Love Manga

This is it, the final day of the Love Manga Manhwa Competition. Thanks to everyone who entered in to yesterdays chance to win Ice Kunions Bring It On, in fact there were so many good entries that I just could not decide who to pick so we have 2 winners today.

ChunHyang72:

I dutifully clicked on the preview for Volume 1 of “Bring It On!” and felt my heart sink: the author’s description of the story sounded like pure shojo formula. (Tomboy falls for popular, unattainable bishonen. Angst and hijinks ensue.) But this all-too-familiar set-up actually yields a fresh and funny read. Miha and Seung-suh’s battle o’ the sexes plays like a giddy mash-up of “Woman of the Year,” “The Matrix,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Never Been Kissed,” and “Hana-Kimi.” The heroine’s butt-kicking abilities teeter on the edge of plausibility, but her attempts to camoflague her vulnerability with fisticuffs… well, as a lifelong tomboy, that detail felt just right. I’d love to see what develops from their (verbal) sparring.

sleepykitten13:

I’ve heard of the title a few times before, but I never knew what it was about.
I’m really glad I took a look at the previews; they had me laughing the whole time. The style is great, sometimes a style can distract you, but reading this was pretty smooth for me. I love Mi-ha! Her character is pretty outrageous, but that’s what makes even the simplest story a great one to read. I haven’t been able to figure Seung-Suh out though, if he is supposedly this tough, trouble-making gang member (will any more info be given about his past I wonder ), then why is he kind of nice to Mi-ha, aside from using her as a servant that is… I’m halfway expecting their relationship to take a turn towards romance, but who knows…
The part about the grandmother in book two was hilarious… although sad at the same time, because she reminds me of my own grandmother. She was the type to tell you to keep your elbows off the table while eating, but now is rather senile and does things like mixing up who people are…
That was kind of long…I have nothing witty to say, but the previews were fun to read and I’m interested to know more about these characters.. Plus I’m poor and would like some free manga to read too! *wink wink*

Well done to you both. (Yes, okay I suck at picking winners!)

Anyway, as it is the final day of this little competition I’d thought I’d save my favourite title to the end. In fact this is not just my favourite manhwa title of the moment it is well up there to be my favourite title of this year, but we’ll see how that pans out in the end of year Best Of post.

DVD

Publisher: DramaQueen Writer: Kye Young Chon Artist: Kye Young Chon Paperback: 180 pages ISBN: 1-933809-35-3 Age: 16+ RRP: $11.99 ($10.19 from the DQ Shop) Buy from the DQ Shop Reviews:

Yes the final title up for grabs is DramaQueen’s DVD by Kye Young Chon.

With only the first volume out it is unusual for me to be so hooked on a series. I try and least wait for a couple of volumes before making an opinion but with DVD I was hooked pretty much from the get go. Again I won’t go into the story details, but here is the summary from the DQ site, along with preview.

Ddam Shim is not having a good year. She failed to enter the specialized university for prosecutors, so she’s studying to re-take the exam, and living in a dorm room that’s no bigger than a bathroom. Of course bad things always come in three’s — the final straw that broke Ddam’s back was getting dumped by her boyfriend on their date.

His reason for the breakup? Well… aside from her not getting into university, he’s not too happy about her hallucinations. Sure — Ddam sees grape vines growing from ceilings and flowers drifting about in the air, but so what? Who doesn’t? It’s only natural if you’ve got an active imagination….

Alas, the breakup pushes Ddam over the edge, and she decides to kill herself. But—! Not before she makes the last day of her life count! So she dresses up, calls the number on her padded bra, heads out to the club to meet up with the guys from the number — and at the end of the evening, she’s wondering how she ended up… as their roommate…?

Welcome to DVD – the world of Ddam (spunky future prosecutor), Venu (the face that is the envy of all males), and DD (a punk rocker DJ): a story about a girl, two guys, and their motto of “living life miserably!”

I talked about Audition earlier this week which is the other Kye Young Chon title that DQ are currently releasing (Unplugged Boy is out in 2007), and as much as I love it, it cannot compare to DVD.

This title is everything that I love about Manhwa, the artwork is gorgeous with both DD and Venu looking just so beautiful and then adding Ddam to the mix makes this an extremely good looking read.
But even the pretty artwork fades into the background when compared to the story and the characters. Both are irreverent, funny and just downright strange that I could not help but love them instantly.

The situations they get into, the way they handle them and just the most simplest of conversations are all just so bizarre its so hard not to like it. This is just the type of title that I could re-read again and still enjoy it just as much as the first time.

Quite simply I love DVD, it is just great.

The rules are simple. If you’d like to pick up the first volume of DVD from DramaQueen then just drop me an email letting me know why you’d like to read it yourself.

It does not matter if you have entered the competition and won either.

The email and contact details are available from the top left contact page, or use lovemanga @ lovemanga . co . uk

I’ll announce the winner tomorrow. ^.^

This entry was posted on Friday, October 13th, 2006 at 12:49 pm and is filed under DramaQueen(t) , Manga(t) . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.