President Dad

    (Tokyopop, 2004-2005)
™ and © 2002 Rhim Ju-Yeon
Graphic novel; B&W

Unambitious Ami Won lives with her widowed father and her mother’s Nazi sister as an regular teen in Korea, where she has no other goal in life avoiding embarrassment as the klutziest girl in her class. But when her dark horse dad Ho-Chan Won is elected into the presidential office, Ami’s quiet world is suddenly turned tumultuous by picture–flashing paparazzi and the political machinations of her father’s family.

Already straddling the awkward phase between child and womanhood, the plot thickens for Ami when a shape-shifting bodyguard/mentor/assassin named Fahrenheit arrives—claiming to have been contracted by her deceased mother to guard Ami—and asks her to hit him with a board to determine her worthiness as his master. The very next day Farenheit shows ups at Ami's new high school (dressed very convincingly in drag) and proclaims himself her protector. Things become even more eclectic when Ami’s crush, a boy who dresses like her favorite rock star (and kicked her in the stomach at her coming-out party), transfers into Ami’s school, but doesn’thave any idea who she is!

All in all, President Dad is a strange and contrived little story, with more tacky setups than an internet matchmaker. Will clueless Ami have what it takes to be the first lady of Korea? Or will she be broken by the likes of her vicious, beautiful cousin Bi-Na, who tears the hair out of Ami’s head in order to remove an offending, “cheap” barrette? (And who would have thought that first lady of Korea was such a vitally important job?) Read on to find out if Ami survives the social snobs and power-hungry relatives that Rhim Ju-Yeon’s pitted her up against, or see whether Yeon’s manga falls flat under its ever-expanding repertoire of preposterous situations.

— Shiaw-Ling Lai
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