#tgmnd

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Making a new series of bl reviews. Not the most consistent in terms of uploads since the bls I've read before haven't been reread in a long time and I'm only recently coming back to reading bls so this is not gonna be frequent. ANYWAY this spiel isn't what ppl r here for so I'll just jump straight into it.

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So The Guild Member Next Door, aka Virtual Strangers aka TGMND is a romcom story that follows Lee Yeowoon, a 27-year old office worker who plays MMORPGs as a hobby. When his previous game hit rock bottom, he moved onto a new game, Illusion, where he quickly meets the rude and annoying Ji9star when he attempts to join the guild 'Poseidon'. But as he plays Illusion and continues meeting Ji9star in-game, IRL he begins having frequent encounters with a prickly university student who also happens to be his new neighbor, who ALSO ALSO happens to be Ji9star in Illusion. Small world indeed.

Already an interesting premise lol.

Lee Yeowoon is an interesting main character right off the bat with how assertive he is. He doesn't take shit from someone being an outright jerk and he reserves judgement until he could make a decision or when assessing someone's character. He's very mature and thinks rationally while also quick to flip you off. This puts him in great contrast to Ji9star, or rather, Yoon Jigu, the second lead and our other main character.

Yoon Jigu is a private and emotional person. Despite his character design matching the description mostly attributed to hypermasculine men, Jigu wears his emotions on his sleeve. This reflects his personality when playing games, where he lets his true self go as a hyperactive and sociable guy. He's quite impulsive too, quick on letting his imagination fill in the blanks in missing context and flusters easily.

Individually, they're great characters from the get-go. Together? Oh man, they're a riot and the physical embodiment of second-hand embarassment.

One thing that always stuck out to me about this manhwa is this: it is a romcom, no doubt about it. It's built its comedy on hilarious misunderstandings, missing context clues on both main characters's perspective on things (ex. Jigu thinking Yeowoon is into BDSM when he isn't, all cuz he heard Yeowoon's friend call him 'Master', which he just says in his normal speech), and of course, the main characters themselves. These two are perfect characters for a romcom, emphasis on comedy. They bounce off each other really well and the comedy in-game and in real life is well-balanced.

Speaking of misunderstandings, many of them are built on the fact that Yeowoon and Jigu don't know each other irl from the beginning of the story, so as Yeowoon starts to build his life in Jigu's neighborhood and their encounters began to increase, Jigu thought Yeowoon was stalking him (more on that later) and Yeowoon wanted to get along with his neighbor. Another one is Yeowoon thinking Jigu is into dating sims by mistake (which I found personally hilarious). Needless ty say, the majority of these misunderstandings lead to second-hand embarassment, for both characters and us readers (god the amount of times I went "Omg that did not just happen aaaaaaaaaaa"). But I liked it a lot. I don't get a lot of these types of bls nowadays and the awkwardness from the scenes makes me pause just to get a laugh out there.

Serious conflicts are short-lived but are nonetheless important to the story and Yeowoon and Jigu specifically. One such conflict was of Jigu's issue with his neighbor (not knowing it's Neuta, Yeowoon's identity within Illusion), thinking he's a stalker. This stems from two incidents:

Jigu's past experience with an actual stalker, where his report card would get leaked, someone harassing him on social media, and even vandalizing his family home, forcing him to move out. The second incident, as the first one was occuring, is that his guild in Illusion 'Poseidon' was dealing with users accusing them of hacking. It had gotten bad to the point that players would deliberately join their guild and harass them on the hacking allegations, leading to the guild master putting down restrictions for new players who want to join the guild. This, incidentally, was the reason Jigu, as Ji9star, was being an asshole to Yeowoon for joining their guild without meeting the requirements; basically thinking he's one of the players who were harassing him and his guild.

How Yeowoon responds to that made me appreciate him as a character and his relationship with Ji9star (at this point in time not knowing he's Jigu), where he truly lets his empathy shine in seeking to connect and empathize with Ji9star despite their early animosity. And Jigu predictably got flustered over this lmao, it never gets old. But he also starts to appreciate Neuta more too, where he has fun playing with him and voice calling him whenever they play Illusion.

I will admit, I did expect Jigu to find out the connection between Neuta and Yeowoon first; from the two of them, Jigu is surprisingly clever considering he's the first to figure shit out whereas Yeowoon admits later on that he never could have thought that Jigu and Ji9star were the same person. But once Jigu found out? His imagination did the work for the author really into making this story longer and more entertaining lololol.

Okay but I wanna talk more about the romance this time.

Yeowoon and Jigu started off on the wrong foot, both in-game and in real life (can't get any more cooked than that lol). But they do end up getting along as time goes on, finding each others company fun and comforting, with witty banter between them as they play in Illusion and sweet and funny moments when they hang out irl. Again, they just bounce off each other so well that they're basically a comedy duo who happen to be a couple.

Before they got together officially, we get more insight into Yeowoon's thoughts. By this point, Jigu had already internalized his feelings for Yeowoon (and hilariously thought Yeowoon is into him. I mean he isn't wrong but Yeowoon hasn't figured that out yet lol) and is waiting for the other to confess to him. But Yeowoon wasn't planning on doing so, and was already thinking of a way to turn Jigu down. But as their mutual but also unknowing plans of trying to get the other to confess goes on, Yeowoon slowly does start to realize how much of an impact Jigu's had in his life (took u long enough bro lol).

This is what I think makes this such a good bl for me; it's that internalization for both characters. A trait they both share is being in-tune with their emotions and feelings, not being afraid to feel them but just having difficulty in expressing them (Jigu) or not understanding them until later on (Yeowoon). But they don't let that stop them from making a move, in doing something with their feelings. It makes them more proactive in the decisions of their budding romance that it really is two people falling in love.

Everything was spot-on for me as a romcom ngl. And honestly? The MMORPG core theme is absolutely important considering that these two are gamers lol and they couldn't have formed a better connection with each other without knowing each other's different personas compared to real life. Jigu really started becoming invested in forming a friendship with Neuta and Yeowoon was fond of Ji9star whether he knew it or not.