Soul to Seoul Volume 2

by Marc Goldsmith, Kim Jea-Eun, Kim Jea Eun

As power and passion simmer to a head, Kai kills a man for the first time in his life. The victim: the Chinese gang leader. The price: dropping out of sight. Kai goes into hiding in the hopes of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1595323139
• ISBN13: 9781595323132
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: TokyoPop
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.4"
• Age Range: 13 years and up

Customer Reviews

Soul to Seoul: aka East Coast

My review is going to be mostly about the series itself, but also comparison between the original and the translation. This was a surprise to see something like this in English. I remember reading this in the original Korean language in comic rental shop around 2002. Since I liked the original book, I wanted to see what they did to it in translated version. The story is about young children, mainly of Koreans in America and Americans of Korean heritages. The series was originally titled "East Coast" and thus it takes place in, well, East coast in America. Gay undertones are present which is typical of Korean comics made for girls like this, but it's not too bad. Some name changes, like the title and character "K" into "Kai" is really hard to understand, since the original had them in English language to begin with and all, but it does add to the 'immigrant-life' atmosphere, so to say. Imagine if a Korean author had to draw her images of America without actually having lived in it-and that is exactly what the series is. It is not necessarily bad or good, as there are some serious inaccuracies easily spotted, but at the same time it is refreshing to see how Koreans in Korea romanticizes the land of USA. As a naturalized American of Korean origin I ended up appreciating the view, and for that alone I thought it was worth the $5. At times gang violence is heavily dramatized, but then again I think the best way to enjoy the series to see the USA portraited in the series as not the land I live in, but rather a fictional, parallel world.