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Seduction More Beautiful Than Love
Manga Review
There hasn't been a manga that has caught and held my interest more tenaciously than Seduction more Beautiful than Love in a long long time. I thought it was just another love story with pretty visuals to go with it but the more you read the more engaging it is and deeper you get into everything. It's like one of those sappy Korean dramas that everyone is into these days; you think it's just another love story with maybe a love triangle or rectangle thrown in for fun. That's how it all starts, right?
Young innocent Daoun is in the middle of her first semester teaching high school and swears that one of her students is hitting on her. She only notices Ryumin because she feels a bit of attraction to him too but, in reality, a good few students, male AND female, like her in that way too. Daoun knows that being attracted to her student is wrong and tries to distance herself from him. Even if he weren't her student, it would be wrong because he has a girlfriend already and he's younger than her. While she is distracted by Ryumin, she doesn't notice that her good college friend is trying to tell her he likes her ever since the first day she punched him out.
 It's not like Daoun is a violent person but if a stranger kissed you from out of nowhere you would deck him, too, right? When Hyunwoo gets really drunk, he has a habit of making out with the closest human being to him. Freshman year of college, it was Daoun that was sitting closest to him. Of course, Hyunwoo feels too embarrassed to mention his real feelings to her after that. Daoun's brother makes fun of him and keeps pressing him to speak up but he always finds an excuse to postpone that conversation with her.
If Hyunwoo doesnít speak up soon though, Daoun is going to be swept away by one of her blind dates or by Ryumin. He is absolutely yummy: young, mysterious, brooding, coy, and very good looking. He teases Daoun and backs away just as she is close enough. If she really wants to pursue something with him, she will have to make the first step but at least she knows that he will not reject her. He reminds me of Bae Yong Joon's character in Winter Sonata, a Korean drama. His look and demeanor is very similar and there is an underlying history that makes him so detached and flawed. Why did he flunk high school and is now left behind to repeat senior year? Why doesn't he care whether he graduates or not? What scar is he hiding from everyone at school? Where'd he get the scar?
 Better question: why does he hate himself so much? He says that his father never should have saved him. He is willing to go out with a girl that he doesnít really like. She is just a distraction for him. Is Daoun another distraction for him? Perhaps he chose her because he wants to be self-destructive. He caught Daoun's brother following him, kissed him, and then asked if it was "enough to satisfy his curiousity". Daoun's brother is probably not gay and was following Ryumin to figure out where he knows him from. After that kiss though, he remembers that they use to be fellow students in the same school and he is now questioning his own sexuality. Ryumin seems more and more bent on self-destruction and doesn't care what he leaves in his wake.
I had expected to put down this manga after the first chapter. I donít know how much time has passed since I flipped open to the first page of Seduction more Beautiful than Love but one volume, five chapters later, I am wondering when the second volume is coming out.
Reviewed by Carolyn Whu, September 2008
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