Mangas and Webtoons: Reviews and Impressions

Wanted another 4-Koma slice of life to fill the endless void in your life? Well look no further because Mousou Telepathy is here! In the same vein as Tomo-chan wa Onna no ko!, it is primarily a comedy manga with a overarching romantic plot.

The story is about a ordinary girl that was born with the “gift” of telepathy. Her ability allows her to “read the mood,” but it alienates her from her peers. This is the plot’s main source of drama and seriousness. However, her powers lead her to find out that the most popular boy in her class is super in love with her! *Gasp*

For as “shoujo” as that sounds, it is actually a semi-parody of the genre; taking the storybook premise and applying it to realistic characters. All the characters on the outside seem trope-riddled and one-dimensional, but since we are able to see their thoughts, we see that their negative attributes have been amplified. That is where most of the comedy comes from and is the highlight of the manga.

Looking for a sickeningly cute romance? Oh! Holy, might fill that inescapable hole in your life! This review covers up to Chapter 51.

At first glance, Oh! Holy looks like a small spin on similar romance stories like Kimi no Todoke or Horimiya. The introverted gloomy kid meets the beautiful idol of the class, but then BOOM! they were childhood friends. Following popular Korean trends, the main character can also see ghosts to serve as the main foil that pushes the story forwards.

Well that doesn’t sound very compelling, but Oh! Holy is not afraid to completely flip the script, literally. This story is fast moving and unpredictable. It also manages to be endearing despite it breakneck speed. While Oh! Holy brings nothing new to the table, it overwhelms you with new situations, developments, and twists.

The art is cute and surprisingly consistent since it is the first work we have seen from Ahyun. Distinctive characters and designs makes it easy to root for the characters you like.

Bastard is a dark thriller written by Carnby Kim and illustrated by Youngchan Hwang. Don’t be fooled by the art style, Bastard is a inspired story that is both haunting and charming.

In only about 100 or so chapters, Bastard delivers a creative story about a odd boy with a glass eye and serial killer father. Similar to the popular RPGMaker game Mad Father, Bastard is gruesomely cruel and raw compared to other web-comics from Korea, but has surprisingly genuine moments of tenderness and romance without being overtly tropey or ham-fisted. One thing that Bastard excels at is creating tension. The plot, while overly convenient at times, has stakes that feel real and avoids being contrived at moments where I excepted it to.

One weak point of the web-comic has to be its art. The quality is acceptable and never really dips, but the style itself does not lend itself to the type of story it was trying to tell. Clearly Youngchan Hwang was inspired by the West and tried to create contrasting imagery like something like Corpse Party. However, the attempt ends up looking more goofy than anything. This is not to say that I disliked everything about the art. The near monochrome palette really nails home the theme of despair and amplifies color when it is used.

Looking for a 4-panel romcom with unconventional characters and designs? Tomo-chan wa Onna no ko! might be what you are looking for. Written by Fumita Yanagida, who previously worked on... well... spicier types of art before writing  Tomo-chan wa Onna no ko! Instantly r/manga was hooked on this manga, and it makes sense; a new chapter a day with prime waifu material? Sold.

The art is more cutesy than expected from a ex-hentai artist but Fumita is not afraid to bust out the full page spread when he wants to. Each character is iconic and recognizable at a glance and the level of quality is surprisingly high for a 4-panel manga.

Essentially, the story is about a tomboy named Tomo who falls in love with her incredibly dense childhood friend, and tries to appear more feminine to him why being equally dense. Despite its simple premise, Tomo-chan wa Onna no ko! quickly pulls you in with clever offbeat humor and likeable side-characters. And although progress can be a bit slow, you can’t help but root for those two dense idiots.

Girls of the Wild’s is one of most successful webcomics to come out of Korea. It has an official a physical print, and I even own a small figurine of one of the characters, Dal Dal. Its massive popularity surged because of its breathtaking art and characters. 260 chapters later, Girls of the Wild’s became one of the most controversial comics on Webtoon. Girls of the Wild’s is written by Hun, and illustrated by Kim Hye-Jin (aka Zhena) who has worked on the art for Pet Diary and Nineteen, Twenty-one.

