Tattoo Artist x Gangster and Never-Ending Kidnapping
About:
Warning:
There will be spoilers for the manhwa series Touch-Up.
Content Warning: There may be references to child abandonment, violence, gang activity, blood, death, adoption, suicidal ideation, dubcon, attempted suicide, kidnapping, power imbalance, obsession, attempted solicitation, sexual harrassment, excessive drinking, mentions of theft, mentions of fraud, strangulation, suicide, PTSD, strained familial relationships, murder, self-deprecation, harrassment, stalking (not between the main couple), torture, confinement, child neglect, coercion, mentions of bribery, corruption, mentions of drugs, mentions of drug use, domestic violence, child abuse, manipulation, implied negative perceptions of homelessness, classism, slut-shaming, mentions of divorce, mentions of cheating (not between the main couple), self-deprecation, commentary on weight, car accidents, hit-and-run, mentions of sex work, and mentions of gambling, as they do appear in the manhwa.
Synopsis:
Sawol’s name means April, and that’s because he was found in April. Unfortunately, much of his life has been based on this moment, when he was abandoned outside of a tattoo shop, taken in by the owner, and then raised as his son until his sudden death. Sawol wants nothing more than to reunite with his adoptive father, even though that means ending his life, but he can never take that next step. So, he continues to live and work as a tattoo artist in his late guardian’s tattoo shop, situated in the back alleys of the red-light district. His clientele includes all manner of gangsters and criminals, but Sawol was raised to hold his own, and as a man with nothing left to lose, he doesn’t hesitate to put people in their place.
One major source of Sawol’s income comes from the illegal practice of tattooing over names. In this world, if a person has a soulmate out in the world, their name will appear somewhere on their body. Some people don’t believe in the names or even care about soulmates, so they want to get them erased with a tattoo – or they want to get names added to their bodies to trick people. It’s good money, but it brings in some of the most dangerous people into Sawol’s shop. Sawol is getting ready to drop this aspect of his business when he’s approached by Seong Wonjae.
Sawol wants to tell this guy to fuck off, but Wonjae is oddly persistent. He claims Sawol is his destiny, but the name he wants covered up isn’t Sawol’s. It’s an uncomfortable situation, but Sawol can’t bring himself to turn this man away. Is there destiny beyond the names, and is Wonjae worth all of the trouble he brings to Sawol’s doorstep?
Review:
This art style is all over the place. It’s one of the few titles that gets worse as it goes along, because Sawol in the first episode is deceptively beautiful. That’s not to say Sawol isn’t beautiful in other panels, because he certainly is, but this series, across the board, is super inconsistent and has some aspects to it that make it wholly unattractive. There are some panels where the mouths look strangely puckered and fish-lip-like. There are yaoi-hands galore, which for some people are a perpetual jumpscare. Add in that they sometimes look like stiff, posed dolls, and this series is just not all that nice to look at. It certainly had potential with that first episode, but it was a miss the rest of the way.
Story-wise, it’s almost equally as finicky. This is a nameverse story, and I am always a sucker for verse-settings, including this kind. However, the setup for this particular nameverse is very vague. Usually, the way it works is that once the younger of the two has been born, both people will have their pair’s name manifest somewhere on their body. There are exceptions, like with Pian Pian, where when the top is given a name that means more to him than his birth name, that name (in the form of initials) appears on his partner, and he, in turn, gets their initials. However, in this case, there are no clear rules when it comes to the manifestation of the name. Sawol just suddenly has Wonjae’s name appear on him, while his name has been on Wonjae from the beginning.
This was an adaptation of a novel, so I imagine more time was spent on world-building there, which is why I wish the novel was translated so I could compare them. However, based on what we get in the manhwa itself, the world-building beyond the gang and mafia activity is extremely lacking. Don’t get me wrong, I like the underworld and dark underbelly BL stories as much as the next person, but it’s a tired element at this point. Sawol is kidnapped over and over and over again, and we get plenty of moments where Wonjae is trying to ferret out all of his father’s minions to protect Sawol, and it just gets to be uninteresting and played out. What makes this story interesting is the nameverse, yet it gets the least amount of exploration beyond explaining that people manifest the names of their fated mates, they can be removed with tattoos, and that’s really it. I would love to have known how one person can have a person’s name, but that person doesn’t have theirs, and information on why someone can manifest a name far later in life than their partner. Not to mention all of the superficial references about removing names being illegal. Why? It makes no sense that the most interesting element of your run-of-the-mill gangster/mafia BL would be so underexplored, but it is.
Before I close out this review, I do want to briefly discuss pacing. While this is considered long, since it’s over 30 episodes, it’s relatively short because of what it’s trying to accomplish. Sawol’s and Wonjae’s relationship starts out very vitriolic, and once they start routinely seeing each other because of Wonjae’s incessant pestering, Sawol is then repeatedly kidnapped, beaten, and harassed through various schemes related to Wonjae. They’re horrible and scary moments, but they are brushed over within an episode or two with Wonjae swooping in to rescue Sawol, and then they move on. It’s wholly unbelievable, and definitely feels like the ones adapting this were rushed to pack in a much more dynamic and intense thriller-esque story into the 48-episode manhwa this ended up being. Sawol is quite resilient, but I can’t imagine anyone being tortured in the way he has so many times, only to just move on and continue falling for Wonjae.
Results:
This was disappointing on all fronts. The art is mid to bad. The story takes the super interesting setting of the nameverse and ignores some of the most integral elements, and the pacing is far too fast for everything it tries to fit in. Is it smutty? Yes. Does it have some very romantic and emotional elements? Definitely. Was it worth the time and money to read it? Nope. There are much stronger BL, and Pian Pian is a superior nameverse story. I would not recommend this.
Have you read Touch-Up? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!
