Faeries' Landing, Vol.1
Here's yet another manga-style "fantasy romance" in the tradition ofOh My Goddess, about a typical high school lad who is forced to live with a hottie, in this case Fanta the faerie. Korean Hyun shows some Shakespearean influence:A Midsummer Night's Dreamsprings to mind, especially in Fanta's flowery speech. More modern is the hero, 16 year-old Ryang, who thinks he's all that and a bag of chips, though the rest of his classmates hardly agree. Since he's an outsider already, things don't get any easier when he stumbles across a supernatural being named Goodfellow who's out from the magical world for some tomfoolery—in this case stealing women's used underwear. After a mix-up involving the police, Goodfellow takes Ryang to the secret Faerie bath, where Ryang haplessly tears Fanta's dress, forcing her to leave her world and go with her new "master." Much like when Major Nelson uncorked that bottle and found he was bound to a very eager Jeannie, Fanta loves having Ryang as her guardian, although she dislikes having to wear his cast-off clothes. Meanwhile, she also predicts Ryang will have "108 doomed relationships" before he finds the woman of his dreams, causing him even more problems with the opposite sex. Generic art and confusing storytelling don't help this by-the-numbers tale.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.