Category: Webtoons

Webtoon Review: Ecstasy Hearts

Webtoon Review: Ecstasy Hearts

by eastasianlover ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Well, although the author’s name sounds Korean (SilentMaru), it seems the webtoon is originally English, so no original Korean name this time. It’s a complete webtoon, with 101 chapters and available for free to read on webtoon. Please note that this a review and not really a recommendation. Then, let’s dive into it right away.

Shimizu Anya is the child of world’s best two tennis players. And hence, she carries this weight of expectations around her to be the best in tennis as well. She might not have been as passionate about tennis as her parents might have wanted her to be, but provoking from this kid called Axel Koizumi ignites a fire within her to conquer him and become the best. The guy Axel, on the other hand, seems to be an effortless genius in tennis, who doesn’t need much effort to overpower Anya, much to the chagrin of the girl. And thus starts a journey, of the girl, to show everyone how her genes and hard work can lead to her taking the crown of tennis queen of the world.

I love the art tbh. And it evolved overtime to become even better.

If we go into depth a bit, Anya is your everyday girl and I relate a lot to her, especially as an Asian kid. This excelling in every field in school and developing rivalry with your classmates hits home too hard.

And Axel is that guy who doesn’t seem to be working as hard as you but still winning at life more than you. He has his own past and problems for sure. But, you can’t help but feel jealous. He helps Anya become better overtime. Oh man! This takes me back to my school days.

Again, the backdrop of the story is quite common. To sum it up in one line, it’s just a girl’s one sided rivalry dating back to her childhood days which leads to a lifelong love. Now that we have got that out of the way, let’s talk about the plus points of the webtoon. I just love the art of this one. Aesthetically pleasing, amazing use of colors, as close to real world as it could be. Sometimes can be too shiny but still lovely.

Plot starts great, there is good character development for Anya and Axel both initially. A lot of chapters come with background music on the official website, so that’s a plus too, gives another dimension to the whole thing. For people, who are interested, there are too many pictures to drool over, it’s got that great an art.

Hot dudes everywhere

Too bad, oh, too bad. The author fell ill towards the end of the webtoon. They might have fell ill earlier but I guess the pressure of releasing the chapters each week took a toll and apparently an old injury came to haunt them back. The abrupt ending of the webtoon led to a lot of complaints and frustration from readers.

The plot reduced to a bunch of unfinished story lines, deviating from the tennis arena altogether and just focusing on the relationships between the characters. Which might not be that bad but departing from the whole premise is just, basically, crumbling down the whole thing. None of the characters got their deserved ending (actually any ending), and we readers were left with hundreds and thousands of questions.

However much high rating I wanna give this webtoon, I just cannot bring myself to give it a good rating nor can I bring myself to rate it too poorly. Now that I think about it, I probably actually vested myself into it. So, if you come across this webtoon, and find yourself enjoying it, just tread with caution. I’ll warn you against the disappointment you’re in for.

I just hope, as every other fan, that the author gets well soon and provides us with an alternative ending, may be a season 2? But who knows. For now, it is what it is. The unfortunate thing about this webtoon is, there is no one to blame for. It was great at the beginning. It had unlimited potential to become one of the best webtoons out there. But well, unfortunate things happen, this is life.

So, there you go.

Conclusion: Great art, awesome characters, cliche story, poor ending. I will rate it 5/10 just because I put so much time into it. In terms of number of chapters though, it is, well short. And I like it that way, so I shouldn’t be complaining much about it.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention but there are too many hot scenes in this one, so I would suggest reading it with discretion.

Final Feelings: ╮(╯ _╰ )╭

Read here: Ecstasy Hearts on Webtoons.com

Personal Section: Nothing much to write here. It has been truly hard to juggle everything with my lack of sleep. But I am finally getting Fridays off, so I have something to celebrate lol.

I’m heading out to my Sunday work after finishing this post real fast. Everyone, let’s look forward to Thanksgiving holidays where it is celebrated.

Tis the season of winter, a chill is running down everywhere, including my relationship with some people. Hope, spring comes soon 😀

Today’s song: Let’s go with this guy, I don’t even know why I chose it:

Webtoon Reco: My Letter (연의 편지)

Webtoon Reco: My Letter (연의 편지)

by eastasianlover ♥ 0 Leave a Comment
Your letter ch 2

O.M.G. Like how can one person write such a wholesome and most importantly complete story in just 10 chapters? And a while back I was talking about a good story line in less than 50 chapters.

