This Might Be The Saddest Manhwa You'll Ever Read (The Horizon) | Kpopmap Reviews

"The Horizon" is a manhwa or Korean webtoon by JH (Jeong JiHun) with just 21 chapters and infinite heartbreaks, telling the eternal story of a war-ravaged post-apocalyptic world that feels painfully contemporary. So, if you're up for challenging your tear ducts until they're bone-dry, you've come to the right place. Here's why you need to check out JH's masterpiece - "The Horizon".

Content Warning: Depictions of war

Spoiler Alert!

"The Horizon" is, in essence, a slice of life manhwa, albeit life that is plunged into darkness, death, and loss. A young boy is sheltered by his mother as war rages on, only for him to discover a sea of dead bodies in its wake. He meets a young girl, and their shared trauma becomes the first step towards healing and, most importantly, faith. However, with the world bent on denying their existence, can they love again? The webtoon aims to answer this question not just for its characters but also for us, readers, as the author whisks us away on a journey that constantly tests our hope and restores it at once.

You can read the webtoon in Korean, English, Thai, Japanese, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese.

Before we start off the review, we prepared a playlist for you to listen to while you read this article and/or the webtoon. With the story unfolding like a short film, we hope this playlist comforts you and amplifies your reading experience!

 

"The Horizon" Manhwa Review

It all starts with the end.

Our protagonist, an unnamed boy - The Boy, has had the world come crashing down on him, and an existentialist nihilism takes over that defines the predominant tone of the webtoon. There is little dialogue throughout the story, but omniscient narration takes its place, establishing the author's voice. The art style is hauntingly beautiful, juxtaposing the vast emptiness of The Boy's world, of time, of the future, against his fragile frame, giving us a sense of the life ahead of him and how overwhelming it can be. Thus begins The Boy's march forward.

In the aftermath of tremendous loss, The Boy moves forward, indeed, but he moves with the intention of inching closer to death, abandoning meaning. That is when he meets The Girl. His eyes, whose abysmal depths were sans light, find new hope in this companion, and for the first time, he runs for life, towards life.

The author creates The Boy and The Girl with a delicate dichotomy, reminiscent of William Blake's “The Tyger” and “The Lamb”. The Girl is the Lamb, representing innocence, purity, and the beauty of Divine Creation, whereas The Boy is the Tyger, standing for experience, the harsh reality of life, and the pain of existence. For The Boy, the road must inevitably come to an end, signifying a sense of purposeless toil, whereas, for The Girl, the Earth is round, and if we move forward, we can keep on moving forward, showing her will to live, not just survive.

 

The Weird Man

On their journey, The Boy and The Girl meet several characters who act as signifiers in the story. The Weird Man, stripped of his humanity by the horrors of war, is left with nothing but base animal instincts. So, as vile as his actions may be, they don't reflect the person that he is but the decaying husk of the man he once was. Trying to construct a reason for his behavior is an effort in vain, for he is no longer human. Notably, The Boy's innate suspicion of the man and The Girl's kind disposition towards him perfectly represent their duality once more.

 

The Man In A Suit

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Nietzsche

If The Weird Man represents the unbridled, primal unconscious or Freud's Id, The Man In A Suit is the corrupt Superego. He represents radical extremism, with this ideology taking the place of a coping mechanism. His despair gave way to depravity and trapped him in his own mind, giving him the illusion of a false moral high ground. This is also represented by the building he operates from, with an eagle's eye view of the world beneath him.

The Man In A Suit is also a victim of war. The only way he could keep living was to intellectualize his pain, imbue it with meaning, and give himself a purpose - something that was lacking in the Weird Man. In his distorted worldview, armed forces are no different from disease-causing bacteria and must be eliminated swiftly. His philosophy desensitizes The Boy to mindless violence, as he arms him with a gun, making a weapon out of him for justice.

Interestingly, The Girl is intuitively wary of The Man, for his breed of judgment is dehumanizing and violent - everything that she stands against. However, there's more to him than meets the eye. While The Boy and The Girl are living with The Man In A Suit, he is tested on his hesitation to exact revenge, and she is tested on her humanity. He refuses to kill someone who tried to harm them, and she frees a prisoner on the verge of death. Even though The Man explains that it was so he could decide whether or not he needed to kill them, a deeper look suggests that The Man was seeking hope in the two kids and, by extension, in humanity.

Hope, in and of itself, is an elusive thing for The Man - a chimera that is perpetually out of reach. The pain of reality is too much to bear, and the only way The Man can move forward is by staying in the same place. Still, he waited and waited for one ray of hope to prove him wrong. Passing the test meant that the kids were different from him. They can move forward; they can love, and that is what the world needs.

So, he watches the children go on, equipped with faith and love. However, with the blood on his hands, it is too late for him to do the same. Having witnessed hope first-hand through the two children who reminded him of his own family, The Man realized that he didn't need to be trapped anymore.

The Man In A Suit is definitely one of the most intriguing characters in the webtoon. It is difficult to label him as an antagonist, for he is not driven by inherent evil, but he isn't a hero either, as he knows he has sinned. In this respect, we get a remarkable conversation between The Girl and the man she freed. He teaches her about the coexistence of good and evil - how there's both in a person, and there are no absolutes in this world.

