The Breaker: New Waves Opinion

The Breaker: New Waves Manhwa Opinion Review

The Breaker: New Waves, is a continuation of The Breaker. The series is supposed to be 3 parts and part 2 is the part currently being released as a webtoon in Korea. Before I get into it here I must tell everyone that I am very opinionated about Part 2 of The Breaker. However, I want to remind people reading this who have not read any of The Breaker series before, that over all, regardless of this opinion review, this series as a whole is excellent. Although there are many parts to The Breaker New Waves that I think are really....not great. I got a better picture of The Murim because of this long winded part of the series. There was a lot of Character Development and new people were added that are probably very important to Part 3 which is still to come. So although I have many issues with The New Waves, I suggest taking into consideration that this is the middle story between the beginning and end, and they are making it this way so the part 3 can be awesome. At least that is what I hope.

To be honest when moving from The Breaker to The Breaker: New Waves, It was difficult for me to adjust to the pace of the sequel which is extremely slow in comparison. Though they added many more colorful characters, they really didn't show much action or do anything too spectacular.  Most of the main cast of The Breaker: New Waves are definitely not close to the level that I became accustom to in the first part of the series. The action slowed down to a snails pace at best with a few bones thrown here and there by the author but never living up to the action in the first part. In addition each action scene is really short. Most of the characters are not looking as exciting when they fight as the previous ones used to. The whole thing made me disappointed. However, that is just me, some people like The Breaker: New Waves even more than the first part of the Series.

For Me, If I want to read a Martial Arts Manhwa or Manga, I want it to be just as the genre implies, a story about martial arts. I like it to have a good plot as well. When I begin reading a story of any kind, a certain expectation is unconsciously established within me, based on the work that has been done so far. This happens for me with all books, Manga, Comics, and Manhwa. It is not intentional, but when something about the story drops below that initial expectation that I created, It becomes irritating to me. That is how The Breaker: New Waves feels to me. When The Breaker: New Waves started, I read the first 15 chapters and then quit for 1/2 a year. This is because I became totally uninterested. However, I knew that there would be another book after that one, so after a long break, I came back and struggled through the chapters I had missed reading and then kept up with it as it slowly progressed into something that I actually could rationalize reading each week. 

Spoiler Opinions below:

There are many people out there who like the fact that Shioon is the way he is now. They enjoy the fact that the only way he can fight is by becoming irrational after a major loss or potential loss and goes into the Black Heaven and Earth secret technique(black origin threshold) . Personally, I never really liked Shioon to begin with as I had said in my previous review. He was just annoying in so many different ways, at first he seemed to be irredeemable to me because of how he was in the beginning of the first breaker, but slowly as that story progressed I warmed up to him. When he lost his martial arts, I lost complete interest in him. The black heaven and earth secret technique by itself is dumb. It in my opinion the black origin threshold is meant as a last defense after all other options are exhausted. However, Shioon has no other options and no other tools in his arsenal anymore. All he can do is talk big and rely on others. Just a big fat looser. The Black Heaven and Earth technique, Black Origin Threshold. is awesome when used as a last resort after a martial artist has fought and must win for something he believes in or someone he cares about. Shioon, is too ignorant to realize that he is powerless. Runs to school with his Ki center only 1/2 fixed and then gets overwhelmed by the bad guys when he was the one who baited them to begin with then gets upset at casualties. I hope that he at least blames himself for them because it was his own stupidity that made everyone protect him at school and his own stupidity that put everyone else in danger.

The Black Origin Threshold is without technique it is not even truly martial arts according to most standards, it is just venting anger, frustration, despair  and pain. It seems to be a uncontrollable technique to anyone who is given it's power. Shioon Controlled it partially when he slammed his head into something when he used it the first time. Some speculate that he didn't fully use it. But I am unsure. However, the second time he uses it which is right now in the story, he is completely overcome by the black origin threshold just as his master was and his master's master. So although he is supposed to be special in some way, it looks as though he cannot master it either... at least from the looks of it this time. Of course since he is the main character he will have to master it or do something about it eventually. Guess we will look on in anticipation of that. 

The breaker: New Waves, only flashes to what Chun-Woo (nine arts dragon) is doing 1 or 2 times. He has become a character that is only spoken of on a regular basis but almost never seen. I always loved Chun-Woo, ever sense the beginning of The Breaker series and they are neglecting his side of the story completely. They make it seem like he is doing nothing pretty much the whole time they are apart except destroying and killing randomly. I am sure there is more to it than that, however, we are not seeing it. All we do see of him is his destruction and a talk between him and his boss. 

The Black Forest Defense Group isn't known any better than they were in the end of The Breaker. The only new things we know are the name Kaiser, who is the leader and a few flashes of meetings where we don't see the bosses face or what they are truly involved in other than something to do with So-Sul's new power. Other people in the Manhwa said previously that they are trying to integrate Murim people into the regular world so it is not separate. However, no new information about that is given. So if you were hoping for a quick recovery of Shioon in The Breaker: New Waves, any development between Shioon and his master, or to know anything about the true antagonist of the series, Then you will be let down. It is non existent so far in the total 104 chapters that are out.

