Demo Disc Vol. 20: Korean Kwan

Born on July 4, 1972 in Busan, South Korea, Park Sung-Woo (or Sung-Woo Park, if you prefer Western order) majored in art at Dong-A University before dropping out & joining a manhwa club that made fantasy comics for gaming magazine Gemtong. Park would make his official debut in manhwa in 1993 when he started Legend of the 8 Dragon Gods (or "Dark Striker", in some circles) in the pages of IQ Jump, the first weekly serialized manhwa magazine, where it apparently became a bit of a leader in fantasy storytelling in the country, slightly predating a fantasy novel boom that Korea would later have. Park would have to put that series on hold after six volumes, due to his mandatory military service, but afterwards returned with Legend of the 8 Dragon Gods PLUS, a sequel that ran in a different magazine & took place 150 years later; the original series would then be given the subtitle "Classic", to differentiate itself. Unfortunately, due to a mix of lost manuscripts & a publisher shake-up, PLUS was left unfinished after 19 volumes. However, around the same time Park debuted the sequel to his first professional work (which he made alongside his CLAMP-esque artist collective, Studio Zero), he also debuted a new series in IQ Jump in 1997, Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun/The Heated Biography of Sirius, a historical fiction manhwa with a focus on martial arts action. It would run until April of 2000 for 13 volumes & become a very celebrated series in South Korea, even receiving a strategy RPG adaptation for Windows PCs in 2001 that took 3 CDs to contain.

Though I read the official English release for this Demo Disc, I'll be sourcing
from an old scanlation for images. You use what you can find, sometimes.

In late 2005, English publisher Infinity Studios would license & release Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun under its original Korean title, despite the press release also using an alternate (& much friendlier) English title of "Sirius Wars", though this would be based on the 10-volume re-release that came out in 2003. In the end, Infinity Studios would only ever release the first five volumes physically between April of 2006 & January of 2008, though the publisher may have also released Volumes 6 & 7 digitally later in 2008. However, these were literally PDFs that were shipped to buyers on burned CDs, so it's nigh-impossible to verify today if they actually happened. So, in the very first manhwa edition of Demo Disc, with five physical books on hand, how is the first half of Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun, and does it truly deserve the seemingly venerated status it has in South Korea?

It's around 666-667 AD, and the Kingdom of Goguryeo is at war with the unified forces of Silla & China's Tang Dynatsy. In the midst of this war, a young practitioner of the martial art Sa Shin Mu (literally "Martial Arts of the God of Death") named O'Rhang Yhun has been ordered by his master Gyu-Yhum to enter China & deliver a letter to his eldest "hyung/brother-in-training", Pa Goon Sung, only to be attacked & left for dead by his second eldest hyung, Ghyur-Mahro, as a traitor to Goguryeo. O'Rhang is rescued by a woman named Ha-Rhang Whur & left to recover in a refugee village, which is quickly attacked by the Jook-Rhim-O-Gwe/The Bamboo Grove Fivesome, a group of bandits lead by five siblings. However, through a case of mistaken thievery, the letter for Pa Goon Sung is stolen by the Chung-Sue-Moon/Gates of Blue Water, a clan which once had great power within the prior Sui Dynasty & has a past with Gyu-Yhum. Now O'Rhang journeys alongside his female compatriots Ha-Rhang & Dahn-Ryoung (the youngest & sole[?] survivor of the Jook-Rhim-O-Gwe, after a Chung-Sue-Moon ambush), as each of them have their own reasons to go after the Chung-Sue-Moon & its leader, Jung-Woong Suk.

