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Manhwa Review | Checkmate by TAN

Title: Checkmate

Author(s): TAN

Artist(s): TAN

Lee Soohyun’s life has been guided by one thing: his inferiority complex. But this inferiority really only took root when he was in high school. It was then his position as first in academics was shaken by Jung Eunsung. Suddenly, Soohyun goes from first to second, and when this only source of pride he has left is gone, he becomes nothing more than a pariah among his classmates, who incessantly pick on him for being a social outcast and the fallen first place. Soohyun has no choice but to focus all of his hate and sorrow on the source of all of his trouble: Eunsung.

For the remainder of their high school careers, Soohyun is in a one-sided rivalry with Eunsung, never once able to trump him. So, this grand rivalry ends with a whisper as the two graduate, attend different colleges, and presumably move along with their adult lives. But even after all this time, Eunsung is never far from Soohyun’s mind. So, when Eunsung suddenly makes headlines as an art thief, Soohyun drops everything to reconnect with his rival. He quits his job, gets one as a reporter, and starts hunting down Eunsung and how he fell so far. But Soohyun doesn’t plan on stopping there.

Soohyun wants to save Eunsung from all his problems, only so Soohyun can tear Eunsung down into the mud with him. But Soohyun soon finds out that the art world that Eunsung has been sucked into is much darker and more deplorable than Soohyun could have ever imagined. Will Soohyun even be able to keep himself safe?

Title: Park Hanhoo's Manager

Author(s): KIM TAC

Artist(s): KIM TAC

Baek Chansol has finally moved back to his home country. The only reason he left was because, as a teenager, the infamous serial killer August murdered everyone at his orphanage, leaving him as the sole survivor. Fearing August might return to finish the job, Chansol was carted out of the country. But Chansol didn’t spend that time hiding. He’s spent all of his time looking for information about August because he plans to get revenge for the family he destroyed, and now that he’s back in the country, his first step is to get a job at weapon manufacturer UM.

Why? Because there is an employee there that supposedly has been hunting for information on August, too, and Chansol wants to steal as much of that information as possible. But that isn’t the only mission Chansol has. Before Chansol had to escape the country, he had a friend named Park Hanhoo. Chansol promised Hanhoo he would be by his side forever, but he obviously had broken that promise. So, Chansol wants to find his one and only friend to finally make amends for this broken promise. While Chansol is determined to achieve both goals, his new boss at UM might make it rather difficult.

Han Yooem is violent and unrestrained. He happily confines people, is willing to stab someone on a whim, and even tests out UM weapons on random citizens. Plus, most of UM’s top clients are either the government or mafia members, so every day is a risk for Chansol. But maybe the strangest of all is Yooem’s weird obsession with Chansol. Everything seems to be a game to Yooem, and even when he’s aware of all of Chansol’s plans to steal and invade his privacy, Yooem only encourages him. Just what is Yooem up to? And will Chansol ever be able to find August and his friend?

Title: Blind Play

Author(s): YD

Artist(s): Like

Ah-in wants one thing: love. Coming from an abusive home, eventually orphaned due to his abusive father’s death, and then experiencing intense prejudice due to being an orphan, true love is something Ah-in has never experienced and desperately wants. He does have a boyfriend, but even in this relationship, Ah-in knows the love is one-sided. His boyfriend, a college student, frequently exchanges money with Ah-in for sex and affection. Ah-in is fully aware of this arrangement, yet he still wants love from him. So, he continues to pay his boyfriend, hoping one day that this fake love will become something real.

Unfortunately, his boyfriend’s tastes are pretty rich, and Ah-in’s only means of affording his expensive expectations is selling his body. In Korea, the only way to become a licensed massage therapist is to be visually disabled. So, Ah-in pretends to be blind and picks up customers under the guise of giving them a massage, only to have sex with them. He makes good money doing so and gets some nice items he gives his boyfriend as gifts after stealing them from his clients. Most of his customers are in upper society, so he doesn’t worry much about his safety.

But then he gets picked up by prolific author Seo Ilmo. Ah-in isn’t worried at first, but then the author begins to test him, holding out his hand, trying to point him around places, offering things to him without a word, as if he knows Ah-in isn’t actually blind. It’s uncomfortable but not the worst thing in the world, and Ah-in does his best to keep up the charade. But Ah-in is really put to the test when he enters Ilmo’s apartment, only to find a rotting corpse on the couch. It’s the ultimate game of cat and mouse as Ilmo tries to scare Ah-in into revealing his disability is fake so he can kill him. At the same time, Ah-in maintains the ruse, determined to survive each and every encounter while trying to expose Ilmo for the murderer he is.

It’s a deadly game of lust and blood. Who will win?