Once again, this calls to mind Blake's vision in "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", whereby despite being contraries, good and evil are interdependent forces, and true spiritual freedom can only be achieved through a reconciliation of the two.  In his own words, “Without contraries is no progression".

 

Loss & Grieving In "The Horizon"

Following the arc of The Man In A Suit, we're taken back in time to discover more about The Girl and the bus. Be prepared for the waterworks because this is not for the faint of heart. The Girl may be a signifier of innocence, but she is in no way unaware of pain. She is bright-eyed and hopeful, not because she hasn't experienced loss, but because she has faith - faith that her father instilled in her, and a heart full of love.

When everyone around her succumbed to a mysterious illness, leaving her one by one, it was faith that kept her going despite the heart-wrenching agony she was in. As a matter of fact, perhaps it wasn't just the disease that took her loved ones. It was the lack of hope, belief, and the fading desire to live that made them get off the bus.

Despite doubt brewing in his heart, The Girl's father made sure that his little girl had the strength to go on. So, he tells her about how the Earth is round and how they'll surely meet again. What a beautiful metaphor for the circle of life!

This flashback was placed in the context of The Girl reliving her trauma when The Boy falls ill. So, when, by the end of it, he is alive and well, we get the first-ever panels in full, vivid color (Chapter 16), representing the joy of life.

In true JH fashion, it doesn't last long. The two children soon meet two other kids on their journey, just like them, but instead of creating a sense of "Us", it instantly fosters a feeling of "Other". The Man In The Suit had taught The Boy that in order to protect someone you love, you need to think independently and rationally to the point of cruelty. The Girl had rejected this doctrine back then but The Boy lost his childhood the moment he picked up the gun, which tainted his soul forever.

So, while the girls, coming from a place of empathy and love, recognized each other as human beings first, the boys perceived each other as threats. With the self-imposed duty to protect, the boys were inevitably on guard, and when a missile blew over their heads, the confusion and fear elicited a visceral reaction from both sides, causing the death of The Girl.

 

When Nature Tells You To Slow Down

In Chapter 17, JH devotes precisely nine panels to portray The Boy's shock over the death of The Girl. In a webtoon where the author has characteristically maintained mercilessly fast pacing, he gives nine panels worth of time and space to mourning. Nothing changes throughout these panels, which are strikingly motionless. However, the reader needs them just as much as The Boy does.

Yet, he gets up all too soon, and the reader is suddenly taken aback by how the author moves on too quickly. The Boy rushes to keep moving because he is numb in pain and can barely feel, and we think we, too, must move on with The Boy to find out what happens next when we haven't even processed the magnitude of the loss. Then, it all stops. We're faced with the boundless sea, a symbol of Nature forcing The Boy to slow down and feel. This is the author allowing us time to grieve.

As The Boy wails, the panels are engulfed in darkness, or perhaps more appropriately, embraced by Nature. When The Boy can finally give in to his grief, he is saved.

 

The Answer 

Years later, The Boy has aged and is now living alone in a seaside home, just like The Girl had dreamt of. He may have survived many years, but he continues to feel that his existence is not acknowledged by the world. In reality, it is he who is not ready to acknowledge his world as it is versus as it should have been. This all changes when he meets a young couple who try to befriend him. Though he is initially cautious and distrustful, it doesn't take long for him to warm up to them, especially when they remind him of his past self with The Girl.

In addition, the woman is expecting, and despite the world that the child would be coming into, the couple is effervescent, highlighting how meaningful it is to bring new life, even if it is into this hellish world. The author thus reasserts his message that holding onto life, fighting for life, and life itself is meaningful, just by virtue of its existence.

However, once again, we have classic JH pulling a fast one on us as Fate plays a twisted trick. The husband is pulled into the sea after a sea mine explosion, robbing us of hope once more. The Boy is stunned yet somehow not surprised, but what comes next is the crux of the matter.

The Boy, who felt like his existence was denied by the world, chooses to acknowledge the existence of the young man. What he couldn't do for himself, he does for the man, seeing himself in him. Saving him was saving himself. Saving him is choosing life. He won't let the man feel hopeless like he did. He will be hope incarnate.

This moment marks a return of agency for The Boy, the will to live, not just be alive. He wants the man to know that he is cared for and that his life is meaningful, just like his own. And so, the question returns: through the tragedy of it all, can we love again? The Boy chooses to say yes because no matter who you are, we all need to believe in love.

"Above the horizon, the Sun rises"

Years pass, and The Boy now lives with the couple and their little daughter, who calls him Grandpa. As the webtoon comes to an end, we see The Boy sail down the sea and bask in the glory of the Sun above the horizon. The warmth and promise of a new day shine down on him as he realizes the power of love. His inner child is no longer drowning in the treacherous obsidian sea. He is floating in the lap of life, and the Hand that is extended to him is that of God.

Just like the author, JH, intends, we too hope that this story eternally brings you hope.

Have you read "The Horizon"? What did you think of the webtoon? Tell us in the comments section down below!