Ensemble
Title: Ensemble
Type: Manhwa, Korean Webtoons
Artist(s): Yubi
Status in Home Country: Complete
Scanslation Status: Complete, Ch 94
Scan Groups: August Topaz, Ensemble Fans, Nolja!
Genre(s): Comedy, Drama, Gender Bender, Mystery, School Life, Slice of Life, Shounen, Josei
Paran Site: http://media.paran.com/cartoon/
Summary: Becoming part of a family...
Bohm (meaning spring in Korean), on his way to give his dad, Detective Ghim, (who's been working for 10 days straight) some underpants at the police station, sees a girl by a vending machine and wishes to see her again...
Mahnsoo, a boy with a strange lonely past, the only witness to an important criminal case, must undergo a disguise as a girl and stay together with Detective Ghim's family until the investigation is over and the case ends. So he meets Bohm again, and trying to get close to his new icy brother is not easy...
Review: I put this under Shounen, but I'm not quite sure how to classify it. Maybe josei? This is an extremely enthralling story that I read from start to finish in one sitting. At first I didn't like the artwork as much, but it kind of grew on me. The sketch lines aren't clean, neither does the coloring but it added to the charm of the story. The more you read of the story, the more depth the main characters got.
Mahnsoo is a witness in a withness protection program. His only condition to his testimony is that he gets to attend a school. As a result, he get gets sent to a broken cop family as boy pretending to be a girl. Both the father and the son of the family have a lot of issues so the interloper who grew up as a pick pocket is quite an intrusion on their lifestyle.
The cop's son reminds me a lot of Ichigo Kurosaki from "Bleach" in that he can fight really well, but kind of acts like a dick. Well, for most of the story he is an absolute jerk, but you get to understand why he's like that. As for Mahnsoo, his personality is really well developed, and I got teary eyed over his character several times throughout the story.
There's some action here and there, but mostly in the conclusion. The majority of the storyline is about how Mahnsoo ends healing the cop’s family and vice versa so that they become a real family. There's actually no romance in the story, but sometimes through the comedy it made me almost think Mahnsoo might really be a girl.
It was a great storyline that I highly recommend. Not too sweet, w/ a bit of comedy, drama involving tragedies, and a lot of tense situations that was sometimes dangerously suspenseful.
Rate: 8/10