king of the ring.

bl manhwa & anime word dump. i just like yapping a lot. minors please do not interact. i am a millenial born in the 90s.

[k1ngofthering]

A little intro.

Name: King (not my real name for obvious reasons) Gender: They/Them Age: Younger millenial (90s) Location: Asia Manhwa preferences: ranging from fluff to serious topics, has really great art styles, has a redeemable plot. Recent reads are BLs, but I'm branching out. Manga preferences: slice of life, feel-good manga, action packed things

Other Links: Tiktok

[k1ngofthering]

Jinx was a disappointment.

There, I said it.

But it wasn't always like that for me.

The buildup in the beginning chapters was what made me stick around to see what would happen. I had just finished reading The Dangerous Convenience Store before starting on Jinx, and I had high expectations since I was seeing that it was one of the most popular manhwas on Lehzin and on social media. So, naturally, I gave it a try.

Every chapter got me hooked. The best mixed martial arts athlete and his physical therapist. Power imbalance. Power play, both literally and figuratively. I was hooked on it, only because I was used to that kind of premise with the Asian dramas I was watching when I was younger (minus the sex part, of course). So I didn't really mind the other things that were happening. But once Dan's debt was already paid, I wasn't entirely sure where this was going, especially when Mingwa told everyone that this was going to be a happy ending.

Honestly, I felt like this was rushed. So rushed, in fact, that it felt like Mingwa just wanted to get this shit over with. And it's so sad, so so sad, that it ended how it did. I wanted yearning. I wanted more sad Jaekyung, sorry Jaekyung, kneeling on the ground begging Jaekyung. That whole chapter of him chasing Dan at the bus stop and kneeling: sure, I got what I want, but I wanted him to be sorry.

Not once did he say "I love you" to Dan. It was always Dan saying how he was feeling.

And this wouldn't have happened if the ending wasn't rushed.

I feel like the ending being rushed started when the conflict of Jumin and Dan's former doctor resident was placed at the very end. I think this decision was made in true K-drama fashion, having the ending carry the main conflict. But at this point, we already know that Jaekyung would definitely win against Jumin. We didn't have to add that fact that Jumin deliberately tells Jaekyung that he was the one who ordered for the doctor to stab Dan. That was stupid. So, so stupid. Given that Mingwa built Jumin up to be this villain that plans everything out from scratch, this was kinda out of character of Jumin to just drop that bomb.

At that point, the determination for Jaekyung to win and get this over with so that he can be with Dan was already enough juice for him to obliterate Jumin in the octagon. That added Jumin line wasn't needed, even if Jaekyung was exhausted. Adrenaline would carry him through this fight.

Maybe I just expected too much from Jinx when the first ever manhwa I read was The Dangerous Convenience Store. In that story, Ahjussi and Euijoon had years of a time skip and in that time skip, they fixed their shit. At least, Ahjussi did. He had the time to fix his company from the mafia that it was to something that had a clean reputation, only because he wanted Euijoon to not worry about what he did for work. Now that's character development. And I was expecting Jinx to be similar to that. I did post on Tiktok that I wanted a time skip, because time definitely heals all wounds. It's real, you guys! Time does really do that! And other manhwas also have the time skip element that made the characters better, or worse (Even If You Don't Love Me had a time skip that made me want to tear my hair out because that was a terrifyingly slow progress to justice). But there will be progress and a marination of the story if a time skip element was introduced to Jinx maybe 60-70 chapters in. That would probably cover Jaekyung's change in his demeanor, Dan's maturity over his adult decisions, and everything else in between. In The Dangerous Convenience Store, the time skip was just there. Although they explained what they have been doing in the past 5 (?) years, nothing specific was mentioned. We could just imagine that they grew, because it wasn't really important to the story.

We could've had that type of story progression for Jinx, but instead, everything was rushed. There was a time skip, but it was just a month. Jaekyung and Dan are already dating. They already have their promise rings. Dan calls Jaekyung by his name and not Mr. Joo.

I could talk more and more about why it's so disappointing, but I'll just end up comparing Jinx to other stories that I've read.

