Significance of Nina Jalhae...
Or Why the Art Sucks So Much

In early 1990s, Korea signed a trade agreement with Japan, which included cultural items. One of the first things to land in Korean soil was Dragon Ball and Slam Dunk. Within two years, the Korean shounen manga scene was obliterated, being replaced with Japanese imports. Korean manga artists were relegated to niche markets, to "adult" comics and some shoujo. And who can blame the Korean audience? Instead of simplistic morality plays with mostly mediocre art, you had fantastic eye candy with outladish plots and manga with definite pacing problems that stretched 40 minutes into 12 tankoubons. And so for a while, the market was flooded with translated Japanese manga and their imitators.

In the mid-90s, manga artist Cho Woon Hak had wanted to try something different. Cho, who was mainly known in the heydey of Korean Manga in the 80s as mainly a wuxia manga artist, and one of the two leading manga magazines CHANCE, risen from the ashes that once was Shounen Central (Sho Yeon Joong Ang) and Treasure Island (Bomulseom), started an experiment of a shounen action manga with a school setting, a highly popular genre of Japanese manga at that time in Korea.

The first few volumes were painful to read, admittedly. Cho's style was shifting...his original cramped, messy pen work for more serious/tragic material was being replaced with simpler, thicker lines and super-deformed faces suitable for a comedy manga. So for the first year, the art looked odd and misshapen at times, especially with the female lead. But as the series gained steam, Cho's art settled down, and while not quite being up to the level of cuteness as some of the Japanese stuff, by about volume 10, the art wasn't cringe-inducing either.

And since the series had classic Korean humor instead of translated Japanese humor, the title was able to take the audience to levels of comedy that is impossible for an imported work. And with the addition of action scenes interspaced throughout the comedy, the series was wildly successful in Korea, spawning 50 volumes. Although the publisher claims that it's the first series to reach 50 volumes in Korea, that's not true. Several series by Park Bong Sung and Lee Hyun Sae had reached 50 volumes in the 80s.

What is true though is that it is the first manga to reach 50 volumes solely on the strength of it's inclusion in a comics magazine. And it is certainly the first Korean drawn shounen manga to reach that high a number of volumes released since the Japanese invasion. And it is probably the first Korean series to consistently beat imports in popularity since the invasion. In fact, Nina's popularity gave rise to a new generation of manga artists that you see today, such as Unlimited Unlimited, Black God, Jjang, and Shin Angyo Onshi that you see today, to name a few, merging Japanese style art with Korean plots and sensibilities.

Will we be able to finish all 50 volumes? Hey, I'm not snoopycool, you know, so can't promise anything. But we will continue for as long as possible, since aside from being such a popular and significant comic in Korea, it has a pretty good plot to boot.

But with 50 volumes, it just takes a little while to get there, that's all.

I have a question how do you define manwha by where it is published first or by the nationality of the creators?