I don't even know where to begin.

    Art is BLAH. Nothing special; like any typical manga writer, this writer intends to make all the characters look cool by adding a bada$$ personality to Pan and Miho. This backfires because Miho at times pretends to be this cold superior btch towards normal people and then acts like a scared little girl when attacked by demons or when she is around Pan. Obviously, she's got nothing but a big mouth to back up her ugly personality. Pan is actually bearable; he's this killer monk that slaughters demons so his evil and ugly personality matches him. Any new characters introduced, have inconsistent personalities created for them. The creator apparently wasn't giving much thought about individual person; there's no character-building and no lesson-learned throughout this whole story. Long story short, the mangaka was an idiot and this book is proof that it's a failure manga. DON'T READ.

... Last updated on April 5th, 2019, 11:50am

It starts okay, fairly well. The art for the demons makes me nostalgic for Phantasy Star. The battles are pretty quick and kinda easy. There's no immediate over arching story that you can find right away.

But the really big problem is that the main character is needlessly bitchy. I don't expect her to be a saint but she goes beyond things going wrong for a person into an actively bitchy. With her attitude, any good she's done seems inexplicable. There doesn't seem to be a logical connection.

Let me add that the problem with this story isn't a cliched unoriginality, and it's not mediocre either. It isn't a series that JUST does things decent or competently. The problem comes from the plot being paced just slightly off. The artist clearly wanted to make his main characters bad people. But it would have been better to just make the girl a regular kinda bad, he gets too into a stereotypical bitch bad for her. It doesn't seem the type to do what she did to get to the island, or go see a troubled student just cause it involves a demon especially since she didn't want to go deal with her before she knew about the demon. Storywise, there's no reason she couldn't have gone without knowing of the demon, then learn the story, then get the guy to kill it.

... Last updated on January 7th, 2011, 7:10am

This manhwa had an interesting beginning, an interesting middle, and an interesting conclusion... of three different stories chopped up and slapped together into one, that is. In other words, the beginning does not match the middle and the middle does not match the end.

As others have remarked, there is inconsistency in the character development- you literally have people turning from "good" to "evil" or from "evil" to "good" in the span of a couple chapters with no explanation whatsoever about their abrupt personality change. One particular character springs to mind as being nice in one chapter, super evil in the next volume, nice again a couple chapters later, evil some chapters after that, and ended up as a saint. And no, he was not possessed.

Now, as someone said, stories are supposed to evolve, but just as a dog cannot evolve into a bird in 100 years, this story should not change from fantasy/horror to political commentary in about 30 chapters. It was just extremely bizarre, and as a result neither the fantasy/horror plot nor the political commentary plot were fully elaborated upon. The origin of the demons is not known, and the problem of the demons attacking the protagonist vanished after ~15 chapters without any sort of explanation other than "and they are gone timeforanewstoryyay". The political agenda was way too forceful- I've seen more subtle cartoons in The Economist, and such political overtones did not show up until the latter half of the manhwa which makes it seem like an afterthought rather than planned out.

The characters were extremely static. There was almost no change in the protagonist from the start of the manhwa to the end. The only difference is that her "mean attitude" at the start of the manhwa was inappropriate because she was a teacher but her same attitude was appropriate at the end because she was dealing with political corruption. Even Pan, the most enigmatic character just faded in and out of the picture, often showing up just to kill demons for 2 panels and then disappearing. In the end, there was almost nothing explained about him. Other than the couple characters that had 180* personality flip flops throughout the manhwa (and some of them had gender flip flops too), the rest of the characters did not evolve or progress throughout the course of the manhwa. Mostly it just seemed like the author kept introducing more and more characters to play a designed role and then forgetting about them later.

Back to the political commentary- I have always been a believer of "less is more". This manhwa was pretty ruthless in its depiction of the evils of a certain country while maintaining the purity of another certain country. Then, every couple of chapters, the author would insert a page of disclaimer-esque dialogue that said "oh but we are all equal" and "violence is bad", but then continue for another 30 pages of very blatant painting of the evil of the aforementioned country yet again.Closer analysis of the manhwa will show that there is clear bias for one side over the other and any dialogues saying otherwise rings very false.

