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Manhwa-ga: Yun JiUn
Publisher: Yen Press
Rating: Teen (13+)
Released: October 2008
Synopsis: “The gaiety of the school festival takes an unexpected turn when Ma-Ha is accosted by a group of his former girlfriends! Unabashed, Ma-Ha introduces them all to a shocked Hye-Min: How can they all stay friends with him when he’s such a player? But with Hye-Min’s popularity at an all-time low, she is surprised to find such good friends among Ma-Ha’s slighted exes. Hye-Min finds herself in a group of companions, forcing her to look closely at the cold, isolated person she’s always been.”
It’s a new beginning for Hye-Min, as the life of being girlfriend to the famous playboy, Ma-Ha, takes her down new roads. Her past has been full of elegant silence, but there’s no way Ma-Ha will let her get away with sitting on the sidelines anymore. Dragging her into his world by the wrist, she is forced to find out that other people aren’t so bad, and there is life beyond the walls of Piper.
Watching Hye-Min deal with people who don’t hate her is amazingly entertaining. She’s been the object of so much hate for so long she has absolutely no idea what to do. Shin-Bi doesn’t appear to be to happy about this new life of hers, but at the same time he can’t bring himself to cage her up anymore. As much as he doesn’t want her to meet new people, and thus drift further away from him, he also truly wants her to be happy. Either that, or he’s telling himself she’ll get hurt and come back to Piper in the end anyway because the world is a horrible place.
All of Ma-Ha’s loud and obnoxious ex-girlfriends are a real hoot. They’re the nicest, most amazing (and non violent) people to enter this series so far. Which is extra good because I was starting to think the world of Cynical Orange was suffering from a horrible case of totally unreasonable main character hate.
This volume isn’t as epic as the last one but it’s just as fun. Sometimes a series takes a little downtime from the action and volume five is just that: downtime. What makes it great is you can see how the story is completely changing. The new plots being set up are definitely going to carry this series through several more volumes without risk of becoming dull or repetitive. The most important part of all this is that I get more Shin-Bi, and the world will be a better place as a result.
Review written December 7, 2008 by Marsha Reid.
Book provided by Yen Press for review purposes
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