The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Itaewon Class

What's It About? 

A single choice can completely alter one's future―a truth no one knows more than Saeroyi Park, whose decision to stop a school bully exposes him to the harsh reality of money and power. Things go from bad to worse when his dad, who stood by him through it all, gets killed by the very same bully…and Saeroyi vows to take a life for a life. After his rash, rage-fueled murder attempt ends in a prison stint, though, a new plan kindles within him: open a restaurant, recreate the joy his father showed him, and cook up some proper revenge. And there's no better place to do so than the neighborhood of freedom, diversity, and delicious food―Itaewon!

Itaewon Class has a story and art by Kwang jin. This volume was translated by Kakao Entertainment and lettered and retouched by Madeleine Jose. Published by Ize Press (April 23, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

"Young Man Makes Good" is a genre of fiction that saw its popularity spike in the years of Horatio Alger, specifically between 1868 and 1899. (If you're curious, Alger's novel Ragged Dick is credited with sparking the trend.) Kwang Jin's no Alger, but Itaewon Class' first volume feels like the modern South Korean equivalent: Saeroyi "Royi" Park has to pull himself up by his bootstraps to make good on both his dreams and his father's legacy, all without giving in to a system that would much rather see him fail than succeed.

In some ways, the book sounds better in theory than in practice. Despite its nearly three hundred pages, it's still clear that a lot of moments in Royi's life are being skipped over. We don't know that he and his father are moving from Seoul until nearly the end of the volume even though that influences Royi's choices. We don't know what Mr. Park does for work, which again seems to influence his son's decisions, and the entirety of Royi's time in prison and on a fishing boat is glossed over in favor of pushing ahead with the conclusion of his plan, opening a restaurant in trendy Itaewon. Yes, we get a pretty clear image of who Royi is and what makes him tick, but there's not enough backstory to make the payoff as rewarding as it should be.

That's saying something because what starts Royi on his path is the fact that his dad's boss is an absolute ass, and his son is a borderline sociopath. (Or at least so spoiled as to appear to be one.) Royi's life starts to go downhill when he beats up Geunwon (the son) in school when he realizes that the teacher isn't going to do anything about Geunwon bullying another boy. This gets him expelled (and prompts his dad to resign), and then things go wrong again when Geunwon kills Mr. Park in a hit-and-run and frames someone else for the crime while his father attempts to buy Royi off. Royi's refusal and subsequent actions land him in prison, and although I can say that the story does an excellent job of showing how the rich and powerful can act with corrupt impunity, it all feels very staged. It's a little too clear that the creator is trying to make a point, which robs the story of some of its emotional weight.

Still, if revenge stories are something you enjoy, I suspect this might become much more engaging in future volumes. (It did get a K-drama adaptation, after all.) Even if we're always a little bit on the outside of the story and characters, it's easy to become invested in Royi's revenge, and the risks that he'll also become corrupted by money and power are low but still there. The washed-out colors in the art and the perspective issues take away from the visuals, but this is one of those books that hit "good enough," and it's probably worth a second volume to see how it unfolds.

The length of this freshman volume of Itaewon Class, alongside its nebulous flash-forward opener, clues the reader that this is here for the long haul. It can be a bold statement from a series like this if it isn't compelling enough to get an audience. After an opening that seems just a little listless, this story commits to a series of swerves and shake-ups that, after almost seeming to have settled by the volume's end, still ring as a prelude. It's a pretty engaging prelude.

Like its main character, Saeroyi, Itaewon Class is scrappy but confident. Kwang jin is finding their feet in terms of art and storytelling at the beginning, with glaring photo-filtered backgrounds. Plus, the pacing and designs of people can make it hard to tell if parts of the story are awkward on purpose or simply stilted. Once Saeroyi starts making his big breaks, the early unevenness doesn't matter much. Kwang jin goes for it on some visual effects, like Saeroyi's muted flashbacks to his father or the blurred text communicating how he zones out as cops talk to him. The exact level of the story's gripping intensity shifts wildly, especially as odd time skips and timelines involving the justice system are paced out. But it stays a pretty intense page-turner.

Even as its story is just getting started, the themes of Itaewon Class are coming through strongly. People with principles in stories have the advantage of pre-planned plots being written around them. So we can follow Saeroyi's upheavals and know he'll (probably) turn out okay overall, and cheer for him when he stands up for what he and his father believed in, even as the banal bullshit of the system makes him pay for it. On the flip side, the book's length dedicates perhaps a bit too much space to driving home how much the philosophies of antagonist Daehee make him a bad guy. Also, the last-time skip at the end feels like a little more of a trail-off before the end of the volume than the compelling "To Be Continued" it should be after all that. But overall, this is an engaging start if you're interested in the gritty, long-form detailing of a hypothetical enterprising young man.