Many thanks to Yen Press for providing a review copy.
About the Author
Nothing available on SangEun Lee, hit the contact me button if you have any info.
About the Manga
Damn the weird gets weirder. This volumes takes the magical aspects of the previous volume and explodes them. Truthfully, it’s this aspect alone that makes this series worth reading.
It’s very hard for me to get enthusiastic over the art in this series, though I’m inclined to say that in manhwa in general.
There’s nothing special about it to make it stand out from any other manhwa out there. That’s not to say the art is bad, because it isn’t. The art is fairly good, however if you’ve read another shoujo styled manhwa you wont be overly impressed. Since I’ve found this is pretty much the same as every other other there. The colour pages are ‘nice’ but again nothing really special or unique.
For me the only interesting aspect of the art was Beatrice, who in cactus form I thought was bloody funny.
The real saving grace of the series, so far at least, is the character relationships. We have five people in a weird love pentagon. Though really it’s more of a square, as the fifth person is never even really in the picture. She does however play an interesting role as being a rival for Hee-Soo.
Once again it’s the magical aspects that keep me reading, as these are expanded on greatly. However I have to admit the hinted relationships between the characters is also interesting. Beatrice knowing Whie-Young, and Sae-Bom’s weirdness.
Sae-Bom was a real revelation this volume, and while I liked the developments in other areas, hers, while not as explosive, had more of an impact on me. I spent a lot of time thinking on her character and wondering just what’s going on with her. she’s epically weird, but also some thing else, darker. Or that was the impression I got from this volume.
Sadly there isn’t really a lot of story development per say. Rather it spends the volume setting up the character personalities more and their rather entangled relationships.
On the one had it’s a good idea to set this up early on so as it doesn’t bog the story down later. However I was a bit disappointed that the story wasn’t really advanced much. But I admit I’m not really sure what could have been changed to progress the story. I suppose trying to balance the need to set the personalities up and story progression, is a hard one to achieve.
That said, I am looking forward to volume three.
Yen press as always, do an excellent job. Leaving the colour pages intact with a good balance between editing and faithfulness to the original. Not a lot of guttering, and the few that were there weren’t overly bad.
I’m still inclined to add it to my essential read list, but I’m going to wait for volume three. Something is nagging me about adding it.
Where to Buy
October 18, 2009 @ 20:23.
Just finished v02. You were right. It’s a love pentagram although I agree candidate 5 doesn’t have much of a chance. The volume’s opening threw me for a loop. I didn’t have a clue as to who the long haired person was. Never, ever, ever could have guessed who it turned out to be. I’m really intrigued by the fact that Beatrice and Whie-Young sort of know each other. I didn’t miss what Whie-Young had in his bedroom and wonder what the implications of said items are. The magic angle makes 13th Boy a much more loopy story than your ordinary junior high romance. I like the fact that weird things can happen because it adds an element of surprise to the typical school romance plot twists. Really looking forward to v03 now, even more than I was anticipating v02.