We have a very exciting Guest Review today! Okazu hero and new Guest Reviewer, Nadia “Atarun” C. has a roundup and mini-review of English-language comics in the GL category on online manhwa platform Lezhin.
Lezhin offers free sample chapters, then readers purchase coins to read further chapters of their favorite comics. Nadia is a big fan of the comics there, and has offered to walk us through some of the titles that might be of interest to us. Take it away Nadia!
The catalog of
Yuri comics on Lezhin is growing and already counts 15 series, 11 of which are still ongoing and get new chapters weekly or close to weekly.
That count includes
Lily Love by Ratana Satis, which Erica has already reviewed:
Here’s a quick overview of what else Lezhin has in store for Yuri fans (the completely subjective order being from my most to least favorite):
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(73 episodes, still ongoing)
Seongji just started working as a junior manager in a game dev company and she falls in love, for the first time and at first sight, with her team manager Sumin. Sumin likes Seongji back but carries a LOT of baggage, especially her love/hate relationship with her boss Seju which has been going on and off for years.
Besides the interesting love triangle between 3 adult independent women and the numerous sex scenes, this series also features plenty of drama around the three characters, most notably with Seju’s extensive and dysfonctional wealthy family.
Overall Rating – 9 I want Seongji to get what she wants, I want Sumin to make up her mind and I want Seju to have someone to support her… and it’s hard to picture all three things happening simultaneously. Love triangles are rarely that interesting for me.
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(41 episodes, still ongoing)
Heart surgeon Mel had given up on love years ago. She has casual sex with nurses (among which she is quite popular) and strangers met in bars, but she doesn’t want to try anything deeper… until she meets Lynn, whose life is basically on standby until she can get a heart transplant.
The story is not laser focused on the relationship between Mel and Lynn, instead spending a lot of time on secondary characters that bring a lot of drama around the couple.
Overall Rating – 9 Some parts of the story make little sense (like how Lynn’s parents let her move in with a complete stranger without question), but I can’t help rooting for Mel and Lynn.
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(31 episodes, still ongoing)
Lesbian Eunbyul and bisexual Sena are college students in a closeted relationship. They get along really well, but pretty much everyone they knew or get to know somehow tests the strength of their relationship, from ex-boyfriends (hence the title) to female friends and social media.
Drama, drama, drama. This series mixes drama that only exists because people don’t communicate with problems that would not be fixed even if discussed openly.
Overall Rating – 8 All the drama feels believable to me, none of it overblown for the sake of aaaaangst.
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(45 episodes, still ongoing)
Jung Erae is so aloof and clueless, she hires the love doctor Cha Yoon to teach her about love. As one would expect, Yoon quickly realizes that she has fallen in love with Erae, but it takes a lot longer for Erae to come to the same conclusion. The story goes on well beyond that point, though, as friends of both protagonists interfere with the newly formed couple in various ways, for various reasons.
This series talks a LOT about ballet and the cast runs the gamut from psychopathy, narcissism and sadism to extreme empathy, selflessness and masochism.
Overall Rating – 8 Erae starts as the klutz-whose-survival-is-a-miracle but grows much bolder through the story and just about every character has more depth that meets the eye.
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(35 episodes, still ongoing)
Seung Jua is a closeted lesbian college student with a few notches on her belt and is a bit cynical about love. Yang Nayoung is another lesbian in the same class, but, much to her dismay, she is only popular with boys and everything she knows about lesbian love comes from shoujo-ai comics. When Jua has a crush on Nayoung, she hides it masterfully, but when, later, Nayoung has a crush on Jua, she is completely powerless to hide it.
The story of their relationship is told through 4-panel slices of life (that are not always gags).
Overall Rating – 7 Sometimes funny, sometimes realistic, sometimes silly, always sweet.
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(72 episodes)
High schooler Gayoon has had a crush on upperclasswoman Soha ever since she saved her from bullies in middle school. Soha has forgotten all about Gayoon, but when they meet again, she is reminded of her dead dog Happy. Gayoon decides to roleplay as Happy to help Soha work through some past trauma (but really, it’s a pretext to be with her).
The story revolves essentially around Soha and Gayoon’s weird relationship, but it also takes the time to flesh out many secondary characters.
Overall Rating – 7 The story starts in a very weird place, goes through a lot of dark places, but ends up in a happy warm place and I don’t regret the trip.
