Christmas is the time of miracles…but will Hee-So’s miracle come at a price she is unable to bear?
Creative Staff
Story:/Art: SangEun Lee
Translation/Adaptation: JiEun Park/Natalie Baan
What They Say
With the holidays finally upon Hee-So, the season of giving is in full swing! But as she gets ready for her Christmas Eve festivities, Beatrice takes generosity to a whole new level as he prepares to make the ultimate sacrifice to give the present of “destiny” to his beloved friend. But if Hee-So realizes the sacrifice her darling Beatrice plans to make in order to bring Whie-Young back among the living, will she be able to look her first love in the face ever again? Hee-So’s search for love concludes in this final volume of 13th Boy!
Content: (please note that content portions of review may contain spoilers):
Christmas has come and with it Beatrice has made a decision regarding what he is going to do to help the still comatose Whie-Young who Hee-So loves, even though he knows that the cost will fall on her heavily. When she arrives on the morning of Christmas Eve to take him out with her friends, Beatrice turns her down politely though in her somewhat flustered state of not knowing how to deal with him now that she has come to recognize her feelings for him combined with being in a rush to meet with friends she completely misses the tone of the mood and rushes off in a move she will come to regret.
Later that night Beatrice makes his peace and talks with the ancient being that lives inside Whie-Young and finds that he can be granted a Christmas miracle and he gets the chance to say goodbye to his beloved Hee-So though only in her dreams. Upon waking and discovering that what she saw wasn’t just a dream, Hee-So rushes over to Whie-Young’s house and finds he is awake but that Beatrice is gone. Even worse for Hee-So, Whie-Young has recovered his memories of his youth that he had forgotten but his current memories, particularly relating to his powers but more important to her the ones of Beatrice, are gone which may be the final straw for her.
With her best friend and confidant- the one who Hee-So shared everything with and who chided her when she was in the wrong- gone and no one she can properly mourn the loss of him with she slips into a deep depression. Even as months pass she finds she can’t get over her loss and when Whie-Young approaches her she tells him clearly that she has decided to hate him, but is this emotion real or is she merely hiding some other feeling deep inside? With the final volume having arrived will Hee-So finally grown up and meet her prince or is she going to be unable to move past her loss and seize upon the sacrifice that Beatrice made?
Also included in the book are a pair of tales that provide some closure as the first takes place almost three years later with Won-Jun finding out that Hee-So’s best friend Nam-Joo is competing in a Judo tournament in Boston and so he goes to watch her and she picks him out of the crowd. As the two talk they catch up on what has been happening with their friends as Nam-Joo talks of what has been going on with Hee-So and Won-Jun shares what has happened with both himself and Sae-Bom since they left Japan as the two talk of the time that has passed and what has happened on the roads each has chosen to walk. Additionally there is a short chapter that has Nam-Joo perhaps about to finally experience her own spring as her dedication to her training has caught the eye of a young man at school. Is there a chance that he can find a place in her heart or is her dedication to Judo so all encompassing she can’t see anything else?
The journey from start to finish has been a fairly long one for Hee-So (and pretty long in its original run as well as it took the author eight years to get there) but the series wraps in a way that is very competent and thorough in not missing any elements, though somehow the emotional impact isn’t quite as much as one might hope. Perhaps it is because of the telegraphing done so early in the previous book as to what Beatrice must do or perhaps it is the kind of almost cliché way they say goodbye (or just the break between the previous volumes building and this volumes payoff), but the parting of Beatrice and Hee-So just doesn’t seem to be conveyed with all the emotion that it should as Hee-So had finally, if slowly, come to realize how important Beatrice was in her life.
Even once he leaves the power of the final chapters is diluted as the reader is left to watch Hee-So as she spends all her time depressed but the ability to get into her head which was so much a part of the series earlier has been removed along with Beatrice and the dialogue that the author used between them to serve that function. In this respect it feels like the reader is robbed a bit as no longer is there easy access to Hee-So’s thought process and the lack of having a workable substitute for that loss is as impactful on the reader as it is on Hee-So, except she is living it and the reader is now one step farther removed from it. There are also some other minor issues with the end as the reader has been with Hee-So for so long now yet somehow despite everyone around her pushing her the lack of ability she demonstrates to really grow makes it seem like the author didn’t know what to do with her if she changed too much and that also leaves a much less impactful character than one who can acknowledge difficulties and show they had an impact on them, even if they don’t suddenly change all their ways.
With all that said though there is still a charm to the end that shines through even if it is diluted somewhat and it still makes the sometimes strange and often magical journey feel worthwhile even with its lack of a spectacular payoff. Perhaps this helps explain the presence of the bonus chapter focusing on Nam-Joo which feels like it brings back some of the magic, or perhaps the whole point of the ending was to make it a bit bitter-sweet as it shows that love can be both wonderful and heartbreaking and sometimes both at the same time.
In Summary
13th Boy comes to a close but not everyone is going to be there to see if it has a happy end. With sacrifice being the theme of the day, will those left behind be able to pick themselves up and move forward when given one more chance or will they be lost in the accompanying grief? When matters of the heart are concerned there may not be a “right” answer but will those with a chance seize on the moment given them or will they be stuck playing a game of “What if” and “I wish it had been different?”
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: July 24th, 2012
MSRP: $11.99
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