Overall, Jinx could have been better. I know now from watching Boyfriend on Demand on Netflix that manhwa artists also have deadlines and are constantly pressured by the company to keep updating on their set dates so even if I'm disappointed, I kinda get why Mingwa did what she did. Oh well.

Now to continue my re-read of Master Peace, and I'll also re-read The Dangerous Convenience Store just because that's my comfort manhwa.

[k1ngofthering]

The masterpiece that is Master Peace: Week 1 (Chapters 1-6)

I made it a vow to re-read Master Peace before season 2 comes out because the lore of this just goes so deep that 1 pass isn't enough for me to fully understand what's happening. While I got the gist of it when I first read it and had some idea on what was happening and formed my own opinions on it, re-reading it and taking notes made me realize that there was so much nuance I might have missed during the first time I read it. So, here are my thoughts and opinions about the first 6 chapters of the manhwa, my notes, and what I understand about the entire lore of Master Peace so far.

I've seen a lot of tiktoks about Master Peace and how some people don't understand the lore, so I hope I can also help with that by breaking it down in a much more consumable manner.

This is gonna be a weekly thing, spanning 4 weeks. 6 chapters a week. Kinda like a book club but I'm the only member committing to the bit. So if anyone is reading this, you can catch up with me and let's discuss via the ask box and the comments on what you think about week 1 so far.

The vibe, the place, and the initial problem

Our story is set in a rural area in South Korea where a government official (Rep. Lee) wants to 'urbanize' the land, basically displacing commonfolk already living in the area. There is a promise of a compensation if they join the union, and from what I have gathered again during my re-read, there is a secondary party that is willing to give monthly stipends to the homeowners / members of the union. So basically, more than one party is interested in this rural land, but their motives are the same: to urbanize it, to bulldoze the area and to put up businesses in place of the houses of the people who previously lived there.

It is implied that there had already been a first urbanization project that happened a while back, which had already driven out the majority of the people who were living in the area.

This is a common practice in urbanization projects, not just in Korea, but in all parts of the world. Where I live (Philippines), it's much more hostile. Contractors would stage fires and arson to burn down poor communities' houses, just so that they can be "displaced" somewhere else and the land can be free for them to make a profit off of. In Master Peace, it seems that Rep. Lee wants this to be as clean as possible. Anything under the table can be done, as long as it doesn't get traced back to her. There are ways to do that via bribes and basically convincing each community member to fold and give in.

This is where our first character, Incheol, comes in, as well as our second character, Ahn Pyeonghwa.

The initial problem is that the area where Pyeonghwa lives is the area that needs to be "bulldozed" by Incheol, as ordered by Rep. Lee. There are some bits and pieces that we can pull from the first 6 chapters which tells us that this area where he's assigned to is an area that he's been at in the past, but we don't know that yet as of now. Incheol seems to dread this, but he does it anyway, because at this point, he always does what Rep. Lee tells him to do. We are given a glimpse of just how ruthless Incheol can be just so that Rep. Lee can get the reputation and the prestige that she has, and it's also implied that Incheol is kind of like a guard dog and a servant in some way, cleaning up Rep. Lee's act and doing the dirty work for her.

In a way, Incheol is very much obsessed with working for Rep. Lee. There are some panels in Chapter 4 where Incheol is arguing with his girlfriend on the phone, and his girlfriend basically tells him to "marry your boss instead". (Yes, Incheol has, or had, a girlfriend.)

This area that Incheol is assigned to is a part of Rep. Lee's urbanization project, and there's just one piece of land that has not yet been signed over to them. It turns out to be Pyeonghwa's gym. Another colleague of Incheol, Kwonsu, was assigned in the same area for 2 years with no luck. And, like mentioned earlier that there are other interested parties, Pyeonghwa has actually received a lot of offers to sell his gym so that urbanization efforts can already start in the area, but he refused all of them. He has a reason, which we haven't found out yet in these first 6 chapters.

