In a past life, Park Chanmi was deeply devoted to a beautiful woman named Hanbyeol, whose life was tragically ended far too soon. In her present life, Chanmi is a college student from a wealthy family, but the only thing she can think about most days is her lost love. When she discovers that Hanbyeol has also appeared in this life as a college professor in Korea, Chanmi drops everything to go find her. Finally, the one who slipped through her fingers in her past life has reappeared! The one problem? This Hanbyeol has no memory of their past life at all. Despite that slight pitfall, Chanmi resolves not to let this Hanbyeol befall the same fate she met in their previous life. In modern-day Korea, though, a student can't exactly casually hang around her professor, so Chanmi must find creative ways to protect her love in this lifetime.

Unnie, I Like You! has a story and art by Jeongussi. Lettering by WEBTOON Consumer Goods. Published by Tokyopop (October 6, 2026). Rated T.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Reincarnation may not be a boon if destiny can't be thwarted. That's the situation Park Chanmi finds herself in – back during the Joseon era, she was in love with a woman named Han Byeol, who died, possibly from murder. Chanmi killed herself rather than live without Byeol (maybe at the behest of a shaman?), and now in modern times she's been reborn as a fourth-generation chaebol, the scion of a wealthy corporate family. She remembers her past life, and when she sees an advertisement for an art show featuring a woman who looks just like Byeol, she drops everything – including her pending graduation from a British university – to return to Korea.

The good news: it is Byeol. The bad news? She doesn't seem to have any memories of her previous life, and even though she's mutually attracted to the gorgeous, strange young woman who insists on addressing her as unnie (similar to the Japanese onee-san, but only used by women), she's also aware of her position as a professor to Chanmi's student. The course of true love never did run smooth and all that.

While Byeol and Chanmi's relationship – and its many hurdles – is interesting, the heart of the story seems instead to be what happened in the past. The shaman Chanmi consulted during the Joseon era has also been reincarnated, and she warns Chanmi that Byeol's fate to die early remains unchanged. We know precious little about it other than that Chanmi found Byeol dead by her wrecked carriage, but there's another character who I wouldn't be surprised to learn was also on his second life with the other three. Baek, another professor, is clearly obsessed with Byeol. He doesn't like to take no for an answer, and if he knows that she's a lesbian, he doesn't appear to care. Baek is increasingly possessive as the volume goes on, trying to insert himself between Byeol and Chanmi, to commandeer her time and attention, and just generally reads as dangerous. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he killed her if he couldn't have her for himself. Even if he's not from the past, perhaps the implication is that Byeol attracts obsessive love…and that a man's is much more dangerous than a woman's.

Tokyopop's print edition (the digital originally was published on WEBTOON) is nice looking but has a few issues worth pointing out. They're all variations on a theme: glosses and notes. There are a few places where it's clear that a text box has been added for the sake of defining a word or custom, but there's also an odd lack of glosses for honorifics, which are arguably important to the story. Maybe the assumption is that readers are now familiar enough with Korean terms not to need “nim,” “shi,” or “ah” translated or can make the assumption that “ssi” is a cute form of “shi” (please note that I'm not sure this is true), but I'm not sure we're quite there yet in the pop culture landscape, and I read a lot of manhwa.

But even with this issue and a few visual inconsistencies, Unnie I Like You is off to a good start. If you like your GL to feature adults and to have an underlying melancholy, definitely pick this up.