you have such a good review i can't help but praise you furthermore omg. especially with hakyung being the breadwinner and because of this, became impoverished compared to his younger brother who is studying and eating well because of hakyung's hardwork. i never noticed this because typically manhwas just do this to differentiate two siblings but looking back at it you've enlightened me and it makes so much more sense now.
you can also see how family-oriented hakyung is, because he loved his mother so much he never dared to blame her for the state of their family. he persevered and worked hard for the money needed for her treatment and for a stable education for his brother. this is such a beautiful manhwa and i'm glad to have people like you share such thoughtful insights through a review TTTTTT
Honestly, I could’ve added more and delved deeper but I just finished rereading this at 3 am so I just couldn’t do it half-heartedly. Also, since no one actually asked for the review, I just thought that it’s better for whoever to read this to experience first-hand the same things I did when they eventually reread it (without the aid of this review). This is really is such beautiful work of art. Unfortunately, I could not support the author beyond my means.
There are so many things to unpack with this story. First, the art. I have seen a lot of manhwas (in BL category) with art styles and coloring more spectacular than this one, yet this one captured details that you’d seldomly see in a manhwa. Some close-up panels of the faces were drawn so well in a way that each stroke felt like they were in the right place. So many emotions were shown so differently with just a few tweak of lightness or darkness, thinness or thickness of lines, or just a highlight. The Jang family even resembles each other yet still unique from each other (same face syndrome is not an issue for the artist).
The cut scenes were done so cohesively that even when scenes go from flashbacks to present, they are not confusing. It was obvious that every panel was decisively placed in each chapter. You see a scene from the past and you see the rest of the scene on another chapter but they do not feel repetitive or irrelevant. It was a pleasant reading experience. You get to piece the story together. It felt like watching a movie.
There were nuances that I only noticed when I reread this. Like how Hakyung is short and petite while his brother, Kunwoo, is taller and sturdier. Some may say that these are just how genetics work (realistically speaking) but I argue that it was done so on purpose to show contrast on their relationship as brothers. Hakyung being the older of the two and as the breadwinner, I believe, played a part in this. Being raised poor, Hakyung suffered the brunt of being impoverished as the eldest. I mean, he had to work whilst his brother studies. Among the two it is obvious who was being taken care of and who has to work to make ends meet. This kind of detail just feels like intentional or maybe I’m just reading too much into it.
It’s also refreshing to see the family dynamics in this story. At the beginning, you can clearly tell that the antagonists are the members of the Jang family but they showed character development in the end in a not-so-dramatic-way like a typical family. The way the conflict at the end was resolved was unexpected, too (when I first read this). You’d think that the grand scheme the grandfather did as a resolution would be something explosive, but it was not, and yet it was still impactful (I shed a tear or two). Overall, this was such a masterpiece. I wish I could read more of the artist/author’s work.