July's manga / #Webtoon(264)

Really bad Omegaverse BL webtoon. The omega male lead is framed for serial murder and sent to an all-alpha prison "by mistake". How ridiculous. That doesn't even make sense. According to the rules of Omegaverse, omegas cannot be with alphas since obviously, they'll get pregnant, and what happens in prisons? Lots of rape. There's no way there would be such a ridiculous oversight on the prison system, unless they didn't know he was an omega. But throw all of that out the window, since nothing happens in the 11 chapters that are up right now. Yeah, there's an attempted rape, but that was quickly shut down with no sense of danger, so it was a cheap writing ploy. Omegaverse begins to lose any presence in this webtoon, like the author forgot this was an Omegaverse work to begin with, because it focuses way too much on the male lead whining about how horny he is, and some trial he hasn't gone to yet. The alpha he's paired with pretends to be a bonded pair with him, but it doesn't seem like there's any threat from the other prisoners. He was hired to kill the omega male lead, but is waiting until he falls in love with him first. Uh why? If you're a hitman, you do the job quickly and vanish, why are you going through the trouble to make someone fall in love with you, kill him and be done with it! Do you even hear your own stupid logic? There's no chemistry between the two characters, so they can just go die or whatever, I don't care. The art is ok, but it's rather bland and uses an unappealing color palette. Translation becomes worse and worse with each chapter.

The red panda is cute, but the boss character is annoying. He's too passive-aggressive. He adores the red panda, but never says it out loud, and he abuses whoever could possibly steal him away from him. I don't understand why the red panda was working as a housekeeper, and then went to school with children as his classmates. Isn't that low-key child labor? I thought this was so-so overall. There were limited situations, and basically repeated with the boss internally gushing over the red panda each time, which I was quickly bored of. I much prefer the "Southern Bird & Northern Bird" webtoon by the same author.

Trash webtoon about a trash bag human being who's horny as hell as well as broke, so he sleeps around with other women while trying to make money at the same time. Oh, and he has a wife and three very small kids. Instead of getting a proper job, he lies to his wife about his employment status, and he cheats on her constantly, while still trying to have sex with her without her consent. Ugh. This is just pure extremist male fantasy that shouldn't even exist.

This webtoon is like Boku no Hero Academia on crack, except without the school setting. Every hero here has a ridiculous, completely nonsensical superpower, but they also keep such a straight face about their abnormal situation. It's super funny. I'm just sad that it seems to have been dropped by the translators.

Haha, this shoujo webtoon is hilarious. The female lead is a ditz, but not in an intolerable way. The prince's reactions and his subsequent exasperation at her antics are relatable. Even the side characters are rather interesting, so I would say this is one of the better shoujo webtoons out there. It's not completely cliched, but it does have some huh? moments. Especially with the crown princess character, who seems completely at odds with the existing cast, because she acts very differently and inexplicably. The art is pretty good, but there are some problems when it comes to facial proportions and locations of facial features. The eyes are drawn very well though. I also appreciate how it doesn't turn into a full-blown in-your-face romance, and the author allows time for the various relationships to develop. I look forward to more chapters. Update: After Season 1, this story no longer makes any sense. I don't know if it's the translation or the story, but this webtoon sucks now. I don't recommend it anymore.

Cats are pretty cute, but the dogs are so-so. Average in terms of pet-themed webtoons. Art is alright, but I don't like the color palette that is used here. Humans are meh, not very interesting, and doesn't play off well with the pets.

Unm, well this is a better BL than the smut-based BLs that are as common as weeds you'd usually find. But it just barely stands above the lot, in that it does seem to have some semblance of plot and direction. However, it's so melodramatic like a soap opera, and the time travel doesn't really work. There's too many issues with time travel if it's not in a closed loop, because changing just one person's life is not possible, unless it had already happened. So I find this problematic, because this webtoon doesn't use a closed loop concept of time travel. I mean, theoretically it could stay open if he didn't go back and forth, and just remained in the past forever, which is what some other authors have opted for. Besides that, the male lead is very immature and leads his male love interest on way too much without thoroughly considering what his actions may do. Like, if he just abruptly left him, maybe his male love interest would completely lose hope and give up on his career? They need to communicate more! I'm more interested in the secondary couple's story compared to the main couple, because the other time traveler had a clearer agenda, and he knows what his purpose in life is. The art is very below par, using the simplest of lines and colors, but it works. It's not bad, I guess it's a decent read but there is some frustration that will come with it.