As much as I am a fan of action-packed titles, even I have to admit that CRYJ has a bit of a rough start, mainly because Park essentially starts instantly with action from the get-go. The entire first half of Volume 1 pretty much focuses almost exclusively around the Jook-Rhim-O-Gwe, and it's a lot to take in. O'Rhang fights two of the five, while the mysterious swordswoman Ha-Rhang attacks the group's base under the assumption that they killed her master. There's then a revelation to the reader that Ha-Rhang's attack on the Jook-Rhim-O-Gwe was all a setup by the Chung-Sue-Moon (who were actually responsible for the death of Ha-Rhang's master) to get both sides killed, and they sent So-Gwong Bi, one of the Mu-Rhim-O-Sung/Five Stars of Martial Arts, to ensure that their plan would go as planned. However, O'Rhang accidentally throws a wrench into everything, since the Jook-Rhim-O-Gwe stole his scroll, which results in So-Gwong fighting O'Rhang. A LOT of named characters are also introduced in quick succession, which when combined with Infinity's insistence on keeping the original Korean names for groups, attacks, & weapons (though with translation notes in the margins) only adds to a very overwhelming start to this entire manhwa... and this is all within literally the first 126 pages! To be fair, the remainder of Volume 1 does pace itself better, especially once all but Dahn-Ryoung of the Jook-Rhim-O-Gwe are killed off (or are they?!) & the main plot is fully established by the end of the book, but it's definitely not a good start for the manhwa. I do remember reading this first volume back in the day when it came out, & now I remember why I actually never bothered to read any more of it at the time, as it was just way too much to take in all at once.

I should also point out Infinity's obsession with keeping as much Korean intact as seemingly possible, as it honestly results in a lot of the finer details not keeping their impact, and it illustrates perfectly why it's hard to take some anime/manga fans seriously when they obsess over keeping Japanese intact as much as possible, if only because it's foreign. For example, while I can understand keeping terms like "hyung" or "ohpa" in Korean here, as both illustrate a difference in context for what in English would just be "brother" (& in this case neither means a familial brother), there's really no reason to keep the names of groups or specific characters' nicknames in Korean, other than "OMG, it sounds so cool because it's not in English!", and it results in an inability to keep things straightforward; attack names are fine in Korean, since the English is always written underneath it. I mean, there's no need to keep writing "Mu-Rhim-O-Sung" for the group of martial artists that keep hunting after O'Rhang & the others, when it could just be shortened to "The Five Stars" & made everything much easier for the reader to keep track of. This is no disrespect to translator/co-editor Je-Wa Jeong, either, as the overall translation itself is honestly really good, but at the same time it also reminds me of the old days of Kaizoku Fansubs' fan translation of One Piece, which infamously tried to explain that the word "nakama/comrade" was much too complex to simply translate into English, or that "Gomu Gomu no Pistoru" was superior to "Gum Gum Pistol", simply because it was in Japanese, despite mainly being in katakana (a.k.a. it's not really "in Japanese" from the start).

Also, genius move in NOT INCLUDING ANYTHING TO ACTUALLY EXPLAIN WHAT YOUR MANHWA ARE ACTUALLY ABOUT ON THEIR BACK COVERS! Seriously, how exactly did Infinity Studios expect a Korean manhwa like this, with an absolutely unpronounceable name (to most English readers), to even sell if there was no synopsis on the back of the dust jacket to help advertise it? Now in the case of CRYJ this does match exactly with the Korean re-release's covers, but that country already got this manga once before, so Infinity should've put in the extra work to make it palatable for English readers. Is it any wonder why Infinity Studios went out of business?

Anyway, the pacing in CRYJ does slow down to a much more reasonable one starting with Volume 2, though there still is a habit of introducing a lot of characters in rapid succession. Whether it's the duo of Chun-Mu Goon & Juhk-Woon (who have their own vendetta against Chung-Sue-Moon), the pairing of Yu-Hwa & Ghyur-Mahro (who are looking for O'Rhang to bring him back home, & join with Dahn-Ryoung after she gets separated from the others), or more members of the Mu-Rhim-O-Sung, Park Sung-Woo definitely aimed to make CRYJ feel like a case where a relatively simple start only escalates more & more into something larger, but at the same time it feels like he's maybe tossing everything in a little too soon. Volume 3's primary focus is on O'Rhang & "Lady Whur" taking on the Mu-Rhim duo of blind swordsman Ma-So Goo & whip user Hong Goon, and it really does showcase the manhwa's primary focus: Fighting. While there are scenes that slow things down & allow for a little bit of plot advancement & character development, CRYJ is mainly about characters fighting each other in a very wild & superpowered fashion. Just about everyone has their own type of energy or "ghi" (the Korean form of "chi" or "ki"), whether it's related to fire, ice, swords, killing, etc., and it's neat to see a fist-fighter like O'Rhang fight a swordsman like Ma-So Goo, or Whur fight a whip user like Hong Goon. However, the battles themselves are more along the lines of "directly hit opponent with your signature move before they do theirs to you", with only a couple of moments where more strategy comes into play, like Whur using her ice ghi-based sword to freeze a stream she & her opponent are fighting in to incapacitate her foe. While Volume 1's action is a little too wild & tricky to keep track of at points, by Volume 3 he's already improved a lot, making for dynamic & exciting fights.