You read that right. Just 10 chapters. Not novel chapters but webtoon chapters. This week I bring you guys a story which would make your hearts full. It started publishing back in Feb. I think I started reading this webtoon in March, but never realized that it would finish so soon, and I miss it. I truly miss it. Another Wednesday webtoon came to an end. And it had such an impeccable timing too. I can recommend it to my readers this week.

The webtoon, written by Cho Hyeon A tells the story of a girl called Sori. Kind and caring, Sori stands up for a girl being bullied in her middle school and becomes a victim herself while her friend transfers away. Ultimately Sori has to transfer from her middle school as well and she finds herself traumatized from her past experience and hence, a bit difficult to interact with people in new school.

Your letter ch 1
I don’t know how many times I have asked that question to myself till date. It’s so relateable…

Afraid that she might face similar situation again, she decides to keep to herself. And then she finds a letter under her desk in the class. This results in a treasure hunt where the guy who previously used to sit in Sori’s seat, takes her on an amazing discovery of magical places and new friends.

Apart from its pros of great art and amazing plot line, that you usually might find in my recommendations, this webtoon has an unusual charm to it. It takes you on a ride of nostalgia of your school days where you might or might not have formed great relationships, not with just classmates but people around, may be gardener or janitor. Also, the special corners in your school you might have shared only with very precious friends.

Your letter ch 3
Special friendships and special places 😌

Of course it raises the ever rampant issue of bullying. And I certainly am a fan of media that raise social issues or inspires one. So, it gets more points for that.

Regarding the art, the use of only 2-3 colors in each panel gives it a unique flavor in my opinion. It’s like finding happiness in really dull life/moments. And so, for me personally, the colors represent the dullness while the plot drives towards a happy ending. It gives the webtoon a dark vibe and fits really well with the overall theme of the webtoon.

As for cons, I don’t have any. It could have gone all wrong given that it’s just 10 eps but its delivery is just fantastic. By the time you even start to try to find any flaws, it gets over. It certainly gives Ghibli Studio productions like feeling. And it’s not even a 15 mins read, so I don’t think anyone reading this has anything to lose. Below is the official trailer from webtoons.com

Conclusion: It’s a really heartwarming story and while it’s a shame that it ended so soon, it doesn’t feel that bad. It was a nice ending and the webtoon truly deserves the rating it has on webtoons.com. I cannot recommend it enough. It’s just so precious that my heart warms up just thinking about it. I guess I’ll go read it again.

Final feelings: (づ ◕‿◕ )づ

Read here: Your letter on webtoons for free

Personal front: This is the first time I have finished writing the whole post before personal section, since I started it. I was perhaps dreading writing it? But right now I am going through really bad phase of my life. Without delving into much details though, I just hope it passes soon.

Anyway, a friend of mine earlier this week introduced me to two new boy groups called The Boyz and Stray Kids and OMG, I am finished. They’re such precious boys. I have officially become a noona fan (although I would be a noona fan to iKon too ;-; ).

I guess they would be my solace for now as Infinite and SuJu were in 2015? Or Exo were in 2017? Wow, I see a pattern here, odd numbered years. Hmm, that’s sad. Anyway, I’ll leave it at that.

Today’s song: Being a new fan I guess it will be songs from these two groups for a long long time. I am not going to lament on lack of songs to post now lol. Below is the song from Stray Kids which I have been listening non stop for some time now, on loop. Also, shout out to my friend who introduced me to these groups. It’s actually so much fun having fellow k-pop lovers.

Disclaimer: All the pics above are property of webtoons.com and Cho Hyeon A. Nothing here belongs to me. Today’s song is the property of JYP Ent.

Webtoon Reco: My Boo (투명한 동거)

Webtoon Reco: My Boo (투명한 동거)

by eastasianlover ♥ 5 Comments
My Boo 1

This week, I am recommending another short-sweet-love and slice of life webtoon from South Korea. It’s been very very long since I finished any manga/ manhwa/ manhua tbh.

I might review Barakamon when its last volume comes out late July. But otherwise, I’ll have to really dig out all the manga I have finished and probably read them again to review. I might actually do that someday but right now life is hectic and I will, perhaps, continue reviewing ongoing webtoons.

