Bambi

by Park Young Ha

Synopsis
A beautiful story of Courage, Friendship, Betrayal, and Love....

Review
The synopsis tells you almost nothing about this story, unfortunately. The author explains that she got the idea for the story from the fairy tale, "The Swan Prince," which I think we in the English-speaking world know as "The Six Swans." In it, six boys are turned into swans, with only their sister who toils to be able to return them to human form. In the end, they become human again, except for one, whose left arm remains as a wing. It's not important to the story to know the fairy tale, but it does help to understand how she used it.

Anyway, it begins with a girl who after the first few panels, loses her memory. Yeah, a little cliche, but it works for this story. She's rescued by a young man whose right arm is a wing. The first couple of chapters are goofy, as the girl tries to regain her memory, while living with the young man and his master.

Soon, the main events in the story begin revealing themselves, and the girl, Bambi, begins regaining her memory, and we see who was actually behind her memory loss, and how her friend has a wing for an arm. It's actually a very cute, sweet, story, which I think improves once the author gets into the main plot, and doesn't focus so much on goofy humor. I can see how she used the fairy tale, yet also how she changed it to suit her story idea. The result is a western fairy tale with a lot of asian uniqueness. I wish I could talk about more, but I don't want to spoil it, especially since it's only one volume.

Final thought: Worth reading, perhaps even owning as it's only one book.