He's one of my favs so I couldn't continue reading after making the connection. Bro suffered enough under Doflamingo. This should've had a "dj" in the title.
Wld've preferred it as a og series but the art is real good eitherways. There aren't much psychological horror in bl works being translated from Japan recently.
(Also the warnings are slapped right in your face so if you've read it and still complain about the dark themes, you look stupid.)
So I let this webtoon marinate and when I came back I realised it apparently got banned on official global sites for promoting racism and misogyny/anti-feminism. I've read about some claims on reddit but what do the current readers think about it? Genuinely asking.
Nuh Huh, it's fine for me
Huh? But when did they promote these things? I literally just finished reading it and what they did was they were against these things... I genuinely didn't understand.
I heard the same things from this twitter thread and for me the whole thing just felt like the author had a revenge fetish.... https://x.com/k927927/status/1854438486427730342
Wow thanks for the link! It's only now that I saw that it got banned, didn't realise the controversies started last year.
Yea when I first read it, it seems like they were fighting for the oppressed but there were only 10 chapters out then. I'm confused too since the comments are so positive. Seeing the threads under your reply it looks like there are serious accusations?
From what I know in a chapter that I don't remember but I did read ,when the American guy arrived his first task was to take care of a black kid who was racist against Korean kids because they lived in an area mostly populated by immigrants (when in reality it's the opposite, korean people discriminate against immigrants) and in that chapter the American guy called the kid the n-word to provoke him . The readers got mad at the writer so they deleted that chapter, they said that they we're sorry and changed the story .
I don't know if this has to do what you're talking about but I think it does and maybe there's more ...idk ʅ(°_°)ʃ
Oh yeah, now I DO remember that. I was very confused when I read this chapter, especially because it had no continuation. But I just ignored it.
And yes, this chapter was super weird, it's like the author was trying to promote the idea of reverse racism? Something like that. Good thing he deleted it. But that was the only strange thing in the entire manhwa, because I don't remember seeing the part about anti-feminism and etc. In fact, there are chapters where they go against an extremist teacher, but they defend gender equality, They just don't support extremism on top of that and the method she tried to apply to teach about it. Perhaps people have misinterpreted these chapters.
Yeah I thought the same thing, I didn't feel like there was anti feminist stuff in here or anything controversial apart from that deleted chapter obviously
I went to deep-dive after reading that linked thread and ig I'll just update my findings here. (It's pretty long)
It seems like that arc was referencing a real news in Korea where a feminist teacher got exposed for enforcing female rights rules onto students' studies and received tremendous hate for it. The details coincides and the dates weren't too far off that incident. It wasn't a big deal until it was revealed that the whole thing was fabricated by male students to get her fired. The rules enforcement never happened and instead, male students spread that the teacher was feminist and radicals ended up bullying her into getting fired (you can check news on controversies about feminist teachers in korea, there was a #metoo movement back then, but Idt that relates to the webtoon). This in turn shone a bad light onto the author who used the topic to create a fictional scenario that painted feminist teachers into villains during a sensitive time. It didn't help that it was featured in the webtoon app after a female naver author was sexually harassed by a male naver author.(Man I was shocked at how many things was happening behind the scenes.)
It's similar to the racism incident where he referenced a specific korea district populated by black people and painted them as racists, calling them slurs when in actual fact the koreans were the ones discriminating against them.
Tldr the accusations rn are that the author has been painting minorities and the oppressed as villains in his webtoon due to his own biasness. The accusations does seem pretty valid considering how they've only deleted racist scenes in international sites but kept all the controversial contents in the korean sites. (Feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong afterall my sources are reddit and that twitter thread. )
Unrelated but this was also how I found out other novels like orv hosted on webtoon got involved in these controversies indirectly. Due to this webtoon and author getting flamed on media sites, webtoon naver is getting loads of their dirty laundry aired lol
Hate that we can't edit replies here. Ironically after I posted this I found out it went on sk's mainstream news because of an actor. For people interested in more updates, you can google the kr name 참교육.
Biggest thanks to the person who linked the thread and everyone who opened up a discussion because it kept me coming back to this comment section to update myself. Not sure how this will affect the webtoon's direction but it was cool seeing everyone's opinions about this.
It did have really messed up racist chapter, but it was apologized for and erased from the story. When it comes to feminism, I’m a hard on feminist and I don’t see how this story is supposed to be misogynistic. I would say it’s actually one of rare action stories that have a strong, not over-sexualized, intelligent and interesting female characters. Dunno what’s that about
I know which chapter on “feminism” you’re talking about. If it was based on some real situation that ended up being messed up, then sure, that’s really not cool. But what was portrayed in that chapter was NOT feminism. It was misandry. That teacher was misandrist, teaching misandrist values to children, main characters made it switch to what is actually closer to feminism which was teaching about equality. I’m a huge feminist, so I wouldn’t read this if it was genuinely misogynistic. I actually find people trying to pain this as feminism harmful, it goes against what movement beliefs and gives it a bad name. It was misandry. And this is one of very rare action webtoons that actually has strong female characters who aren’t overly-sexualized, are intelligent and are actually interesting. They also aren’t a decoration to main characters, but are great on their own. Pretty sure it also called out multiples times any kind of “women are weak”, “women should be obedient and nice” attitudes too. This comic is far more progressive than 90% of action webtoons. Please don’t confuse calling out misandry with being misogynistic
Thank you for the clarifications! I totally understand what you mean. I have spoken about this topic with a korean professor before due to my interest in korean culture, and from what I know, the definition of feminists is widely connected with misandry and these two words are used interchangeably even by translators in South Korea. Feminism is widely frowned upon in Korea because it's seen as radical Misandry- my professor herself didn't like "feminists" because the word itself have negative connations for korea women and in some context it's regarded as an insult similar to calling someone a b*tch.
