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Forum - View topicHouse of 1000 Manga - One Thousand and One Nights
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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I feel like within the past 6 months or so, I've suddenly gone "oh damn, I have almost no manhwa in my collection!" so I'd love to see more columns on manhwa. This realization happened because I actually started watching my You're Beautiful set I'd gotten on RightStuf a while ago, now I'm sad YA Ent is out, I feel like I'm missing so much! Thank goodness for DramaFever I guess.
That said, this is actually one of the few manhwa I had in my collection before this realization (the other few are Threads of Time and Hotel Africa, and I've also become addicted since to Goong not long ago in February and got my friend addicted too). And yeah, 1001 Nights is good stuff. I seem to enjoy the hint of yaoiness more than blatant yaoiness, so when it came to the more BL elements of 1001 Nights, I actually enjoyed them. And all the random side stories were interesting too, and yeah, I did enjoy not knowing if they'd end happy or sad. Even if they were stories I'd heard before, I think they were told very well, making them never feel like a chore to read. The one that threw me for a loop though was the spoiler[future war one because dude, it took place in the future, wtf? Well modern day here, but to the characters, future], but I guess that's why I remember that one more too. I do remember wishing there were a few more volumes of 1001 Nights though. I don't think it ended suddenly or without resolving things, I just wanted more. If anyone else is reading this, any other manhwa I should dive into? I need to finalize my Otakon wish list asap. |
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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Jason said:
"bishonen (I don't even know the Korean word for this)" kkonminam, "flower beautiful man", is pretty much identical in both use and meaning. "it's not exactly Boy's Love, it's not exactly boy's comics or girls' comics" Wink is pretty much a sunjung (also spelled sunjeong) magazine, directly equivalent to shoujo manga, and has run other BL-ish series like Let Dai, as well as het romances like Goong: The Royal Palace and the fabulous Bride of the Water God. |
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sakuragtin
 Posts: 222 |
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Congrats to One Thousand and One Nights for being the first manwha on House of 1000 Manga! It certainly deserves it and I hope that more manwha are highlighted in this column in the future.
This is one of my favorite series that I own. I liked the story within the story format it used and how the author drew from different cultures and times not just the original Arabian tales. Actually, I'm quite fond of the last story told by the Sultan to Sehara where he made a point to end it happy since most of Sehara's ended bittersweet. It wasn't the best in the book but it really made the Sultan look like such a romantic, showing how he's changed or rather how Sehara changed him. It's unfortunate that manwha seems to be mostly ignored. I think that currently only Yen Press and Dark Horse are even publishing any manwha titles. NETCOMICS is still alive (sort of) but its completely digital now. I haven't heard out of Dramaqueen in a year or so... Thinking on my collection a lot of it of my favorite titles are manwha like Let Dai, Queens, and U Don't Know Me. I especially enjoy Netcomics releases back in the day and the few manwha that Tokyopop released before croaking. |
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EighteenSky
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I didn't realise Yen Press published this, when I was looking through what manwha was being released in the west I must have overlooked this but this column has now put it up top on my list to buy.
It's a shame manwha doesn't sell well over here, it's not like they've picked bad series to bring over either. |
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1770 |
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The hard part with manhwa is that very little of it is licensed. Someone already mentioned "Bride of the Water God", and I second that recommendation. I also like "Noblesse" . I've heard that it's now been licensed in the US, but I don't know if there have been any releases yet. It's a long running manwha, so you'll have plenty to read. It's largely about one elite vampire and his interactions with the human, vampire and (now) werewolf world. I also like "Dear Only You Don't Know" (Story about 5 different women and their issues), "Dear My Girls" ('Little Women' related), "Thousand Year Ninetails" (girl lives with ninetails fox boy, hijinks ensue). If you're looking for something with a fairly easy plot and bishies, anything from Mi Ri Hwang will work. My opinion of her work is that,if you read one, you've read them all. I liked "Delinquent Cinderella", but all her stories are largely the same. Even the male leads look similar. Regarding manwha, it's sad that a lot of it has not been licensed. There is some good stuff out there, like BotWG and Noblesse, but my opinion is that, in many series, the artwork is seriously lacking in comparison to many manga. |
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sakuragtin
Posts: 222 |
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^
Really? I don't think it's very lacking in artwork. Bride of the Water God is gorgeous and just like the article stated One Thousand and One Nights has some beautiful artwork. Most of the manwha I've read tend to have pretty character designs and detailed backgrounds. My only tick would be characters tend to be a bit stiff but that's more reminiscent to me of old style shojo. @classicalzawa I would definitely suggest Let Dai if you already haven't discovered it yet. It's a very intense coming of age drama/romance with some wonderful artwork. The same author wrote Full House but only 4 volumes have been released in print stateside by CPM. Netcomics did pick it up but as far as I know its just been a digital release for them. Not So Bad is also pretty good and fits your criteria for light BL. Honestly after all of the BL I've read, I tend to like how manwha handles BL better than in manga. Actually after thinking about it, some of my favorite BL titles on my shelves are manwha. |
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Cutiebunny
Posts: 1770 |
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Mi Ri Hwang is a perfect example of the less than stellar artwork that plagues many Korean manwha. Her artwork looks like it came straight from the earliest episodes of Sailor Moon, and many of her characters exhibit the same expressions that Toei artists used for their characters. And while I could understand the use of this style if the manga I was referring to was released during the 1990s, these were all released in the past decade.
