#hallyu

Namjoon and Yoongi got more closeups than I've ever seen, making my heart skip a fatal amount of beats. Namjoon was a sentient sex grenade, but that lil' bias wrecker Yoongi was a sex bomb. At one point my husband whispered, "Single layer, white t-shirt Yoongi rapping. Don't die."

It was too late. I died. But I'm back now.

Other fun stuff: Jimin did a body roll at the end of 2.0 that was um...I just...yup. Also, between his lovely, warbly voice, long blonde hair, and witchy sleeves, I think he's slowly morphing into a Korean Stevie Nicks. Love this journey for him.

Another highlight: A shot of Tae so sexy, my husband said, "Wow. Too much. I don't like it. Make it stop." But he sounded exactly like I do every time I click on a Bapsae hip thrust compilation. Like a filthy liar. If he ever leaves me for someone, I'm pretty sure I know who it'll be.

We need to talk about JK. He's a handsome, but he looks like a startled fawn to me. Before now, I believed that no amount of Calvin undies, tattoos, or yandere fics could ever make him a sexual being for me. Believed. Past tense. Cuz, there was a moment. He stared straight into my soul. No easy smile or silly laugh hovering on his lips. Just dark eyes and intensity so raw, all my organs violently flipped upside down at once. I mumbled, "Oh Jesus. What? Fuck? Why? Why?" Don't know what that means, but I said it.

They played Run BTS. Normal. Like Animals. Dimple, Ddaeng, AND Magic Shop. I haven't been this happy in ages. They're doing it again in October, and I wanted to throw my wallet at the screen and scream, TAKE IT. TAKE IT ALL. JUST GIMME MORE SINGLE LAYER WHITE T-SHIRT YOONGI. 💜💜

One more thing. Some lovely poster named Moonchild made these Namjoon gifs. Whoever she is, I wish her only joy and prosperity for this. She deserves all things that are good.

Pink goober my beloved 🥺

Hyunjin

[©lali, ©rin, ©stay4ate, ctto]

[If you enjoyed my former Gachiakuta theories, know a thing or two about Korean Isekais/Culture + Love Media Analyses (and also like Vinland Saga) - this is the one for you!] 💯

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Now sometime back I decided to watch episode 1 of Solo levelling. It didn't take me too long to drop this show, due to non-existent good writing.

However despite the poor writing, the first episode of this show made me realise something about a lot of 'system' genres in Korean Webcomics, and that 'something' has a lot to do with their reinforcement, rather than changing of the toxic social structures we live in:

General Synopsis (Skip below if you Know the story)

Jin Woo is a young man who is born in a world after a 'dungeon break', a phenomenon where portals have opened up to allow monsters to invade their world. At the exact same time different people were assigned powers and ranks by this 'system', to be able to defend against these monsters.

Of course as a result of the dungeon break (caused when the dungeon missions are neglected for too long), the entire social structure of Korea completely changed. Those formerly outcasted from their society could finally have their latent skills realised and become a member of their society.

Enter Jin Woo. Despite the Dungeon Break, and the bestowing of powers, Jin Woo remains the lowest rank E. To make ends meet, he was working on a construction site, and sometimes tags along other groups to gain some money. But these groups seeing his rank disrepect and demean him at every turn.

Well cut to one dungeon mission where they enter a hall full of very large statues. It turns out the dungeon's rank was wrongly assigned, and the statue was sentinent, extremely strong and very deadly.

Nearly half of the members of the mission die, and Jin Woo also dies, but gains a powerup to have a 'rebirth'. Thus begins the beginning of Solo Levelling.

For the rest of the story, that's exactly what happens.

Each day a system screen appears, forcing him to do missions. And if he fails he is punished (i.e. thrown into a dessert to be chased by a giant centipede). As a result he is forced to 'level up' and get stronger. And the rest is as predictable as you can imagine.

Level Up. . .or complete Soul Swap? [Stop Here]

One thing about this anime that shocked me is the complete personality change of Jinwoo in episode one, in a way that has no clear connection to his former nature/self. He goes from looking and acting like this:

To whomever the heck this is:

In a very short amount of time.

The total soul change it seems to have for this character sends an implicit message, mostly to do with the 'useless' of the former character in trying to navigate the 'system'.

This is not too different than social climbing in our capitalistic system today, we shall explore this concept further below:

"The System Made me Do it" - the excuse for normalised societal apathy

One interesting thing I have gotten so far from the messaging of this anime is the theme of 'the ends justifys the means' logic, and how the world and system reinforces this.

He has to follow the values of the 'system' so he has to essentially abandon who he originally was and what he originally believed in to climb the system. But in a way I see the loss of self as a loss in general. Why?

Because the values which made us human, which makes humanity a better place in this show and others like it is tossed aside for the sake of a few crumbs of this Lost Value System.

The webtoon seems to be creating scenarios to justify this (sick mom/he's the breadwinner/the system gave me no choice/this is the way society is etc...). This of course is to remove the aspect of guilt on to the removal of these former pro-social values towards dark triadism.

