manhwa: The Devil's Trill (complete)

[meganbmoore]

This is part of Net Comics’ line of manhwa short story and novella collections featuring individual manhwaga. The title story here is over 200 pages, and the second, The Magic Box about 20.

In 18th century Germany, Count Eichner Wittgenstein is a newly-made vampire. We know he’s fairly new to this because his servant and he were born on the same day, and the servant is only about 55-60. As Eichner is sitting around, angsting over immortality, his 13-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth, comes over to look at his garden. They bond and fall in love, only to have her parents send her away to school. Elizabeth comes back years later (giving Eichner plenty of time to angst over lost love and the perfidy of humans) and recently married. Unfortunately, she hasn’t married due to her clueing in to there’s something off about a 20-something guy in love with a 13-year-old (much less a 60~ vampire) but because she had to to save her family from financial ruin. Husband is monstrous. Elizabeth is sickly. They fall in love again. There is Tragedy.

Cut to the 1990s, where Eichner meets twin sisters Buzz and Karen. Buzz is shy and lame and downtrodden by her manipulative sister, but also a rising violinist. Karen is beautiful and outgoing and uses Buzz to get attention for herself. One is Elizabeth reincarnated. You can guess how things go. There is a slight twist to it, but…also not a trope I’m big on. Then there is Tragedy again.

Cut to the mid-22nd century, where Eichner is amnesiac and being experimented on by scientists, and bonds with Lazlo, a young investigator assigned as his bodyguard. While the first two parts aren’t my thing (But if “angsty vampire finds love and seeks redemption with human woman” is your thing, this is totally the one-shot manhwa for you, as long as the bit where he falls in love with a 13-year-old doesn’t weird you out too much.) this part interested me more.

Lazlo, naturally, is the current incarnation of Elizabeth, and a girl. Believe it or not, I’m actually disappointed by that. A big deal was made about how Eichner would recognize Elizabeth no matter what kind of body she was in, so wouldn’t he still love her as a man? Or couldn’t he at least have figured it out before he learned she was a woman, instead of realizing it the second he learned?

Still, this was the most interesting part of the story, and the only time I really liked Eichner and Elizabeth. Lazlo is also the only time Elizabeth was remotely competent, though, sadly, I suspect she was written that way because of the tomboyishness more than anything else. But come on…an amnesiac vampire running around the future with his reincarnated, big-mouthed, crossdressing true love? I so would have read more of that.
 
So, most of it is fairly normal for the genre, but good enough for what it is. The last bit I wish had been longer.

The other story is about a man who spends his entire life making the perfect cut for a diamond, realizes he’s let life and love pass him by, and is given a second chance at life. Falls in love and wastes the new life trying to create the perfect ring for her. All I have to say it that that was a perfectly nice woman who would have rather had the guy than the jewel.

Has anyone read any other manhwa by Sooyeon Won? While some parts made me role my eyes and I wasn’t blown away, I suspect I might like her work in a good series.

Comments

[wingstodust.livejournal.com]

She`s the one who wrote Full House (the one that inspired the k-drama) and Let Dai, right? I haven`t read any of her stuff personally, but Let Dai has been recced to me before. It`s just, the story felt too depressing for me to take it up at the time... lol, sry if I wasn`t helpful at all.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Dunno about Full House, but Let Dai has always sounded too dark even for me.

[wingstodust.livejournal.com]

lol yes. Thing is, I kind of really didn`t like Full House (It put me off k-dramas until someone handed me Bad Family, lol), and I couldn`t muster up the energy within me to read Let Dai, hence the reason why I never really read her stuff...

Actually! Now that I checked her profile, I think I did read bits of I Want You, but er, considering how it left no impression on my mind beyond the fact that I got bored midway and never finished. xD;;;