konstantya (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
konstantya) wrote2013-05-25 02:18 pm
konstantya) wrote2013-05-25 02:18 pm
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This is where I wax poetic about Riang Ryu's Replay.
Replay is a three-volume manhwa, and was in fact the first manhwa I ever read. I came across it a few years ago on onemanga (remember when that site was still around?), when I was in one of my rare moods for romance, and so was browsing the shoujo manga section (don’t judge me). The title caught my eye, and so, I decided to give it a try. I finished it, I enjoyed it, and while I quickly moved on to other titles and even other media (I was in the throes of a hardcore mood, is all I gotta say), the story stuck with me. I forget why, exactly, but it popped into my head a couple days ago, and so I went searching the series out again, to give it a reread. (And now I’m going to talk about it, in hopes that other people will give it a read, because it really is a special little story, that deserves a bit more attention, in my mind.)
So. The summary.
Karam Yoon is your average high school student (aren’t they all, you cynically ask). She’s not super-pretty, nor super-popular, but she’s cute enough and has a healthy amount of friends. She bickers with her mother, squees over puppies, and in a refreshing change of pace, has no particular interest in romance at this point in her life. She can be clumsy and loud-mouthed, but she also has a mature and responsible streak to her. About the only truly remarkable thing about Karam is that every year, since she was five, she’s received a birthday gift from an anonymous benefactor. At first this kind of weirded her out (because, yanno, kinda creepy), but since nothing bad ever happened, she’s since chalked it up as just someone being nice to her—sometimes she gets curious about who her “Daddy Long Legs” is, but good things are good things, right? Karam isn’t going to be ungrateful for what is, by all evidence, just altruistic kindness.
Karam’s mother runs a boarding house, and it turns out that her latest tenant is also Karam’s new English teacher, Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee is an enigmatic fellow—he’s young, tall, and good-looking, yet has no girlfriend in sight (a scenario incomprehensible to the teenage girls he teaches). Karam attributes this to the fact that he comes off as very introverted, but then he makes some decidedly not introverted comments to her, and before long, it’s looking like Mr. Lee and Karam’s anonymous benefactor are in fact one and the same. Awkward. And more than a little unsettling. And what is up with Mr. Lee’s apparent grudge towards Naru Song, the handsome, popular boy with whom Karam has struck up a friendship?
*SPOILERS AHOY* (They end further down the line.)
As it turns out, Karam is the reincarnation of a girl named Canette. Back in the days of swords and sorcery, Canette was the daughter of an alchemist, Hemis, and an incredibly talented (if sheltered) conjurer in her own right. Hemis worked for a local lord, the eldest son of whom was a young man named Yann, who bears a striking resemblance to the modern-day Mr. Lee. Despite being the son and heir of a wealthy lord, Yann has a plethora of familial problems, which has left him disaffected and anti-social, with a particular hatred for his younger half-brother, Aster (and just guess who Aster resembles? If you said, “Naru Song,” give yourself a gold star). Aster is the golden child who can do no wrong, and basically represents everything Yann, himself, wants—a mother’s love, their father’s love, a charmed life, etc. He’s also kind of a spoiled dick, despite (or because of) that whole handsome/charming/popular thing he has going on, and so seems to get a kick out of pushing Yann’s buttons.
Anyway, one day, in a fit of anger and angst, triggered by none other than the sorry excuse for a family that he has, Yann takes a ride out into the countryside, and almost runs over Canette, who is out on a walk. He manages to avoid her, but gets thrown from his horse for his troubles. Canette, who happened upon him once before and commented on his melancholy aura, sees his cold demeanor and snide remarks as the defense-mechanisms they are, and in a fit of compassion, wraps her arms around him. Yann, starved for love and acceptance as he is, pretty much develops feelings for her right on the spot.