Webtoons are the craze these days anyway. Not only Naver’s original webtoons.com have it, but apps like Tapas and Tappy Toon have ever increasing collection. Not to mention, the Chinese webnovels being converted to colored webtoons have taken over the world by storm as well. People who’re already paying to read novels are now also engrossed in their respective webtoons, pouring in more money. *Cough Cough* Qidian is getting richer by the day… *Cough*

My Boo is the love story of a human girl and a ghost guy. When love transcends the boundary of dead and alive, that’s when you get My Boo. It’s not a new concept and I am following another webtoon these days on a similar theme called Ghost Wife.

My Boo 2
I ship ❤

Anyway, the protagonist of this story is a girl names Yuri So who can see the ghosts for some reason. She has had traumatic past with them and tries to avoid them as much as she can. She finds it hard to maintain a balance between her powers and her urge to help when she sees one in distress.

She works as a freelance translator and moves into a new house whose previous owner was our ghost, Jun Ko. He died in the house and is stuck there for past 3 years. First Yuri avoids him and outright rejects him just to not involve herself with him. But slowly she starts understanding him and herself and they become housemates in real sense, ultimately falling in love for each other.

My Boo 3
My Boo 4
I love the dialogue delivery too. Peaceful yet powerful.

What I like the most about this webtoon is how maturely it’s been written. Each chapter starts with a glimpse from Yuri’s past, especially her traumatic experience after which she decided not to involve herself with the ghosts.

It also gives the POV of both Yuri and Jun and how their feelings change for each other. With just 47 episodes, the story is fleshed out so well, I can just feel all the feels again. The emotions in this webtoon are so real and so relate-able, I just can’t. I ended up binge reading it again.

As I said, you can just feel it all with just two characters. Like the whole 47 chapters is majorly with just two characters. OMG, I have whole new level of respect for the author Jeongseo. How can they make something so good with just two characters? You can feel Jun’s helplessness when he can’t save Yuri from falling from stairs or when he can’t drive her to hospital like her ‘human’ friends or when he can’t touch her or when he can’t hold her.

My Boo 5
I feel so helpless just reading this one dialogue, dammit!

Same for Yuri, she can’t save him. She can’t bring him back. She can’t help falling for him either. But fate has something else for them. Their interaction is so fluffy, so awkward initially and turning into sweet moments later. Anyway, I’ll warn beforehand, this webtoon has a bittersweet ending, one which would make you cry and smile at the same time.

And the next best thing about the webtoon is art. Realistic, simple, cute and just amazing. I wish I could draw like that. There is also a 3-D effect about it. The author has real understanding of angles and perspective. Since Jun can pass through objects, most of the scenes need to be presented from unusual angles and I personally feel that Jeongseo-nim has done an excellent job regarding that.

I don’t really have anything negative to talk about. I loved the webtoon to the core.

Conclusion: Giving this like 110/10, highly highly recommended from me. It’s max 2 hours read and is so very engrossing. It has a rating of 9.77 at webtoons.com!!! So, it’s just not me lol. Also, forgot to mention earlier, it also has cute cats. Now I want a boo of my own.

Final feelings: (❤ω❤)

Read here: My Boo on Webtoon for free

Personal Front: I had a very rude awakening this week. So, I was telling some juniors of mine how since they’re in college, they should not be wasting time like how I did and they really have golden opportunity right now and of course I was rambling on and on. It’s actually become a habit to be lecturing those people because I thought I cared and didn’t want them to repeat the mistakes I did but well. And one of them really opened my eyes.

So, if I, as a person who’s like perhaps 6 years senior to those kids, tell them stuff like this, I am acting like their parents and lecturing but if another person who’s just 1-2 years senior to them says exact same thing, they listen. I realized two things then and there: the power of peers vs. anyone else and plight of parents.

We listen to our peers because we think that they relate more to us and understand us better while blaming our parents for generation gap yada yada. I do admit that parents’ way of telling us about adulting might not be the nicest and their advice might not really be suitable for the current economy and circumstances and times etc., but we can always mold their advice to suit ourselves. I guess I would be paying more attention to my parents’ teachings and try to understand them more from now on. Thanks for the valuable lesson whoever the person was.

In other news, I might have to update my last review for the Golden Eyes because the plot went downhill way too fast. After 18th episode, I am so frustrated but I cannot drop it because I have seen further trailers and they’re yet to tell the secret behind the power. Aarrghh, such decisions in life, I tell ya!

