Solo Leveling as the poster child, the Overpowered Protagonist trend in manhwa/webtoons has been explosive these past some years, rivaling the isekai genre arm-in-arm with its sister Reincarnated Villainess genre. At some point, however, I find that many of these stories develop themselves out of proportion, may it be convoluted world-building, a stuffy cast of characters, poor pacing, etc, in addition to existing within the Solo Leveling vacuum. Although, there are some that avoid this pitfall, with Teenage Mercenary proudly wearing its surface-level merits.

Perhaps best likened to a pack of bubblegum or a Carti snippet playlist, Teenage Mercenary is a wash cycle of short and sweet. With a faint, lingering main plot of I-Jin Yu's past biting him back, the series generally recycles affluent cardboard villains, their self-proclaimed and arrogant A-Teams, a well-widowed damsel-in-distress for their episodic plots. And certainly, a finger-bath has more depth than the entire culmination of these chapters. However, YC is entirely aware of this and never breaks apart from the shallowness. Rather than attempting to spruce it up with rich world-building, characterization and development and failing horrendously in the process, they faithfully stick to what they know best.

As much of a monotonous straight punch the story is, it's still a feat to keep the audience engaged for dozens upon dozens of chapters. One advantageous merit that webtoons/manhwa have is their vertical panel format, which makes action scene immersion much smoother as opposed to traditional horizontal, right-to-left. Teenage Mercenary swings big and often with action scenes, favoring QCC and gun shootouts. Reduced to Ijin single-handedly destroying a single or swarms of enemies in flashy manner, the end result is predictable but always satisfying to see.

Despite that merit, manhwa conversely possesses the severe bullying cliché, also present in this series. However, with its episodic nature, the climax building off the bullying to the end result of karma getting back at the bullies never turns into frustrating blue-balling, but tolerable and pays back with interest with the guaranteed beat-downs by Ijin. It takes a bit of time for this pattern to set in, though, with the first several chapters a particularly prolonged plot of Da-Yeon being severely bullied by a jealous, affluent classmate before Ijin finally steps in. Rest assured, though, past this vexing initiation is a much more refined formula to the bullying trope.

Perhaps what makes these two elements glamor the most is Ijin's Gary Stu character. Normally calm and collected, looks sculpted by stone mason, nearly unrivaled strength and dangerously potent pheromones ensnaring any woman within a 5 kilometer radius ; Ijin is the penultimate audience self-insert medium. As base and hollow as he sounds, though, his character lore of being an plane crash survivor turned military special solider has some intrigue and spices up the plot occasionally. An apathetic personality warmed up by his military mates, and later melted by his family; Ijin retains his cool, arcane front while becoming progressively empathetic as his friends and family laughably get into the worst of situations without a moment's break. This emotional development impedes his normally collected nature, resolving to violence if need be, effectively nipping the frustrating bully trope in the bud before it turns into blatant blue-balling. That said, his character development is nothing drastic nor well-written; just as most of the other aspects of the series; but kept simple and straight-forward, leaving little to fuck up.

I'm likely again praising a toddler for defecating in their diaper, but the limited cast of characters is a great choice. One pitfall I have a deathly fear of in action manhwa are an overabundant cast of characters, often in vain of establishing a rich world-building; that I generally do not care for. Teenage Mercenary, retaining its pattern of simple, recycles its early characters through and through for its episodic plots. While it can understandably be seen as lazy writing, one grows attached to most of these characters, their quirks and dynamics with Ijin. His sister and grandfather's gradual bonding after years of separation, his three stooges LoL group, Seok's similar apathetic nature turned to amusing competitiveness and awkward yet trusting bond, and, well, every other female character bewitched by Ijin somehow saving them in dire situations. Many, if not all, the characters are defined by their relationship with Ijin, which while certainly isn't introspective or deep writing, nonetheless makes for enjoyable plots.

Conclusion

Works dictated by prosaic, meditative writing are great, but one can also get an equal amount of enjoyment out of something that lacks it all. Trite and abundant as the line "I rate based on enjoyment" is on many user bios on this site, it very well applies to Teenage Mercenary. Stringed together with trending clichés, such as the overpowered protagonist and easily bewitched harem, the author knows how to whip up a delicious appetizer out of base ingredients.

Although I praised and analyzed their writing decisions perhaps to a satirical level, the story and character are nonetheless consistently enjoyable for tropes normally thrown together in assembly line fashion for the cheapest and shortest-living entertainment value. Contemplative themes and morals are exchanged for numbing enjoyment, with episodic plots often recycling the same damsel-in-distress saved by the Gary Stu protagonist snuffing out the paper-thin villains. Even if one were to label the plots and characters as recycled cardboard, the action scenes are nothing to turn one's nose high at. With great build-up, the intensity and swiftness of QCC and gun shootouts are the climax of the chapters, in addition to the gratification of seeing cliché villains being one-shotted.

Enjoyment in the rawest form of dopamine chemicals, Teenage Mercenary has unexpectedly become my favorite this past year. Simple, straight-to-the-point and without much thought involved, others are likely to share the same enthusiasm when a new update drops.