윈드브레이커

WIND BREAKER

MANGA

STATUS
RELEASING
VOLUMES
Not Available
RELEASE
Invalid Date
CHAPTERS
Not Available

DESCRIPTION

Jay's the perfect student. He's got straight As and he's the student body president. But after being coerced into joining the school's biking team, the Hummingbird Crew, he discovers a whole new world outside of studying. What new adventures will he face outside the comfort of his textbooks?

(Source: WEBTOONS)

CAST

Ja-Hyeon Jo
Yu-Bin Hong
Shelly
Han-Nam Kang
Min-U Yoon
Yu-Mi Lee
Noah
Mi-Yeong Kim
Joker
Kaneshiro Takeda
Owen Knight
Seung-Chun Nam
U-In Yu
Jun-Su Lee
Ju-Hwan
Monster13
Hyuk Kwon
A-Ran Choi
Yun-Ha Yun
Sangho Choi

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Fuchsia
99/100
Wind breaker is a beautiful story of friendship, passion and youth.
Wind Breaker is an impassioned take on cycling and connections between people that it can lead to. Of course, a webtoon as good as this deserves more than such a simple description, so let's get in to it!

I previously mentioned that this series is about cycling and relationships, and it certainly is. The plot of Wind Breaker follows a highschooler and avid cyclist named Jay. Throughout the series Jay makes friends and encounters some crazy situations, all thanks to his passion for cycling. I don't want to spoil anything that actually goes down in the story, this is a general rundown of the starting premise for Wind Breaker, however something that should also be mentioned is that the series features a lot of humor. In fact, the hilarious humor of Wind Breaker allows the plot time to pace itself, resulting in a series that feels relevant and fresh consistently. I'll talk more about the kind of humor featured in the series later.

Art plays a surprisingly relevant role in Wind Breaker, especially in keeping the 'feel' of the series fresh and trendy. I'd argue that this is in large thanks due to the character designs. Characters in Wind Breaker simply look different from each other, serving to give them each a sense of individuality, whether in the form of hair style or clothing, it is certainly effective. With this said, characters don't just look different for the sake of looking different, their appearance gives an indication on who they are, breathing life into characters in a way that isn't over the top nor unnoticeable. The fashion in Wind Breaker is also generally appealing, quite a rare thing to see in this medium.

The characters.. are awesome! Seriously, the characters just about make this series what it is. Perhaps my favorite aspect about the characters are that they're so realistic, yet they're not a generic cut-out. Too often in the medium do we get a character that is ONLY a personality trait, I feel like this is especially true in sports series, thankfully this isn't the case in Wind Breaker. Equally awesome as the characters individually are the characters together, they've got the kind of relationship going on that is the envy of all high schoolers. Wind Breaker has a lot of different characters to like for different reasons, and I think that's one of it's crowning achievements.

Am I enjoying Wind Breaker? (At the time of writing this review it's ongoing) heck yeah I am, and i'm sure that you will to. This series is a bunch of fun, thanks to the hilarious character and reference humor especially. It feels like to me that even when the series is at it's most serious, there's still a lot of enjoyment to be had. That's not to say that the more serious or dark moments are washed over with humor, but in my eyes it seems like Wind Breaker portrays these moments through a lense of hope, positivity and potential.

