Bride of the Water God Vol 1
In ancient Korea, a young woman named Soah's village sacrifices her to Habaek, the water god, to save their village from a seemingly endless drought. On Earth, Soah will become a legend as a gil who willingly sacrificed hrslf to save the village. Her story, however, dos not end there. Soah does not die, but finds herself transported to therealm of the gods, and finds that she is now Habaek's wife. Habaek himself, however, is a cute but grumpy child. Except for at night, when he transforms into...well, frankly, a stud who doesn't seem to like clothes and has a cool dragon tattoo. For whatever reason, he decides not to let Soah know he's the same guy, and tells her his name is Mui. And...aside from Soah meeting some of the other gods(though I didn't catch their names, I'm particularly fond of the fire god, and the guy with glasses AND a seeing eyeglass) there isn't whole lot that hppens. There's also a very fun bit where Soah learns that her new mother-in-law is the goddess of punishment and torture, the goddess of love and beauty, and the goddess of disease. Busy woman. We also learn that Habak has apparently had a number of wives and no one knows what happened to them, and it seems that his first wife was of the Doomed Love variety.
Really, though,that's pretty much all that happened. I like it though...even though there isn't much development to the story yet, it's interesting, and I like the heavy emphasis on mythology and all the characters are good so far. It also has me curious about what happens next. Bsides, I think it's the first new shojo to really interest me since Yurara, and that was...what? June? July? Somewhere in there. It also hasreally pretty pictures, which is significant becaus I usually don't care for manwha art.
dangermousie posted a lot of pics here, and
oyceterhas a nice writeup and links to more art here.
(but the best manwha ever is Dokebi Bride, even if I'm only 4 volumes into it.)
ETA: One other thing of some note: When I was reading MeruPuri, even though I smiled a lot, I was never comfortable with the romance, which had a similar set up to this: a child prince who grows up in the dark. In Bride of the Water God, though, it doesn't bother me at all. Probably because the hero in MeruPuri really was a kid who got bigger, and was still a kid inside when physically older, but Habaek's natural form seems to be the adult, not the kid. And besides, even if it isn't...well, he's a god, I figue he's a few hundred years old anyway.