Manhwa: Snow Drop by Choi Kyung-ah

This manhwa, a Korean manga, is an epic love story, where love conquers all, literally! Choi Kyung-ah did a fantastic job with this title and I personally would love to read more by them. Snow Drop is about a young teen named Yoo So-na who lost her mother some years ago. So-Na’s mother had a nursery for flowers and now So-na has taken the responsibility of taking care of it because it’s where she feels closest with her mother. Along with a book her mother wrote about flowers called “Snow Drop,” too. Due to her mother’s death she didn’t feel well enough to go to school anymore until now. Her best friend, Jang Ha-da, ends up at school with her, where she meets Oh Hae-gi. Once they met, nothing would go back to the way they were...


(SPOILER WARNING! START)

Hae-gi is a model and shows up late to class one day, which so happens to be the first day for Ha-da and So-na. Ha-da automatically doesn’t like Hae-gi due to the fact that he’s such a pretty boy. Ha-da is very arrogant and egotistical, thinking himself to be the best thing to be born on Earth. 

Either that day or the next, to show up Hae-gi, Ha-da decides to invite everyone to Romeo, the most popular club in Seoul. So-na gets involved, helping out Ha-da, to try and get everyone in class to go, including Hae-gi, so she makes a little game out of it: you and your seat mate bring out three items, the other person has to guess which one is the others’ most prized possession, they take the item and switch back at the end of the night at Romeo’s. So-na ends up with a marble for Hae-gi and Hae-gi ends up with So-na’s mother’s key to “Snow Drop” nursery, thanks to Ha-da who literally gave it to him. 

Later that night at Romeo, Hae-gi tries to get his marble back from So-na who refuses until the end of the night. So-na ends up losing the marble! And Ha-da and Hae-gi have a drinking contest, which is rigged because Ha-da put cough syrup in all of Hae-gi’s shots. So-na helps Hae-gi home but doesn’t take back her mother’s key because she has a conscious. She tells him the next day that she lost his marble and he gets really mad, refusing to give her item back. 


In the end, she does get the key back but ends up gaining feelings for Hae-gi and Hae-gi for her. Also, she finds out what his name means, Hae-gi, short for Hae-Ba-Ra-Gi, “sunflower by summer,” which is from her mother’s book. Hae-gi’s mother is in the hospital and he was modeling to save up enough money for a procedure so she can get better but regular modeling isn’t enough. Soon enough Hae-gi turns to nude modeling! He tries to quit school and focus on modeling for the money. Drama ensues and new characters pop up: Charles, who is the photographer for the nude modeling; Sun-mi, who is Charles’ cousin and So-na’s nemesis from way back in school, before So-na dropped out; Hwi-rim, So-na’s fiancé dictated by her father; Ko-mo, meaning cosmos and stands for autumn, Hae-gi’s younger brother.

Many things end up happening and So-na and Hae-gi are finally together, but it doesn’t last long with Hwi-rim popping up trying to break them up along with Sun-mi, who had been trying since before they got together. Ko-mo and Ha-da meet and Ha-da is in love but doesn’t know Ko-mo’s true gender until later on and even then ends up confused because he genuinely loves Ko-mo and Ko-mo loves him too. Hae-gi’s mother’s surgery went well and she gets better, but things turn for the worst when So-na’s father finds out she’s dating Hae-gi, of all people. Much more drama ensues that tries to break up these two but their feelings for each other are too strong.

(SPOILER WARNING! END)

I don’t want to delve too much into the story, it really is very dramatic and a lot of events happen. It’s basically as dramatic as Peach Girl by Miwa Ueda, but a little more so. There is a happy ending to all this despite it looking like there won’t be. The future for So-na and Hae-gi seems so bleak until the end. It really hits me because you never know if a relationship will work out, but if you work hard enough and put effort in on both sides, you can have a happy ending too, no matter what happens.

I honestly really loved this story, and would love to reread it in a licensed format. The only way for someone to read this series nowadays it to go on a manga piracy site or if you have all twelve volumes from when they were published by Tokyopop. I hope this gets picked up by Seven Seas or something. Not enough manga that were dropped, when Tokyopop and DelRey went under, were revived. Thanks for reading everyone! I’ll be sure to post next week!

Please let me know in the comments what you thought! Do you want to read this series? Did you read it before and did you like it?