Diamond Dust

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Diamond Dust is a powerful manhwa story that does not hesitate in portraying strong emotions and tragedy in the story of two young creative people - it's a story about how a chance meeting with someone can have such a powerful effect on your life that is changes it forever.

Moon Hye Rin is a young piano prodigy whose parents do not let her do anything but music. She practices all day, is homeschooled, does not socialize and has to wear gloves to protect her hands.

When she meets an independent musician JooWon by chance when on tour, she is transformed by the experience of someone who ... has freedom and loves his music with his whole heart and plays because he wants to play and what and where he wants to play not because he is told to. The story follows their decision to love despite tragedy.

This story will make you cry.

I read this as a webtoon and in that way there is music on the daum site which plays along with it for my fellow music lovers out there.

Now that it is finished it is being published as a paperback AND being made into a drama for you K drama fans.

This is more of a seinen or a josei - ( although it's a manhwa and those tags don't quite fit but I would not categorize this as a shounen at all ) They are young adults. The art, the music and the story are all so good. It is a tragedy so parts of this story are rough emotionally.

Because this story does not deviate from a strong course I would consider this a masterpiece a 10 - Bravo - to the maestro writer / artist for making a manhwa that reads like a piece of music that makes you cry. I absolutely loved this.

I usually write a review when I feel that more people should know about the story that a I have read. I have had this feeling when I finished to read Diamond Dust.

Sincerely I don’t want to write a summary of this story. You can just read to synopsis that has on MAL. I want to write reasons to you read this manhwa.

Don’t expect a happy ending in Diamond Dust, it’s a utopia. The author explores one of the most sad theme to me, diseases. In Diamond Dust we have a child who had her childhood stolen by her parents to become ... a famous pianist and, in the other side, a guy who wants to live his dreams but he can’t. (I won’t give spoils here, it’s just what I can say)

The pallid colors that the author uses match perfectly with the environment of the story which almost all the time happens at a hospital. It’s a beautiful and deep story to you reflect about how you living your life, if you are living as you want or you are just doing what people expects from you. Diamond Dust all the time is a contrast about want to live and want to die.

All the time I was reading, I imagined the song that they talk about in the story. I have read all the story on the Sunday morning and I cried in the end. I wish this story get a movie adaptation. I would cry a lot ...

-Recommended for: People looking for a deeply emotional, soul-searching story about two people supporting one another in the midst of crisis
-Not recommended for: Readers who want comedic moments, steamy romance, or a happy ending.

-Story (8/10): I picked up this manhwa as a filler story with rather mediocre expectations - "oh look, another story about a young, burnt out piano prodigy pushed to the limit by her parent's strict and unrealistic expectations". I have read a lot of different manga that follow that general recipe, but this story added several new and unexpected elements that allowed it to move far beyond that basic plotline. ...

From a more technical standpoint, the story had good pacing and a clear plotline to follow.

-Art (7/10): The style was fairly standard for what I come across from digital manhwa/webcomics, and the quality was consistent and good. I especially liked how the facial expressions were rendered.

-Characters (9/10): The characters were, by far, the strongest part of this story. The author does a superb job of getting the readers to feel emotionally invested and attached to the main characters. I can count on one hand the number of manga that have moved me to tears, and this is one of them. Watching the characters as they grow as individuals, confront their own psychological battles, learn to support one another, and come to terms with unavoidable tragedy was beautiful to see.

This series has changed my life. I recommend people to read this series because it gets you to reflect your past. The question this book is trying to tell you, "What does it mean to live"? Life is really strange filled with many unexpected events that will happen.

You will encounter a "Piano prodigy" who lived most of her life playing the piano, but not have "truly lived". Then you will see a musician who had the freedom to do whatever he wants BUT he encounters a mental obstacle that will change his life forever.... (Read what actually happened to him).

There are happy ... moments in your life and dark and depressing, but that's the reality we all have to face, even if the series focuses on 2 people, as a society, we all have to face reality. Reality sucks and life is not fair, even if someone is rich or poor, all of us have to fight for what we want.

I love this (Manhwa) because it really digs deep into human emotions and there are some sensitive moments. In the future when you are independent, what will you do, what do you want to do in your life to make you "happy". What does true happiness mean to you? Why do you want to do the things you wanted to do?

I am not going to explain about the plot, but you have to go through this unknown experience by yourself. But keep in mind, is life fair?
Overall, I love this alot and when I read this, I've reflected the things I haven't done in my life. Also, the world is a vast place, nobody lives the same life as you, but our goal is to find what we want....... "Happiness".

Apologies beforehand, I feel like this is more of my afterthoughts on how I feel after reading this story instead of a proper review ;- ;

I wished I could have loved this story more. The first thing that drew my attention to this work was because of its heavy involvement regarding music. I could understand how Hyerin felt and the way she was raised by her parents (prioritising playing the piano) since I too had been taking piano lessons for 10yrs - especially during the nail polish scene. Somehow, I got disconnected from the story along the way. I don’t appreciate the sudden jumps in ... time throughout the chapters; as an example, I was convinced that past chap17 the upcoming chapters were all events that had already happened. Maybe it’s because I’m used to panels being black and white from reading manga, hence when the background is black it’s more distinctive/indicative that these moments are flashbacks. Since in manhwas and webtoons there are coloured panels, ig it didn’t really stand out to me as I continued scrolling past.

Another factor to consider might be because I wasn’t reading this with the provided music intended to accompany readers’ reading experience. As of writing this, it is 2022 and there is no Daum site anymore since it has shifted to become Kakao WEBTOON. Trying to read on this site would mean reading the comic in the original Hangul despite having the music. Call me lazy, but I’d much prefer to be on PC instead if I’d need to set-up several tabs to enjoy the music while reading (this was the case when I was reading ‘About Death - Sini; Hyeono’)

Besides that, perhaps this would have moved me a bit more had I read it in its original language; Korean. As a K-pop fan, I’ve slowly learned to realise that the Korean language (and Japanese too tbh) is much more complex than meets the eye. I’ve always admired the wordplay that artists were able to conjure with these languages in their lyrics because it shows depth in the message/story they’re trying to convey. Many times have I wondered, “Eh, these lyrics are kinda trash and have no meaning. What even is the message of this song?” only to be followed by the thought that maybe, I only feel this way because there is some subtle wordplay at work that can’t be fully translated or conveyed in the English language (or other languages). ~I understand this may not always be the case, but these days it’s a thought that I’ve become more aware of :’D~

A final reflection I wanted to share is maybe, I’ve never experienced something as impactful similar to this story. To be very honest, I feel as if I only partially understood this story. These characters continue to discover more of themselves and change. They also learn that maybe, it’s not so bad to want to live if it meant doing it together with someone who cares; even if it’s just one person who loves and believes in you. I personally have never met that someone whom I thought would wholeheartedly believe in me and support me no matter what the circumstances ~hah, a subtle way of saying I’ve never dated either lol~ and because of that, maybe as of right now I’m also incapable of perceiving such a feeling. Hence, the message of this story kinda fell flat for me. However, I hope that this story was a moving piece that resonated to some people regardless.