The Spring 2025 K-Comics Guide

Manic Desires (18+)

What's It About? 

A precarious relationship between a possessive guy and a vulnerable girl. Gyuyoung's only hope is to run away from her desperate reality, where people talk behind her about her mom, her only family, who works as a hostess at a sleazy bar in a small town. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity ensues when Ikseon, a transfer male student to her high school, makes her an irresistible offer.

Manic Desires has a story by Haejin Jeong and art by dundun, chochang, and Metatoon. It is based on a work by Salgu Kim. English translation and lettering by Manta Comics. Published by Manta Comics (March 28, 2025). Rated M.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

I went into Manic Desires expecting a trashy high school romance. That's what the sample art and summary indicated I'd be getting into, at any rate. But the truth turned out to be something much soapier - Manic Desires does in fact have elements of bad YA fiction, but it's also very invested in hitting as many melodramatic plot points as it can, playing with its heroine's fortunes in the style of either Victorian fiction or K-dramas, possibly both.

Gyuyoung's life isn't just hard, it's full-on difficult. The daughter of a woman implied to have been forced into sex work because she was pregnant outside of wedlock, Gyuyoung is harassed by her classmates because of her mother's profession and dreams of getting out of her small town. She resents her mother, and it's not hard to see why, even if it feels cruel. Her mom routinely comes home drunk and wakes Gyuyoung up at all hours, mostly existing on the edges of her daughter's life. There's no money to spare, so Gyuyoung has to rely on a predatory teacher at school to get extra study , and she's desperately afraid she's going to end up just like her mother.

The arrival of Ikseon from Seoul changes things, but Gyuyoung isn't sure she can trust him. Ikseon is wealthy beyond anyone's wildest dreams, and he's very forthright about his crush on her. But Gyuyoung looks askance at his offers to share his expensive tutors with her and eventually his request that she move with him back to Seoul to attend the last year of high school and university on his dime. It makes sense that she'd be leery; based on what she knows about her mother's life, that sort of offer usually comes with a pretty big caveat. But after her mother's death, Gyuyoung is so steeped in guilt and pain that she agrees. The first twelve chapters get her to Seoul with him, and it's starting to look like while he was completely in earnest, his mother's going to be a problem.

There's never a calm moment in this series. Gyuyoung's life is always dialed up to an eleven, and she's so trapped in her own personal hell that you know she's not seeing things clearly. I do think Ikseon is being honest about his feelings for her – the in medias res opening makes that pretty clear – but for all he calls her naïve, I think he's just as innocent. (Or he's creepy and manipulative. Time will tell.) It's less Romeo and Juliet and more Cathy and Heathcliff. I'm not sure that it's actually good, but I can tell you this: it's almost impossible to put down.

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MrAJCosplay
Rating:

Have you ever come across a guy who insists he knows what's best for you? Maybe you believe him at first but the more he insists, the more on edge you feel around him to the point where you begin to question if he is being genuine with you or not. It's an icky feeling that crawls in your skin and makes you feel very uncomfortable. Actually, that's probably the best way to describe Manic Desires. I feel uncomfortable and not in a good way that feels intentional.

Manic Desires has the air of a tragic story. We have a young woman born into circumstances that she feels haunted by and is doing everything in her power to prove herself better than said circumstances. She's stubborn and has a lot to prove but it all makes sense. She wants to lead a better life which causes her to cross paths with your typical rich pretty boy who takes a specific interest in her. The overall pacing of the relationship and the age of time felt so weird because there are a lot of times we will take advantage of montages that imply closeness rather than actually show it. The problem is that despite a lot of things happening, there isn't a lot of substance on the relationship front. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about the dynamic between our two leads.

Our main girl is certainly well defined and I do feel bad for her, but I have no idea what to make of her romantic interest. This guy starts off well-meaning and is originally written in a way that feels like wish fulfillment. He's there to sweep our protagonist off her feet and try to give her all of the means that she needs in order to accomplish her goals. However, his incessant nature and overall presence just feels creepy like a serial killer in the waiting. But I don't know if the story knows what kind of tone this character is giving off. As I said before, you begin to question all of his motivations and by the end, I feel like he's an inherently untrustworthy character that is more into things for personal control rather than genuine help.

This makes the story feel very lopsided. While the overall tone is dreary, our journey still doesn't feel very defined. Am I supposed to root for these characters to get together or am I supposed to root for them to be at each other's throat by the end? Is there some kind of deal or agenda that's being hidden from me until the time is right? Or is all of this just simple misdirection. I don't know and I don't like that.

There's some stories that will try to play things up with mystery, but the writing isn't clever enough to keep me engaged. It almost feels like there are random moments where a different writer takes over and tries to portray things in a more abrupt way. It's not graceful and honestly left me irritated by the end of this first volume. I would say maybe take your time looking elsewhere.