Of course, Yann is still not the most socially well-adjusted of folks, and instead of telling Canette of his feelings or courting her properly, he instead pulls some political strings and sets it up so that they’ll be married, just like that. Not exactly the nicest, most romantic way to go about it, but hey, at least he has the decency to seek her out and ask for her consent first—or would have, at any rate, if he hadn’t come upon her playing tonsil-hockey with, you guessed it, Aster. It always comes down to fucking Aster. He can’t let Yann have even the smallest bit of happiness, can he? Suffice it to say, this was the last straw, and using a war that has since broken out as cover, Yann kills his brother in a fit of jealousy and rage (everyone is having fits these days; they're all over the fucking place). Canette (who senses this with her powers?—it’s not quite clear how she finds out) is devastated and horrified by this turn of events. (It’s implied that, while Aster initially put the moves on Canette just to piss off Yann (seriously, what a dick), he ended up developing genuine feelings for her, and she with him. There was even talk of them getting married after the war was over and the political situation calmed down.) Anyway, one night Canette, overcome with grief, casts a spell: That Yann will live forever (a “death without death,” as she phrases it), never able to obtain love.
Ever since then, Yann has been wandering the Earth, searching out Canette’s reincarnations, doing everything in his power to make her fall in love with him, only to watch her consistently fall in love with the reincarnation of his half-brother, instead. By the time we meet him as Mr. Lee, he’s gone from determined to desperate, and that genuine affection he once felt for her, while it always had a note of possessiveness to it, has since twisted into something far darker, something more like straight-up obsession. He's honestly not sure if he even truly loves her anymore, but all he can do is continue to seek her out, and continue to try to win her affections, because that's the only way he'll ever get some sort of release from the hell that his existence has become—as it was a version of her that cast the spell in the first place, presumably a version of her will be able to break it (and though it’s never explicitly stated, it’s kind of implied that the act of her falling in love with him will do that?).
But alas! It is not to be. Not in this life, anyway. While Karam eventually does develop feelings toward Mr. Lee, that curse Canette cast, way back when? Her exact words were “a love unobtainable in life”—meaning that if, by chance, Yann ever does find love, his lover will die. So yup, Canette inadvertently cursed her future self. Karam dies, but not before apologizing to Lee/Yann, and promising that next time she’ll love him first (and presumably break the curse once and for all).
Fast forward to Paris, France. Lee/Yann works as a bartender in a café, and now goes by the name “Jean.” A small group of teenage girls enter, and the shyest of them, Monica, is quite obviously the newest incarnation of Canette. This throws Jean/Yann for a moment, but then he consciously ignores the way her presence sends his heart pounding (see, after centuries of disappointment, and in particular the heart-breaking way it all went down with Karam, Yann has decided to give up on both life and death; he is just too tired for this shit anymore, and has resigned himself to an eternity of numb, loveless isolation). Meanwhile, it so happens that another one of the girls, Sophie, a regular, totes has a crush on him, and has brought her friends along this particular time so that they can scope him out and tell her what they think. Sophie is determined to make a move today, and so instead of giving Jean her drink order, like usual, she leans across the bar and tries to kiss him. Jean/Yann blocks her by sticking—a straw? a kazoo?—in her mouth, instead, and proceeds to ban her from the café. The girls get thrown out, and while Sophie, disappointed but not disheartened, contemplates alternative tactics, Monica realizes she left her book in the bar. After retrieving it, she hesitantly introduces herself to Jean and asks if she can come there again (while they were all kicked out, he only named Sophie as the one who was banned). Jean is a little taken aback by this, but says sure, and Monica leaves, squeeing over the fact that she actually worked up the nerve to talk to him. Jean/Yann watches contemplatively, remarking that something feels different this time around, and the story manages to end on a hopeful, if open, note.
I like the idea of reincarnation, and traipsing around the Earth and all that, but one thing that always bothers me is (and maybe it shouldn't, but it's one of those logistical things I just can't help thinking about): Just what race/ethnicity is Lee/Yann? The flashbacks appear to take place somewhere in medieval Europe, so it would stand to reason that Yann is Caucasian in appearance. Certain things could be seen as supporting this theory—his blue eyes, the fact that he’s the English teacher, hell, you could argue that even his height points to a Western/European heritage—yet there’s never any mention of him being a foreigner, and the name he goes by for the majority of the story, Hyun-Su Lee, is distinctly Korean. It makes sense that Canette could go from Generic European to Korean (to French, and probably everything in between), but Yann doesn’t have the reincarnation excuse that she does. It just bugs me, is all.
