Cat and Dog

While, my scoring may be a bit harsh, allow me to qaulify.

This is not a very good manhwa. Though it isn't tagged as shoujo, it contains mush of the genre's worst traits.


Story & Characters:
No bad shoujo is any good without excessive drama to permeate the entire story. It's set in the grand industry of film and, as is often the case with such overly dramatic manga, that makes most of the characters thralls of crude ambition, or just plain bastards. To be sure, a notable portion of th MCs ar fine people, though a bit cold. All this combines to do one thing for certain: kill with alacrity an fuzzing feeling the story might otherwise generate. This manwha has little fluff, and what fluff it does have is soured by the rest of it. This story provides much angst, and little counterbalance. No, it's not "I've fallen for my sister, oh what lovely incest" kind of angst, but the drama is real. Sure, drama is fine to a degree. Even, sometimes a severe degree. But such drama must have a payoff. This provided little. Sure, at one point, they both confess (him much later on, of course,) but when it finally happened, I felt little. That's the thing about melodrama. It negates most everything but the angst, and all just for the sake of making the story that mushc more unrealistsic.

Art: Not that great. Admittedly, I dislike stereotypical shoujo art (mainly when the chracters at drawn to appear inhuman, with their glistening, bug eyes and demonic crack of a smile, but I digress.) This art, while not severely shoujo, still accomplised the task of making it's characters look false, unrealistic, and thus hard to relate to.



In the end, I guess it's what I get for reading romance dramas. It's not always fun being a guy who likes romance manga, what with all the melodramatic shoujo mangas flooding the market. Lord, do I need some Slice of Life right now.

P.S.
Do yourself a favor. There are much better marriage/arranged marriage romance manga out there. Consult my list, if you'd like.