About Death

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The stories in Regarding Death are often tragic, beautiful, and generally a little heart-wrenching. They are well written and fit well together, and although the ending was a little sudden, it was very well done and very satisfying.

The art was visually appealing and interesting, but also simplistic enough to maintain a slightly surreal feeling. It was an excellent style and lent much to the story. Hipster God is perhaps the best God, haha.

Characters were not consistently shown in depth, but they did not need to be. Each individual was explored enough for readers to relate or emote or just understand the person accordingly. Their ... simplicity made the series better.

I enjoyed Regarding Death a lot; it made me feel for the characters and made death seem less frightening and more like what it is: a part of life.

This is one of the only story that I often returns too. Maybe because it's easy to read again with its few chapters. Perhaps because each chapter is independent of the others, which allows you to read any story you like.

God is the main character but prefers to listen to the characters explain their own story, even though we suspect that he knows them better than anyone else. He wants to make others aware of something, or just know how people interpret their own story, in their own way, and not in an omniscient way as he knows them.

Even if the art is not ... the best, it is simple. The interactions take over the drawings and allow them to express their emotions just as well.

About Death is a Korean comic which centers on the theme of people reflecting on their lives after their death or a near-death experience. It’s a relatively short and rather episodic series with most chapters being standalone stories in which God talks to one or more people who are experiencing death in some way. As with most anthology-style stories, this can be a bit of a mixed bag of sorts. Actually, being a “mixed bag” will be something of a running theme in this review. While About Death seems to be held in quite high regard by many people, I didn’t end up loving this ... series.

Without further delay, I’ll go ahead and get into my category breakouts:

-----Story - 6 out of 10-----
Nearly all of the chapters in this series involve God talking to people about death and the lives they lived before their death (or near-death experience). A few of the chapters lead into one another or get a call-back in a later chapter, but most stories stand on their own. I found a few of the stories to be genuinely touching, thought-provoking, and/or impactful; two of my favorite chapters were one involving a car accident and the one about mountain climbers. However, most of the stories just fell flat and began to feel very repetitive despite involving different people and ways of death. Some of the storytelling seems pretty cleaver, but much of that is dragged down by a feeling of pretension. Like the author KNOWS he is just being SO cleaver with some of his tricks. But hey, maybe that’s just me.

In the end, most of the stories just come off as “okay” at best and some are fully eye-roll-inducing (or even irritating), soiling the few high points. One chapter in particular involves a certain controversial subject which nearly pissed me off, but I’d like to assume that the slant given to this particular subject can be caulked up to cultural differences. I’d also like to touch on the fact that the translation can be an issue. The series is available for free on LINE Webtoon which is a Korean platform and the English version is just not all that great. I’m assuming that it was done in house by people whom have English as a second language. I don’t know if it would have been more enjoyable with a better translation, but as it stands, the English version is very distracting.

-----Art - 6 out of 10-----
The art in About Death is a total mixed bag and not really anything special. Sometimes the art is nice and clean with an interesting style, but at other times it’s a complete mess. The colored pages in particular don’t look all that great to me. Most of it is just muddied and I would have preferred it all be in black and white.

-----Characters - 6 out of 10-----
God is the only character in the series which is in nearly every chapter. He is a bit of a hipster-looking guy and I found him to be reminiscent of cool enigmatic adult male anime/manga characters like Ginko from Mushishi and Oshino from the Monogatari Series. For the most part, he is a good character who serves the purpose of the story well. But as the series goes on, he begins to feel more and more flat and his philosophical dialog isn’t helped by the spotty translation. Then all of the other characters, again, are a bit of a mixed bag. I found some of them to be interesting, relatable, and/or sympathetic, while others were just “there” and I couldn’t care less about their story or if they are actually dead or just haven’t a near-death experience. There was also one particular character who was somehow more of a pretentious hipster than God and the fact that him and God made this total bro-connection just made me laugh. I honestly suspect that guy to have been the author’s self-insert character.

-----Enjoyment - 6 out of 10-----
Again, the chapters in this series were very hit-or-miss with me. While some of them made me genuinely emotional, there were sadly far more misses than hits. I think much of the reason that I didn’t connect with the series more is that I might be a bit too experienced in death myself. I’ve had two major deaths take place in my life which shook my perspective on the subject. I’ve dealt with suicide attempts of a loved one. I’m in my mid-30s and have constant thoughts about my life, regrets, and inevitable oblivion. Maybe I would have connected with it more if About Death had a better delivery, better translation, etc. Maybe if I had different kinds of experiences with death I could have connected with it more? I don’t know. My enjoyment (or lack-there-of) for this series is probably far more personal than most other entertainment I’ve consumed, and I suppose that at least is something to be commended. It did give me some things to think about, even if those thoughts were largely, “Why did I not enjoy this very much?”

-----Overall - 6 out of 10 (Conclusion)-----
Did I give all of the categories in this review 6s on purpose? Am I trying to say that the “God” character might actually be the devil?! No, I just really think that everything about this series is just “fair” in the end. While it seems to be reaching for great and profound heights, it just didn’t make the grade, at least not from my perspective. However, the enjoyment of art and entertainment is almost wholly subjective and this is likely one of the biggest examples of that fact for me. While I found About Death to be a largely pretentious mixed bag of content in dire need of a better translation, others may find it to be truly profound and a creative fresh look at the subjects of death, regret, and life. And hey, it’s online for free and only 27 chapters long, so if it sounds interesting you should give it a shot for yourself!