▲ Snip snip!

 

There is a saying in Confucian philosophy that “Your entire body is given by your parents.” It means one should take one’s body seriously use it with caution. However, in the world of creative works, body enhancements happen more frequently and dramatically than in real world. How blasphemous! Of course, it is only possible in fiction. In fiction, no real risk is there for killing, harming or other immoral acts.

 

There are two Line webtoons with characters who have their body enhanced. Werewolves with enhanced bodies in<Noblesse> and Royal Bodyguards in Denma are the two main characters I would like talk about. 

 

 

1. Body Enhancements in <Noblesse>

 

 

Think about sports and shonen comics. If the protagonist just doped himself to beat his greatest opponent instead of improving through journeys and hardships, would readers be able to accept that? Doping should be banned, and it makes sense for such cheats to be only used by villains. <Noblesse> shows the controversy of good and evil of the body enhancements through werewolves.

 

However, the characters’ reactions to the body enhancements are not that convincing. For example, Kentas, a werewolf who didn’t get any body enhancement criticizes other werewolves for losing their pride as warriors because they got stronger as a result of body experiments on members of their own race. Meanwhile, others argue that it’s okay if race can prosper through sacrifices of the few. 

 

▲ They probably didn’t emphasize on the dilemma trying not to over-complicate things as a casual webtoon

 

What’s interesting is that in his reminiscence scenes, Kentas tried to prove that body training is enough to be stronger than arguing against the idea of body enhancement itself. Gaillard, who tries to accept helps from the outside, miserably says “Damn, you are trying to go head like that...” out of nowhere like he is not far behind or anything. In the present timeline, he makes Kentas retire by saying “This is the force you ignored!”

 

After Kentas, disappointed by the fact that his race has been acquiring their strength in a disgraceful way, he awakens his inner strength and he beats Gaillard. The problem is the timing when he got suddenly stronger was not when he found out about his own race’s wrongdoings. He was definitely weaker at the beginning, but he somehow got suddenly stronger. I think the author just needed to kill Gaillard because he got his strength through the wrong way. Gaillard was the victim of "Promotion of virtue and punishment of vice".

 

▲ Your enemy is not Mujaka but Son Jae-Ho

 

This flaw in logic also shows in the fight between Lord Mujaka and Uzir. Uzir who had his body enhanced could not go even with Mujaka’s natural strength. Mujaka reprehends body-enhanced werewolves including Uzir for not even being able to wield their own power. Uzir is provoked by the insult and takes a rush at Mujaka. Mujaka easily counters him, and Uzir meet’s his fate.

 

This is another logical jump the author takes. Every character including Mujaka agrees that body-enhanced werewolves are stronger than original werewolf warriors. However, Mujaka just criticizes body enhancement is worse at improving physical abilities than training. It doesn’t necessarily mean that training and body enhancement are mutually exclusive. Most definitely he is not arguing about the effectiveness of the new way of getting power. Once again, the villain got killed by the author who thinks negatively about the easily achieved strength. Such improbable story developments lacking thesis and logic disturbs readers to be absorbed in to the story. It is just so awkward that the western fantasy novels in the late nineteenth century facing newly developed modern genetic engineering might be something similar to this webtoon.

 

 2. Body Enhancement in Denma

 

▲ Readers will remember this White Police Guards gathering scene

 

Let’s take a look at body enhancements in Denma. In the Denma world, the characters own unique super powers called the Quanx, and their potential powers are decided depending on the the of Quanx. However, the success or failure of drawing out hundred percent of the potential is depending on the individual, so the characters train themselves to improve their strength. Count Gosan hired to gather characters with outstanding Quanx specializing in battles and created White Police Guards. In the eighth universe, where the story of Denma is taking place, the White Police Guards is the most powerful group in its physical strength.

 

In the meanwhile, there are two ways to manually enhance the Quanx. The first method is through the ability of Hellman of the council, and the second is getting a surgery in the Underground Clinic. The Underground Clinic is important junction of the story that showed up recently.

 

Generally, battle Quanx characters are bought and sold through Quanx dealers. Just like music labels, Quanx dealers sign talented Quanx and sell them to the upper-class people after training them. However, Body-enhanced Quanx who got their surgery from the Underground Clinic started to increase their numbers in the battle Quanx market, so the value of the original battle Quanx decreased drastically. Also, increasing numbers of battle quanx who wants to get stronger through relatively lesser investment without training started to take surgeries from the Underground Clinic.

 

The story came up to the point where the battle between the count Gosan’s White Police Guards, the most powerful group of original battle Quanx, and the King of Aorica’s Royal Body Guards, the newly formed group of body-enhanced battle Quanx, became imminent. The outcome of the battle depends on whether RBG can use their artificial firepower without any side effects or whether WPG would be simply superior in their experiences and skill levels. 

 

There are multiple hints suggesting RBG is gonna lose, though. The scene where Quanx dealer Juan worries about the safety of the underground surgery, the scene where body-enhanced Quanx are not capable of combining multiple Quanx skills to solve the tricks, and the Scene where Gosan already knows about the Underground Clinic while the King just assumes Gosan is not aware are the clues.

 

 

 3. Finishing

 

Assuming that the King has lost, let’s compare between how body enhancements are dealt in these two different webtoons, Noblesse and Denma. In fact, the overall aspect of body enhancements showed in these two webtoons are quite similar. For example, the characters choose to enhance their bodies achieve stronger power in a relatively easier way, body enhancement is not considered to be the right way but an effective way, and the proficiency is as important as manually increasing the strength of the power.

 

However, the details in describing the debate between the side agreeing with the body enhancements and the other side who doesn’t differs greatly in the two webtoons. Noblesse simply decides body enhancements as something immoral applying the concepts of ‘sacrificing their own race’ and ‘the pride of the warriors’. On the other hand in Denma, there is an overall conflict in values between the two as the new technolgy becoming the new general trend in the market. The whole process of the conflict of the two values forming into the two groups of power are described with much more effort and time.  

 

In the first place, the genre and appealing aspects of these two webtoons are different, so simply comparing between the two is dangerous. However, it is another meaningful and fun way to enjoy webtoons by comparing how two different webtoons are allowing readers to think about the topic of ‘body enhancement’, which is generally considered bad and immoral.