Manga Review : Idol Shopping by Mi-Ri Hwang

Title: Idol Shopping

Original Title: Idol Shopping (아이돌 쇼핑)

Author: Mi-Ri Hwang

Artist: Mi-Ri Hwang

Year of Release: 2008

Genres: Action, Comedy, Drama, Gender Bender, Romance, School Life, Shoujo, Slice of Life, 

Status: Completed

Chapters (Translated in English): 48

Volumes & Chapters: 

Volume 1 Chapters 1-4                 Volume 5 Chapters 17-20                      Volume 9 Chapter 33-37
Volume 2 Chapters 5-8                 Volume 6 Chapters 21-22                      Volume 10 Chapters 38-40
Volume 3 Chapters 9-12               Volume 7 Chapters 23-27                      Volume 11 Chapters 41-44
Volume 4 Chapters 13-16             Volume 8 Chapters 28- 32                     Volume 12 Chapters 45-48

Mangafox – Goodreads

Summary

'S' is a known as a bully caretaker, who avenges her bullied clients -- for a price, of course.

However, in reality, 'S' is a nerd named Kang Song Ih, with a twin brother named Kang Ah Eul, whom she loves above anything. Ah Eul attends Chungha High School, a famous and expensive school, but over winter break, he attempts to commit suicide. Song Ih, determined to understand why her brother tried to kill himself, attends Chungha High School, pretending to be Ah Eul -- uncovering the reasons why Ah Eul was driven to suicide, including one mysteriously handsome but "bad" guy named Suh Ga Yoon.

Read as you follow her life while staying in an All-Boy's school and living in a dorm -- with a male roommate, who happens to be a famous singer and someone she as "S" had once nearly beat up.

Watch out! Whoever bothers "S"'s brother, prepare to face her!

My Thoughts

Review covers 48 chapters 

Hello, everyone and welcome back to Katie’s Corner! Today I have another work by Hwang Mi-Ri. I know I’m covering too much of her works, but well, it’s fun sometimes, other times I just get mixed up in all of her works. I’ll make a post about this author some time soon, because I found some good stuff to share about her. But let me get back to the story. Whatever you are saying about it, I loved it. I enjoyed it a lot. I mean, I started it at 11 pm, and well, finished it at 6 am. Yep I finished it as soon as started reading it. Okay, not so soon, but I did finish it in a day.

But now let me get back to the review. First of all, I didn’t really get why the title is Idol Shopping, but well, whatever. As always there are many fights, and the girl is a better fighter than the most of the guys. That’s N1 thing in Mi-Ri Hwang’s nearly all series. However, this time the fighting was actually enjoyable, more or less. Song Ih, that’s the female protagonist. Yes, I’m actually writing the names of the characters, though I actually had to look for their names. You see, I actually never have the names when I’m reviewing Korean manhwas. Sorry about that.

As I have already mentioned, I enjoyed it a lot for its romance and relationship development. However, it’s not a light story, there are a lot of themes that no one should ignore. I’ve already read 5 maybe even more of this author’s works and in at least 3 of those the family issue has been stressed a lot. I do not know if it’s still such a problem in Korea, but apparently at the time of writing this story the parent-child relationship was a big problem. It has been stressed in many other author’s works too, that the parents were giving the boy more importance than the girl. Yep, absolute sexism there, and especially when I’m a girl, and I have been an only kid to my mom and her parents, I do not get it, how Song Ih’s parents and grandparent could do that to her. I mean this issue left a big impact on me. They worked their asses to only pay for their son’s tuition and they discarded their daughter as if she was nothing. The last chapters made me explode, were he parent even human? They didn’t even ask where their daughter was!

Another character besides the parents that drove me crazy was A Ul, that’s Song Ih’s twin brother. He never left good impression about him, and when Song Ih finally tells him everything on her mind, I was like: “You finally got it coward?” last issue before I finish up this review of what frustrated me. No, you got it right; there is no normal ending. It absolutely sucks full time! There’s no feeling of completeness, is that a word? Whatever. I need at least a short extra chapter showing Song Ih and Ga Yun together. That way it would be complete.

But do not worry overall this story is amazing. Well, I enjoyed it a lot, and I actually didn’t mistake any characters with other characters. Maybe only a bit. If you want a good humor laced story about a girl who is thrown into an all-boys school, where she has to act as a girlfriend of the person who stole her first kiss, and on top of that has to find out why her brother left school! Yep, it’s one of those stories. But it’s definitely worth reading. Enjoy it to its fullest and don’t forget to share your thought below! Stay tuned for more reviews as well as promos. Don’t miss your next favourite book or manga! Happy reading

XOXO

Katie

Rating