by The otaku world has been literally run over by Manhwas and Webtoons and we all had ourselves fed on its undeniable charm. It’s no wonder that once we are done with one we are quickly onto Google, searching for the next. Thus the Google search history of most of us often reads “Best Manhwas”.
Today there are more than 150 Manhwas that are updated weekly and are very very popular amongst the readers. The official app registered a staggering 85 million readers every month.
Thus a manhwa hitting your correct spots is almost a given, right?
Well, it isn’t the case for everyone, not at least for the avid readers who gulp down one whole series of chapters under a day’s worth of time. It sometimes gets so frustrating, because on one hand you want all the Manhwas to be giving you the latest chapters as soon as they can but you refuse to comply with any sort of drop in quality of both artwork and story.
There are thousands of Manhwas and Webtoons on the internet but why is it that only a few tens of those make their mark for you?
You may have set aside some criteria through which you judge the manhwa as soon as you start the most common being “The trial of 5 chapters“, that is if the first 5 chapters can attract my attention and move me it’s worth a read.
But then you talk to some of your friends and find out that, the one you gave up after the first 5 actually built upon the characters very well and has provided a far better reading experience to them, than the one you were actually interested in discussing. Alas, that’s a miss!
Now you stand in utter dilemma whether to give that “apparently” good manhwa another try or dig up something completely new and even if you do end up rereading, there is a chance that the bias of being rejected at the very first sticking to it and finally you feel you wasted your time.
And ain’t time very precious something you can’t be wasting any more on regrets that too for reading a wrong manhwa. So I thought and thought and finally theorized a new way, well technically It’s not patented so you all are free to avail of this. And it’s just a three-step process.
Basically, it is a list of criteria that you can check through any manhwa and then get an almost certain amount of trust that it suits your style. Along with each category, I shall give a few examples that have fared well.
Though there may be one fault of depending on this technique of mine which may prove to be a big deal breaker, I’ll ask you to read it at the bottom of this script.
1) Total number of Chapters Released
So the best way is to start a manhwa after a certain number of Chapters that have been released officially and I would suggest keeping it at 50. Why? Here is my response:
As I went on and read newer Manhwa when the old piles were either on a hiatus or just finished I was left with a bad taste and it wasn’t just because the Manhwa wasn’t good enough. But it wasn’t long enough, it couldn’t satisfy my need to just enjoy more, the desire to go deeper into the storyline faster.
But why the golden number of 50+, well any new Manhwa whether good or bad needs time to establish itself the characters need time to become more understood or at least likable, and the story needs to be elevated to a height from which the beginning and the end even though seemingly close hold the potential to make you come and read a new chapter every week.
Even though most of them do release a bunch of chapters together so that a reader may get the feel for it, we all know it just scratches the itch not so completely. And mostly by the end of 50 chapters all of the above-mentioned requirements have been fulfilled and the Manhwa may even have undergone a seasonal hiatus which shows it is “here to stay” or at least “still going strong.”
Worst of all, what if the Manhwa just stops producing new chapters all of a sudden, what will you do with that curiosity of yours, what if it could not live up to its potential?
I know you might curse me at this point because why should you wait at least 30 weeks since a manhwa is released to read 50 chapters of it, remember manhwa and anime differ on the point that the pace in an anime is set on the other side of the screen but with manhwas the reader holds the power to set a pace at which he/she decides to move forward.
And when you have that much power I believe it’s your responsibility to use it wisely as Uncle Ben said “With great power comes great responsibility“
A great example of this will be “The World After The Fall“, “The Reaper of The Drifting Moon” and “SSS class Suicide Hunter” all of which started with generic storylines but built upon themselves immensely and we’re rewarding at the end.
2) How regular is the Release of new Chapters
Let’s all accept it never feels good when something starts and then stops suddenly and starts again only to stop more unexpectedly. And doesn’t it get frustrating when you are so very vested in your reading and suddenly the bottom of your screen reads “No new chapters found!”
You go back to refresh the page and still see that month’s old date of the last chapter released. It’s sometimes disheartening to the point many good manhwas are eventually forgotten forever.
If you have already scrutinized your choice based on criteria 1 and your selection has enough content to support you, it may be okay to pass this requirement if the updates are slow at least. But it’s a risk nevertheless. On basing your filtering on this criteria you assure yourself of at least regular updates to the story which may be only hindered by a seasonal hiatus.
The regularly updating Manhwas not only are able to build up proper suspension and the feeling of being “on edge”.
The ones who are very irregular have a hard time building up a fanbase even for works that go into hiatus very often mostly suggesting the writer’s health concerns (which are very real) and that too for long periods end as a point of frustration and we can do nothing about it but keep our patience.
The only solution to this kind of problem is to have a storyline that is so strong and balanced that the readers can somewhat expect it to be even better the next time they read it. A good example of this would be “The Beginning After The End” or “Memorize“.
“Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint” & “Swordmaster’s Youngest Son” are good examples of regularly updating manhwas, but the best one would be “Solo Leveling“
3) Choosing a particular Genre that you connect to best.
Now don’t get me wrong! I am not asking you to be a slave of just one genre limiting your scope of exploring better and more memorable stories by being seclusive about the type of Manhwa you read.
What I am asking of you is that if you are to place your bets on deciding a manhwa to read believe me having a selected genre to invest your time in is the best bet.
To do that though one needs to have experience in reading a few Manhwas that have been good or bad because as a new reader, your tastes haven’t even developed properly and that is a great opportunity in itself.
A veteran who has those genres decided already, can just take a leap of faith where he/she trusts not the writer, animation, storyline, etc but just the power or the backing of the genre itself.
We all are pretty sold on “System” or “Regression” Manhwas and many love reading “Martial Arts” Manhwas. These are very popular on a worldwide basis, and all readers have come out more or less pretty satisfied after reading a manhwa based on one of these popular genres.
Even the newbies can adopt the same criteria of choosing one manhwa that is either popular by itself or has the support of a well-tried and tested background.
But the problem may arise for people who are always in search of hidden gems, the ones very few people are actually aware of. Well for them I have only got one thing to say “Stay hard”.
So what is that deal-breaker that you are probably eagerly waiting to know about, well the deal-breaker is the trust issue of a previously loveable or favorite manhwa dipping on you at the moments you wanted it to rise the most.
If you have your Manhwas selected through this process and have read it for a very long time you might have gotten very invested in its storyline and how typically or atypically the characters present themselves.
But what if it just stops, what if the story just starts to go in a roundabout manner and we are forced to put up with all of this with the sole expectation of it having entertained us for a very long time?
That’s a risk that neither me nor you can deal with effectively and its unpredictability plays a huge role for those who know what the pain is of being let down by things you have developed interests in (I am still talking about Manhwas ).
However, this list of criteria doesn’t involve you checking in on the art quality and story depth. Because I am very sure it’s unsurprisingly unique to us all we all judge things differently even when judging a very common factor.
So let’s break into better stories, give ourselves the credit to discover greatness, and most important waste little to no time in deciding which Manhwa will suit our tastes and which doesn’t.
Remember no work of art is bad, even though you can criticize it on the basis of what you want but the work of art may appeal to someone else. Respect each other’s choice (of Manhwas at least).