*END SPOILERS*
Anyway, what I like about Replay is that, while it starts off looking like a typical shoujo high school romance/love-triangle, it progressively takes a turn for the dark and tragic (and supernatural). Shit hits the fan, and there's angst, and obsession, and people make mistakes, and it's all very tragic without becoming melodramatic or soap-operatic. A particularly refreshing aspect about it is that it doesn’t romanticize stalking nor student/teacher relationships. And what I really noticed and appreciated this time around is just how very nuanced and three-dimensional these characters are. There are no mustache-twirling villains, nor any knights in shining armor to be found here—just human beings, with all the flaws and virtues that entails. They have their petty and vengeful and misguided moments, but they also have their brave and compassionate and selfless moments, too. They’re very real in their actions and motivations, and very sympathetic because of that. Karam, especially, is a very likable heroine, I feel.
Not to say that Replay is a perfect read, because it isn’t. The scanlation is good from what I can tell (never having seen the original, and being unable to read Korean anyway), though occasionally things are worded a little awkwardly, and I caught a couple typos and/or forgotten words. But the actual editing and layout is very professional and easy to digest. As for the story itself, while it’s nice that it doesn’t go on for a hundred-some chapters, I do think it could have benefited from being stretched out just a little more than it was. (I don’t need everything tied up with a neat bow of explanations, but I would have liked to have seen certain aspects expanded upon/explored a bit more than they were. A couple more chapters, maybe even enough to stretch it to four volumes, would have been nice.) The art style is generally very good, though occasionally a little…“flat,” is the word that comes to mind. Just a little, sometimes in the action or expressions. (And it probably sounds incredibly superficial, but I'm not too fond of the super-pointed chins everyone seems to sport. It’s like everyone has a really weak chin, and just once I’d like to see a big, square jaw pop up, just to even things out a bit.)
But those are minor complaints in the long run, and I think the unusual story, the darker take on the student/teacher romance, and the characters, themselves, outweigh the flaws it has. I would love to own an actual hard copy of the series, but alas, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get an official English release anytime soon, if in fact ever. As it is, the scanlation can be found online in various places (I reread it here, on mangafox). At only three volumes, it’s a quick enough read, and can easily be finished in one sitting. So go check it out!
So. The summary.
Karam Yoon is your average high school student (aren’t they all, you cynically ask). She’s not super-pretty, nor super-popular, but she’s cute enough and has a healthy amount of friends. She bickers with her mother, squees over puppies, and in a refreshing change of pace, has no particular interest in romance at this point in her life. She can be clumsy and loud-mouthed, but she also has a mature and responsible streak to her. About the only truly remarkable thing about Karam is that every year, since she was five, she’s received a birthday gift from an anonymous benefactor. At first this kind of weirded her out (because, yanno, kinda creepy), but since nothing bad ever happened, she’s since chalked it up as just someone being nice to her—sometimes she gets curious about who her “Daddy Long Legs” is, but good things are good things, right? Karam isn’t going to be ungrateful for what is, by all evidence, just altruistic kindness.
Karam’s mother runs a boarding house, and it turns out that her latest tenant is also Karam’s new English teacher, Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee is an enigmatic fellow—he’s young, tall, and good-looking, yet has no girlfriend in sight (a scenario incomprehensible to the teenage girls he teaches). Karam attributes this to the fact that he comes off as very introverted, but then he makes some decidedly not introverted comments to her, and before long, it’s looking like Mr. Lee and Karam’s anonymous benefactor are in fact one and the same. Awkward. And more than a little unsettling. And what is up with Mr. Lee’s apparent grudge towards Naru Song, the handsome, popular boy with whom Karam has struck up a friendship?
*SPOILERS AHOY* (They end further down the line.)
