TOY COMPLEX

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CAST

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

• 

  Julyfire

  22/100
  An Improbable Romance That Tries to Be Mature, But Ends Up Being Incessantly Childish

  CAUTION: REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

  This is my first time reviewing a straightforward shoujo webtoon with no fantastical elements attached, which I suppose is no longer the norm that is expected nowadays, with isekai being the top genre in nearly every category imaginable, ranging from smut to romance to shounen. I sort of miss the simple shoujo manga I used to read that dealt with a girl falling in love with a boy, and they go through a bunch of hardships to finally end up together. Or not, because one of them dies. It's a tried-and-true formula, and it's not something that's artificially overdone, because it's so common in everyday life that every romance story is just a wee bit different enough that reading each one is like a new experience, despite the limited outcomes it poses. Not that people haven't tried to add their own little twists to the traditional boy-meets-girl story, with varying degrees of success. And that's where "Toy Complex" comes in!

  The premise here would be the "sex first, love later" trope, which I guess is also becoming more prevalent in real life as well? I wouldn't exactly know, since I'm not even remotely interested in that aspect of the social world, but from all these one night stands I see happening in fiction like they're everyday occurrences, I'd guess there's some truth to it. Art imitates life, after all. Not to be a prude or anything, I don't condone such grossly compulsive behavior because it honestly makes it difficult to find your so-called perfect partner or whatever it is, if everyone's just going to go straight for physical intimacy first before properly emotionally connecting with someone. What can you even know about that person from just one night? Not much at all. But, I'm not here to judge or lecture, as long as people know what they want from their own life, et cetera et cetera, so I'll just move on with the review. However, the issue I just presented here rears its ugly head in this story, although the author tries to sweep it under a rug before you notice its very real issues.

  In any case, with this reverse love story, we have a ditzy, high-energy girl having a one night stand with an introverted guy who works part time as a costumed mascot, but it turns out they're classmates at the same school. Oh my gosh, what will happen?! Duh. It's pretty obvious right? This is a romance webtoon and even without reading the next 40+ chapters, you can tell they're going to end up together. Coupled with the fact that they already had sex in the first chapter, it's a cemented fact that these two will be the true couple, with none of that ex-boyfriend or girlfriend showing up to screw things over. The thing is, in shoujo manga (and other traditional romance story lines), the former lover is a viable threat because the main couple hasn't consummated their relationship yet, so that means the third party has a chance of breaking them apart, as neither of the two have properly committed themselves to their relationship. But once sex happens, you know for sure that these two will be unbreakable after the fact, unless it's a josei manga or revolves around NTR, but come on, look at the cover! Does that scream NTR to you? I think not! Actually, if it had been NTR, I might have given this bonus points for screwing with me...

  In an attempt to freshen up the romance genre, we get the even more tired and boring sex-friends-turned-lovers storyline, which really doesn't leave much room for plot twists or surprises along the way. In my opinion, it's far worse than the contract marriage romances that have also been rising in popularity lately, where the fake couple turns into a real couple after spending time together, because it's been established that the two people don't care for each other at all, and therefore won't have any physical intimacy in the first act of the story. In that way, contract marriages follow the same progression as a regular vanilla romance, except that the marriage came first, but the couple knows it doesn't really mean anything, it's only a facade employed to achieve some convoluted means. And, once they've properly fallen in love, they can skip the wedding, since they've had it already! How economical, both money-wise and time-wise!

  But the point is this, in both contract marriages and the natural falling-in-love stories, we have a near-linear development: Discovery (of the other's existence), Blossoming (of feelings), Confession (of their love), and Commitment (to each other, which more often than not, involves sex but sometimes is a proposal). In between each phase of their love, there's ample room to throw a hammer into their relationship, be it misunderstandings, ex-lovers, love rivals, opposition from family members, etc. There's also always an exit strategy, as they haven't consummated their relationship physically, they're always free to seek out other people, or break the whole thing off. However, when sex happens, there's an implicit sense of commitment, and the couple has been locked in, even if they themselves don't realize it. That's not exactly how it works in real life, but that's how the romance genre media operates. Why? Because if the girl character sleeps around with other guys other than the male lead, she's a slut, and if the guy does it, he's a shamless playboy, and neither of these are particularly sympathetic characters that an audience would emotionally invest themselves in. People read romances so they can be swept off their feet by a fictional person, and not because they want to be reminded of the harsh reality of life, and the painful heartbreak that comes with it.

