I’m looking into the medium of webtoons recently since I’ve been reading a few of Webtoon Unscrolled’s physical releases. It’s an interesting strategy, but also, it’s a testament to how much popular titles have grown in the past years. One such title, Viral Hit, just received a physical release collecting the first eight episodes of the popular title. It’s a rocky start, but I can see the appeal.

Hobin Yu is a high schooler that’s in an unfortunate situation. Stuck in a dead-end job with an absent father and hospitalized mother to take care of, he’s constantly bullied by his peers. More unfortunately, one of his bullies is the famous streamer Pakgo, who uses his influence to get his way. After Pakgo’s cameraman Snapper takes advantage of his situation a bit too far, Hobin ends up fighting Snapper in his house. The fight is inadvertently recorded, making Hobin into a viral sensation overnight.

After a confrontation with Pakgo, Hobin reluctantly partners up with Snapper as the two try and figure out the Newtube game. After watching a mysterious video about how to get hit without getting hurt, Hobin decides to level up his fighting game while trying to impress Bomi, a girl at his job that takes a liking to him. This may be a hurdle, as Hobin’s MMA classmate Munseong Kim might also be eyeing her… or is he observing Hobin’s potential as a fighter?

I’m conflicted with my experience reading this series. On the one hand, I ate up the whole book in one sitting, but that was because I had a fascination for how amateurish the first few chapters are set up. I didn’t actually like any of the cast for most of the early episodes, and the initial incident just feels so slapstick and humorous compared to the rest of the volume.

It doesn’t help that the first few episodes have this weird censorship where more extreme expletives are bleeped out; it wouldn’t be an issue normally, but those words come up extremely often, which made me wonder if this was a problem in the original webtoon release.

Thankfully, the story gets out of this funk near the end, where the action gets wild and Hobin and Snapper’s partnership feels genuine. The bleeped expletives are gone too, with the swears uncensored, so it makes a bit more sense narratively. I think I’ll keep following this one if only because it’s got a lot of potential, but for now this was a very inconsistent opener.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a fun tale. I'm always a sucker for stories that have any sort of martial arts base. The fighting so far in this isn't that, with a lot of sloppy techniques from bully fighting, but it seems like it's going in the direction of learning how to legit fight, soooo, I'm counting it xD Admittedly, some bits of this had me cringing pretty hard. I think that was because of the art style that it would use for those times. Others may have found it funny. I just found it unpleasant to look at >_< Still, overall a fun webtoon, and I was definitely very grrrr with the ending because it left me on a scene I really wanted to see play out.

3.5 stars

Pretty interesting start! I can totally see this being adapted into a drama. It has the usual tenets: a nerdy kid getting bullied by popular kids, tough home life, has a crush on a really hot girl that (seemingly) won't give him the time of day. I was a bit worried the concept was going somewhere I wouldn't be interested in like a fight channel just to get views for fighting. Having the concept revolve around the MC taking on bullies and calling out bullies was a nice twist.

I found the date sequence pretty funny, <spoiler>especially when the MMA fighter showed up. I think his character is pretty interesting and I hope this signals he's going to help train the MC to get better at fighting. The daydream about being married with kids becoming him randomly in the other two's home was funny!</spoiler>

For a first volume, the art is pretty nice and I liked the memes. 90% of this took place in school though, so hopefully there's more of the outside world in the next volume.

Viral Hit is about a high schooler who's relentlessly bullied by a group of kids who are prank streamers and use his bullying as content. This was.. interesting. Didn't hate it, but didn't love it. I think for a wacky style comic I think it definitely could be enjoyable for some!

I didn’t know what to expect when I picked this up. I do like fighting WebToons, but they aren’t my go to. Little did I know this was going to be funny as well as packed with action.

Hobin isn’t one of the popular kids. He isn’t an MMA star. He doesn’t have his life together and can barely afford his mother’s hospital bills. He’s bullied daily and with his poor grades, he isn’t going anywhere in life. But one fight ending up on the internet and going viral after he’s had enough from the “it” crowd would change his life forever.

I love Kim Junghyun’s art style, because the facial expressions of each of the characters really lends to the comedic parts. There is a lot of emotion that’s felt through the art that you don’t get just from the story (which is also really great).

I didn’t expect to enjoy this so much. We love an underdog story though!!!

Thanks to NetGalley and Webtoon Unscrolled for the ARC!

The plot seems a bit all over the place in the beginning, most likely to them trying to introduce the characters and their lives in a quick pace to get the story going. I wish we did have a bit more interaction of the MC with his sickly mother, to show just how far and how hard he works to take care of her. We get glimpses of it, but not many heart tender moments between the two. The premise is interesting and a bit absurd, goofy at times, from the things they do to the expressions they make. They do point out some stuff about how Youtube or how "Newstube" as they call it work. Nothing too in detail, but a few basic things are there from the Ad revenue to the censorship.

The fights are a bit silly, but they are still fun to see. And the humanistic aspects of wanting to get money for his sickly mother even if it means getting beaten up in Newstube videos seems realistic.

Overall it was a good read and I'm interested to see how the rest of the series pans out!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this volume.

Unfortunately I struggled with this one - there’s a huge watermark underneath every single page which makes reading it a jumbled mess. Characters are childish and pointless. The whole thing reads like a 13 year old wrote it.

Not for me.

Meek student Hobin Yu is targeted by bullies at his high school running popular "Newtube" accounts, until the day he goes viral on his mom's account when he gets into a fight with his bully's camera man after accidentally spilling a bowl of noodles on him. So begins Hobin's viral influencer career of calling out jerks and getting into (mostly losing) fights with them.