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(43 episodes, still ongoing)
A very dark thriller full of betrayal, lies and coercion that features an Evil Psycho Lesbian as crazy and creepy as they can get. I can’t really tell you anything about the plot without spoiling it…
Let me just warn you that it should come with huge trigger warnings for lesbian rape and murder and that everyone and everything revolves around piano music.
Overall Rating – 6 If the EPL was slightly less creepy, the professor slightly less manipulative and the protagonist slightly less clueless, I’d give it 8.
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(19 episodes, still ongoing)
Average high school girl Jia is head over heels for borderline psychopath school idol Yoona. She writes her a love letter and Yoona asks her to throw it away as a proof of love. That scene is starting point of their unbalanced weird relationship, but also of a series of events rattling relationships all around them.
More than angst, there is a sense of dread permeating this story. It could go either way, but it seems clear that, as foretold in the prologue, things are not going to go and end well for all parties involved.
Overall Rating – 6 So far, I do not care for either Jia or Yoona, but I do care about two secondary characters and I keep reading with the ominous feeling that I’ll witness a lot more bad things happen to them…
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(17 episodes, still ongoing)
Klutz-whose-survival-is-a-miracle June is the newest maid in the manor. Even though she fails at everything (save for baking egg tarts), Madam forgives her, gives her a dress, takes her to see a play and generally treats her like a favorite. June starts by admiring her mistress, but her feelings quickly grow well further.
Overall Rating – 6 This series goes beyond subtext, since June clearly identifies the true nature of her feelings, but it is completely one-sided so far.
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(27 episodes, still ongoing)
Catholic all-girls high school student Ayeon is bullied by a group of classmates including her former friend Dahye. Some day she is saved by albino “angel” Yeonhwa, whose agenda is anything but well-intentioned.
The series revolves around clueless, goody two-shoes Ayeon for a while, but then switches to Yeonhwa and her perverted sadistic schemes. Trigger warning for lesbian rape.
Overall Rating – 5 If Ayeon gets a clue and stands up to mother-of-all-bullies Yeonhwa, I’ll add a few points to the rating, but for now it’s more a story of how an Evil Psycho Lesbian gets her way while everyone thinks she is a fragile wallflower and that’s not my thing.
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(22 episodes)
Closeted lesbian police officer Seolah is in charge of the investigation into her secret lover’s murder. Crushed by regret and guilt, she sacrifices everything to find the murderer and get revenge for her dead lover.
Aaaaaaaaaangst. There is no silver lining to that cloud.
Overall Rating – 5 I tend to really like murder mysteries and vengeance stories, but this one never clicked. Somehow, I never really cared about who killed Seolah’s girlfriend or how she would get away with avenging her death…
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(14 episodes, still ongoing)
I can’t say that I have understood the plot of this one just yet… A rich heiress is working in her father’s company, but no one knows she is the owner’s daughter. She is married to the company’s top news broadcaster, but no one is aware of that fact either. She instantly falls in love with her ladykiller boss and is almost open about that. Said boss is screwing around with a looooot of married women, inside and outside the company, but won’t touch the protagonist whom she believes to be single and many hints are dropped that she has a secret dark agenda probably involving the protagonist’s father and/or husband.
Overall Rating – 4 I might change my mind on that series later on, if they get on with the plot and its twists and turns amaze me… but so far, it feels to me more like What Does the Fox Say? done wrong.
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(26 episodes)
Track-and-field ace Namsu realizes she is in love with her friend Joy when the latter’s childhood friend Hye-Yeon moves back into her life after 4 years abroad and greets her by french-kissing her in public. Namsu and Hye-Yeon proceed to fight over Joy, who does not really understand why she can’t have them both.
Overall Rating – 3 It was impossible for me to care for this love triangle, because I can’t help despising Hye-Yeon and Joy. The ending made me dislike the story (and those two characters) even more.
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(65 episodes)
Sorry but I am powerless to tell you anything about this series. I could not get past episode 3. And at least until that point it completely defies description (like Yuri Kuma Arashi, except that one worked for me and Daily Witch did not).
Overall Rating – WTF
Erica here: This is absolutely fantastic Nadia, thank you! I know a number of Okazu readers are already Lezhin subscribers and I hope that this encourages more folks to try some of the GL manhwa on the site!
Most of you are probably too young to remember the television series Bewitched. It was about a guy, Darrin, who lived a normal, boring salaryman life in the affluent American suburbs. Darrin was so dull and uninteresting that after a few years, they switched the actor who played him and mostly no one noticed. 