Title: Love or Hate

Author(s): Youngha

Artist(s): Bakdam

Haesoo is in a rut. He used to be highly praised as a young writer, considered a prodigy, and expected to do amazing things even at a young age. But after some good progress with writing smutty stories in a column, his work has become stale, and his column is gone. Frustrated but unsure what to do, Haesoo works freelance for a gossip magazine. His professional life seems to mimic his personal one, too. He’s also in a relationship rut with none other than famous actor Choi Joowon. But to Haesoo, Joowon isn’t an actor: he’s his stepbrother and casual sex partner.

The two have gone from mortal enemies in their teens to each other’s firsts, only to become whatever this cold and casual situationship is as adults. Haesoo loves Joowon, but he hates him, too. He hates that Joowon is more successful than he is, that Joowon still has this hold on him, and that he won’t ever love him. Haesoo jumps from relationship to relationship, but in the end, he runs back to Joowon – or Joowon runs back to him. It’s a neverending cycle of pleasure and pain that Haesoo can’t see a way out of.

That is until he’s tasked with interviewing mysterious and provocative photographer K. K, whose real name is Song Taekyung, is strange. He stares at Haesoo as if he’s looking at something Haesoo wants to keep hidden. But there is a strange magnetism between the two of them that Haesoo just can’t seem to shake. Is the photographer Haesoo’s chance to break out of this rut, both professionally and personally? Or will his obsession with Joowon hold him back?

Title: Third Ending

Author(s): chovom

Artist(s): chovom

This review is for Third Ending, the all-ages main story, and Third Ending – Extended, the mature side story. The main story can be read without the extended content.

Yoonseul is being haunted. No, not by a ghost. His past is haunting him. Back in high school, Yoonseul was unnecessarily cruel to a fellow classmate, and ever since, the boy has haunted his dreams. It’s not every night, but on the nights the boy does show up, Yoonseul is cursed to have a bad day. Whether it’s something as small as spilling his coffee or even more major like having his work files deleted, the day is bound to go wrong when he sees that boy in his dreams.

As expected, after a night of haunting dreams, he spends the day fielding problem after problem, leading to Yoonseul working well into the night. But even when he’s done with work, it happens to be his turn to pick up sandwich bread for his siblings whom he lives with, so his night gets even longer as he goes out to shop. Almost every bakery nearby is closed already, but by chance, a bakery a few minutes away is on the cusp of closing for the day.

Relieved that the end of his day is finally in sight, Yoonseul goes in, grabs the first loaf of bread he sees, and then goes up to pay. But as he’s about to pull out his card, he finds the cashier staring at him. Yoonseul can’t begin to understand why until he realizes that the cashier is none other than Kang Jun, the boy, now a man, who haunts his dreams. Is this just one more curse from his dreams? Or is this the key to finally ending the nightmares for good? Yoonseul wants to know, but Kang Jun doesn’t seem at all interested in getting to know Yoonseul again.

Can Yoonseul win Kang Jun’s favor so he can finally apologize? Or is their past too painful to overcome?

Title: Rix Vanus

Author(s): Chanseong

Artist(s): Chanseong

The royal family’s third child, second son, Rix Vanus, has just returned home after defeating the demon king, a monstrous demon who had been consuming human hearts to gain power. The people celebrate him as a hero, but those nobles who hoped he would die quietly return to plotting how best to remove him from power. Rix isn’t worried about trying to survive, though. After killing the demon king, Rix was cursed with dreams full of sexual assault and rape at the hands of his closest friends and family. He’s grown weak, trying his best to avoid sleep, and the dreams are beginning to mix with reality, causing him to avoid and rebuff any support from those he holds dear. Rix is ready to run off and either find a cure or die trying, but while sleeping in the woods, he encounters a glowing wolf that makes all terrible dreams disappear.

When he wakes up, he reencounters the wolf. The wolf explains that he is a divine beast named Nuah, and he has the ability to stave off the curse for a period of time. But the only way to do it is if Nuah has sex with Rix. Rix is not keen on that idea; sex is no longer a pleasurable experience after the endless nights of rape-filled dreams. Still, Rix is desperate, and he ends up agreeing. As Nuah promised, the dreams stop for a time, but only for a while. He still has to find a cure, and with Nuah by his side, it seems like it might be a real possibility. In exchange, all Nuah wants is to see a festival. Rix finds Nuah to be silly and not all that divine for a divine beast, but over time, those are the things he falls in love with.

But love could never happen between a divine beast and a human. At least, that’s what Rix believes. Nuah, though, is under no assumptions about who can or can’t fall in love.

Title: Love So Pure

Author(s): Plan B

Artist(s): Plan B

Jihyun isn’t the best student. He’d prefer to just have sex, sleep, and work at his part-time job as a bartender, but his mother wants nothing more than for her son to get an education. So, after taking extended periods off, he’s forced to return to college or risk being expelled entirely. But it isn’t necessarily that he hates school that he took so much time off. In reality, Jihyun has gone through a traumatic event with an ex-boyfriend, where much of his personal and private information was leaked, forcing him to leave or risk being bullied and ostracized by his peers. With so much time having passed, Jihyun is hopeful that most people who knew about the situation have graduated or, at the very least, moved on from campus.

