Goong 2

This volume was just as satisfying as the first.  I was actually a little more pleased with it since a lot of the comedy is left behind, leaving what is truly an awful situation for Chae-Kyung.

I loved the awkward wedding at the beginning of the volume.  The manga helps out a lot by pointing out the traditional steps in a Korean royal wedding, then walking the characters through them.  The elaborate ceremonial costumes are really, really awesome, and Chae-Kyung’s displeasure with the whole affair, which involves her being carried several miles on a palanquin while wearing a large, awkward headdress.  For her part, she doesn’t embarass yourself like you thought she would after seeing how silly she was last volume.  There is one point where she accidentally bows and can’t get her head back up because of the headdress.

And after all this, the prince is still a huge jerk.  He tries to be at least civil a few times, but he gets it out in the open right away that he is what he is and he can’t hide the fact he doesn’t really care about the royal family, making things very, very awkward for Chae-Kyung.  Though she hates his guts, she begins to develop a sexual attraction to him that she can’t stop.  The volume leaves off on an interesting cliffhanger.  To add to this, the prince’s cousin, whose father would have been the crown prince had he not died, is the only one at the palace that is civil to Chae-Kyung, which may or may not have “sexy results.”

Another detail that I liked was showing Chae-Kyung going back to her school life.  Really, the fact that the series seems to portray the unfortunate and unlikely situation of becoming a princess in the most realistic way possible is probably its strength.  I really, really need to pick up the next couple volumes now.

Goong 1

Sadly, the only Yen Press series I have any interest in are the old Ice Kunion manhwa series.  This one passed under my radar when it first came out (I think because Ice Kunion only got one volume squeezed out before they went under), but I decided to pick it up during a sale last summer, and just got around to reading it.

It’s quite good.  I can’t quite explain it to you, because it does a lot of things that I hate.  The main character is of the spazzy sort that has some sort of visual overreaction gag going on every few panels, and I hate reading series like that.  Except her gags (and the gags for all other characters, too), involve the characters making the most horrible face ever.  It makes me laugh even though I hate doing it.  In addition to this, I sort of cringed when a scene started with the prince of Korea bumping into the main character.  There’s one panel where I thought to myself “great, so she’s going to stand up to him since he’s being a jerk, and he’ll fall for her since she treats him like a regular person, and things will go on from there.”  Before I could heave my mental sigh, the main character herself walks through these steps in an elaborate gag before revealing the truth of the matter, which was just that she and her friend were fighting over something the prince was throwing out and not standing up to him at all.  The breaking of the fourth wall was weird, but it made me laugh anyway because it HAD me.

The actual plot of the series is that, after Chae-Kyung gets off on the wrong foot with the prince a few times, it comes out that the two of them are engaged through an old promise their grandfathers made (Chae-Kyung isn’t royalty, but her grandfather was apparently the former King’s best friend).  The wedding has to take place immediately since the new princess will have to get accustomed to palace life from as young an age as possible (at this point, early high school, I guess, which is about as young as she can be without it being weird that she’s getting married).  Neither one really wants anything to do with it, apparently the prince doesn’t have any real friends, and the one girl he asks to marry in Chae-Kyung’s place rejects him.  So there you go.

Chae-Kyung also has to move away from her family and into the palace, and after that, she has to move far away from her own hometown since the prince wishes to live in a remote palace, away from his family.  Chae-Kyung has to get used to the fact she will be a celebrity now and that people will treat her differently, and she’ll basically be leaving her old life behind to live with someone she doesn’t like and that sort of hates her back.  There is an older prince that moves in from England that looks like he may be a potential romantic interest, too.

Despite Chae-Kyung’s silliness, I do kind of like the more serious look at how awful something like being randomly chosen to marry another person, and in this case a celebrity, would be.  It actually left me quite curious about what is in Chae-Kyung’s immediate future, so I’m probably going to be reading the second volume tomorrow and picking up the next two ASAP.  It’s very, very good.