13th Boy 3
Posted: April 18, 2010 Filed under: 13th Boy 5 Comments »SangEun Lee – Yen Press – 2010 – 7 volumes
This series keeps taking sudden turns on me. To be fair, the twists aren’t that devious, just kind of bizarre. And some of them are romantic-oriented, so it’s not hard to guess what will happen, but all the same. I’m never sure what kind of screwball pitch is coming next, and I really like it.
Again, I think it’s the subtle use of magic that makes this one special. Normally such a bad thing, here it throws an interesting and fantastic twist into things. And all the magic elements come together in this volume, so they’re not longer disparate and… well, basically, we find out why Hee-So has a talking cactus named Beatrice that turns into a boy every full moon, and somehow, it makes sense. Which speaks volumes about the story here, I think.
Other than that, there’s a lot of normal stuff going on. The triangle set up with Sae-Bom last volume complicates things here as expected, with Sae-Bom in love with Whie-Young, who is in love with Hee-So, who is in love with Won-Jun, who is in love with Sae-Bom. Classic, but it’s working to great effect here. Whie-Young’s crush is downplayed until certain events are revealed, and Won-Jun’s affection towards Sae-Bom is more brotherly than romantic, though it’s more than clear he’s not looking for another girl.
I’m wondering how the character of Sae-Bom will be handled in the future. She clearly has some sort of handicap, which is treated lightly and a little disrespectfully by some of the characters . It’s alluded that she’s in some sort of arrested development state, though we are offered no real explanation or history of this, just a bit of backstory that doesn’t go far to explain it. She gets fierce bullying from girls at school who think she’s faking it, which strikes me as extremely insensitive. Again though, I’d like to think that this will be made up for later. Experience has taught me that these things typically aren’t handled with a gentle touch, but all the same, I’m optimistic.
This is certainly among the better series that Yen Press releases, and with You’re So Cool, Pig Bride, and One Thousand and One Nights wrapping up this summer, 13th Boy will be one of my most eagerly anticipated titles from them for the near future. Great stuff. Weird stuff. I’m excited to see where it goes.
I thought this was the volume where they explained that she had suffered a brain injury in a fall. I guess I assumed that was the cause of her delayed development, though I’m not exactly sure what was delayed.
She’s very “childlike” and seems to still socialize like a child, sort of, but her academic mental development seems unharmed (she’s top of her class, if I remember right). Her classmates’ bullying is inexcusable, but I don’t think it’s totally outside the realm of possibility that they would think she was faking it when she’s so smart academically and so strange in other ways. Er, or something.
What do you think?
[...] on vol. 3 of 13th Boy (Slightly Biased Manga) A Library Girl on vol. 9 of After School Nightmare (A Library Girl’s [...]
They did mention that she had sustained injury in a fall, but then they went on to make a joke about how she was like that before the fall too, or something along those lines, so I wasn’t sure how to take that. I had forgotten she was top of her class. The bullying does make a little more sense that way, and I can think of a thousand things that would make the classmates stop, but sometimes teens are cruel.
I do like that the main characters all accept her, and she seems pretty sincere in her interactions with them. I’d hate for another explanation to come up later, like she has been “faking” it all this time to stay close to the boys, or something suddenly clicks and she turns into a different person, or it was somehow the effect of the magic.
I wanted to know if you could tell me the differences between manhwa and manga. Obviously I know they’re from different regions, but what about the aesthetic and story quality. Are the stories darker, more realistic, etc.?
I would love to give manhwa another try (I read Bride of the Water God 1, but not much else).
It’s hard to generalize both manga and manhwa, because both will fit the descriptions I’m about to give, but I’ll go ahead and do it anyway.
Most of the manhwa I’ve read is shoujo, so I’m not going to be able to comment on other genres, but I tend to like Korean girls comics because the stories are slightly more soapy (or soapy in a more realistic way), and while they usually do include a lot of humor, it’s less gag-style than Japanese girls comics, and more character-based, which always strikes me as funnier. Most of the ones I’ve read seem like their aimed at an older teen audience, or the stories are slightly more sophisticated.
My roommate is fond of pointing out that guys in Korean comics tend to be huge compared to the other characters, but character designs in general are a little more fashion-conscious and more mature-looking. Some of it is over-stylized, and there are a lot of people that hate the super-androgynous and very similar character designs a lot of series have, but I do like it.
A lot of the Korean girls’ comics available in English come from the same magazine, Wink, which means that a lot of them have very, very similar art styles. Bride of the Water God ran there, but it’s not quite the same flavor as the other series. Goong, One Thousand and One Nights, Martin & John, and Let Dai are all Wink series that are very good.
I didn’t really care for Bride of the Water God either, I thought it was hard to follow, and I just couldn’t get into the characters. Depending on what kind of Japanese shoujo you like, there are several places to start. If you wanted a relatively serious series that focused on folklore and was pretty drama-heavy, you might try Dokebi Bride. If you like addictive high school drama-fests with a light touch, try 13th Boy, Sugarholic, You’re So Cool, Very Very Sweet, Bird Kiss, Goong, or Kill Me Kiss Me. If you like boy’s love, try Let Dai, Totally Captivated, Martin and John, One Thousand and One Nights, or The Summit. For Bride of the Water God except good, and with the Little Mermaid instead of Korean folklore, give Evyione a try.
Basically, I wouldn’t let just one series turn you off since there’s a ton of stuff out there (and even a few male-oriented series, though those are much rarer in English). Yen Press has a pretty solid catalog, and so does Netcomics, so I would browse through their catalogs and see if anything catches your interest. Yen Press is slightly more contemporary, where Netcomics has what seem to be more old-school series (less soapy, more serious, completely different art style).