A New Fighter Has Entered The Arena

When Weak Hero first dropped I gave it a whirl on a whim and absolutely fell in love. But what happens when another comic drops on it's turf? How do I feel about that?

Oh I definitely feel some ways, I'm just not crazy sure what. As I have said before, Weak Hero is one of my all time favorite comics, so I'll acknowledge my bias, but I genuinely do feel that though these two share both their genre and subgenre, they couldn't be more different. Seeing these two compared is honestly unfair because of the strong difference in their message. You don't even need to read the comics to see it (but you should)- just read the titles: Weak HERO and Neon REVENGE. We have blatant opposing themes here right out the gate.

Let's briefly go over what these two series are about:

Weak Hero-

Gray Yeon is a typical high schooler that's only focus is on studying. But something seems off...why is this near genius at such an unspectacular school? And what is that weird look in his eyes when run of the mill bullies start to cause a ruckus? He may look frail and pretty, as the bullies always make sure to point out, but you shouldn't be fooled. The cover does not match what's inside the book with this one. When bullies start to cause a problem that can no longer be ignored, the school, and soon the entire district, get a look at one of the most fierce fighters these streets have ever seen. You get one warning- and that's it. This story follows Gray, a small group of guys who are on his side and the Korean bully/gang network itself. You get all the back stories to find out what exactly happened to them all to make them like this. Is there any end in sight for these boys? Can Gray ever bring himself to get close to anyone again? And what is the leader of the local gangs going to do about this rogue White Mamba? Warning: this comic contains scenes of extreme violence and you will learn to be afraid of harmless inanimate objects.

Neon Revenge-

After the death of Seongbin Cha's sister, he takes up the persona of Neon Mask. And what's on the agenda? Just taking out the vast network of bullies and gangs plaguing the country. Neon Mask creates his own network where ordinary people can report bullying attacks which eventually gets the bullies ranked and on his radar. Once there, he puts hits on these bullies for people to get revenge and pays people to do so. If you fancy yourself cruel enough, Neon will come and visit you himself or have his special elite team of Mods come find you. He has become famous for livestreaming his attacks on these people and vows to not stop until all the bullies have been taken down, including, but not limited to, the organization that is more rightfully to blame for his sisters untimely death. Warning: this comic also contains scenes of extreme violence and will make you want to be as BA as his Mod- Joy.

Please keep in mind, I am not minimizing the violence or cruelty found in Weak Hero (though maybe my picture choices indicate otherwise- oops), I'm not even saying I justify or agree with it, but I think it's important to note that Gray [the main character of Weak Hero, shown above] never picked a single one of his fights, with the exception of his very first one (not in the series but chronologically). That's a huge difference in comparison to Neon[/Seongbin Cha, the main character of Neon Revenge, shown above] who has hand picked and started every single one of his fights. Don't get me wrong they are eerily similar in their fighting styles, and that they are both strongly motivated by grief- the loss of Gray's best friend (and some suspect love interest) and Neon's sister. Neon's sister was killed due to the actions of a bully and Gray's friend was left in a vegetative state due to bullies. I definitely see the parallels, but I think this boils down to a matter of the heart. Neon has made it clear that he only lives to fight and take down as many people as he can before he dies or is arrested. Whereas Gray doesn't really feel a solid purpose to life and is just trying to get by.

A lot of this is opinion though, what about the stats? Back in March Neon Revenge took the stage with a large debut. It was apart of an event and got a lot of attention really fast. Now, approaching it's 3 month anniversary (with 16 total episodes), it stands with a 9.7 star rating, has 232.8k subscribers, and is currently placed the #18 spot in its genre. Not bad. But here's a much more important stat to look at, especially for series who come in on events: The episode activity. When it started they almost broke the 100k+ cap with over 98k episode likes. That's great! But it has gone down hill since, with last weeks episode only having over 17k episode likes. I have things to say about this but let's skip over to Weak Hero's stats first. These numbers have gone up since I last wrote about it (yay). We are now on our third season with a total of 137 episodes with a 9.85 star rating, 966.2k subscribers, and it is now holding the #5 spot for it's genre. Last weeks chapter is currently at over 33k likes but most of the episodes are usually 50k and up.

So, let's stop beating around the bush- how do I feel about these series? My feelings for Weak Hero have not changed. I love it and I think it is worth everyone's time. I think it deserves higher numbers than this too. But, I also think Neon Revenge deserves some higher numbers too. I find Neon Revenge very controversial...and compelling. Some weeks, I tell myself I'm done with it...but then it pulls me back. It's like watching a really bad car crash, I know it's wrong, but I can't take my eyes off of it. The story is written in a way that makes me want to know how this is going to end. The art is colorful despite it's nature, and I am a sucker for a good fight scene. It will not make my top five, but it will make my weekly "must read" list. If you want to re-evaluate your morals, this is a good comic to do that with. Either way, it is interesting to watch these two comics climb and I look forward to the tangled adventure ahead of us. Best of wishes to both teams working on these comics, they are incredible as individuals and I hope people can separate them enough to see that.

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Thank you for tuning into this comparison review. This is kind of unique for me, but there were too many people comparing the two and I found myself wanting to lay them both out and defend them as individuals. What did you think? Anyways, I hope you are having a great week- finish strong! I will be back here on Sunday with The Mess, in the mean time, stay safe, stay nerdy, and stay messy otaku!