"Dear My Girls" also has some problems. While the background and costumes are well done, the actual character composition is not. The expressions and body movement are not well executed. The artwork for most of the web comic series, which is how a lot of titles, like "Noblesse", are released in Korea, are well drawn, and since they're web comics that many view on their phones, they're all CG and in color. |
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bobob101
 Posts: 201 |
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Manwha really don't get nearly as much attention as manga do. I find that Manwha can be divided into two categories, Web comics and normal comics. Webcomics are typically found on sites like Naver, are done as a giant vertical column, are often times fully colored, and might even have sound. Normal comics are like your standard manga, but they don't go right to left like manga do. The best Webcomic in my opinion is Tower of God or Flow. Of the standard style, Id or Breaker are my picks. But Tower of God is one of the best series out there regardless of nationality, so it is definitely worth picking up.
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catandmouse
Posts: 221 |
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I was actually thinking about the lack of manhwa coverage the other day since I recently came back from Anime Expo.
Anyway, I own a few manwhas I actually have 1001 Nights, and others I have are: Cynical Orange Bring it On! Let Dai Angel Diary I hope that Chiro Star Project ever gets licenced as well as a physical release of Noblesse? Anyone ever read any manhua? (Chinese comincs). The only one I've read and really enjoyed was The Prince's Cactus. |
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Snomaster1
 SubscriberPosts: 2943 |
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Although the U.S. has a significant Korean population,there isn't a lot of English language manuha in this country. I've seen a few of them in the manga sections here but not many. I hope that there isn't a lot of jealousy among Korean-Americans that manuha has yet to take off here.
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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I had been reading manga for at least five or six years before I realized that some of what I was reading was not really manga, it was manhua or manhwa. I never noticed any difference while I was reading the books.
This was back when most manga in the US was being flipped, so there was no difference in the orientation most of the time. There was even some OEL that I thought was manga. Now that most manga is not flipped the others do stand out more, but personally I do not really care. As long as I like the books I do not care what country they came from. I have not noticed anything that makes the books from Japan generally better, or worse, than the books from Korea and China. EDIT: Now I am not sure that I have read any manhua. I had assumed that some of non-manga that I have read must have been manhua, but after looking at some lists of titles that I found through Google I could not find any that I recognized. So all of what I have read might have been manhwa. |
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zeo1fan
Posts: 1016 |
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I'm sort of confused on what the issue is with the author being a dude. Would it be frowned upon if I, a gay male, wrote about gay men? o_O
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2273 |
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I'd like some clarification on that too, but at a best guess, I'd say that, assuming he's a straight dude, people think he shouldn't be writing about gay love, or, since BL is mostly made with a by-women-for-women mentality as a "safe" means of exploring sexuality, that he's somehow violating that mentality. Buuuut, that's a stretch. Honestly, most of the manhua I've read have been webcomics. I did try quite a few Mi Ri Hwang stuff (I was *desperately* hoping they'd get better), but I ended up reading her best/darkest one first (Hot-Blooded Woman)--it had some sort of notorious twist about the heroine spoiler[being just as manipulative as the bad guy, but unfortunately without any follow-up or consequences]--and not being able to find that much else. Mi Ri Hwang's stuff seemed to suffer from some nigh-incomprehensible scanlations, too, especially with all the unfamiliar honorifics. I did try Bride of the Water God, but I'm not big on romances, so it really wasn't for me. However, I really liked Noblesse when I read it back in '11 (can't remember why I dropped it; I remember liking it a lot!), and I've recently been reading Girls of the Wild's (and no, that's not a typo, at least not on my part. I think the title is in incorrect English) and the heartbreaking Can't See, Can't Hear, But Love. Honestly, I find the vertical format much more appealing. I feel like it lends itself to different forms of visual storytelling you can't find anywhere else; I remember one panel in Noblesse where a character looks like he's getting hit in the top part of the panel, but as you scroll down, you can see he actually avoided it. Pretty neat trick, if you can pull it off well! |
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