Jan 7, 2025
I gave it such a big chance, but man, I'll start dropping things a little more early on.
I spent 20 chapters of this story wishing for that depth in a perfect ending, for a lesson that truly takes its time to brew, to deliver that gut punch of reality. It, then, took me 121 chapters to realize the author wasn't doing a sike. There wasn't a gut punch at the end of the story, no proper lesson against the constant cycle of violence the main character was inflicting, nothing learned. It was a bunch of violence, with so many innocents hurt, good people done
...
badly, and then the MC unironically calls this “Justice”.
Think if edgy media agreed with its main character. I didn't expect Vigilante to be just another story, since it seemed like a proper critique at so many things. The dialogue was so over-the-top, the characters so mentally insane, and the violent acts so intense. The story convinced me I was watching how the creator critiqued its characters, but then they all get away with their insane acts, except the villains, which I guess is good, but it just wasn't good as a story.
This felt like it was written by a well-informed, edgy teenager who wishes to tell you “these deranged guys are right”. From a deconstruction, to just a perpetuation of the problem. Take the message from “Attack on Titan”, or “I Saw the Devil”, where every character who enacted revenge, justice, as they called it, they still were taken as horrible people who messed it all up, in AOT because the main character “is stupid” said by himself. In ISTD the main character laments its actions because he lost everything while doing horrible acts. Vigilante lost NOTHING.
The main character was just a “Light”-esque character from Death Note who actually gets away with everything, and is hailed as a hero by those who know him. Somebody sacrifices someone very close to him, and he couldn't be happier. No comeuppance, but a sequel, where those who know his horrible actions, still support him as a necessary evil. Cool.
You can tell me I shouldn't have any expectations about the story, but alright, let's take it as that. As a story on its own, without any expectations. The dialogue is terrible, the art is pretty ugly, but the methods that are used to cause violence are creative, and pretty well-informed. How some characters are trained with specific weapons, due to its easiness to kill. I believe they could exist in real life, and that's about as much praise as I can give this train wreck.
I hated every character except three, which are side characters, not even that high in the story. Anybody else was just an insane rambler, with petty justification for how to fix the world. The main character is insufferable, and since the ending exists as it is, it feels like the author agrees with him, or is just telling you “these people can get away with it” which makes the story a little pointless.
Pointless or bad, no matter the situation, a bad webtoon.
4/10. I wish I hadn't invested so much time on it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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