The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2022, pt. 26: Jaymee Goh

 

The Pleasures of Eight Webtoons

By Jaymee Goh

 

 

Webtoons, also called manhua, exploded on the scene some five years ago, and via webtoon apps like TappyToons, Tapas, Lezhin, Manta, Pocket Comics, and Webtoons, we have seen translations of several stellar series. Webtoons are often adapted from existing light novels, though some are webtoon-original works. Every week, readers get a new episode, and like television, there are "seasons," which signal a new arc in the story. (The time between seasons vary, depending on production schedules and, uh, the artist's health.)

This new comic style is designed for continuous scrolling on the phone, either on the browser or the app. Art styles vary from simple to extravagant, with the scrolling experience providing a whole new medium to explore the way visuals and speech balloons interact to evoke specific emotions. In manga and comics, we may get splashpages encompassing two whole pages. In the webtoon, it is a long, downward-scrolling image that has all the extravagance of the splashpage, perhaps a landscape drawn horizontally (with the text in portrait mode) just taking up the length of a phone screen.

 As webtoon lengths can vary, and some just adding on episode after episode (in what suspiciously looks like quantity over quality, as readers must pay per episode in app currency), serialization can take years. Many are in the 120-episode range; some stories run to a modest 80, though some ongoing serials are hitting 300 episodes with no end in sight, like Dragonball Z. However, we have some excellent series that are already completed, both in their original language and in translation. Here are a few on two popular webtoon apps, Tapas and TappyToons.

 

Empress of Another World (Completed on TappyToon)

This is one of the earliest webserials, featuring the classic portal fantasy trope of a young Korean woman, Sa Bina, who finds herself slipping through an interdimensional crack into another world. The ducal family that fosters her offers her to the ugly emperor as a concubine, but on the first night, he is murdered by a mysterious assassin—his own son, Lucretius. However, the former emperor's first concubine is pregnant and intent on becoming the empress dowager. Bina finds herself embroiled in the political intrigue and romance.

 

The Abandoned Empress (Completed on TappyToon)

 

This is a take on time regression and the portal fantasy. The originating portal fantasy plot features a young girl who becomes the ruler's prophesized empress, facing the challenges that come from being an outsider from 21st-century Earth unused to feudal court politics. Here, the protagonist is the rival queen, Aristia, who grew up with the interpretation that she was the prophesized Child of God and has worked her whole life trying to become the perfect empress, only for the true Child of God to rip that identity from under her. Moreover, the Crown Prince evinces a distaste for her, which grows into a psychotic hatred when the Child of God arrives. After a tragic end, Aristia finds herself back in the past as a child, and in her first act of defiance, swears to live her life differently. This time around as she awaits the Child of God's arrival, she begins to build a new lifepath that won't have her pining for the prince, and safeguarding her family's honour. However, as time passes and her relationships with the people around her change, she discovers a conspiracy against the imperial family and its supporters, uncovering the truth behind the prince's psychosis and who really was the "abandoned" empress. This series is extremely controversial: the prince rapes Aristia in their previous life, causing her trauma that he is confused by in the present time, and as the truth behind his actions is unveiled, she forgives him and they work towards their happy ending. There is a debate between Aristia and her rival on this: do the sins prior to regression count towards one's judgement of the current person, or does one refrain from holding a grudge against another for actions that have yet to pass?

 

The Antagonist's Pet (Completed on TappyToon)

 

Somewhere, there is an ur-text, or as Brian Attebery might put it, a science fiction parabola, featuring a specific narrative arc: a young woman from the countryside who comes to the capital and wins the heart of several different men in power, whose path to the happy ending is blocked by a conniving, evil woman destined for doom. Often, the evil woman is the fiancée of the male lead, but no one questions his choice to emotionally cheat on her, embracing his new choice instead, because the protagonist is ~so perfect. In The Antagonist's Pet, a young woman finds herself in the body of a side character, Sasha Tartt, in her favorite novel featuring such a story, in a plot device often referred to as "transmigration." Sasha deploys all her hard-earned skills from retail sales to suck up to women in power, who treat her as an emotional punching bag. Her initial plan to stick close to the heroine is thwarted when she falls in love at first sight with the incredible beauty of the antagonist, Rebecca. The love is platonic, but sublimated to such a degree that Sasha vows to save Rebecca from her neglectful fiancé. Not only that, the heroine also seems to know something of the original plot and is acting contrary to it, too. The various characters find strength in Sasha's unbending optimism and support for their chosen paths, and they all grow into their own powers instead of fading into the background like the status quo, and the plot of the original novel, might demand of them.

 

The Duchess's 50 Tea Recipes (Completed on Tapas)

 This is another kind of transmigration work, but without a referential text. Just as an office worker swears to never be a doormat again, she wakes up in the body of a feudal duchess in a loveless marriage, despised and disrespected for lacking a backbone. Though confused at first, Park Hajeong takes the opportunity to really start fresh as Duchess Chloe Battenberg, and makes her first ever demand: tea! As Hajeong indulges in her passion, she gets opportunities to use her skills from her past life to great effect in this new world. There is exposition about a different kind of tea drink in every other episode or so as she introduces the variations of the drink to the people of the empire she lives in. This series follows Hajeong as she wins the hearts and minds of the household staff, the people of the empire, and her cold husband, starts new business ventures, introduces changes to the culture of the empire, and fend off jealous challengers. It is also one of the rare transmigration stories in which the transmigrated character speaks to the "original owner" of their body.

