Sakura of DOOM

So sometimes I hit the jackpot when I randomly pick things up at Borders, and... sometimes I don't.

It started out promising though, referencing a Murakami Haruki story I really like ("On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning"), which is one of the few stories of falling in love at first sight that strangely doesn't drive me absolutely insane.

And it even begins with quotes from the story, only to segue to J. snatching the book out of his secretary's hand, protesting that it's stupid.

Meanwhile, Jay Jin must struggle to keep pursuing her passion, art; her mother tells her there is no money in art, and she must give up her dream to support her brother in his ambition to become a doctor. Amazingly, there is actually some critique of this that almost borders on a critique of sexism as an institution, but not quite.

J. and Jay accidentally bump into each other in a hotel lobby. They spend a lovely day together that's unfortunately ended when he goes into anaphylactic shock, courtesy of a chicken kebab. And then, since he's the prince of a small, rich, French-speaking and completely imaginary European country (actually king, but the manhwaga wants to call him prince just because, and I know this because it says so in the author's asides), he starts a multimillion dollar advertising campaign to look for her.

I think this would be cute and somewhat amusing -- the art is pretty, the random small rich European country royalty bit is cute (though somewhat overdone), and Jay doesn't seem to be too stupid to live. And then the manhwaga decided to throw in your standard "You make me lust for you and therefore I will attempt to force you to have sex with me, oh sorry, I didn't meant it, why are you angry at me now?" storyline.

At which point I nearly threw the book at a wall, except I was in the Borders cafe and didn't want to kill anyone.

Just in case you couldn't tell, I don't recommend this series.