July's manga / #Webtoon(264)

It's a little better than the average BL webtoon, but not by much. I gave it an extra star since it does have a suspenseful atmosphere, and it's building slowly towards something, rather than jumping straight into pure smut. There's some semblance of an underlying plot, and the characters are not cringey, yet. The art is only average, but it does excel when it comes to the horror nightmare scenes. I don't like how this webtoon romanticizes smoking. Smoking is bad for you, don't make it appealing... I know it's a big part of Korean culture, but it doesn't help to keep promoting it like it's a good thing.

Promotional one shot for a web novel, I believe? The cover art is beautiful, but the actual art in the webtoon is average. It doesn't really make me interested to read the novel, since if you're terminally ill, you're going to die regardless of what path you decide to choose. Also, just finishing the male love interest's sentence automatically made him like her? Please.

Another promotional one shot for a web novel, I believe. The art is average, and I don't feel like reading the rest of it in novel form. She's reincarnated into the villainess's right hand woman, but attracts the attention of the crown prince somehow. Not that creative, but it doesn't grab me or excite me in any way.

The art isn't bad at all, I'm quite surprised! The cover art looked like one of those trashy smut webtoons, but it isn't the case so far. The story involves two actors who hate each other but need to work together to act like they're best of pals for a variety show. The female lead is not weak, and has a strong motivational drive so she knows what she wants in life. The male lead is a little pushy and domineering and I don't like him, but maybe they'll explain his behavior later on. I hope this webtoon doesn't go straight into the trash bin in the future, as these kinds of stories tend to do. Update: Finished at 77 chapters, quality declined rapidly after ten chapters and I just wanted this crap to end. Nothing important happens, male lead is still an ass, and they get happily married ever after like no one saw that coming, right?

Eh? Ehhhhhhh? I was expecting the webtoon to follow the drama storyline for Season 1 of Well-Intended Love, but it's already veered off course. I actually liked the way Xia Lin and Ling Yizhou met in Season 1, despite it being completely stalkerish. He's kind of a stalker here in this webtoon too, but it seems overly forceful to me. We'll see how this unfolds, I guess. So far, not impressed with the new storyline and with the art.

I'm not that invested in the female lead. It feels like the author is attempting a strong female lead character, but she's so unappealing, besides just her appearance. Her motivations and personality are rather unconvincing to me as a reader to make me sympathize with her situation. If maybe the rumor which ruined her career previously was false, I could like her a little more than what was presented. Or if they showed that she's a changed woman. But she's still using underhanded means to get what she wants, so I can't feel bad for her when things don't quite go her way, and can't cheer for her when she succeeds. Art is just average, and I don't like the look of the female lead, since they purposely made her look ugly, but at some angles, she doesn't look ugly at all. Make up your mind on how she looks, that's just cheating. Update: The female lead went on a diet and now is restored to her former glory. Wow, that was fast. She doesn't even need to face any challenges, and things pretty much fall in her lap. That's just lazy storytelling. Also, her manager Eric is really annoying me. He's supposed to be a transgender (?) person that is typical in Chinese entertainment media as comedic relief but it comes off very insulting and does not add anything to the story. Yuck.

The art is quite good, especially close-ups of the female lead, very stunning work on the details of her face. The art in the prologue is awful though, I guess they hired another artist, or the artist improved drastically from the prologue to the actual first chapter. The female lead is quite bland. She's supposed to be a strong heroine type, but I find her boring. She doesn't have any strong motivations and is very passive. She's laden with guilt, but we don't actually see any scenes of her killing someone or such to understand why she feels so strongly about avoiding happiness. The male leads who are chasing after her have no distinction in their characters, so I don't care about them. Perhaps this will get better with later chapters, but so far, it's quite average. Update: Each new chapter is useless, with lots of things happening, but it also feels meaningless at the same time. None of the events cause the characters to grow or realize something new about each other, and it's just a waste of nice art. There's practically no story, and the female lead is still as passive as ever. She just sits around, and men flock to her, but they don't confesss their love, and then they leave, only for the next guy to come along.

Art is poor, most people are drawn in lazy chibi style with little detail. Protagonist and male love interest are rather ugly, despite attempts to make them look pretty or handsome, they're not, due to lack of skill in art. Plot is bland and not compelling, she's reading a book about her future and she dies, then has a do-over like other villainess isekai, but she doesn't seem to have a strong goal in mind. She treats her step-family like trash with the excuse that they treated her like trash, but doesn't do so in way that is sympathetic to the reader, nor witty nor brutal enough to be memorable. It's all quite petty. Since the set-up is weak, I won't hold my breath thinking this will get better as time goes on.

I'm actually giving this a bonus star because of how much I love the Mystic Messenger game, otherwise this webtoon would only get 3 stars. The art is not that great, it's average fare for most webtoons (like you must at least be able to draw like this for a webtoon). The new female protagonist is not that likeable, in my opinion. She doesn't really stand out in terms of all the other female main characters out there -- someone bright and bubbly and cheerful. It's been done to the death. Honestly, the female lead in the game had more character despite having limited lines, you knew she was a strong person who will stand her ground even when it's dangerous, but is also there to lend a hand to her friends. I don't think there's a need to feminize her character so much into the new Hana character. I did like how they strayed away from her being stuck in the apartment since I think that would be difficult and boring in a webtoon format. The only reason why it worked in the game was for suspense so you can reach that aha moment when you finally see your online friends face-to-face, but it's not the same in a comic. I'm not really feeling the same connection with the cast of characters in the webtoons, since interacting with someone on the phone is always different from in person, and it just doesn't really cut it for me. The author is also trying to split everyone's time evenly, so that also limits the depth of the relationships that are being built. Update: I'm so done with this webtoon's pacing. It just takes bits and pieces of everyone's routes, except Jumin's, who's entirely forgotten, and then plunges into a sudden romance with Seven. Now don't get me wrong, Seven is a cool character, and supposedly the "True Route" in the original game, but I don't care for the webtoon following it, because there's so much more potential for other characters to get the limelight. But nope, it's Seven all over again. Bleh.

Art is average, decent enough for webtoons, action scenes are drawn quite well, and I appreciate the de-censoring. The plot makes no sense, but at least there isn't mindless smut every chapter, as in the case of most BLs, so I gave it a bonus star. There's no chemistry between the two male leads, so I wouldn't classify this as a romance. I don't know how the male main character is such a crappy secret agent, he gives himself away too quickly, with his behavior and martial arts skills. Also why is he so bad at lying? You'd think a secret agent would be much better at keeping secrets than this, much less a top-ranked one like he supposedly is. The two men are rather lackadaisical in their sexual relationships, they have no emotional connection forming yet, but just jump on each other like uncivilized beasts. Also Red Candy is just a stupid code name.