Viral Hit is at heart a black comedy, and a social satire of contemporary Korean influencer culture, where characters are in many ways unlikeable and watching them fail ridiculously is at least part of the charm. Hobin comes in with a great deal of built in sympathy, his single-parent mother is sick in the hospital and he's on the hook for the bill week-to-week, which he pays for with his crappy "McDonulds" job after school days of being bullied for user likes by influencers faking kindness for views. However, Hobin is also socially clueless, cowardly, more than a little sexist, and juvenile in his humor and attitudes, which eases the blow a bit when he takes harm or is humorously beat up for comedic effect. Other characters in his corner don't fair much better. This element, of somewhat unlikeable-but-relatable protagonists persevering through endless humiliation and physical, cartoonish levels of battery, is definitely the crux of the humor in the series and readers enjoyment may hinge on whether or not they find that funny.

Perhaps one of the most audacious parts of viral hit is that Hobin doesn't win in a traditional manner. He's not famous for winning the fights so much as calling out jerks pretending to be kind, and then surviving the beat-down that follows (increasing his viewership even more). Hobin begins to pick up some meager fighting skills in the second half of the book by watching Newtube videos by a foreigner wearing a chicken mask and a gi who's recorded himself teaching strategy and fighting techniques.

Above all, Viral Hit revels in absurdity, from the chicken-mask wearing fighting teacher, to Hobin's ridiculous facial expressions, to the absurd situations that Hobin and his cameraman (the same one he got into a fight with) find themselves in. An example: Hobin starts to learn to fight not for any practical or self protection purposes, but because the videos need to last three minutes to be able to justify ad revenue which means holding his own at least that long.

A strong start that could go in some really interesting directions.

Hobin Yu, a high school underdog, starts recording his fights against bullies, monetizing his videos to pay off his debt and using these encounters to gain internet fame. The protagonist is far from a typical hero—he’s weak, cowardly, and a pushover, which makes his initial struggles feel authentic. His growth throughout the first volume is both realistic and compelling, showing how he learns to build confidence and stand up for himself in a society that places a heavy emphasis on online validation. Interesting premise of school kids calling out their bullies and posting on YouTube with a good dose of action. Strong first volume. I’m hoping future volumes explore the issues of online culture and a society obsessed with the next viral sensation while continuing to provide fight breakdowns.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Webtoon Unscrolled for the advanced reader copy!

I know I'm not a fan of action without some type of romance involved but I wanted to check this out and overall it was entertaining and as always I liked the art but it wasn't for me.

Why did it grow on me ???

I don’t know how else to describe it other than a hot mess of a webtoon you want to hate but somehow keep reading—and then suddenly realize you’re kind of into it. It’s like the reality TV of webtoons: you watch it because it’s entertaining, but you can’t wrap your head around the fact that real people might actually act like that.

I’ll give this a solid three stars. Honestly, after the first few slides, I thought I was going to hate it, but I ended up being entertained. I especially liked how the MC fully leaned into ‘being a loser.’

This one also ended quite abruptly, which caught me by surprise.

&, the instant regret after buying a ‘luxury’ item like a ‘Kucchi’ tracksuit? So real. I own a single Chanel wallet I never use because, seriously, who actually uses such an expensive item? I’ll happily stick to being a bum, thank you.

TL;DR: Hated all the characters, the story was weird, but I was still entertained. 3/5.

*Blog post scheduled for March 19th, 2025

This just wasn’t for me. Very childish and sounded like they were trying way too hard to sound cool.

Viral Hit is about a high schooler that is bullied by popular kids who are also streamers. As a kid who's trying to support his mom while she's hospitalized, he realizes that inorder to make more money, he must also stream. So he starts streaming his fights.

This webtoon did not meet my expectations. Extremely unrealistic and odd, it missed its mark with me. The art style, while good, is extremely off-putting.

I do think there's an audience for this webtoon, I'm just not it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wattpad/Webtoon Group for the e-arc!

Viral Hit is the story of Hobin Yu, a high schooler trying to rise from the bottom of his school hierarchy by streaming his fights. I was not familiar with this author's previous work but this one caught my eye. Watching Hobin get fed up with the bullying and taking a stand was great to see and he didn't back down. I feel like most protagonists in this situation would back down or like give up but he stands on business. I do wonder how things will go as this volume ended on a cliffhanger. If you like action or fighting series, then this will be the one for you.

Though the art style was good, and the writing wasn't terrible this wasn't really my thing. If you're into movies like "Fight Club" or just fighting in general, you'll probably enjoy this but for me I don't think I'll be giving volume 2 a chance after finishing volume 1.

Hobin is not the most likeable main character, but I actually think that works in this book. Really, none of the characters are likeable and I think that helps me root for the fighting a bit more that way.

The art style is extremely detailed. It is admittedly not a style I love, but you can see the time and effort that went into it.

Action and fighting graphic novels are not my favourite, so I know I am not the target audience for this book. For those who do love those books, I think this has a lot of great features that will really appeal to them.

firstly, thank you to the publisher for an arc!!

viral hit has an interesting and relevant plot (young adults vying for a claim to fame through becoming a streamer/influencer) but i was turned off through the inconsistent writing/unexpected scene changes.

also, unfortunately, i was not a fan of the art style

This first volume covers chapters 1-8 of the webtoon and introduces a group of school kids who expose local bullies on their YouTube channel to make money and pay off debt. The story focuses on the main character as he learns how to fight, build confidence, and work toward his goals—including pursuing the girl he likes.

While I didn’t find the characters particularly compelling in this volume, the story had enough twists and turns to keep things interesting. The livestreaming and YouTube angle is a unique concept, but it didn’t feel fully explored yet. On the bright side, the art style is clean and enjoyable, adding to the overall reading experience. It’s a solid start, but I’m hoping for more depth and character development in the next volume.

*Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!