Eleceed

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Finally, Eleceed has it's own MAL page!
When I found the official release on Webtoons in 2020, i'd never even heard of it before - but, being fairly bored, I decided i'd spend the rest of my day reading it. I'm pretty glad to say that i've never regretted my actions.

This story is fairly simple, but engaging - Jiwoo, the wholesome, positive energy is it's protagonist, and we follow his journey into the complex world of superpowered people known as the "Awakened". But he isn't alone; the deuteragonist, Kayden, is known as one of the stronged Awakened ones alive, but unfortunately for him, he is ... forced to place his conscience into the body of a cat, leading him to rely on Jiwoo for help.

Over the story, various kinds of abilities are introduced, and with superpowers comes superhumans, who make up the wide range of characters that make up the story. Each of the main characters are given a great deal of depth and development after their introduction, and the story is constantly introducing interesting new plotlines, characters and obstacles to overcome - many characters are known as "affiliated", being members of larger organisations that help to build the world of Eleceed, both within Korea and internationally.

The Art is amazing - fights are colourful and impactful, and the character designs are unique and consistent - its amazing how chapters are released just 7 days apart. One of my favourite things about the fights has to be the panelling - everything is clear and easy to understand, even during the fastest moments of combat.

Eleceed has an amazing balance of it's various tones - it is often quite lighthearted, with many hilarious moments that have made me laugh out loud, but they never get in the way of more intense or emotional moments. It's always engaging, in many ways.

Eleceed, in short, is a fun, exciting, hilarious, powerful story with great characters, colourful art, an interesting story and, most important, is INCREDIBLY entertaining. I always anticipate the next chapter, its very fun to read. 10/10

This Manwha is incredibly entertaining, I've binged it a lot. Fantastic power fantasy with great art, likeable characters and some comedic elements sprinkled in. This is what you're getting, don't expect more. This manwha is no masterpiece, just turn your brain off and be entertained. It can be formulaic and predictable, with characters repeating the same lines over and over in response to the same kinds of things. And while I say the characters are likeable, they are not very interesting characters. They have very little depth to them.

** some love interest spoilers at the end, plus minor "plot" spoilers **

[world building]
The world building ... is not good, it's moreso an excuse to keep getting characters to fight each other, and create artificial hierarchies. That being said, whenever they attempt to flesh out the world a bit more, the arc tends to be extra boring. I also don't think world building is actually important for this kind of story because it's mostly just a plot device, but if you stop to think about it (which I can't help doing), it just doesn't make sense.

* First of all, it's stupid that they can just handwave their way out of school like that and expect to graduate. They're all effectively high school dropouts in terms of their knowledge. None of these characters are developing any good life skills except fighting (which is stupid that this can be considered a good life skill). And holy crap the excuses that they make to get them out of school are so bad. I realize that it's a gag, but it comes at the cost of taking anything beyond the fighting seriously.
* Jinwoo is a terrible neighbour. I feel like he would get so many noise complaints.
* They also never talk about anything that these associations do, despite training their recruits and owning companies. For all the reader knows, all Jiyoung does for her ceo just is sit at a desk and do nothing all day. She doesn't seem to be remotely busy, despite everyone saying that she is. Do the associations (except I guess the ones that do r&d) exclusively have the building to host a large training area that is only ever used for sparring?
* Also how the heck do the awakeners even survive without letting the rest of society know that they exist? They don't contribute anything to normal society. And for the people who do decide to run companies, most people probably wouldn't even be that good at it since their education and experience is probably terrible given the amount of time they dedicate to training. And how do the subordinates of the associations get paid? Are they also milking the companies that they own without providing any value to them? Do you really think that the companies wouldn't realize that their money is being redistributed like this? It would probably greatly hinder the company.
* The word money has never ever been mentioned in this manwha. Who knows how Jinwoo gets his money to keep feeding for every little pet on the street (which mind you makes them dependent on it and means they can't do these things themselves). It's never mentioned how the heck Jinwoo can live alone like he does. Seems like neglectful parenting to me and the mom should feel bad. It's stupid how this neglectful parenting has never affected Jinwoo a bit. I don't know what the procedures would be, but I'm sure in reality there's no way this could have happened without someone figuring out and attempting to fix it.
* Also for the people who don't have an association, aren't they literally unemployed? How do they make money? How do they afford to live? I feel like this should matter.
* I also don't get why the awakener world is so dead set on being strong. Yea sure you can 1v1 whoever you want and can make people bow to you, but that's about all that it gives you. You still have no say in the real world since awakeners don't exist according to them. Also no one's powers are used for anything other than combat. There are some who have non-combat abilities, but these might as well be useless abilities despite what they may say. Some people also have really useful powers, like Jinwoo's speed. However, he never uses it for anything useful.
* There are other parts of the world building which are alright, but generally not very interesting and often are just tropes. Power system is fine. It doesn't have any strict rules so the author can do whatever the heck they want, but it generally makes sense. It's also not at all based on physics, which is sad for me, but you can't expect too much from a turn-your-brain-off manwha.