Unfortunately, this results in the characters themselves being really straightforward & without much depth, at least at first. O'Rhang is very simple-minded, wanting to do nothing more than accomplish his mission, though his inherent good nature makes him very noble, like always wanting to help protect Whur, especially after an early poisoning weakens her from the nigh-unstoppable force she debuted as. Whur, in turn, gets a little more, as aside from wanting to avenge her master's death, in order for her to utilize the full strength of her style she must shed all emotion, but deep down does care for O'Rhang, creating inner conflict. Meanwhile, the Mu-Rhim-O-Sung are pretty much all straight-up villains who want nothing more than to defeat their foes, though some are more dastardly vile than others, like Ma-So Goo being willing to just shank Hong Goon in order to fight Whur & claim her energy for himself. However, after a sudden encounter with Jung-Woong Suk leaves him utterly defeated early in Volume 4, O'Rhang does start to get a little more to him, namely in showing weakness mentally (& O'Rhang doesn't simply win all of his fights, either), while Whur's feelings for "Master Yhun" start to become more obvious, which results in her having to find new ways to achieve greater power using her fighting style.

The final two volumes of CRYJ released more or less follow in that same pacing pattern that was established after Volume 1, with action sequences being split up with slower storytelling & character development sequences. O'Rhang & Whur respectively fight another Mu-Rhim-O-Sung member & a master assassin, Chun-Mu Goon & Ghyur-Mahro's groups meet & realize that they all know our leads, and there is a bit of mystery surrounding various aspects, like where Jung-Woon Suk's style exactly comes from (it's implicated to have stolen from Sa Shin Mu), why exactly Ghyur-Mahro & Yu-Hwa have come looking for O'Rhang, & the truth behind Pa Goon Sung, who's considered in China to be a demon-like wild man that killed 100 high-level masters a few years back (which doesn't match O'Rhang's memories of him at all). While Volume 1 is definitely a rather rough start & makes an honestly poor first impression, Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun does improve a lot over the nest four volumes, though it's primary focus on transitioning from one fight sequence to the next with only little bits of extra meat is both its greatest strength & worst hindrance.

Park Sung-Woo definitely has a knack for making interesting & exciting battles, and you can tell that it's probably his favorite thing to make, but he also does do a decent enough job establishing other aspects of the plot as things move on, though it can certainly be argued that he has a habit of introducing too many new characters at once every now & then. This is still true even by the end of Volume 5, the halfway point of the entire series, which ends not with O'Rhang or Whur in any way, but instead with mostly newly characters, including Yhun-Bi Yee, the "8th Imperial Prince" of the Tang Dynasty (don't ask me which one he actually is), and an attempted assassination of him, possibly as part of a coming coup that, in history, would result in the short-lived Zhou dynasty that happened between both parts of the Tang. Overall, Chun Rhag Yhur Jhun does manage to overcome its very rough start & become an interesting, if still flawed, martial arts action manhwa, and I honestly do wish that I could see how the second half fares. While I certainly wouldn't call it one of the all-time best action series I've read, I definitely can see why it achieved some notoriety in South Korea & helped make Park Sung-Woo a name to look out for. It obviously isn't perfect, and one can argue that not a whole lot actually happens in this first half (Whur at one point claims that a couple of months had passed since she first met O'Rhang, even though it's only felt like maybe two weeks, max), but it did eventually manage to win me over just enough by the end of Volume 5 that I do wish Infinity Studios stayed around just long enough to finish this manhwa up.

However, Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun is only the first half of Park Sung-Woo's primary Korean legacy!

