By Mi-Kyung Yun
Dark Horse, 184 pp.
Rating: 12+

Perhaps it’s a sign of arrested development, or just a measure of how attuned I am to my inner eight-year-old, but I still love a good folktale. The same things that fired my imagination as a kid—ghosts, dragons, resourceful heroines, talking animals, terrible curses, magical objects, lovers separated by fate—appeal to me as an adult fan of Snow Goddess Tales and The Legend of Chun Hyang. I hadn’t found a Korean title that scratched the same “once upon a time” itch as either of those manga—that is, until I read Bride of the Water God, an honest-to-goodness fairy tale as Grimm as anything Jacob or Wilhelm collected in the Bavarian countryside.

The story begins with a human sacrifice. In a rural village plagued by drought, town elders try to appease Habaek, the water god, with an offering of a “bride.” They place Soah, a stoic young beauty, in a leaky boat and set her adrift on a nearby lake. But instead of drowning, Soah washes ashore in the enchanted kingdom of Sugok, home of the water god. Habaek reveals himself to Soah not as the grotesque, man-eating creature she feared he would be, but as a ten-year-old boy who presides over a lively court of deities. As she begins to explore Habaek’s sprawling palace, her initial relief turns to fear: all of Habaek’s previous wives have died under mysterious, possibly violent, circumstances.

What makes Bride of the Water God such a pleasure to read are Mi-Kyung Yun’s opulent illustrations. The Sugok landscape is a delightful mixture of “once upon a time”—haunted forests, lavish palaces—and more contemporary influences—fish-shaped dirigibles, floating castles reminiscent of Miyazake’s Laputa. As one might expect, the gods wear sumtptous robes; Yun offers detailed renderings of the intricate patterns and decorative embroidery characteristic of traditional hanbok. Though these patterns sometimes spill into the backgrounds, taking the place of conventional sun-jeong (shojo) motifs like flower petals, Yun is a disciplined draftsman. She balances her more detailed images with ones of stark simplicity: a few blood spatters on a blank page hint at Habaek’s violent past, a burning candle suggests the passage of time.

Bride of the Water God is most successful when staying faithful to the spirit (if not the letter) of Korean legend. The few nods to manhwa convention—super-deformed reaction shots, winged chibis—clash with the story’s hallucinatory, dream-like atmosphere. Thankfully, these moments are few and far between, allowing readers to immerse themselves in Yun’s imagined world without too many distractions.

Like the other titles in Dark Horse’s manhwa line—Banya the Explosive Delivery Man, Chunchu: The Genocide Fiend, Hanami: International Love Story, Shaman Warrior, and XS Hybrid—Bride of the Water God is beautifully packaged and meticulously edited. The translation is, at times, a little colloquial, but never falls into the trap of sounding faux-archaic. I only wish the volume included an appendix identifying the various gods who appear in the story, explaining their role in Korean mythology. These details aren’t essential to enjoying Bride of the Water God, as its themes will resonate with anyone who’s read Beauty and the Beast, Bluebeard, or the Old Testament tale of Jephthah. (Soah fares a little better than Iphis, I’m happy to report.) But they would have enriched my understanding of the story, and saved me a little Wikipedia surfing.

The bottom line: Bride of the Water God is an dark, lovely fairy tale that should appeal to fans of CLAMP’s more folkloric work (Chun Hyang, RG Veda, Snow Goddess Tales) as well as fans of The Antique Gift Shop and Dokebi Bride.

Volume one of Bride of the Water God will be available on October 17th.