[action]
The action is entertaining but the power system doesn't have any strict rules meaning that the author can do whatever they want. Sometimes Jinwoo can go in and punch them in the face, except when he can't I guess. The action looks cool and it's frequent.

* Fights, especially high level fights, tend to be a spectacle of some element flying from one person to the other. Mist, iron, wind, lightning, fire, ice, psychic stuff, green stuff, red x's, poison, purple tentacles. It's all the same. They sometimes say there's differences and that some things counter other things, but I'm never convinced. These aren't fleshed out abilities, they don't have rules, they just look cool. There are some variations to these, such as a reflecting ability, but these aren't fully fleshed out since the fight is too flashy to tell exactly what's happening. They just say what it did after the damage was done. There's some mind control type ones, but these are never too important. There are some body transformation ones, and ones that just make you stronger but these are also ultimately quite boring. I feel like the powers were only interesting with the low level people without an association since they had rules and they did inventive things. None of these power ultimately were useful though.
* Fights, and people's reactions to fights, also tend to go the same way all the time. They keep underestimating the MC, then going all out, then failing anyways. There are rarely any mixups that happen in these fights. There are never any stakes. And people are always surprised by Jinwoo's power, and are always saying "wow I didn't think he was the kind of person to do this". The reactions to the fights get really repetitive.

[plot]
Ah yes, almost forgot, plot. You don't read this for the plot. You read it for the power fantasy and I guess the romantic sideplot which is there every once in a while.
* The plot is mostly a series of excuses to either get Jinwoo or Kayden to fight people (and I guess the others too). It's mostly caused by people picking fights, people just wanting to fight because sparring. They'll find a reason to fight, don't worry about it.
* One notable thing about this manwha is that there isn't an overarching plot at all. Jinwoo has no goal in life, nor does any of the other main characters. The plot is for the most part caused by the state of people changing, and people deciding whether they want to fight people or not in response to this. If Kayden's injured, people want to fight him. etc. The moment an arc finishes, they'll introduce the next arc. It's very obvious when they do this and the new arc is often very disjoint from the prevous, but at least it's quick and there isn't filler.


** some love interest spoilers here**

[characters]
By me saying that the characters are likeable, it means that I don't hate them. I hate very few characters from this manwha except that one Bryan girl but she was intended to be hate-able. That being said, as mentioned, the characters have little depth.

* Jinwoo has the personality of a golden retriever and is super happy all the time, he's really boring. The only thing he's ever affected by is when he convinces himself that he should have been able to do something in a fight that was totally out of his league, and does a training montage saying that he needs to get stronger, all determined like. He does this all the time. He also apologizes way too much for things that he should not be apologizing for, it's really annoying. Then people are constantly like, "oh you're so considerate".
* Kayden is likeable enough, and is much less annoying than Jinwoo is. He tends to do the same kind of things and react to things in a predictable way, but at least his fights are entertaining.
* Jiyoung is also really boring, but more boring than Jinwoo. She has the personality of an overpowered brick wall. She doesn't display any emotion and her dialogue is really boring. When hinted at a romance, I immediately rejected it saying that I didn't want it to happen, it just felt wrong. I wanted Iseul to happen since she was so much more interesting than freaking Jiyoung, but the author made it extremely clear that that wasn't going to happen. I since then never cared for Jinwoo's romance. Also I'm annoyed that everyone calls her so pretty when her character design isn't even that good. Can anyone in their right mind consider her a better looking than the freaking Bryan girl? Jiyoung's character looks so bad and bland in comparison.
* Wooin is also a noodles loving brick wall, probably more boring than Jiyoung. His personality is his backstory.
* I enjoy Jisuk and Subin, they're shenanigans are the most entertaining character interactions that happen. Though I can't forgive Subin for doing best girl dirty.
* I'm a fan of Guestella. After the disappointment that was Jinwoo's romance, this is a breath of fresh air. Her character design is actually good and there's actual cute moments with her.
* Generally the characters aren't very interesting or they have some single absurd quirk about them, which quite frankly doesn't make them that much more interesting, it just makes them unique. There is no character development beyond power scaling. You don't get to understand characters more, what they are at face value is for the most part who they are. Or at the very least, after a little bit, you figure out who they really are and they stick with that. Character motivations tend to be pretty bad or repetitive at least, tending to just go with "I want revenge", "I want to fight you", "I want to get stronger", "I need to give my family a good look", etc.

