I wanted to wait until there were more chapters out (only 23 at the moment) before leaving a review, but I can't sit here and say nothing when the only reviews currently here are saying the art isn't good. If it was just meh I wouldn't care, but the art is actually really good.
Aesthetically I'd say it's probably in the upper range of average for manhwa art, like when I first started reading this it wasn't something I thought I needed to take screenshots of and show people so they could see how beautiful the art is, but it's drawn well and doesn't use a ton of obvious assets that stick out like a sore thumb. However, where it really shines is conveying emotions through different lighting, posture, angles, and facial expressions. I've seen many a manhwa that people claim has "amazing art" that in reality has pretty art, but it sucks at actually doing the important parts of getting across emotions or telling the story it's trying to tell, so I really value manhwa art that excels in the storytelling aspect and makes me feel invested in the characters.
Both Seyeong and Heejae are pretty bad at actually verbalizing how they're really feeling, Heejae's facade is usually cheerful, playful, and teasing (which really is part of who he is, but there's way more below the surface), and Seyeong's a tsundere with a hardcore copium addiction, so even his internal monologue isn't always honest, but there are so many scenes where even though little is said, their expressions say so much, it's really good showing rather than telling.
In particular, what made me really notice the art was
when they met up irl; the artist didn't take the easy way out by lightening the mood with soft colors, sparkles, flowers, or trying to make it less serious by making those scenes more comedic, Heejae was genuinely frightening, and the lighting, panel composition, and especially his facial expressions really emphasized that.
This actually has a promo drawn by Whale, the artist of Raeliana, and I checked it out after getting into this series and was surprised to find that I actually like the serialized art better than the promo art. In the promo, it ends on the scene where
Heejae first corners and confronts Seyeong outside of his home, and he has on a collected, confident, kind of smug (very Noah-like) expression.
In that same scene in the manhwa though,
! it's much more of a sneer, he doesn't look calm at all, there's hurt and anger on his face, and with that smile he looks absolutely terrifying.
They manage to do a great job shifting between different moods without it feeling jarring too, there'll be a funny moment in between two serious ones and it doesn't feel out of place at all, or a mostly comedic interaction will shift to a serious one, and it doesn't have that tonal disconnect that can happen when a comedic manhwa has a serious moment and it feels out of place and like the mood came from nowhere, the transitions feel natural.
In terms of the story, it's still early on, but I really like it, way more than I anticipated I would. I only started reading it because tappytoon was offering a couple free tickets, and it looked like it would be cute, lighthearted, non-smut BL fluff, but I was not prepared for the absolutely wild direction it went in, it completely caught me off guard.
The MC was pretty much how I expected him to be based on the description, hot-tempered, impulsive, and constantly digging his own grave, and while it's funny, sometimes it's hard to watch and makes me cringe. He's grown on me though, and as much as it gets him into trouble, that tenacity of his is also a strength. He's definitely not one of those MCs who can be frustrating because they're whiny and weak and damsel-y. He's very tsundere, so his personality is a bit cat-like, but at times with his short temper he really reminds me of a chihuahua that goes and picks a fight with a dog ten times its own size. Is he brave, or just stupid? Maybe a bit of both.
I ended up reading the first few chapters of the novel, and it's interesting how the manhwa adaptation decided to start it off differently by
cutting out the heavy foreshadowing. In the novel prologue when we see the texts before Seyeong blocks him, Heejae tells him if he doesn't respond he's going to come look for him, and very ominously tells him not to be relieved just because Seyeong didn't tell him his address. Meanwhile in the manhwa, the messages we see at the beginning of the first chapter just make it seem like Heejae's worried and confused.
I was really on board with the theory that
Heejae knew the whole time who Seyeong really was after during their fight Seyeong threw back at him the line Heejae had said to him when he destroyed his guild, and while I read a lot of yandere content and I'm pretty used to spotting the signs, I completely missed them on this one,
so I was absolutely blindsided when
! Heejae stalked Seyeong, cornered him at his home, and blackmailed him into dating him again, I was shocked, I'd thought this was just going to be a pretty lighthearted comedy romance with a bit of drama for depth, but suddenly it took a sharp turn into thriller that I did NOT see coming.
It's impressive (and a testament to the artist) how
scary Heejae is, I didn't anticipate just how unhinged he would be. Most of the yandere manhwas and mangas I read are in some kind of fantasy setting, none of it could ever happen so it feels divorced from reality; I'm used to obsessive dukes and yandere mages going around casually murdering people or locking up the MC against their will to keep them from escaping, and everything Heejae's done is quite tame in comparison, but the real world setting with the fairly mundane circumstances make it feel much more realistic, like I could actually imagine a real person talking to a guy online, eventually ghosting him, and then being stalked and blackmailed by him irl.
It's crazy enough to be like "holy shit this man's an actual psycho" and yet not so absurd that it feels divorced from reality because none of this could really happen, and the artist does a really good job making Heejae look terrifying, it's been a while since I've read a manhwa that I actually found genuinely scary, but those moments when Heejae was acting completely deranged legitimately gave me chills. I'm enjoying seeing their relationship develop, but even though he's calmed down some, I don't really have faith in him not to act like a crazy person, he's clearly got some massive abandonment issues.
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