Manhwa

[Kakihara]

So, I see we have a thread for manga but considering there is some differences from it to Manhwa I figured I'd start a separate thread for it.  While it has a great influence from manga, it is more designed to be an online webtoon than printed.  Though obviously you have something like Solo Leveling which is being printed and also now getting an anime.  So I wanted to start a thread to seperately talk about manhwa and let people post about it, offer their own suggestions and opinions on what they've read.

I was never super into it manwha before, I'd look through a few based on some online suggestions but they never clicked.  Until I saw some YT shorts about a scene from The Greatest Estate Developer, and then saw a few more.  It intrigued me so I started reading it about Thursday night for the first two chapters or so, but really delved into it on Friday and Saturday where I went through all 80 some chapters.  I don't know why but it really hooked me and kept me going.  It's a standard isekai but eschews many of the trappings of them.  It's what I would have wanted from Re:zero.  The main character isn't perfect or even pleasant, but despite his outward ways he clearly has a good heart and ends up doing the right thing, even if he says it's for the wrong reasons, ie money. 

Honestly, it's the first manwha that really got me and now a bit hooked, may have to start looking at some of the other suggestions and see what is on offer.  It is a different experience than a manga, but honestly a little easier since it's designed to be read on the computer.  I think the only downfall is that unlike most manga/Doujinshi, there is less regularity in there, not that the manga industry doesn't put books on hiatus for extended periods, but it seems more common not to get a series resolution in manhwa.

But I definitely think I will be paying attention to The Greatest Estate Developer future releases and I highly recommend it if you like sarcastic main characters and interesting twist on the isekai formula.

[Silvered Sutures]

I just started Salvos and I can't wait for more to come out. It's got all the nice beats of Isekai I enjoy and so far none of the stuff that typically ruins it.

[Kakihara]

I recently discovered Shadowless Night and it's quite an interesting, if mysterious manhwa.  It's set in a fantasy world where the nobles and knights under them go on monster hunting parties to help keep numbers under control.  During one, the daughter of a noble who's become a mediocre knight gets caught up with a bunch of others in a large attack by assassins from a neighboring kingdom.  Most are killed but it's such a mess that they do not realize that the woman isn't among them as no one sees the knight with the long black hair.  So they go on a search only to find the woman under a cliff near death something like 6 or 9 days after the attack. 

She is bedridden and seemingly near death for a long time but finally comes out when her brother is visiting.  But when she awakens she is completely different, no table manners and almost depicted as animalistic in how she eats.  And an allergy she normally had in the past is gone.  They are certainly alluding to some change but since the entire beginning takes place from the brother's perspective, we have no insight into what happened to her.  I didn't peak too much at the description so not sure if it's an isekai or something else.  I started looking for it because of a YT short and it is so far pretty interesting, certainly not like many which I quit after the first issue. 

[Ollumhammersong]

'i'm not that kind of talent' is something i'm following right now. It's a pretty good story about a sickly guy that everyone thinks is a total badass. The TLDR is that the world is basically split between the humans and demons and the main character Deon Hart is caught playing general for the demon's because of a misunderstanding they think he defected to their side. Everyone assumes he's a blood thirsty psycho who craves violence but in reality he just wants to stay in bed and rest as any kind of physical exertion is exhausting to him and his body is so weak he's constantly coughing up blood and getting sick.

The story quickly establishes that the main character actually has two personalities. The 'normal' Deon Hart who is terrified of danger and just wants to kick back, retire early and rest his weak body, and a more psychotic Deon Hart. Basically everyone thinks that Deon Hart is a blood thirsty psychopath because when in great danger Deon's 2nd personality takes control as a defense mechanism, And this 2nd personality has figured out that in order to keep regular Deon alive it has to be brutal, if not outright sadistic to his enemies to make sure everyone is too terrified to fuck with regular Deon Hart.

'Be devoured by madness & Never leave an intact corpse' was one of the mantras of bad Deon. Regular Deon essentially blacks out when bad Deon takes control and wakes up well after the fighting, covered in blood and wondering what the fuck just happened and how he ended up in a different room or area with no memories of whatever fighting or war crimes bad Deon was forced to commit. There is a bit of Comedy to this as Deon loves alcohol and when he is sent to dangerous places he always drinks to calm his nerves. Like, drinking entire bottles of wine in a go kind of drinking. Everyone else chalks up his brutality to a mixture of drunkenness and sadism. Deon himself just assumes he's constantly getting black out drunk and waking up in strange places.

[Lomesa]

A lot of fantasy romance manhwa can be formulaic and so-called villain love interests can barely be considered mean. I was looking for something a darker and more mature, and then I came across 'Lady Devil'.

It's intriguing. It has a Cersei - Jaime thing going on (although it does turn out being only pseudo-twincest sort of maybe depending on your definition), with similar themes relating to the female character.

It follows Giovinetta, a young woman whose mother locked her up in a tower after she kissed her twin brother as a six year old. At sixteen she was married off, but her husband was gruesomely murdered on her wedding night, and she was once again forced to return to her prison for several more years. She watches her brother flourish and become a warrior and capable heir to Valdemar from her window.

She loves her brother but resents him. The extreme isolation she has been living for most of her life has defined her character in most regards, and the rest of the story and her development of her character is greatly influenced by that fact. She's not a very likeable, and at times she is quite irrational and unstable, but she's mesmerising because of that.

There's a curse on Giovinetta's mother's side of the family that is very central to the plot. Long ago, a devil was dismembered and sealed into a set of coffins. The family have used the coffins to make wishes (which have always backfired). It turns out her twin brother is cursed to transformed into a devil and her discovery of her brother's nature is what sets the plot in motion.

The art is gorgeous, the plot keeps you hooked, and the smut is great! If you would be interested in something character-centered with a focus on a troubled young woman whose been done very dirty by the world she's in and her desperate attempt to define happiness and love for herself (and the devil who is as much a reflection of her as he is his own creature), you won't be disappointed with this (even though it sufferers from some of the typical plot-related manhwa issues).

[Despairs]

Manwha's that I have read are Tonight You're My Dinner and Brawling Go. I like the ending of the former more than the latter. Manhwa's that I am currently reading are Play Karma and Secret Class.