The manhwa today I am reviwing is kinda similar to Cinderella's story, there's no magic or anything supernatural but there's lots of family drama. A traumatic past of the female lead who is still living in it, a male lead who is head over heels for the female lead and as antagonist the family members of the female lead and male lead. So, it's going to a huge family drama, if you can get hang on it then you will enjoy reading this amazing manhwa "Not the First Time". I am really excited to share my point of view with you guys.
Details
Author: KYU, MIZZO
Artist: Dongtang
Genre: traumatic past, family drama, romance, Josei
Chapters: 21
Status: on-going
Year of release: 2025
Plot Summary
The story follows Yeong-in, she's an adopted child in a rich family. She got adopted for the sake of fame for the family in public place they showed themselves as great parents but in real they used to torture Yeong-in, most of the time she was locked in a dark room with no food or cloth, in cold she used to shiver and cry alone, she was really helpless and lonely. Yeong-in was always neglected because she's adopted her step sister and brother also tormented her pretty badly. Despite everything Yeong-in stays quite and obeys the family as she has nowhere else to go.
In the present time Yeong-in is an adult woman who works for the actors agency, she does her job very well and got a reputed position and still now her family demeans her. Yeong-in is so kind she can't see others being disrespected as she knows how it feels, for that reason she tries to help out anyone in need of help. Yeong-in got a call from her step brother to pick him up as he was drunk, at first she denied to go there because she had work to accomplish.
But later he started to demean her and that triggered Yeong-in, she went to the place. When she entered the room Chang-geun was there who has really bad reputation with the girls. He tried to get close with Yeong-in but suddenly a man appeared black hair, wearing suit. It was the ex of Yeong-in who is a friend of her step brother, his name is Seonghyeok. They had secret relationship long ago but Yeong-in broke up with him. In the past Seonghyeok had let go of Yeong-in easily, but this time he has come back to Korea to take Yeong-in back in his life.
! [Spoilers Ahead!]
Review
The story is pretty intriguing to me, I like the plot very much. I have ready so many stories like this manhwa but I still feel this manhwa is good enough to read. If you like this type of manhwa then feel free to read it. When I first started to read this manhwa I was really mad at the female lead. Because she's now independent she can make her own living then why not live somewhere else? Like why is she staying with her toxic family who doesn't even care about her well being?
Even if she is independent she doesn't know how to take her own stand, when Chang-geun was getting close to her she stayed quite I was like what are you doing? She was waiting for someone to save her? Like yeah I get that female leads are often saved by the male leads but she at least needs to learn how to speak up to someone and say "NO" to them, if male lead didn't appear then she would let anything bad happen to her? I really don't like this type of female leads. I was getting annoyed by her actions.
I also noticed she knew how to reject Seonghyeok, but he is not even doing something bad. He was silent before but now he does not beat the bush around, he is fast forward towards his feelings. On the other hand female lead Yeong-in is hiding her feelings. Why you have to sacrifice just tell him the truth. I don't like the mentality of being a sacrifice. At many points I was pissed about the female lead being like this.
The step sister is also annoying as hell, I really feel like tearing the chapters apart. She is so jealous of the female lead that she's dying to demean her. I really like the antagonist they truly feel like the villain of the story. I appreciate the author for making the characters feel so real that I got angry for real. If someone like that truly existed I would slap the sense out of her, anyway she still doesn't have any sense. The step brother is not any less, he is always looking for an opportunity.
My favourite character is the male lead Seonghyeok, because he truly cares about the female lead and is trying so hard to win Yeong-in back, everything about him feels so real. He is not only a gentleman also knows how to turn off the other women from his life. Even after 3 years of break up he could not forget her. One thing I didn't like about him that he didn't ask the reason why she wanted to break up, he just quietly accepted and moved abroad. Anyway, I like to see obsessive and protective men towards their woman.
There is going to be a love triangle maybe, there's a blonde guy in the story. I like Seonghyeok more so I don't know if I will like the blonde guy. Usually black haired guy wins the female lead so I am hoping the same for this manhwa. But it would be fun to see Seonghyeok being jealous over some other guy.
The artstyle is good not that special, I would have taken likings into the art of the dresses were that well designed. I think the outfits of the characters are very simple, I really wanted to see some unique work of art on the dresses. But still I like it so far. In my point of view this manhwa can be both frustrating and great so read at your own risk. It can also trigger you because of the traumatic scenes where the female lead is being tortured.
Credits:
Pictures are the screenshots of the chapters 1,2,3,4,5,6 from the manhwa, you can read it on webtoon for free.
Pictures are edited with Canva