Jade of Bango vol.1

Jade of Bango vol.1
Story: Ae-Ju Yim
Art: Jin-Ju Yim
Translation: Grace Min & Joyce Lee
Adaptation: Andrew Wolfman & Anthony Andera
Publisher: Tokyopop

Cute little school girl in the front cover with colorful candy and weird sperm with faces chasing her (I guess those are supposed to be ghosts); count me in. Wait, this is a manhwa not one of those countless magical girl saves the world manga. Surely it has to have some kind of twist right? Well as I mentioned in the previous sentence this is a story about a magical girl of sorts with the power to destroy the world. Lin Seonu is a high school student who lives with her dad (her mom got killed by a monster, but we’ll get to that in a minute). On her sixteenth birthday she learns that she can talk to ghosts and when she is attacked by a Spider-woman, not the sexy kind either, she learns that she is the Saint of Jade of Bango. Now all kinds of monsters want her power and the only man that can stop them is her husband/guardian In Mu. And the chick is only sixteen!! So, magical girl with the power to destroy the world has a crush on her husband to be, but he is very emotionally distant and has the charm of a wood block. I do believe this is the most manga inspired manhwa book I have ever read. It borrows not only the stereotypical story, but the artwork is definitely manga inspired. That is one thing that I did love about the book though; the wonderful and colorful characters. Sure it’s black and white, but with character designs that look to come right out of a videogame it really does stand out. Unfortunately it doesn’t save the lackluster of a story. But hey, I’m willing to give the book another shot come volume 2, just for the artwork. C