Probably this is my favorite manwha so far, except for Island (by the same creators). I would like to read more manwha, but when I looked last at what they were translating commercially, a lot of it was… uh, probably licensed quite cheaply.

Anyway, Shin Angyo Onshi, although created by two Koreans, was also serialized in translation in Japan during its run, and this means that there are notes by the author to Japanese readers explaining the folklore references. The story concerns Munsu, a traveling angyo onshi (an official who wanders around the country investigating other officials. As is noted in the manwha itself, like Mito Komon), who is seeking a man known as Aji Tae, the destroyer of the nation of Jushin. Jushin resembles a fantasy ancient Korea, although maybe it would be more accurate to say it’s more of an RPG fantasy world, with summoners and firearms, and stylishly anachronistic garments. Many of the adventures that Munsu has are based off of Korean folktales (although in a highly unorthodox way). I wished I had known more than just the legend of Chun Hyang, though. I should note that also, although the story at first seems to be half serious, half light-hearted, it eventually is pretty… grim, actually. Munsu is not the shounen hero as kid-who-is-cipher-for-reader, but a man with a past, a la Kenshin (tragic lost love) or Guts (loses everything through betrayal). And in storyline set in the present, there is a lot of “rocks fall, everyone dies.” The art is extremely pretty at times, and there are a lot of biseinen and bishoujo, for those of you who like that kind of thing. Although, I couldn’t help but laugh at the extreme skimpiness of Sando’s outfit. XD

With a lot of manga, I feel that the storyline is bloated and goes FAR much longer than the premise warrants, or the amount of cast members becomes ridiculously large in an attempt to get a moe character for every possible demographic reading, but with Shin Angyo Onshi, as in Amatsuki, I actually felt the opposite, that the story went too quickly. SAO is seventeen volumes, but I think it could have just as well gone up to thirty. There were lots of characters I wanted to find out more about, and sometimes the storytelling felt a bit too much like “telling, not showing.” On the whole, though, worth reading.