The story follows Choo Sangwoo, a computer science student. None of his partners participated in a project for the Ethics class, so he decided not to put their names. Jaeyoung, a senior in the graphic design career, was among those students. He had achieved a scholarship to pursue post-graduate studies at a foreign university. Nonetheless, he lost all that when Sangwoo blew the whistle with the professor. Now, Jaeyoung needs to complete one more semester before graduating from college. Their paths crossed when Sangwoo needed a graphic designer for the videogame he was creating. Now, can the two of them work together without killing each other?

In the first volume, we see that Jaeyoung aims to make Sangwoo go crazy. He wants to get revenge for not being able to graduate. At least that was his first motivation because, when you keep reading, you realize that what irritates him is Sangwoo's indifference towards him. We say: ignore, and you would have their attention, and that's what happened with Jaeyoung. By feeling ignored, Jaeyoung started to pay more attention to Sangwoo. Although in the beginning, he wanted to mess up Sangwoo, later that turned into pure interest.

On the other hand, we have Sangwoo. As we see him, he is like a robot. He has the same unmovable routine, which makes him an easy target for a stalker. For him, social interactions are a waste of time. Is that same lack of social skills what makes him Jaeyoung's target? Nonetheless, Jseyoung infiltrates his life like a virus in a computer, creating chaos and despair in Sangwoo's life. However, that change is more visible when Jaeyoung reflects on how, before their problem, Sangwoo couldn't identify Jaeyoung. Now, Sangwoo can distinguish Jaeyoung from a multitude. Also, there are scenes where Sangwoo keeps thinking about Jaeyoung even when the latter is not near him.

That's all for this review! Remember, the second volume goes on sale on March 18. Also, the story was adapted to television. The series is available on Viki. Also, is being starred by Jaechan of DKZ and Park Seoham.

I recently watched the Semantic Error k-drama and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to pick up this graphic novel adaptation of the same story. Between the two, there's a few minor differences in how things play out but the core of the story is the same: Sangwoo, a logical and closed off computer sci major ruins graphic arts major Jaeyoung's chances at graduating by calling out his slacking behavior to the whole class. Jaeyoung, pissed off and irritated by Sangwoo's utter lack of remorse on the matter, intends to annoy him until he can't help but acknowledge him. From forced proximity and growing familiarity, feelings blossom in an enemies to friends to lovers story.

While I really enjoyed the story, there were a few things that let me down in this graphic novel adaptation. While the art style looks serviceable and expressive with the characters, background art is often reduced to simple gradients and 3D assets. While in full color, the tones of the realistic sequences have a tendency to look washed out and dull. Its only in very rare spreads that the neon, highly designed style of the cover find any place. I found it especially strange that Jaeyoung's art is covered up instead of shown in the first app design meeting, almost like the artist didn't have confidence in what sort of style he should have. When one of the main characters is an artist, I expect to see in the story what type of art he creates. It's an essential part of characterization because it matters so much to him. All these aspects, in addition to a slightly cramped pacing, led me to not enjoy this as much as the k-drama. I definitely think I would still be interested in trying the original novel.

Thank you to Ize Press for my ARC provided through Netgalley.

Very slow burn romance between two wholly different rivals. The plot was interesting and volume 1 was a good start to the series.. The main characters were very fleshed out and unique and all-in-all a cute beginning to an interesting story.

Omg this is actually so amazing! Usually when webcomics are adapted into novels, the first novel doesn't have much going on. The story seems a bland, and not fully developed. But, Semantic Error? Downright engaging. The build-up is so good, I can't wait to get my hands on the second volume. JJY went all in to annoy Sangwoo and it's adorable how haywire the latter's life has become just because he can't figure out JJY. It's such a good rom-com, I want more of them 🥺

Semantic error is a fun rivals to lovers story. The whole story behind their rivalry is hilarious and their interactions are incredible. The illustrations are stunning and I can't wait to continue reading this story.

First, I'd like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy.
The first book in the series did its job well. I'm hooked and eager to read the next installments.
The art is really good, and the story is funny. I'm excited to see how their relationship develops.
My only small disappointment is that I was expecting to see a bit more romance in this first volume.

The cutest story!

Sangwoo lives by the rules he set for himself. He has a schedule and routines he follows religiously. His whole day is in disarray if anything were to mess with those. He is a computer major at a university. At a group project, when none of the team mates managed to contribute to the presentation, he did it himself and cut all of the other names, making them essential fail the class.

