The Fall 2024 K-Comics Guide

Starstruck

What's It About? 

Seo Hanjun and Cho Yujae have been best friends since they were young. Hanjun has secretly been in love with Yujae for a long time but doesn't dare to confess his feelings since he knows they won't be reciprocated. As long as Yujae stays his best friend, that is all that Hanjun needs to be happy. But as the university entrance exams approach and Yujae becomes more open about his feelings, Hanjun begins to wonder if it would be okay to reach for that star he thought he could never have.

Starstruck has a story by HaTaeJin and art by MUM. The adaptation is by YuBaeg. Localized in English by Kakao Entertainment. Published by Tapas.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Do you like angst? I don't. Still, I can appreciate it if it's done well enough, and Starstruck is almost there. It pales in comparison with the similarly angsty BL I Cannot Reach You, but it should still be appealing if you enjoy that flavor of romance, queer or otherwise. And like that other title, this one focuses on two high school friends who are harboring secret(ish) romantic feelings for each other – and in the case of at least Hanjun, who gets to be the point of view character most of the time, those have been sitting in his heart for a very long time.

Hanjun and Yunjae first met in elementary school at a park at night; both boys were escaping from homelives that were fraught in different ways. We don't know where Hanjun's dad is, but Yunjae's parents have what might politely be called a contentious relationship, and the kids found that they not only got along, they also understood each other and what they were going through. Now in their third year of high school, they're looking towards university, attending a cram school, and Hanjun is desperately trying not to be upset that their female friend Chaeyoung has a raging crush on Yunjae that he doesn't appear to be indifferent to. But as these fifteen chapters go on, it starts to look a lot like Yunjae is just messing with Hanjun and is, in fact, in love with him too – and then the jury's out on whether he's being a jerk who's aware of Hanjun's feelings or if being an alarmingly possessive friend is just what it looks like on the surface.

We certainly don't get an answer here, and I'm not sure which I'd prefer. When they're together, it's clear that Hanjun and Yunjae make each other very happy and care about each other. There's also an air of toxicity about Yunjae's unwillingness to allow Hanjun to be friends with anyone else (and specifically Jinhwan), especially when he's so casually cruel about the possibility of dating Chaeyoung himself. There's a sense that this comes from Hanjun's brief involvement with a girl in middle school, but again, that speaks to a dangerous level of obsession and possession on Yunjae's part. In the middle of all of this, we also get the economic and domestic worries of both young men and the whole series gives the impression of being a powder keg ready to blow.

It's done well enough that I never really considered bowing out of the chapters. I mused about it but ultimately wanted to see where things went. It's also mildly intriguing that there's both a mature and an all-ages version of this on Tapas' website/app, although there's nothing in these chapters that would merit that distinction unless it's writing “f*ck” a few times. (Yes, censored like that.) The art and the writing are decent, but if you decide to read, just be prepared for a lot of anguished yearning from at least one teenage boy.

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