The Spring 2025 K-Comics Guide

Undercover Darling (18+)

What's It About? 

Yijae, an ambitious small town cop, discovers that his first love, Junhyuk, is involved in the band of criminals known as the Black Goat Gang. Forced to pose as lovers, they must navigate danger and desire. Can their fake romance help put the bad guys behind bars, or will their tangled past blow their cover?

Undercover Darling has a story and art by 18.9studio, with English translation and lettering by Manta Comics. Published by Manta Comics (March 17, 2025). Rated 18+.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

This isn't a good series, but it sure as heck is a readable one. Combining the romance tropes of enemies-to-lovers and second chance romance, Undercover Darling feels particularly fictional, even for a work of fiction. Yijae, a small-town cop, has made it his personal mission to uncover what the unintentionally hilarious Black Goat Gang is doing in town, with the rock-solid conviction that they're peddling drugs…even though he's got exactly zero proof of it. Bound and determined to prove his theory correct, he goes against the police chief's admonitions and attempts to infiltrate the gang, only to find out that his erstwhile high school acquaintance Junhyuk is the boss.

But were they really just friends or acquaintances in high school? By the time the first twelve chapters are done, there's reason to believe that they were not, although they also probably weren't boyfriends, either, at least not in any official capacity. But Junhyuk sure is interested in being that now, and Yijae is having a lot of trouble deciding which side of the line he wants to come down on, emotionally. Sexually? He's pretty on-board with whatever Junhyuk wants to do, although he does balk when the other man wants to be addressed as “oppa,” a term for “big brother” used exclusively by women.

The plot here isn't quite as thin as it could be, but it's also definitely not written all that well. There are jumps in logic that makes the story flow feel awkward when it doesn't need to, and we don't get quite enough about the guys' past relationship to fully embrace either of the classic romance plots it's trying to cover. More importantly, we don't know what happened to make them lose contact with each other, and that seems like a major gap in their relationship. Junhyuk may have been carrying a torch for Yijae, but Yijae seems much more conflicted about reuniting in a way that has nothing to do with their current employment. I ended up with a lot more questions than answers, and while this is clearly just the start of the story, I still felt like I needed more information than I was getting. Explicit sex scenes with questionable anatomy will only get you so far. Still, if you're looking for an excuse to turn your brain off and just indulge in a story more interested in the physical than the emotional relationship between the love interests, you could do much worse than this generally attractive and very readable series.