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Kim Kang Won - I.N.V.U., vol. 01 (Eng. trans.)
Fri, Apr. 22nd, 2005 02:35 pmGack! Completely overslept this morning! Silly rats make much noise in their cage and woke me up at six, which is how I slept through my alarm clock.
Anyway, on to manga discussion. As usual, I stick the surnames first. I think "Won" is the surname of the mangaka (manhwa...ga? jia?) but I get very confused because no one footnotes if the surname comes first or last on the titles. I suspect it is because I think TokyoPop switches the order around so it goes given name surname. I don't know why I am so particular about this, but I am.
This is the first Korean comic I've read. I think the Korean ones are called manhwa, the Japanese ones are called manga and the Chinese ones are called manhua? This confuses me somewhat, as people in America who write original manga still call it manga when it's after the Japanese model, and from I.N.V.U., it seems as though this series is playing off shoujo manga tropes. I am embarrassed that I don't know more about this, and even more embarrassed that I've never read an original Chinese manhua.
Anyhow. I actually expected to be bored by this, mostly because the main character, Sey, has a crush on her teacher Cho, and usually this squicks me. It did squick me. But suddenly this gender-bending plot line came out of nowhere and smacked me in the face, and now I am all caught up in the drama!
Sey's mom has decided to flit off to Italy to work, leaving Sey to live with her mother's friend's family. The family has an surly son, Terry, who actually turns out to be a daughter, Hali, forced to masquerade as her older brother after he's died in an accident because her mother loved her son so much that her mother now believes that she never had a daughter and that her son is still alive. Whew! Talk about drama.
Being me, I am rather bored with Sey, who is a fairly typical shoujo manga character. This means she is generally fairly innocent, has a cute crush on someone, has other boys flitting around her, one being a bad boy, and wants a nice, domestic life. Terry/Hali, on the other hand, is really interesting, and I want to find out more about what happens to her. Must see if the library has the second volume.
Anyway, on to manga discussion. As usual, I stick the surnames first. I think "Won" is the surname of the mangaka (manhwa...ga? jia?) but I get very confused because no one footnotes if the surname comes first or last on the titles. I suspect it is because I think TokyoPop switches the order around so it goes given name surname. I don't know why I am so particular about this, but I am.
This is the first Korean comic I've read. I think the Korean ones are called manhwa, the Japanese ones are called manga and the Chinese ones are called manhua? This confuses me somewhat, as people in America who write original manga still call it manga when it's after the Japanese model, and from I.N.V.U., it seems as though this series is playing off shoujo manga tropes. I am embarrassed that I don't know more about this, and even more embarrassed that I've never read an original Chinese manhua.
Anyhow. I actually expected to be bored by this, mostly because the main character, Sey, has a crush on her teacher Cho, and usually this squicks me. It did squick me. But suddenly this gender-bending plot line came out of nowhere and smacked me in the face, and now I am all caught up in the drama!
Sey's mom has decided to flit off to Italy to work, leaving Sey to live with her mother's friend's family. The family has an surly son, Terry, who actually turns out to be a daughter, Hali, forced to masquerade as her older brother after he's died in an accident because her mother loved her son so much that her mother now believes that she never had a daughter and that her son is still alive. Whew! Talk about drama.
Being me, I am rather bored with Sey, who is a fairly typical shoujo manga character. This means she is generally fairly innocent, has a cute crush on someone, has other boys flitting around her, one being a bad boy, and wants a nice, domestic life. Terry/Hali, on the other hand, is really interesting, and I want to find out more about what happens to her. Must see if the library has the second volume.
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