  While it's completely okay (and expected) to make a character cry over a small bump in their relationship, it's meant to tug at the reader's heartstrings, so that the reconciliation will be even sweeter, but infidelity which involves sex is just a no-no. Even more so when you consider the fact that most readers of romance stories are female, so seeing a guy character sleep with someone else in addition to the female protagonist makes him completely unredeemable in their eyes, as this may very well have happened to them before, or be a creeping fear they have about their own real-life relationship. That's precisely why in contract marriage stories, the characters make it very clear that sex is off the table from the start, and they always end up sleeping on separate beds early on, to show that the relationship will follow a realistic order of events whereupon they eventually fall in love, and basically earn their rights to share that bed together in the end. It's only in this way that the culmination of their romantic history together is realized, and typically this would indicate the ending of the story, or at least herald it, because there's not much to add after this point.

  And this is the reason as to why "Toy Complex" has already failed before it could start, because the progression of romance is in the wrong order. When you have the characters bond after sex, it's just not going to go anywhere interesting from there. In typical traditional romances, sex is usually like a bonus, a reward at the end, for reading along with the characters' tumultuous journey, but when you put it in the beginning of the story, you cannot connect with them in the same way. This is also very common in BL, but because this is a regular girl/boy romance, it suffers even more for it, due to higher expectations for this genre that has many, many good entries already. People don't really read BL for plot, they read it for the boy/boy smut, which is basically pandering to hungry fans, but I digress. While a sex scene in a shoujo romance (usually censored, but you know it happened) is a peak point in the story, in stories where it begins with a one night stand encounter, it can only go down from there. There's zero actual risk involved with the main couple, and it's pretty clear that the story will never reach the high that it starts off with, unless it's going into some sort of taboo territory, but of course, you won't see that in a shoujo webtoon!

  But hey, sometimes it's the journey that counts, not the destination, right? Wrong. At least, not in "Toy Complex". So we have this happy-go-lucky girl Yuna who wants to know the joys of sex, because that's all her friends talk about, and despite having dated multiple guys, she's never done the deed. I would roll my eyes here, but you can't see me, so there's no point. Really? So you retain your chasity for all this time, until you feel like you're being left out of your clique, so you decide to do it too? What a great example you set for young impressionable girls who might be reading this. I mean, maybe they aren't, considering this webtoon is rated R18, but it's still not a good message to set for the introduction of your main character. She just comes off as shallow and weak-spirited. Replace sex with something like drugs or murder or vile what-have-you and you've got a whole new thing to think about here. Anyway, since this is a fantasy in the sense that she doesn't get an STI or kidnapped by deciding to have sex with a guy in a bear costume, she realizes what she's been missing out on, because in these stories, sex is magic and worth dying for. After that fantastic night, she can't stop obsessing over Mr. Bear, because he was just so good in bed, and she can't wait to brag to her friends that she finally did the nasty with a random stranger, but before she can, she meets him in the flesh at her school. Quelle surprise!

  And thus, we are probably introduced to Minseok, the male love interest. Unlike Yuna, he's introverted, down-to-earth, and rather gloomy as a person. If I had to personify the two characters, Yuna would be a sun with a happy face smack dab in the center, while Minseok would be a sad little rain cloud. They're polar opposites in literally everything. Yuna is beautiful, optimistic, rich, popular, and never has a single worry in that little head of hers. Minseok is poor, barely can afford going to school, constantly worrying about his family, and spends all of his free time working multiple part-time jobs. Honestly, you'd never think that these two would end up together, right? In real life, definitely not. But this is fiction lalaland I'm talking about, so of course they do, they've already seen each other naked, what can stop them? And cue the cringe~

  So they fall in love too quickly, in my opinion. Yuna spends maybe two days before declaring her undying love for Minseok in front of her entire class, despite not knowing anything about him besides he's got mad skills in bed. This girl seriously gets on my nerves, she's so freaking stupid and naive, but everyone says she's the top student, what? You really expect me to buy the horseshit you're selling? Alright, fine, but I'm not taking this quietly! (Which is why I'm painfully writing this review...It's sucking my soul...Send help...) Long story short, Yuna is yet another Mary Sue with triple dosage of dumb cheerful shoujo protagonist who has no agency besides "I MUST LAND ME A GUY". Every scene of her is talking about Minseok, thinking about Minseok, or remembering about Minseok when they had sex together that one time. She doesn't even study or do homework, and we see no signs of her family, besides her maid (She's so rich, she even has a maid...in modern times). I guess her whole life was empty until she met Minseok, which may be a reason why she's so obsessed with courting him, but still, it's rather unbelievable with how supposedly popular she is.

