Full House 2
Posted: April 25, 2009 Filed under: Full House 4 Comments »Honestly, I was so disappointed that this wasn’t a depressing drama that I read Let Dai straight through in about two days. I think getting that out of my system helped me enjoy Full House a lot more this time around.
It’s just such a romantic comedy. I mean, you’ve got Elle’s old boyfriend coming back, you’ve got Elle and Ryder starting to draw closer even though they hate each other, there’s even a scene where Ryder dresses up as someone else (or rather, stays dressed up after he finishes shooting) and has fun with Elle while she’s unaware of who he is. There’s lots of comic mishaps, Elle is the type of prude that blames the men for everything (including things that are clearly her fault), and… just… it’s a romantic comedy. You know what I mean.
Despite that, I’m starting to feel an affinity for the series. As silly as the scene with Ryder pretending to be someone else was, I was totally drawn in. You expect the two of them to fall head-over-heels for the different sides of one another. You wonder if Elle will figure things out. It’s hard to deny the appeal of what’s going on.
I think the only thing that really bothers me about it is the fact that Elle and Ryder fight constantly, and that is the source of most of the humor. It’s also unfortunate that a lot of the jokes are based around the characters being selfish (which is what the whole series is based around, I suppose, considering the two are trying to share a house and kind of failing). Ryder gets jealous of other men around Elle, but doesn’t really want to treat her decently herself. And Elle is just insanely uncivil for no reason whatsoever.
The beginnings of drama are setting in, though. Ryder is very “close” to his manager Miranda, and also has a mystery woman called Jasmine. Elle has her old boyfriend. And did I mention they were starting to fall for each other? I suspect the light touch will be kept and that this won’t be degenerating into angsty teen territory, but I like drama all the same, and Sooyeon Won is just so good at it. It’ll be a total waste if we don’t get to see some angry weeping over lost love.
Hilariously, the characters in the cover illustration look like more feminine versions of Dai and Jaehee. Not surprising, but still kind of funny.
I’ll probably be addicted by the end of volume four, and then never get to read the rest of it.
Or you can watch the Full House TV drama.. but the ending is probably different from the manga.. ;-)
I might actually do that, I was thinking about tracking it down and watching it if I wind up liking the comic enough.
I’m finally picking up Full House even though I know I’ll have to stop at volume 4. (you can buy digital copies on Netcomics, I think, but I end up missing having a book in my hands.
I actually really liked this volume. It’s just so . . . campy? maybe? Like you said, there are some definite seeds of drama under the surface, but it’s mostly two crazy main characters and their equally crazy side cast trying not to kill each other.
It’s funny you mention the utter selfishness of the characters, since I remember a lot of that from Let Dai. Ellie is kind of like a weird hybrid of the Song sisters. She has Eun-hyung’s dislike of men and “unfeminine” attitude combined with Yoon-eun’s looks and selfishness, but, so far, without the major backstory to go with it. Though in Yoon-eun’s defense, I always thought of her Jae-hee-craziness had more to do with being a foil to Jae-hee. Her feelings for Jae-hee were basically Jae-hee’s feelings for Dai only unreciprocated. Ellie just seems to have had her only relationship with men beyond her father turn out to bad. She also has an attachment to her house and so far she’s only been outside her house when she has to be for plot related reasons and mentions that she has her day-to-day expenses taken care of by her inheritance, so maybe she’s just really really sheltered.
Ryder, on the other hand, looks like Dai, only not an evil sociopath and without being possessive to the point of obsession. It looks like he still has family-issues though. And another thing, what’s with the cover-dissonance? Ellie’s hair is long in the comics and short on the covers. Did Netcomics just publish the covers out of order?
I saw the first two episode of the Full House drama, and beyond the part where their characters get married for reasons other than love (it’s not even about the house!) and live together, it’s completely different. Not necessarily a bad thing, just not the same characters or story.
Your comparisons to Let Dai are interesting, and do shed some light on Full House for me. I prefer the printed books myself, but was going to go ahead and start reading digitally when Netcomics caught up to volume 5, which… hasn’t happened yet.
Your framing of the characters with the comparisons to Let Dai are interesting, and I do see the links. I think the sad backstory in Let Dai does help temper the selfishness of the characters a bit. Full House starts getting more serious after awhile (at least it seems that way), and I don’t mind its light tone in comparison to Let Dai’s depressing one, but I just have a really hard time sympathizing with Ellie, or getting my head around the way Ellie and Ryder are antagonizing each other. Volume four ends on a nasty cliffhanger, and I’m looking forward to the way that changes the dynamic between the two of them, or if it even does. I am really hoping that Netcomics can pull through with a little more Full House, even if it is only digital copies.
As for the covers… I have no idea, the Netcomic covers match the CPM covers I have, so they must correspond to the Korean covers. I wondered about the discrepencies myself. I almost thought that it was different characters on the cover.
And thanks for the bit about the drama. I’ve heard it’s quite good, and I’ve always wondered how it compared to the manhwa.