Pig Bride 1

KookHwa Huh / SuJin Kim – Yen Press – 2009 – 5 volumes

I bought this knowing full well I am ridiculously weak to this type of series.  First off, there are few Korean girls’ comics I don’t wind up liking.  Second, it’s got a ridiculous arranged marrage plot, which are great if they are done right.  Third, it’s got the mystery magic bride/groom.  And I also like the ridiculously stuck up main character, who is surprisingly likable for being a bit of a brat.  I also like the curse involved with the main couple, and I like the mystery surrounding the bride’s pig mask.  And the series is only 5 volumes long (in retrospect, I probably should’ve waited ’til July and snapped up the whole thing at once).  What’s not to like, at least from my perspective.

Si-Joon is the only son of an extremely wealthy and powerful family.  As a youngster, he gets lost in the woods and… er, found by a rather strange family.  They explain that he, along with their daughter, are descendants of people from a well-known legend, and explain that he is fated to marry the daughter, who conceals what is allegedly a remarkably ugly face with a pig mask.  Si-Joon agrees, since he is eight years old and they promise to feed him after the wedding, but he wakes up elsewhere and thinks the events a strange dream, one he has often until he turns sixteen and realizes it was all true.  He’s still wealthy, a little stuck up, and a little bit of a troublemaker, but he’s also popular with the ladies and has his eyes set on Doe-Doe, one of the prettiest and apparently most popular girls at school.

The Pig Bride shows back up to remind him that they are already married and that they need to consummate their relationship in order to break her curse, but he refuses, rejecting the weird, magical situation entirely (something you can’t really blame him for, considering she tends to just appear and do bizarre things, and so does her ninja sister).  She stands by him though, and vows to protect him from evils.  She’s a kind character and appears to be a good wife, and her suffering apparently mirrors that of her ancestor from legend.  Both she and Si-Joon are likable characters, and the story does a good job of showing the story from both their points of view.  Si-Joon also has a best friend to confide in, and along with being a good friend, he seems to have a knack for seeing people for who they actually are.  He gets along with both the Pig Bride and her sister, and avoids the beautiful Doe-Doe like the plague.  Doe-D0e seems to be the perfect girl, but given the friend’s reactions and some other hints laid out in the story, her hidden nature isn’t too difficult to figure out, and it reveals itself before the end of the volume.  The thought of the saintly Pig Bride being made to wait on her errant husband and serve him anyway is definitely a little… er, uncomfortable, but I think it works okay, given how old-fashioned the character is made out to be and also the gently overbearing way she chases Si-Joon.

I like it.  I like it a lot.  But I knew I would.  I’ve got two more volumes of it here, and then I’ll be left starving for more, like I always am with these types of series.  I just can’t get enough.