Threads of Time

Title: Threads of Time
Year of Release: 1999
Status: Complete
Story: Noh Mi-young
Art: Noh Mi-young

This will be a rather short review, as it's a short series and there isn't much I can tell you without ruining everything. Threads of Time is a manhwa that tells the story of Moon Bin Kim, a high school student at the turn of the millennium who has a recurring dream about a girl with dark hair who he is always chasing but never seems to catch. I started reading the first couple volumes and kind of yawned to myself in a "ho-hum" fashion and braced myself for the worst. Luckily, that time didn't actually end up coming, and I found myself rather enjoying the series. It runs 11 volumes in total, and is a drama to the max. There is virtually no comedy in the story, and instead it focuses on historical events which are depicted as historically accurate.

Moon Bin Kim suffers an accident quite early in the story and sustains enough injury that his body goes into shock and he's placed in the hospital in a comatose state. While he's in a coma, he finds himself at some point in history, but he is not himself. Instead, he is Sa Kyung Kim, a son from a well known warrior clan from the middle of the first millennium, Korea. Man, that alone is enough to scare the crap out of him, until you tell him that Genghis Khan and his crew of merciless mongols are about to invade Korea and fuck his shit up. So now, Moon Bin Kim is stuck in the past about to face an army of mongols, and is totally comatose in the future and can't return from the past. Sounds like a bummer. Perhaps if you were to get shot with an arrow in the ribs you could get out of the army early? I heard they don't have a use for...

                         Let's pretend I didn't say that, then.

While I was a little confused with the ending to the story, it was extremely well written. Even though it isn't a fast-paced story, I felt that the historical elements of the story had roots that ran very deep throughout the series, which enriched it more in my eyes. Between the actions and personalities revealed by characters, and the realistic depictions of war throughout the story, I honestly felt like I had survived the mongols invading Korea by the end of the series. It's very rare for a manhwa or manga to be able to take me to a place such as that, and I commend the writer on such a fantastic job doing it. There is a little bit of a surprise twist at the end, although I did guess what it was leading up to the reveal in the last few chapters. There is also a little bit of that forbidden romance stuff going on as well, although the love interest doesn't play as large a part of the story as it seemed she would initially. Not necessarily on the top of my list, but if you are in the mood for a historically accurate drama with great artwork detailing, look no further than Threads of Time. Also, if you like swords that have ridiculously extravagant names, you'd probably like this too.