Ok, I'm pretty torn about this webtoon. What it does well, it does very well. What it doesn't, it fails pretty badly. The good thing about this webtoon is the comedic elements, especially between Intae and his friend Chulsoo. Their relationship is dynamic, and they play so well off each other, with Intae being completely crazy and Chulsoo being the straight man. Their reactions seem natural, even if they're completely over the top, and I did laugh out loud a couple times reading this. There's also a lot of nerdy or wink-wink-nudge-nudge bonus things scattered around, like manga trivia and stuff. But the bad thing about this webtoon are that it's very unbalanced. It tries too hard to be dark and heavy, with some meaningful message hidden underneath, but it's not executed well, and there's zero resolution. Honestly, nothing bad happens to any of the characters, and no one gets punished, even when they should be. Also, the comedic parts clash way too jarringly with the dark parts, and it's not pleasant to read. I had to take a lot of breaks while reading this webtoon because it just didn't hold my interest, and I didn't want to continue reading to see what happens next. Some of it is due to the characters. There are maybe only three compelling characters in this webtoon, at least from my perspective. That would be the nurse, Intae, and Chulsoo. The cast of characters is extremely limited, it only shows the same couple of students and two other faculty members throughout, but it fails to develop anyone else in a meaningful way, because they're used as plot accessories. I know the author tried to tack on sob stories to these other characters too, but it just doesn't work. It makes everyone in here seem crazy, and they're all angsty teenagers or disturbed individuals, and how can a school function normally, if that were the case? I think the webtoon should just have stuck with one genre only, either comedy or psychological, but not both, like it tries to do here. It can't be expected to be both deeply serious but also ridiculously impossible at the same time, and that's the main problem with why it ultimately fails, in my opinion. The art style is very stylized, using bold colors and thick lines , which I think suited this particular webtoon, but honestly, it's not very appealing to look at. Most of the colors are dark and dull, so it's a big downer while reading. However, the author made good use of their panels, and the space was used very effectively in webtoon format. One other thing I disliked about this webtoon was there was way too much LGBTQ in here, it didn't add anything to the story or the characters themselves, and it felt like the author just made literally every other character (especially the minor ones) not straight just for the sake of inclusivity, and that's just wrong. I wish people stopped using sexuality as a characterization because that's not what makes a good character, there's much more to a character than that alone. I did like Intae's sister somewhat, but the romance was out of nowhere, and resolved in the most unsatisfying manner, with them dating in the next chapter after they talk stuff out. The plot twist weren't that surprising to me either, since the author did it way too often, with the misleading conversations and cut-aways. It gets predictable once you've done it more than twice.

I really liked "Bastard" which was a previous work by the same author, but when this webtoon is compared to it, it definitely falls short. I really enjoyed the first half of the webtoon, where it focuses on survival and climbing up or down the floors as two major expedition parties. It gets the adventurous blood in me pumping! But obviously, it can't end with them clearing the tower, because there would be no real resolution. It's not a video game stage, after all. It is technically supposed to emulate real life, albeit with very extreme apocalyptic circumstances. The people in the building need to eventually leave, because it's impossible to stay in one building for the rest of their lives. That's where the webtoon goes downhill, when it introduces a new gang of characters who swarm in to take over the building. This leads to complete chaos, and that's when the suspense and thriller elements are lost, because now it's not human vs. monster, it's human vs. human, and it's not as exciting to see. Not to mention, all the monsters get nerfed hard. They're basically not a real threat, because there's too much in-fighting going on, and none of the other monsters are difficult to beat, since they have another half-monster with them. I can still remember the terror of the monster with no eyes and the spider-like one when it evolved, because that's when the webtoon was at its best. It captured the futility of fighting these almost immortal beings that just come back again and again, no matter how many times you knocked them down. In the end, they had to rely on other people becoming monsters themselves to fend off the hordes of monsters that came to swarm the building. That was predictable and not as refreshing to see. It's when a fictional work explores how truly helpless and weak we are, that it hits close to home. Turning into a monster just negates all of that, because you're no longer human. I didn't like how it never finished exploring the concept of the monsterization it brought up either, leaving lots of questions about why this was happening, why some people turn and some don't, why the cocoons were so important that all the monsters came when just one was destroyed. If they did address it, I'm afraid it was too subtle, since the running out of desire to become emotionless vessels after cocoon formation explanation totally went over my head. Sometimes, the simplest concepts are the best. Also, the romance did not work well here. It was understandable in "Bastard", but completely unnecessary in this webtoon. I did not care for the main couple at all, and I don't get why they get to have a happy ending just because Hyun is the main character. Why is it that no one else is attacked after their escape, and how come the people in the military zone they wind up in don't turn into monsters too? It leaves too many gaping plot holes and inconsistencies for me to declare this one of the best webtoons I've read. However, it is indeed quite good, and it's definitely worth a read.

It's pretty interesting so far, I like both of the female main characters who have been presented, and it's unclear what their relationship was with each other in the past. Why does the hacker girl want to find the female assassin so badly? Why is the assassin girl killing everyone in the hacker girl's father's group of guys in their shady business? How come the hacker girl doesn't know her former friend is such a skilled assassin? The art is very clean and easy on the eyes. I like how all the chapters are named after food, and the sausage and eggs bowl at the end of each chapter is so weird but funny at the same time. Update: Finished, it had some great ideas, but not-so-great execution. Everything was too rushed, and the chemistry was sorely lacking.