Faint Voice

Escapism has always been my thing, long before I knew the word for it.

It started when I moved to Europe. Before manga, before manhwa, I was an anime kid. Saturday evenings meant Pokémon and Detective Conan. Weekend mornings were for Daddy Long Legs. Those shows felt like tiny rituals, familiar and comforting, especially when everything else around me felt new and unfamiliar.

I loved reading too. Goosebumps books, comics like Archie and W.I.T.C.H. anything that let me step into another world for a while. Somewhere along the way, that love quietly evolved into Dungeons & Dragons, computer games, and fantasy in all its forms.

So yes, I am absolutely a bit of a nerd. I’ve accepted it.

Manga came next, though I honestly can’t remember which one I started with. Most of what I read early on was shoujo, dramatic, emotional, soft, and intense in the best way. Titles like The Wallflower, Alice Academy, Pandora Hearts, Nana, One Piece, Naruto… and so many other classics shaped my teenage years in ways I didn’t fully realize at the time. They taught me about friendship, heartbreak, loyalty, and growing up, sometimes better than real life did.

And somehow, unbelievably, some of these series are still ongoing.

Yes, I’m looking at you, Detective Conan.

Manhwa entered my life later, I think through my sister. The colors caught me first. Then the art. Then the stories. I fell hard for historical romance, intricate plots, and beautifully flawed characters. These days I mostly read at night or whenever life gives me a quiet pocket of time, which, honestly, isn’t often anymore.

There was a time when I joined a Discord server just for a favorite novel. The story was that good. It later became a manhwa, which felt like watching something I loved get a whole new life. Through that fandom, I met people from different countries and backgrounds, and I finally understood what fandom really meant, connection, shared excitement, long discussions about fictional people who somehow feel real. I still keep in touch with some of them, and that makes me smile.

So yes, you’ll probably see me write about manhwa I’ve loved, manga that stayed with me, and books or novels that felt like safe places. Escapism, to me, isn’t about avoiding reality. It’s about resting inside stories when the world feels a little too loud.

In short: expect more books, more novels, more manga and manhwa to quietly appear here.

This is one of the ways I breathe.