LES BIJOUX VOL. 1

Comics fans will have to exert themselves extra-hard to enjoy this Korean manga by two young women. It has manga's familiar but disconcerting tendency for characters to turn into cute little bobblehead dolls under stress; it plays to the sub-genre's fascination with the romantic woes of beautiful, androgynous young men; and it features a hero who literally transforms from male to female without warning, as well as other characters who are sometimes birds or panthers. The characters' unpredictable identities contribute to a seriously confusing jumble of events. The story takes place in a fantastic world divided into little nations. The ruling class, Habits, treats the Spar commoners very badly, but even Spars discriminate against others. One outcast couple is a dwarf mine worker married to a female hunchback, whose doubly cursed child, called Lapis as a boy but Lazuli when a girl, is extremely brave and pretty; in fact, he/she is The Chosen One who will remake the world. Of course, Lord Daimon, cruelest but loveliest of the Habits, loves Lazuli but hates Lapis—he doesn't realize they're the same person—so when Daimon murders Lapis's parents, the lad pokes one of his eyes out to teach him a lesson. Park's art relies on manga cliches, with the supposedly heroic dwarf looking for all the world like a cement lawn ornament, while the tone of Jo's script, even allowing for sloppy translation, veers from awestruck to cutesy. None of the discordant parts is impressive enough to draw readers past the incoherent plot so they could get more pleasure than perplexity out of this odd tale. (Feb.)