Spoiler End

I know it is not easy to draw this webtoon every week and the person who has done both The Breaker and The Breaker: New Waves is extremely talented. The new main characters are drawn even more detailed and unique. Their personality is reflected in the drawings very creatively.  Their facial expressions are never dull and are full of life. In The Breaker, the action drawings were some of the best I had ever seen. The few action drawings they have in The Breaker: New Waves are not on the same level. I wonder if the artist got bored with the story, if he was just busy, if he was hurrying more for some reason, or if he has just evolved his way of drawing and it came out to be something like it is now. For whatever the reason, the excitement of the fight scene drawings in The Breaker: New Waves, is not as powerful as the ones in The Breaker. However, to the artists credit. It would be extremely difficult to continue to produce such outstanding fight scene art. The art that is created now for the fight scenes is NOT bad, in fact, it is extremely good. It just that, as I said above, my expectations became high because of the The Breaker which made me harsh on the art of The Breaker: New Waves. Over all The Breaker: New Waves had art that got better in certain ways and didn't live up to my extremely high expectations in others. 

I know this may be different to other people. However to me, I just cannot understand why the author chose to write Shioon as a chick magnet in The Breaker: New Waves. We know from the first breaker that he has a good personality, near to the end, that makes girls find him cute. However, as it stands now, the story has somehow became more about his harem of women who want to protect him... its annoying. SaHee was there from the beginning so it goes to reason that she would be in the story here and there. Though she has nothing to do with it beyond the fact that she helped him indirectly make the decision to get stronger. She is a normal person and he should have distanced himself from her in the beginning to make sure she was not hurt on account of him. That is, if he had a single brain-cell in his head. So-Sul is is the reason he became entwined with the Sun-woo clan to begin with, so it goes to reason that she would become part of his story as well. Though she has no major part yet in The New Waves, we can expect that she will join the ranks of the women vying for his attention to come. Jinni is his bodyguard from the SunWoo, clan who falls for him as she is guarding him. She is a important clan elder's granddaughter and she has spent the most time with Shioon out of all the girls in the New Waves. Then there is a woman named Sera, who wanted to kill him originally and then decides she likes him, she is very smart and usually very cold, but has proven that she is willing to die for him. If he keeps attracting women like this, by the end of New Waves he'll have an entourage of 10 to 15 girls that all want to be with him. And So what? How does this help the story in any way? If you add too many girls to be in love by our main character then the story becomes less about martial arts and less about romance and more about the drama of these women. Why don't we start having some cat fights over Shioon and make the girls all have drama with each other. Then we could make it into a shoujo manhwa and sell it to teenybopper girls. If you can't tell, I am being sarcastic there. To be fair, I am going over the top quite a bit, in saying that it could be changed to the genre of Shoujo Manhwa and fit. However, up until about chapter 100, it has been going further in that direction than I ever expected a manhwa originally written for a guy audience to go. However, recently we have started getting back into at least some form of action.

Alright, finally we make it to the last big problem I have, and it may be one of the biggest problems I have with the New Waves all together. My problem is about the S.U.C. (Soldiers Under Command). They may be called S.U.C. but I just refer to them as suc because they suck. There is very little I can say about the suc that makes them worth being the antagonist of The Breaker: New Waves, perhaps the reason the 2nd story sucks so bad is because of the suc. Although they have tons of connections throughout normal society that have jobs that help them track down their target. They only have 6 or 7 people who are worth talking about and they are the commanders, the rest of them are only retards. Most of the regular members of the suc use medicine to be able to practice a little crappy martial arts because they are normal people. For being able to do martial arts the medicine will eventually kill them. A few of the Suc Commanders belong in a mental institution. The others are following Goomoonryong's words from a website and from what they have heard he has said previously. They hope that they will catch his attention and he will make them true apprentices. They are a pathetic lot and some of them, I truly feel sorry for. Cool Guy is the only good one of the bunch so far and he was left out a lot recently because he lost against Shioon 2 times. The second time they fought, Cool guy gave Shioon his word that he would let the group go if Shioon won a match between them. The head of SUC thought he should have been dishonorable and sent in all the other guys while Shioon was hurt from the match to finish him off even though Cool guy gave his word. Cool Guy refused to do that, and because of that, was not included in many of the plans afterwards. The Suc has very little power in reality. They only attempt to win through cowardly tactics. They have no Honor. When I read manga and manhwa I like the bad guy to at least have some honor or at least a certain line they won't cross. The Suc has no such line. If they could use of a missile that would kill most people in the city including their target they would use it. They have no shame.

There is so much wrong with the second part that if I continued and wrote everything that was bad about it you would be reading this Opinion review for a week! It's already getting pretty lengthy so I will bring this opinion piece to a close. Over all The Breaker: New Waves is not as good as I had hoped, so far, though it is not finished yet. If I had not become so in love with the original The Breaker story, and knew that The New Waves was only the 2nd part of a 3 part series, I would have put it down for good a long time ago. Now, with that being said, with the previous story included and the potentials for the next story, it is definitely worth your time to read. Also, although I do not like it as much, as I have said before, there are some people who really love The New Waves. If you want to enjoy it, I suggest, that you go into The New Waves without any expectations based on The Breaker. Even though it is not as good as expected there are some good parts to it. Over all, though I say all this, I do still suggest you read this Manhwa because it helps you get insight into the Murim and introduces you to important characters that will most likely appear in the 3rd part of the story. So read it and check it out for yourself.!