Tag: manhwa

Review: Solo Leveling Volume 1 (novel)

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

In the world of “Solo Leveling,” inter-dimensional gates regularly open up to “dungeons” crawling with strange and dangerous creatures. The only ones who can kill the creatures are hunters, who have awakened powers that let them take down the big bosses.

And out of all those hunters… Jinwoo is the weakest.

Needless to say, there’s plenty of room for improvement for the protagonist of Chugong’s “Solo Leveling” – and even in the brief space of the first volume, he makes quite a bit of improvement. The story thus far is bloody, harrowing, but also somewhat wryly funny – especially when the System intervenes to make life more complicated for the hero.

As mentioned before, Jinwoo Sung is the weakest of the lowest-ranked hunters, able to tag along on only the least threatening missions – and even then, he gets badly hurt. But he has no choice, because he needs the money for his family. When the party he’s with finds a rare double dungeon, Jin-woo is determined to explore the vast, eerie stone chamber filled with statues – and ends up in a nightmare that leaves him alone and dying.

Which is when the System intervenes, healing his body and saving his life. While he recovers, the System gives Jinwoo daily quests (mostly exercise) and the opportunity to level up and acquire new items. Just like a video game. He’s achieving the impossible: becoming steadily stronger, with apparently no limits.

Unfortunately, he soon discovers that even his increased power won’t keep him safe from potential harm in a dog-eat-dog profession, especially when he and another young hunter, Jinho Yoo, sign up for a freelance job posting. The problem is, the guy who’s hiring them, Dongsuk Hwang, is not the genial figure he pretends to be, and the biggest danger may be the other hunters rather than anything inside the dungeon.

The world of “Solo Leveling” is a pretty standard urban fantasy setting. It’s the modern world as we know it, except some people have magical powers and inter-dimensional gates allow them to hunt goblins, giant spiders and snakes, statue-gods, and so on. The most interesting aspect of it is the System that effectively turns Jinwoo into the protagonist of his own personal video game, with all the problems and benefits of that status.

The writing is pretty standard for a light-novel/webnovel’s style, spare and lean with lots of onomatopeia. It feels like Chugong is still building up the plot threads in this volume, since the majority of the story is just devoted to Jinwoo ending up in a nightmarish and life-threatening situation, and then spending a lot of time grinding (which is a bit tedious) and building up his strength. But Chugong has some talent at depicting the raw, wild, desperate interiors of the dungeons, and the monsters in them.

Jinwoo is kind of a mixed hero – at the story’s beginning, he’s courageous, unselfish and quick-witted, but still petrified of dying and acutely aware of his almost comical weakness. However, he becomes a lot colder and less likable as the first volume winds on, after he comes to the conclusion that all people are cowardly backstabbers. Hopefully the presence of Jinho – a golden retriever of a rich boy who constantly addresses him as “boss” – will mellow him out in subsequent volumes.

“Solo Leveling Volume 1” has some growing pains, but it’s an entertaining foray into a series with plenty of promise, solid writing, and a hero who wobbles on the edge of antihero. At the very least, it inspires me to check out volume two.

Review: Solo Leveling Volume 1 (manhwa)

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

In the world of “Solo Leveling,” inter-dimensional gates regularly open up to “dungeons” crawling with strange and dangerous creatures. The only ones who can kill the creatures are hunters, who have awakened powers that let them take down the big bosses.

And out of all those hunters… Jin-woo is the weakest.

Needless to say, there’s plenty of room for improvement for the protagonist of the manhwa adaptation of Chugong’s “Solo Leveling.” The first volume mostly devotes itself to introducing us to the world of hunters and the hideous events that lead to Jin-woo’s chances to improve himself, with a terrifying and bloody series of challenges at the center of the story. The artwork is half the reason to see this – dark, gloomy and beautifully detailed.

As mentioned before, Sung Jin-woo is the weakest of the lowest-ranked hunters, able to tag along on only the least threatening missions – and even then, he gets badly hurt. But he has no choice, because he needs the money for his family. When the party he’s with finds a rare double dungeon, Jin-woo is determined to explore the vast, eerie stone chamber filled with statues, in the hopes that he can scrounge up a little money.

But then the statues come to life and start killing the party members, including a vast “god” statue that has a very specific list of demands. Unfortunately, those commandments are difficult to decipher, and more and more hunters lose their nerve – leading to them being vaporized or squashed into red smears. To survive this nightmarish scenario, Jin-woo will need more than his wits. He’ll need a System, and he’ll start grinding like a pro if he ever wants to get stronger.

The first volume of “Solo Leveling” is dominated by the adventure in the double dungeon, and the entire eerie, bloody adventure is explored in great detail. It’s genuinely nerve-wracking to watch the hunters dwindle as the adventure goes on – especially as some of them turn on each other, lose limbs or panic and try to escape on foot. The fact that it’s overseen by a creepy, sadistic stone “god” with a toothy grin makes the whole thing even more eerie.

