MAGIC LOVER’S TOWER Books 1 & 2


By Kao Yung & Kuan-Ling, translated by Lobelia Cheng and Ailen Lujo (DrMaster)
ISBN: 978-1-59796-153-0 & 978-1-59796-154-7

For romantic comedy in comics form there’s no better place (actually no place at all outside the alternative and small press scenes) than the manga and manhwa marketplace and at least a lot of these stories are readily available in decent translations.

A great example is this brief (2 volume) tale of young Roxanne, a decent, hardworking “plain Jane” school girl in love with the class stud, Logan. Naturally this arrogant bad-boy treats her like dirt…

Her life is made even more miserable by the fact that her older sister recently grew from an ugly duckling to a pretty insufferable swan, and promptly left her behind and alone…

Roxanne’s life changes forever when she frees the Celestial hunk Baphalen from his godly imprisonment in an ancient wall-hanging and he proffers her heart’s desire if she can successfully complete the fantasy tests of Magic Lover’s Tower (a kind of eldritch full-immersion Virtual Reality game and flight simulator).

Should she win her life will change and everything she desires will become real: of course failure could mean death, or worse, make Logan hate her more…

There are the usual cultural barriers for western readers to cross: how people look (appearance and behaviour) is so terrifyingly important in these yarns, as is acceptance and family conformity (although here this does provide many of the better comedy moments), and of course cute and sassy magical animal thingies abound, but there’s also a strong undercurrent of rebellion, a powerful romantic triangle as the seemingly neutral Baphalen plays a hidden game and clever surprise that this grizzled old reviewer certainly didn’t see coming.

This mini-epic is beautifully illustrated and would make an ideal introduction to new readers who’ve long left comics behind but still need a little light fantasy in their lives (and yes, that does mean chicks in general, and your wife or girlfriend in particular,,,)

These books are printed in the traditional Asian front-to-back, right-to-left format.

© 2001 Kao Yung. English translation © 2008 DrMaster Publications Inc. All Rights Reserved.