Vigilante Part 2 - Ch. 13
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Okay, this is gonna to be long. This chapter triggered me in a couple ways.
But first, let me enthuse about Jiyong a little.
Man, this is what a tough-as-nails character should be. I love the fights in this series. Yes, Jiyong is overpowered, but the fights are so dynamic and messy (as in, messed up faces when he punches them) that I think I've lost all interest in wimp-to-fighter high school webtoons after reading this. I love the moments when Jiyong lands a good punch that makes his opponent lose all will to fight and run for dear life. He's a well-rounded, complete fighter who can use wrestling, boxing and judo and that makes his fights always entertaining, even when he loses. Can't wait for more.
And I have the nagging suspicion that this is some sort of reverse gambit. Jiyong started by talking like a cop ("are you the owner", "I have a couple questions"), but it was Mr Sin who attacked him out of nowhere. And now Jiyong's recording their conversation?
My guess is that he's called for reinforcements (or intends to) and will tell his superiors something like: "Since he was already guilty of aggravated assault, and I saw a corpse in his freezer, I decided on a ruse to make him spill the beans. While recording in full view of him, I told him 'prison is too good for you'. He assumed I wasn't a cop and while I didn't expect him to think I'm the Vigilante, when he said it I saw an opportunity to get him to sing even louder. I apologise if I went too far. Like I could be the Vigilante, pft!"
I mean, I don't see why he would record this. If he really wanted to send the rest of the jeonse gang a message, he'd send them a picture of Mr Sin after he killed him. But we'll see.
===
Now, rant #1.
The author is trying hard to show Jiyong feeling conflicted about his principles. But given that he always moves on with his plan, my guess is that not even he is buying the bullshit his creator is using.
Mr Sin's taunting this chapter was risible. Jiyong has no reason to fall for it when he faced off against a much more cerebral opponent in an altercation about his principles. I'm talking about Mr Bang, of course.
Jiyong's been staring into the abyss for years now and has never fallen into it. He's an extreme outlier in human behaviour: he feels profound empathy for victims, to the point of having nightmares from their point of view and shedding copious tears for them; he seeks absolutely no gain from his vigilantism, except perhaps his short episodes of god's complex when he fancies himself an extraordinary human; he has arguably never raised a finger against an innocent. And so on and so forth. For all the problems with vigilantism in general, and his brand in particular, he himself seems to have a steel resolve coupled with unbending moral principles.
So, all these attempts at portraying him as not too different from the criminals he targets falls flat. His character is too developed now for me to buy that he would be succumbing to evil at this point. He's a psychotic boy scout, dyed in the wool.
===
And let's end with rant #2.
The author's really pushing it with this South America thing.
I've said before that I get it. At least some Koreans have these stereotypes that the entire world other than their country is violent. I've read a romance webtoon whose protagonist had to move quickly back to SK from the US because of "anti-Korean riots". I dropped an action webtoon when the protagonist, a Korean ace in the French Foreign Legion, reminisced about a friend fighting a vicious criminal gang "on the streets of Paris". I remember another one in which a character tries to put the protagonist in trouble after arriving in Japan by provoking a random man, and it turns out to be a weapon-carrying yakuza who draws his gun and shoots it on the spot, in broad daylight. So yeah, I get it: only Korea is peaceful.
But Jo Heon is probably the character I dislike the most in this series for his hypocrisy. I talked about this before in a comment to the last epilogue of Part 1 here at MDex, so I won't elaborate on what he said back then.
Still, their arriving at some generic South American airport full of shady-looking taxi drivers offering them their services, and everyone is carrying handguns openly really rubbed me the wrong way. Nations of vigilantes? Everyone seeking to defend themselves? Is Jo Heon/the author for real?
In fact, I have mad respect for how South Koreans are critical of their own country: the best comics about political and civil service corruption (this one included) from East Asia are, in my opinion, to be found among Korean webtoons. I also know that half of young adults in SK refer to their country as "Hell Joseon" and so on. I think being cynical about one's own country in times like this is a sign of wisdom.
But really, they should mind the log in their own eye on this one. Do they really think violence is just gun crime?
So I went and checked statistics for the same year (2022, the latest with available data in English) for South Korea and a South American country with almost the exact same population size, Colombia. Both had a little less than 52 million people in that year.
Homicides in South Korea in 2022: 738
Homicides in Colombia in 2022: 13,939
The data are from Statista.com.
So, solid case for South Korea, right? Those trigger-happy South Americans!
But guess what? People willingly killing people has another category:
Suicides in South Korea in 2022: 13,021
Suicides in Colombia in 2022: 2,952
Data for Colombia are from Statista.com. For South Korea, I multiplied the measured suicide rate for that year (25.2 per 100k people) by the population in 2022 (51.67m).
So, we have that in 2022, 13,759 South Koreans had their lives deliberately taken, mostly by themselves; whereas in the same year, 16,891 Colombians met the same fate, mostly by other people. That's 22.8% more. Hardly a difference worth of mounting on a high horse. (And no, I'm not Colombian.)
