Relationship Guidelines

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Relationship Guidelines has a lot to love, but it's too often muddied by overbearing melodrama that's more frustrating than it is entertaining.

The primary cast of Jiwon, Myeongin, Seyoun, and later Jooeun, are all complex characters that are deeply layered and who feel very realistic and human. It's fairly slow paced, with most of the manhwa taking place over the course of a school year, but it eventually does include a few major time skips. In this time, each of the primary cast members grow, mature, and have their personalities and values develop as they do. Seyoun in particular went from seemingly serving as a contrivance ... for tension in Jiwon and Myeongin's relationship to becoming one of if not the most compelling characters in the entire narrative. Her story really blossomed and her resolution pre-time skip was the most satisfying beat in the whole story. It's no wonder she and Jooeun were the primary focus for most of the epilogue chapters.

Jiwon and Myeongin's relationship too serves as a consistent rock to keep the reader engaged enough in the broader narrative. Relationship progress happens much more quickly than in far too many other manga/manhwa with similar plots; Relationship Guidelines is focused on more than just the question of if/when a couple gets together, but what happens once they do.

It's refreshing! So many romance stories seem wholly preoccupied with the chase and never even dream beyond the catch. Relationship Guidelines, thankfully, does not fall into that trap. Its characters are a persistent highlight anchoring the audience as they actually experience a very welcome amount of growth and development.

These character moments - moments of growth, complexity, and depth - are wonderful when they actually happen.

The problem underpinning most of Relationship Guidelines is how frustrating it is to actually force yourself to read. The conflict between characters can, wholesale, be remedied by literally any character honestly communicating with any other at any point; it's the kind of nauseating melodrama that leaves you just wanting to rip your hair out. Romeo and Juliet, even in their most overexaggerated, parodic incarnations, have better conflict avoidance and communication skills than any character in Relationship Guidelines. Every time another unnecessary fight, miscommunication, or some baseless frustration occurs between the characters, the manhwa gets harder and harder to enjoy for what works.

And the characters themselves are aware of this consistent problem; their inability to honestly communicate and not jump to absurd conclusions becomes an actual plot point later in the series. It's just a shame that it happened far too late to have any actual bearing on the overall impression the 60-odd preceding chapters had already left entrenched in the readers; which isn't to say that explicit authorial awareness of a problem even actually, you know, fixes that problem. It also didn't help that all progress on that front was subsequently lost in the epilogue chapters that, at least where Jiwon and Myeongin were concerned, retread the same melodramatic ground as the primary series.

Relationship Guidelines, taken as a whole, begs a single question: do the ends justify the means? Is it worth slogging through genuinely painful levels of some of the worst melodrama in romance manhwa in order to get to the cute relationships with complex, deep characters? Unfortunately, there's no clear answer. Everyone's individual tolerance to miscommunication-conflict will determine if they can appreciate all of the incredible good in this story without being burned too badly in the process.

I didn't quite get there myself.