A year after the final chapter of CRYJ came out, Park would return to IQ Jump with his next manhwa series, NOW. Running from April of 2001 to January of 2008 (yes, Park was making both this & Black God at the same time for a few years!), NOW was a next generation sequel to CRYJ & would run for 25 volumes, arguably becoming an even bigger success than CRYJ was. NOW was also the first of Park's works to ever get licensed for English release, with ComicsOne initially licensing it back in 2003 & releasing the first five volumes. After ComicsOne went out of business in 2005, Infinity Studios inherited the license to NOW, only to utterly botch the transition by focusing more on re-releasing what ComicsOne had previously released (citing "poor quality" with "an incredible amount of missing translations and mistranslation"), instead of simply continuing on for existing readers & eventually re-releasing the early volumes later, like a normal publisher would. In the end, Infinity only managed to release new versions of Volumes 1-3 physically, though it did also put out Volume 6, with Volumes 4 & 5 allegedly only getting re-released "digitally" via PDFs; Volumes 7 to 9 were also scheduled digitally, but who knows if they happened. I'd imagine that also releasing CRYJ at the same time (with the same translator handling both series) didn't help things, either. So let's see how the first fifth or so of NOW holds up today, as well.

It's been roughly 20 years since Pa Goon Sung, "The North Star", killed 100 warriors on Mt. Snow in China, only to seemingly disappear. However, there's word of a manual left behind by Pa Goon Sung, one that details all of the secrets of the deadly martial arts style he used, Sa Shin Mu, and this has resulted in people heading over to Mt. Snow in search of it. However, guarding the manual is a young man named Bi-Ryu, the final student of Pa Goon Sung... because he killed his master in the process of learning Sa Shin Mu. During the chaos of people searching the manual, a young man named Se-Ha Yu (who was ordered to destroy the manual when found, for the safety of the people) & a young woman named Ah-Rin Yhun meet up before they both come across Bi-Ryu & his animalistic "pet", a young woman named Cho-Ryung. After a battle against a powerful warrior results in both the manual & Se-Ha falling off a cliff, seemingly to their mutual demise, Bi-Ryu & Cho-Ryung decide to travel with Ah-Rin, because she's the daughter of O'Rhang Yhun, the only man to truly master Sa Shin Mu, & Ha-Rhang Whur, and Bi-Ryu wishes to meet O'Rhang, so that he can truly learn how to control the killer rage that Sa Shin Mu can instill into him.

However, unbeknownst to everyone, Se-Ha Yu managed to survive his fall, and now that he has possession of the the manual he has all of Pa Goon Sung's secrets to learn from...

Across both series, though, Park Sung-Woo manages to
remember to keep things a bit comical at times, for good tonal balance.

Without a doubt, NOW immediately feels like a case in which Park Sung-Woo truly learned how to improve himself during the course of making Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun, because the first volume of this next-gen sequel is an immense improvement from how its predecessor started off. While NOW does still introduce a bunch of characters in its first volume, it's made very obvious that there are really just four to actually focus on, for the most part: Bi-Ryu, Ah-Rin, Cho-Ryung, & Se-Ha. Bi-Ryu is a bit stoic at first, but by the end of Volume 1 you already see his softer side & also some personal demons, namely that him killing Pa Goon Sung (his surrogate grandfather), though completely accidental, haunts him to this day & that the lethal power he holds does scare him a bit. Ah-Rin being O'Rhang & Whur's daughter is established (but vague enough to allow newcomers to be intrigued), as well as where her freakish strength comes from (she was dreadfully ill as a child, so O'Rhang gave her some of his immense energy to cure her), while also showcasing her generally friendly demeanor, klutzy actions, & instantly protective attitude towards her newfound friends; also, her sheer strength can snap Bi-Ryu out of his killer rage, which instantly endears her to him. The relationship between the two is a neat one, especially since Ah-Rin's very presence makes Bi-Ryu unwilling to actually kill anymore, despite that being the reason why he wanted to learn Sa Shin Mu in the first place (to kill those who kill indiscriminately).