A violent society is one in which there are excess deaths to violence - including self-inflicted violence. In Colombia, people kill each other for various reasons, mostly connected to societal problems. In Korea, people kill themselves for various reasons, mostly connected to other societal problems. A certain European thinker coined a term for the latter situation: social murder.
I love Vigilante for the way it portrays vigilantism as a slippery slope and doesn't glorify it, and for its unvarnished depiction of humans' basest instincts. But the author fails to come across as serious about what he's writing if he has such a massive blind spot. The weirdest thing about it, though, is that it's a very narrow blind spot: it only pops up in Jo Heon's silly pontifications about how much more peaceful Korea is than those South American countries. For his part, Jiyong was even worrying at the beginning of this season that people swindled of their jeonse deposits would be driven to suicide. So he has a much better idea of how encompassing violence is than a tunnel-vision moraliser like Jo Heon.
CRG will have to try harder to make a case for Jo Heon's view. Not that I think vigilantism is a solution to anything, but surely that's something that can be argued much better than by the stupid comparison Jo Heon is making.
Alright, rant over. Man, I needed to get this off my chest. Looking forward to the next chapter!
But first, let me enthuse about Jiyong a little.
Man, this is what a tough-as-nails character should be. I love the fights in this series. Yes, Jiyong is overpowered, but the fights are so dynamic and messy (as in, messed up faces when he punches them) that I think I've lost all interest in wimp-to-fighter high school webtoons after reading this. I love the moments when Jiyong lands a good punch that makes his opponent lose all will to fight and run for dear life. He's a well-rounded, complete fighter who can use wrestling, boxing and judo and that makes his fights always entertaining, even when he loses. Can't wait for more.
And I have the nagging suspicion that this is some sort of reverse gambit. Jiyong started by talking like a cop ("are you the owner", "I have a couple questions"), but it was Mr Sin who attacked him out of nowhere. And now Jiyong's recording their conversation?
My guess is that he's called for reinforcements (or intends to) and will tell his superiors something like: "Since he was already guilty of aggravated assault, and I saw a corpse in his freezer, I decided on a ruse to make him spill the beans. While recording in full view of him, I told him 'prison is too good for you'. He assumed I wasn't a cop and while I didn't expect him to think I'm the Vigilante, when he said it I saw an opportunity to get him to sing even louder. I apologise if I went too far. Like I could be the Vigilante, pft!"
I mean, I don't see why he would record this. If he really wanted to send the rest of the jeonse gang a message, he'd send them a picture of Mr Sin after he killed him. But we'll see.
===
Now, rant #1.
The author is trying hard to show Jiyong feeling conflicted about his principles. But given that he always moves on with his plan, my guess is that not even he is buying the bullshit his creator is using.
Mr Sin's taunting this chapter was risible. Jiyong has no reason to fall for it when he faced off against a much more cerebral opponent in an altercation about his principles. I'm talking about Mr Bang, of course.
Jiyong's been staring into the abyss for years now and has never fallen into it. He's an extreme outlier in human behaviour: he feels profound empathy for victims, to the point of having nightmares from their point of view and shedding copious tears for them; he seeks absolutely no gain from his vigilantism, except perhaps his short episodes of god's complex when he fancies himself an extraordinary human; he has arguably never raised a finger against an innocent. And so on and so forth. For all the problems with vigilantism in general, and his brand in particular, he himself seems to have a steel resolve coupled with unbending moral principles.
So, all these attempts at portraying him as not too different from the criminals he targets falls flat. His character is too developed now for me to buy that he would be succumbing to evil at this point. He's a psychotic boy scout, dyed in the wool.
===
And let's end with rant #2.
The author's really pushing it with this South America thing.
I've said before that I get it. At least some Koreans have these stereotypes that the entire world other than their country is violent. I've read a romance webtoon whose protagonist had to move quickly back to SK from the US because of "anti-Korean riots". I dropped an action webtoon when the protagonist, a Korean ace in the French Foreign Legion, reminisced about a friend fighting a vicious criminal gang "on the streets of Paris". I remember another one in which a character tries to put the protagonist in trouble after arriving in Japan by provoking a random man, and it turns out to be a weapon-carrying yakuza who draws his gun and shoots it on the spot, in broad daylight. So yeah, I get it: only Korea is peaceful.
But Jo Heon is probably the character I dislike the most in this series for his hypocrisy. I talked about this before in a comment to the last epilogue of Part 1 here at MDex, so I won't elaborate on what he said back then.
Still, their arriving at some generic South American airport full of shady-looking taxi drivers offering them their services, and everyone is carrying handguns openly really rubbed me the wrong way. Nations of vigilantes? Everyone seeking to defend themselves? Is Jo Heon/the author for real?
In fact, I have mad respect for how South Koreans are critical of their own country: the best comics about political and civil service corruption (this one included) from East Asia are, in my opinion, to be found among Korean webtoons. I also know that half of young adults in SK refer to their country as "Hell Joseon" and so on. I think being cynical about one's own country in times like this is a sign of wisdom.
