2.5 stars

The premise of Radio Storm was intriguing because I enjoyed the idea of spontaneous awakening of powers due to some mysterious catalyst. The art style was simple yet powerful. However, I had some issues that removed from my enjoyment of the story. Firstly, I found the actual plotline to be somewhat confusing. I think it was due to the story moving quickly without explaining key concepts fully. I also found that the romance tropes were quite outdated and overused. Although the overarching story was interesting, I won't be continuing the series.

Interesting start to a series. A world of endless war where few people have something and most live in misery. Some people have a core that gives them special abilities that could be useful in the war. They’re gathered to an academy with the knowledge that they could be called to war at any time—though I got a notion they never are.

Sak has a useless ability, but he’s been accepted to the academy anyway. The process pitted him against a more useful student, Turner, who has bullied him relentlessly for years as a result. And then Turner catches a mystery illness even though those with core never fall ill. Turns out, people with cores have counterparts, callers, who can fall ill and affect the cores too.

To prevent Sak’s caller falling ill, his only supporter sends him to outside world to locate them. Why him and only him isn’t answered, but it appears to be some sort of experiment.

Sak isn’t prepared for the harsh reality of the outside world, but he locates his caller fairly easily. The other guy turns out to be a (former?) soldier who’d rather kill Sak than team up with him. But for some reason he agrees to follow Sak to the academy if Sak helps him with his mission first.

This was a gloomy story with a narrator who seems to imply things will get worse for Sak or his caller. There’s bullying and brutal death, and even the people Sak trusts aren’t really on his side. It makes a fairly heavy read with nothing to lighten things. There’s no romance in the first volume, but there’s a sex scene with questionable consent. The volume ends with a small twist that makes me want to find out what happens next.

This is a webtoon, so the art is large and good, but it’s mostly black and white with some drops of colour here and there. The direction of the dialogue has been turned from right to left, which took some getting used to.

Fated partners at the end of the world and a whole lot of suspicious scientists plotting something behind their backs... It's so captivating!
The world building isn't the most logical but it works well enough. The fated partners already took a place in my heart so I'm seriously afraid of what's going to happen to them - they made it sound pretty fatal...
The names are a bit strange though.

First of all what is with weak wimp and the violently cold abuser dynamic? I hate the caller in this. And I would like the mc to really run away from him.

This starts off with a war setting, where students develop some abilities called core and are accepted into academy based on their cores. Our MC's core is useless but his other non core ability is really useful for an ongoing zombie pandemic so I it makes sense why the academy would accept him. The author keeps wanting to show that the MC maybe a wimp but is smart, but God no. If he was smart he would have figured out why the academy chose him.

And would have run away as soon as he met his caller. He's being right up abused at this point.

All in all, the art is good. The plot I am not sure where it's going and the characters.... don't make me want to continue the story unfortunately.

The artwork is 5-stars, the story is 3-stars, so here we are with a strong 4-star reading experience. There is obviously a lot going on in this story that is unclear, and I will be waiting impatiently for the next volume to uncover more.

I would recommend this for anyone looking for a dark dystopian world with a potential queer romance to come in future volumes.

I received a digital ARC of this manhwa from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In the first volume of Radio Storm, we're introduced (sort of) to a world at war, where resources are scarce, but where people with "core"s are holed up in an academy and treated well because they'll be integral to ... something! Or maybe the government just wants to keep an eye on them. In any case, Sak is bullied and his "power" is... smelling like plants? Except he also has superhuman smell but that's not the reason he got in.

In any case, soon enough Sak is sent out into the plague-ridden, outside world to go find his "caller," someone integral to his life as a Core with abilities, and has to get him to come back to the Academy, but of course this dude wants nothing to do with either of those things, hardened and cynical as he is.

Volume 1 ends on a cliffhanger, of course, so I'll probably see where volume 2 goes - but this first volume is lacking in a lot of worldbuilding (there's a huge war but somehow our main character Sak has no idea when it started or what it's about, and is like, "well anyway, back to my bullying" about it, oh, and also, suddenly a big plague too that basically only he can sense?), and to use to old fandom term, Sak himself is extremely "wooby" for my personal tastes... boy we know you're a bottom but the stereotypes, please. Same with his caller being the burly aggressive threatening top type. I like BL but after umpteen years of reading it this feels like SUCH a throwback to ye olden days of BL when there wasn't too much nuance or variation in tropes and archetypes.

So, I'll give volume 2 a chance and see where we go from there -- thank you to Yen Press | Ize Press for the eARC in exchange for review!

Thank you Netgalley for the readers copy. I'm really in my manga streak at the moment, so a dark dystopic BL manga is an easy sell to me. This didn't disappoint. Think the Last of Us or 28 Days Later, set in world where the war for resources is in full swing and constant outbreaks of deadly viruses are reeking havoc where only a small percent of the younger population is immune and have developed abilities (like duh of course they do!)
The plot felt very standard and entertaining until it absolutely wasn't. I was locked in and quickly proceeded to read the next volume and genuinely did not see some of the plot twists coming. I will say somethings were translated a little clumsily but a little googling of the original webtoon helped. But regardless, you got me. Tell me everything cause I'm in this to the end.

I like the universe the story takes place in, but the "romance" that begins here is somewhat unstable, murky, and borders on toxic/abusive. I'd like to keep reading to find out where it goes... but I'm a little tired of seeing this kind of connection in BLs.

As I said before, what draws my attention most is the universe the protagonists find themselves in and how it will develop.

Thank you so much, Yen Press, for the ARC I read on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Radio Storm is a graphic novel set in a dystopian world where some people have special powers. Sak managed to get into the war academy despite his power being that he can emanate the smell of plants. He also has a heightened sense of smell, which benefits him when he discovers those infected with a plague give off an odor only he can smell. Sak is informed that he has a "caller" who impacts his abilities and must track him down to protect him from the epidemic. This was a quick read and darker in tone than I was expecting, but I did like the art style. Thanks to Yen Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I liked the concept of power linked to one's “soulmate” in this dystopian universe. The idea is original and promising.

Visually, however, the lack of color is striking. Colored touches appear in one square, then disappear. It's a real shame for a webtoon (even if it does help convey the dark atmosphere of the story).

Concerning Lima's character; yes, he's only known violence, but that doesn't necessarily make him a sexual abuser... The boy's love cliché with a violent dominant and a timid, submissive dominant is really too much. It's a very toxic dynamic, and all too common in some popular yaoi (Killing Stalking.......).


Also, the pace is a little too rushed; I found that everything moved a little too fast, without giving the secondary characters time to settle in (although they are intriguing). It's easy to become suspicious of all the characters at first glance, and they're not too dangerous.

Unfortunately, the webtoon lacks zombies; we never see them. Perhaps more in the sequel as the infection progresses.

The art was nice, if simple -- I liked the touches of color in eyes or hair every so often. The writing was solid. It just didn't do it for me, however; I couldn't believe in the premise (you can't tell me the callers are necessary but also nobody knows about them, or that everyone outside knows the students from the academy are Powerful but have Lima know nothing about it. I didn't like either Sak or Lima as characters -- Sak's shown to be too conniving when young to be this stupid, and Lima's just sadistically cruel. I don't mind a toxic romance if there's some sort of push-pull to it, but with the number of times Lima considers selling Sak into prostitution on first meeting him, and how innocent Sak seems, not to mention the ever-present (and more or less actualized, even with consent) threat of rape, it feels more like a lamb to the slaughter instead of a dynamic.

So definitely something for someone, just not for me.