One of those teammates was Jaeyoung, a design major who failed to graduate because of that class. It ruined his plans to continue his studies abroad and made him very, very angry.

Sangwoo is working on a video game and needs a designer. His current one no longer has time and has recommended someone else. When they meet up, it's none other than Jaeyoung.

He is very determined to get back at him, and disrupts his routine, just to make him mad. What makes Jaeyoung the most mad, is the fact that Sangwoo fails to remember him, even though they meet many times. They even end up doing the group project together. There is mad tension between them and I just can't wait to see what happened in the next volume.

Sangwoo is very withdrawn, he is by himself a lot and doesn't socialize much. He is very true to his principles and his goals and doesn't waver from them. Jaeyoung on the other hand is brilliant in his own way, very social and has many friends.

I love the contrast between them and the way Jaeyoung messes with his routine, he really paid close attention to him. :)

It's a great start of what would surely be a great series!

Highly recommend to anyone who likes the slowburn, enemies to lovers romance set in college.

Honestly I didn't really like either of the characters, however, I still enjoyed reading their story.

Overall, I found Jaeyoung super annoying. Everything is his fault, but since Sangwoo isn't understanding of his situation at all, Jaeyoung decides to take out his frustrations on Sangwoo. & the way Jaeyoung bothered Sangwoo was ultra petty—constantly interrupting his schedule just to mess with him. It felt mean, like at that point, actual bullying might have been less mean.

Volume 1 has basically 0 zero romance and is more focused on the 'enemies' part. Like I mentioned earlier I'm not particularly fond of either characters yet I found the story intriguing and kept on reading.

I am worried the about upcoming romance as I found them quite entertaining as enemies.

*Full blog post March 18th*

I read the webtoon / watched the BL first and loved it. So I was excited to see that we are getting an official english translation / print.
Love the Art and story.

I was really looking forward to reading this! I used to watch a lot of BL dramas and while I haven't watched the Semantic Error drama, I heard great things about it! However, having read the first volume of the manhwa, I don't think this story is for me.

I understand how some folks might like the dynamic between Sangwoo and Jaeyoung; they both clearly have room to grow and that's where good romance is born. However, both characters were personally too irritating to me to enjoy the story. Sangwoo is clearly written to be autistic (no social skills, likes routine, faceblind, etc.) and while his character may resonate with some readers, I'm pretty over portrayals of autistic characters that are just 'robotic' grown cis men who still haven't learned to consider other people's feelings; it's such a tired trope and annoying kind of person to encounter in real life (I am autistic). That being said, I don't find Jaeyoung's pigtail-pulling of Sangwoo to be cute at all and it just comes off as bullying because of Sangwoo's obvious distress over it. Because we're only a few chapters into the story, we haven't really seen how they could bounce off each other well and so I finished the book with a sour taste in my mouth.

In terms of the art, it was perfectly serviceable for a comic but not particularly outstanding to me. I was kind of expecting more from a manhwa adapted from a webnovel but since my framework is mostly manga adapted from Japanese light novels (which tend to go all out on the art relative to the average original manga), that might be on me.

Overall, I can see how it could appeal to someone who is more tolerant of Sangwoo & Jaeyoung's flaws but as it is, this was just not for me.

I know I have read this before, but seeing it in published book form is amazing! It is the start of Sangwoo and Jaeyoung's relationship, and everything about their first interactions and the art style, it just brings me back to my love for this genre. The enemies to lovers is real here! I will be reading the rest of the series and I hope to buy them all to add to my shelf!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review!

I loved Semantic Error when it was just a webtoon and now I'm so happy to see it getting an official English publication too! Can't wait to add it to my shelves!

Semantic Error has been recommended to me SO MANY times and has been on my TBR for such a long while!!! I'm once again apologizing to all my friends who told me to get on this ages ago because y'all were right! I do absolutely love this!😂Their unfortunate first meeting, Jaeyoung's shenanigans for revenge + forced proximity throughout this whole first volume made the perfect setup for how the rest of this series will go and I really can't wait to keep reading! The art style is super fun and the coloring is really nice too. I absolutely love the pacing of this one, and that we actually got the POVs from both characters! The differences in Sangwoo and Jaeyoung's approaches to life and personalities was so fun to witness, and I'm so excited for the character developments as well as the developments in their dynamic and eventual romance too!

