Highlights
- Not all manhwa are fast-paced action – some offer relaxation with gentle, heartwarming narratives.
- Winter Woods and The Friendly Winter provide deeper, darker, and more mature storylines for readers.
- Oh! Holy weaves supernatural elements into romance, offering a unique and engaging story for readers to enjoy.
Across every entertainment medium, it will not be far-fetched to say that fast-paced action and adrenaline-pumping storylines are the order of the day. The same holds for the manhwa industry, with most of the famous and impactful works to come out of the industry being more on the action side of the genre.
However, within the multitude of different manhwa, there are particular manhwa types, perfect for the relaxation of the reader. These manhwa take their readers on gentle, steady-paced experiences while surrounding them with ease and lightheartedness from their hearty and wholesome narratives. Therefore, regarding these manhwa, below are some perfect for the reader’s relaxation.
10 Winter Woods
Anime-Planet Rating: 4.3/5
- Author: Cosmos, Van. J
- Release Years: 2014-2017
- Genre: Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Horror
Winter Woods adopts a darker tone compared to the typical manhwa. The series revolves around Winter, a humanoid created by an alchemist a few thousand years ago, and Jane, the human girl whose life is now intertwined with Winter and has decided to help him understand what it means to live and be human.
What follows is the tale of the two and how much their relationship develops and matures into something much brighter and more beautiful as they learn more of each other and for Winter, as he learns more of the world which he seeks to become a part of.
9 The Friendly Winter
Anime-Planet Rating: 4.2/5
- Author: Lee Jun
- Release Years: 2011-2013
- Genre: Drama, Slice of Life
The Friendly Winter examines the daily joys, trials, and difficulties of the lives of two young individuals who have been dealt difficult hands while trying to live normal lives. The story focuses on a nineteen-year-old girl with a special growth disorder that leaves her in the body of a small child.
She meets a seventeen-year-old boy who has the mind of a small boy. The story depicts the collision of their lives and how both try to understand each other from each other’s perspective while finding pleasures in their lives.
8 Oh! Holy
Anime-Planet Rating: 4.0/5
- Author: Ah Hyun
- Release Years: 2015-2018
- Genre: Romance, Drama, Supernatural
Oh! Holy does a fine job of meshing the supernatural and the romantic together in this work. The story focuses on Jamie Oh, a rather quiet and reserved young man who prefers to remain in the general background and would rather talk to his few friends about his issues.
The friends in question are ghosts; only Jamie can see. Things take an unexpected turn when the most popular in school takes an interest in Jamie. What will become of this sudden and innocent connection remains to be seen.
7 Itaewon Class
Anime-Planet Rating: 4.0/5
- Author: Kwang Jin
- Release Years: 2016-2018
- Genre: Drama, Slice of Life
Itaewon Class tells the tale of a young man with a life riddled with hardships borne from the strength of his convictions and goals. Park Saeroyi is the story’s central character and a middle school dropout who also became an ex-convict.
Inheriting his father’s dream of owning a pub, Park Saeroyi is determined to bring his dreams to reality and put his pub on the global map. All of this, however, is part of a 15-year plan to tear down the powerful family responsible for the death of his father and all the hardships he has had to endure. Saeroyi embarks on a journey of revenge, fulfillment and discovery to prove his convictions.
6 Trinity Wonder
Anime-Planet Rating: 3.8/5
- Author: Park Jin-Hwan, Jeon Geuk-Jin
- Release Years: 2016-2018
- Genre: Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Trinity Wonder combines sci-fi and fantasy well in this series to give an exciting reading experience. However, unlike the typical manhwa, where a major goal binds the central characters, Trinty Wonder is just about the adventures of its central characters during their lives colliding.
The series starts with Gang Wu-Jin, murim’s strongest martial artist, in a battle when he is suddenly transported to Asadal, a magical world where he meets Sylvia and Emily, another character from another world. The trio gets off to a destructive introduction but realizes they must work together to return to their respective worlds. What follows afterward is the trio’s adventures in this new world before their various return.
5 Skill of Lure
Anime-Planet Rating: 4.0/5
- Author: Woo Sang Ho
- Release Years: 2014-2016
- Genre: Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life
Cursed with the aura of a complete pervert, Sung Ji-Gang is considered to only be on the hunt for women, but the reality is he lacks social skills, which makes him unable to express himself properly. Although he seemingly has the worst luck, his life turns wild when he meets Jae Hwang, a friend who decides to help him.
Through Jae Hwang, Sung Ji-Gang learns what it means to be a pick-up artist and all it entails and becomes a master pick-up artist himself. However, despite his new skills, Sug finds himself drawn to a particular girl in his class, and what will become of this sudden interest remains to be seen.
4 Let’s Play
Anime-Planet Rating: 3.9/5
- Author: Mongie
- Release Years: 2017-2022
- Genre: Drama, Romance
Let’s Play explores the unconventional love life of Sam, a twenty-two-year-old game developer who’s still looking to get into the video game industry. Earnestly looking to launch her career, Sam’s gaming career rarely gets to take off after a popular gaming personality gives a bad review of her first game.
Things worsen even further when she realizes this person has become her new next-door neighbor. What comes after is a tale of Sam’s romantic misadventures and her pursuit of a life beyond the confines of the one she was born into.
3 My Heart Is Beating
Anime-Planet Rating: 3.9/5
- Author: Ha Il-Kwon
- Release Years: 2009
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Slice of Life, Sports
My Heart is Beating depicts the crumbling weight of perfection that individuals bear under the pressures of expectations from familial sources. The story follows Bae Sugu, a seventeen-year-old high school teenager who lives alone with his father, who happens to be the principal of his high school.
Expected to be the perfect student and child by his father, Sugu has a secret he cannot share with anyone: he has a secret obsession with swimsuits. His secret gets spilled when he is caught by his homeroom teacher when he is taking pictures of female swimsuits. Eager to keep his secret, Sugu is forced into disguising himself as a girl and joining the water polo team. Soon, he realizes there may be more to the sport than the clothes worn.
2 Familyman
Anime-Planet Rating: 4.0/5
- Author: Jung Pil Won
- Release Years: 2009-2010
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Slice Of Life
Familyman examines parental love and devotion through the lens of superheroism. The series revolves around Gang-Ho, a loving and dedicated father committed to doing all he can for his family, especially his daughter. Things become even harder for Gang-Ho when there is a fire accident at the factory where he works, which leaves him with severe burn marks on his face.
Gang-Ho is dismissed from work but cannot return home due to shame. The story picks up appropriately when Gang-Ho has to save his daughter from an accident across the road in the costume of the famous superhero ‘Gugu Man.’ Through this, Gang-Ho decides to keep watch over his family secretly under the guise of the ‘Gugu Man.’
1 Orange Marmalade
Anime-Planet Rating: 4.1/5
- Author: Kang Seok Woo
- Release Years: 2011-2013
- Genre: Drama, Romance
Orange Marmalade is set in a time where vampires and humans can now coexist, albeit in an unequal balance that sees vampires treated as outcasts and generally shunned, even after a peace treaty had been signed over two centuries.
The story centers on Baek Ma Ri, a young vampire constantly facing prejudice everywhere she’s been. Ma Ri’s life is turned upside down, having moved to a new city and a new school, when she coincidentally sucks the blood of the most popular boy in school, a mistake that would spark the beginning of an unexpected romantic relationship between the pair.
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