Graphic Novel Review: The Fox Maidens by Robin Ha

Posted on April 18, 2024 at 6:45 am by Gene Ambaum

The Fox Maidens by Robin Ha. Balzer + Bray, 2024. 9780062685124. 314pp.

Ha’s first fictional graphic novel, a historical fantasy set in Joseon-era Korea, follows her Cook Korean! graphic cookbook and Almost American Girl, her graphic memoir. The memoir shows Ha’s love of Korean fantasy manhwa, so the subject of this book isn’t a huge surprise, but this one makes the variety of her comics work truly impressive.

At the center of this tale is the gumiho, a nine-tailed fox with magical powers associated with seductive and evil women. General Song is famed for having killed gumiho. He has three children by two wives, and he teaches martial arts not only to his sons but also to his daughter, Kai. Because she’s a better fighter than both her brothers everyone says she’s gumiho’s daughter. She’s also clearly someone we can root for, as evidenced when she stands up for a poor young girl being beaten as a suspected thief early in the book.

Unfortunately for Kai, the rumors are kind of true, as she finds out when she gets her first period and starts to turn into a fox. Her mother takes her away to the mountains where Kai meets gumiho, who survived her conflict with Kai’s father. Gumiho teaches Kai what she must do to hide her fox-nature and continue to live in the world of men.

The whole story is super bloody (though not as much on the page as in the reader’s mind), and it turns into a murder mystery toward the end with Kai helping her father investigate a series of murders while trying to make sure he doesn’t discover the culprit. A romantic ending ties up the story; it’s a bit melodramatic, but Ha makes it work. And I can’t wait to read whatever comics Ha creates next.