Rating - ⭐⭐⭐1/2
"On Suyoung is working as an officer of the Royal Pharmacy, and when he finds out about the emperor's plan to behead the king for the treason charges, he feels sympathetic and gives anesthetic potion to the king to lessen the pain. And during the execution, the king thanks Suyoung and curses the emperor as he dies.
The next day, Suyoung wakes up in a strange place and realizes that he is living in the emperor's body! Shivering with fear, Suyoung hurries to the Royal Pharmacy and finds the emperor in his body. And from that point and on, a spectacular drama takes over the palace."
Two Souls is a BL manhwa by Gwendolyn and coinmint.
Going into this, I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy it due to the body-switching element of the plot. I've always found the concept to be a bit weird, but the reviews were positive so I thought I would give it a shot. In the end, I found that this wasn't bad at all, but at the same time, it didn't give me as much as it could have.
Let's get into the details.
ART
The art is a bit on the rougher side as it is not the crispest quality ever. I did like how their eyes changed colour when they were in the wrong body since it made it easier to follow along with the right person. The choice of switching the eye colours did end up being a bit of a saving grace, not only because of what I already stated but because it made it a bit easier to handle the concept.
PLOT
We follow On Suyoung, a medic of sorts, and Lee Sunwoo, the emperor, as they end up in each other bodies after an execution gone awry. As I have already stated, I didn't know how much the concept was going to negatively impact my enjoyment of the series. Surprisingly though, I ended up not being bothered by the concept because is the emphasis on loving the person for who they are and not for their physical appearance.
Romance blooms while you are staring yourself straight in the face, which is why I find this concept to be a bit odd. But because of that emphasis on loving the soul and not the body, I was able to enjoy myself. The way the romance was handled, in general, was well done mainly because it was healthy and genuine. Healthy romances are a rarity when it comes to BL sadly.
This did end up focusing more on political intrigue than I was expecting given that this is a romance, but it is a period piece so that is to be expected. Because of that theme though, we didn't end up getting to spend as much time with just Suyoung and Sunwoo as I would have liked. There were supposed to be some side stories that would have made up for that, but this series finished completion over a year ago...
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Overall, a pretty solid romance story. I don't think I enjoyed myself as other people seemed to, but I wasn't bothered by the concept as much with this so I consider that a win.
If you are curious and want to check this out for yourself, you can find it on Pocket Comics. Note though that only 5 episodes are free to read.
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