Manhwa Review: Goong: The Royal Palace (1-3)

Another title I was happy to find at the not so local library since I had read a lot of gushing for it over at the Manga Bookshelf but none of the other libraries I had been to had any of the books. Actually it's interesting, after going to so many different libraries over the years you can really tell which ones had a librarian (or more than one) who was really dedicated to buying manga and you can even tell when they started. This library must have started putting together it's collection in the early 2000s judging from the age of some of the books which is fascinating since I remember around 2005 when I first discovered manga my library had a few books but didn't really start getting more until 2009 and even then seems to have stopped in favor of buying more graphic novels instead. I just find all this fascinating, it provides an odd look into another book lover's mind.

Goong: The Royal Palace by So Hee Park

Summary: In an alternate world Korea still has it's monarchy and much like the British Crown it wields some power and has a great deal of pomp and circumstance. With it's crown prince coming of age the family feels the pressure to marry him off and recall a promise the old king made to his friend, to marry his heir to his daughter. Neither of the young people in question, Prince Shin Lee and average girl Che-Kyung are at all happy with this arrangement but neither of them can break it for now and must go through the show of being a happily married husband and wife.

The Good: Well I learned some real-world history but probably not in the way the creator meant to concerning the Korean monarchy (it seems it was dissolved during World War II which, sadly, was way too recently for any of my history classes to have covered) which was interesting. I did like the politics as well, I can easily see how some problems that some characters are starting in these volumes could take quite a while to resolve, but sadly that's about the only part about the volumes I did enjoy and the politics at this point are still only a sub-plot.

The Bad: Let me put it this way, the library had all the volumes so I planned to try and get through them all before I moved so I could have one large review yet I didn't and it wasn't for lack of time. After the third volume I gave up, Che-Kyung was too odd, Shin Lee was frankly an ass, heck I couldn't sympathize with any of the characters except for a few minor side ones, the other prince creeped me out a bit for no specific reason, didn't care about the "romance" and found the humor completely unfunny (part of which had to do with the art style). This was completely not my cup of tea, I had hoped for a stronger focus on politics (which may have come later and there was quite a bit of politics, don't get me wrong there) but the "romance" just killed it for me.

The Art: As mentioned earlier, the art for the comedic moments also really threw me out of the series, for some reason Park decides to use these really ugly chibis so I spent all my time just cringing at them instead of possibly laughing at them which isn't a good thing. The rest of the time the art looked rather lovely actually but the chibis come up pretty often which I thought was a bummer. 

In the end I'm only going to give these three volumes 2.5 out of 5 stars and don't intend to read the rest. I'm sure some people will really like this, and for those who do the series is licensed in North America by Yen Press, but I'm not one of them.

Manga Shorts: Two Flowers for the Dragon

Quick note, meant to post this with Sunday's post, but even thought today is the last day of November regular updates will not resume until next week. Why? Because I'm working on two huge final projects for my photo projects, I have just a week and a half to do what will amount to about 15 hours of work on each plus I have a video to edit together by Tuesday as well. So I need a few extra days to get some rough reviews written up and to make some real headway on these projects, I will be so glad when this semester is over. @_@

So, onto the actual manga, I'd heard about this one for a few years, mainly that due to CMX's collaspe that the final volume would never be published, but it wasn't until I saw this House of 1000 Manga column that I became interested and at the same time the All About Manga blog was giving away a few duplicate volumes she had and I said I was kinda interested in the TFftD one. I got it, started reading the scanlations online, since it was volume five, and was immedately hooked and had to run out and buy the sixth volume before the prices on it went any higher. 

