Is Midnight Poppy Land worth reading?

Is Midnight Poppy Land worth reading? Review

Midnight Poppy Land was one of the most popular Romance Comics on Webtoons, but it is on indefinite Hiatus now, so save yourself the heartache and don’t start reading. But if you don’t mind and want to read a mafia story with a great first season, let’s dive in:

How the story starts

You get thrown right into the story as Poppy walks in on her boyfriend cheating on her. She then drives away on her scooter, has an accident, and ends up falling into some bushes next to the main road, with the contents of her bag scattering across the grass. While picking everything up, she accidentally grabs some pages she wasn’t meant to see. That’s how she meets Tora. He had been driving to that spot after getting a message from a friend and sees Poppy emerging from the bushes. That’s how the two of them become entangled.

This webtoon does many things really well. First of all, I love how Lilydusk creates atmosphere. The way she uses multiple panels for one particular moment conveys a lot of emotion and really draws you into the story. I mean, in episodes 28 and 29, there are almost 10 panels of them holding hands, and you get to see Tora’s thoughts about it. You can really feel the tension between the main characters.

The overall pacing of Midnight Poppy Land in the first season is great, and the art is beautiful as well, although it does change a bit after about episode 30, I would say. Here’s a small comparison:

I feel like there are fewer detailed panels over time, but nevertheless, the art is still good – especially the backgrounds.

Although they don’t talk about certain topics – mainly Tora’s past and his “job”– they still communicate well and share their thoughts and feelings. Tora helps Poppy work through her trauma from her abusive ex, who constantly put her down and belittled her feelings, while Poppy (or Bobby, as Tora calls her) becomes a safe haven for Tora and expands his world. After meeting Poppy, he starts to think for the first time that maybe he has a chance at happiness too.

What happened to season 2?

In season 2, more and more storylines are introduced, and it gets a bit confusing. Also, Poppy and Tora keep their distance for no apparent reason, so they don’t really get together, even though they are living in the same house with Quincy. When the whole mafia chaos got even worse, I stopped reading. The artist herself said she “allowed MPL to go completely off course”.

But all of this has a sad backstory: Lilydusk had mental health problems (OCD and panic attacks) and was struggling to continue the story. After a longer hiatus, she decided to stop working on Midnight Poppy Land entirely. She shared two statements on her Patreon:

I suck. I know, but there’s no easier way to put this. As stated in the title, I’ve decided to put the MPL Webtoon on Indefinite Hiatus, and I don’t know when – or if – I’ll pick it up again. (…)

It feels like crap, having to relinquish everything I’d worked hard to build, over the years: the MPL community and fandom, and my reputation and credibility as a comic artist; but it had to be done. The pressure and expecations that came from being a Webtoon artist was killing off every drop of my creative inspiration and spark, and after mulling over this for an entire year, I don’t see any way out other than to build everything from scratch all over again. (…)

Because of all the negative experiences, the thought of working on MPL was now intrinsically – and I fear maybe even permanently – linked with trauma, pain, and despair; and because of an un-ending stream of setbacks and failures, and maybe my own inexperience and lack of competence, I’d allowed MPL to go completely off course, and I have no idea how to bring it back again.

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