Of Swords and Parasols

Review at Manga Bookshelf.

This remains mostly fluffy fun, but with more angst (romantic and otherwise) and more politics and intrigues between Heaven and Hell. I’m a bit worried, though, about how it’ll read once I catch up and am reading volumes as they come out. (Volume 8 is due out sometime this month.)

( spoilers )

Dong-Young is a princess of Heaven who has been betrothed to the King of Hell. Not wanting to marry him, she flees to Earth. Several years later, she’s living disguised as a boy and attending high school, her biggest concern Bi-Wal, a classmate who is always hitting on her, but who also seems to repel the ghosts who always try to possess Dong-Young. Tired of waiting for her to turn up, Heaven orders the four guardians of heaven to find her and bring her home. Two guardians-Ah-Hin, the White Tiger, and her brother, Ee-Jung, the Red Phoenix-are actually her friends, and helping her hide. The other two-Woo-Hyun, the Blue Dragon, and Doh-Hyun, the Black Turtle-attend the same school, but don’t know Dong-Young’s secret.

Bi-Wal obviously knows that Dong-Young is actually a girl from the start, but would rather have her freak out thinking that he thinks he’s hitting on a boy than let her know that he knows. He also knows a lot more about what’s going on than he lets on, including who Dong-Young is, and is probably either the King of Hell himself, or is sent by him. Like most Mysterious Supernatural Shoujo Heroes, he likes to secretly rescue Dong-Young from supernatural forces, sometimes with a sword, and lurk staring in shadows and from nearby rooftops.

The manhwa isn’t amazingly original, but it’s very cute, and I’m curious to see where it goes. I’m especially fond of a scene where Dong-Young tries to explain her situation away as her father only had daughters, so he raised her as a boy, and it shows an image of Rose of Versailles, which I’ve been watching the last few days. I also suspect the genderbending is going to go a step or two beyond crossdressing, given a flashback sequence where two of the characters appear to be of opposite genders as children as they are as “teenagers.” (Dong-Young and the four guardians are in their 170s, which seems to equate to 16-17.)