So, since Pyeonghwa failed to cooperate with Kwonsu, Rep. Lee thinks that Incheol can do the job, and assigns him there. Incheol's past with this place is heavily implied, but in Chapter 6, when Rep. Lee was having breakfast with Incheol and asked him to don't do those things, Incheol couldn't pinpoint which things she was pertaining to, because she made him do so much shit at this point that everything he did was already out of pocket. But it is definitely already true that Rep. Lee was talking about a specific incident involving Incheol. At this point, we don't know what it is, but we have an idea that something happened.

Our characters

I find it interesting that we don't really know the main characters' names until Chapter 6. I tried to go back to Chapters 1-5 and there were no other mentions of their names, but there wasn't any. Other characters got introduced via word of mouth and Incheol's text conversations on his phone.

We get introduced to Incheol's name during the breakfast with Rep. Lee, and to Pyeonghwa's name when Pyeonghwa invited Incheol over to the gym and had him hang out in the office, and there are certificates displayed there with Pyeonghwa's name and age. So in my notes, I just referred Incheol as Character 1, and Pyeonghwa as Character 2.

So far, what we know about Incheol are the following:

He is considered a public servant, but works under Rep. Lee to "clean up". In Chapter 6, we get a glimpse of how the clean ups are done, via bribes and pressuring. His job is to make sure that Rep. Lee's name and reputation remain clean while she enacts her projects, basically doing the dirty work for her.

He has a girlfriend, and in the Chapter 4, they have a fight over the phone because he didn't tell her that he'll be gone for a while to do this cleanup in the town.

It is implied that he is obsessed with helping Rep. Lee, and that he will do anything that she asks him to do. His girlfriend notes this in their fight over the phone, imploring him to just go marry his boss. And I think Rep. Lee also has a strange liking to Incheol. Or at least, that's what the author wants us to think in these first few chapters.

Incheol is at least in his mid-30s.

Now about Pyeonghwa:

He is 26 years old and he owns a gym in a town where most people have already evacuated due to the upcoming urbanization project. He is the only one that has a business there, and he is being pressured not just by Incheol, but other property managers of real estate companies.

He has employed a teenager named Sungkyung for his gym. She's kinda like his assistant and helper.

He likes to get hurt — he asks Incheol to hit him when they had their second conversation in the apartment complex.

The way that they meet is that since Incheol was assigned to the town, he was given an apartment in an almost empty apartment complex, and he was ordered to just choose whatever apartment he liked. He ended up choosing the apartment next to Pyeonghwa's by accident. Note that there are no other residents in this complex except for the two of them. So when Pyeonghwa mentions that Incheol's smoking bothers "other people", it doesn't make sense to Incheol, but it probably is because Pyeonghwa matches with guys every now and then on dating apps and brings them home to have sex, and those people are the ones bothered by the cigarette smell.

Incheol's Past

Rep. Lee makes some statements implying that something happened in Incheol's past that connects him to this town. At this point, 6 chapters in, that's the only information that we have. She specifically said that Incheol "came running back, scared shitless", which Incheol doesn't acknowledge. Whether he remembers it or not, we don't know yet for sure. But in that town specifically, there has already been an effort to urbanize it, as noted in the way that the town is almost deserted, save for Pyeonghwa's gym.

Since this is a re-read, I already know the connections and what happens, but for the sake of me re-reading just the first few chapters, I'm not gonna spill it here.

But Chapters 1-6 leaves us interested to know what happened and why Incheol seems to have blocked it from his memory when everything leads back to the town where Pyeonghwa is. Even Rep. Lee seems to be encouraging him to remember by giving hints.

What happens next

Incheol's tactic to get Pyeonghwa to bite the bullet is that he tells the younger man that he will do anything to help him. Of course, this is just talk so that Pyeonghwa will give in and sell the property. But Pyeonghwa says that he was already considering selling it, and mentions that if Incheol wants to see why he can't sell it, then he should come to the gym. And lo and behold, there seems to be an illegal form of fighting in the gym come nighttime, starring Pyeonghwa. Incheol watches from the office upstairs, baffled.

That's the end of Chapter 6.

My thoughts so far

The way that Jumal drew the frames is like following a K-Drama. Now that I've read a couple of manhwas, it reminds me so much of Reunion, where each frame seems to be a frame from a video. It makes the experience of reading Master Peace immersive, and now that I'm re-reading it, it made it easier for me to understand what was happening. Given that it took me 6 chapters to remember the beginning, but it was a good thing that I was taking notes.

