Sugarholic 1

This is one of those cutey Korean comics I like so much.  You know the kind I’m talking about.  They all have a remarkably similar art style, and are usually comedic and somehow non-dramatic romances with strong characters in relatively realistic situations.  I’ve read several of these, and have yet to be disappointed by any of them.

I thought this one might break the mold a little since it featured an older heroine (she’s 20, not a high school student), but a lot of the same plot devices are in play.  Jae-Gyu is kicked out of her house by her grandma for being a lazy, unemployed slob, and is sent to live with her brother in Seoul to find work and a general joie de vivre.  The only other person she knows in Seoul is her best friend Hyun-Ah, who moved there with her family just before graduating from high school.  Because this is a girly story, immediately upon entering the city, she has a run-in with an incredibly good-looking man and makes a quick enemy of him.  Also, a former childhood friend she hasn’t seen in years is now a singing sensation and also has a crush on her.  The good-looking man (Whie-Hwan) winds up coercing Jae-Gyu into a cohabitation situation by the end of the volume.  Despite the fact it sounds like this runs along a tight formula, the story is actually very enjoyable, and I loved all the little twists and jokes even as I saw them coming.

The childhood friend situation is a few levels more advanced than it usually is in this type of story.  The singer has been holding a torch for Jae-Gyu all these years and just doesn’t know how to tell her, where normally this type of relationship goes from animosity to friendship to awkward admiration to love.  Jae-Gyu is, of course, clueless.

Whie-Hwan’s situation is the most interesting element in the story so far.  He was apparently trained in a type of Thai martial art and has a deep connection to the man that taught him, who was also a world-famous fighter.  His family background is mysterious and kind of scary.  His father seems to have the power to send a squad of suits after him when he does things like go out with the wrong girl or refuse to stop seeing his teacher.  I do want to see where that goes.

Whie-Hwan is a huge jerk at the moment, so I’m not all that excited about the forced relationship between he and Jae-Gyu at the end of the book.  I suppose that’s what Jae-Gyu’s childhood friend is for, though, so I have that to look forward to.  And since I’ve come clean about Whie-Hwan… I don’t like Jae-Gyu that much either, since she’s so lazy and kind of bland, but I like generic female characters in Korean comics a bit better than the typical shoujo heroine since they tend to stand up for themselves and refuse to be doormats.

So far, I like it.  I like it a lot.  It’s sticking close to common shoujo plot devices, but I still enjoyed the first volume quite a bit, and hopefully the plot devices are just serving as a base to build an awesome story on.  Even if they aren’t, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the same type of stuff in future volumes, honestly.  I can’t help it, I have a soft spot for cutie Korean comics.  Like I said, they’ve yet to let me down.

This was a review copy provided by Yen Press