My Secret Brother is a comedy, teen romance webtoon by the artist Willow, published on Lezhin Comics Platform. As of January 2015, up to 36 episodes were released.

 

Hanmi Lee and Junhyuk Oh who are cousins transfer to a new school and Hanmi gets a crush on Gun Lee at first sight. However, as she cannot confess her feelings, she lies that she is dating Junhyuk, hiding the fact that they are cousins. The story takes place as they become a fake couple.

 

The heroine Hanmi has a long hair and chic appearance. Despite that she shows a hot temper and a bit of psychotic tendencies, she cares about people around her and tries to overcome problems on her own without other's help. As she has such a strong mind, the webtoon indeed aims to become one of the modern shojo comics. (Typical examples of such character style would be 'Tsukushi' of 'Boys Over Flowers' and 'Haruhi' of 'Ouran High School Host Club')

 

Since the classic type of heroine comes out, standard cliches such as school gangs, bullying issues, and school rumors get portrayed. As shadows are also cast on the friend and family relationships, episodes that can readily fall into a swamp are told.

 

However, thanks to the funny reactions of the heroine, Hanmi, the webtoon maintains it's pleasant atmospheres in such situations.

 

Owing to the artist's decent sense of humor, the heroine's reactions often provide little bits of laughter throughout the webtoon, allowing her to lead half of the comedy elements in the webtoon.

 

Though Hanmi is the classic type of heroine in a shojo comics, she is distinguished from the existing heroine characters because her cousin brother, Junhyuk, who is one year older than her.

 

While Hanmi and Junhyuk live under the one roof, harassing each other all the time, they are actually described as a brother and a sister who care for each other.

 

As they both have agreed to not interfere with each other in addition to acting as a fake couple and hiding that they are cousins, they each have a secret that they can't tell the other person. Hence, the title 'My Secret Brother' implies quite a significant meaning.

 

Even if the webtoon expresses the companionship of the cousins in a fair depth, it does not indicate any signs of altering the connection into an incest relationship, so there are no concerns regarding 'sexual attractions' between them like 'Yosuga no Sora'.

 

The heroine Hanmi becomes a fake couple with her cousin only to draw the attention of Gun Lee who she has a crush on, and she is consistent about it.

 

As Hanmi and Gun Lee slowly but steadily get closer, Junhyuk and Hanmi's friend also get occasionally involved the relationship.

 

Hanmi's friends, Yueun and Juri competently play the roles of a nerd who gets abused by bullies / a trouble maker who causes accidents as she talks without many thoughts, respectively. They do not simply appear as the background characters but carry out their parts efficiently in the story that revolves around Hanmi to demonstrate their presence.

 

The character aspects of the webtoon such as the composition, placement, interpersonal conflicts, and human relations are indeed well made without any loopholes

 

By pursing the depth of the story through explaining the secrets that each character bears in their mind whilst including brief moments of humor using the characters' reactions in their surrounding environments, the webtoon has completed a piece of drama.

 

It's not just funny as a comedy webtoon, but also has an intriguing story as a drama webtoon.

 

The webtoon has a lot of amounts to be read on average in each episode, and as the episodes get concluded in a self-contained manner according to their episode title, the story never drags and has excellent readability.

 

The illustrations are as good as the character and story development. Not only the characters are painted appealingly but also the colors and panel composition are easy and stable to be viewed and get immersed.

 

The final verdict is that I recommend this webtoon. When one just looks at the ad thumbnail, it may seem like a plain comedy webtoon that depicts cousins, but as the engaging story gets added to the well-crafted characters, supported by solid illustrations, the webtoon certainly becomes an exceptional work.