Posted in: Comics, Review | Tagged: digital comics, Kim Sujin, manta, namu, romantasy, Under the Oak Tree, webcomic, webnovel

Under the Oak Tree: A Romantasy with Korean Emotional Intensity

Under the Oak Tree is currently the most popular romantasy webnovel and webcomic, is a Korean take on Western Romantasy with more intensity

To read Under the Oak Tree is to experience a kind of culture shock. It's a romantic fantasy or romantasy that feels both familiar and, strangely, shockingly foreign. Set in a fantasy medieval world common in the genre, the story of a sheltered and timid Duke's daughter forced by her abusive father into a political marriage with a lowborn knight and the evolution of their agonizingly fraught relationship from mutual distrust to a genuine love that gives her the strength to come into her own feels like almost every romantasy, almost archetypal, but also weirdly new, both predictable and unpredictable at the same time that's become a common trait in Korean romantic saga.

The Endless Romantic Conflict of Under the Oak Tree

The main conflict of every romance is the forces that keep the lovers from coming together. These forces are, ideally, for a story, both internal and external. In the case of Under the Oak Tree, the forces that keep Lady Maximillian and Sir Riftan apart start as almost entirely internal. Forced into a marriage, Lady Maximillian, already meek and passive from years of abuse by her father, is terrified of the prospect of what she has to do as a wife. Her survival depends on staying married lest she be discarded as waste, but she fears having to submit to her husband in the bedroom and having to please him, which she doesn't know how to do. Sir Riftan, himself broken by his own traumas, feels unable to express his emotions and true feelings. He is in love with his wife but doesn't know how to show it, and fears she resents him due to the forced marriage and takes himself off to war, thinking that might spare her and himself the pain. She then fears that he might either die and leave her widow at the mercy of her father or that he might return alive to abuse her. These are lovers already married and living together, sharing a bed, but kept apart due to their own fears of themselves and forces outside. And that's just the set-up.

A 21^st Century Update of Classic Serialised Novels of the 19^th Century

Under the Oak Tree, both the novel by Sujin Kim and the graphic novel adaptation by scripter namu and artist P, is the most popular story on the web portal Manta, and the first collection of the graphic novel is currently the bestselling graphic novel on Amazon. That says a lot for the series' appeal, and it is an ongoing serial with increasingly an complex plotline as Lady Maximillian and Sir Riftan come together to fend off forces who would not only come between them but also threaten the kingdom and their lives. The saga will run for as long as possible, like a 19th-century serialized novel. Seeing that form revised and updated to the digital age is fascinating.

A Korean Interpretation of a Western Genre

Sujin Kim, the author of Under the Oak Tree, writes the story as a Western romantasy filtered through a Korean lens, so there's a feeling of guardrails and safety catches taken off. Korean stories tend to be more emotionally extreme and intense, so the story strongly emphasizes Lady Maximillian's trauma and abuse from her father more than many Western writers would, past the point of comfort, so that she finds her strength and agency as she and Sir Riftan finally come together as equals becomes more dramatically fulfilling. Yet the popularity of the series, both the prose and the comic versions where you see everything, seems to indicate tens of millions of readers worldwide find something to relate to and even catharsis. We should never dismiss romance novels as merely frivolous or disposable because many readers find something emotionally rewarding and significant in sales and culture.

Under the Oak Tree is serialised at Manta in both prose and manhwa form. Volume One of the collected graphic novel and the prose novel are now available.

Under the Oak Tree

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Review by Adi Tantimedh

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8/10

The first part of the most popular romantasy serial on Manta, Under the Oak Tree is a Western-style romantasy filtered through a Korean lens, which means the emotional intensity and the heroine's trauma are cranked way up so that her gradual awakening to strength as her relationship with the lowborn knight she's forced to marry slowly becomes one of equals for maximum catharsis. The popularity of the series seems to indicate readers find it emotionally rewarding.

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