This graphic novel had me hooked from the very start- enemies to lovers? Count me in! And this book is HILARIOUS. The angst is just right to keep me interested and ready for the next book!

Published by Yen Press and available November 19, 2024, Semantic Error is another book still on NetGalley that I failed to see the publishing date of. It's also another webtoon/manwa. This time it's a boy's love series, centered around two college students, one who has it out for the other after his graduation plan is ruined. So yes, it's one of those enemies-to-lovers stories that are all the rage lately. The art isn't as good as I've seen in other manwa (one of the main characters consistently has a huge body, making his head out of proportionally small). I've had little success with finding a manwa that interests me, but I think I like this one. The characters actually feel fleshed out and the plot is engaging. I can see why this is considered one of the best Korean BL.

I will start this off by saying what a delicious use of color here. The art in general is so clean, but it's the color work that stands out the most to me. The dream sequence was absolutely genius too. Excellent work by Angy.

And before we get into the story itself, can I just say that Sangwoo's spiraling over Jaeyoung being the most frustrating type of error in programming (a semantic error) brought about very unpleasant memories of my own challenges. The hours I’ve spent agonizing over the stupidest bugs/mistakes make me relate deeply to poor Sangwoo.

Now, as far as a set up goes, this was fun and warranted. These two clearly navigate the world in very different ways that can be quite incompatible (Sangwoo being very rigid and driven by routine, definitely autistic-coded, and Jaeyoung a flexible free-spirit who adapts to his circumstances pretty quickly).

And while I tend to side with Sangwoo’s approach as someone who’s had to carry entire group projects by herself, he does overreact and Jaeyoung isn’t even mad about that, which I appreciate and makes for a much more interesting dynamic. The dude just doesn’t compute how someone can be so socially inept when he himself is a social butterfly. They each think the other is a jerk, but the reader gets the whole picture and understands the issues in communication. And kudos to Jaeyoung here—he seems to catch on pretty quickly and starts changing his approach after some needed soul-searching.

The romantic hints are pretty subtle in this first volume, which I appreciate, and come more from Jaeyoung’s side. Looking forward to watching how all that develops in later installments!

Thank you to NetGalley, Angy & J. Soori, and Yen Press for the chance to read and review this volume.

Solidly the first half of this volume comes across as a popular jerk bullying his autistic classmate, which was a little hard to get through. Once you get Jaeyoung’s POV it isn’t quite so bad and the pace picks up, but your mileage may vary on whether it’s worth pushing through. The art is attractive and the translation is quite readable.

Imagine you need to repeat a whole year, your bright study abroad future plans all shattered because a certain someone yapped about you not participating in a group presentation, to the professor and wouldn't budge lol. And then you suddenly see him everywhere but he doesn't recognise you. And strangely you want to be noticed by your supposed enemy for some reason but you end up annoying the hell out of him.

This is so cuteeee. The redhead is so cute I wish someone put that much effort to annoy me so that I can notice them. Not to mention a hot someone. The MC is kinda rude? Lacks social skills? Strict? and I think leans more towards autistic? He said it's not that high so that's that.

But c'mon how is it that the redhead is so patient and in love lol. He probably hasn't realised it but would you really put so much effort to register for same classes, Grab his most wanted seat, Buy all stock of the MC's favourite coffee so that the MC can't drink it, follow him everywhere etc etc. ofcourse revenge this is sweet revenge but also he just wants to be noticed.

I also love the computer science theme. Red as in error. Which makes sense. The redhead is annoying for 2 days, neutral for 2 and helpful for the next. Even I would get confused. The MC has 0 social skills and is a robot. I loved the vibe and I think the MC has some trauma which is not revealed yet. Just a guess.

I can't wait to read the second volume! If you love computers, revenge and sweet green flags dressed in red then this is for you!

A slower burn, grumpy/sunshine, hate to love, opposites attract story with an autistic/neurodivergent-coded main character.

This was slow to start and a bit confusing at the beginning, but it really gained momentum and had me smiling and giggling at the end with the two characters' interactions. The author did such a good job creating a journey with these two characters of hate to annoyed to tolerate to kind of miss and enjoy.

I will be picking up Volume 2 and can't wait to see how this friendship / possible relationship develops.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for provided a digital copy for review.

Difficult to read due to the large, colored watermark, and not particularly interesting. Sangwoo is just not a likeable character.