Tied to You Volume 2 Review
Student Wooseo Jin is sharing a flat with brothers Jigeon and fellow-student Jiseok Kang. He’s long concealed feelings for childhood friend Jiseok but in a society where fated partners discover a red thread ring on their ring fingers, binding them together for life, his Ring Partner is none other than Jiseok’s older brother, Jigeon. Now they can’t get a good night’s sleep unless they’re together and the more they’re together, the stronger the connection becomes.
After a few drinks one night, Jigeon tries to convince Wooseo to think of him as his younger brother and tells him, “I’m happy to do whatever you wanted to do with Jiseok” which, of course, ends up with them kissing. But instead of feeling consoled, Wooseo feels even more conflicted and starts to make enquiries on-line after finding a site which is titled ‘How to Remove a Ring’. He doesn’t mention this to either brother, even when the person running the site contacts him, asking him to send a photo of his left ring finger.
Jiseok – for whatever reason – is concerned about Wooseo and starts arguing with Jigeon. Could it be that he too is interested in Wooseo, even though Mina is around? And when Jiseok, blind drunk, hugs Wooseo, Wooseo’s confusion only becomes worse.
Jigeon has severed ties with his boyfriend Jinho – but the latter is (understandably) very unhappy with this outcome and resents the place that Wooseo has taken in Jigeok’s life. It’s dark, it’s raining, Wooseo is making his way home from uni on foot – when a stranger asks if he can share his umbrella… And Jigeon, waiting at the flat for Wooseo to get home, begins to feel very uneasy indeed when his Ring Partner doesn’t show up.
Manhwa, especially when it’s been reorganized from vertical scrolling/webtoon into book format as here, has to have a strong story and accomplished art to hold the reader’s attention and I’m still not entirely convinced that Volume 2 that Tied to You earns enough ticks in those boxes to deliver a compelling narrative. The art by WHAT is okay but not distinguished enough to stand out from stronger BL manhwa titles with eye-catching art like Hyperventilation or On or Off (both Tokyopop). The same problems seen in Volume 1 persist: the colour palette relies too much on sepia or a grey wash (yes, I realize a lot of the action takes place at night) but the overall impression is one of all-pervading dullness, relieved occasionally by the odd pop of red or yellow or blue. Of course, if the all-pervading gloom is a visual metaphor for the relationship between the brothers and Wooseo, lifting only when Wooseo is meeting other people elsewhere, I guess that’s effective but it still makes for a depressing read. Then there’s the fact that not only do two of the three main protagonists have very similar names (brothers Jigeon and Jiseok) but all the young men are drawn to look rather similar, including Jigeon’s jilted boyfriend, Jinho. This led me on more than one occasion to stop to try to work out who was who which interrupted the flow of the narrative in an irritating way. The constant use of flashbacks is another irritant.
As to the way the story’s developing, it’s turning out to be rather predictable in the way Wooseo is portrayed as a damsel in distress, torn between his feelings for the two brothers. Jigeon, the controlling, manipulative older brother doesn’t come off particularly well out of the situation (we get to see the things he’s doing to maintain his hold over Wooseo which could well be described as stalking) and Jiseok is cheerily oblivious at some times and over-competitive with Jigeon over Wooseo at others. No wonder Wooseo’s confused!
The full-colour edition from Ize Press is translated again by Micah Kim and lettered by Chi Bui; everything reads well and the glossy paper quality is good (although it makes for a heavy volume to hold, especially as there is no digital version available from Ize Press). Volume 3 is due out in November and it looks as if there will be a final fourth volume due out in 2025.
I’ve seen a reader recommend this series because it’s a Boys’ Love that is suitable for Teen readers (the Ize Press rating) and this is a fair point to make, in spite of what the cover image implies. I suspect that we’re supposed to be discovering how the Ring Partners system works alongside Wooseo – and that, apart from the revelation at the end of this volume, there’s much more to find out. But – maybe because of the short-chapter format of webtoons – this volume doesn’t deliver as smooth a read as one could wish. Perhaps Volume 3 will turn out to be better-paced.
Our review copy from Ize Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
