Wind Breaker is a sports slice of life manwha available on Webtoon for free, it currently has 438 chapters (452 on more unconventionnal sites).
It's the story of Jay Jo, a top student from a prestigious korean academy. Passed on from his uncle, he has a burning passion for biking. It's the only hobby he has besides studying. The thing that makes biking so special though is that it's a hobby he voluntarily developped by admiration of the passion his uncle has for this discipline. Studying is a hobby that was forced upon him by his parents. It's a constraint.
The duality between passion, constraint and obligation is one of the thematic that's dealt in Wind Breaker. Though studying isn't bad by itself, the only reason his parents force him to do so is because the societal norm is that an entire's person worth is based on the level of their education, money, job, status etc.
But what if Jay thinks that his own worth isn't determined by these things but rather, by how accomplished he feels at doing the thing he really loves?
The problem is that studying and getting into high education isn't only a constraint to Jay, it's an obligation. He can only thank his parents for even possessing the freedom of having an hobby. His parents dedicated themselves to their jobs and maintained a good position in society to give Jay a good life. That doesn't mean the parents are bad person or that they're selfish per say, it's just that their "common sense" is based on the toxic environment of korean society depicted in the story. Jay has the duty of living to his parent's expectations but his duty collides with his passion. What will he chose or rather, what's the most righteous choice?
One of the best thing in the story is that we have many perspectives. It's not just about a group of elites trying to get away from their opressing constraints.
Vinny Hong is, narratively speaking, the rival of Jay Jo. He comes from a poor family and he has a disease that makes one of his eye pure red. From the moment he was born, everyone saw him as a freak, it was decided he'd be a failure. To sum it up, Jay had internal problems due to being "privileged". Coming from a good family is a good thing but the pressure of sacrificing his individuality to have to fit in is a curse. It's the exact contrary for Vinny, no one expects anything from him and that's his curse.
He comes from dirt and violence and whatever he does, society will ever only see that so he has no reason to live his way any differently. He's detestable and vile because that's the only way for him to exist. Very similarly to boxing with Joe Yabuki from Ashita no Joe, cycling is the only way for Vinny to express his hatred against the world and his explosivity through something constructive and even positive.
Looking at it at this light, both characters are actually very similar, they're the two faces of the same coin. They have complete different backgrounds but in front of their bikes they're equals.
From class members, rivals, teacers, parents, antagonists to the protagonists, the story focuses on many many characters. They all appear to be very cliché at their apparition but as the story progresses their uniqueness shines despite being firmly enracinated into their respective archetypes.
Their arcs are always related to the dualism we disscused earlier and as a coming of age story, all the teenagers characters face a moment where they have the choice between standing up for their own individuality against the expectations of their parents or korean society in general or giving in. From my perspective, the story is pretty neutral as it's more like "decisions and the consequences of these decisions" than "good choices versus bad choices".
Obviously, cycling is a great thing but for certain characters it's just a way to cope, for others it's a liberation. Sometimes, doing the good leads to bad things and doing the bad leads to good things. The story can completely shift to a chill romance manwha silce of life to a yankee 90's japanese manga to an intense story with crazy races. Despite it's serious themes, much more present and pronounced in the latest chapters, Wind Breaker remains a very fun story to read with a lot of humor and self awareness. There's also a lot of manga and LOL references. The artsyle significantly improves along the story to the point it's barely recognisable. I think it's also true for every aspects of this slow paced manwha. The author becomes better and better at writting as the story goes and you feel like you're in an adventure of self discovery yourself and you're eager to see what will happen for each character. This is definitely a very solid story that everyone should try.
The author definitely has something for fashion considering how unbelivably dripped out every single character is (many even think it's too much lmao). His house was even trending not so long ago due to how fashion brands-themed it is (the interview featuring his house : https://youtu.be/2fUKkKSeZzQ ). There's also funny symbolysms like how Jay wears Nike and Vinny wears Addidas, highlighting their rivalry. The art is aestethically very pleasing and the cycling races drawings are just spectacular. Here's few aesthetical pannels :
Spoiler, click to view
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I hope I did a good job showing you the different (light hearted and darker) aspects of Wind Breaker and that you'll consider reading it To conclude, I think this dialogue perfetcly encapsulate the story :
- Now you can see my hand and your surroundings right?
- Well, yeah of course. How can I see when you covered my eyes with your hand?
- Yeah. The point is I want you to stop focusing on what's ahead of you. I wanted you to know it's important to look at things from a distance. If you take a step back you can see a whole lot more
Sometimes, life will seem like an inescapable hell but if you take a moment to look at what's around you, you'll see water at disposition, access to electricty, parks not so far away from your house, a device to be able to read this review right now. It's easy to get caught up in one bad element of your life and forget all the priviligies you have but if you take a moment to look around and appreciate everything you have you'lle be more grateful, free and happy. The purpose of this story isn't to say "rebell, do what you want, fuck your parents, live your own life", that's missing the point, entirely. The message is that you shouldn't solely focus on studies or short-lived pleasures or satisfying your parents or your hobbies or working out or whatever. You should take a step back and watch all of it, then you'll see what's really important and what you really want.
They are biking, not to run away from their problems but to find an answer.
