Semantic Error Volume 5 Review

He pretty much embodies everything I hate in a person. Sangwoo thinking about Jaeyoung.

It’s never a good idea to ask someone else about your lover’s previous partners. Sangwoo really shouldn’t have asked Yuna because the more he hears, the more insecure he feels. Sangwoo hasn’t realized how much Jaeyoung has come to mean to him – until Jaeyoung starts ghosting him. And just after they’ve made love. Of course, Jaeyoung’s departure for the USA is looming closer as the end of the semester approaches and neither one of them has worked out how they’re going to cope with that separation. But faced with Jaeyoung’s silence and failure to answer his texts, Sangwoo can’t concentrate on anything now, which is how he ends up in a bar, drinking too many martinis and being propositioned by another man. When the stranger persists, kissing Sangwoo in the street outside, a drunken Sangwoo is surprised to be rescued from the unwanted attentions by Jaeyoung!

But things are still far from well between the two. Sangwoo, while insisting that he hates Jaeyoung, eventually realizes that he feels the opposite. At first he wanted nothing more than to be rid of him. Now as they continue to work together on their game, Veggie Venturer, Sangwoo’s feelings for Jaeyoung seem to become entangled with his admiration for Jaeyoung’s skills as a web designer. But are they dating or not? And what’s going to happen to their relationship when Jaeyoung goes to the USA at the end of the semester?

Having set itself up as a chalk and cheese/enemies-to-lovers story, Semantic Error enters tricky territory as it enters the ‘lovers’ phase. Much of the fun in following the rocky path that Sangwoo and Jaeyoung have been stumbling along toward establishing a relationship has come from the many misunderstandings. The hardest part for author J. Soori (and artist Angy) is to convince us that this unlikely partnership is not only believable but viable. So, this is a volume in which not a great deal happens – but we get to see what’s going on in poor Sangwoo’s confused mind as he struggles to make sense of his feelings. And yes, he’s not a robot, he does have feelings – which is why the moment he blurts out, “I like you, Jaeyoung” while they’re working on their game together is such a significant one. And why, of course, he immediately denies having said it aloud and then runs away. These deep dives into Sangwoo’s state of mind are strikingly illustrated by Angy, going from montages of images flickering through the young man’s memory to abstract swirls of colour (many shades of pink and red, because these feelings are warm, even hot!).

The more light-hearted tone of earlier volumes is much less in evidence here. Whatever you feel about Jaeyoung’s arrogant and bullying behaviour towards Sangwoo when he was basically getting his own back for being made to repeat the year, it’s relayed in an entertaining way – and this volume only has brief reminders of that light-hearted, barbed humour that is one of Semantic Error’s strong selling points. There’s much more heavy romance and, consequently, there’s much more angst. For a couple that are not good at communicating, they do a lot of talking! (Which is surely a good thing to clear the air, etc…?) Sangwoo is still taking everything too literally (he can’t help it, that’s how his brain is wired) and Jaeyoung is alternately baffled, infuriated, entranced by his unpredictable behaviour. The intense heart-to-heart on a moonless beach that ends this volume brings a surprise announcement that raises more questions than it answers.

This fifth volume is again translated by Manta with a wonderful variety of lettering by Shirley Chen. There’s a bonus Christmas black-and-white manga which is charming. Did you want to see what happens at Christmas with twins Jaeyoung and Jaehong (aged 8) or in the Choo household where older sister Sanghee (9) is arguing with her younger brother Sangwoo (6) as to how Santa Claus has managed to leave them presents when their house doesn’t have a chimney? There’s extra colour images as well from the webtoon and the colour printing really does justice to Angy’s skills as an artist.  We’re promised a sixth (and final?) volume of the manhwa but no date set yet from Ize Press – and in the meantime, J. Soori’s original novel is being published by Ize Press with the first volume already out and the second volume due in June.

If you’ve stayed with this awkward but touching relationship through its ups and downs, you’ll want to follow it through some of its most testing moments so far in this fifth volume.

Our review copy was supplied by Ize Press.