Today’s Song: I don’t remember if I have posted this song before but I am back to listening to this song since I have been watching Lay’s drama:

Webtoon Recommendation: Super Secret (슈퍼 시크릿)

Webtoon Recommendation: Super Secret (슈퍼 시크릿)

by eastasianlover ♥ 1 Comment
Super Secret Webtoon

This post was supposed to be the first post of 2019 but I somehow ended up reviewing a webnovel first. So, although I had written this post in the first week of January, I had to change the whole intro again, (basically write everything again). Oh well. I have moved some parts of my intro to the personal section of the post, if anyone’s interested

Anyway, today I bring this super cute 4-panel webtoon for you guys. Completed just a month back, it’s one of my favorite webtoons, kind of. I feel so happy for the characters. But damn, I’ll miss my Wednesday update every week.

Written by author by the name of “eon”, it is a rather short webtoon with 144 chapters only and a webtoon rating of 9.82!! So I guess it comes highly recommended from webtoon readers?

It is a heartwarming slice of life romcom (interesting combo tbh but I am seeing this combo popping up again and again these days) about a clumsy girl called Emma Ji whose parents live abroad and her childhood friend Ryan Nam who has been taking care of her, performing all duties of a mom, a dad and her best friend.

Super Secret funny 2
Lol, Emma admits it herself

As *two childhood friends who fall in love with each other but the girl doesn’t have a clue* cliche as it sounds, what sets it apart from other stories like this is that Ryan and his family have a secret. They’re supernatural beings. Ryan himself is a werewolf, his two sisters are witch and a nine tailed fox (Trust me, it’s not a spoiler! It is just a secret for Emma, not the readers XD XD). These guys helping Emma with her normal life while trying to keep their super secret a secret from everyone including Emma and her friends create real hilarious situations.

More than that, you really feel for Ryan. He is hopelessly in love with her. While our airhead Emma tries to just live her life, she’s totally obvious to Ryan’s or her own feelings. Added to the mix are problems that arise from Ryan’s secret, since in this universe, humans are not allowed to know about the existence of the supernatural beings.

There are of course ways to evade that rule but it involves so many complications that it often poses danger to Emma and her other hooman friends. Her friends also get involved with other super beings.

Super secret funny
Like you’re ever gonna do it >.>

What I really like about the webtoon is the art, which is super cute and fluffy despite being based majorly on humans (super beings in the form of humans, but you get my point, right?). And the author has really not bound the story and characters by any boundaries in the sense that even Ryan’s family contains all kind of beings, which is interesting in terms of procreation (Can you think of a Frankenstein and a Korean spirit/ Goddess with children who are nine tailed fox, witch and a werewolf? Unless they’re all adopted? No information there). I mean, it’s fine, don’t wanna go into nitty gritty stuff.

I also liked the comedy part. It’s not laugh out loud kind of comedy but just funny. You feel good reading it. I wouldn’t comment on character development because it’s not really a plot driven webtoon. I mean there is an overarching theme of how Emma discovers Ryan’s secret and their feelings for each other. But it’s not like you get to see people grow beyond their flaws and stuff.

Super secret 5
From the author’s postscript…

What I don’t like about the webtoon is that it wasn’t originally supposed to be this long. Near the end, there was a lot of stuff in the plot which seemed unnecessary to me, and the author admits it in the last chapter. They had planned it only for 50 chapters but it went on to become almost 100 chapters more. They’re not unbearable and I won’t know how it would feel to binge read it. Perhaps it would make more sense reading it all together?

But somewhere I did get lost in the plot. It seemed to be like every Korean drama where a point comes and you just want to skip to the end. It was not possible for me because I was obviously following it while it was publishing and reading one chapter per week.

Super secret funny 3
Uh, I might be slave to this cutesy art too XD

Conclusion: Personally, despite my reservations about the unnecessary additions of characters and plot to keep the editors happy and just for the sake of it, I really like it. In my weekly schedule, for months, this was the only webtoon that I followed that updated on Wednesday (I have started 2 new webtoons now, so Wednesdays don’t seem empty anymore). And I really looked forward to it every week.

So, I would still recommend my readers to give it a try. It’s not that long that you would feel that you’ve invested too much time reading it anyway.

Final feelings: (o˘◡˘o)

Read here: Super Secret on Webtoons.com

Personal Front: Well, as I mentioned earlier, this post was to go up in mid-Jan as I came back from India to US after a vacay of 3 weeks. I was feeling a bit of non-belonging-ness to either US or India, although I have lived some 23 years in India and 2.5 years in US (time indeed flies!!).

