Hot-Blooded Woman: Manhwa Review

Title: Hot-Blooded Woman
Genre: Action, Drama, Romance, Supernatural
Author: Hwang Mi Ri
Volumes: 24 (Nice and chunky)



Ha Ji Kang used to be picked on by her brothers who would use her as a practise dummy for their martial arts. Running to her friend for help she is told to stand up on both legs and fight her own battles, otherwise people would look down on her as a dog that needs to be looked after. Having taken this advice to heart she is now the leader of a gang and has whipped her brothers – as well as others – into submission. All of this changes, however, when she smashes straight into a truck during one of her gang’s bike rides. After waking up in the body of the ever so feminine and delicate Aram Han, Ha Ji will be facing many different obstacles ranging from bullying to attempted murder.
If there’s one thing in the world that I know, it is that this series had me hooked from the very first volume. Granted, the opening premise isn’t exactly the most original, but there isn’t much that is these days. Ha Ji’s character is something that always had me chuckling to myself while I was reading; her almost unconditional trust in her friend Han Seo Jang is cute and reassuring, but unfortunately that blind trust is something that throws her and the other main character involved into a horrible messy circle of revenge and cruelty. Most, if not all, of the characters present a fantastic representation of how everyone in society is hiding behind a mask, and it’s interesting to see what happens when these masks are broken, which is what the entire series seems to be exploring.

Maybe it’s just the way that it’s printed or something, but Manhwa has always looked quite grainy to me, not that I’m complaining. Even if you don’t like it it’s easy to ignore as it all comes together into one nice set of pictures, but I suppose that’s just the difference in styles when compared with Manga, which tends to use slightly thicker, more solid outlines to paint the picture.

I love it to bits regardless of the art style, but sometimes it can be quite hard to get used to, not to mention the overabundance of names and families. Sometimes Manhwa has so many different characters with too many names to remember that I’ve had the strong urge to just put it down and walk away, but if that was enough of a reason then there’s a lot of great series that I wouldn’t have read by now. Funnily enough this series doesn’t present so many names that differentiating between them is like trying to pick out a wasp in a swarm of bees. Sure, for me it took a little time to get used to who was whom and what was what, but I got there eventually, and if I can do it then there’s no way in hell you should be complaining.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story. It carries on for 24 volumes but I never got tired of it as it constantly ducked and weaved its way through the plot beautifully from start to finish. Relationships often switched around multiple times and various plot twists allowed a fresh start for many of the characters and their place in the series. One thing I especially liked was how people acted behind the poker faces they’d made for themselves compared with how they spoke to other people, and how getting too used to using that poker face could sometimes screw them over. There are multiple points in the series where the stories just suddenly stops and makes a sharp turn in direction, so you can be sure that you’ll never be bored with it, and it’s great for questioning your trust in certain characters and presenting you with doubt only to take it back. Something else that I like is that this series constantly reminds you that no matter who it is, everyone has a wicked, selfish side to them. Even if it’s small and insignificant, it still exists.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this series, but I have been told that it is very similar to her other works, so if you’ve read some of the author’s other series you may end up the same regurgitated character types and plot twists. If you enjoy duality and opposing personalities clashing then this series is most certainly for you, and after some time it will have you asking yourself who has the best poker face, and who is truly the most wicked of them all.

I''s: Manga Review

Title: I''s
Author: Masazaku Katsura
Genre: Romance, Drama
Volumes: 15
Released: 1997 – 1999 (Western release March '05)



Seto Ichitaka is your average 16-year-old high-school student. As you might have guessed, just like in any other romance Manga, he is in love with the beautiful Yoshizuki Iori and is too shy to express his feelings when he's around her. In fact, when he is around her his attitude changes completely, and he comes across as cold and uncaring towards her. As you can guess, this hardly helps him spark up the most basic of interactions, let alone a relationship as girlfriend and boyfriend.
I''s follows Ichitaka's struggle to get together with Iori somehow, regardless of all the obstacles blocking his progress (including a childhood friend who's just returned from America), and his confessions never really seem to go as planned.

Okay so you have all seen the age-old method of getting a donkey to move by dangling a carrot in front of it with a stick, or using a similar method to get a hamster to run in a wheel. It's in constant use in many cartoons and I had no problem laughing at the situation when I was twelve. Hah! Stupid donkey, silly little hamster.
Yeah well right now I feel like an ass and my wheel is turning faster than the “bangin' alloys” on some boy racer's shitty little yellow Saxo at two in the morning.

Seriously, this series is chock full of situations that will pull you back, forth, left, right and straight into that lamp post you didn't see because you were too busy reading it. Yes, yes it's got most of the clichés you would expect to find in a romance Manga: the childhood friend, the lecherous classmate, an innocent and perfectly kind love interest, and a pretty decent but annoyingly shy main character who would get drunk after Rum Truffle (and then proceed to make an idiot out of himself in front of the girl he loves). Karaoke, hot springs and class trips also make an entrance in this series so don't be surprised when you see the same situation pop up here as you did in the other tens of romance Manga you might have read.
Don't expect the characters themselves to be different from the norm, either. They're your standard romance characters, with their standard features, personalities and reactions, although the lecherous classmate, Teratani Yasumasa, can say some enlightening things every now and again.
To be honest, there's a lot to I''s that would leave it with no individuality if that was all it had, but for all the cliché scenes like hot springs and class trips that creep in it presents new and fantastically different situations within these scenes that makes the cliché itself look more tried-and-tested than overused, and while the characters fulfil your usual run-of-the-mill romance/drama Manga roles, watching them adapt to these new situations is just as fun as it all being completely original, and there's less danger of screwing up something that's common as muck than trying something completely new.

Now where drama/romance is concerned, in my personal experience the most important thing the writer needs to develop in the reader is hope. If the reader doesn't care about the outcome of the romance then what's the point of reading? Hoping the character doesn't screw up on his first date, hoping she can accept his quirks. Hoping he isn't a complete fuckwit who speaks before he thinks. All of this rides on hope and without it the relationship is dull and uninteresting. There are, of course, points where a lack of hope can be made up using curiosity; while the reader may not care about him getting with one character over another, he may still be curious as to finding out the end result. Trying to invoke curiosity in a romance Manga is hard, though, as many series suffer due to the reader immediately being able to tell that the main character will indeed end up with his main love interest regardless of the badly done “Oh gosh, she fell on him and they accidentally kissed and she walked in. O...M...G!” scenarios that are launched at you from some horrible cannon made of mediocrity.
This series inspires both hope and curiosity, which to be honest is a first for me where romance Manga is concerned, as it's always either been one or the other, and having both in its arsenal makes this series more than worthy of attention than most, if not all other series of the same genre. This series has become one of my favourite where romance Manga is concerned, and believe me when I say I've read my fair share of those.