Cover Art of Hayan Park From The Webtoon “Unholy Blood” by Lina Im & Jeonghyeon Kim

An Unholy Blood Review

There were two things that made me wanna read this webtoon. One I’ve long had a taste for vampire anime, I guess they were extremely popular once upon a time, at least in my household. Second, the badass looking female lead. I’m really not the type to get overhyped about female representation in my media. I think it’s great, but to me I care mostly about whether something is good or not. However, while I think the lead being female in this story isn’t trying to be revolutionary, I do wanna talk about some things the authors got right.

First and foremost, while the character has a friendly and kind appearance, she is introduced to us with a show of bravery. Without spoiling too much for those who haven’t read this webtoon yet, both in her approach to her new school life and in how she strives to protect her siblings, this character exudes courage. Funnily enough, this courage isn’t because she’s an extrovert in particular, as I’d say she’s somewhere in the middle of the pack on extroversion, but because she has the skills to pay the bills. The concept of knowing you can defend yourself giving you a sort of relaxed confidence, certainly rings true in this story. The thing is though, I would say that Hayan, our main character here, is mentally strong as well, not just because of her power. At let’s just say, the turning point of the story, to not give away too much, she quickly resolves herself to go on a kind of hero’s journey. Now of course, some of her behavior one would find in many things, such as shounen-y content, but Unholy Blood doesn’t give Hayan a vague purpose of “getting stronger for the sake of it.” This is a story of revenge, but also a story of restoration. I’d say those two elements being present together gives the heroes the depth and purpose you’d expect from villain characters, and avoids the repetitiveness of revenge without learning anything.

One problem this webtoon does have a bit of, and know I do quite enjoy it, is that Hayan being quite powerful tends to trivialize actual confrontation with her opponents. The primary “secret” of the story also seems a bit too convenient although it ends up being a good way to tie characters and backstories together. The main tension of the story and the parts we end up focusing on are the unresolved suffering and the elusive romantic energy of various characters. In other words, while the combat is really satisfying, as watching cocky assholes get their dues checks certain boxes at a primal level, the deeper story is more so the point of this webtoon in my opinion. The story is still ongoing, so whether this circumstance will change I could only speculate, but look forward to figuring characters out while reading this one.

The next thing I’d like to talk about, because this is an anime and art blog, is the art style. The art style of this webtoon is an excellent role model for other content creators. The main thing I really like about it, is it really has that professional polish some webtoon art is a bit lacking in. The lines are sharp and clean, there’s just enough detail to keep you engaged with the aesthetic and the characters eyes in particular communicate so much emotion, even with simple expressions. More than the characters or scenery being good looking, the fight scenes are enhanced so much by Lina’s dynamic artstyle. My research leads me to believe that Lina has a good amount of experience doing action type webtoons and art, which really shines in Unholy Blood. The way the force of movement, attacks and different effects are illustrated gives them so much weight and makes you really want to keep reading.

I could wax on about the art for another 2 pages I’m sure, but let’s talk about the final element of Unholy Blood. Besides all the other great stuff this webtoon has going for it, the depth of emotionality and romance in this comic is a big focal point as well. Although I mentioned it briefly, this webtoon really deals a lot with the backstories and inner struggles of the characters and places a lot of attention to conflicts within and between characters. Most of the real conflict isn’t had with punches and kicks, but through mental battles. Here comes a medium sized spoiler, but it doesn’t make the webtoon any less interesting. This comic plays around with idea that the main issue, or the “mixed-blood vampires” are powered and change when they get turned proportionally to their desires and personality. As you can likely imagine, that opens up a lot of possibilities. As such the desire, and as I mentioned, the unresolved suffering or whatever “chip on the shoulder” a character has, sort of determines the focus for the given story arc. I really like this concept, in part because it’s the perfect tie in for romance. Instead of having weird romance inserted awkwardly where it doesn’t belong, romantic, sexual or foundational desires are actually what power the mixed blood vampires. This has the added benefit of making the emotions expressed by the characters feel more coherent, because things gets properly flushed out.

Of course this webtoon is still ongoing, but given that we’re 70+ chapters in at this point I feel like I have enough data to give it a ranking. I would place this easily somewhere between an 8 or 9 out of 10 stars. It takes a lot to get a 9 or a 10 so this is a very strong endorsement from me by the way. I think for what it seems to be trying to do that it’s as entertaining as it needs to be. It’s not so complicated that you have to hurt yourself to follow it, but it’s not so repetitive that you immediately lose interest. To my mind this is one of the best webtoons out at the moment and I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t. It has some flaws, as I mentioned primarily with the combat being a bit too one-sided, and the villain’s rise to power being a bit too convenient, but it’s still very fun to read. The complaints that have about this comic are not too numerous and don’t bring down the areas where I think it’s really strong. In my book, this is definitely a webtoon to get to if you are looking for some good ol’ vampire badassery.

Why… why haven’t you read Unholy Blood yet?