothing more than normal looking

That aside, I did enjoy this first volume, and it has a lot of potential if the few bugs are fixed.

The story is interesting, spoiled brat finds out he’s Korean and gets shipped off to fix his attitude. Nothing new true, however the characters that JiSang uses to tell the story make it interesting.

Geo’s art is pretty good, though I did find the cutesy elements over done at times. However unlike Chocolat there was no evidence of Geo struggling with the art.

However, for the first time Yen Press fail on their handling of the title If it was just one area it wouldn’t be so bad, but the failures are almost total making it impossible to ignore.

Right at the beginning there’s a notice saying:

To keep jokes related to character names alive, we have opted to keep the Korean name order — Family name first, given name last.

Normally I’d be singing their praise for this, and on a level I am. However they fail to follow through with the all important jokes. Some of them are blatantly obvious, but others have a subtlety that only someone who knows Korean would understand, which means the humour is lost. It would of been nice if they added an explanation of the puns at the back of the book.

Next we have the names themselves. One minute we have the Korean format, the next we don’t. Initially I thought it was because the characters were speaking Japanese, but Be-Ri was doing it as well, and she doesn’t know Japanese. I found this a bit frustrating, the frequent changes didn’t seem necessary or relevant.

Also we have have some character renaming. If you read the synopsis on the Yen Press site the two leads are listed as Chuyosi, and Very. Also, Very is the taxi driver and passes out on him. I have to admit this got my attention because it could of been a great hook. However this is not how the story goes.

The characters are called Tsuyoshi and Be-Ri, and Be-Ri is not a taxi driver, rather she shares a taxi. Though she does pass out him This is the first time i’ve found such glaring mistakes in the Yen synopsis.

Finally we have the editing. Early in the volume there’s a note that other languages are done in a different font, as both Japanese and English make appearances. However the font used for these different languages is barely noticeable as a separate font, and when you into the volume it’s unrecognisable as a separate font. These would of been better off as a totally different and easily spotable font.

This is the first time I’ve found Yen to be lacking in their work, and it does spoil the flow of the story a bit. The biggest problem for me however was the naming, several times I ended up lost and confused over who is who.

If they fix these bugs I’ll be adding it to the Essential Read list, but for now it’s just lacking to much.

Where to Buy

As always, the Book Depository, Waterstones, and the Little Brown Store, however it isn’t released until the 9th July. However if you pre-order it at Waterstones you get £1.50 off the cover price.