Man Uses Vanilla Ice Cream as Seduction Tool
About:
Warning:
There will be spoilers for the manhwa series Sweet Like Vanilla.
Content Warning: There may be references to breakups, excessive drinking, mentions of cheating (not between the main couple), violence, blackmail, perceived cheating, self-deprecation, slut-shaming, and voyeurism, as they do appear in the manhwa.
Synopsis:
Juwon is having a hard time. His shitty boyfriend just dumped him, and, yeah, even though he was shitty, Juwon did like him. Well, he liked what was in his pants, at least. Regardless, Juwon is heartbroken, and a night out drinking with his best friend, Jiwook, is just what he needs. Unfortunately, Juwon ends up drinking a little too much. With his inhibitions out the window and his relationship status set back to single, he’s on the prowl for a new partner.
What better partner is there than his best friend?
Review:
The cover art is very pretty, which makes the overall art all the more disappointing. For the majority of the series, everyone has very flat heads. When they face forward, it’s not a problem, and often, at that angle, the art is even cute. But those side profiles are wild. Similarly, heads and necks are massive when compared to their bodies. It’s just a really inconsistent and rough art style, and not in a good way. I will say that Juwon’s booty is usually very nice to see. Of everything in this series, the booty was given a lot of attention. While I do appreciate it, the rest of the series really could’ve used the same attention.
While the style is inconsistent, the overall story is pretty consistent in its inconsistencies. Moving on from the art, unfortunately, the quality of the edit on this one isn’t the greatest. We have a handful of misspellings and incorrect word choices, which, in a longer work, I wouldn’t be bothered by. But this is on the shorter side, which makes the errors all the more glaring. Just like how the art sometimes feels halfhearted and messy, the edit feels the exact same way. For how short this is, I wish more time had been taken to clean up the edit so that was at least on par.
Now, we can finally get to the story. However, the story isn’t much better, even amid all the other issues I have with this manhwa. This is supposed to be a friends-to-lovers story, but beyond them just referring to each other as friends, I never got the sense that they knew anything about each other. Once they started their awkward situationship, I wasn’t expecting so many moments where they were shocked to discover things that I would assume are pretty basic to know in a friendship. Juwon had never seen Jiwook’s house, which is weird. Jiwook had no idea who Juwon’s ex was, which is wild to me. It would’ve made sense if Juwon was hiding the fact that he’s gay, but Jiwook knows from the beginning, so his not knowing who his friend is dating is just bizarre to me. Maybe I’m expecting too much from male friendships, but I just find this friendship to not be all that friendly, making the friends-to-lovers trope nonexistent.
I’ve been extremely hard on this one, which is unfortunate since it seemed like, from the outside, it had so much going for it. I try my best to give at least something positive in a review, but it’s really hard to come up with something for this one. I guess if I had to say anything, while this is entirely reliant on a misunderstanding for the majority of the tension (think the misunderstanding in Bye Bye, where one person thinks they’re dating already while the other doesn’t), I can 100% understand why Jiwook thought they weren’t together. Juwon is a major asshole. I think he’s supposed to be your run-of-the-mill tsundere type, but he’s that variation that I don’t find funny (unlike Hye-sung and Hyun) and more just an asshole. In this case, he’s a bratty asshole, which just grates on my nerves. So much for the positive, I guess.
Results:
As cute as it looks from the outside (the cover), this series has a rough interior. The art is pretty wonky most of the time. Our main character, while he has a very nice peach, is annoying and bratty in the worst way, and the friends-to-lovers trope is really hard to believe, negating one of this series’s main draws. I just don’t think this is worth it, even for the short amount of time it takes to read it and, in turn, the amount of money it would cost to unlock it all. It’s just a miss for me.
Have you read Sweet Like Vanilla? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!