But really, they should mind the log in their own eye on this one. Do they really think violence is just gun crime?
So I went and checked statistics for the same year (2022, the latest with available data in English) for South Korea and a South American country with almost the exact same population size, Colombia. Both had a little less than 52 million people in that year.
Homicides in South Korea in 2022: 738
Homicides in Colombia in 2022: 13,939
The data are from Statista.com.
So, solid case for South Korea, right? Those trigger-happy South Americans!
But guess what? People willingly killing people has another category:
Suicides in South Korea in 2022: 13,021
Suicides in Colombia in 2022: 2,952
Data for Colombia are from Statista.com. For South Korea, I multiplied the measured suicide rate for that year (25.2 per 100k people) by the population in 2022 (51.67m).
So, we have that in 2022, 13,759 South Koreans had their lives deliberately taken, mostly by themselves; whereas in the same year, 16,891 Colombians met the same fate, mostly by other people. That's 22.8% more. Hardly a difference worth of mounting on a high horse. (And no, I'm not Colombian.)
A violent society is one in which there are excess deaths to violence - including self-inflicted violence. In Colombia, people kill each other for various reasons, mostly connected to societal problems. In Korea, people kill themselves for various reasons, mostly connected to other societal problems. A certain European thinker coined a term for the latter situation: social murder.
I love Vigilante for the way it portrays vigilantism as a slippery slope and doesn't glorify it, and for its unvarnished depiction of humans' basest instincts. But the author fails to come across as serious about what he's writing if he has such a massive blind spot. The weirdest thing about it, though, is that it's a very narrow blind spot: it only pops up in Jo Heon's silly pontifications about how much more peaceful Korea is than those South American countries. For his part, Jiyong was even worrying at the beginning of this season that people swindled of their jeonse deposits would be driven to suicide. So he has a much better idea of how encompassing violence is than a tunnel-vision moraliser like Jo Heon.
CRG will have to try harder to make a case for Jo Heon's view. Not that I think vigilantism is a solution to anything, but surely that's something that can be argued much better than by the stupid comparison Jo Heon is making.
Alright, rant over. Man, I needed to get this off my chest. Looking forward to the next chapter!
Last edited:
Dex-chan lover
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Thanks for the chapter
I think you're being too harsh on the author, roughly every asian author ends up nationalism-wanking their country due to their cultural inwards-perfectionism, and cultural drive to "respect elders and the country" or some shit.
This author is actually quite progressive on that, he acknowledges that indeed, other countries exist, which is a rare sight to behold, but additionally even acknowledges that S.Korea is generallly a small player on the big stage that is the world (look at Hive with Xanadu, the NATO-styled Illuminatti cabal, that, with a single CSG, managed to be more powerful than the entire S.Korean military combined)
I've read hundreds of mangas/webtoons, and barely any of them seem to acknowledge the possibility that other countries might be better than theirs.
I come from a country with some of the lowest gun violence, drug violence, and violence in general in the whole world, and i can say we don't really have the same sense of inwards perfectionism that asian cultures do (ironically, our country has some of the highest brain drain in the EU, mostly because young adults here realize other EU countries are just economically better and migrate there once they can if they know english),
This author seems to have a basic grasp on geopolitics that is rare to see in an asian author, even if he's drank some Kool-aid and thinks other countries are full of gun violence, this already puts him far above the median.
As for the "Am i, the MC, evil?" thing, i personally prefer it this way since it shows that MC is actually asking himself questions, instead of just blindly buying his own shit.
People who blindly consider themselves correct are bound to be wrong at some point
Power Uploader
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I think I need to point out an important distinction: I'm not referring to Gim Gyusan, the author of HIVE, in my comment. He's just the artist in this series. I'm aiming at CRG, the author.
Ironically, I'm not a great fan of Gim Gyusan's works. I found HIVE entertaining enough, but I dropped Silver Star Exorcist as I found it too boring. I do think he stands head and shoulder above most others in terms of art: the artists doing isekai, system and villainess derivative stuff look like amateurs next to him. But I read his interview from a few years ago about Vigilante and it's pretty clear to me that the mysterious CRG is the driving force behind this series.
(I actually wanna read Dead Queen, but it's been so long since I read HIVE that I'd have to go through it again to be comfortable reading the final season. I do remember what happened in general lines, but since it's a conspiracy webtoon, in order to really understand who the players are I'd have to know the plot in more detail than I can recall.)
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Power Uploader
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Dead Queen was done in officials, you can even find in ripped off from Webtoons in Batoto, Mangasee and other pirate sites that do officials. But yeah, Dog Man is untouched.
If you're worried of missing the plot of Dead Queen, you shouldn't. It initially focuses entirely on a new group of students who only much later link up with the main cast from Hive.
Narratively its partly a spin off of at first, but slowly transitions into a full sequel of Hive once the story converges (roughly between the time after the armor division is beaten by the wasps, and after Chin was defeated)
I read Hive years ago, and didn't even read Dog Man (couldn't find any decent translations), but had no trouble whatsoever following Dead Queen, at all, and i am generally very forgetful, so that's saying something.