Se-Ha is established as a bit naïve & meek as a martial artist, only for him to be shown as willing to go down a dark path after barely managing to avoid death & realizing that the Sa Shin Mu manual is his alone to learn from. As for Cho-Ryung, while her status as Bi-Ryu's "pet" is weird (& Ah-Rin points that out instantly), she is essentially more animal than human, as while she can understand everyone she can't (or doesn't) speak anything more than growls ("Kyang!"), and she moves around on all fours, like a cat; however, she's also just as capable & powerful of a fighter as her friends, if not even more so. When combined with little teases of other future plot points, mainly revolving around Bi-Ryu & his knowledge of Sa Shin Mu, I'm reminded of why I remember being instantly enamored with NOW when I read Volume 1 way back when ComicsOne was releasing the series. Speaking of ComicsOne, its translation of NOW (going off of Volumes 4 & 5) doesn't seem to be anywhere near as utterly repugnant as Infinity Studios made it out to be, though it definitely has its faults. For one, it is much more straightforward & maybe a little "too thorough" of a translation at points, like calling Ha-Rhang Whur "Lunar Ice". Also, ComicsOne somehow mixed up two characters' names, Ganesha & Dharma, in Volume 4, so when they're fixed in Volume 5 it's definitely a bit reeling. Aside from that kind of stuff, which is worth bringing up, it's really not a terrible translation from ComicsOne, and Infinity really should have just continued on where ComicsOne left off at; maintain the readership first, then go back & fix things.

I mean, at least ComicsOne knew to give each back cover a synopsis to give people an idea as to what to expect in each volume! Yeah, Infinity Studios once again left each of its NOW back covers empty.

Moving on, Volume 2 primarily focuses on Bi-Ryu, Ah-Rin, & Cho-Ryung finding themselves having to deal with a cannabalistic cook named Ah-Ghi (who does become a recurring, semi-comedic character, surprisingly enough), as well as the sudden appearance of So-Goon, who has a relation to Cho-Ryung's past as Bek-Rhang-Gyon/"The White Wolf", the greatest student of Gwi Wong Mo/The Queen Mother of Demons. Near the end of the volume introduces Ah-Ran Yhun, Ah-Rin's older sister who's searching for her sibling (since Ah-Rin ran off from home to see life outside of her family's seclusion), while also establishing the primary antagonists of NOW, the Myung Wong Shin Gyo/Godly School of Tomorrow's King, who want the secrets of Sa Shin Mu for their own purposes; there's also an unrelated horror one-shot, Eck-Gwi/Hanging Ghost, that Park made in 2000. Volume 3 is where things truly get interesting, as after finishing up the stuff from before, including Bi-Ryu fighting Ah-Ran due to a misunderstanding, Ah-Ran & Se-Ha each find themselves captured by Gwi Wong Mo herself, which leads to NOW's main gimmick: Dual protagonists. Due to Ah-Ran being incapacitated, Se-Ha (who has since memorized the Sa Shin Mu manual) is left no choice but to absorb her energy, turning him into someone about as powerful as Bi-Ryu already is. However, whereas Bi-Ryu utilizes "Yang energy", as per tradition, Se-Ha now uses "Yin energy", essentially making the two polar opposites; fire & ice, light & dark, etc. Also, Se-Ha is more of an anti-hero, as his goal is to become all powerful so that he can no longer be taken advantage of by others, while Bi-Ryu is someone who originally wanted to learn Sa Shin Mu for similar personal reasons (to become a "Sa Shin/God of Death"), but eventually just wants to make peace with himself through mastery & be with Ah-Rin.

The Myung Wong Shin Gyo are interesting in that all of its high-ranking members are named after various figures in Hindu mythology (Shiva, Lakshmi, Ganesha, Dharma, etc.), and the general indication does seem to be that they come from India. Volume 4 is the proper introduction for them, as Se-Ha & Ah-Ran wind up being taken in by the group, as they want to use Se-Ha to help usher in the "Great Pacific Empire", a new unified rule through absolute power, while Bi-Ryu's side of things come across Nirvana, a young girl who's eventually revealed to the "founder" the group & is hunted after by lead guard Dharma, as she somehow left on her own. Volume 5, in turn, is pretty much almost exclusively about Bi-Ryu fighting Dharma, and while it's a great fight it also is a perfect example of how one can also continue telling story & showcase character development during a prolonged fight scene, so it doesn't simply come off as only fighting for the sake of fighting. We also see the re-debut of O'Rhang & Whur themselves, who at this point are essentially fighting gods, with MWSG's second-in-command Ganesha revealing that it took 50 of his best men to launch suicide attacks against O'Rhang just so he could get away with Se-Ha & Ah-Ran... and even then he only barely managed to escape with them, losing half of his full-face mask in the process. As for the Infinity-exclusive Volume 6, we get a really cool bit where Cho-Ryung has to deal with an attack by So-Goon & Shi-Rhang, another animalistic fighter taught by Gwo Wong Mo, before things move over to the introduction of "Dragon Sword Master" Yhum-Chur Ma, a seemingly unstoppable warrior who attacks everyone, including So-Goon & Shi-Rhang; the volume (& English release of NOW) ends in the middle of Bi-Ryu trying his best to fight back Ma. Again, Park has a habit of constantly introducing new characters, but at least in NOW it feels more reserved & limited each time it happens.

