written by
Snailords
rated
8 / 10
updates
Saturdays
genre
Thriller
link
From the author of Freaking Romance and Nightmare Factory comes another hair-raising story, a story where every person gets to murder another annually. Legally. No wonder it’s a thriller.
I’d like to get into this by first giving you all a heads-up: This is most definitely not recommended for anyone under eleven. There are some pretty graphic scenes in there, of people getting chopped up into bits and children getting tortured again and again. However, it’s not quite a horror (I’m not a big fan of that genre anyway), so it should be fine if you can handle blood and some limbs.
But the gore aside, it’s a pretty damn good story. With a cast of characters across a wide range of personalities, but not to the point where it’s an overwhelming amount, Snailords doesn’t disappoint. He’s got an interesting plot that’s kept me hooked this whole time as well, what with the annual kills and the deviant powers, which he’s kept from being too cringy.
Unfortunately, I have an issue with one of the characters: Emai. She doesn’t seem to have a personality throughout the episodes except for a maniac woman who loves eating Kitkats and murdering people on a spree. However, in the recent episodes, I can see a small bit of her personality starting to form; she does have a loving side. She’s not just a killer, but also capable of caring. Yet she’s still not a solid enough character and dims down the story a notch.
Now, I’ve seen a lot of negative comments about this Webtoon on Reddit. They point out the lack of humor and, more importantly, the lack of representation of cultural diversity and the misogyny of the author. I can’t disagree with them, because now that I think about it, they’re right. Most characters in it are white. The one black woman was killed pretty early. Emai, one of the most important female characters, has no personality, and Kissae, who is genderfluid, stays in a more masculine state most of the time. They have the ability to switch between genders, but if you look closely, their male state is much more powerful than their female. These, in my opinion, are all true about the author and the details in the comic.
But I’d like to separate the story from these aspects. If you ignore the genders, if you ignore the races, at the core, D: R is nothing more than a thrilling, exciting, and well-crafted story. As I was reading, I didn’t think about this. It doesn’t mean I don’t care; it means that it’s just a webtoon, just a story. The author may be the biggest asshole on the planet, and it may show in the story, but it doesn’t ruin the plot. I still think that the writing itself is good, combined with a pretty art style. And why does a series have to have humor? I, for one, didn’t even notice that there was much displaced or odd humor. It isn’t a vital part of the story. Instead of picking on every detail and on the flawed ideals of the author, just enjoying the exciting story is enough. Don’t you think?
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