I Love Amy Volume 1 Manhwa Review

Synopsis

Bibi loves Peter! But before she can ask him out, she sees him talking to another girl she doesn’t know. That won’t do. So Bibi invites that girl over to her luxurious mansion so that she can tie her up in a chair, throw her in the basement and lock her there forever. Instead they play board games and sleep in the same bed together. Could this girl, Amy, be Bibi’s first real friend?

Amy loves Bibi! But Bibi wants Peter and sees Amy as a means to an end. That’s what Amy’s intimidating childhood friend Camilla thinks, anyway. Then there’s Amy’s aunt, whose number one priority in life is keeping her safe. Ever since Amy was nearly killed by her mom as a child, her family and friends are convinced she can’t take care of herself. But is that really the case?

‘Cos I love Peter!

The first thing you notice about I Love Amy is the way it looks. UNNI’s character designs look nothing like the beautiful shoujo manga cliches of most romance webtoons. Instead they are cute and creepy caricatures, like Genndy Tartakovsky by way of Jhonen Vasquez. Bibi is so in love with Peter that her pupils are little hearts (unless she is angry, or shocked.) Amy on the other hand is perpetually sweating or crying from anxiety. These little details are hilarious, but are also used purposefully to say something about the characters.

Amy and Bibi’s world is just as distinct. Backgrounds avoid CG-augmented realism in favor of spooky mansions and pine tree forests. In other cases, blue and sunset-pink color backgrounds set the mood without relying too much on detail. Physical objects like Bibi’s car are exaggerated just enough to blend in with the characters. It all feels of a piece, which is absolutely not the case even in otherwise excellent webtoon series.

Let’s be friends

The story is just as surprising. I expected that the series would be a black comedy in which Bibi does terrible things to Amy. That’s not wrong per se. The red flags surrounding Bibi are real; she’s obsessive, cruel, and keeps an embalmed pet rabbit in her bedroom. But she also warms up to Amy quickly, even while other girls like Camilla try to redirect her attention. By the end of the first volume, it’s clear that she isn’t just using Amy to get Peter. Bibi genuinely likes Amy for who she is.

The key to I Love Amy is the word “love.” As a child, Amy was abused by her mother. Her aunt (as well as her friend Camilla) did their best to love Amy in return. But that love is so overbearing that Amy never learned to trust in herself. Bibi, on the other hand, loves Peter because she was starved of love just like Amy was. She reaches for it desperately because she has never experienced it for herself. So rather than a story about girls hurting each other, I Love Amy is actually a story about whether traumatized people deprived of human connection can learn to relate to each other.

Operation: Meat Pie

I’d happily recommend the I Love Amy webtoon to anyone able to tolerate gothic atmosphere or psychological turmoil. But we’re not reviewing the webtoon today. We’re reviewing the first print volume of the I Love Amy graphic novel, which adapts the vertical comic into traditional book format. As excited as I was to see this story in a new light, I was also worried, because past attempts at transferring webtoons into graphic novels haven’t always been successful. Could this series be the one to break the mold?

In some respects, this new edition of I Love Amy is more polished than the original webtoon. The translation strips out Korean terms like “unnie.” Sound effect lettering is more varied and better conveys each situation. I particularly appreciate the book’s design, which evokes stationary and girlypop aesthetics. It puts you right into Bibi’s brainspace.

Other aspects are roughly equivalent. The chapter-ending beat of a slowly filling jar of cookies remains intact. While panels from the original are shrunk, expanded and occasionally rearranged, they are very rarely removed. Every panel that the book chooses for a full-paged splash typically works in context. All in all the conversion demonstrates understanding of the source material.

You’re all I have

That said, I still don’t know if I’d call it the definitive version of the comic. Changing the layouts of the webtoon also changes the feel of the original story. Say what you will about the “succession of storyboards” typical of webtoons, but they give the reader the opportunity to luxuriate in each image. This is particularly important for a comic like I Love Amy that dabbles in suspense.

For instance, in the first chapter when Bibi sees Peter talking to Amy, her angry expression consumes the equivalent of a full comic page. A close-up of her eyes is then afforded the same treatment. The print comic splits the difference by having Bibi’s full shot on one half of the page and the close-up of her eyes on the other. It isn’t terrible, but it flattens a moment that I think is more frightening in the original format.

Another example: in the second chapter, we see Amy against a stark blue sky as she runs down the road away from her house. We cut to a white space, in which we see her illuminated memory of Bibi. This sequence works in the webtoon because the white unreality sits below the stark reality of the blue panels. The print version by comparison stacks the blue panels to the left and above the white panels. In my book, this unnecessarily clutters what the artist was trying to achieve with this sequence.

Verdict

I can’t say how much of this was done by Ize Press and how much by A. TEMPO MEDIA, the book’s original publishers in Korea. I expect my concerns are just endemic when it comes to translating vertical strip to print. As unreasonable a request it might be, I’d almost rather have UNNI redraw the whole series from scratch for publication as a graphic novel. Every other page of this book by comparison reads to me as a compromise rather than something that benefits the material.

So where does that leave us with volume 1 of I Love Amy? Well, it is more convenient to buy this from a store (or borrow it from my local library) than shell out for every chapter individually on Tappytoon. The design of the book is great, and at least part of the series survives the transition from vertical strip to print graphic novel intact.

For all intents and purposes, though, the webtoon version of I Love Amy remains the definitive version of the series. Maybe one day a vertical strip webtoon will crack the code and perfect its print edition. I Love Amy in print shows promise, but it isn’t all there yet.

If you like I Love Amy, you might also like…

• How Do We Relationship? by Tamifull
• Mage and Demon Queen by Color_LES
• Sherbet Above the Sea of Fog by BONE&BLOOD&FLESH and DONGOM

Credits

Story and Art: UNNI
Translation: AH Cho
Lettering: Rebecca Sze
Published in English by Ize Press

Thank you to Ize Press for providing a review copy. Receiving this copy did not affect the reviewer’s opinions as expressed here.

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