As it turns out, Karam is the reincarnation of a girl named Canette. Back in the days of swords and sorcery, Canette was the daughter of an alchemist, Hemis, and an incredibly talented (if sheltered) conjurer in her own right. Hemis worked for a local lord, the eldest son of whom was a young man named Yann, who bears a striking resemblance to the modern-day Mr. Lee. Despite being the son and heir of a wealthy lord, Yann has a plethora of familial problems, which has left him disaffected and anti-social, with a particular hatred for his younger half-brother, Aster (and just guess who Aster resembles? If you said, “Naru Song,” give yourself a gold star). Aster is the golden child who can do no wrong, and basically represents everything Yann, himself, wants—a mother’s love, their father’s love, a charmed life, etc. He’s also kind of a spoiled dick, despite (or because of) that whole handsome/charming/popular thing he has going on, and so seems to get a kick out of pushing Yann’s buttons.
Anyway, one day, in a fit of anger and angst, triggered by none other than the sorry excuse for a family that he has, Yann takes a ride out into the countryside, and almost runs over Canette, who is out on a walk. He manages to avoid her, but gets thrown from his horse for his troubles. Canette, who happened upon him once before and commented on his melancholy aura, sees his cold demeanor and snide remarks as the defense-mechanisms they are, and in a fit of compassion, wraps her arms around him. Yann, starved for love and acceptance as he is, pretty much develops feelings for her right on the spot.
Of course, Yann is still not the most socially well-adjusted of folks, and instead of telling Canette of his feelings or courting her properly, he instead pulls some political strings and sets it up so that they’ll be married, just like that. Not exactly the nicest, most romantic way to go about it, but hey, at least he has the decency to seek her out and ask for her consent first—or would have, at any rate, if he hadn’t come upon her playing tonsil-hockey with, you guessed it, Aster. It always comes down to fucking Aster. He can’t let Yann have even the smallest bit of happiness, can he? Suffice it to say, this was the last straw, and using a war that has since broken out as cover, Yann kills his brother in a fit of jealousy and rage (everyone is having fits these days; they're all over the fucking place). Canette (who senses this with her powers?—it’s not quite clear how she finds out) is devastated and horrified by this turn of events. (It’s implied that, while Aster initially put the moves on Canette just to piss off Yann (seriously, what a dick), he ended up developing genuine feelings for her, and she with him. There was even talk of them getting married after the war was over and the political situation calmed down.) Anyway, one night Canette, overcome with grief, casts a spell: That Yann will live forever (a “death without death,” as she phrases it), never able to obtain love.
Ever since then, Yann has been wandering the Earth, searching out Canette’s reincarnations, doing everything in his power to make her fall in love with him, only to watch her consistently fall in love with the reincarnation of his half-brother, instead. By the time we meet him as Mr. Lee, he’s gone from determined to desperate, and that genuine affection he once felt for her, while it always had a note of possessiveness to it, has since twisted into something far darker, something more like straight-up obsession. He's honestly not sure if he even truly loves her anymore, but all he can do is continue to seek her out, and continue to try to win her affections, because that's the only way he'll ever get some sort of release from the hell that his existence has become—as it was a version of her that cast the spell in the first place, presumably a version of her will be able to break it (and though it’s never explicitly stated, it’s kind of implied that the act of her falling in love with him will do that?).
But alas! It is not to be. Not in this life, anyway. While Karam eventually does develop feelings toward Mr. Lee, that curse Canette cast, way back when? Her exact words were “a love unobtainable in life”—meaning that if, by chance, Yann ever does find love, his lover will die. So yup, Canette inadvertently cursed her future self. Karam dies, but not before apologizing to Lee/Yann, and promising that next time she’ll love him first (and presumably break the curse once and for all).
