My Joy: An intriguing joyless romance 300https://i.ur.com/bUJLefS.jpg I didnt enjoy My Joy. It was never once funny it sorely lacked wholesome moments and the direction of its character development left me hugely dissatisfied. While this may seem like a stern warning to steer clear the very reason Im writing this review my first on AniList btw is to express my conflicted feelings on this 2013 manhwa. Its important to note that this is a romantic drama heavy on the drama. Beyond a shallow exploration of the joys of budding romance which the AniList synopsis and the first 22 chapters fool you into believing is the storys main goal My Joy really deals with the the rocky foundations and emotional dissonance of friendship and romance. And it does so by cleverly reversing readers expectations by twisting the common romance protagonist archetype. Kindly note that the rest of this review/analysis contains comprehensive plot spoilers. While I doubt many will read this if you ever feel like discussing the story or my review feel free to leave a reply on my activity posthttps://anilist.co/activity/264191334. Things look fairly peachy until the 22nd chapter of this 26chapter series. At first the story follows the extremely worn trope of starting a relationship fending off a love rival and finding happiness in an unexpected place. Ive certainly read my fair share of these stories this is why I started this one in the first place. If the series had continued like this I would have given it a 5/10 just because it lacks sufficient visual cues or sliceoflife wholesome moments to accentuate blooming love that other works have. Overall Id have been fairly satisfied but unlikely to remember it in a few months time. The problem lies with Joy Kwon. By design we know almost nothing about Joy the protagonist. She is cute short has a nice smile and likes photography. She is bad at playing the drum game at the arcade. Thats it. Throughout the series we are shown the thoughts flashbacks and dreams of the two love interests Namsu and HyeYeon. The former has an entire chapter unnecessarily dedicated to a wet dream of Joy while the latter has multiple welldone chapters focused on her childhood featuring a young Joy as well as her past. Joy gets almost no inner monologue and has no flashbacks or backstory of her own. Youd be forgiven for not seeing this as a huge red flag given that she neatly fits into the archetype of the balanced wellrounded and nice romance protagonist around whom the world is tidily constructed. You can only see her monologue in chapter one the start and chapter 22 the climax. Understanding her character is made even more difficult since Pito purposely excludes vital scenes by obscuring dialogue bubbles before returning to them much later on in the story. By the time you realise that the two love interests are the only ones who have received any character development its too late. 220https://i.ur.com/cuDFukx.jpg Joy starts a relationship with Namsu early on in the series and the latter has the time of her life all giddy and overjoyed that Joy is hers standard romance storytelling. And this pure relationship continues until the 22nd chapter with HyeYeon content on the ride and supportive of Joy and Namsus relationship as their friend. Then in the last panel of the 22nd chapter Joy is revealed to have been cheating on Namsu with HyeYeon the entire time. The obscured dialogue in the above image is from chapter 12 and the reader only learns in chapter 23 that Joy and HyeYeon promise to secretly date behind Namsus back in this scene. We have four chapters to revisit the previously obscured scenes and deal with the fallout. Yet Joy doesnt show any remorse and is completely unapologetic after being caught. Therein lies the twist. Pito cleverly uses the very trope of a friendly yet extremely ordinary girl to disguise the fact that we havent learnt anything about Joys personality. Joy is not outwardly belligerent or rude so shes not a standard romance antagonist either. And because we get no insight into her character we cant even see her as a troubled soul trying to come to grips with her problem. Instead we get nothing which is extra crushing considering how were led to believe shes a normal happy girl and considering the ostensible positive progress of her relationships. That the twist came so late isnt a bad thing either. It is clear that there is nothing more to Joys deeply flawed and unwittingly manipulative personality that more chapters can solve. It is clear that HyeYeon is completely content being at Joys side in a loveless relationship. It is clear that Namsu is distressed but thankfully able to disentangle herself from this mess and try to restart her life. I am totally team Namsu I hope sweet girl lives her best life away from the toxic Joy and HyeYeon. 220https://i.ur.com/3IhaVHF.jpg So is this a satisfying end? As the low ratings and criticism might suggest the answer is a fairly resounding no. But what would the solution be? Joy is very specifically moulded to be an outwardly friendly but internally empty girl. The unravelling of her character happens unexpectedly but when taking into account her lack of character development it is not surprising. If she were to seek forgiveness or make amends this would be a sudden and unexplained shift in the storys tone and relegate My Joy into the realm of underwhelming uninspired manhwa. Whether this would have been preferable to the sucker punch ending we got is up to debate. Dont get me wrong this story wasnt at all what I wanted or expected. If I had known there would be this cruel twist I absolutely wouldnt have read this. I read for enjoyment and fluffy dumbhappy scenes not to encounter cruel relationship drama. The execution of this twist is solid but not perfectly crafted. Despite all this I find myself respecting Pitos choice to build up and shatter expectations in an organic way. I might not like the story but I do like how the mangaka forces readers to rethink the standard romance protagonist archetype and reexamine the role of the mangaka as a storyteller obscuring vital plot elements and dragging the reader along for the ride none the wiser that there is so much happening with the protagonist who is supposed to be the focal point of this story behind the scenes. I didnt enjoy My Joy. It was joyless it betrayed my expectations and the direction it took was cruel. But in My Joy Pito created exactly what they set out to create: a sordid gloomy tale of toxic relationships and concealed characterisation bundled in a seemingly standard romance. sushi rating: 127843127843127843127843127843127843129378129378129378129378