노답소녀

NODAB SONYEO

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
April 26, 2023
CHAPTERS
103

DESCRIPTION

Though she comes from a rich family, Ga-Bin is a bullied loner at school. That doesn't mean she puts up with bullying from other students, though -- Ga-Bin is infamous for her fierce personality. Worried about Ga-Bin's well-being, her family secretly offers Tae-Ung $500,000 to transfer schools and act as her bodyguard. Will Tae-Ung be able to protect her from the school bullies, all while keeping his identity hidden from Ga-Bin and the other students?

(Source: WEBTOONS)

CAST

Ga-Bin Kim
Tae-Ung Han
Do-Ha Kim
Su-Ho Yu

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Nevermind54
94/100
Maybe we're all kinda hopeless
I had an initial draft of a review planned, when I was around halfway through the story. It was just me venting my frustration about the manhwa then, but if you notice my score now, you'll see just to what extent I've changed my mind. A lot of plot points I felt to be too problematic or bad were resolved well. I can understand those who may have dropped it due to the start and the female lead, but for me this manhwa really got much better later on. I was quite unprepared for the emotional roller coaster this would turn out to be, I never thought I'd feel this much frustration, joy, sadness over a small webtoon, especially when I was seemingly so disappointed with it just a while back. That, to me, is a testament to how powerful this story truly is. At different points, you feel everything: frustration, happiness, and at times, pure misery. I got so emotionally invested I didn’t even realize it until much later. But let me get back to properly reviewing this.

For context, I had recently finished another manhwa related to bullying, and going into this I assumed a typical revenge story.. I was completely taken by surprise however, as unlike the traditional powerless victim of bullying, the titular 'hopeless girl', Kim Gabin- grand-daughter of a powerful business leader and extremely affluent- had a sharp tongue and would never back down from a fight against her bullies. Genuinely speaking, her personality might be considered almost toxic, especially at the start of the story. Our protagonist, Tae-ung is hired to secretly protect her as a body-guard and is enrolled as new transfer student in her class. Besides this there are some other common tropes this manhwa leans into like-
Gabin's childhood friend- another rich kid, who she supposedly had a crush on(and was apparently engaged to) and Tae-Ung's former classmate and long-time admirer who somehow happened to be in the same school as him, and still had a massive crush on him.
Despite these rather common plot decisions, the story does not execute them in a cliche manner, the characters all develop to the point where you'll stop to wonder at how much they've grown and many times the story took unexpected decisions with its characters Suho choosing to move away to US to be with his boyfriend for instance, or Daho becoming an ally to Gabin and Tae-ung's relationship instead of exposing the truth after knowing his secret What was initially a simple story about bullying, turned out to be much more than that. I unfortunately can't get into the specifics without spoiling but if you like stories with character growth and genuine friendship and love, then honestly I'd say it's well worth a read. You might get frustrated with Kim Gabin, especially at the start, because her guard is up so high against other people, it even leads her to do questionable stuff.. But it gets better, the writing on this manhwa, the growth each character faces, everything is incredibly well-done.

Spoiler-territory aka my stream-of-consciousness rambling

(feel free to skip, if you don't wanna see me ranting like I'm possessed)

I'll be honest, I never expected this story to end like that.
What does it feel like to meet an ex...one who you haven't gotten over yet, especially when your life is completely different from how it used to be when you were together. The pain, the resentment, the memories of the past, there's just so many diverse emotions that surface. They were forgotten- hidden away- until now.
I cried a lot re-reading the epilogue (for the sake of this review, I swear). I usually hate time skips in romance- with very few exceptions. They always feel artificial,like a lazy way to fast forward character development and tie off loose ends. "Oh they hated each other? But will they still feel the same 5 years later?",etc. Most of the time it simply seems like a convenient excuse for the author to guide the story to a happy ending. And most of the time, they're extremely predictable. But with this story, the author just caught me off guard. He managed to deliver around 98 chapters of incredibly moving romance, only for Tae-Ung to decide to sacrifice his relationship with Gabin- until he paid back his debt- to save his family. It's anti-climactic, most stories tend to follow a structure. By then, I was expecting her Grandmother's power to have dropped to a level where she wouldn't have threatened Tae-Ung's family. And even if she had, I was fully expecting him to somehow struggle through anyway. After all, he fought off nearly a dozen guards for Gabin's sake. Done so much just to be with her. I couldn't have imagined he'd throw it all away, just so she could live her life without having to suffer by his side. And then 6 years later, when they met again they realized that ultimately while both tried to move on and live separate lives, not wanting to bother the other's life after all this time- neither was able to let go of their feelings. It feels simple when I summarized it like that, but it's often how these situations are in real life too. Getting over someone you loved isn't easy, and it's even harder when there was no real closure. He had to leave her, she searched for him for a long time, began almost hallucinating him even, couldn't let go of his ghost and finally ended up writing her feelings down to escape from it. That's a very common story for many writers, writing allows you to confront your own feelings, your demons, your trauma by treating it as an object of fiction. But that's when she realized her feelings were deeper than just that.

We aren't shown Tae-Ung's perspective in the epilogue, and as such we are left with as little idea of what he's doing as Gabin is. It's a brilliant move from the author since, the chapter preceding their reunion ended with Gabin ultimately choosing to not contact him again, and hesitatingly deciding to move on. I honestly was worried it might turn into La La Land all over again. I know not every one might have liked the ending as much as I did, but it was that anxiety in mind that I read the closing chapter. A lot of the time, our appreciation of art isn't just about our preferences then, but also our expectations and state of mind. It applies to music, books, movies everything. Things I wouldn't have enjoyed when I was younger- movies like Shawshank Redemption, music like Radiohead, authors like Dostoevsky- are now things I can genuinely appreciate. As we mature, our identity and priorities change. And yet, we keep wanting to cling onto the past, as if there's still a chance to go back to the way it was.

In my opinion, we're all a bit hopeless too. I realized that as I read through this webtoon. There's so much I want to do, to become, but there are also many things I cannot let go of, despite knowing of its futility. As people, we have a tendency to be scared of the uncertain. Being stuck in a situation where you don't even know if the people you loved to be with in the past are still the same, is genuinely sort of terrifying. That's why I think this ending works so well. It made me realise how good a well written time-skip can be: haunting and beautiful. Gabin's biggest fear- the thing that wouldn't allow her to confront her past- wasn't her pride or her anger towards Tae-Ung. It was the idea that the man she loved maybe didn't exist anymore. She was afraid that going back to him now would only disrupt the life they had both built during those six years. And this is something we've all faced probably. I’ve lost count of how many friendships have faded simply because we fell out of touch. All it would’ve taken was a message. A call. And yet the distance felt insurmountable.

It takes courage to reach out again.

And so it's understandable why the two chose to suffer silently- constantly longing for the other, but convinced they had to move on. Still I'm glad that their story managed to find its way to a happy ending- even after all that time.

Final Thoughts

This isn't just a story about bullying or romance. It's a story about change. About memories. And about the ghosts we carry with us as we move forward.

Story: 8/10
Characters: 9/10
Art: 8/10
Enjoyment: 10/10
Emotional impact: 10/10

P.S. I mentioned Radiohead because I had Ok Computer on while reading and 'Let down' started playing during the epilogue. It just made everything hit even harder
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