I was waiting for a few chapters to build up for me to read this one and I have to say that the PTJ company doesn’t disappoint at all. The story, the action, the characters most of all, it’s upto the level of other PTJ comics. Let’s get to it, MILD SPOILERS AHEAD.
Federal Informant ‘Baek Yisoo’ is twins with ‘Baek Dogyeong’ a criminal gang Taesan’s boss. Both brothers have lived significantly different lives however Yisoo and his team is betrayed by his superiors. After a series of events, Dogyeong is killed and the world beleives that Yisoo is the one that is dead. Yisoo decides to go for revenge against his former superiors and becomes Dogyeong himself, taking control of Taesan in order to take down the men who murdered his sole family member, finding that the reason his team was betrayed had ties to Korean politics as well as the Korean underworld.
If you’ve read a PTJ manhwa you would know by now that the characters are the strong point of the manhwa and the tradition is well upkept. Yisoo is shown as a cold man who desires revenge but revenge is not the only thing that is on his mind, we see him struggle with his brother’s death and even ponder on how he feels like he’s losing himself by pretending to be his brother. Dogyeong similarly is also given depth and the relationship of these brothers is potrayed in a way that makes you feel the rage that Yisoo feels when he faces the men who killed his brother. Further talk would be spoilers however there is one character that I like the most and that was Lee Sungmin, the leader of gang Ilhak. Sungmin is a character that faces his development in the short span of the story that is currently out and turns out to become a really great character, I have always liked the ‘fallen prince’ type of characters and Sungmin goes on to prove himself in a very notable way in the story.
Let’s get it out of the way, the action is good in Baek XX and I mean really good like other PTJ company comics, it’s got fist fights, weapon fights and a lot of blood when the weapons come out. The manhwa touches upon the Korean politics being tied to the underworld and I like that part a lot, it’s the real driving force of the story and yet not much has been revealed about it till now. The clash of ideologies of Yisoo who is a military man and the other characters of the Korean underworld who are gangsters, military pros vs amateur gangsters is another part where the manhwa shines where Yisoo learns of the world that his brother lived in and how to operate in it with their laws and ways.
I very well loved the loyalty of Taesan to Dogyeong. It made for some exceptional moments in the story where they were convinced that Taesan belonged to Dogyeong and that Yisoo if he wantd dto run it had to become his brother leading to further depth to his character as well as Dogyeong’s. The relationship of the military to their superiors which is one of following orders and the relationship of a gang to a boss based on trust turns poetic as Yisoo following orders unquestioningly is betrayed but Dogyeong who is dead is not abandoned by his gang.
Baek XX currentlty has 33 chapters and it’s going strong for the time being. The action is good, a lot of the story is unexplored and there are also many twists in the story. Currently I think that Baek XX will have a 9/10 rating solely because of one very specific plot point which if unexplaied could bring down the rating further.
So that is it for this post guys hope you got some value from this. Thank you guys for reading to the end hit me up on Instagram and Twitter with your thoughts and if you have any ideas on what I should write about. Stay safe. Thank you again and I’ll see you all next week.
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