pluviophiliac's manga / #depressing af(603)

looks killer.

wow… this is dark. really, really dark. ughhh, i feel for her. i relate to her deeply, too. she deserved better. i can’t wait for her to recognize her worth and fully come to terms with how important he is to those around her. <33 either way, i’ll be looking forward to watching our girl’s healing-journey! we’re finally on track… it’s been a long time coming. her smile’s so infectious, too! probably because i know how unnatural ‘authentic ones’ used to come to her. it’s a good look for her. <33 but, man… we have to wait two weeks for updates? not fair. ;_; really hope i misinterpreted that. i mean, i’ll manage… but i’ll definitely miss these guys. i’m already wholly enticed and enamored with these people, hahaha! i wish her and her family all the best.

this one looks promising!

INCREDIBLE. truly, this is some unequivocally otherworldly storytelling. i mean, obviously the story was going to be fucking EPIC the moment i first realized 1) who the author is, and 2) that the studio responsible for publishing it also gave us masterpieces such as ‘solo leveling’. oh, and just in case i was a bit unclear about my reasoning regarding the former: this talented creator also gave us the work of art that is otherwise knows as ‘omniscient reader’—which is, by any standard, a top-tier manhwa worthy of praise and recognition. they BOTH are. anyone who knows what they’re talking about would acknowledge them with pride. the world-building is just… next level. it’s i genius. crazy, complex, compelling, CREATIVE writing. i’m obsessed. on another note: it’s been awhile since i saw a dude as OP as jaehwan. it’s, like, um… holy FUCK, bro. did yoo joonghyuk and sung jinwoo join together in a sacred act of the naked horizontal tango and produce an offspring of the highest caliber without telling anyone????? he’s so overpowered it’s INSANE. i’m definitely not complaining, though!!! no way in hell, lol. reading this is pure exhilaration—it’s just the best feeling. genuinely. P.S. undoubtedly—y’all have absolutely NO IDEA just how much i appreciate these random moments of comic-relief in the middle of all the chaos, lol. seriously, we have these god-like people with god-like powers fighting their god-like battles… and honestly? it’s such a massive dopamine-rush every single time, for real. we have a war that’s stretching on for chapters on eeeend (teehee, #blessed), and the minute a battle’s over, we get some weird-ass dialogue with our favorite characters to lighten up the mood… and strangely, it’s all so perfectly well-balanced. i especially love our main man’s zoomed-in, expressionless facial expressions, hahaha! it’s such a contract to the rest of the comic. this one really isn’t lacking anything at all, it’s perfect. i also appreciate the fact that things stay consistent—whether it be in regards to the art-style, the overall quality of the writing or the creative plot-twists. whatever it is, it’s got my blood flowing—that’s for sure!

ohhh. definitely an adequate take on the whole ‘historical-eastern-asian-martial-arts’ trope. it’s pretty good! would i say it’s ingenious writing? no. will it make it onto my list of manhwa favorites? it won’t. however, i definitely don’t feel like it’s a waste of time or anything of the sort! still, i doubt i’d choose to reread it based on what i’ve seen up until this point. :) but hey, who knows? the tide could always change. it’s happened before! P.S. i AM looking forward to the day when he’ll finally be able to get his revenge, though. ^^

