Winner Takes All [Webtoon Review]
In almost all of our reviews we always 'unintentionally' emphasize that out of the three East Asia countries (Japan, China and Korea) that produces online traditional and digital comics, Chinese materials are generally quite inferior to the other two. I've been reading these kind of stuffs for almost 14 years now and although there might be something from China that at least took some effort to distinguish themselves from the others, those are very few.
On written, novelists like Er Gen (from ISSTH), I Eat Tomatoes (Coiling Dragon etc.) and others wrote materials that in my humble opinion are creative enough to have their own identities. The problem happens on the illustrated side of things. It's difficult to find good Chinese webtoons nowadays. Generally, it's either a copycat from their Japanese and Korean counterparts or just a bad illustrated adaptation from a good novel.
So, as a Chinese webtoon, where do we place Winner Takes All?
[Super Spoiler Alert]
Winner Takes All is a Chinese Webtoon from a group called GK Workshop. English translations caught up with the raws and as of now has 116 chapters on reaperscans.
The story starts with the young billionaire Xiang Shang refusing to work with a malicious organization from Brazil that goes by the name of Cyber. Xiang Shang's initial character build doesn't have any problems and although this is used commonly in wuxia and xianxia webtoons the change to a corporate setting is not too bad.
He's the typical easy go lucky type of MC, extremely talented in business but has a bottomline on how to make a profit. He doesn't meddle with opportunities that might have a negative impact to the society so when the Cyber group offered him alot of cash for his cooperation on inflating the price of medicine in the market he refused. And this started his tragedy and future desire for revenge.
For me it's a plus that the basis of importance for characters is not mainly focus on strength. It 's quite clever that they incorporated other 'talents' and didn't solely rely on strength or cultivation to build hierarchy which is a common occurrence for cn webtoons.
Betrayed by his right-hand man, Xiang Shang was abducted and later on became experiment material number 82 for the underground group. Cyber Corporation is only one of the 12 huge organizations that facilitates the inhumane experiments. Frankly, I think that this might be the part when most readers will decide to continue reading this webtoon or just drop it. The experiment Xiang Shang have undergone took his 'talent' for investing in the form of a chip. A chip reader was also installed on his nape. Experiment procedures involve playing different kinds of talent chips. A painting chip would make someone a painting prodigy, same with others like violinist, pianist etc.
At this point it's either the reader gained some interest about the future possibilities these talent chips can provide for the plot or it's just another dumb idea whose only purpose is gain severance from the Chinese norm.
In the story, there are clients that seek the potential of these chips. Men from the military wanted soldiers that are skillful enough to execute missions flawlessly. There are also those people who are threatened by this potential and would choose to obliterate such thing on the face of the earth. And this is what Xiang Shang is waiting for. Those who are threatened who sent elite troops to infiltrate the facility and destroy everything. There's this Chinese saying, 'fishing in troubled waters' and it's on point on what Xiang Shang is aiming for.
Still predictable in my opinion, but the chance for the MC to escape is not as overused. There could be more bland scenarios that the author chose but going with this one is decent enough. It still lacks that sense of originality that we are always searching for especially in cn webtoons, but not as bad as the generalize ways other authors are tackling 'escaping the predicament' scenes.
Although deprive of his business knowledge our MC manage to get a killer chip. Downside of using this things are the personalities born from these chips materializes to the owner. So, chip users tend to have multiple personality disorders. Worst case scenario is that these personalities taking control of the owners body if they're asleep or unconcious, which so far didn't take place.
The goal of the MC is to have enough 'wealth', 'violence' and 'power' to execute his revenge after escaping. Something I like about WTA is that the MC is not as overpowered compared to MC's of other novels. Side characters somehow have identity as the chip power is not an exclusive item the MC have. If you read Chinese Webtoons or novels there are always these kinds items like a unique stone or ring that provides MC's with cheat like abilities. In the of WTA I can say that there is a sense of fairness for power or strength acquisition.
Story-wise I think that Winner Takes All is decent. Out of 10 I would give it a grade of 6, no higher than that. To summarize, things I like about WTA is that the plot is not as redundant as most Chinese webtoons, main character is not overpowered and the author gave other characters some chance to shine. What I don't like about it is that MC sometimes act like an idiot, cheap portrayal of special forces etc. and the character pool being to large. I think it would be better to limit the number of people, some of them tend to be unnecessary after an act.
Art is standard in my opinion. 7 out of ten. Coloring is A-ok, dimensions are great but facial expression sucks especially in hilarious moments, also not very consistent through out the series. There are also parts that seems to be rushed.
Is this something to be recommended?
Well, it depends. If the reader is fairly new this is something good to start. In case of picky readers it's still dependable on their bottomline. Some might find it good to kill some time while waiting for the update's of S-tier materials, others might find it as just another BS trying to do something out of normal. Like always I would recommend reading maybe at least the first 10 chapters to maximize efficiency if the reader will continue on WTA or not.
Again thank you very much for reading.
And of course, for the support.
See you next time .
Read it here:
https://reaperscans.com/comics/920842-winner-takes-all
Credits:
All illustrations and images belong to GK Worshop and are only used for illustration purposes. I do not claim any of them as my own.
Disclaimer:
1.) Images are not mine they are properties of GK Workshop, and are only used as illustration purposes.
2.) The Author (LKP) is not a native English speaker therefore grammar mistakes are bound to happen.
3.) Please do wash your hands often.