** I didn't actually count whether there were fifty tea recipes, but there is definitely a lot of tea, and beautiful splashy art to express the story’s love of it!

 

The Spirit Queen (Completed on Tapas)

A Chinese secondary world fantasy that features what the best Chinese webtoons do: plot twists up the wazoo as details are withheld from the reader only to slam revelation after revelation into the steepest of cliffhangers. In this world, the human kingdom rules over foreign, magical clans: the Snow Clan, the Mirage Clan, the Fire Clan, and the massacred Spirit Clan. Orphaned Ling Zhi has grown up despised for her prophetic dreams. While seeking her real family, she is taken in as Emperor Xuanjue's new concubine by the Empress Dowager. Between the Empress Dowager, the Empress Consort (assigned by the previous emperor to keep the emperor's ideals in check), Consort Huan (a hostage of the Mirage clan), and the Emperor himself, Ling Zhi has to navigate "inner court" politics and pull off her own machinations in order to hide her true identity and restore the honor of her clan. There is a hot-cold dynamic between her and Xuanjue, who is struggling to save people from the genocidal mission begun by his father. They are aware that their relationship is built on lies, and try to hide their true feelings. Alliances are tense, fraught with misunderstandings and mistrust from historical crimes against each other's clans and families. However, the story is ultimately about the change and courage that love and integrity can bring about.

** "The Spirit Queen" is the result of Tapas localization. Fan translations try for the more accurate "Generation's Queen Ling" to symbolize the central importance of Ling Zhi, not just within her clan, but symbolically for the whole empire. The Tapas translation also drops certain kinds of titles, calling Consort Huan "Madam Mystic," for example. It doesn't detract for the reader unfamiliar with Chinese inner court intrigues, but flattens and obscures the power dynamics considerably.

** "Inner court intrigue" refers to stories set within the imperial harem, where consorts and concubines leverage their knowledge and family influence to win favour from the Emperor or other key court figures. There is a great deal of psychological manipulation alongside the politicking.

 

Mojito (Completed on Tapas)

 Not all webtoons are fantasies! Mojito explores the life and times of a closeted power couple, comprised of rising supermodel Zhong Xiao (Anglicized to Simone) and attorney Lin Mushen (Marissa). During an argument over when Zhong Xiao will finally introduce Mushen to her homophobic mother, they passionately kiss on the open sidewalk, and are photographed by a blackmailing reporter. They have to navigate damage control, paparazzi skirting, and new opportunities to move their relationship forward towards their happy ending.

 

The Secret Tales of a 30-Year-Old Gay Bachelor (Completed on Tapas)

 

Veering into gay comedy romance, we have staid (Charlie) Wei Qiu-Yu, a 30-year-old closeted bachelor, whose mother insists on setting him up with various women on blind dates. The daughter of his mother's best friend stands him up and sends her aggressively charming younger brother, (Ethan) Fu Yi-Cheng in her stead. They embark on a sweet relationship where they evade misunderstandings with proper adult conversations, familial and social homophobia through tenacity, and ex-flames popping back into their lives. Meanwhile, Qiu-Yu's best friend, the nurturing (Ian) Lin Lan Yang, nurses a secret crush on his boss, none other than Qiu-Yu's elder brother, (William) Wei Wen-Hui, who is about to have an identity crisis. It's a grumpy/sunshine two-fer in one series!

** I have no reason to put the Anglicized names in parentheses aside from not liking Tapas's choice to change the names.

 

The Villainess Turns the Hourglass (Completed on TappyToon, ongoing on Tapas)

 

This is one of the first "villainess redemption" stories, in which it is revealed the villainess has been sabotaged by the "saintess" figure of the story towards her tragic downfall. Aria's mother, a sex worker, has married a count, and Aria grows up believing her beauty will shield her from high society's prejudice, taking out her jealousy and frustrations on her adoptive younger sister, Mielle, a belle with a wonderful reputation. Aria attempts to poison Mielle, and as she faces her end on the executioner's block, Mielle confesses a secret: Aria's entire life since entering the Count's household was set up to make her a complete fool. Just as she's about to lose her head, Aria sees a mysterious hourglass and makes a wish to turn her life back to change it... and wakes up as her fourteen-year-old self. She vows to use her knowledge of the future to change the trajectory of her life and take revenge on Mielle. This is a rags-to-riches Cinderella story, with critiques on class and gender as Aria reflects on her past, not just as a frivolous villainess, but as a child from a marginalized class. She embraces her identity as a villainess, fully acknowledging her two-faced behavior and selfish intentions, and her emotional arc sees her slowly becoming more sincere in her affections for the people she is trying to use as stepping stones to success. 

 

Jaymee Goh is a writer, reviewer, editor, and essayist of science fiction and fantasy. She attended the Clarion Workshop, and has a PhD from UC Riverside. She wrote the blog Silver Goggles, an exploration of postcolonial theory through steampunk. She is an editor for Tachyon Publications. Her creative work has been published in Strange Horizons, Lightspeed Magazine, and Interfictions Online. Her non-fiction has appeared in Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution, and Science Fiction Studies. She co-edited The Sea is Ours: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia (Rosarium Publishing), and she edited Trials by Whiteness, Vol. 11 in the WisCon Chronicles (Aqueduct, 2017).