Eun Lee (1)

Welcome to the antique gift shop...a place where the antiques choose their owners...

Bun-nyuh is the owner and Mr. Yang her (underpaid, mysterious) employee. This book consisted of 3 chapters:

-Chapter 1, in which Mr. Yang is mysterious, can talk to the spirits of the antiques...and us American readers find out what a "Jook Bu-in" is.
-Chapter 2, in which Bun-nyuh is mad at Yang for being a dope, is unable to sell anything of value and a fox lantern teaches an angry young woman to stop being a bitch.
-Chapter 3, the beginning of a tale about a high school betrayal Bun-nyuh is still bitching about, two girls & a guy's love triangle and most surprisingly a reference a reference to Twiggy occurs.

This is a korean manwha, I believe one of the first I read though considering the amount of scanlations I used to read I could be wrong (also I think I may have read Won't Lose You first.) This first book is filled with far fewer (south) Korean cultural references then preceding volumes, but a general understanding helps the reader.

Bun-nyuh never quite stops being this much of a greedy selfish person, but I kind of rememeber her getting somewhat better (mostly against her will) and Yang NEVER moves beyond the mysterious almost supernatural trope. I remember shipping her and Yang pretty hard, for no other reason then I shipped EVERYONE in EVERYTHING in some way.

The artwork is pretty standard manwha fare, but there's a lot of elegance and reverence paid to the antiques and Yang's more formal clothing. Oh! Also I'm convinced Yang is related to Yuko the Time Witch from xxxHolic. Despite no connection at all beyond their hair, drinking and cryptic ways.… (mer)