Fast forward to Paris, France. Lee/Yann works as a bartender in a café, and now goes by the name “Jean.” A small group of teenage girls enter, and the shyest of them, Monica, is quite obviously the newest incarnation of Canette. This throws Jean/Yann for a moment, but then he consciously ignores the way her presence sends his heart pounding (see, after centuries of disappointment, and in particular the heart-breaking way it all went down with Karam, Yann has decided to give up on both life and death; he is just too tired for this shit anymore, and has resigned himself to an eternity of numb, loveless isolation). Meanwhile, it so happens that another one of the girls, Sophie, a regular, totes has a crush on him, and has brought her friends along this particular time so that they can scope him out and tell her what they think. Sophie is determined to make a move today, and so instead of giving Jean her drink order, like usual, she leans across the bar and tries to kiss him. Jean/Yann blocks her by sticking—a straw? a kazoo?—in her mouth, instead, and proceeds to ban her from the café. The girls get thrown out, and while Sophie, disappointed but not disheartened, contemplates alternative tactics, Monica realizes she left her book in the bar. After retrieving it, she hesitantly introduces herself to Jean and asks if she can come there again (while they were all kicked out, he only named Sophie as the one who was banned). Jean is a little taken aback by this, but says sure, and Monica leaves, squeeing over the fact that she actually worked up the nerve to talk to him. Jean/Yann watches contemplatively, remarking that something feels different this time around, and the story manages to end on a hopeful, if open, note.
I like the idea of reincarnation, and traipsing around the Earth and all that, but one thing that always bothers me is (and maybe it shouldn't, but it's one of those logistical things I just can't help thinking about): Just what race/ethnicity is Lee/Yann? The flashbacks appear to take place somewhere in medieval Europe, so it would stand to reason that Yann is Caucasian in appearance. Certain things could be seen as supporting this theory—his blue eyes, the fact that he’s the English teacher, hell, you could argue that even his height points to a Western/European heritage—yet there’s never any mention of him being a foreigner, and the name he goes by for the majority of the story, Hyun-Su Lee, is distinctly Korean. It makes sense that Canette could go from Generic European to Korean (to French, and probably everything in between), but Yann doesn’t have the reincarnation excuse that she does. It just bugs me, is all.
*END SPOILERS*
Anyway, what I like about Replay is that, while it starts off looking like a typical shoujo high school romance/love-triangle, it progressively takes a turn for the dark and tragic (and supernatural). Shit hits the fan, and there's angst, and obsession, and people make mistakes, and it's all very tragic without becoming melodramatic or soap-operatic. A particularly refreshing aspect about it is that it doesn’t romanticize stalking nor student/teacher relationships. And what I really noticed and appreciated this time around is just how very nuanced and three-dimensional these characters are. There are no mustache-twirling villains, nor any knights in shining armor to be found here—just human beings, with all the flaws and virtues that entails. They have their petty and vengeful and misguided moments, but they also have their brave and compassionate and selfless moments, too. They’re very real in their actions and motivations, and very sympathetic because of that. Karam, especially, is a very likable heroine, I feel.
Not to say that Replay is a perfect read, because it isn’t. The scanlation is good from what I can tell (never having seen the original, and being unable to read Korean anyway), though occasionally things are worded a little awkwardly, and I caught a couple typos and/or forgotten words. But the actual editing and layout is very professional and easy to digest. As for the story itself, while it’s nice that it doesn’t go on for a hundred-some chapters, I do think it could have benefited from being stretched out just a little more than it was. (I don’t need everything tied up with a neat bow of explanations, but I would have liked to have seen certain aspects expanded upon/explored a bit more than they were. A couple more chapters, maybe even enough to stretch it to four volumes, would have been nice.) The art style is generally very good, though occasionally a little…“flat,” is the word that comes to mind. Just a little, sometimes in the action or expressions. (And it probably sounds incredibly superficial, but I'm not too fond of the super-pointed chins everyone seems to sport. It’s like everyone has a really weak chin, and just once I’d like to see a big, square jaw pop up, just to even things out a bit.)
But those are minor complaints in the long run, and I think the unusual story, the darker take on the student/teacher romance, and the characters, themselves, outweigh the flaws it has. I would love to own an actual hard copy of the series, but alas, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get an official English release anytime soon, if in fact ever. As it is, the scanlation can be found online in various places (I reread it here, on mangafox). At only three volumes, it’s a quick enough read, and can easily be finished in one sitting. So go check it out!