Dreaming Freedom

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Dreaming freedom or Free in Dreams is a very nice manhwa that is really unbearable in the first chapters.
Warning! It contains bullying and it's being shown constantly in the beginning of the story. It made me want to drop, but trust me it is very nice actually!
The story is about Jeongmin, a highschool girl that is being abused by her ex-bestfriend from middle school. This ex bestfriend turns the whole class against the MC and wants to see her suffer. Because of the suffering and hate she gets from school, she starts the lucid dreams, where she meets Siyun!
From this point on, Siyun is a ... very mysterious character that wants to help the MC and starts to like her. But why is Siyun always in pajamas and refuses to talk about himself? why was he attracted by her in the first place? They have a lot in common and the story is getting really interesting after their meeting.

The art is getting better and better as well, you will be able to notice how big is the difference from the art of chapter 1 to the art of chapter 30+.
Overall, i recommend this psychological manhwa to the people that like this genre and want to see a beautiful story well drawn and written.
On MAL it does not have the "romance" genre, but i want to mention that it really is a romance manhwa.

The story itself is intriguing like you really wanna know what will happen next and you really can't skip an episode
The art style is JUST SOOOO GOOOODDDDDD the shadings are just too good. antagonists and protagonists were just too predictable it was too obvious that when they do something so the side characters were a little boring but that's alright since the story flows around the main characters mostly

!!!!!!!!!! (little spoiler) !!!!!!!!!!

it was pretty good till the last chapters I fear Siyun now. like he was chill at first but now all I think is he is trying to manipulate ... Jeongmin. I really like to see drama if you like drama/toxic relationships/revenge stuff I really recommend this but if you can't bear these kinds of things you'll probably rage too much!


(siyun is the biggest red flag)

When I started reading Dreaming Freedom, the first thing I noticed was the art. The shading is really good, but the facial anatomy isn't as good. Most of the characters have huge foreheads, especially the main character. The eyes can become comically big sometimes and in some scenes, the characters end up looking like a pug with how squished their faces look.
I could have ignored the iffy art if the story was good, but all the characters are bland and hollow. About ten chapters in I noticed that all the characters acted really weird, I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong until ... Eunju Seo and Hyejin Kim ended up alone. I realized that it's the way the supporting characters are written, it feels like the characters do a lot of things not because they want to, but because they have to so that the story will move in the direction that the author wants. Every character has a bad temper and gets annoyed really easily, even if it doesn't match up with their previous characterization. Because of this, the manhwa comes off as overly edgy.

I have never read such an anxiety inducing plot, yet I loved it so much!
I definitely wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but if you have read work like "Trapped" and enjoyed it, this should definitely be your next read. However, there are quite a few sensitive themes for those who don't read much psychological genre.

Story: 9
It does take a few chapters to really get into it as it does contain a lot of bullying and starts quite slow. However, this dragged out opening also helps us empathise with the FL later on, making the latter portion and her motivation so much more effective. I do ... think the story drags a little bit in the later chapters as their never seems to be an end to certain plot threads, but when the plot threads do close, they so in such a satisfying way.

Characters: 10
There are a lot of red flag men in manhwa such as this, but that's okay because we like the colour red...
This is the first time I have truly feared for a FL and have actually been scared of the ML. I respect this as too often authors gloss over this trope as 'misunderstood so we can forgive him so easily for everything', or something along those lines. This story doesn't shy away from it's characters. This manhwa really goes deep with the toxic relationship themes, exploring physical abuse, manipulation, jealousy, separation anxiety, and much more. Many people struggle with softer forms of these in real life so it makes the characters seem so much more human. The other characters are really interesting too, all fleshed out with their own strong personalities and motivations. Like real people they can be quite unpredictable with their own strengths and weaknesses, making this manhwa so much more real.
I think that the characters, depth also depend upon the FL and how much she opens herself up to other characters, as we are reading this story mostly through her eyes. Reading until the end really pays off.

Art: 8
The art style get better and better throughout, keeping things interesting with various angles of a subject and colours appropriate to the themes and mood of a particular chapter. Some proportions are off, but its nothing too major or noticeable.

Overall: 9