Let Dai 5

I haven’t read any Netcomics books in a long time!  I got a bunch of them during a studio sale at the Right Stuf, but for some reason I haven’t indulged myself yet.  They’re all good, but Let Dai is my favorite of the bunch, so let me start here.

Lucky for me, this volume isn’t actually all that violent.  I hate myself a little bit for reading so addictively when characters get the shit beat out of them.  It is the nature of the series, and it does make the drama that much more intense… it wouldn’t be the same without Dai’s violent nature, but it still turns my stomach a bit when it happens.

There’s a little violence.  For some reason Yooneun is the victim of a random act of violence.  She’s not badly hurt save for her… trust, or perhaps admiration, of Jaehee, because she suspects Dai.  Or rather, she is sure Dai is somehow behind it.  The story has neither confirmed or denied this yet, but I suspect she is probably wrong and this will end badly.

Eunhyung is still doing bad things, and she sort of flips out on one of her girlfriends when they try to see her panties at one point.  She seems to be doing a bit better, I guess, but the volume ends on a bit of a cliffhanger as far as she’s concerned, so I’m rather curious about that.

Jaehee and Dai celebrate Dai’s birthday together.  When the two of them are together and playing nice, it makes everything else worth it.  Their relationship is quite sincere, which is something that is sadly lacking in most romance manga.  It’s a shame that it can also be abusive, or was in the past, because that makes it hard to recommend… especially after I make these bold claims and the two are beating each other up for the first couple volumes.

I almost didn’t recognize Dai’s brother, who seems like he’ll become important later.  Similarly, I was kind of bummed that Naru wasn’t around very much.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Let Dai 4

I may have said this last time, but this is seriously one of the most romantic comics I’ve ever read.  It’s still a bit awkwardly wordy, but it just doesn’t take away from it.  I mentioned in my review for Selfish Mr. Mermaid that I really wanted a good BL series.  I had forgotten about this one.  I really need to get myself caught up on it.  I believe it’s currently one chapter away from being finished on Netcomics, too.

This volume was much better than the past ones because the main love interest wasn’t beating the shit out of people intermittently.  There was a tense scene between Dai and Jaehee’s new friend, but the two were picking a fight with one another, so it wasn’t so much a random act of violence, and it wasn’t nearly as brutal as past encounters.  The relationship between Dai and Jaehee seems to finally be an acknowledged thing
here too, and there’s a lot of time spent with the two boys together.  The romantic scenes are quite good, and do a good job of being sometimes very passionate and other times subtle.  There are some really weird scenes where Dai is trying to discuss his feelings with Jaehee and his expressions get very cartoony.  That just seemed extremely out-of-character for Dai, even if he was being teased and struggling.

The conflict in this volume comes from Dai’s father.  Dai’s family connections are revealed, and Dai’s father also finds out why Dai has calmed down lately.  The consequences are not good, as you can imagine, and things lead up to the next volume.  I’m very excited to read more.

Let Dai 3

I was really happy with this volume, actually, because it was extremely positive compared to the first two volumes. Even poor Eunhyung is finding a way to deal with what happened to her. While I still feel really bad about her situation, I like the transformation she seems to be undertaking. I mean, it could definitely turn out poorly in the end, but reinventing herself to be stronger isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I LOVE Naru Hagi. He’s exactly what this series needed to lighten things up. I mean, we mostly just get a lot of Jaehee angsting, so it’s good that Naru’s there to dance whenever things happen like people’s wallets get stolen or whatever. I like his entire family. I didn’t recognize him without his wig on. I was also very happy to learn that his dad makes wigs for a living, I think that’s pretty awesome.

Dai is around, of course. At the end, we get a big emotional scene, which is what I like in this series. It wasn’t even violent, so I enjoyed it to its fullest without any guilt. I’m glad the two boys can sling mud at each other and don’t have to beat each other within an inch of their lives to show their love.

What else…? We also get to see Dai’s family. It was kinda what I was expecting, except his dad is a real psycho… like Dai, I suppose.

I also like that the character’s speech is censored, but that Dai is wearing a bandanna which cleary has “FUCK” written across the front in huge letters.

Let Dai 2

Abuse and obsession continue in equal doses. The girl that was captured and abused, Jaehee’s girlfriend, seems somewhat worse for wear in this volume. She’s basically rejected her old personality and seems to be failing an inner battle, she reacts violently if someone, especially men, come in contact with her person. She’s trying to hide what happened from her mother, but one wonders if she’ll be able to do it for long.

Jaehee moves, and has some SERIOUS INNER CONFLICT about Dai. Not knowing how the mind of a lovestruck boy works, I found the frequent and eloquent soliloquies kind of bizarre, but it’s definitely part of this story’s charm. Things are stalled for a long time, but in the downtime, the characters let you know in a lot of words just what it is that they’re thinking. It at least helps the stories become more sincere.

It is interesting to see Yooneun and Jaehee torn apart inside by their bad decisions. The actions may not be the wisest, but the heart wants what it wants, I suppose.

The violence comes in more towards the end in the form of a heartfelt reunion.

Let Dai is the most drama-tastic shoujo (or whatever the Korean equivalent is) in English, hands down. Not even Nana can hold a candle to the drama here, though Nana certainly has a leg up story-wise. God knows nothing but disastrous relationships happens in Let Dai.

Let Dai 1

I really like that Netcomics seems to stick to the same artist, so if I like one series I can immediately hop onto the next one when it’s over.  Unfortunately, the newer generation of series don’t really sound like my kind of thing, so I went backwards.  I absolutely adored Devil’s Trill in the Manhwa Novella Collection, and Let Dai is her series that Netcomics has been running… well, since they opened, really.

The one thing that this has in common with Devil’s Trill is the, uh, flowery language.  As much as I appreciate ambitious writing, something about it doesn’t read quite right.  It could be the translation/adaptation, but it’s probably like this in Korean too, and it may just seem off because there are pages and pages of these heartfelt, verbally ornate soliloquies.

One thing this does for it, though, is make all the relationships seem super passionate and sincere.  There’s Jaehee, his “girlfriend” Eunhyung, her sister Yooneun, and Dai.  The manga opens with Yooneun getting robbed by Dai and his gang.  At this point, Jaehee and she had not met, but he decides to intervene when he sees the scene anyway.  This brings the wrath of Dai’s gang the furies down on him, and after several beatings, he finds himself mysteriously and inexplicably initiated into the gang against his will.  Since the first time he stood up for her, Yooneun has fallen hard for Jaehee.  Eunhyung and Jaehee aren’t actually dating, but they’re best friends and Eunhyung really really likes him… so you know how that goes.  And from the first time Dai beat Jaehee up, apparently the two had fallen for each other.

Dai and Jaehee are the couple that get the most focus, but Jaehee is trying to push himself away from Dai the whole time.  Dai is described right off the bat as the devil, and he does many evil things throughout the course of the book.  But mostly, it’s just drama drama drama, and you won’t find anything this hardcore and dysfunctional outside a soap opera.  Most manga fall way short of the passion of the romatic problems in this series.  Aside from a lot of physical abuse, there are a lot of other complications that may arise from jealousy et al (Yooneun is older than Jaehee and Eunhyung, and Eunhyung begins to suspect the two are dating in secret and follows her sister around, which leads to other bad things), so there’s a lot of places its flowery and somewhat corny dialogue can take it.  I like it pretty well so far, though.

The cover looks a lot like the covers of Strain.  Unfortunately, the rest of the covers seem to be regular illustrations, which I’m less excited by.