Forum - View topicManwha!
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Haru to Ashura
 Posts: 617 Location: Termina |
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Comics from the peninsula!
What do you think of manwha? I lot of anime/manga fans seem to bash it, and I'm truly not sure why. I like a lot of manwha, and I'm glad that South Korea is marketing manwha here in the states. The pacing in manwha is really different from manga (faster paced in many cases) , and the artwork is generally very detailed and unique. Although, I generally buys girl's comics, so I can't really speak for the boy's manwha. |
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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Well there are a lot of so-so manhwa out there that tried too hard to copy their japanese counterpart. I found some that were pretty good read though. One I really like are Priest and Soul to Seoul.
Priest in my opinion is better than Hellsing any day. A horror western manga about revenge, love, hate, faith, and betrayal. A great story that starts typical action and violence (up to volume 2) has evolved into a compelling story (around volume 4 and beyond). Shifting through 3 different time period effortlessly has given Priest an “epic” feel to it with some really well written character with flaws. Min-Woo start bringing in a lot of character and telling multiple story at once. After six volume of Hellsing, it lack of story really made me question why I'm reading this. Soul to Seoul isn't the best shoujo out there, but I like it enough and think it would make a great korean film. Oh yeah, any of Hyun Se Lee's work: Nambul, Mythology of the Heaven and Hard Boiled Angel are usually pretty good. He's probably the most respected manhwa artist in Korea. Last edited by darkhunter on Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:43 am; edited 3 times in total |
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DarkTenshi90
 Posts: 440 Location: Nebraska |
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I've read a couple of manwha,
 but the only series I bought was Demon Diary. I love the art, I've noticed in many manwha that the art is very detailed (not saying manga isn't), it I'm a sucker for good pictures. I would check Demon Diary out if you haven't, it's a humorous story about this younger person named Raenef who was found by Eclipse and was told he's a demon lord, so Eclipse trains him. Then, ofcourse, some hardships come along the way. Oh, and there's slight shounen-ai hintings within the books. XP
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Mexicanime86
 Posts: 135 Location: Dallas, TX |
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I've only read three manwha titles: Under The Glass Moon, PHD:Phantasy Degree, and Kill Me, Kiss Me. (fyi, they're in order, from average to good.)
Their not exactly masterpieces, but a good read nonetheless, especially Kill Me, Kiss Me, as it's a romantic comedy, with heavy shounen-ai tones(  too much if you ask me) but a good read nontheless.
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Kagemusha
 Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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The ones I've read range from solid to mediocre, but of course I've only read what's published here. Some people seem to think that manwha is, on a whole, inferior to manga because the modern Korean comic so heavily emulates manga that the market has come to revolve around subpar products that emulate popular forms of manga, similar to what many people feel about the direction the OEL market is going in. Personally doubt this theory is true as so much of a manga/manwha's quality depends on the author. Korean cinema is influenced by Japanese cinema, and right now some of the most creative and best films are coming from South Korea. I don't see why the same can't be said for manwha, especially since we in America have a limited exposure to it (and lets face it, Tokyopop probobly isn't going to be publishing the most innovative of things.)
As for Priest, the volumes I read were pretty derivative if you take out the great art. Preacher kicks its ass any day, with deeper characters, a more interesting conflict/questioning of god, better writing AND it easily bests Hellsing in terms of humor (though it's about as dark as you can get.) Of course I haven't looked at the later volumes. |
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darkhunter
Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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Well it's kind of unfair to compare two. Priest is really like shounen manga, while Preacher was written for an older audience. It's kind of like comparing Kenshin to Blade of the Immortal. Both might have a similar setup but the direction and story the writer wanted to take are very different. Preacher's unrestricted, thus it was really outrageous and extremely over the top. Priest is more confined and takes a more typical cinematic appraoch.
Like Berserk, the first 3 volume of Priest are definitely the weakest part of the overall story and come off like another typical violent shooter series. But every volume after that was really well-paced and more plot-driven because the focus has change from the mindless action sequence to the characters and their flaw. Beside faith, it's a story about a love that was never destine to be. Priest isn't overly shocking or deeply philosophical, it simply rely on telling a compelling story using tragic character -like a good novel. 
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I haven't read much manwha, but I really don't understand all the bashing it gets. Why should it be automatically inferiour, because it's not Japanese?
I'm not saying it's all great, but all manga isn't great either. |
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KittiCat1031
 Posts: 41 Location: New Jersey |
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I just started reading some manhwa. Goong and Honey Mustard are two of my favorites. I think that the stories and art are very well written and drawn but the characters are not as expressive as in the Japanese manga.
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ShadrachAnki
 Posts: 180 Location: New England |
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I've enjoyed most of the manhwa I've read up to this point, and I have to say that as with manga or any other sequential art form you're going to get good titles and you're going to get mediocre ones.
I wouldn't say that manhwa is automatically inferior because it isn't Japanese, but the market seems to be younger overall and that is going to affect the quality of the works being brought to America for translation (and it may affect the quality of those translations in general). Many of the manhwa I've seen have a great amount of detailing, and this can have the effect of making everything seem cluttered, especially if the printing quality isn't absolutely top notch. ~Shadrach Anki |
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Oneiropolos
Posts: 24 |
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I generally don't care of a title is from Japan or Korea. I do think there are some differences in the way the stories are told, but I love Model and Queen's Knight. Queen's Knight gets no love, which I suspect is because the first volume is completely "What the heck just happened?" but starting with Volume two it got really good and addicting. Tokyopop is also REALLY slow with releasing it, which doesn't help. I just liked Model because it had vampires and it was really pretty. Yes, that's my shallow "I wanna look at pretty pictures!" side.
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marie-antoinette
Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I've read the first volume of Queen's Knight and enjoyed it. If the series wasn't so long, I probably would buy more now...it's one that I might pick up again in the future though, once some of the other series I'm really into have finished their runs. |
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ShadrachAnki
Posts: 180 Location: New England |
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I love Queen's Knight, but I think the slow release schedule really is hurting its overall visiblity on the market. I really don't know what the holdup between volumes 4 and 5 was all about, but I hope that it isn't a recurring thing with this series. I agree that the storytelling styles between manga and manhwa can be quite different (and I find that interesting, since there seem to be a fair number of cultural similarities). That difference may be another reason why manhwa isn't as popular currently. ~Shadrach Anki |
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