Maybe the author of <Consumua and Sudutist!>, Dott, is working with much delight. Though there would be the stress of deadline and the pain of creation, of course. This work adopted the subculture as its material; in more common words, it deals with the world of otaku.

The time the notion of ‘otaku’ started to be imported to Korea is no older than mid-90’s, so we can safely say the history of subculture in Korea have been continued for more than 20 years. But it is 10 years at most that the subculture developed as a stable market, and it is less than that, several years, that the market is grown enough. There would be many reasons for it, such as intensification of individualistic tendency, increase of consumption by women in their 20s and 30s, and investment on culture industries, but I don’t think we have to deal with them here. The important thing is how this webtoon dealt with such elements with how much fun.

The author, Dott, seems to be profound to the world of ‘otaku’ and its culture. The author uses the subculture jargons like a ‘sudutist’*, a ‘golden hand’, a ‘fav character’, and ‘transmutation’** without hesitation, and materializes their meanings, feelings, and emotions of people using them in a detailed way, on the drawing. Readers of both, who are well aware of them and who are not, can enjoy this work as they are. Because at least there’s enough in-the-work explanation why the characters act that way.

*A ‘super duper artist’. Originally jonjal in Korean, literally a shortened form of ‘freaking talented’.

**Means making a fanart out of a character or material. Originated from the manga and animation, Full Metal Alchemist.

Inside the work, duplicity of the characters stands out. Jung Woo, the male protagonist, is a handsome, tall and attractive university student. Unlike his appearance, however, he’s not very confident and has a solid world of his own. Which means, he’s an otaku. He’s shyly cute to the ‘sudutist’ who ‘transmutes’ his ‘fav character’, but as being ‘logged in real life’, with his friends, he’s an ordinary young man. Meanwhile, Jooin, the female protagonist, is the most junior in a design agency. She’s not a ‘sudu-beauty’, but she’s a cutie. It seems she’s living an ordinary life, despite in the subculture world she’s recognized as a ‘named sudutist’*. Meeting of the two inverts the cliché of traditional Romance, the strong-weak relations of ‘leading man’ and ‘passive woman’ / ‘man giving love’ and ‘woman receiving love’. The man is weak by showing his ‘fanship’ to her, and the woman validates his weakness and reassures him. The strong-weak reversal of the relation constructs the basic structure of the characters and the story, and from this, the tension and the fun are made.

*The Korean slang ‘named’ means well-recognized, and it is originated from calling online game’s elite enemies as a ‘named’, because an elite enemy has an individual name, standing out from common enemies. 

As two attractive protagonists meet, who understands the world of each other, it would be a surprise if they don’t go out together. The author allots a lot of parts depicting how they see each other. Watching the attractive couple going lovey-dovey is enjoyable, but it’s a bit of disappointment that the emotion is described too directly. As the emotions of Jung Woo and Jooin is explained by their own lines and they are delivered too straightforward, sometimes it feels too distant from the reader, breaking the immersion. It would be better if the lines were a bit more compressed, because way too easy lines sometimes make the characters unfamiliar.

Anyway, <Consumua and Sudutist!> is a webtoon which blends interesting material and diverse characters in harmony. Though I didn’t mention it in detail, the process of forming relationships among people near the protagonists is drawn quite interestingly and convincingly. As you watch this interesting otaku story, woven with the characters with strong personalities, you may ‘enter the otaku’ all of the sudden. Because entering the otaku always starts by a random, trivial event, you know.