Guest Review: Hissing, vols. 1-6

Hissing, vols. 1-6
By Kang EunYoung
Rated T, for Teens
Yen Press $10.99

Review by Melinda Beasi.

High school freshman Da-Eh is an aspiring manhwa artist who carefully ignores constant cries for attention from her doting younger brother. Fellow freshman Sun-Nam, the youngest of three boys, is bound and determined to become a “bad guy.” Finally, senior Ta-Jun, the school hottie, finds himself drawn to the one girl who can’t stand him, Da-Eh. If this is where the story stopped, there would be nothing at all remarkable about it, and over the course of the first volume or so, that’s seemingly where things stand. Fortunately, both the story and Kang’s method of telling it soon become more complex.

As the three teens’ lives become further entwined, the truth of each of their circumstances begins to be revealed. It is soon apparent that Da-Eh’s coldness toward her little brother is due to her inability to forgive him for being the product of her dead mother’s affair. Similarly, Sun-Nam’s desire to be “bad” is symptomatic of his oppressive guilt over having wished his unfaithful father dead on the very day he died. Meanwhile, Ta-Jun’s infatuation with Da-Eh is little more than an escape from the much more complicated love he’s carried around in his heart for years.

The series is technically a high school romance, and as such contains plenty of the usual clichés. The “mean girl” love rival, for instance, makes a number of tiresome appearances, as do the ever-present love confessions, and even a jealous best friend. But Kang renders all of this insignificant by the middle of the fifth volume by pulling off a fantastic act of authorial self-insertion that alters the tone of the entire series.

One of the series’ most notable aspects early on is its resistance to establishing a single main character. By using a wandering POV that shifts not only between the three teens, but also to each of their family members and quite a number of their schoolmates, Kang prevents any one character from becoming the focus of the series. Then in volume four, as Da-Eh struggles to come up with something “different” for an upcoming manhwa contest, she hits upon the idea of creating a story in which every character is treated as the main character. She’s pretty excited about the idea, until Ta-Jun pipes in to complain, “But if you do that, there’s no center.”

After this, the story quickly becomes much more chaotic, finally exploding in the middle of the fifth volume, where Da-Eh discovers the true center of her world (and the world of the series as a whole) as it is thrust upon her in the wake of a single event. The result is quite moving, and not something that would have been expected based on the series’ first couple of volumes.

This is not the series’ only strength. It’s primary romance between two loners, Da-Eh and Sun-Nam, is just stilted and awkward enough to help its flowery moments read as charming rather than clichéd. And speaking of flowers, Kang’s running gag featuring a magically-appearing background of Japanese shojo-style flowers that randomly surrounds Ta-Jun serves as a clever wink to a romance-weary audience. Da-Eh, too, is refreshing as a romantic heroine whose personal interest in romance is mainly as something to be studied as a subject for her work.

Kang’s artwork is nothing special, and her male characters frequently look confusingly alike. Fortunately, she has a greater gift for drawing distinctive females. She shows her greatest strengths in the series’ later volumes, where her use of paneling genuinely shines during the story’s most dramatic moments.

Though likely unintentional, Kang’s real message for readers here is, “Good things come to those who wait.” While the series undeniably gets off to a slow start, the payoff for those willing to commit to all six volumes is significant. Patient fans of romantic manhwa would do well to check out Hissing.

Read more from Melinda Beasi at her blog, Manga Bookshelf.