Introduction

After the Curtain Call is one of my favorites. It is a comfy romance that centers completely around theater and its culture. I really like happy romances with minimum drama¹ and After the Curtain Call provides that perfectly. Its not too long with only 51 chapters and manages to tell a satisfying story in a comfortable amount of time. It originates from South Korea and is officially available in English here. This review will contain Spoilers

How it relates to me

First and foremost, I am a theater kid. This fact is something you may be able to extrapolate from the fact this is a blog about yuri. I also spend a lot of time on the internet and have been exposed to stan culture a lot. So suffice it to say the two cultures primarily shown in this are very familiar to me, but I have never been exposed to the combination of these cultures that Soyoung is a part of. Even though they are both so familiar, the combination of these cultures is a fresh experience that is very entertaining to witness. While it talks about many theater things the author always gives a handy explanation about theater specific terms, this makes it very accessible even for people who don’t know random theater terms. Finally, to add to the lesbian theater kid points it references “Changing My Major” from the Fun Home musical (I didn’t know much about the musical before this but now I really want to watch it).

What it does differently

There are lots of Tropes common to yuri. With so many tropes constantly being used I have a lot of differing opinions about them. One of my favorite uses of tropes is subversion of them, its really entertaining to see a common trope be used against itself. After the Curtain Call half uses and half subverts the common trope of having a higher than life idol or actor and their stan. This pairing usually leads to some accidental series to events bringing the characters together with the stan none the wiser to who the other person is until a dramatic reveal later on. The idol usually has a different, or even opposite, persona from their actual self. Most of the time the stan has a crush on the idol’s external persona. After the Curtain Call took all of this and made the dynamic completely different by changing two simple facts of the characters. The idol is instead a small and relatively unknown actor and the stan is even more of a stan.

Soyoung is a hardcore theater nerd and stan. She has been a theater nerd for a long time and really understands and follows the unspoken rules when stanning an actor. The core reasoning behind these rules is to prevent parasocial relationships, it does this by clearly defining boundaries between the stans and the actor.

Jaeyi is a relatively small and unknown stage actor. Because of this she has never had fans or stans and is completely separate from that entire community and has no knowledge of it whatsoever.

Because of these polar opposites Jaeyi thinks of Soyoung as a friend from the start, while Soyoung struggles to see Jaeyi not as a higher than life person. Soyoung’s apprehension is the biggest roadblock to their eventual romance. Because this centers around theater and because Jaeyi is a small actor there is no problem with separating personas because Jaeyi has no need to have a different persona, there is only her current role and herself. The usual struggles present in these dynamics are non existent and the Soyoung’s healthy aversion to forming a parasocial relationship is turned into a satisfying challenge to overcome because of Jaeyi’s openness and friendly outlook from the beginning. Soyoung’s journey to overcome this mindset is not drawn out and made annoying, it’s well paced and is a satisfying length.

Ophelia

To add to the ridiculousness of this manhwa, it has “Ophelia”, an entire adaptation of Hamlet².

This section is a work in progress :P

The ending

The ending felt really good to me. It properly wraps up Soyoung and Jaeyi’s story in a very happy note and ties up all the loose ends introduced throughout the story. The only thing that could have been concluded better was the story of Jaeyi and Hyesun. This could have been done with Hyesun actually following through with her apology to Jaeyi. But I don’t really think that it would have fit Hyesun’s character at all, before these last moments Hyesun showed no real development or awareness. There simply wasn’t enough time for Hyesun to have the necessary character development. But that doesn’t matter because the story is ultimately about Soyoung and Jaeyi. Jaeyi doesn’t necessarily forgive but she allows herself to let go of her grudge and move on. Her letting go shows how much Jaeyi has grown throughout the manhwa and how Soyoung has helped her get passed the trauma Hyesun caused. It is no means a perfect ending to the story between Jaeyi and Hyesun but it shows that Jaeyi will not let it effect her in the future, and that she is ready to move on with her life.