  When she confesses to him for the upteenth time, Minseok turns her down, which made me laugh and cheer. Go, Mr. Bear, you tell her! But no, that doesn't stop Yuna. Once she's set her sights on something, she will go to all lengths to obtain it. That's when she starts to stalk Minseok everywhere. I'm not joking. She follows him to all his jobs, just staring at him like a creeper and proclaiming her love for him whenever she can get a word in. Honestly, it's so disturbing. If the genders were reversed, she'd be arrested for stalking and harassment, but because she's an innocent girl here, it's considered cute. Which is so wrong on so many levels. And predictably, Minseok finally relents and decides to date her on a trial period to see if things will work out. NO, WHY?! So the end lesson to us girls is if we want a guy bad enough, we should just keep on stalking him and constantly harass him until he eventually gives up. Gee, what another great message this webtoon is sending. There's just nothing to a man's heart except dogged persistence, am I right?

  Unsurprisingly, the trial dating period doesn't go well. I think I would have hated this more if it did, but it's hard to say, because this brings me to another major issue with this webtoon. Minseok is a completely understandable character, because he is burdened with things people have gone through in real life. He has to save money for his aunt who is in the hospital, he has to worry about his sister's education funding, while also saving some money for daily necessities. We all get that. He has to always be working to maintain his income, or his family will collapse, because he's the sole breadwinner. Later, we find out that his sister has gotten herself a part-time job as well, so that eases his burden somewhat, but it's only to further the plot along, to push him into being okay with dating someone who's beyond his means. He has no time to be dating someone. Honestly, if I were in his position, I'd never think about such a thing. Working multiple part-time jobs and studying for a university degree are enough things to juggle for anyone, let alone a young adult like him.

  Does Yuna care about that? No, she just does whatever the hell she wants and blows a hole wide open in his life, because she can do no wrong! Even though she's personally seen how hard Minseok works, and understands what he's dealing with, she still persists in bugging him to go out with her, because she just can't forget about how awesome Minseok was during their one night stand. And she takes everything in the wrong way as well, because watching him being so diligent (something she lacks outside of chasing after boys) makes her heart ever grow fonder of him, leading to confess her love even more frequently. Not once did it cross her mind that she's making his life even more difficult, and decide to back off and give him some space, like a self-aware person would do. Sigh.

  So now that he's turned her down, he gets even more depressed. Before, he had been worrying about his wallet, because he counted every dollar he spent vs. the money Yuna spent. That made him unhappy, because he feels demasculinized for being so poor, and he doesn't want her to pay more than what he paid her. Don't you see there's already a huge problem with your relationship, man? If you're going to be counting dollars instead of properly enjoying your romantic time with her, then it's obviously not worth it. You clearly value money over love! Every second you spend with her is wasting not only your hard-earned money, but all the time you could have spent working instead. Ouch, that's like doubling the loss of money right there with each date. Anyway, he is beside himself, not knowing what to do now that Yuna is no longer a part of his life. That bright, annoying ray of sunshine is gone, and it feels so stark, now that he knows what's been missing. Yuna moves on seemingly quickly, maintaining her cheerful facade as she goes about school, as if the break-up didn't affect her at all. But everything is revealed when she hears that Minseok's aunt died, and she goes rushing to him to comfort him. Well, it turns out it was a mistake, and the aunt is alive and well, but that's the catalyst to get the two back together again. Yay! Minseok confesses he's been an idiot, and he should compromise more, and stop worrying about money, yada yada, and Yuna is all too happy to rekindle their relationship again.

  This is probably the lowest point of the story, and it doesn't get better from there. I honestly didn't give two craps for this unlikely couple after several chapters of them arguing and whatnot over some major issues about their relationship, and then they magically work out their differences after the overused trope of mistaken-death-of-a-loved-one, like those problems went poof. It's just unrealistic. Barring the possibility that Minseok wins the lottery, he's still poor, and he will still need to work hard to have a stable income, even if it's less so, since his sister is also working now. And although Yuna is wealthy, she's not going to share her money with him, because the money isn't hers, and doing so would further demasculinize Minseok anyway. We know for a fact that they wouldn't have worked out in real life at all, since their backgrounds are simply way too dissimilar, and their personalities are completely incompatible. Yuna has no motivations outside of chasing Minseok everywhere, like she has no life of her own to live, while Minseok is just worrying about making it to the next day. I've seen my fair share of real married couples divorce over money issues, and it's obvious that the webtoon is just pretending like this isn't a serious problem here, so we readers should ignore it too. Love makes the world go round, not money! As long as they love each other, everything will work out!

