“W”: Living Creation

by Devina

My brain got smashed watching this drama. Seriously. If you ask me, “What’s the plot?”

I’ll just stare at you and say, “Give me five minutes…”

Because it’s so complicated!

Okay, so … wow. How does the story go again?

Yeong Joo is a young surgeon who is single, clumsy, and got this “idiotic charm” going on for her. Her dad is a comic artist, Oh Sung Moo, and has a best selling webtoon comic in Korea, “W”. One day, Yeong Joo got a call from her dad’s assistant who’s worried because her dad has gone missing.

Curious, Yeong Joo went to her dad’s house / studio, and checked her father’s room. There, she saw an illustration of the main character, Kang Chul, dying of multiple stab wounds on her dad’s tablet. Suddenly, she felt a hand grabbing the back of her cardigan and turned around. It was a bloody hand coming out from the tablet screen. The hand pulled her in.

Yeong Joo woke up on a building rooftop and found a man dying on the floor, so she used her skills as a doctor and aided him until ambulance arrived. The man turned out to be Kang Chul, the main character of “W” series, and Yeong Joo was amused to see “to be continued” sign appearing in front of her right before she was snapped back into her dad’s room.

She couldn’t believe what happened, but then her dad’s assistant suddenly walked in and told her that, “Your dad is alright. Wherever he is, he finished a chapter.” However, at the mention that she herself was a new character in the series, Yeong Joo got curious and checked the new episode herself. Turned out, whatever happened when she was inside the W universe, became an episode. This, of course as it would anyone, freaked her out.

When she tried telling her dad after he returned, he told her to not talk nonsense. However, it was revealed later that her dad had been trying to kill Kang Chul and end the series. Unfortunately, once Yeong Joo had become a part of the comic, she could be summoned anytime by Kang Chul just by a thought of her. And since he believed that for some reason, she was the key to his existence, Yeong Joo got pulled into the W world more often than she would like to.

And if you ask me to tell you what happens after this, oh please don’t. It gets really messy and complicated and it defies all kinds of logic afterwards.

Characters!

Yeong Joo

Status: Real world human, “W” character for awhile, real world human again.

She’s a surgeon whose father is the best selling webtoon artist, Oh Sung Moo. After she got summoned into W and got in trouble due to not having an ID, she ended up in jail and saved by being (kind of) married to Kang Chul, the main protagonist. She is probably the saddest character in the whole show. I mean, she got stuck in jail a few times, her husband forgot her completely, she died, her father tried to kill her, then she lost her husband, and then lost her father, and I honestly cannot list anymore because it’s too painful to type out.

Damn girl, you need to be happy! Midway I just wished she’d end up with Soo Bong. Because she was just always so lost and she kept losing things. I was invested in her character in a way that I really wanted her to be happy.

Kang Chul

Status: “W” character then, real world human now.

He’s a webtoon (Online comic) character who’s a detective kind of guy. He’s worth almost a billion dollars, powerful, good looking (depending on whose standards and definition), and incredibly smart. He is the main character in the “W” series.

He’s a professional shooter who was framed for killing his own family members and sent to jail for it until he couldn’t be proven guilty. His story was supposedly ended when the creator made him commit suicide by jumping off a bridge; however, Chul fought back for his own life. And that was when the creator knew Chul was alive.

Chul is charming, confident, and cautious in everything he does. He was smitten by Yeon Joo after she saved his life and disappeared, and he believed that she was the key to his life.

Oh Sung Moo (The Creator)

Status: Real world human, real world, creator of “W”, character in “W” .

He’s Yeong Joo’s dad, and the creator of “W”. He wanted to kill Chul when his life fell apart, but was surprised when he saw Chul was fighting back and let his main character live. Years later, his mission was to kill Chul, because he believed that Chul was a monster. But he didn’t expect his own daughter to be dragged into the mess and marry Chul.

After he gave the killer character in “W” his own face, Sung Moo lost his own and started doing everything the killer ordered him to do. Due to this, he and the killer shared memories and even after the killed died, Sung Moo ended up losing his mind and going crazy.

Do Yoon (Dayummm)

Status: “W” character, W world.

Okay, okay. He’s hot. Like, I don’t understand why he’s not the main character kind of hot, but then, if they switched the roles then it’d be bad too. I mean, the main guy isn’t cut out to be a bodyguard. He’s too lean and too pretty. Whereas Do Yoon, wow. This is a man. And he’s trustworthy. Because in the story, Kang Chul trusts everything into his hands. Not So Hee’s, but Do Yoon’s. He gives his legacy to him as well, because this is the guy he can count on.

Their bromance is beautiful, and I enjoy every single scene Do Yoon is in. Literally, every single one of them. Even when he’s all beaten up and bloody, that man is still gorgeous.

The best character ever: Soo Bong

Status: Real world human, real world.

Hands down my favourite character so far. He’s Oh Sung Moo’s assistant who’s been doing background illustration for the past three years. Obsessed with the main heroine So Hee, he sets her passwords and passcode to his birthdate and personal information. Always eating ramen, always wandering around, but always the most helpful and trustworthy. There is no one better than Soon Bong.

He’s insanely loyal and ridiculously funny. He always covers for Yeon Joo, always helps her, always listens, always picks her up from wherever she needs to be picked up from. Always around, always ready to run, always ready to scream, always eating ramen. Always, always, always funny.

If you don’t love him I don’t understand why.

So Hee

Status: “W” character, W world, supposedly Kang Chul’s romantic interest

So Hee strikes me as this privileged girl who thinks she’s in charge. She’s attractive (although I must say, Yeong Joo is prettier), confident, and well composed. She has an intimidating air and claims her place. Also, tragically, she was written to be the female lead, and she has an unrequited love for Kang Chul. Too bad for her, Yeong Joo stole her man and her dreams of becoming Mrs. Kang.

So she grows bitter and sad. Seriously. That’s kind of her purpose of existing. To help Chul and to wait for him to love her back. Damn.

Conclusion

Aigo. This drama gave me some of the worst headaches ever. I’m not sure what the main idea was here, or how the writing got tangled up.

In the beginning, it was such a fun watch. I enjoyed the episodes and wanted to know, “Alright, so what’s going to happen next?” However, as the series progressed, I grew less and less interested. At one point I was mad because there seemed to have no break, that even I was exhausted watching it.

At some point I thought, “If that girl doesn’t get a happy ending, I’ll be really pissed.” Because she suffered so much throughout the series. If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about.

And yes, W serves some great ideas. It’s fresh and new, and who doesn’t like a different version of Inuyasha? I grew up with comic books and I absolutely adored this concept. But the way the conflicts piled up, how some plot holes were abandoned to rot in hell, truly bothered me.

They got great chemistry though, and it’s an adorable love story.

Yeah.

So W got a 7/10 from me. I like the idea. And the first half of the season. There are 16 episodes, so if you want to give them a try, go ahead.