The title or cover of the creative work is really important. It's the same as a human face. When a person sees another person or try to decide which work to appreciate or not, the first thing to look at is a face and a cover. To draw a conclusion that you want in a limited time, you need to take a look at the information-intensive parts. For humans this is a face and for creative works it is a cover or title. Webtoons have a title, of course, and instead of a cover, there is an image that readers can access from the list of webtoons in each series, often called "thumbnails." Due to the nature of Internet serials, it may be considered as an alternative to a cover.

  

The reason I’m suddenly talking about thumbnails is that I think it’s very shame that the low ranking of the webtoon Winter Woods does not match to its worth. Its title is pretty good, but the ranking in Monday’s Line Webtoon is so low that I think it’s because of its thumbnail. It’s a plain thumbnail from the prologue of Season 2 which is a male leading character with an impassive face drawn in the white background, but to be honest, while the drawing is one of the biggest advantages of Winter Woods, it’s a shame.

 

If webtoon Winter Woods is food, it’d be a great fusion dish.

It is a successful fusion dish that makes the most of its original taste, blending well with other dishes. The ingredients used to make the dish can be summarized as 'emotional romance' and 'mystery thriller' respectively.

 

The webtoon begins when a man, code name EL-01 meets an aspiring writer Jane, who suffers from lack of writing materials due to an arrangement of unidentified organization and the man gets a name Winter (The name comes from the winter forest where the two were at that time). EL-01, or Winter, is a man of respect who has lived from the endless time ago and he’s artificially made by an alchemist who misses his son. Since the alchemist dies, he can’t feel emotion or pain, being abandoned in a secret place and found by humans before or after World War II (to be circumstantial).

 

Since then, humans have tried all kinds of experiments -which they think experiment ethics are for the birds- to Winter, however, all their efforts seem to go vain if I have to guess from the story that Jane is deployed. The organization connects Jane and Winter, sending a watcher after them to watch and waiting for Winter's response. And this tomboy girl changes Winter gradually as the organization intends. 

 

The structure of the story itself is very familiar.

 

In the story, a human who is artificially created lacks emotion reforms to a real person. However, it is very difficult to properly describe the process of ‘getting to learn emotion.’ Anyone mature enough to create a story might have emotion and would have not remembered the past when he/she was getting to learn emotion.

 

Indirect experience is difficult as well. Even a newborn baby is not the same as ‘an emotionless being from the beginning,’ and even if they are similar, a cartoonist can’t observe the whole process a baby grows up only for drawing a cartoon.

 

So, there is the one who is a human on the surface, but he’s not a human. When the cartoonist describes the process that he reforms to be a human who can feel emotion, it should purely depend on a cartoonist’s imagination. Whether it’s a direct experience or an indirect experience, it’s impossible to experience this process. It’s never easy, but it’s very convincing and allowing readers to enjoy the process itself in Winter Woods.

 

The way that Winter learns each emotion of humans through Jane is similar to that of a child learning each word from parents. If I want to compare to the emotion of parents when children learn words or walk on two feet, I know it’s nonsense. But, feelings and fun that readers have while seeing Winter’s changes may be similar.

 

Further experiences after understanding a certain emotion

 

As a cyborg with a hole in his chest, Winter's process of recovering the heart is described very delicately and smoothly, ranging from conflict with ordinary people while he’s getting along with them, how to sympathize with the pain of others, and to how to express his emotion. When you realize the definite change that emerges at the end of a process, you can’t help yourselves immersing in Winter and Jane, just like that of parents.

 

The reason this cartoon is a sensitivity webtoon and a romance webtoon at the same time is that Winter's learning speed is incomparably fast with young children, and love is the biggest part of the emotions he realizes through Jane. 

 

On the other hand, this webtoon includes the elements of mystery thriller due to the structure of a predetermined catastrophe. The meeting of Jane and Winter was not accidental, and even the change of Winter, the core plot of the first part, was according to the plan of organization. And from what has been revealed so far, this organization never sent Winter to Jane in good faith, but it also watches both 24 hours a day. 

 

Winter's growth such as feeling emotion is what the organization wants most

Although there was little weight in the first part, we can now assume that the predicted dark hands will attack both Winter and Jane. Their sweet everyday life and touching growth are paradoxically accelerating the catastrophe of relationships. In addition to humans, other outside beings are watching Winter and Jane, and unfortunately, they are not even aware of this threat.

 

The first part was completed not long ago, and it’s an absolutely great piece full of fun. Looking forward to further development, I love to recommend it!