Like you know, I have mentioned this before but I don’t really get attached to places. Not my undergrad college, not Thailand, not my previous place of work, not here. And Pittsburgh is actually the place where I have spent 3rd longest time of my life at one place. It all seems very interesting to me.

Anyway, there is nothing much to tell on personal front otherwise. I am 1/5th through this book called “Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits” and I am loving it so far, more so because I finished those 60+ pages in 2 hours, thanks to an online friend.

I asked her to work for an hour on some project without getting distracted and being accountable to each other for the work we decided upon. It actually feels good to be accomplishing something like that. I see myself using this technique of productivity more often in the future.

Today’s song: Somehow got hooked to Taemin’s new song. Although I don’t like how changed he looks with regards to body (too thin and a bit shorter compared to before? I feel like he doesn’t have bones in his body anymore!), I am loving the sound. It feels okay putting on repeat and listening at length, plus the lyrics are so narcissist, that it inspires some confidence in otherwise under-confident me (Today I realized that the meaning of the song could be quite sensual as well):

Disclaimer: All the images used here are property of author eon and webtoons.com and have directly been taken from the website. Nothing belongs to me or the blog.

Webtoon Recommendation: unTouchable

Webtoon Recommendation: unTouchable

by eastasianlover ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

unTouchable 1

Time for the first review of 2018! Yay!! I am sorry that the first review is coming out in June itself. I just needed to figure my life out, which hasn’t really happened yet, but baby steps 😀

I have been mentioning for quite sometime that I have been religiously following some webtoons since last year. The introduction of Naver’s own English translations of their original Korean webtoons has made access of quite a few of these to the non-Korean audience way easier. Not only that, they have now original creations in English as well (Sarah’s Scribbles anyone?).

So, today I bring a vampire based story. The fans of Orange Marmalade would definitely appreciate this one. Also those people who were disappointed by the open ending of that one would totally love this series.

Pfft, such an interesting start

Plot: The story is about a modern vampire Sia Lee. In her world, vampires live by touching normal people and absorbing their energy. Yup, no blood involved (except a few nasty vampires, as usual). So, Sia finds this guy called Jihoo, whose energy is so delicious that she is unable to absorb energy from any other person after she tastes his. Jihoo on the other hand, has OCD. He hates touch and is quite a mysophobe. They end up becoming neighbors and falling for each other. But Sia’s vampire background and Jihoo’s childhood and germophobia, Sia’s childhood friend Baryu, and of course, the villain whose real intentions are unknown till the very end, pose real obstacles to the development of their relationship. Are they able to cross those and be together? That you can find out on reading the webtoon.

Characters: There is a vast variety of characters in this webtoon. You would find yourself changing your opinion about everyone with the progress of the story. Sometimes, Sia is too clingy and you can’t help but pity Jihoo. Sometimes, Jihoo is a jerk. Their families are no better. You end up developing a love-hate relationship with each and every character. You want to punch them in face but also get to see the other side of their story and empathize with them. This is especially true for Sia’s family; her sister and her dad. Their overprotective nature towards Sia makes you root for Sia’s rebellion but then you get to know why they do what they do.

I love the way the author has weaved the plot to give a happy ending to everyone, even the villains. And, that my friends, I would say is the biggest strength of this series. There are some loose ends, as usual. You would struggle a bit relating to the villain, because of lack of background, but it still works. You’re too engrossed with the main couple that you wouldn’t really feel like delving into this side character’s story. I mean, it doesn’t really affect the flow of the webtoon, and that’s the best part.

Has comedy too!

Not to mention, it has that element of mystery to it. One keeps guessing the motive of the villain till the end. And how our two MCs would end up as well.

Art: Art is just beautiful!! There is a consistency in the drawings and backgrounds are just amazing. The use of subtle colors keeps it easy on your eyes. That is another reason to read this one.

unTouchable 4
Colors ❤

Adaptations: So, the webtoon has been adapted to a Chinese Drama called ‘I cannot hug you’. I have watched the drama and might review it sometime in future. It is pretty close the story of original webtoon but deviates a bit when it comes to the villain and actual ending. But still a good adaptation.

Final verdict: The webtoon comes as highly recommended from me. More so, because it’s completed now, so one can just binge read it on a weekend. And you won’t need to wait for the episodes each week! It is rated at 9.69/10 on webtoons.com. You can read it here completely free: unTouchable on webtoons.com

Today’s song: I think I’ll still put another Jolin Tsai’s song here. From next post though, I might start putting spring anime’s OST. I am hooked on some, and gotta find them soon on YouTube!