manhwa: Pig Bride Vol 1
When he was eight, Si-Joon, the spoiled son of a politician and an heiress, abused all the chickens at his summer camp and then got lost in the woods behind it. There, he first encounters a young girl dressed like an ancient warrior, and then another girl in a pig mask. When the second girl loses her mask and runs away, he chases after her, only getting more lost, and eventually ending up at her house, where the girl’s mother tells him that the two are descended from the Park sister’s of Korean mythology, one of whom, the one Si-Joon is descended from, was cursed to have the face of a pig. Now the girl, Mu-Jeon, is cursed, and only marriage to Si-Joon can save her. But when something dangerous approaches the house, Mu-Jeon sends Si-Joon back to camp, telling him she’ll come to consummate their marriage when he turns sixteen.
Si-Joon has since convinced himself that it was all a bad dream, but on his sixteenth birthday, Mu-Jeon and her sister, the other girl, appear at his school. Initially, it appears that the two have come only for the marriage, and that Mu-Jeon is a bit desperate, but it soon becomes apparent that, while that may be a motivation, they’re also protecting him from something dangerous.
Because of his parents, Si-Joon is extremely sought after in school as a potential husband, leaving him with a distaste for most girls. The only one he really likes is Doe-Doe, a demure and princess-y girl who is Sekritly Evil and terrorizes all the other girls in school into obedience while making the boys thinks she’s a perfect angel. Despite his spoiled nature and far less than endearing opinions, Si-Joon is actually fairly sympathetic. As his roommate, Ji-Oh points out, he could be the most utterly useless person to ever exist but people would still chase after him because any connection with his family is advantageous. Similarly, Mu-Jeon is saved from being walked all over by clearly having additional motives for her actions, and by being rather devious and calculating. While I’m irritated by the blatant “pretty traditional girl is actually and evil user and manipulator, and heroine shall clearly be revealed to be more pure and virtuous” element, the characters are all pretty well drawn, and the motivations we’re shown are more understandable than other, similar cases. The only real exception to “well drawn” is Mu-Jeon’s sister, who I’m not sure had a name in this volume. While she’s entertaining as a humorous “maybe not all there” take on the “silent and mysterious bodyguard” trope, that’s really all she is so far, and I think the series needs to properly develop a prominent female character of a completely different character type to properly balance the Mu-Jeon/Doe-Doe situation.
I have no idea where this is going, but I found the volume extremely entertaining, and I like shoujo that builds modern plots around specific mythologies and combines the two. And the last shoujo I read that did that was Black Bird, a contender for The Ultimate Shoujo of Shame.
(P.S.: I Actually read the volume of Black Bird I just posted on a few weeks ago, so they weren't read back-to-back, as this would make them seem.)
Si-Joon has since convinced himself that it was all a bad dream, but on his sixteenth birthday, Mu-Jeon and her sister, the other girl, appear at his school. Initially, it appears that the two have come only for the marriage, and that Mu-Jeon is a bit desperate, but it soon becomes apparent that, while that may be a motivation, they’re also protecting him from something dangerous.
Because of his parents, Si-Joon is extremely sought after in school as a potential husband, leaving him with a distaste for most girls. The only one he really likes is Doe-Doe, a demure and princess-y girl who is Sekritly Evil and terrorizes all the other girls in school into obedience while making the boys thinks she’s a perfect angel. Despite his spoiled nature and far less than endearing opinions, Si-Joon is actually fairly sympathetic. As his roommate, Ji-Oh points out, he could be the most utterly useless person to ever exist but people would still chase after him because any connection with his family is advantageous. Similarly, Mu-Jeon is saved from being walked all over by clearly having additional motives for her actions, and by being rather devious and calculating. While I’m irritated by the blatant “pretty traditional girl is actually and evil user and manipulator, and heroine shall clearly be revealed to be more pure and virtuous” element, the characters are all pretty well drawn, and the motivations we’re shown are more understandable than other, similar cases. The only real exception to “well drawn” is Mu-Jeon’s sister, who I’m not sure had a name in this volume. While she’s entertaining as a humorous “maybe not all there” take on the “silent and mysterious bodyguard” trope, that’s really all she is so far, and I think the series needs to properly develop a prominent female character of a completely different character type to properly balance the Mu-Jeon/Doe-Doe situation.
I have no idea where this is going, but I found the volume extremely entertaining, and I like shoujo that builds modern plots around specific mythologies and combines the two. And the last shoujo I read that did that was Black Bird, a contender for The Ultimate Shoujo of Shame.
(P.S.: I Actually read the volume of Black Bird I just posted on a few weeks ago, so they weren't read back-to-back, as this would make them seem.)