Viral Hit Review

Why Did I Choose To Watch This

Viral Hit is a Webtoon that finally got an anime adaptation. As someone who’s only ever read mainstream Webtoon series like Solo Leveling & The Beginning After The End, this was the perfect opportunity to jump into another Webtoon series that I would’ve otherwise missed had it not been adapted into an anime. Aside from it being a fun opportunity, the story seemed appealing. Who doesn’t love an underdog main character that decides to stand up for themselves and fight. Before jumping into this anime, I wondered if this had a chance of being a hit.

Plot:

Quick Premise:

Hobin Yu is a shy, broke, and an unfortunate student who has always been bullied. His school life included being forced to be humiliated by classmates on camera to being brutally beaten up. Things for Hobin didn’t get better at home, where his mother was bed-ridden in a hospital. Things all change for Hobin when he accidentally comes across an unknown NewTube channel that teaches him how to fight. A new idea sparks into Hobin’s brain, should he fight his bullies on camera and create his own NewTube channel? Would this make him different, stronger, and make him money to save his mother?

Plot Mechanics:

I enjoyed watching the way this anime played out. Underdog stories are one of my favorite types of story lines and this one delivered. There’s more to Viral Hit than just its fights but we’ll start off with that first.

The fights were great, well choreographed and well thought out. We could happily root for the underdog while he tried his hardest against opponents he had no chance of defeating. The best part was the realism of the fights. There was no sudden powerup, no power of friendship, or anything like that. It was realistic, entertaining, and intense at the same time.

From my experience with Webtoons, many are more surface level when it comes to real depth in storytelling, but I would have to say this was an outlier. Hobin wasn’t the perfect cliche main character in an underdog story, but that’s ok. That’s the type of character that we don’t typically always see from a Webtoon series. Maybe it’s because I haven’t read or seen a lot of Webtoon series but the ones I have seen, almost always consist of a perfect main character - think Sung Jinwoo. One aspect of the story I enjoyed was watching Hobin do some despicable things, cringey things even. He was somewhat relatable in that sense. There were many times where he had contradicted his own beliefs when choosing what actions he should take whether it was the moral high ground or for personal gain.

The plot however wasn’t perfect. Although I did love that there was romance brewing in this anime, it felt extremely cliche. There were certain parts in the anime that felt forced, and I wish they were done better or written slightly differently.

Plot : 8.75/10

Character/Character Designs

The main character, Hobin Yu, was flawed, but in a good way. His innocence and kindness is tainted by greed at times but that’s one thing I loved about this anime. The main character is not perfect. In a way that makes him an appealing character in terms of relatability and unpredictability. However, Hobin's character design seemed very simple. Yes, it did fit the wimpy underdog stereotype but it’s still not very memorable. Hobin’s character development was a ride. Watching him throughout different parts of the anime change his own personal philosophy was a great watch.
Outside of the main character, the rest of the characters were somewhat generic. From their designs to their character seemed pretty cliche for the most part. There wasn’t anything to write home about outside of 1-2 side characters. One character I did find fascinating was the NewTuber that inspired Hobin. We didn’t get too much information on that character but I look forward to finding out more in future seasons.

Overall the character designs were somewhat iffy and not very memorable. The character development of Hobin was a nice touch. The main character was also super fun to root for as an underdog.

Character/Character Designs: 7.5/10

Art/Animation

The Art was average but animation was definitely above average. I’ll be real with you here, there wasn’t too much excitement from me about the art however the animation, we can talk about. Back to the fight choreography, it was extremely memorable. It was something that honestly made this anime a success. Had it not been animated well, this anime might’ve bricked.

Art/Animation: 8.5/10
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Overall Rating/Recommendation__

My craving for an underdog anime was successfully delivered with this anime. I was fully expecting the fights to be a David & Goliath feel, and that’s exactly what we got. What I wasn’t expecting was for it to have some deeper storytelling and emotional struggle with the main character. That was the icing on the cake for me.

I would recommend this to someone who wants to watch an underdog anime with lots of fighting in it. And if you’re a lover of a divisive main character, this might be an added bonus for you like it was for me.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10
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