I totally agree that calling out misandry =/= misogynist, but currently in korea where this webtoon was created, what this teacher did is labeled as an act of feminism. People are unhappy that the author painted feminists in an extremely bad light and afterwards encouraged inflicting physical punishment on them when they are already being bullied in society- it's the same situation as painting back people as racist then imposing "justice" on them when in reality it's the opposite happening. By generalising the teacher in an extreme portrayal of "feminism" on top of how feminist=misandrists in SK, it brought upon accusations of misogyny as the author villainised female "feminist" teachers.
Since it's fiction it's a gray area but there's a large outcry due to twisted real life cases similar to the webtoon, and the news that it's being adapted into a kdram. In Korea there's a huge debate of whether this can be even be considered misogynistic(because feminists are seen as extreme radicals) or an act of revenge justice like the black slur case. I don't have a strong opinion on whether creating those two arc was act of anti-feminism or anti-black and I'm just reiterating news. I think those who follow this series or had experienced life in SK as a minority have a better understanding than me on whether the creators are racist or misogynist so I hope I didn't offend anyone with my words. This topic has been trending in social media these days and I'm just genuinely curious how global readers feels. Hope my reply made sense! ^^
I think that was a great reply. I totally understand where you’re coming from, and where people are coming from with this criticism. Personally, I don’t find the author misogynistic because of the reasons I’ve listed above. I also don’t support misandry, I understand where it’s coming from, but posing it as feminism is definitely very harmful to actual feminist movement. I can understand also why women in Korea are so radical, with everything they have to go through there. I just never agree with generalization and misdirected hate, which is probably why I didn’t see that chapter as misogynistic or having an anti-feminism intent. I think authors intentions are up to personal interpretation, with how they write women and what issues they portrayed so far, personally I don’t see them that way. Their racial insensitivity however, was not up for debate. It was disgusting. It was more of an issue whether readers choose to accept the apology and move past it or not.
I've definitely seen a divide in the feminist communities of korea in recent years due to the generalisation of such terms. Though like you said, they are extreme because of their living conditions. It's always nice to hear solid opinions on the topic and you've been making a lot of valid points on personal interpretation as well. This is probably the biggest reason why the teacher's arc is widely unsettled for debates compared to the racism topic. Not sure how the kdrama will develop and if these online debates will make any differences in story directions, but thank you for sharing your opinions on it!
Of course. I’m always down for respectable debates. Honestly, I’m not sure about how kdrama will turn out, especially since it’s not nearly long enough of a format to adapt everything from the webtoon in it. Also, I feel like kdramas rarely live up to originals, so I don’t have high expectations. However, it is gonna be interesting to see how they adapt this. Thank you for this discussion, it was a pleasure to talk to you!
Yuchi Jinze always manages to amaze me at how much deeper her manhuas are then initially seen. All the foreshadowing was set up since chapter one. Like, I wasn't expecting a plotless harem since this is THE Yuchi Jinze we're talking about, but damn she was brutal with the characters.
Honestly, I didn't like this as much as Shining Star(Little mushroom isn't her sole writing so I'm excluding that), but it had it's own appeal and I cried a river for the MC's father. How does it feel to lose everyone you love to the grim reaper just because you loved the gender that wasn't socially accepted ;; He was biased but lets be real can you blame him after knowing everything that happened. He tried his best and still couldn't get his happy end.
I can't even be happy because the characters other than the main couple got such a tragic ending. Can you really call this a happy ending if only the main cp is happy ;; I really want a spinoff where the MC's father gets a happy ending too. This can't be it, I'm so frustrated. They were so damn tragic, justice for MC's dad（/TДT)/
Can you spoil about what happened to the other two guys
I expected a plotless NTR nonsense but it's the way all of them have their own issues and how each of them messes up the other's mental state that made me feel so sad for all of them. All 3 of them are so pathetic I actually cried multiple times feeling frustrated because they just can't get their feelings across.
Taekwan is the most emotionally mature out of the three but he is also the most immature in life experiences so it's true that he really can't handle MC with how much trauma he had. The other two are carrying a shit ton of baggage a normal person wouldn't be able to heal and I feel sorry he's roped up with them. MC's stuck in an extremely toxic cycle with literally everyone around him. Even his best friend didn't concern himself with him, no one tried to help him out of the abuse, so it's obvious he's emotionally dependant on his abusive bf who did help him in the past.
Mw the Bf is paranoid af and is so emotionally immature he dk how to convey his feelings and end up creating an abusive relationship when they could've stayed happy. It's so sad how much they suffered because they are all dumbasses. I'm not even being sarcastic, the toxic couple especially should wake tf up because I can't handle this no more. I want to just grab them all, shove them in a room, lock the door and force them to have a talk once and for all. Author's really good at giving me the feels fk（/TДT)/
Harem for both the sister and brother that's what I'm talking about