Hi, all. Some life things are preventing me from sitting down and watching the next episode of “Murder, She Wrote.” So I’m gonna just enjoy gushing about one of my favorite Webtoons, called, “The Greatest Estate Developer” by Lee hyunmin and Kim Hyunsoo.
On the official page for the Webtoon, https://www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/the-greatest-estate-developer/list?title_no=3596, here is the official synopsis for the series:
“When civil engineering student Suho Kim falls asleep reading a fantasy novel, he wakes up as a character in the book! Suho is now in the body of Lloyd Frontera, a lazy noble who loves to drink, and whose family is in a mountain of debt. Using his engineering knowledge, Suho designs inventions to avert the terrible future that lies in wait for him. With the help of a giant hamster, a knight, and the world’s magic, can Suho dig his new family out of debt and build a better future?”
There are sadly only 18 episodes available as of writing this post, but there is so much that is packed into every episode. There are hilarious plot points, such as my personal favorite of Lloyd’s magic scanning eyes, and his interactions with the computer-like system of earning points by doing good deeds. His interactions with Javier are both funny and enlightening, as Javier was meant to be the main character of the fantasy novel. Javier starts out with a very, very negative view of Lloyd, as before Suho’s appearance, Lloyd was scum. But now that Suho has become Lloyd, he’s actively working on redeeming himself and doing the necessary hard work to get the Frontera family out of debt. It’s hard at first, considering that everyone sees Lloyd as scum, but eventually people start warming up to him. I don’t want to spoil everything for you, but it’s satisfying to watch.
As mentioned in the official synopsis, Suho was a civil engineering student in South Korea. We occasionally get flashbacks to his life there, such as his backbreaking hard work on construction sites, and his grief over his father’s death. His interactions with Lloyd’s parents are colored by his grief at how he couldn’t prevent his father’s death, and his rage at the unfair life he led before. And this leads to what could possibly start some interesting conversations about justice and mercy. **SPOILERS** in next paragraph.
As Suho knows about the events of the fantasy novel, he knows that Sir Neumann, a knight with the Frontera Barony, had conspired to defraud Sir Frontera and con him out of a great deal of money, and plans to betray them soon. Because of this knowledge, Suho/Lloyd manipulates things a little bit to expose his wicked doings. Suho also knows that Sir Frontera is a kind man, and would extend mercy to Neumann, so he manipulates things further in order to exile Neumann from the barony and save the Fronteras. This topic also comes up later in interactions with another character, but I’m not going to talk about that one, so as to save story surprises for any further readers. But Suho is tired, essentially, of the story trope of extending mercy to someone, the villain taking advantage of that, and having to fight them again. So Suho takes advantage of knowing the future actions of people and changes things to save people, reasoning that mercy is useless when people won’t change their actions. I would like to believe that perhaps in the future, they’ll meet people who will change with mercy, so Suho can use his knowledge of the novel to help them. But, I’m not sure. The story seems very bleak when these events happen. So I think I know what the authors are saying, but I don’t know for sure.
Anyway, I’m totally recommending this story. It’s funny and action-packed, playing with tropes and ideas normally found in modern fantasy comics. And from the deeper elements seen so far, I think it’s going to be pretty introspective into modern justice and societal constructions. 10/10. Give it a try!
Random English Major Thoughts 