This 'the system made me do it' sells to the viewer the following messaging:

The ends defines the means (morals be damned)

Compassion and humanity is useless will not get you to the top, being ruthless will

Everyone is the same selfish greedy person who you cannot trust, so not playing the game as a predator means you are the prey

There is no alternative way to live a better life

The "top" is the place to be, where you will achieve your dreams, and everything you desire including gaining social prestige and validation is there

So with this kind of messaging, the viewer and Jin Woo concludes the following:

I MUST climb up the social ladder by any means possible.

This is sadly a very myopic world view, and it is truly not unexpected from a Korean Webcomic, a society suffering from the worst form of late stage capitalism the world has ever seen.

The "System" Does not challenge, it merely reinforces Western Capitalism

Climbing the system seems on the surface to give everything one desires. But in actuality it is a trap.

Instead of challenging the system that pushes one into abandoning their compassion their humanity - this webcomic - and so many others like it rewards (literally) the abandonment of pro-social values and characteristics, and punishes kindness, and anything outside of the ruthless, type A dark triadic traits seen in so many today climbing the capitalistic social systems.

When we step back, these are simply projections from the society this came from, South Korea, suffering from the effects of late-stage capitalism - where competition is rife and ruthless, lookism is at an all time high (Seoul being the plastic surgery capital of the world), and being aggressive is the best way to get forward in the world.

What is not really glorifed however is the flipside - a massive bullying epidemic which is a by-product of the stress and egoism of said competitiveness, sky-high suicide rates which is in the top leagues globally, and the endless social commentary in their media, such as shows like Parasyte or even Squid Game about how this 'system' is crushing their souls.

But sadly, instead of challenging these toxic norms they talk at length about, the pull towards leaning into these traits seems to win over, which is why the concept of 'levelling up' and social climbing is rife in nearly all Korean Media today.

This is why for many of these webcomics who start out reprimanding these systems (e.g. Lookism), they slowly starting playing into the very system they set out the criticise in the firstplace.

General Male Dissatisfication / Alienation in the 21st Century fuelling the Isekai Craze

Jin Woos total change is deeper than it seems on the surface.

On the surface, it is a 'glow up', and a chance for him to succeed.

But in reality, it seems to be another medium reinforcing the same capitalistic, narcissistic anti-social messaging a lot of these male-centric power fantasies are pushing today.

Many boys and men in our world today feel weak, incompetent and generally speaking outcasted from their society. We can blame the impossible job market, inflation, stagnant wages and increased anti-social values born from so-called 'social media' devices for that, and radical ideologies like the red-pill movements are just waiting to snap these outcasts individuals right up. But what we fail to mention is these isekais that are doing something similar in nature.

These anime play into this lack of life satisfaction and potential fulfillment of the average male anime fan today, and instead of giving some models of development to follow - they only seek to increase spiritual bypassing - the idea of not actually fulfilling one's purpose/potential IN THE REAL WORLD but deflecting this purpose through methods of fantastical escapism, and on top of that escapism into a fantasy realm where one wishes they were as competitive, strong and as ruthless as the most 'successful' members of our society today, such as politicans and bankers who has brought our society to the current station to begin with that leads them into seeking out forms of escapism to cope!

I also believe sadly these anime help people who are like the original jinwoo to hate their own weaknesses, virtues and compassion - making them far easier to radicalise by communities such as red pill or gamer communities who offer the promise of social prestige and brotherhood in exchange of self-abandonment.

The Good News? A counter-trend has emerged

While such isekais are popular, recently counter-trends are emerging to challenge these ideologies. Such as Vinland Saga.

In the beginning Thorfinn wanted to kill and fight, idolising vikings. But when his father is killed by one and he's consumed by a destructive desire for revenge, we don't idolise his descent into violence and anger - we see him for the broken, traumatised young boy that he is.

Later on his character develops to the point where he says (now even a meme) that he has no enemies. And escapes the 'Vallaha' (which is said to be a hall of heroes for vikings, but this anime/manga cleverly shows it to be an endless hell and cycle of fighting and violence which Thorfinn nearly falls into). [Unlike the romanticised heaven it has come to be known as]

This anime actively encourages the viewer to not idolise the apathy, the violence and 'edge lord' behaviour we have seen praised and idolised by so many boys and men today but instead completely challenges this worldview and shows the absolute horrors of this kind of life, especially seen in the famous 'I have no enemies' scene, completely turning on its head his society's love for senseless violence:

Anime like Vinland Saga and movies like Everything everywhere all at once are beginning to challenge these anti-compassion types of media and finally showing a different way to live than playing into the 'system' one is born into.

Conclusion

It always fascinates me why certain anime becomes popular when it seems to be basic in its premise and even flat in many cases. Because it is almost always more than a surface level reason.

I am hoping the trend of anti type A dark triadic glorification continues, because I like many others has witnessed the results of the glorification of these traits in the forms of femicides, growing violence and radicalisation of young men and boys in the world and feeding into their growing sense of hopelessness about their place into the world.

The more we challenge rather than play into 'the system', the better our society can be. And by writing this I hope I can be a part of that change.

Thanks for reading! 💐👋

[Errors / Corrections will occur overtime]