Many thanks to Yen Press for providing a review copy
About the Mangaka
Kara is the name of a manwha-ga-duo: Yoon-Gyeong Kim & Eun-Sook Jeong. And to quote them, their name comes from the Hebrew word for ‘to invite’.
Kim and Jeong first met each other when they both were in their fourth year of university, working together as assistants for the manhwa-ga Eun-Young Hong.
They made their debut in 2000, when their short story “Terra” (which you can find in DD Volume 1) won a prize at the “1st CAKE Manhwa Contest”. On June 15th that year, they began to publish “Mawang Ilgi” in the Manhwa Magazine CAKE.
(copied from Demon Daze)
About the Manga
As I sat reading this volume I realised something, it felt flat and was missing something.
As with the previous volume we get more wispy art, and once again I found I wasn’t overly keen on it. However it does, as the other volumes have had, some very nice scenery settings. Even these though I felt were lacking, primarily due to the use of blank space. I got the impression that KARA was aiming for a ‘mist’ impression, which would have fit the setting. Sadly all we get is blank space, I would have preferred a more soft outlining to give the mist actual form.
The other aspect of the art that niggled me this volume was the chibi characters which I found to be over used. KARA is usually pretty good with the placement of chibi’s, however in this volume there were to many and in places that they didn’t really have to be.
The best image in the entire volume however has to be the double colour pull out, which is just awesome.
There were some interesting story developments this volume, though due to them taking place towards the end of the volume there wasn’t really enough to sink my teeth into. Though I have to admit the hints are tantalising.
The story doesn’t really flow to well though, and after reading it again I realised it wasn’t so much the story no meshing well, but rather the Korean names being a stumbling block.
This volume uses some really long and hard to grasp Korean names, which I have to admit I struggled to get my mind round. This volume did feel a bit empty when compared with the previous volumes as well. I felt that the page space was wasted by the amount of time spent sleeping.
This would have been a good time for some bonding between the characters, but we don’t see any.
However some hints are dropped again that some of the party are not all they seem to be. And I have to admit that the way that part of the story is being handled really does appeal to me.
The biggest issue this volume had for me was the length of time between volume four and this one. Volume four was released back in December last year, that means near a seven month wait between volumes.
As a consequence of this the story is now stale in my memory, and I found I had to reread the volumes all over again to get the feel back from the previous volumes. Thankfully the next wait won’t be as long.
As with their previous releases I have no complaints with the translation, it’s smooth and and consistent with a good flow to it. No guttering, which is always a bonus with me, and the colour fold out is especially welcome
That said, I’m still not ready to put this series on my Essential Read list. While I do enjoy it, it lacks the something special to make me sit up and say ‘Yes, this is a series you must read”.
Where to Buy
August 1, 2009 @ 10:09.
I tried sending you a message on Twitter, but don’t think you got it. How exactly did you initiate the deal with Yen Press for them to send you review copies of manga? You ask them, they ask you, what?
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