Review: Parallel City
What is the scariest monster you can think of?
A vampire? A werewolf? A rampaging Tyrannosaurus rex? They all sound pretty terrifying, but could there be something worse? Something that not only terrifies you physically but also chills you right to the core?
Snakes? Giant spiders? Yes they certainly would be horrifying (depending upon your individual aversion)... but beyond mere revulsion, is there something that would impact you on an even deeper level?
How about.... yourself?
Imagine suddenly seeing someone who looks exactly like you..... who then tries to kill you.
That is the predicament in which young Min Choi finds himself in writer/artist Goda's Parallel City on Webtoons. A parkour addict with no plans in life after school, Min misses his friend Jung who disappeared the previous year.... who then suddenly reappears with no memories of the past eleven months.
Still processing this, and plagued by mysterious headaches, Min drops into the local butcher's shop on the way home... only to stumble across the butcher chopping up a dead body.
Pretty horrifying, right? But to add another level of psychological vertigo to this trauma, Min sees the face of the victim and realises that it is identical to that of the man wielding the cleaver...
The guy has a twin brother that he just murdered? Or is it something much more out of the ordinary?
The police investigate and find no sign of a corpse... The TV and internet are buzzing with people talking about seeing their doppelgangers. Is it just the latest trend in practical jokes going viral, or something very disturbing?
All doubts are violently blown away one night when he is suddenly attacked by his exact double. Using his freerunning skills to escape is futile; his doppelganger has the exact same agility. The only difference about this newcomer is his inexplicable determination to murder the original Min, a goal to which he is committed with intense savagery.
The existential horror of meeting an evil clone of yourself is an ancient nightmare, of which the doppelganger legend is born. But this is not a supernatural tale, the premise (which I won't reveal here) is much more interesting than just a spooky tale of shape-shifting boogeymen.
The story is very well crafted, building slowly, layer upon layer, as our hero's world gradually starts to disintegrate around him, along with all sense of reality. The anime-style art is stylish and crisp, with a restrained, mostly pastel palette and finely rendered backgrounds. The many shots of Seoul at night are powerfully atmospheric. The many action sequences are drawn with precision of form, flowing across the page like lightning. Goda acknowledges the parkour advisor Underkover Urban Movement, and the research certainly pays off here.
This plays out as a chilling psychological horror, but don't worry, I haven't stumbled into the wrong genre. This is a solid sci-fi series with all the complexity we love, which takes several unexpected turns as you hurtle along with it into the unknown. Parallel City punches with both fists; an amazing narrative and a dazzling visual delivery. It has over 200,000 followers on Webtoons, and with good reason!
You'll never look at your reflection the same way again...
Read PARALLEL CITY for FREE on Webtoons
Zak Webber
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