Tied to You Volume 1 Review
Everyone has a ring! To find out who your ring connects you to, you must make physical contact with them but only after you’ve become an adult. Sleeping with your ring partner will grant you the best night’s sleep you can get…
In the world of Tied to You, a ring has appeared on student Wooseo Jin’s finger, meaning he’s met his soulmate (it’s that red thread of fate again!). Why did fate have to screw me over like this? But his soulmate turns out to be not Jiseok Kang, his best friend (and secret crush) but Jiseok’s older brother Jigeon. Understandably, Wooseo doesn’t want to tell Jigeon what’s happened. But one of the side effects from acquiring a ring is that being apart from the soulmate results in crippling insomnia and the only way to make up for it is to share a bed with your ring partner. Both young men are suffering from sleep-deprivation, so when Jigeon eventually says to Wooseo, “Sleep with me” that’s exactly what he means: sleep, not have sex, with me. Wooseo agrees… and it works! It works so well that when the Kangs’ sister Jiyeon moves out of the flat the three siblings share, Jigeon invites Wooseo to join them. Wooseo (after some initial uncertainties) moves in. Wooseo agrees and as he’s a good cook, everyone seems to be happy with the new arrangement – as long as he and Jigeon can keep up the pretense in front of Jiseok. He’s also unaware that Jigeon has been seeing someone – Jinho Choi – and he’s now ended the relationship very abruptly. When Wooseo and Jiseok are on their way to uni, a hooded man bumps into Wooseo – and Wooseo feels a sudden chill. Was it just an accident? Or is he being stalked by someone with malicious intent?
Halfway through this first volume, the main viewpoint shifts from Wooseo to Jigeon and we get to see the same events again from the older man’s point of view before the story reverts to Wooseo and moves on. In setting up a relationship in which the only way out is for one ring partner to die, the author of the original novel, Chelliace, has upped the stakes and then upped them still more by stating that neither partner can fall asleep unless they’re together. Sleep deprivation, we know, can soon lead to ill health. Given this rigid restriction of the ‘magic system’ (well, it is a kind of magic, isn’t it, this red ribbon of fate?) there seems to be no way out for the two ‘chosen’ partners but to be together. It’s strongly hinted that they are unconsciously drawn to one another anyway – but Wooseo’s hopeless love for his straight best friend Jiseok complicates matters, especially when they all start living together and neither Jigeon nor Wooseo has told Jiseok that they are fated ring partners.
The art and the adaptation from the original novel are by WHAT and this is the first time I’ve seen this manhwaga’s work, although given the astonishing number of webtoons and manhwa that have now become available in the West, that’s not so surprising. Although the character art is pleasant to look at, it’s very much in the current style favoured in BL webtoons. Sometimes, objects look a bit ‘off’ (especially coffee mugs) and some perspectives are not quite right, giving a slightly disorienting effect. The backgrounds are minimal (as is often the case in manhwa) and the colour palette is mostly muted, especially for night scenes in which WHAT favours muddy sepia shades; the few scenes which are in lighter colours are a great relief for the reader! Interestingly, having read the first three chapters on tappytoon, I found that the story comes across much more clearly in the original vertical scrolling format and the rather turgid sepia palette looks far less oppressive when set against a white background. It doesn’t always work to put panels designed to be read by scrolling into a four or five to-a-page format to make a physical volume that reads left to right. Nevertheless, the three main characters and their dilemma are sympathetically portrayed, so maybe Volume 2 will develop the drama bubbling under in an interesting and satisfying way.
This is Ize Press’s first Boys’ Love manhwa and, interestingly, they’ve gone for a series that – in Volume 1, at least – is rated Teen, reaching out to a wider audience. The narrative doesn’t address or explain the issue that ring partners can be single-sex as well, presumably, as heterosexual, so there seems to be no societal stigma attached to same-sex relationships. The translation is by Micah Kim with lettering by Chi Bui. The volume is heavy, as the paper required for the full colour graphics is weightier than the paper normally used for black-and-white illustrations. There is no IZE Press digital edition available (presumably because it’s still available as a webtoon on tappytoon.) There are three volumes in all and Volume 2 is due out from IZE Press in August.
Our review copy from Ize Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