I’ll briefly touch on the art but don’t get it twisted; I love the art. Zhena has a distinct style that stays consistent the whole way through, but as the plot deteriorates, the highly dynamic fights start to become less frequent.

What started as a humorous martial arts story, slowly became a shambling corpse of Korean drama tropes. In the beginning, Girls of the Wild’s was a simple but driven underdog story that had creative, distinct characters that playful bounce off one another. It was exciting to look forward to the fight scenes, and the dynamic art helped carry the plot between story beats. However, the cracks in the writing began to show after different antagonists were repeatedly forced into the plot and the cast of characters became excessively bloated; leaving countless arcs unfulfilled by the end of the story. Then the last arc of the comic ditched fight scenes almost completely to focus on the only thing keeping it afloat, the pairings.

The romance was always a core part of Girls of the Wild’s. After all, the premise is that a single guy gets transferred to an all girls school, but the final arc reflects the absolute worst trappings of Korean/Japanese writing; plot conveniences, forced tension, and endless amount of tropes. Characters make illogical choices for no real reason. Every time a new side story is introduced, it reeks of trying to extend its already stretched lifetime. Plot holes were left unfilled or simply ignored. But the biggest mistake was removing the only pillar this comic stood on; the characters.

The main cast that readers have grown to love because of their unique chemistry were completely separated for the last arc of the series. Pages after pages of nothing but painfully slow monologs that go in circles without ever reaching a proper conclusion. Beloved side characters show up for a few panels here and there without doing anything of note (RIP Wushu Girl). By the end, Girls of the Wild’s becomes a desperately disappointing tale of failed dramatic writing.

Becoming an overnight Reddit sensation, Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to is a unique romantic comedy manga written by Aka Akasaka (what a kick-ass pen name) who previously wrote and drew ib: Instant Bullet. (This review will encompass the series up to the 38th chapter).

Revolving around two highly intellectual and stubborn characters, the story is about an unconventional high school romance. Our main characters, Kaguya and Shirogane, both believe that the first person to confess in a relationship is the loser, so by using complicated plans and illogical reasoning, they try to make the other confess. Usually, each chapter is a “battle” of sorts that end with either a winner, loser, draw, and other surprises. There also a host of side characters that each have their own goals.

Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to is the perfect blend of mundane situations mixed with outrageous characters. Every character is a likable twist of existing archetypes and serves a purpose to the comedic narrative. The main pull of the manga is to see the character interactions and overly dramatic gags.

The art is acceptable for a slice-of-life manga, but it really excels at being completely adorable in certain panels. This, paired with the clever writing, is probably why Reddit latched on to it as strong as it did.

Kaguya Wants to be Confessed to is head and shoulders above its contemporaries standing beside Nozaki-kun and Tomo-chan in the slice-of-life romantic comedy arena. If you like comedic contrast and cute girls, pick up this manga. 9.5/10.

Yumi’s Cells is a webcomic series written by Donggun Lee who previously worked on A Bittersweet Life. (This review will encompass the series up to the 145th chapter.)

If you are looking for a comedic webcomic with more adult themes than your usual slice-of-life, then you might be looking for Yumi’s Cells. This webcomic takes you into the mind of a single female office worker and explores the quirks of her daily life in the form of tiny personifications of her psyche. Think Pixar’s Inside Out but with looser rules.

The central plot revolves around the foilbles of Yumi’s love life. However, the main appeal of the series is seeing how the characters inside Yumi’s mind affects the outside world and vice versa. These internal interactions between Yumi’s cells are funny as they are relatable. As the series goes on and we learn more about the characters outside of Yumi, the more I began to like them and understand their motivations. If the humor doesn’t hit right away, the clever writing and art should tide you over.

The art style is clearly similar to that of Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy). It is refreshing to see such a simple and defined artstyle, and the quality of the art only becomes cleaner over time. All the characters are uniquely designed and easily recognizable after only a couple of chapters.

I recommend that everyone check out Yumi’s Cells. The humor is so universally relatable that I think that it has a little something for anyone. As of this point (chapter 145), Yumi is a solid 9/10 that I read as soon as a new chapter is released.