The first 6 chapters already gives us the tension and the problem, and it hints at more revelations in the following chapters. I think this slow pace of storytelling makes the vibe much more realistic. And the fact that the story has already spanned a couple of weeks, if not months, in six chapters gives it a little bit more depth in how important this cleanup mission is. Even if Rep. Lee told Incheol not to rush it, there's still a little bit of pressure on Incheol since it's taking so long. While we read, it does not seem like a lot of time has passed, but if you look closely, weeks have already gone by. The way that Incheol has already settled in the apartment next to Pyeonghwa's, the way his girlfriend is so mad at him, makes us think that Incheol's taking too long to finish the job.

My theories after my first read are starting to truly unravel in my re-read. I already posted them on Tiktok a while back, but I won't write them here yet since I want to be able to flesh them out once I reach Chapter 24.

Overall, Chapters 1-6 was a good introduction to the vibe, the story, and what to expect in the next 6 chapters. For first time readers of the manhwa, this might look like an intimidating piece of literature, but take your time to understand the terminologies and what's happening. It may also be helpful to familiarize yourself with South Korean politics so that you can internalize it better, but I didn't go that far. I just tried to understand the nuances and tried to translate it to terminologies I can fully grasp.

I know this was just me breaking down the vibe and the plot but it's mostly just for me as well so I know that I fully understand what's happening.

And with that, on to the next 6 chapters.

[k1ngofthering]

this is so stupid of me

[k1ngofthering]

Does reading make me a bad person?

I feel like the vibes of literary absorption have drastically changed over the past six years. The pandemic really brought about the change, and I'm not just going to sit here and deny its impact to everything, not just in the world of health and wellness. Fandoms have changed, the way we absorb media has changed, and it's only been six years since these drastic changes have taken effect.

The most prominent thing I've noticed is that people now police other people for reading books with themes that are questionable or morally incorrect. Take Lolita for example. If people say they like Lolita and have read the book, people will then villanize them and say they're into those kinds of things. But what they fail to realize is that reading dark themes does not really mean that people like these themes. They just happen to pick up a book about said themes, and maybe solidify the fact that these themes should just stay in fiction.

So now, everyone is afraid to namedrop the books and the manhwas they've read, all because they're conscious of being painted as a villain that likes to engage in such morally incorrect acts.

I recently got a comment on my Tiktok that I like rape because I read the manhwa Jinx, and it made me angry. No, I do not like rape. I just happen to like the art style, and the story seemed interesting. Plus, it's one of the most bought manhwas on Lehzin, so of course curiosity got the best of me. It does not mean that I agree with everything Joo Jaekyung did to Kim Dan. As a matter of fact, I think Joo Jaekyung is a piece of shit that deserves to suffer due tot he fact that he, for a period of time, made Kim Dan's life a living hell.

Why do we associate the literature we absorb with a person's moral compass? Can't we just read things, form our own opinions about the books we've read, and move on with our lives?

So now I'm left wondering if reading things makes me a bad person. Should I just read books that are pre-approved by the people of the internet? How will I formulate my own conclusions if the people of the internet dictate what I should and should not read?

It's quite a mystery to me, still.

[k1ngofthering]

On Jinx, and my thoughts about the upcoming new chapters after the hiatus

I just finished reading all of the current chapters in one sitting since I have the time, and I didn't realize that Jinx has become a polarizing topic amongst manhwa fans on the internet. Sure, the themes are quite explicit and questionable, but there are far worse manhwas out there worth arguing over in my opinion.

Despite this, I feel like there does need to be some conversation about the relationship dynamic between Jaekyung and Dan - how the new arc started, how it progressed, and where do we go from here.

First of all, I personally think that people change over time. In the story, there's a 90-day timeframe wherein Jaekyung was recovering from shoulder surgery, and in these 90 days, Dan had already left to pursue other opportunities in a small beach-side town to be with his grandma. 90 days for me is still a short amount of time for Jaekyung to fully grasp the severity of the situation between the two of them, but it is definitely a start.

