Manwha: Do You Want to Try? Review

In particular, I usually don't...judge? Yea, that sounds about right. But I am a gourmet when it comes to manga: I can like it all. A good story is what I like most though. A good story can trump artwork if it's that great.

In my boredom, I decided to read a popular manga off mangafox.com's wall. I do it from time to time and find a real keeper. Typically, I'm not a HUGE fan of manwha, Korea's equivalent to Japan's manga, but occasionally I find a good one. Cha Kyung Hee's manwha "Do You Want To Try?" really hit the spot.



Now excuse my ignorance but one turn-off about Korean manga for me really is the names. I'm not insulting the culture or anything, I promise, but it's near impossible to remember...the story starts with Han Hye Won, a girl with "mixed blood", evidenced by her blonde hair apparently. She calls her brother who dropped her off at school to yell at him about something and accidentally ends up yelling at the leader of a gang, Sun Woo Bin. Weird culture thing happens because she, uh, calls him by his name and he flips and comes to beat her up...

So as odd as that sounds, this manwha was pretty impressive...for those first few chapters.

This suffered from a condition known as: I-Don't-Give-A-Damn-How-This-Ends-But-It-Needs-To-End. And in the case of "Do You Want to Try?" it was pretty much terminal.I've read that some people actually ENJOYED this ending on the forums and I have to say point-blank: you didn't read this.

I was pretty shocked when people started announcing the ending then got confirmation that it was done. The last chapter was 40 pages or something, there was no way! Oh, and there was no way, all right. No way it couldn't have been more CONFUSING.

The story had many plot points: I'll call him Pikachu-boy as he wore a Pikachu headband clearly had an illness and a suicide wish despite his cheery demeanor. Smaller more irrelevant plotline was Han Hye Won's friends relationship with one of Bin's gang members. Bin trying to make his "ex" jealous by dating Han in the first place and that same ex threatening Han's life. This other gang leader taking an interest in Han. Her brother's sister complex. Bin's past. Pikachu boy's past.

Boy, that's a lot of plots! And not one of them was cleared up!

We do SORT of find out what's making Han tick but even that was lacking in the scheme of things. Some COMPLETELY unknown guy kidnaps her and tries to kill her for the girl that for some reason hated her back at her old school. Bin gets beat up. Girl is crying blood. It made Lost's storyline look like a nursery rhyme. None of it was actually relevant to what had been developed whatsoever.

So Pikachu-boy disappeared for like, 10 chapters and finally reappears quite randomly at the end of this train wreck. It was so vaguely hinted at, I didn't know what the guy was talking about, but he fell in love with Han in the past and since he can't take care of her, wants someone else to (aka Bin). That would have been great! If it had DEVELOPED more. We know he's sick, but sick with what, we'll never know. And he's just riding all carefree down the highway on a motorcycle "I can ride my bike with no handlebars" style and imagining this random flashback. He's almost hit by a car but swerves, thus proving he doesn't want to die (again, development would have made this awesome)...

Then of course he gets run over by that OTHER truck! Oh nu!

I cry when characters I love die. CRY. Instead here, I stared and was like "WHAT?".

I don't really even know what else to say. We don't even really KNOW this guy that died. He was sick, he rode a motorcycle, he stared at Han a lot, and apparently was a little suicidal. None of those were put into any context and he vanished for a good few chapters. Eu, or whatever Bin's ex's name is, never shows up again. Did she give up? I don't know, do you know? Han's brother has an almost unhealthy fixation with her...is that REALLY addressed? I mean, he says "I guess Bin really likes her!" or something but really? "I'm in love with my sister" is that easily resolved, huh?

Bin's disposition comes from his family...we meet his brother. His brother's a jerk. The End. We know that for some reason, Bin can dye hair. Did Bin have a dream of being a stylist? I dunno!

Does the boy that carries around a sword have a soul? He never talked! What happened with her friend and the spectacled gang boy, did they ever kiss?!

Chill, reader, you say, it's just a manga. You ever read a story that ends with a cliff hanger? (Hell, have you read any of MY stories?) This is a MILLION times worse than that. This is worse than a sitcom going off the air with an amazing plotpoint up in the air.

This is writing a story and not finishing it.

Grade: F
Just...that's it. The beginning was amazing, like a fish being hooked and baited. Then, at the end, it's like that same fish sitting there for an hour and having died then getting thrown back in the sea. No one gained anything, you threw away a perfectly good fish and that fish is freakin' dead so it doesn't do him any good to be returned to the sea. A beautifully drawn story but for some unknown reason that I can find, the manwha artist just fell apart. Hardcore. Really hardcore.

It was rushed and such a cop out so would I suggest this manga? No. To the people on mangafox's forum that said, you're an idiot, just fill in the blanks...I think blanks can be filled in any story. Craters, on the other hand? No. The point to being an author of anything is writing your story. And if your story has to have the reader improvising so much, you need to look into other careers.