It's another edition of Manhwa Mondays, where I ramble about Korean comics. These aren't reviews, per se, just me blabbing with my fingers. This week it's the action/fantasy/romantic-comedy MOON BOY by YoungYou Lee.
I honestly don't remember why I bought this; it's not the type of thing I usually read, I don't remember it being recommended to me by anyone or thing - it was just in my to-read pile so I read it. I won't read any more volumes.
The concept does sound interesting: a pair of fifth graders--male and female, Yu-Da and Myeung-Ee--meet and instantly dislike each other, but are drawn to one another by the fact that they both have eyes that turn bright red during the full-moon. They become friends. After Myeung-Ee and Yu-Da have been friends for some time a strange, upper classman boy who gives Yu-Da bad vibes asks Myeung-Ee out on a date; Yu-Da cautions his friend against the boy. She, thinking he's just jealous and won't say so, goes out with the boy... who turns out to be a fox spirit looking to eat "Earth rabbits" - Myeung-Ee and Yu-Da. Yu-Da attempts to fight for his friend, but is easily beaten, then rescued by a strange boy who whisks Yu-Da off. He doesn't return to school and what's more, no one besides Myeung-Ee has any memory of him.
Flash forward five years in the future. Myeung-Ee starts at a new school and discovers Yu-Da is a student there but he has no memory of her. What follows in that first volume is Myeung-Ee trying to win back her friend back, learning that the pair of them are "Earth rabbits" descended from a race that lives on the moon, along with the foxes who hunt and eat them, and that Yu-Da is a very rare kind of rabbit whose liver can grant immortality. A group of foxes captured him the day he disappeared and have been raising him ever since in preparation of eating him.
It sounds like a great set-up, but the execution is deeply flawed. Lee can't decide what kind of comic she's writing and it flip-flops haphazardly between action, youth-romance drama and awkward, unfunny attempts at humor. The exposition about the Earth rabbits and foxes is shoehorned in rather clumsily and the art shifts back and forth from all-right-but-none-too-spectacular to barely-competent (often when Lee is trying to be funny).
I didn't enjoy it. I don't recommend it. This was easily the worst of the books I've read for this feature.
The concept does sound interesting: a pair of fifth graders--male and female, Yu-Da and Myeung-Ee--meet and instantly dislike each other, but are drawn to one another by the fact that they both have eyes that turn bright red during the full-moon. They become friends. After Myeung-Ee and Yu-Da have been friends for some time a strange, upper classman boy who gives Yu-Da bad vibes asks Myeung-Ee out on a date; Yu-Da cautions his friend against the boy. She, thinking he's just jealous and won't say so, goes out with the boy... who turns out to be a fox spirit looking to eat "Earth rabbits" - Myeung-Ee and Yu-Da. Yu-Da attempts to fight for his friend, but is easily beaten, then rescued by a strange boy who whisks Yu-Da off. He doesn't return to school and what's more, no one besides Myeung-Ee has any memory of him.
Flash forward five years in the future. Myeung-Ee starts at a new school and discovers Yu-Da is a student there but he has no memory of her. What follows in that first volume is Myeung-Ee trying to win back her friend back, learning that the pair of them are "Earth rabbits" descended from a race that lives on the moon, along with the foxes who hunt and eat them, and that Yu-Da is a very rare kind of rabbit whose liver can grant immortality. A group of foxes captured him the day he disappeared and have been raising him ever since in preparation of eating him.
It sounds like a great set-up, but the execution is deeply flawed. Lee can't decide what kind of comic she's writing and it flip-flops haphazardly between action, youth-romance drama and awkward, unfunny attempts at humor. The exposition about the Earth rabbits and foxes is shoehorned in rather clumsily and the art shifts back and forth from all-right-but-none-too-spectacular to barely-competent (often when Lee is trying to be funny).
I didn't enjoy it. I don't recommend it. This was easily the worst of the books I've read for this feature.
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