The Breaker (manhwa) manga review

The Breaker

Writer: Jeon Keuk-Jin & Illustrator: Kamaro (Park Jin-Hwan)

 

The Breaker is a series with a genre of Martial Arts & Drama with a pinch of Romance. The series is composed of 10 volumes with 72 total chapters. After reading this series, I see it more as a prequel to the The Breaker: New Wave. The Breaker is finished while The Breaker: New Wave is still being written.
 
The story mostly focuses on Chun-woo who is a substitute teacher at a school. It is at this school that he meets a bullied boy named Shin-woon. After having Shin-woon throw himself into a deep river to prove his commitment, Chun-woo begins teaching him martial arts and introducing him to the world of Murim. The world of Murim has martial arts and techniques that go far beyond the realm of normal human strength. Fair warning: the series does end on a bit of a bomb shell and is a giant cliff hanger. Side note: the next series focuses on Shin-woo.


The characters are decently done. There is this air of mystery surrounding a lot of them which makes connecting with them a little difficult in the beginning. I also continually felt surprised by the characters whether it had to deal with their pasts or with their actions in certain moments. This isn't an easily predictable storyline which I really enjoyed. 

I loved the art style used in the series. It has this grungy look which helps set the tone for the series. More often than not, things that weren't the focal point were kept simple which made things easy to follow. There weren't many panels that I remember being confusing to understand, but I did have some trouble because I'm not use to reading things that come from Korea. I have a better understand of Japanese language and culture, so there were some things that I struggled to understand. I know the main hard part for me in the beginning was following the characters names, but the drawings made it easy to keep up with who was who. So I knew there faces just not their names.

This is a series that I would suggest to those who already enjoy reading manga (or manhwa). This isn't a great beginning series. It is also written for those in the late teens and older, and it is more tailored for a male audience. It has a few raunchy moments, and there is a lot of violence in the series. Thus far the series has only been translated into French, Italian, Russian, and Korean as far as I can tell. 

Overall, I think this story has fallen into my top ten favorite manga (both included). The first series left me feeling lost like a little kid in a grown up conversation where as the second series I'm more prepared and understand more of the Murim world.

If you want to learn more about the series, you can check out their wikia page: The Breaker

I do not claim to own this images. You can find them and more at The Breaker Wikia Page or in the manhwa itself.