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A review by millennial_dandy
One Thousand and One Nights, Volume 1 by Jeon JinSeok, Han SeungHee
3.0
3.5 rounded down to 3
Kicking off Pride month, we have a nostalgic re-read of a 2000s shounan-ai manhwa.
While nostalgia plays a big role in my desire to pick this story back up after a number of years, I don't think that's what would get me to continue on to volume two.
First of all, Han SeungHee's artwork is absolutely stunning. Her character designs are very distinct, and she leans hard into the genre's convention of having beautiful characters, both in a very objective sense, but also in the painstaking care she puts into the details on even background and side characters. The emotions she's able to convey can be quite subtle at times, though there's still plenty of room for the over-the-top, stylized reactions expected of a comic. And the costumes and the backgrounds as well are often incredibly rich with detail and texture. Just, a really good-looking series all-around.
What about the story, though? As with so many manga and manhwa set-ups, the plot of 'One Thousand and One Nights' sounds very simple: 'Shahrazad and the 1001 Arabian Nights' except with a queer veneer slapped over the top just because it's a good excuse to draw a bunch of impossibly beautiful guys in harem pants.
Admittedly, this first volume plays to that assumption in large part given the set-up of our androgynous protagonist Sehara dressing up as a woman to take his sister's place in the (equally) attractive sultan's harem, and thereby saving her life. There's some obligatory tension around this when the sultan, Shahryar, inevitably figures this out, and Sehara tries to save his own life by telling Shahryar a story connecting back to Shahryar's anger at his wife for the betrayal that kicks off his whole 'I'm going to kill a woman a day because that really hurt my feelings' murder spree.
That being said, though this first volume may feel like a frivilous reboot of the original tale, by the end we can see how writer Jeon JinSeok intends to branch off from the source material, and I remember from later volumes how what could have easily been self-indulgent gender-bent fanfiction becomes a thoughtful exploration of revenge, of redemption, of toxic masculinity. And by not simply rehashing one of the 1001 stories from the original, but taking it in a slightly new direction with a more modern spin on the moral, JinSeok demonstrates how valuable a transformative work can really be.
And, if memory serves, the story really starts to pick up in volume 2 once the authors are able to branch off from the familiar storyline.
Kicking off Pride month, we have a nostalgic re-read of a 2000s shounan-ai manhwa.
While nostalgia plays a big role in my desire to pick this story back up after a number of years, I don't think that's what would get me to continue on to volume two.
First of all, Han SeungHee's artwork is absolutely stunning. Her character designs are very distinct, and she leans hard into the genre's convention of having beautiful characters, both in a very objective sense, but also in the painstaking care she puts into the details on even background and side characters. The emotions she's able to convey can be quite subtle at times, though there's still plenty of room for the over-the-top, stylized reactions expected of a comic. And the costumes and the backgrounds as well are often incredibly rich with detail and texture. Just, a really good-looking series all-around.
What about the story, though? As with so many manga and manhwa set-ups, the plot of 'One Thousand and One Nights' sounds very simple: 'Shahrazad and the 1001 Arabian Nights' except with a queer veneer slapped over the top just because it's a good excuse to draw a bunch of impossibly beautiful guys in harem pants.
Admittedly, this first volume plays to that assumption in large part given the set-up of our androgynous protagonist Sehara dressing up as a woman to take his sister's place in the (equally) attractive sultan's harem, and thereby saving her life. There's some obligatory tension around this when the sultan, Shahryar, inevitably figures this out, and Sehara tries to save his own life by telling Shahryar a story connecting back to Shahryar's anger at his wife for the betrayal that kicks off his whole 'I'm going to kill a woman a day because that really hurt my feelings' murder spree.
That being said, though this first volume may feel like a frivilous reboot of the original tale, by the end we can see how writer Jeon JinSeok intends to branch off from the source material, and I remember from later volumes how what could have easily been self-indulgent gender-bent fanfiction becomes a thoughtful exploration of revenge, of redemption, of toxic masculinity. And by not simply rehashing one of the 1001 stories from the original, but taking it in a slightly new direction with a more modern spin on the moral, JinSeok demonstrates how valuable a transformative work can really be.
And, if memory serves, the story really starts to pick up in volume 2 once the authors are able to branch off from the familiar storyline.