Review of Sing Shong’s Omniscient Reader

 Review of Sing Shong’s Omniscient Reader

Recently, and by recently, I mean a few weeks ago, I got Webtoons, a popular platform where you can read a bunch of digital comics, and started immersing myself in some of the webtoons recommended to me. And, of the few webtoons I have read, this action manhwa, Omniscient Reader by Sing Shong, has to be my current favorite. (As a side note before I begin telling you about this comic, I am open to Webtoon suggestions, so if you have any good recommendations, please tell me.)

Anyways, the story is written from the point of view of Dokja Kim, a twenty-eight-year-old worker who doesn’t really have a stable job. He is obsessed with Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse (or TWSA), a serialized web novel with over three-thousand chapters! He is also the one and only one crazy enough to have read it all! When taking the subway home with a friend from work one day, Dokja sees that the epilogue of this novel has been released and is excited to read it. Then, he receives a thank you message from TWSA’s mysterious, unknown author, who also sends a present to Dokja’s email (a copy of the novel that the author had just removed from the Internet and also an exclusive skill, which allows him to read and comprehend situations better, called Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint). 

Just then, a subway train stops working, and a Dokkaebi streamer—a downy, floating creature with devil-like horns, sprouting from its head—appears out of nowhere and starts forcing people to kill. In the melee, Dokja also sees characters in the actual web novel appear before his very eyes, too. It does not take him long to realize that TWSA was coming to life and that he is the only person with knowledge about the entire scenario. Dokja must not only fight to conquer and survive all the obstacles and beasts thrown at him, but he also must support the characters of the original novel to change the original path and fight for a good ending, as the Omniscient Reader.

I have never read anything like Omniscient Reader. The idea to make a voracious reader a character who could alter the story’s events is pretty unique. On top of that, the strong plot is extremely dynamic and action-packed; it will for sure make you hold on to your seat. Dokja really has to push himself to fight harder and smarter, for the scenarios keep getting more and more difficult. Additionally, the artwork is stunning; you can tell that all the panels were drawn with a lot of care and detail. There is also a nice amount of humor, too. This webtoon, through character interactions, does a decent job of portraying a working-together kind of theme. Personally, I can’t wait to see how this webtoon will end; I have high expectations of it. My current rating for Omniscient Reader would be 9.5/10.

-Kaylee Z