Since I didn't bring it up during the CRYJ portion, I should say that I think Park Sung-Woo's artwork is generally excellent, and while he starts off strong enough with CRYJ (it wasn't his first manhwa, so that would make sense), it definitely shines best during these early volumes of NOW. While there are some small elements of similar character designs, namely when women have their hair down (but even then it's minor), Park makes great use of facial reactions, details, & overall just has some good design sense, especially since the historical time frame of both stories more or less restricts how exactly characters can dress; NOW is admitted by Park to be more fantastical in execution, but only so much. Park also has a habit of removing backgrounds during fight scenes, replacing them with either blank white or speed lines & effects, but his background work (likely with assistance from Studio Zero) is top-notch, making it easy to always remember where characters are during said fights, and the environment often plays some factor at all points, helping to keep everything feeling believable, in some fashion.

Overall, while Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun managed to win me over just enough this time after a rocky start, re-reading what we got of NOW in English all these years later just reminds me of why I absolutely loved it back then, and this first 1/5+ of the series is still rather damn good today. The characters are better developed (even this early on), the story is more interesting, the artwork is just a little bit better than in CRYJ, the pacing is much improved, and while there is still a habit of introducing new characters, they're established much better here & it's usually only one or two at a time, instead of the swaths CRYJ would usually do. I desperately wish I could read the rest of NOW, just to see how it all plays out, because these six volumes are seriously just that good. Unfortunately, NOW really just feels like a bit of a cursed series outside of South Korea, as I'm not sure if it ever saw a complete release anywhere but its home country. Even Japan eventually saw a translated release in 2012 by Shinkigensha (as part of its Korean Entertainment Network/KEN Comics line), no doubt in an attempt to piggyback off of the then-soon-to-be-ending Black God, but sadly that release got cancelled after Volume 8, due to poor sales. It's a shame, too, because while NOW may not be anything genre-breaking, it is just a great action series, regardless of what country it comes from, and if this is what could very well be considered Park Sung-Woo's "masterpiece", then it's easy to see why, and I wish more people could experience it.

Why wasn't THIS chosen as one of those "Crunchyroll Original" anime based on Korean manhwa?!

At the very least, Infinity's cover for NOW Volume 4 did make it online.

After re-reading what we did receive of both Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun & NOW in English after so long, it's easy to see why Park Sung-Woo eventually managed to make his way into the Japanese manga industry. Simply put, he's a very talented artist, and there's no surprise why both ComicsOne & Infinity Studios chose his work to highlight for English release. Unfortunately, he's apparently not drawing anymore due to problems with his hands, as his most recent manhwa, the webtoons Chongsa & Märchen - The Embodiment of Tales (which both debuted in 2014), have both been on hiatus for a few years now. Shame if that's true, but considering how Park apparently loves working on multiple series at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised. As for what remains of Park Sung-Woo's catalog in English, there are obviously other works, like Zero: The Beginning of the Coffin & Black God (both of which he co-created with writer Lim Dall-Young), but I honestly don't have much interest in (re-)reading those titles, for the most part. However, there is one exception that also never got finished (physically, at least), so that could always find its way into a future Volume of Demo Disc.

Until then... Da-Eum Sigankkajil (that's Korean for "Until Next Time").

Chun Rhang Yhur Jhun & NOW © Park Sung-Woo