7Fates: Chakho Volume 1 Review

Ize Press continues to delight its fans by bringing another HYBE manhwa into print in the English language. In 2022, HYBE, an entertainment company, launched a few manhwa series as digital comics on Webtoon based on its popular K-pop bands, and the main characters of 7Fates: Chakho represents the well-known members of BTS.

Zeha is an orphan. He has very little memory of his parents, as they died when he was young. When a strange man comes to him and informs Zeha that the secret behind his parents’ death lies at Inwang Mountain, Zeha can’t resist going to investigate. However, he wakes up days later at the hospital with no memory of what happened. It’s only because of the detective working on his case that Zeha finds out he’s the only survivor of a massacre but neither Zeha nor the detective have any answers.

When he’s fully recovered and makes the trip back to the mountain, Zeha finds the truth. He’s the son of a shaman who could open and closes the portal to the world where the Beom live: feline-like creatures that feast on humans. His father was a Beom who fell in love with the shaman, and that’s how Zeha was born. As a half-Beon and half-shaman, Zeha is the only one who can open the path to the human world for the Beom, and the Beom leader took advantage of him.

Now thanks to the help of the guardian deity whose task is to stop the Beom coming into the human world, Zeha needs to find the monsters’ leader and seal him back. Thankfully, it seems Zeha won’t be alone, as he’ll receive the help of six other guys, starting with Do-Geon, hell-bent on avenging his siblings’ murder caused by a Beom.

For the BTS fans out there, aka A.R.M.Y, this is definitely an unmissable and must-read manhwa. Each main character represents one of the members, with Zeha being Jung Kook. Zeha meets another possible ally in this volume, but we’ll need to wait for the story to progress to meet the rest.

Zeha has always been alone since he lost his parents. He felt like he didn’t fit in anywhere and hoped that by forgetting his parents he could finally fit in. However, that’s not the case, and the leader of the Beom took advantage of that by making him believe a different truth. Now Zeha feels guilty about unsealing the portal for the Beom so the guardian deity decides to take him under his wing and turn him into a proper warrior. The series is action-packed and relies heavily on onomatopoeic sound effects during the fighting scenes to describe them, such as ‘zoom’ when the characters move fast, and ‘spurt’ when heads are cut off. There is also an extra-special touch as the artists use the Japanese kanji and the English translation when talking about special attacks or even the word Beom.

The first volume starts with a preview of Team Chakho, the team led by Zeha that will fight against the Beom, so the readers already know what will happen, but not the how yet. The narrators are both Zeah and the guardian deity and are both omniscient, so we know what’s going on in the characters’ minds all the time.

What I didn’t like much was the fast pacing of the story. Six chapters already cover around five months, so everything that happens is back-to-back. Thankfully, the narrator tells us the passing of time, but it seems pretty rushed for everything to happen so suddenly. I also found some of the information repetitive as the same things were mentioned a few times in just a handful of chapters. I think a change  of pace in-between the fighting scenes would have given the readers a way to actually comprehend what was happening and what could possibly happen without having to jump right in. It took away the suspense as it gave everything away.

There are no special finishes on the cover of Volume 1, just a gloss lamination. However, rejoice because Ize Press gives its readers a surprise! As soon as you open the manhwa, there is a folded poster illustrated on both sides which can be removed from the volume. Moreover, the last chapter is followed by a glossary and an explanation of the terminology and folklore used in the creation of the series.

7Fates: Chakho is created by HYBE in collaboration with BTS. It started as a digital comic on Webtoon and is published as a print edition in the English Language by Ize Press. Volume 2 is releasing in February 2024.

Our review copy from Ize Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.