JH

The Horizon takes place during the aftermath of some kind of massacre (the Webtoon page says it was an apocalyptic event). A young boy is the sole survivor of some kind of event that kills his mother and pretty much everyone else in the city. With nothing else to do, he walks and eventually finds an abandoned school bus to sleep in. A girl his age also finds the bus, and the two of them become sudden traveling companions as more violence breaks out around them. Eventually they come across a show more third person, a grown man who seems to only be capable of screaming like a crow. Although the girl is fine with him following along, the boy can't help but be frightened and wary of the man.

There's this Korean movie called 26 Years that opens with a stunning and horrifying animated sequence depicting the Gwangju Uprising. Reading this reminded me a lot of that.

This was darker and more unpleasant than I was prepared for. The artwork was extremely effective - mostly black and white, scratchy, with occasional splashes of red to highlight things like the sky or a wound. The strange man that the boy and girl encountered had blank black, unnerving eyes. Although his behavior could be light and childlike, I, like the boy, was worried about what would happen if he stuck around. He was somehow both pitiful and terrifying.

This is the kind of series I'd need a boatload of spoilers for before I could continue it, so I'm likely stopping here. The volume doesn't end on an encouraging note for the boy and the girl, and I'm probably better off not seeing just how much darker things get for them.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I want to live.”

When a character responds this way, you can’t help get a feeling that the future doesn’t bode well for this person. The above response hints at how dark and depressing and desolate this book is.

Narrated from the point of view of two young children, the story shows a dystopian society where human life and humanitarian feelings aren’t of value anymore. The world is filled with death, devastation and disease. All these show more two children, who were left all alone in the world and have miraculously found each other, can do is ‘keep walking forward’ as far as the road takes them. But is any journey ever that smooth, more so in a dangerous political climate?

The storyline doesn’t proceed in a linear fashion but includes flashbacks and parallel tracks. In spite of this, it is quite easy to follow. Every arc except for one is equally sad.

"A world where no one gets hurt, where no one feels hatred, and where no one feels lonely… Can such a world exist?"

The manhwa is captivating to such an extent that once I began, I couldn’t keep it aside. Though the page count is quite high, many of the panels contain only illustrations and minimal dialogues. As such, you can complete the whole book in an hour or two, unless of course you keep pondering over the bleak bw sketches or the existential thoughts peppered randomly through the narrative.

I simply can’t rate this book. There are many things that horrified me, and many that moved me. It’s a book worth reading, but it is not going to leave you easily. It has a highly pessimistic rendering of humankind, and at the same time, you can’t help but feel that the foundation of this narrative, however stereotypical, is based on reality. It is utterly thought-provoking and utterly depressing.

If you want to try a haunting manhwa that will make you reflect on the purpose and the value of human life, please do try.

Not recommended for the faint-hearted. The word “graphic” is applicable to this novel in both its meanings.

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Join me on the Facebook group, Readers Forever!, for more reviews, book-related discussions and fun. show less

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I want to live.”

When a character responds this way, you can’t help get a feeling that the future doesn’t bode well for this person. The above response hints at how dark and depressing and desolate this book is.

Narrated from the point of view of two young children, the story shows a dystopian society where human life and humanitarian feelings aren’t of value anymore. The world is filled with death, devastation and disease. All these show more two children, who were left all alone in the world and have miraculously found each other, can do is ‘keep walking forward’ as far as the road takes them. But is any journey ever that smooth, more so in a dangerous political climate?

The storyline doesn’t proceed in a linear fashion but includes flashbacks and parallel tracks. In spite of this, it is quite easy to follow. Every arc except for one is equally sad.

"A world where no one gets hurt, where no one feels hatred, and where no one feels lonely… Can such a world exist?"

The manhwa is captivating to such an extent that once I began, I couldn’t keep it aside. Though the page count is quite high, many of the panels contain only illustrations and minimal dialogues. As such, you can complete the whole book in an hour or two, unless of course you keep pondering over the bleak bw sketches or the existential thoughts peppered randomly through the narrative.

I simply can’t rate this book. There are many things that horrified me, and many that moved me. It’s a book worth reading, but it is not going to leave you easily. It has a highly pessimistic rendering of humankind, and at the same time, you can’t help but feel that the foundation of this narrative, however stereotypical, is based on reality. It is utterly thought-provoking and utterly depressing.

If you want to try a haunting manhwa that will make you reflect on the purpose and the value of human life, please do try.

Not recommended for the faint-hearted. The word “graphic” is applicable to this novel in both its meanings.

***********************
Join me on the Facebook group, Readers Forever!, for more reviews, book-related discussions and fun. show less

K, a legendary trainer of world champion boxers, has gone to a certain gym in search of his final student. At first, he thinks that person might be Baeksan Ryu, a naturally talented young fighter whose unpredictable and fluid movements allow him to hold his own against larger and more experienced opponents. However, then he sees a group of bullies beating up a boy outside, and something in that boy's empty eyes tells him he's looking at something above and beyond any fighter he's ever show more trained before. Unlike Baeksan, Yu doesn't feel any sort of need to dominate others or be better than them - he simply exists, and is bored with that existence.

I don't feel like I've seen enough of this series to really judge it yet. I'm not even sure how many of the characters in this first volume will be series regulars - the Yu of this volume was a teen, but in the cover image he appears to be an adult, so it's possible we'll never see Baeksan or Injae again.

I'm intrigued enough by Yu to want to read another volume, but he'll need to be more than just a mysterious empty vessel to really hook me. So far, we know almost nothing about him, other than that he's beaten up all the time and doesn't seem to care about anything, and that he appears to live alone in almost entirely bare surroundings. He's not one of the bullies, like Baeksan, but it's unclear whether that's because he simply doesn't care enough to try to harm others or because there's any sort of decency in him.

For a very brief amount of time, just a few panels, Injae did his best to befriend him and get to know him better. Yu did nothing to either encourage or discourage him, and there's no way to tell, at this point, whether his actions at the end of the volume were in any way inspired by Injae, or whether he was just curious about the things K told him earlier.

The artwork was good - the fights were reasonably clear and easy for me to follow, and you could tell who the characters were and what they were like at a glace. Injae: idealistic and determined (and completely unaware that his father, a former boxer, was trying to nudge him towards staying out of fights he was doomed to lose). Baeksan: a bully with a driving need to prove that he's stronger than everyone around him. And Yu: a terrifying void.

I'll give this another volume to see how it works for me.

Extras:

A 2-page boxing glossary.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less