Trace

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What a masterpiece. I've been waiting for years now for Trace's sequel because the story has captivated me so much.

I think the development of the different characters is the best in almost any work I have ever read.
All the characters are important, even if we know who the main character is, he is only a secondary character in the story of the others. It may sound strange but there are about 5 main characters, each with their own story, adversity, moments of joy etc...
What is equally captivating is how each story is connected and will come together at some point. Each arc is designed for ... character development and does so in a spectacular way.

The art is the only downside of the work I think, personally I love it but a lot of people can't keep reading supposedly because of the drawings.

Society has a rather strange relationship with traces. They are the only ones who can do anything about the Troubles but they are the outcasts of society, as soon as their skills are discovered, the government takes over their lives, even their existence.

Before I write anything about the Webtoon itself I have to warn anyone; the art is bad, like really bad and you need to have some kind of resistence against it. Most people did drop it early because of badly drawn characters(it does get better later on but never goes beyond average).

I myself had to start over 3 times while reading the first few chapters(1-3) because of that issue, but in the end it was worth it. At some point it just doesn't matter anymore and the story gets really addicting.

With that out of the way I'll get to the review itself.

The show itself does ... start of as a typical shounen(even if it is a seinen) until around chapter 20. You have your weak mc, a love interest things the mc want's to protect etc. and while it does follow those patterns for the first 20 chapters you always know that there is a bit more behind it and it's nothing more than a prologue. Without spoiling too much, - you'll be in for a surprise after that. The story does hook you in a way not many manga/webtoons/manhua do.

While a huge cast of main characters is usually a weakness, or a tool for a harem plotline it doesn't feel like that in this one. You'll constantly want to know more about any of the main characters because they're all unique and well done.

There is not a single annoying, or bad character in the whole webtoon and it's always fun to read even at it's sad moments. You can understand why the characters act at a certain way all the time. Something which very rarely happens in more serious adaptions.

The Art as I said before is the huge drawback of the series, while it does get better in the ~30+ chapters it will drop again at the end, because of scheduling issues the last few chapters are not even coloured. This doesn't effect the story itself and you even have an epilogue worth a chapter for each of the main characters.


It is not an adaption everyone can read or enjoy because of the artstyle but if you've the time and can accept the art/character drawings to a certain degree you're in for one of the best reads you have had in a long time with even a few surprises and very well done characters.

when i first started reading it i thought the story concept was very interesting, especially the idea of traces and troubles. i especially liked the backstory of one of the main characters, the working man. the presentation of this manhwa is very original, as the next chapter frequently repeats the past events in panels. you mainly need to read from the top to the bottom, sometimes left to right but there is not a lot of need to read left to right. in this internet age, it's easy to simply scroll down.

however, what made me turn down this manhwa was the art. yes, the art ... does not make up 100% of the story. heck, claymore's art was not really that impressive and i would admit that it is difficult to read claymore from the beginning at first. however, the story kept me going. well, in trace, the art annoyed me immensely. especially the eyes and the extremely poor choice of color schemes. in the second arc or so, almost all of new characters have the same colored clothing. for example, a guy would have blue hair and blue clothes. there is not a lot of variety in color, and i believe that annoyed me the most.

as for the characters, they are fairly good. however, the artist apparently tried too much to include humor in the form of chibis at random times. there's not many characters that i particularly like or can relate to. the only character that i would consider my favorite is jin, and that is only because he did have believable character development. i also liked the security guy.

so yes, at the beginning i enjoyed this story. but towards the middle i started to not enjoy it as much because of the visuals. oh yes, did i mention that trace was 100% colored? i would very much prefer that it be black and white to avoid terrible color choices. sorry if my review seems bitter, but this is what i firmly believe about this manhwa. it has the right concept and interesting presentation that works well, but it could have been drawn better and developed characters well.