Burning Effect
Writer/Artist: GM.T
Platform: Tapas
Publication Date: March 26, 2022
Rating: Edgy Teen
Genre: Battle Action, Science Fiction, Extended Universe Setting
In the city of Greymark, any crime no matter how small is punished by death. The city is divided into five blocks; the fifth is managed by the powerful arbiter Great. Burner never thought she’d have to go up against somebody like him. But when she takes the law into her own hands one day, she becomes Great’s archnemesis. Is Burner doomed to die at his hands? Or is she that one thing Great thought he’d never find in all his life: a worthy opponent? Their battle will light the spark of revolution and transform Greymark forever.
Burning Effect is heavily inspired by the comics you’d find in Shonen Jump Magazine. You know the type: where an ordinary hero trains hard with their friends in order to overcome great challenges. Other examples in the realm of Korean comics include Tower of God (which worships at the altar of Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter x Hunter) and The God of High School. While you still see plenty of series in this vein, they have faced fierce competition from isekai and LitRPG series over the years. Burning Effect began serialization in 2017, a year before the smash success of Solo Leveling’s comic adaptation. In that respect it can be said to be old-fashioned.
New dog old tricks
The Shonen Jump formula works for a reason. It can be very exciting to read about a sympathetic hero as they grow increasingly powerful and face off against stronger opponents. At the same time, it is also a “formula.” If you’ve read or watched One Piece or My Hero Academia before, you know many of Burning Effect’s tricks already. Old tricks often still work, of course. But depending on how jaded you are, you may ask yourself: what separates this comic from the competition? How does Burner and Great’s fight distinguish itself from the life-or-death duels that came before?
Burning Effect is drawn by Tae-Hyeon Park, also known as GM.T. I would say that his greatest strength, based on what I have read so far, is his ability to come up with character concepts. This is fortunate for him as it is one of the most important qualities you need to draw a comic like this. Battle action comics require a constant flow of heroes and villains for the protagonist to fight. Whether or not you care about the characters themselves as people, you at least need to be invested enough in their designs and powers to anticipate the next battle.
Funny little guys
Burning Effect overflows with what readers today call “funny little guys.” Many of them tweak expectations in a satisfying way. For instance, Great’s underling Drian initially fights like a berserker, but his cold-hearted alternate personality is more powerful by far. On the side of the heroes, Robert is a skilled swordsman whose demonic battle mask hides his smiling face, bald head and glasses. My personal favorite is Roy, a dog-man wielding cross-shaped guns who flies through the air via the power of Christianity. It’s a bizarre idea that just works in practice.
Great of course is the most overpowering of all these characters. A long-haired monster with terrifying eyes and a giant black sword, he transforms any battlefield into a life-or-death scenario just by setting foot there. GM.T, though, is careful to frame him as a main character in the setting rather than as just an antagonist. He’s subject to the whims of the Elders that rule the city of Greymark. Other characters, like the revolutionary leader Kai, are capable of thumping him in battle in the right circumstances.
Berserker risk
My understanding is that Great was the hero in an earlier iteration of this comic. Burning Effect, though, demands that he share the stage with Burner, the heroine of the story. Burner spends the early chapters being tied up, kicked around and made to experience the cruel contradictions of life in Greymark. Once she gets serious and finds a reason to fight, though, she becomes just as capable as Great at flipping the battlefield and throwing the plans of her enemies and allies into disarray. Burner and Great are thus dual protagonists within the Greymark setting. While I can’t help but think that the author’s heart is really with Great, Burner at least gives the audience an underdog hero to root for.
That being said, Burning Effect lavishes as much love on the “villains” as it does on the heroes. Certainly, some of them are traditional battle comic heels that you love to hate. Others though are treated seriously. Drian and Robert have a toxic father/son dynamic that comes to the surface whenever they fight. Joy, a serious girl with a devil inside of her, resents Burner for catching Great’s eye. The nurse Eidia jumps between Kai’s revolutionary group and Great’s team of killers as the situation requires. (Also, she’s going out with Roy the dog-man.)
TRUTH
Burning Effect is not necessarily a thoughtful or nuanced comic. But it does enough legwork that when two characters come to blows, their interactions are often just as entertaining as the question of which is stronger. GM.T stages these battles within a setting just wide and fraught enough that the characters sometimes fight for reasons that they either don’t know or refuse to explain. Direct conflict between the cast flavors and occasionally disguises larger worldbuilding machinations for readers to speculate about.
Beyond story or character, GM.T makes these battles look huge. The characters and their movements are rendered with an animator’s eye for speed. When they come to blows, the artist’s “camera” cuts between close-ups of their crazed expressions and long shots emphasizing the power of their attacks. Burner’s finishing move shrinks the combatants and superimposes the character for “truth” over the whole panel. When I explained this to KComicsBeat reviews editor Masha Zhdanova, she said that “this looks like something that could fundamentally rewire a 12-year-old’s brain.” This is correct.
Don’t lose your way?
These battles are taken a step further by GM.T’s use of color. Unlike the majority of webtoons, which feature full color, Burning Effect is primarily monochromatic. This gives the series a “manga” look much like its Shonen Jump inspirations. When GM.T does use color, it’s to sell the emotion of a scene. Burner’s “truth” attack turns the panel purple. Other moments of intense violence are dyed in yellow or red. The fact that the characters literally break the “grey” reality of Greymark with their strong feelings further sells the intensity of Burning Effect’s fights.
If Burning Effect reminds me of anything, it’s probably Hiroyuki Imaishi’s 2013 anime series Kill la Kill. Both stories take place in towering urban environments where the poor suffer under the dictatorial influence of the powerful. Both feature dual hero/villains color-coded as blue and red, who struggle with impulse control and may or may not share a deeper connection. Burning Effect lacks the outrageous sexual fetishism of Kill la Kill, although I’m not convinced that GM.T is any better at writing female characters than Kill la Kill writer Kazuki Nakashima. But it is just as extra, in ways that may very well turn some folks off. If you can’t roll with a villain named “Great” who is the most powerful and special guy in the universe, this might not be the series for you.
Burning effect
With that in mind, Burning Effect is worth a look for fans of battle action series looking for a fun comic off the beaten path. Like Tower of God, it gives the impression that its creator spent a long time thinking about his world and all the different characters in it. Unlike Tower of God, the series has a proper ending, although Tapas (at the time of this review) has about a quarter left of the comic to translate. Can Burner and company create a world free of violence, where justice is fair (or even restorative) rather than unnecessarily punitive? I have no idea. But I’m excited to see how GM.T builds on his influences, and just how weird the city of Greymark might one day become.
