Tragedy and romance have been linked nearly because the starting of literature. Why else would tales about doomed lovers be like Shakespeare’s? Romeo and Juliet Or are historic tales about Cleopatra and her lovers so glorified? For a lot of readers, the advantageous line between the potential for a contented ending and a tragic ending is a part of the enchantment of studying romantic fiction. That is one thing Hye Lee appears to know very properly of their mahwa sequence See you in my nineteenth lifea love story that’s about each the tragic previous and the hopeful current.
The story follows somebody presently dwelling as a younger girl in trendy Korea. At present often called Jieum Ban, she is uncommon in that she remembers all from her previous lives, with Jieum being her nineteenth. She has been a person and a lady, lived by way of totally different instances and at totally different socio-economic ranges, and usually goes a long time between her reincarnations. However Jieum was reborn only a yr after she died in her earlier life, and as these 4 opening volumes progress, she turns into more and more suspicious of that. As Juwon Yun, she died on the age of twelve in a automobile accident, tearing her away from the boy she had a mutual crush on, Seoha Mun. Juwon died in Seoha’s nine-year-old arms, and she or he’s fairly certain that wasn’t speculated to occur. Why else would she have reincarnated once more whereas he was nonetheless alive?
After all, that could possibly be precisely what she needs to suppose, though a single line partially 4 suggests she’s proper. Juwon and Seoha had a really shut bond, and in her life as Jieum, she is decided to search out her manner again to him. The most important downside, apart from the truth that they now have a ten-year age distinction, is that whereas Juwon and Seoha have been on the prime of the socio-economic ladder, Jieum lives on the poverty line. Discovering him once more means discovering the means to go the place he’s, and as just a little lady that is not precisely possible. The difficulties enhance when Seoha is shipped overseas by his chilly father. Nevertheless, Jieum has not usually lived in useless and interprets her information from previous lives into an excellent profession on the Mun household conglomerate. When she’s twenty-three, she lastly will get the prospect to fulfill him once more, however there’s one thing she hasn’t taken into consideration: Seoha has PTSD and listening to impairment from the automobile accident that killed Juwon, and he is nonetheless alive at all times in that tragic previous. .
Jieum not realizing that she must do extra than simply discover Seoha is the emotional spine of those elements. Seoha (who clearly took a really arduous blow to the top within the accident) suffers from intermittent listening to loss and fairly extreme PTSD that manifests as panic assaults, and most significantly, he is nonetheless grieving for Juwon. Jieum by no means thought her earlier dying would have affected him so badly, in all probability as a result of she hasn’t actually acknowledged what it did to him. her. Whereas she would not have the identical aversion to driving within the backseat of vehicles or making loud noises, it is the truth that makes her so decided to reclaim one thing of her life, as Juwon usually says. She tells us that she by no means contacted folks from her different lives, though they lived in her subsequent life, however right here we see her do this twice: in her quest to search out Seoha, she additionally hunts down her niece from life earlier than Juwon, when she was a male stage magician. This requires her to disclose her previous life to the older girl, one thing she’s not less than just a little torn about in terms of Seoha as soon as she interacts with him once more. She needs to inform him, however now she’s undecided what the impact can be.
Whereas we are able to learn this as if it is not less than just a little bit about uncharted territory with a faster than regular rebirth, it is also about her emotional state. Jieum has spent most of her life attempting to get again to Seoha, and which means she has invested quite a bit of their relationship. Seeing how deeply affected he’s by her dying, she needs to assist, however a part of her appears afraid to disclose that she is Juwon for concern of a adverse consequence. The truth that her youthful sister from her earlier life, Chowon, can also be within the image solely complicates issues, though it’s not about love triangles, which may be very good. She drops hints for Seoha, and he begins to see them for what they’re, however they’re each afraid to hope, though by the top of half 4, Chowon is nearly sure that Jieum is Juwon. That offers this sequence a poignancy you won’t anticipate, a recognition of how loving somebody makes you weak in methods you’ll be able to’t simply get well from. When Seoha lastly begins to have emotions for Jieum, he could begin to really feel responsible. Jieum could also be not sure whether or not he’s seeing Jieum or Juwon, though they’re mainly the identical particular person. There are such a lot of uncertainties that nothing, that’s clear, can be straightforward.
That’s the best energy of those 4 elements. Even when it turns into typical manhwa performs with humor or one thing to chortle at, it by no means loses sight of the tragic underpinnings. It does job of balancing the emotional parts with the lighter moments, and it ties all of them along with a way of anxious nervousness, each on Jieum and Seoha’s half and for the readers. Balancing the previous with the current provides us an fascinating story that works on a number of ranges, and even when the artwork is not at all times pretty much as good because it could possibly be, it is nonetheless greater than sufficient to get the job completed to clear. For those who like your romances to have a bitter undercurrent of disappointment, this is not a sequence you will wish to ignore. It is probably not good, however it greater than makes up for its weaknesses with its strengths.
