There is a popular cartoonist known by everyone who has seen Korean romance comics.

Having explosive popularity and creating the topic of conversation with Unplugged Boy and Audition, Chun Kye-young has serialized webtoon Love Alarm with fresh material just like her style.

Recently, this cartoon was confirmed to be produced as a drama in Netflix with a leading actress, Kim So-hyun which makes it become a hot issue in town once again.

This series, which was serialized until Season 7 on Daum Webtoon, take some time off due to the cartoonist’s health problem, having a background of the world where the application Joalarm rings an alarm if anyone within a 10-meter radius has a crush on a user. 

 

The leading character, Jojo is a girl whose parents passed away when she was young and was raised by her aunt.

Aunt has a daughter, Gul-mi, who is the same age as Jojo. Aunt is always hard on Jojo, but she hangs in there, being bright and cheerful while growing up. 

Meanwhile, when Jojo is a high school student, the app Joalarm is created. It has a function that the alarm rings when someone who has a crush on the user comes close. And the world starts changing.

The app allows people to easily find out who likes them and to be easily revealed who they like vice versa. And then, people can’t live without Joalarm any longer 

 

Eight years later, people rely entirely on the app and have a culture that they easily meet and break up with others. It rouses some people’s antipathy. Some extreme decisions are made by people who don’t get an alarm from Joalarm that has created controversy and topicality since it was launched. Some other people cause trouble by doing unreasonable actions because they want to receive more Joalarm. Now it's hard to find someone in the world who doesn't use Joalarm.

Besides, Joalarm introduces a new feature that rings an alarm if anyone who might have a crush on a user comes close. It increases more conflict between Brian Chon, a developer of Joalarm and Anti-Joalarm, a group against Joalarm. 

Nevertheless, Brian Chon unveils the mysticism of his past, deciding to show up on a popular TV show called Clap Clap Clap to announce the new features of Joalarm and bringing the Joalarm badge club to the show.

On the other hand, Jojo receives a gift from Chon Duk-goo who had a crush on Gul-mi in his high school days but got dumped and who is a real developer of Joalarm. The gift is a Joalarm Shield; even if you come close to a person who you have a crush on, this person’s Joalarm wouldn’t ring. Taking advantage of it, she successfully precludes the Joalarm of Sun-oh whom she has a crush on from ringing an alarm. And while she uses the shield to hide her feelings for Sun-oh, she eventually breaks up with him.

Since then, Jojo wants to keep her promise that she made when receiving the shield from Duk-goo. She doesn’t tell anyone that she has the shied that precludes Joalarm from ringing an alarm and time passes on.

She’s a grown-up woman now, going out with Hye-young, Sun-oh’s friend who has loved her since he was a child. However, she feels guilty that she used the shied to preclude the Joalarm of Hye-young who loves her from ringing an alarm so that she determines to meet Brian Chon, appearing on the Clap Clap Clap show for finding out the way of destroying the shield.

Brian Chon, Jojo, Gul-mi and Sun-oh, and an ex-idol singer Marks begin the show while appearing on Clap Clap Clap for their desired goals. What will they finally get through this show?

Chun Kye-young is a cartoonist who always depicts the stories of young people's dreams and loves well. This work also tells the story of their clumsy love through a unique setting.

Jojo loves Sun-oh but doesn't want her feelings to be found by him. Sun-ho also likes Jojo but he can’t come close to her.

Duk-goo loved Gul-mi, but he was rejected. After growing up, he appears again. When Gul-mi finds out he’s a developer of Joalarm and a wealthy man, she somehow tries to like him.

And, Yuk-jo has a crush on Sun-oh. Even though she knows that Sun-oh still likes Jojo, she can’t let go of him. Hye-young also feels insecure about Jojo’s feelings for him, but he doesn’t bring his insecurity out to Jojo. 

The roles who express their feelings for the other the most honestly are Hye-young and Yuk-jo. No matter what the other feels for them, they honestly show how they love the other.

On the contrary, those who want to keep hiding how they feel from the other but long for someone’s love all the time are Jojo and Sun-oh who Hye-young and Yuk-jo love.

Both Jojo and Sun-oh have an absence of family. Jojo has a painful past that her parents left her alone and committed suicide of coal briquette gas when she was a child. Sun-oh looks like he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and brought up in a wealthy environment, however, he didn’t get enough love from his parents while he was growing up. He rather feels jealous of his childhood friend, Hye-young, a son of Sun-oh’s housemaid working at his home. Hye-young wasn’t brought up in a wealthy family but received lots of his mom’s love.

If you read this work, you might imagine what if an application with a function like Joalarm is developed in reality.

And I think I won’t be so happy if this type of application comes out. Everything becomes easy and simple in the world these days, however, when I imagine my heart for someone could be expressed too easily, it makes me feel sad. 

Besides, as expressed in this work, I feel a little bitter that people would compete to collect more alarms and feel proud of getting many alarms, when I imagine such a world.

Love Alarm, a work by Chun Kye-young, depicts the insecure young people who are not sure of winning someone’s heart in the world with Joalarm. Because her webtoon has an intriguing story unfolded with a fresh and unique material that never existed so far, it’s fascinating itself. If you ever plan to watch the drama that will be produced based on this work, I recommend you check out the original webtoon first.