  And this is why authors cannot start with a one night stand in the first chapter, and then expect the romance to unfold like a fairy tale. If you're going to go for unrealistic happy love stories, just do it properly and go for the traditional line of storytelling, where it's common sense to suspend your disbelief to some extent. But not like this. You present this as mature love story by going straight for sex, and then do a 180 to make this all about fluffy BS that wouldn't fly even if you overloaded it with plot helium. The only mature character here is Minseok, Yuna is just some kid masquerading as an adult. She even confesses she doesn't know what to do with her life, and after watching Minseok, she decides to change her career paths, like it was some major character development on her part. Even Minseok disapproves of her drastic decisiom, but it's handwaved away because the premise is that he doesn't get her as a person. I think the author doesn't get her as a person. Gee, how would I have make her grow as a character? Maybe add some sort of internal conflict about how well-off she is, and she should dedicate her time to volunteering or charity work? Or aspire to earn some money for herself, instead of living off on her parents' money? Or maybe hold off on dating Minseok until she's felt that they're both in a stable time in their lives, like a normal mature person would? But nope. We have some lame fake proclamation of "Wow, the world is big!" and that's that, and she ends up continuing her education in the same field anyway, which is to become a primary school teacher. See, no growth at all, we've circled back to zero. Can't even keep her own life goals set properly, just like a typical garden-variety shallow shoujo protagonist. And isn't even more problematic that Minseok is cast in the wrong here, being the one to apologize to her, when she's the one who should be asking for his forgiveness for turning his life completely upside down with her utter selfishness?

  There's a couple more chapters with a fake-out love rival, pshhhh, like that was going to happen. And some more chapters with a honeymoon-esque vacation. All of which were a waste of panels. Thank god it's over. My brain was fried way before then.

  I then read the overly long author's photo essay-length note at the end, and that just confirmed why Yuna is a complete failure of a character. It's abundantly obvious that not much thought was put into her, and she just came out of nowhere as the author let go of all their worries about being criticized for making a "problematic" female character, since the author is also female. Then why don't you see the problem with her? Would you want this girl as your friend? Your lover? I wouldn't. She's not even a breakthrough female archetype, because this bubbly, stupid happy-go-lucky little girl as the lead character is overdone in the shoujo genre. It's even more infuriating when you learn that the author initially wanted the main character of Yuna to be a male, because they felt more comfortable making a false male character over a proper female one, where they'd face criticism. That just goes to show you that the gender of this character isn't important at it, it's the whole concept of it that's messed up. If you gender swap Yuna to be male, it removes all her issues, because then this would be a BL, and in a BL, no one would have taken these glaring issues between Yuna and Minseok seriously. The BL genre is grounded in fantasy, while the boy-girl romance genre is far more grounded in reality, even if it's set in a fantastical setting, because it's far more relatable to the core demographic of readers, who are female. That's precisely why growth was completely impossible for Yuna, regardless of whether she had been male or female, as there was absolutely no intention to develop her as organic, multi-dimensional person. She was just a contrived plot prop for Minseok, who drove the story along with her wild whims. And to have to explain that to readers in so many words tells me this author doesn't know what they're doing. Hopefully, they can produce something better next time, but this particular one was a disastrous failure.

  On that last note, I'd like to say that the art is good. It's not breathtaking nor mind-blowing, but the lines are clean, colors are vibrant, with very nicely laid out panels. Character designs are rather unoriginal, outside of the main two characters Yuna and Minseok, but it's fine because the whole story world revolves around only those two. I enjoyed watching Yuna's outfit changes, because the author clearly put the most effort in coming up with her clothes and various accessories, which changes often even within a single chapter. However, the nice art is nowhere near enough to make up for this webtoon's glaring shortcomings, which is just unfortunate.

  Overall Breakdown:
  Characters: 2/10
  Story: 1/10
  Art: 6/10
  Lore/Worldbuilding: 1/10
  Enjoyment: 1/10

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