The problem with the Webtoon action genre.
Almost all of the action genres on Webtoon is a copy-paste of each other.
Every action genre comic I start reading on webtoon, they all usually have the same characters.
A man with black hair with some Korean name is usually the protagonist, probably the author copying Solo Levelling’s main character. (And I have a feeling that Solo Levelling as a whole is inspired by Sword Art Online)
All of these protagonists are either over-powered or become over-powered in just a few chapters, either because he is special or he gets a special item. All of these protagonists share the same trait - they want to fight to save the world.
All of these series have either of these settings –
The world has turned into a video game.
The hero was dying but time turns back to the start of the story and the hero’s memory remains intact.
It’s plain street-fighting, where the main character fights for the sake of fighting.
It’s either fantasy or superheroes with different abilities, with the main character having a special ability
The protagonist has no character beyond being cool or overpowered. And if they have a family, the hero almost always saves his mother and sister from either a supernatural disaster or from bullying in school.
Makes me wonder if it is a common occurrence for disaster to fall upon mothers and sisters of Korea all the time. It’s just a joke, but this idea that men have fathers and brothers too isn’t an idea that many of these authors have.
I should repeat the fact that these heroes don’t have a personality beyond wanting to save the world. They have no personal struggles beyond money or love life, and these are problems that somehow get solved with becoming a super-powered person who is extremely handsome.
That was how it was with Solo Levelling. The protagonist of Solo Levelling Sung Jinwoo was the only character who was granted the ability to level up when he was the weakest of them all, compared to other characters in that story, giving Jinwoo an unfair advantage over his fellow super-powered peers.
He keeps getting stronger and stronger, and by the end of the novel, he basically becomes a God who is fighting other Gods. Jinwoo stops being a human to become a God-like creature.
And that’s what my problem is. Most of these characters who seem overpowered at the start become God-like creatures by the middle of the story. The story of a human ceases to exist in favour of telling the story of a God.
These types of stories don’t really depict the stories about human men who are truly struggling. Cause these authors have no interest in telling the story of an average human in the first place.
While I do understand the appeal of Solo Levelling, the ending disappointed me. He randomly gets chosen to get all that power and he doesn’t even remain the same humble person he was at the start. Jinwoo becomes this proud man who enjoys fighting and looting the dungeons in an age where fighting and looting dungeons have real-life consequences.
The story literally becomes consequences for thee but not for me.
It becomes worse when there are works trying to copy and achieve Solo levelling’s success, but don’t bring the same charm to the table that Solo Levelling brings. At least Solo Levelling makes sure that the protagonist has hurdles to overcome to become more powerful.
But these copycat webtoons make their protagonists strong from the start cause they can’t wait to draw the protagonist doing cool stuff. These comics don’t respect the journey that it takes to become powerful and just make the protagonist strong with a loosely written explanation. Which gets boring quickly.
What is a good protagonist without any struggle?
That’s what the action genre on Webtoon has become. Lame and stale. And hell-bent on copying each other.
I get that people want to have fun and want to read more stories like Solo Levelling. But I seriously wish that authors would stop copying it and tell their own stories. At least the publisher Webtoon should maintain the balance between these kinds of stories and original action stories. And webtoon doesn’t do that.
The only story on webtoon where the author actually respects the journey of the protagonist is Unordinary and it sits at the top of the list of the action genre. A most interesting observation, in my opinion. Perhaps an observation from which Webtoon can learn a thing or two.
That’s all I have to say for today. Until next time.