Shioon is your typical student with the misfortune of getting bullied every day. With numbers stacked against him and no male friends to speak of, he is unable to fight back and his situation getting bleaker every day. So when he sees his new substitute teacher Sunsengnim kicking major ass on the streets against some punks one night, he begs Sunsengnim to teach him how to fight. Sunsengnim does his best to ignore Shioon’s pleas as he must try to not attract any unwanted attention to himself, laying low on his mission as he stakes out Shioon’s high school for a couple of months. However, through numerous acts of desperation on Shioon’s part and seeing some redeeming qualities in the boy, Sunsengnim is bound to teach Shioon how to fight.
The Breaker’s main story by no means is going to be winning any awards anytime soon because let’s face it, this is another nobody-becomes-somebody-and-gets-caught-into-something-he-shouldn’t-ever-have-been-a-part-of-plot-line we’ve all seen before. Soon follows bad guys with super martial arts skills starting to pop up along with an old hidden powerful martial arts organization.
Shioon is a feel good character, there’s nothing not to like about him and thankfully he’s not super emo even though he gets bullied a whole lot throughout the manga. You would think he would get passed with having to put up with bullies early as he does learn quite a devastating punch attack rather quickly, but he is “real” enough he doesn’t want to hurt anyone with his new found strength. He’s kind by nature, the protecting his loved ones idealist.
Sunsengnim, a little perverted, though he does hit on real women his age, is equally likeable. He’s hard on Shioon for the most part, especially when it comes to training, usually thinking the boy won’t be able to pick up on anything he teaches him, but generally arrives to save Shioon’s butt when he gets into trouble, even though he would rather forget about the kid. Sunsengnim too is a pretty good guy.
Thankfully there hasn’t been too much in terms of needless romance. The very little that’s starting to crop up is tame and rarely takes center stage, though the girl the story is starting to pair Shioon with looks like she’s eight years old at best, though it is explained why she looks so young. Most of the time the manga likes to play on Sunsengnim’s best attempts at trying to go on dates with a fellow school teacher, providing much of the humor.
The Breaker strays away from energy beams and instead focuses on good hand to hand martial arts fighting. Sure some characters have hardened skin and similar variations, but it never strays into Dragon Ball territory. It doesn’t hurt either that the clean and detailed art is there to illustrate the fight scenes clearly. The fighting can get pretty bloody, but nothing to the point where it’s suppose to be gross, more like everyone looks cooler and bad-ass covered in blood with evil stares and what not.
With what’s been released so far, I really don’t have any major qualms with The Breaker. The art is beautiful and clean, the story is good overall and getting better every volume, and the main characters and supporting cast are all entertaining. Okay, the Korean names are hard to remember since they are so long sometimes and Shioon’s uncanny ability to get the living snot beat out of him and still be able to get up regardless because of will power alone or “courage” is quite annoying, but hey, that’s a standard cliché we’ve all come to expect from an underdog character.
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