Two Flowers for the Dragon by Nari Kusakawa

A shoujo series in a vaguely Chinese, desert setting (going by the clothing style and what Shakuya’s dragon form looks like), Shakuya is in line to be the next ruler of the oasis and has been engaged since she was very young to the son of one of the local nobles as per tradition. However five years ago her fiancée, Lucien, vanished and she was betrothed to a new man, Kuwan, whom she loves very dearly despite their age difference. Trouble arises however when Lucien reappears and has only hazy memories of his life before he vanished but it’s clear that he is Shakuya’s original suitor. Shakuya’s mother decides to solve this problem by taking advantage of the fact that Shakuya’s engagement tattoos, a flower on each hand representing Lucien and Kuwan’s families, have sprouted flowers and whichever flower has the most buds at the end of the year shows which man she loves the best and who she will marry. Originally this sounded like a really contrived reason for a love triangle so I avoided the series but it really does work and Shakuya’s mother’s idea actually seems rather logical. But I really feel in love with the series because of Shakuya, she’s half dragon giving her control over water (the whole reason her family is in charge of the oasis) and can actually shape shift into a dragon and she’s never ashamed of these qualities or worries about the boys disliking her for it, it’s so refreshing and natural feeling to have a main character who’s that confident about herself. There was also a surprising amount of action in the series, I was really surprised at just how many people get major injuries, and there is a well-written plot going on in the background to tie together all the events. My biggest problem with the series though is that the last volume was never released in English and it’s near impossible to find out what happens in the very end. Scanlations stop midway through volume five, I own five and six, and I do know which guy she ends up with in final volume but I don’t know how exactly it happened. I have a guess or two how it happened but I really want to read or see it for myself, give me the last volume in any language and I will figure out how to translate it just to give myself some peace of mind, I think it shows just how much I enjoy this series if I’m willing to go to that much trouble to track down the ending to it.  

And that's the end of the manga shorts month guys! I actually enjoyed writing about all of these series quite a bit and if I do NaNo again next year I'll probably do something similar again. Until then however I have a whole slew of OOP manga I need to track down, I can hear my wallet protesting already.

 

Book Review: The Exiled Queen (A Seven Realms Novel book two)

Like the title says, this is the second book in the series (I think it's a trilogy, that's what the website says anyway) and I read the first book, The Demon King, last year and just didn't like it. I really did like Chima's previous trilogy (now a series, maybe that's why I'm confused), The Heir Series, because of the setting (finally Ohio gets a bit of love!) and the magic was interesting but I just wasn't drawn into this new series (and, now that I think back on it, I had major issues with the last book in The Heir Series as well, huh). I didn't manage to connect with the leads, the setting alternatively confused me and bored me (it came off as Native American culture mixed with Irish culture but I don't think it was supposed to be interpreted like that) but it did have a saving grace in the ending. I was expecting the ending to contain the "oh, we'll accidentally reveal our secret identifies to each other and create an uneasy truce and fall in love after being tsundere at first" cliche. Heck, that still hasn't happened in this book and I did enjoy this book more so I'm hopeful about the third book.

The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima

I really like this cover (and The Demon King 's cover ) because the cover is simple, has a good color scheme, the title/author name on their side is intriguing, and it has an item on the cover that is actually important in the story (and actually looks like the object in question too!).

Summary: Continuing from where the first book left off, Princess Heir Raisa flees the Fells with a small group of body guards and the forced (and illegal) marriage to Micah Bayer, a wizard, to hide in Oden's Ford (a giant school for magic, soldiers, musicians, and other arts). Ironically enough, Hans Allister, newly a wizard, and Fire Dancer are on a mission from the Clans to study wizardry at Oden's Ford to combat the other wizards in the capital. But there are enemies everywhere for both of them and who knows how long either of them can stay inconspicuous. 

The Good: Like I said above, the series has managed to avoid a really big cliche so far and by the end of the book Han and Raisa are developing a much better and more natural relationship with each other. They're still holding back secrets and I think I see how this is going to end but it's working well so far. Interesting to see some of the younger villains get fleshed out more and the story introduced quite a few other characters I hope to see return (mostly because it'll seem like a cheap trick if they don't). This book also expanded the setting considerably and now has enough material for more than three book and I'm sure the civil wars in the neighboring countries will figure into the upcoming book(s) so that should be interesting.

The Bad: Alright, Hans says he's a character who doesn't go looking for trouble but for the first half or so of the book he got into trouble every two pages he's present. And every time it's him rising to provocation and he acknowledges it (and if Dancer is present he's always going "don't!"). I was using stronger words than Dancer and, while I don't mind an untruthful narrator this wasn't even that, this was just watching Hans be an unlikeable idiot for a lot of chapters (and at the same time Raisa was mooning over one of the boys due to a lack of communication, gah, which wasn't that much more interesting). I did like the characters more towards the end of the book


So, the books are door-stoppers, I'm annoyed at the leads half the time, plot needs more politics (well, that's a IMO thing)  and I'm still not drawn in by the setting but I still want to see this series through to the ending. Partially because of how much time I've already spent reading it, partially because I'm hoping with the story back in the Fells with more mature characters we'll have some political maneuvering. So, not giving up hope yet, although I do hope the series isn't longer than four or five books.