Spotlight First Impressions: The Gamer
TitleThe Gamer MediumManhwa (aka Korean webtoon/webcomic) StorySung Sang-Young ArtSang-Ah Currently15 Chapters
Rating Batoto5 Stars (4.93 of 5 out of 318 votes) Manga Fox5 Stars (4.86 of 5 out of 322 votes)
The Gamer is relatively new manga (only on its 15th chapter atm) in the super power/special ability genre with a pretty fun choice for it's protagonist's special power:
The Gamer Ability
What exactly does this mean? Well, he gets to interact with his world as if he were in an mmorpg. Basically everything in his life has been gamified. For example, when he walks around, he can see people's names and levels above their heads. Or when he has to do something, like a chore or homework, a quest alert pops up in front of him telling him his quest details. And when he achieves that "quest" he gets experience points. And yes, he gets to level up and allocate stat points too! On his first level up he was super excited to level ups STR, because it'd be super awesome to be stronger, right? But then he shortly realizes, given the way the real world work, maybe STR isn't as awesome as it sounds.
As far as we know, he is the only one in the world with his ability, so it's not like the whole world has been gamified for everyone, it's just for him. But there are other people with special abilities in the manga too. And the plot is about how the main character discovers and interacts with this new world of ability users he's discovered since learning he himself was an ability user.
So far, The Gamer is a lot of fun to read as we discover with the protagonist the different ways his world has been gamified and what consequences, perks, cons, etc that come with that. This manga gives an interesting twist compared to other conventional shounen fighting mangas in that his "powering-up" and abilities follow a system of rules that are revealed as the manga progresses rather than being ambiguously increased when it suits the author's tastes. The character can improve himself in any number of ways, level any skills, develop any character "build" as if he were a character in an rpg and I'm interested in imagining what I would do under the same circumstances.
You can read it at Batoto or Manga Fox, and get the raws at Naver
STR for men!
