Summary
When people are deep in love, they think their partner is perfect for them. That they’re their soulmate, the person they were destined to be with. Then, if they break up, it can feel like they’ve lost a big part of themselves in the process, and everything they thought they knew about their future becomes null and void.
Nonetheless, whether love lasts or ends, it can feel like fate falling into place, directing people toward their true path. In some romantic stories, it can even go beyond death, linking lovers to their next lives and beyond. Whether people follow a set path to love or rediscover it from their past lives, these are the best manhwa about fated lovers.
7My Red String of Fate
Anime-Planet Score: 3.6/5 Stars
In Chinese mythology, people who were fated to be together were connected by a red thread. Even if they were separated or didn’t like each other, the thread would lead them back together in one way or another. Usually through strange but ultimately beneficial methods, like inMy Red String of Fate, which gets creative with the tale.
A woman gets pulled into her favorite novel as Lian, a priestess who can see the invisible red strings. She acts as a healer by cutting the strings, as they cause single people to get sick. But she gets in trouble when, while trying to cure one man, she ends up tied to him by his string. Even worse, he’s Abel, the book’s main villain. Now her favorite novel will tell a very different story with her at its heart.
6Threads Of Love/The Fool Of Love And Peace
The red thread theme continues inThreads of Love, akaThe Fool of Love and Peace. In it, teacher Sa-Rang Park has to handle a unique problem. Her cousin, Pyeonggang, is suffering from a life-threatening illness that’sconnected to an ancient curse. The only way to undo it is to reunite them with the reincarnation of their love from a previous life.
In her past life, her cousin was “Princess Pyeonggang,” who fell for a person known as “Ondal the Fool.” So, Park must find Ondal’s reincarnation, which is difficult enough on its own. It only gets trickier when she bumps into other handsome men while searching for Ondal. Sa-Rang doesn’t have time to worry about her own love life, but Pyeonggang might not be the only one in need of a fated lover.
5Kiss Meow
If the other entries seem a little typical,Kiss Meowshould stand out from the pack. After Sara is killed in a car accident, she’s brought back to life by the grace of a cat god. But it also makes her turn into a cat on rainy days. The only way it can be broken is if Sara finds her fated “cat butler” - someone who loves fawning over felines - and gets a kiss from them.
It sounds like a kitty take on The Frog Prince, though it has a twist in its tale. In her cat form, she caught a serial cat killer in the act, and they’ve got a hankering to add another kitty to their kill count. Now Sara’s in a race against time to either fulfill her destiny and find her fated cat butler or meet her doom at the hands of a malicious animal abuser. Sometimes, being a cat can feel more like a dog’s life.
4The Novelist And His Neighbor
Anime-Planet Score: 3.8/5 Stars
Destined love isn’t just for straight women. In fact, a lot of manhwa about fated lovers tend tobe boys’ love stories, so there are plenty for BL fans to get stuck into. LikeThe Novelist and His Neighbor. It follows Baek Ha, a young writer who suffers from narcolepsy. When he sleeps, he has recurring dreams about a red-headed boy, a black-haired teen, and a brunette man.
They look vastly different, but Baek senses that they’re all the same person somehow. Then he gains a new neighbor in Nam Jae-In. He’s a business CEO who loves Baek Ha’s novels and looks exactly like the brown-haired man in his dreams. Fate can be funny like that, but aside from making Baek’s heart race, Nam offers some intriguing mysteries, like what his connection to the boy and teen is.
3Past Life Destiny
Anime-Planet Score: 3.9/5 Stars
If past lives are a thing, then people having their memories flooding back to them in the present could be unpleasant. Particularly if it happened during a college entrance exam like it does for Kim Minju inPast Life Destiny. In her old life, she was a queen inKorea’s Joseon dynasty, where she was murdered by one of the court’s concubines.
Nowadays, she’s more worried about her current life and getting into college, but she isn’t the only one to remember the past. Two of her classmates happen to be reincarnations of her murderer and her past husband, the King. Minju’s past is threatening her future in the present, as they both want to continue where their old lives left off with her.
2Reminiscence Adonis
Anime-Planet Score: 4/5 Stars
Fate doesn’t necessarily have to use different reincarnations or modern settings.Reminiscence Adonistakes things in a different direction by giving its fantasy leads a do-over of their old lives. In their first lives, Emperor Arhad and the warrior Ianna were rivals who were obsessed with each other. One wanted the other to care for them, and the other wanted them to submit to their will.
They were too selfish to see past their desires, which led to Ianna dying at Arhad’s hands in a heated battle. But she’s given a second chance when she’s reincarnated back as herself. She could change her fate for the better, meet Arhad in different circumstances, and see where she went wrong, or repeat history and its tragic end.
1Inner Beauty
Anime-Planet Score: 4.1/5 Stars
Other times, the “fated lovers” part of the plot is revealed through a slow burn. At least compared to their other themes. For example,Inner Beautyisa bodyswap BL talethat unfolds into something more as it goes on. It starts with Minjae rushing back to Korea to make peace with Hye-Eun, his ex-girlfriend who dumped him while he was in Australia “finding himself.”
Unfortunately for him, Hye-Eun has already moved on to a new man, Woochan, who gets into a tussle with Minjae. During their brawl, they bump heads so hard they pass out, and when they wake up, they find themselves in the other’s body. Until they can find a way to switch back, the two have to get along, and in the process, they end up finding out more about themselves than they knew before.