We can see in those 90 days and beyond that Jaekyung is slowly getting the hang of his emotions aside from just anger. Up until this point, all he's ever been is angry and horny, which kind of makes it understandable that people disliked him in the earlier seasons of the story. We were built up to think that there possibly is nothing redeemable about Jaekyung, that he's just another one of those aggressive tops that just does this shit for fun, but this small town arc just proves that there's layers to why he's been acting like that in the first place.

Through Jaekyung's old coach, we then learn about his past and why he's been angry and pushing people away. While this definitely does not excuse his bad behavior throughout his adulthood, this now gives the reader some context as to why things turned out this way for him. Not to compare them with each other, but Dan still has his grandma that loves him very much.

Jaekyung just has his championships, and no one to call his own.

It took Jaekyung losing Dan to realize that the "ownership" he feels over Dan is just him masking the fact that he's lonely.

I'm not condoning what Jaekyung did in the first few chapters. Jaekyung's been the ultimate asshole, a master manipulator, a fucking piece of shit, but only because of the things he's experienced in the past. He thought that having sex combatted loneliness. He thought winning match after match after match meant true satisfaction. Everything he did in his childhood up to his teens was for a mother who didn't love him anymore, and a father who called him a loser. These experiences shaped the very Jaekyung we met in the beginning.

But along came Dan, someone who disrupted the flow of his routine. Jaekyung was used to spending money for people to spend time with him in bed - and while this was how Dan and Jaekyung began, it started to spiral into something neither of them expected.

Dan fell first, and Jaekyung will probably fall harder, but with more consequences.

I wrote this on my Tiktok yesterday: I think that Jaekyung's jinx isn't necessarily that he needed to have sex with someone before every match. He just believed it because it worked for him the first time he did it with a rando from a bar, so he just stuck with it. He's talented, determined, and physically skilled, so he really didn't need to do all of that. I think the true jinx is just Jaekyung needing someone to believe in him before every match. We see this before the Paris match where he asks Dan for luck after a night of lovemaking - I think this is the true jinx.

All this time, Jaekyung just needs someone he trusts to tell him he's doing a good job. His dad was a piece of shit who called him a loser, his mom left him for another family. He just truly needs someone to believe in him.

So where do we go from here?

I don't believe that Dan should forgive Jaekyung that easily. Sure, he admitted that he liked Jaekyung, but we don't know for sure if he still likes him. He's been having conflicting feelings over Jaekyung's change in behavior, because of course, like all of us, he feels like this is just too soon and too out of character for him. Dan is much more of an adult than Jaekyung, and he knows when to stop when it already hurts. Good for him for finalizing that boundary between the two of them, that after the championship match is over, they'll part ways.

And I think they should, for both of their sakes.

I'm reminded of the time skip in The Dangerous Convenience Store, where it takes Ahjuicy (I like calling him Ahjuicy) and Euijoon 4 years to reunite. I think I'd like something like this to happen between Jaekyung and Dan, to let things simmer between them. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder after all. Plus, they really need that time apart.

After the championship between Jaekyung and Jumin, I feel like Jaekyung needs some time to recover physically and just reflect on his feelings. And Dan needs some time to sort himself out as well, with his sleep deprivation and drinking problem. The two of them are too broken right now to even think about getting together officially. While their new dynamic might have made them healthier for each other, it still doesn't erase the fact that Jaekyung was a major asshole to Dan in the past, and Dan was just blinded by his feelings (and probably his fear of job security) to say anything against Jaekyung back then.

Maybe after the possible time skip, Dan can compose himself in order for him to stand on his own. He needs that extra strength to be able to face Jaekyung and defend himself, even through his words. I would like to see Jaekyung really begging for forgiveness. I would like a bit of drama, just to make it realistic that Jaekyung really is feeling remorseful.

At the end of the day, in this timeline that we're at in the story, they're just not emotionally compatible yet. Both of them need some growing up to do - Dan needs to be able to be emotionally strong enough to tell Jaekyung that it already hurts, and Jaekyung needs to own up to his actions and repent for all the things he's done to Dan thus far.