Deconstructing romance through misdirection

~~~__My Joy:
An intriguing, joyless romance__

~~~

I didn’t enjoy “My Joy.”

It was never once funny, it sorely lacked wholesome moments, and the direction of its character development left me hugely dissatisfied.

While this may seem like a stern warning to steer clear, the very reason I’m writing this review (my first on AniList, btw!) is to express my conflicted feelings on this 2013 manhwa. It’s important to note that this is a romantic drama, heavy on the drama. Beyond a shallow exploration of the joys of budding romance (which the AniList synopsis and the first 22 chapters fool you into believing is the story's main goal), “My Joy” really deals with the the rocky foundations and emotional dissonance of friendship and romance. And it does so by cleverly reversing readers’ expectations by twisting the common romance protagonist archetype.

Kindly note that the rest of this review/analysis contains comprehensive plot spoilers. While I doubt many will read this, if you ever feel like discussing the story or my review, feel free to leave a reply on my activity post.

Things look fairly peachy until the 22nd chapter of this 26-chapter series. At first, the story follows the extremely worn trope of starting a relationship, fending off a love rival, and finding happiness in an unexpected place. I’ve certainly read my fair share of these stories — this is why I started this one in the first place. If the series had continued like this, I would have given it a 5/10 just because it lacks sufficient visual cues or slice-of-life wholesome moments to accentuate blooming love that other works have. Overall, I’d have been fairly satisfied but unlikely to remember it in a few months’ time.

The problem lies with Joy Kwon.

By design, we know almost nothing about Joy, the protagonist. She is cute, short, has a nice smile, and likes photography. She is bad at playing the drum game at the arcade. That’s it. Throughout the series, we are shown the thoughts, flashbacks, and dreams of the two love interests, Namsu and Hye-Yeon. The former has an entire chapter unnecessarily dedicated to a wet dream of Joy, while the latter has multiple well-done chapters focused on her childhood featuring a young Joy as well as her past.

Joy gets almost no inner monologue and has no flashbacks or backstory of her own.

You’d be forgiven for not seeing this as a huge red flag given that she neatly fits into the archetype of the balanced, well-rounded, and nice romance protagonist around whom the world is tidily constructed. You can only see her monologue in chapter one (the start) and chapter 22 (the climax). Understanding her character is made even more difficult since Pito purposely excludes vital scenes by obscuring dialogue bubbles before returning to them much later on in the story. By the time you realise that the two love interests are the only ones who have received any character development, it’s too late.

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Joy starts a relationship with Namsu early on in the series and the latter has the time of her life, all giddy and overjoyed that Joy is hers — standard romance storytelling. And this pure relationship continues until the 22nd chapter with Hye-Yeon content on the ride and supportive of Joy and Namsu’s relationship as their friend. Then, in the last panel of the 22nd chapter, Joy is revealed to have been cheating on Namsu with Hye-Yeon the entire time. The obscured dialogue in the above image is from chapter 12 and the reader only learns in chapter 23 that Joy and Hye-Yeon promise to secretly date behind Namsu's back in this scene.

We have four chapters to revisit the previously obscured scenes and deal with the fallout. Yet Joy doesn’t show any remorse and is completely unapologetic after being caught.

Therein lies the twist. Pito cleverly uses the very trope of a friendly yet extremely ordinary girl to disguise the fact that we haven’t learnt anything about Joy’s personality.

Joy is not outwardly belligerent or rude, so she’s not a standard romance antagonist either. And because we get no insight into her character, we can’t even see her as a troubled soul trying to come to grips with her problem. Instead we get… nothing, which is extra crushing considering how we’re led to believe she’s a normal, happy girl and considering the ostensible positive progress of her relationships.

That the twist came so late isn’t a bad thing either. It is clear that there is nothing more to Joy’s deeply flawed and unwittingly manipulative personality that more chapters can solve. It is clear that Hye-Yeon is completely content being at Joy’s side in a loveless relationship. It is clear that Namsu is distressed but thankfully able to disentangle herself from this mess and try to restart her life. (I am totally team Namsu — I hope sweet girl lives her best life away from the toxic Joy and Hye-Yeon.)

~~

So is this a satisfying end? As the low ratings and criticism might suggest, the answer is a fairly resounding “no.” But what would the solution be? Joy is very specifically moulded to be an outwardly friendly but internally empty girl. The unravelling of her character happens unexpectedly but, when taking into account her lack of character development, it is not surprising. If she were to seek forgiveness or make amends, this would be a sudden and unexplained shift in the story’s tone and relegate “My Joy” into the realm of underwhelming, uninspired manhwa.

Whether this would have been preferable to the sucker punch ending we got is up to debate. Don’t get me wrong — this story wasn’t at all what I wanted or expected. If I had known there would be this cruel twist, I absolutely wouldn’t have read this. I read for enjoyment and fluffy, dumb-happy scenes, not to encounter cruel relationship drama. The execution of this twist is solid but not perfectly crafted.

Despite all this, I find myself respecting Pito’s choice to build up and shatter expectations in an organic way. I might not like the story but I do like how the mangaka forces readers to rethink the standard romance protagonist archetype and re-examine the role of the mangaka as a storyteller — obscuring vital plot elements and dragging the reader along for the ride, none the wiser that there is so much happening with the protagonist (who is supposed to be the focal point of this story) behind the scenes.

I didn’t enjoy “My Joy.”

It was joyless, it betrayed my expectations, and the direction it took was cruel. But in “My Joy,” Pito created exactly what they set out to create: a sordid, gloomy tale of toxic relationships and concealed characterisation, bundled in a seemingly standard romance.

~~~sushi rating:
🍣🍣🍣🍣🍣🍣🥢🥢🥢🥢~~~