esties
✨ just an atheist anti-censorship anarchist ✨️ 🌈 fujoshi defender by day spreading the good word of comics by night 🌝 distressing fiction enjoyer. (he/they) (30+) 🏳️⚧️ 🇲🇽 Esp / Eng
3991 points
October 2026
4.30 average · 111 reviews
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Thank you Netgalley and Fantagraphics for the ARC! I was so excited about this one.
Lovers of the Empire is gorgeous, heart-wrenching romance set during the Japanese colonization of Korea. Impeccably researched, the comic employs the visual language of period-accurate Korean fashions and Art Deco/Noveau inspired details to compliment the eye-candy art. There's a thematic push-and-pull of the modern versus the traditional that is captivating in its humanity. This push-and-pull is perfectly encapsulated by the two main protags' romantic plot: a boy from a poor, rural family encountering the wonders of modern city life meets a young upper class girl who dresses in modern clothing that both makes her a target of criticism and fascination from her more traditional peers.
Despite so much attention given to the visual language, Yudori weaves an underlying current of unease throughout the comic, as we're increasingly reminded of the cost of human life during this period of violent colonization. I just couldn't put this book down. With this setting and excellent characterization, I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in historical fiction in general. It's a promising first volume and an easy must-buy for me.
Fantagraphics will be publishing this under their Takumigraphics imprint which will be dedicated to publishing not just manga, but comics from Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines and other countries from Asia. If you want to help support Korean artists find footing in the comic industry outside of the exploitative Webtoons model (and free from the constraints and aesthetically fraught format of vertical comics), please just go ahead and buy this, it's gonna be a beautiful book to have on your shelf and has a setting that manga-inspired comics rarely make use of.
Im not sure if it's just among my friends and circles, but ive always noticed a lot of folks who read books may not cross over into comics or rarely do so. Whereas among my comic book nerd friends and circles ive noticed theyre receptive to venturing over to works that are primarily text and don't always limit themselves to just comics, even if its the bulk of what they read. Of course, ive also met people who primarily consume comics and nothing else too! I'm curious to know if that's just my perception or if anyone else notices the same.
If you don't read comics but you read books that are primarily text, is there a specific reason why? If you're a primarily comic book reader do you occasionally crossover into text only books, and if you don't, do you feel out of place in book spaces? I'm curious to know!
I'm not trying to pitch one kind of book over any other btw, I like reading all sorts of things and can't make up my mind half the time about whether story ideas I have would be better as a book or a comic. I think both are just slight variations in the same kind of magic.
For people who don't read comics at all, what would it take to venture over? 😉
Edit: when I'm talking abt comics, I'm just referring to any and all sequential art, not just ur western newspaper comic strips and comic books, but lengthier comics too (those hilariously deemed "graphic novels" instead of being deemed just humble comics) and manga, manhwa, webcomics, etc. ;)
esties commented...
Yes its a masterpiece, etc etc etc.
But also just look at Toshiro and tell me u don't wanna just squeeze him so hard he turns into pulp 🌞
esties finished a book
7w
Fool Night, Vol. 8
Kasumi Yasuda
In a distant future where the sun no longer shines, Toshiro Kamiya gives up his body to a sinister floral metamorphosis for a payday. The earth of the distant future is covered in thick clouds, and the sun no longer shines. Plants wither, and oxygen is thin. To fight extinction, humankind has developed a technology that turns humans into plants, providing a small amount of oxygen. Is this process sustainable? Is it ethical? Toshiro Kamiya must consider these questions as he’s faced with a difficult choice—save his family or save himself. As a pitched battle rages around them, Toshiro and Ivy find themselves in a field of flowers that breathe the feelings and memories of every living thing. In this mysterious place, what strange new understandings will take root between Toshiro and Ivy?
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