One the bright side, the art was good and the fighting scenes were good. Everything else was just all over the place without any real plot cohesion. I, for one, was relieved that it was as short as it was, so that less of my time was wasted reading this. The plot itself is fundamentally flawed so I will kindly disagree that dragging it out for another 10 volumes would have made it much better.

If you want good art, action, and a solid plot, do yourself a favor and go over to Shin Angyo Onshi by the same author(s) instead. If you want action and political commentary, go over to Akumetsu or Sanctuary. If you just want some zombies, try Dawn - Tsumetai Te- or even Highschool of the Dead is better than this. This manhwa is seriously in the "skip unless bored and out of things to read and just want to kill time" category.

this was a really good read the characters were interesting and the plot wasn't confusing however my one major problem with this that it could have gone for another 10+ volumes there was nothing explaining pan's past which is disappointing since he was a cool character other than that that its a solid manhwa.

I would like to say that this manhwa was great. The art was great as well and Pan is most certainly a badass character. I'm a bit dissapointed though, it ended so shortly it could have made at least 20+ volumes based on the storyline and we could also learn about Pan's past and maybe, just "maybe" something may develop between Miho and Pan ^^, though doubt that would happen because of his attitude x)

I'm really glad i picked up this manhwa, very entertaining story with great characters and tons of action. I liked the way the author combined Korean folkore and Japanese history and brought a execllent story and great art, so what's the problem?

Well, the author ended it without sorting alot of things out (even though i know there's a novel for it) which would have spanned many volumes, i.e. Pan's past, which i looked forword to the most but was disappointed.

For anyone reading Seinens, this is a must read for you.

P.S. To respond the Neofit's comments below, the story has to evolve, if it keeps with the same story line of just running around just owning demons it would have gotten boring to alot of people.

... Last updated on May 26th, 2009, 6:26pm

I really liked this manwha, I even stayed up late to read it through. the main female character was awesome, and I loved her attitude about everything. The reason it didn't get a better rating from me is because the ending dropped the ball so horribly. I absolutely hate it when stories do this, and if the plot hadn't been so great I would have rated it even lower.

I don't believe this series went on the path it originally started. From the story of a feisty woman on the run from demons that want to rape/kill her (for the first 3 volumes there is a noticeable sexual motive to the series) that seeks the help of a serial murderer, to a a story about the exposure of war crimes. It completely changed into a whole different story that might as well be a different series with different characters altogether. That's all fine and dandy but it's not what I expected when I started to read. It affected character development and left many unanswered questions.
I hope the series will be continued as promised, in order to bring it back on it's initial direction.

this manhwa has one of the best girl-characters out of anything I have read so far. I must add tho that I HATED Blood+ and the whimsy chick.. *shivers* I enjoyed Won Miko very much. each chapter was a treat. as were her reactions. haha, priceless. oh, while talking about characters, I have to add that I want to know the history of Pan!! pisses me off not having a clue.. meh.
one thing I really didn't like was the use of religion for well.. fighting. I have no problem whatsoever with fighting (on the contrary), but all the monk/priest/etc thing is annoying me somewhat.. "Priest" manga I am actually having less problems digesting, but that is because it is more on the psycho level so ya.. The story didn't flow like it could. it had bumps and pieces of road missing.. I have to say that I enjoyed it tho. it wasn't perfect, nor one of the best I've ever read. but it was fun. with the best "MWAHAHAH" kind of chick! I would marry one like this if I could find her.. so, to make it easier for me.. FIND ME!

my suggestion, go read it. I was hesitant at first but I liked it. art is also quite awesome at time. and the pure "badass" thing rates quite high too. IT EVEN HAS THE ALIEN IN IT (ya know, the one from alien VS predator and the rest of the series). awesome version of it too..

Island is the first Manwha I've read and by far, it's the best manwha EVER!

I love how the plot morphs from demon hunting to something more....kicka**!!
but..I have to agree on the ending though..it's too......detached and open ended. I wish there could be more in the arcs...! v_____v;;;;;;

... Last updated on September 22nd, 2008, 10:56am