This is a really lovely little story - absolutely gorgeous art and some really beautiful writing. Their relationship is sweet and natural and they communicate like they’ve both had therapy.
It's very unbalanced plot-wise though. The majority of time was spent on Sunwoo’s story, and by the time we started to get into Youngwon’s background, it was over. I wouldn’t want to condense Sunwoo’s part, so instead I feel like it needed another 10-15 chapters to give Youngwon’s experience a satisfying amount of coverage. We don’t ever even find out what happened to make him quit swimming - we just get some cryptic flashbacks. Considering that their respective histories are part of why they understand each other so well, it just seems like an odd choice to leave his side unexplored. It would’ve been really nice to see Sunwoo be the one encouraging Youngwon as he tried to reconnect with that part of himself.
The whole thing with Sunwoo staying back a year seemed way overblown IMO. Lying about it was shitty and the wrong way to go, I would definitely be mad about that, but his motivation was just to stay with his friends and I don't think that's a bad thing if it's what's important to him. Taking it as some kind of superiority thing or mocking their hard work says way more about his friends than it does about him.
This is a really lovely little story - absolutely gorgeous art and some really beautiful writing. Their relationship is sweet and natural and they communicate like they’ve both had therapy.
It's very unbalanced plot-wise though. The majority of time was spent on Sunwoo’s story, and by the time we started to get into Youngwon’s background, it was over. I wouldn’t want to condense Sunwoo’s part, so instead I feel like it needed another 10-15 chapters to give Youngwon’s experience a satisfying amount of coverage. We don’t ever even find out what happened to make him quit swimming - we just get some cryptic flashbacks. Considering that their respective histories are part of why they understand each other so well, it just seems like an odd choice to leave his side unexplored. It would’ve been really nice to see Sunwoo be the one encouraging Youngwon as he tried to reconnect with that part of himself.
The whole thing with Sunwoo staying back a year seemed way overblown IMO. Lying about it was shitty and the wrong way to go, I would definitely be mad about that, but his motivation was just to stay with his friends and I don't think that's a bad thing if it's what's important to him. Taking it as some kind of superiority thing or mocking their hard work says way more about his friends than it does about him.