And the story is brought to life by the artwork of Jang Sung-rak (aka Dubu), who used color exceptionally, painting the god’s chamber in stark, ghostly, cold blues and the regular world in warm, sunlit tones. The artwork is also very detailed and expressive, lingering on the characters’ faces to show their terror, tension, eagerness and apprehension, and even brief bursts of action (like the murder centipedes in the desert) are wonderfully dynamic.

We also have a good introduction to Jin-woo, who seems like a vividly realistic character – he’s courageous, unselfish and quick-thinking (he unravels all three commandments without help), but still petrified of dying and acutely aware of his almost comical weakness. But after the System accepts him as a player, we see him starting to branch out into becoming stronger, whether it’s racing laps around the hospital or venturing alone into a new dungeon.

The first volume of “Solo Leveling”‘s manhwa adaptation is a nail-biting experience that flies by quickly, before introducing you to the central conceit of the series – and it promises to get more interesting as Jin-woo levels up.

Review: Jungle Juice Volume 1

On By E. A. SolinasIn reviewsLeave a comment

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Suchan Jang seems to have the perfect college life – he’s popular, lots of friends, straight-A grades, and girls adore him. The only problem is that he’s a human-insect hybrid.

And that’s the premise behind “Jungle Juice Volume 1,” the opening salvo of Hyeong Eun’s Webtoon manhwa about people with insect body parts, complete with a kind of insectoid Hogwarts. Fortunately, JUDER’s artwork won’t trigger discomfort in people who hate bugs – like me – and the first volume is somewhat reminiscent of a slightly offbeat shonen manga. Expect lots of bug-people fighting, some bloody deaths, and plenty of scholastic mayhem… sometimes involving chainsaws.

Suchan Jang was a perfectly ordinary boy… until he used a can of Jungle Juice (a pesticide spray) to kill a dragonfly. The next morning, he awoke with a full-sized pair of dragonfly wings on his back. Despite his popularity, he has to keep his abnormality a secret from other people, and he’s pretty successful… until a mantis-man attacks during a movie date, and Suchan has to publicly expose his wings in order to save his girlfriend.

Needless to say, everyone now treats him as a freak, including the girl he likes. Devastated, he tries to kill himself – only for Huijin Park, a girl with antennae, to usher him to a place where he can fit in. NEST is a college town for people who are also insect-human hybrids, and Suchan’s only chance of finally returning to normal is if he graduates at the top of his class. It sounds simple enough, right? As if life at a fictional school for strange/special people has ever been that easy.

The chaos starts on registration day, when Suchan immediately discovers that signing up for classes is very competitive… and physical. At this college, survival of the fittest is key. Even if he can manage to get into the college, his scholastic path won’t be the easy one he hoped for – especially since the mantis-man is roaming on campus, along with an insectile femme fatale who has nothing but bad intentions towards NEST and everyone in it.

“Jungle Juice Volume 1” is a pretty solid opening to a shonen-style manhwa series – we have the relatable male lead who finds himself with special abilities (including a signature power he only learns about later), and ends up at a special, action-packed school with other people with similar abilities. Except since various characters have different insect hybridizations, they have different abilities – stingers, immense jumping, explosions, and Suchan’s agility, flight and ability to foresee attacks.

So while the school-for-special-people is in full effect here, Hyeong Eun keeps things fresh by introducing different insect-people and abilities, including one whose abilities are still a mystery. But the story is set in. a dark, brutal environment, and there’s no telling who might get eaten by a cannibalistic mantis-man or chased by Jun Ju, a giant muscular grandpa with a chainsaw. The author doesn’t shy away from the survival-of-the-fittest aspects of life at NEST, but at the same time, doesn’t depict it as a bad thing to be compassionate towards others.

Suchan is a little bland, but fairly relatable – his misery over being socially ostracized has left him desperate to become fully human again, but he also is beginning to learn about the benefits of being a dragonfly man. Huijin Park is a kind, stalwart girl who seems earmarked to be the love interest, and Hyeseong Cha is introduced as a kind of friendly rival character to Suchan – rough around the edges and blunt to a fault, but an overall goodhearted guy, it seems.

JUDER’s artwork is a little rough around the edges, but very striking – it glows with light and vivid colors without becoming too overwhelming, or losing the simplicity of the manhwa artwork style. Furthermore, their artwork seem to be improving as the first volume goes on. The biggest problem is that the action scenes are often hard to follow; it’s not very easy to see exactly what is going on if people are really beating the stuffin’ out of each other.

“Jungle Juice Volume 1” is a solid first volume to a promising series – and with a powerful antagonist and a cliffhanger, there’s sure to be more intriguing developments to come. Even if you hate bugs, this is worth a read.