i haven’t written a review this long in YEARS, i believe. brace yourselves. first of all: i thoroughly appreciate the emotional complexity, gorgeous art and character growth—which was EXTENSIVE for respective individual. there was nothing typically ‘black or white’ about this story. it’s different from all the things i’ve seen and read in the past… so beautifully haunting. second of all: this is just… a tragedy. a truly devastating tragedy, if i ever saw one. evonne (or lillian rue, as her true name was) ultimately lost everything she held dear because of other people’s blind greed & selfish choices. she had no voice, no free will, no way out—NOTHING. she was stuck, miserable & in pain, yet there was absolutely nothing she, or anyone else, could do about it. she suffered in silence, and her husband—whom she was so viciously protecting behind his back—never managed to understand her pure intentions until it was too late. instead, he doubted her. mistreated her. insulted her. karl was a poor excuse of a husband towards a genuinely good person who was barely surviving as it was. [P.S. i DO understand his behavior, though—knowing 1) how suspicious her behavior would’ve looked from his point of view, and 2) fully knowing that her father was a disgusting, monstrous piece of fucking shit with OPENLY bad intentions; a man who’d properly ruined karl’s (and so many other people’s) lives soooo, so many times in the past. that’s all i wanted to say. i’m not justifying or condoning his behavior—just clarifying it!!!] anyway. meanwhile all THAT was going on, karloi was in a constant state of existential crisis and depression; trapped within himself, always stuck in the past—the very past he agonized over, every single day without rest, for over a decade… and even more so after he married rue. karl drove himself mad. it was inevitable, though… not being able to save his savior, rue—the very person who’d so selflessly given him his life back 14 years prior—was probably the catalyst. he’d spent so many years looking for rue, only to then be told that she’d been dead all along… the one who’d given him his sense of purpose. then there was his ‘unwelcomed’ wife who constantly reminded him of the very purpose he thought he’d lost. he was just… broken. manipulated. puzzled. she was, too. they were both forcibly placed & stuck in their roles—albeit fundamentally differently. their miserable fates were always overlapped, but they were either magically silenced & unable to speak up, or they didn’t even know there was anything ‘there’ in the first place—fated to be left in the dark, delirious & confused. which one’s worse, hmm? imagine finally realizing, after suffering for so long, that your sole reason to keep on living was right in front of you the entire time… and you never knew. you never even DARED to dream of such a thing. instead, you felt so pathetic and guilty for falling in love with the very person you were meant to despise… and execute. but imagine putting your faith in that person anyway, despite the odds betting against you, and then experiencing feelings of such intense betrayal because of something that was completely out of either one’s knowledge & control… and imagine being unable to realize (due to magical coercion form a relevant third party) the true nature of your wife—who’s also, unbeknownst to you, a pitiful puppet who was forced to sacrifice everything for an ambiguous & ominous future; fated to lead a life worse than death… just imagine. i mean… i genuinely can’t. all i know is that i could FEEL the devastation & frustration though the screen. ughhh… talk about twisted a relationship!!! i just feel so bad for them. i’m feeling all kinds of things for these characters. it just wasn’t fair to either of them. they were ROBBED. brutally, emotionally and thoroughly stripped of their inner identities... ripped away from anything & everything that could’ve left a real positive mark on their lives. it’s just tragic. all i want for these two is a real shot at being genuinely happy with their lives by the time we reach the end. i don’t care how, when (preferably as soon as humanly possible ‘cause this whole thing’s just fucking brutal) or with who. just allow them be CONTENT, if nothing else… just content. that’s it. i seriously don’t know how much more i can take of this desolation… 80+ chapters of sheer misery, man. this can’t be ideal for my clinically depressed brain. sheesh… anyway. despite my melancholic, strange (?) & uncharacteristically extensive summary of the whole goddamn plot: I. LOVE. THIS. MANHWA. i love the dynamics. i love the dark ambiance. i love the not-so-subtle somberness & twistedness of the characters… and, in a sense, i love that devastatingly beautiful depiction of lifelong travesty and trauma. it was well-executed. (for BOTH parties.) the pain & negativity kept getting worse and worse the more i read—well, obviously. it’s definitely nothing like the wholesome, loving, sweet vibes i’m used to getting with comics within this genre… …but before i go: i just can’t seem to understand how or why the ratings are so low…? i’m genuinely baffled. however dysphoric the content may be, it’s still amazing, captivating writing. the quality kept improving by the chapter, goddammit... fuck, i really don’t get it. ughhh.

looks fucking HOT.