*Minor Spoilers*

[Introduction]

Before I begin, I want to state that Eleceed is a manhwa with wholesome moments and hilarious comedy tidbits. Reading it can be enjoyable. Nevertheless, I feel like sharing some of its poor story-related elements since every other review here on MAL does not overview Eleceed's negative parts in great detail.

[Main Character]

To start, let us tackle its main character, Jiwoo. In fighting stories, you almost always have a protagonist who grows as they experience adversity. In Eleceed, however, Jiwoo's personality never changes, even after experiencing torture, abduction, fights, and more. No matter what happens to him, he remains a wholesome, angelic fluffball of positive ... energy. During slice-of-life moments, his personality is great. He feeds stray cats, hangs out with friends, and more. However, seriously speaking, you would imagine his personality to shift after everything he goes through.

[Plot Convenience Part 1 - Overarching Master]

Moving on, Eleceed features an overarching master who mentors Jiwoo. While I will not elaborate much on this individual, they essentially ruin all the tension in the story. When Jiwoo wants to become stronger, the master provides top-tier assistance. When Jiwoo finds himself in difficult situations, the master always arrives to save the day. When Jiwoo becomes terminally injured with an incurable condition, the master uses his connections to save him. Because of the presence of Jiwoo's master, no conflict ever feels serious since we, as readers, always know everything will turn out alright. Moreover, because of the master, the author often gets away with creating hopelessly impossible scenarios since he knows he can resolve any situation conveniently through the master.

[Plot Convenience Part 2 - Befriending Enemies]

Earlier, I mentioned the main character being a bundle of positive energy. The author uses said energy to befriend almost every enemy that appears after a fight. When Jiwoo fights a neighborhood kid, they become friends a few chapters later. When Jiwoo spars against a school bully, they become pals later. Etc, etc, you get the point. For whatever reason, most enemies become allies after they fight the protagonist to help him fight greater enemies.

[Plot Convenience Part 3 - Forced Plotlines With Idiotic Explanations]

Eleceed has a lot of events that severely buff Jiwoo's opposition with impossibly ridiculous advantages for seemingly outlandish reasons. A blatant example of this is when one of the world's top experts fails to prevent an assault, all because they forgot their battle animal at home (and became useless as a result). Later, they explained that the animal was too expensive to maintain, which is an absurd excuse considering their obligation to protect many students under them. Besides this, there are many other instances of forced plotlines with useless explanations, but I will not cover them since it is hard to describe them without spoiling much of the story.

[Formulation Part 1 - Action Arcs]

Building off my second plot convenience part, I want to explain Eleceed's formula for action arcs (not including arcs with conflict directly against the main antagonists). Personally, this story's weakest part is the fact that it often recycles the same story-line that goes:
1. Jiwoo and his buds have opposition.
2. Each side trash talks and banters to add fuel to the fire of their conflict.
3. Both sides spar.
4. After fighting, the main cast are the winners overall.
5. Both sides power up through training.
5. When new opposition appears, both sides join together to fight back.
6. The same cycle repeats on a larger scale.

[Formulation Part 2 - Main Character Battles]

Beyond action arc recycling, Eleceed also uses formulation for Jiwoo's battles. Of course, not every battle follows obvious formulas, but most essentially follow three paths:

{If the enemy is stronger yet not overpowered}
0. ^ Happens every action arc
1. Enemy underestimates Jiwoo.
2. Jiwoo goes on a mini-training arc.
3. Jiwoo fights the enemy and seems to be worse off.
4. Jiwoo charges his one-shot move against the enemy and wins.

{If the enemy is weaker}
1. Jiwoo beats them up and wins.

{If the enemy is overpowered and cocky}
1. Jiwoo is beaten hard.
2. Jiwoo charges his one-shot move, and the enemy accepts it with open arms.
3. The enemy is affected, compliments the one-shot move, and keeps fighting.
4. The master intervenes to save Jiwoo.

[Conclusion]

I have more points I could cover, but to be genuinely honest, this review has taken 3 hours to write, and I am out of motivation to keep writing. In short, consider these points before deciding to pick up this story:
- Eleceed often leverages plot convenience to contrive unrealistic scenarios.
- The main character has an unrealistically optimistic personality.
- Arcs often follow predictable formulas.

For those expecting a well-written, look elsewhere since better stories exist. This story has good comedy and wholesomeness, so if you are interested in its slice-of-life aspects, perhaps this is worth reading. You can check out the other Eleceed reviews if you want more elaboration on stuff like that.