Review copy kindly provided by Yen Press

About the Mangaka

Not a lot available on JiUn Yun sadly. She made her professional debut in 2000 in a manhwa competition, however she had already become famous in the non-pro circles.

About the Manga

I’m in two minds over this title, part of me hates it, and part of me likes it. The problem may lie in the fact I’m picking up volume four first, I’ll order volumes one through three and see how it goes from there.

However the main thing I hate about this series is the art. Yun is an excellent artist, and some of her work is stunning, yet most of the time it’s plain and dull. The characters are flat and have no appeal of any kind. What’s more it’s hard to define whether the characters are girls or boys. This is nothing new in this type of manga true, but something about it this time got on my nerves.

Yun’s story is the saving grace of the series as far as I can see. While this volume was hard to follow, and confusing as hell at times, it has an interesting feel to it. Definitely enough to cause me to want to explore a bit further.

Yun is apparently famous for ‘beautiful composition’, but I’ve yet to see anything that could qualify as that in this volume. While it’s true there are moments (such as the cover art) which would stand up to that title. However they’re inconsistent in the volume. At best I’d say this has average art, with a few moments of beautiful composition.

However from the volume it’s clear that Yun is still improving her style, and will improve as time goes by.

As I said though, where she does have an excellent grasp is the story. The problems I experienced in following what was happening in the story stem from two aspects. First the art, and secondly the fact I’m picking it up at volume four.I think if given the chance to read the series from volume one, this volume wouldn’t be as confusing.

That aside, what I read this volume was excellent, Yun has a solid grasp on where she wants her story to go, and how to get there.

The characters she’s created are interesting and lively. Hye-Min is a bit annoying, and I think if she’s like this for the rest of the series I’ll end up hating her. Bora is a psycho, and I mean that literally. She’s totally flipped out and easily makes stalker material hehe. She’s an interesting character and I’m interested in seeing how she caries out her vengeance on Hye-Min. Ma-Ha is the character I hate the from this volume, something about him makes my blood boil, and it’s more than the fact he’s an obnoxious, arrogant, player.

This is a IceK title that is being released by Yen again. The cover art has had a colour change from what it was originally:

I kind of prefer the original myself I like blue As with all of Yen’s Korean titles it’s over sized, in keeping with the original releases.

As usual there’s no errors in the translation, and the editing is fine…for once However sadly, like all of their titles, this suffers from a guttering problem. Though this time it’s not excessive, as it has been in some of their other titles.

There’s a brief comment from Yun, and a double colour page before it gets into the story. It ends with a couple of extras, and then the usual ads for other titles.

For now I can’t put it on my Essential Read list, the art is to inconsistent for me. If it improves in the future, or the first three volumes have something spectacular in them, I’ll reconsider.

Where to Buy

As with all of Yen’s titles, you can get them from Waterstones, the Book Depository, and the Little Brown Store. However, due to the distribution problems in the UK, only the Little Brown Store has any stock. Not even Amazon UK have any stock.

Yen Press are aware of the distribution problems and are looking into them.