Still, he’s not looking forward to waking up early and attending class. However, some of that frustration is alleviated when he finds that one of his classmates, Yohan, is a hulking beefcake – his soldier, as he likes to refer to him. Jihyun would love nothing more than to climb around that giant tree of a man, but he’s pretty sure Yohan is straight. Thankfully for Jihyun, Yohan finds himself entranced by Jihyun, too. But the two want very different things. Yohan, a softy at heart, wants to woo and date Jihyun, and while Jihyun, deep down, would love a relationship, he feels he is incapable of having one due to his trauma. Can these two find common ground, or will they perpetually be stuck in situationship limbo?

Title: Frenzy Train

Author(s): Meuhwagwa

Artist(s): hellowon

Sovian Darnell is on a mission. He’s destitute, but he’s intent on changing his future, all thanks to a marble he has hidden in a private place. All he has to do is smuggle the marble down to the south of the country, and then he’ll be set for life. Literally and figuratively, he’s sitting on immense wealth, but the only way he’s going to get it is if he can make it onto the train heading to the south. Thankfully, he does, but onboard, he runs into a strange man who introduces himself as Zerkin Sicario.

Zerkin is strangely forward with Sovian. While Sovian would like nothing more than to escape to economy class and hole up there until they get to the south, Zerkin doesn’t seem willing to just let Sovian go. Zerkin offers Sovian some cool water, a rarity on the train, which apparently only has warm water. Despite his better judgment, Sovian accepts the water but discovers his body permanently changed upon drinking it. He craves for someone to touch him, and he finds himself getting wet.

Thankfully, Zerkin is there to take care of him, but just as quickly as Zerkin appears, he disappears. And along with him, Sovian’s precious marble. Sovian has no choice but to hunt for Zerkin, but he has to traverse the entire train to get to him, which is full of men looking to take advantage of Sovian’s new constitution.

Title: The Housekeeper's Load

Author(s): Kang Pu Con / Kangpucon

Artist(s): Kang Pu Con / Kangpucon

Choi Woojin is an erotic novel translator. Unfortunately, being a virgin, he has a hard time envisioning the scenes and understanding the emotions in them. But just because he’s a virgin doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an imagination. Unfortunately, all of his lustful imaginings feature one person: his housekeeper, Kim Ha-yeon. As Ha-yeon’s boss, Woojin knows the housekeeper is off-limits. But ethics can’t touch his imagination, and little does Woojin know that Ha-yeon is beginning to look at him differently, too.

Meanwhile, Woojin’s good friend Kang Sol, whom he usually asks for advice on sex-related matters, is having a great time teasing Woojin and his secret attraction to his housekeeper. While Woojin and Ha-yeon are figuring out their weird relationship, Sol ends up running into Ha-yeon’s little brother, Kim Jae-ho. With Woojin, his favorite person to tease, occupied by a chaotic love life, Sol sees a lot of promise in Jae-ho. But Jae-ho isn’t interested in this weird man. Undeterred, Sol continues to pursue Jae-ho whenever they run into each other, and in a cruel twist of fate for Jae-ho, they run into each other a lot.

Title: Subscribers Only

Author(s): Just / Junggak

Artist(s): Just / Junggak

1st Couple (Seasons 1 and 2)

Hanseok Choi is a workaholic. He spends every waking and even sleeping moment in the office, leaving him no time for his personal life. His friend, and coworker, is determined to help Hanseok relax a bit, so he shows him an anonymous online account that posts solo porn. The man is exactly Hanseok’s type, and soon, when he isn’t working, Hanseok finds himself checking up on the man known as mil_tea. But his attention is soon diverted elsewhere once more when a new hire, Doyoon, starts at work, and by happenstance, Hanseok catches sight of a tattoo that mil_tea also has.

2nd Couple (Seasons 3 and 4)

Chakyeong Shin is known as Valenti online, a popular cammer. While playing on camera, Valenti often listens to someone he calls Threesome, though whose actual username is Story Awesome. Story Awesome’s voice sends Chakyeong right into bliss, and many times, he hunts for partners solely based on how closely they can mimic his voice. But when he’s not having fun on camera, he’s renowned interior designer Chakyeong Shin, and for a time, he plans on teaching a class at his old college. While in the middle of class, he sees a beefcake. This man is exactly Chakyeong’s type, named Woojin, and judging by the books hanging out of his bag, he’s a big fan of Chakyeong’s work.

He’d love to leverage that and get the burly student into his bed, but he realizes this fan behavior is a two-way street when he hears him speak. Woojin is a fan of Chakyeong. But Chakyeong is also a fan of Woojin, who is none other than Story Awesome himself.

Full Color

Manhwa Review | Checkmate by TAN

Manhwa Review | Love or Hate by Youngha

Manhwa Review | Third Ending by chovom

Manhwa Review | Rix Vanus by Chanseong

Manhwa Review | Love So Pure by Plan B

Manhwa Review | Subscribers Only by Just

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