Kill Me, Kiss Me, Volume 5 Book

A review of the series and so placed on the last book to avoid spoilers

This is a set of five manga books which covers the adventures of a bunch of teenagers in high school. The series deals with issues such as sexuality, gangs and self-image. The use of shadows and shapes in the series is good, but the plot can be hard to follow.
The series deals with the issues of sexuality and it discovery. In the books, there are many both gay and straight couples. In the series, a main character (Ghoon-Hahm) deals with feelings he has for another male in the class. He is forced to confront the possibility that he is gay. (It turns out that the person he liked was actually a girl). This manga displays the different sexualities as perfectly normal, telling the reader that the author believes that both types of relationships are perfectly fine. The author conveys this subtly and in a way that would not offend the majority of readers (excluding those with extremely ridged beliefs).
Another theme in the manga is gangs. There are a large variety of gangs in the books, ranging from small club like gangs to full on turf-war gangs. In the manga, another main character (Jung-Woo) joins a full on gang, only to discover that the leader of said gang wants his gang to be a force for good. This helps to illustrate who social interpretations affect how people act and how they are perceived. In the series, lots of the characters are show to be different to what they were perceived as. This is due to the fact that they were acting a certain way as they felt pressured by society. The world in this manga is very realistic and doesn't seem to be too different from the real world.
Another topic in the manga is self-image. Many of the characters are hiding their true selves away and are only showing the outside world an act. A girl called Que-Min is seen by most as a meek and mild school girl, but is really extremely strong and regularly wins the fights that she is involved in. Que-Min is an excellent example on how society can pressure people into acting as someone they are not, so that they will be accepted. She acts this way because her parents have a certain image of what a girl should be and are constantly trying to force her into it.
The artwork in this manga is reasonably good. The artist has used a large variety of abstract and regular shapes in the books to convey part of the story to the reader. There is also a strong use of light and dark and shadow in the manga. This can make it hard to read at times, but overall adds that something extra to the manga.
The plot of the story can be hard to follow as there are actually two plots, one for the first book and the other for the other four books. There is no clear definition of one plot stops and the other beings. As the first plot includes two characters swapping identity, in the second book it is hard for the reader to know if it actually Jung-Woo in the story or his cousin Tae Im pretending to be him. This makes it hard for the reader to understand what is going on. Another thing that makes it hard is that a lot of the speech bubbles are delocalised and the reader can find it difficult to know how has said what. These aspects of the manga make it harder to enjoy.
Despite the flaws in the manga, this was an interesting read, which covered many themes including sexuality, gangs and self-image. There is definite skill in the artwork, but the clarity of the plots needs work.