Ryu’s Musings – Kingdom of the Winds Vol 01

ISBN-13: 9781600092510
Language: English
Direction: Left to Right
Pages: 184
by: Kimijin
Publisher: NetComics
Type: Series
Genre: Shounen, Drama, Romance, Historical

Synopsis:

An epic fantasy and vivid re-imagination of ancient Korean history, made possible by painstaking historical research combined with breathtaking mythological visualization!

Kingdom of the Winds tells the legendary story of King Yuri (Goguryeo’s second emperor), King Damusin (Muhyul, Goguryeo’s third emperor), and Muhyul’s son
Hodong. This tale fills in the personal details of their lives, their ideals and human emotions as they struggle with an unavoidable fate that intertwines and
tangles their lives with that of their nation.
You will meet the heroes of the Kingdom of the Winds; heroes afflicted and lost, opposed to each other, and bound together on their epic journeys to achieving their diverse ideals that actual history had only hinted at

So, what is the story about?

The first volume focuses on the Crown Prince of the kingdom of Gogureyo (try saying that when your drunk!!) by the name of Muhyul. He, along with the rest of his siblings live in fear of his father, who has already killed their older brother; the former Crown Prince.

Muhyul tries to protect his siblings from his fathers wrath, as well as deal with a wife whom he loves dearly, and soon to be born child. However things are take a turn for the worse when dark powers take a hand in affairs looking to topple the kingdom. Leading to the disappearance and murder of Yeojin, Muhyul’s younger beloved brother.

General musings:

This was a hard series to get into, in fact I had put it down several times purely because I struggled to follow the story. There were several reasons for this, and since I feel they are important, I’m going to go through all the problems i had with the volume:

Overly dark art work that makes it hard to see who is talking all the time. This isn’t a huge problem, since it’s only really bad a few times in this volume.

NetComics left in all the original Korean terminology, which isn’t a problem per say. However the problem occurs when they use side notes to explain the terminology, however these notes are so faint, and/or obscured by the art (lacking a white border) that at times I found I was needing a magnifying glass to read them.

Finally, I found it very easy to get confused on the story, as it flows like molasses up-hill. Elements of it didn’t make sense, but i think that was due in part to the point i just mentioned, about text being obscured at times.

Yet I did persevere and finally get through the first volume, and I’m glad that I stuck with it.

The first volume, I feel, is really a stage setter. Introducing the various characters, showing off their personalities, the usual stuff. And, despite the problems mentioned above, I found it an interesting read. Also after the first part of the book things seemed to settle down, and become easier to follow, which made the story easier to get into and to enjoy.

By the end of this first volume I was hooked. The characters have a lot of interesting things about them, and I liked how little is actually revealed about them, and yet at the same time loads of stuff is revealed. It makes for a unique perspective on the lead characters, since while we now know a lot about him, little of it is mind blowing stuff; so we have mysteries within mysteries.

The first volume is a good introduction to the series, but you do have to sit with it, and if you’re looking for a light read, this is most definitely not one to pick up. However if you want a story that has the potential to be an epic fantasy, this is worth giving a try.

This is my first paper volume from NetComics, I’ve read their stuff on the online reader of course, but this is my first actual paper volume; and on the whole I am impressed with the release.

My only complaint on their work is that a lot of the thought and glossary text needs a bigger border to make it more readable. Beyond that they get a huge thumbs up from me. I was especially impressed with the amount of extras we get in the volume, from character descriptions, through to how the story fits in historically. Kimijin obviously put a lot of attention into this, and I’m really glad that NetComics decided to leave them in, rather than cut them out to save costs.

The paper of the volume is about average, same quality I’d say as you would have found in CMX titles, which while not the greatest, isn’t the worst. I feel that NetComics found a good balance between quality and cost. I look forward to reading some of their other materials (and still live in hope of getting Yodong’s Vampire as a actual book).