Q-Boy's ​Plaything

Reviewed by Anson Leung

(Webtoon.com, 2024- )

Q-Boy’s Plaything is about a high school girl named Yoon Karma, a very physically capable fighter and a legal clinical psychopath (for hype purposes, since we later find out, spoilers, that those tests were heavily biased and she may very well be more or less normal with tragic circumstances). She is adopted by her rich foster father to avenge his daughter’s death at the hands of 5 violent and remorseless bullies. Her job is to systematically go to each of these bullies’ schools and inflict her revenge against them. Not merely content at beating the bullies up, this enraged father plans to deal punishment to the bullies equal (through karmic fashion, which is also a reference to the main protagonist’s name) to the treatment they inflicted upon his daughter, Lee Hyena, before she committed suicide from jumping off the school building. The comic (Korean manhwa) follows her quest as she avenges her adopted sister, and develops her humanity along the way. Each bully (or 2 at the same time) is dealt with over 50 chapters, if we extrapolate how long it took to deal with the first two bullies.
 
The characters in this manga are diverse. The main protagonist is Yoon Karma, a beautiful girl with a hobby of learning everything she can about the new South Korean world through the internet, since she initially came from North Korea. While she is very intelligent, she is also very playful, with a trademark smile resembling a cat’s smile. She is also very impulsive and prone to violent tendencies as a result of her upbringing. Thus, the question emerges of whether or not she is a true psychopath. Her adopted father hopes she is one, as this will allow her to do unquestionably morally reprehensible actions for the sake of revenge. This is the dividing line—she is not bringing the bullies to justice, as this is too light a sentence by youth law in South Korea. This is a story about revenge, which is why a psychopath like her is needed in the first place.

The 5 bullies are Song Eun-Jin, Moon Yejin, Kang Ah-Hyun, Bae Doah, and Cha Seohyun. Song Eun-Jin is the easiest target. Her main power stems from her fairly rich but not excessively rich father, and her delinquent brother with above-average fighting skills. She has 2 female lackeys with moderate fighting skill. She is stated to be the tamest of the others, but this does not spare her a harsh fate in the story. Part of her actions are fueled by her fear of Moon Yejin, but this does not make her innocent, as she inflicts her own torment, out of her own volition, onto Lee Hyena. Next is Moon Yejin, a highly intelligent and capable judo fighter. Having both brains and brawn, she is a fairly difficult antagonist to chip way at before she finally succumbs to Karma. Next is Kang Ah-Hyun, a genuine psychopath with the best boxing skills in the series. She has a frenemy rivalry with Moon Yejin, as they take jabs at each other. Her parents are underground gang members, and control their local police force through their power. Bae Doah is the 4th bully. While outwardly the most cowardly and the tamest, based on reports in the story, we know for a fact that her actions are more violent than the first bully’s. Armed with a rich aunt and a hacker brother, her threat is in computer hacking and media fame. It is foreshadowed that a large-scale cyber battle will be a future arc of this manhwa. Finally, Cha Seohyun is the rich daughter of a man who is a legitimate contender to be the president of South Korea. Unlike the first bully, she is extravagantly rich, not merely moderately rich. With a vast array of resources, she is the most dangerous, as she is not above committing murder to get her whims satisfied. She, too, is a genuine psychopath.
 
Karma’s adopted father, Lee Myung Jun, is racked with guilt for not figuring out that his daughter was being bullied. Upon reading her diary, he swears to get revenge. It is a psychological fixation, as he suffers from horrible nightmares over his inability to save his daughter from her suicide. With his impressive physique and his own unlimited financial resources, he is an intimidating figure as he takes his revenge. Ironically, he starts off the story, prior to his daughter’s death, as a kind and understanding man. He is losing his humanity in his revenge quest, while Karma is gaining her humanity. His right-hand man, Chief Baek, is loyal to him and is the one who suggests that Karma can become the one to restore his humanity once this revenge is all over. He also has a comedic and lighthearted rivalry with Karma regarding who Lee Myung Jun values more as a right-hand man in this revenge scheme of theirs.   
 
A main selling point of Plaything is that it has an amazing grasp of emotional detail around the eyes. The main character’s eyes are light blue with a dark dot in the center, expressing her as remorseless. The same character gains the perfect shade of red in her eyes when she gets sufficiently enraged. The red shade cannot be understated in how perfect it is. The face’s expressions are minutely perfected. On the flip side, the people’s faces are a little too similar, so the art is not 100% perfect. This manga also has the perfect mix of comedy, action, and horror. The comedy comes from Karma’s fake bubbly personality in social situations, the action comes from the fight scenes she participates in against the bullies’ allies, and the horror comes from her punishing the bullies. This includes murder, in a few particular cases, as we uncover more evil things the bullies, their parents, and their allies have done. Also, her intelligence combined with her physical abilities, her good looks, and her personality make her an amazing female protagonist. The bullies and their own personalities and actions make them very good antagonists. They have a good dynamic when they compete against Karma. If you desire a manhwa with amazing female characters pitted against one another, rather than a male character cast taking charge, then this is a perfect manhwa for you.
 
The fight scenes are well done. They go back and forth and make you question whether or not Karma will be able to survive. While Karma is a very proficient fighter, instances where the opponent has a weapon, or superior numbers on their side, even the odds in their favor. The manhwa also uses running gags, one of which is Karma’s love of a pet crab she used in her revenge scheme. Also, the manhwa art, even factoring in the faces being a bit too similar to each other, is still above industry standard, and a beautiful sight to take in.
 
Negatives of this manhwa include the author taking quite a long time to post the next chapter, and the fact that it really takes its time with each bully. It’s more of a manhwa to be binged read, rather than waiting each week for the new one to come out.
 
One of my favorite scenes is the ending against Moon Yejin. After seemingly letting her go, she realizes they still have blackmail material on her. As retribution for her actions against Hyena, they have her, in exchange for relinquishing the blackmail material, eat a bunch of shaved glass, since she did similar actions, on a smaller scale, against Hyena. Out of her own volition, owing in part to an overestimation of how much glass the human body could consume at once, she goes to her own death, even though it was avoidable. Outsmarting her and having her be the one to deliver punishment to herself, while being karmic retribution, was a smart way to have her character end. Since it’s implied Hyena’s death was not a suicide, and Moon Yejin had something to do with pushing her off the building, this punishment is not too far by any means.  
 
Even before this scene, the backs and forth with Moon Yejin were entertaining. Moon Yejin is smart, so a great deal of time charts out her thought process in dealing with Karma. Despite her logical thinking, and doing everything a normal person can in her situation, she cannot win, partly due to the financial resources of the adoptive father backing Karma, versus the everyday resources a commoner has access to.
 
Plaything focuses on having amazing battles between Karma and her 5 bully targets. Its main selling point is its revenge-based story. This is not about justice. This is about cathartic revenge. It’s not about what’s fair—it’s about emotional gratification at any cost. Given this, alongside with the manhwa’s amazing artwork, and the ability to have a great and cohesive story outside the revenge and fighting scenes, this manhwa is a true winner.  

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​Anson Leung is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s Bachelor of Commerce program. He is an Alberta-based writer who loves all forms of writing, including poetry and article writing. In his spare time, he loves playing tennis and board games.