Anyway.. I'm a big fan of this one. Go ahead and give it a try =D
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Rickniks3
100/100
Wind Breaker Part 1 Review
I just finished Part 1 of windbreaker and it ended well and can't wait to start Part 2. I liked how this story wasn't just 100% focused on bikes it had a mix of coming of age and some deliquescent elements which I did not expect seeing people fighting instead of just challenging each other to a race seemed way more realistic especially if one of my friends got kidnapped and the day before another one got beaten up just because he won a race. I do however kinda want to see Jay develop more as a character in part 2 while we do see he is caring towards others when he allowed Minu to stay and went to help Dom fight when he was getting ambushed and fighting Vinny it's kinda rare and is mostly just telling people to fuck off I will admit it was kinda funny seeing him being like that the first couple of times but now it's feeling a bit stale you can only pull off the "I need to study bye" line so many times before it just becomes annoying. I also want to see the group training a bit more and showing off how well they can do because if their only strategy is to rely on Jay to win every race its gonna get stale really quickly and feel like they only win just because Jay is the main character of the series. Like when was the last time we have saw June since the first race against TJ? He is supposed to be part of the main group but he hasn't even been fleshed out all I could remember from him is that he just wants to join the competition and likes biking that which I can not name any other traits for him which is odd. I think they nailed Vinny's characterization really well giving a reason as to why he is super hostile and why he is the way he is and was surprised the group was allowing him to join them after all the stuff he did like at the cafe and the fight they had which got them suspended from school. And lastly, I hope they develop the one sided relationship Shelly has with Jay if it just is like that for the rest of the series than I will become annoyed and not care about any panel that Shelly is in because I know its gonna be the same line every time and the same answer every time she is gonna flirt with Jay and Jay will just not care it was kinda funny the first time since Jay is regarded as the nerd in the school who only studies and he somehow got a cute girl simping for him and he doesn't care at all. But it becomes annoying if that's the only reason for the character's existence in the story. Even with all these little complaints, I stated I think Windbreaker is a good story and definitely worth a read and the complaints I stated are not enough to ruin the story so that is why I am giving it this score.
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Douzeries
87/100
A story about teenagers emancipating from their parents and korean society through cycling
Wind Breaker is a sports slice of life manwha available on Webtoon for free, it currently has 438 chapters (452 on more unconventionnal sites).
It's the story of __Jay Jo__, a top student from a prestigious korean academy. Passed on from his uncle, he has a burning passion for biking. It's the only hobby he has besides studying. The thing that makes biking so special though is that it's a hobby he voluntarily developped by admiration of the __passion__ his uncle has for this discipline. Studying is a hobby that was forced upon him by his parents. It's a __constraint__. The duality between passion, constraint and obligation is one of the thematic that's dealt in Wind Breaker. Though studying isn't bad by itself, the only reason his parents force him to do so is because the societal norm is that an entire's person worth is based on the level of their education, money, job, status etc. But what if Jay thinks that his own worth isn't determined by these things but rather, by how accomplished he feels at doing the thing he really loves? The problem is that studying and getting into high education isn't only a constraint to Jay, it's an obligation. He can only thank his parents for even possessing the freedom of having an hobby. His parents dedicated themselves to their jobs and maintained a good position in society to give Jay a good life. That doesn't mean the parents are bad person or that they're selfish per say, it's just that their "common sense" is based on the toxic environment of korean society depicted in the story. Jay has the duty of living to his parent's expectations but his duty collides with his passion. What will he chose or rather, what's the most righteous choice? One of the best thing in the story is that we have many perspectives. It's not just about a group of elites trying to get away from their opressing constraints. __Vinny Hong__ is, narratively speaking, the rival of Jay Jo. He comes from a poor family and he has a disease that makes one of his eye pure red. From the moment he was born, everyone saw him as a freak, it was decided he'd be a failure. To sum it up, Jay had internal problems due to being "privileged". Coming from a good family is a good thing but the pressure of sacrificing his individuality to have to fit in is a curse. It's the exact contrary for Vinny, no one expects anything from him and that's his curse. He comes from dirt and violence and whatever he does, society will ever only see that so he has no reason to live his way any differently. He's detestable and vile because that's the only way for him to exist. Very similarly to boxing with Joe Yabuki from Ashita no Joe, cycling is the only way for Vinny to express his hatred against the world and his explosivity through something __constructive__ and even __positive__. Looking at it at this light, both characters are actually very similar, they're the two faces of the same coin. They have complete different backgrounds but in front of their bikes they're equals. From class members, rivals, teacers, parents, antagonists to the protagonists, the story focuses on many many characters. They all appear to be very cliché at their apparition but as the story progresses their uniqueness shines despite being firmly enracinated into their respective archetypes. Their arcs are always related to the dualism we disscused earlier and as a coming of age story, all the teenagers characters face a moment where they have the choice between standing up for their own individuality against the expectations of their parents or korean society in general or giving in. From my perspective, the story is pretty neutral as it's more like "decisions and the consequences of these decisions" than "good choices versus bad choices". Obviously, cycling is a great thing but for certain characters it's just a way to cope, for others it's a liberation. Sometimes, doing the good leads to bad things and doing the bad leads to good things. The story can completely shift to a chill romance manwha silce of life to a yankee 90's japanese manga to an intense story with crazy races. Despite it's serious themes, much more present and pronounced in the latest chapters, Wind Breaker remains a very fun story to read with a lot of humor and self awareness. There's also a lot of manga and LOL references. The artsyle significantly improves along the story to the point it's barely recognisable. I think it's also true for every aspects of this slow paced manwha. The author becomes better and better at writting as the story goes and you feel like you're in an adventure of self discovery yourself and you're eager to see what will happen for each character. This is definitely a very solid story that everyone should try.
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The author definitely has something for fashion considering how unbelivably dripped out every single character is (many even think it's too much lmao). His house was even trending not so long ago due to how fashion brands-themed it is (the interview featuring his house : https://youtu.be/2fUKkKSeZzQ ). There's also funny symbolysms like how Jay wears Nike and Vinny wears Addidas, highlighting their rivalry. The art is aestethically very pleasing and the cycling races drawings are just spectacular. Here's few aesthetical pannels :

<span class='markdown_spoiler'><span><img width='300' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/721078635251105873/1126164950734344202/c9388b94-d5b3-43fb-8bad-5aab80d7e93e.jpg'> 
<img width='300' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/721078635251105873/1126165241781297303/desktop-wallpaper-windbreaker-ideas-windbreaker-webtoon-manhwa-manga-jay-jo.jpg'></span></span>

____

I hope I did a good job showing you the different (light hearted and darker) aspects of Wind Breaker and that you'll consider reading it
To conclude, I think this dialogue perfetcly encapsulate the story :

<img width='400' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/721078635251105873/1126171677718487070/20230705_172039.jpg'>
<img width='400' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/721078635251105873/1126171678020481075/20230705_172046.jpg'>
<img width='400' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/721078635251105873/1126171678347632751/20230705_172053.jpg'>

 - Now you can see my hand and your surroundings right? 

 - Well, yeah of course. How can I see when you covered my eyes with your hand?

- Yeah. The point is I want you to stop focusing on what's ahead of you. I wanted you to know it's important to look at things from a distance. If you take a step back you can see a whole lot more

Sometimes, life will seem like an inescapable hell but if you take a moment to look at what's around you, you'll see water at disposition, access to electricty, parks not so far away from your house, a device to be able to read this review right now. It's easy to get caught up in one bad element of your life and forget all the priviligies you have but if you take a moment to look around and appreciate everything you have you'lle be more grateful, free and happy. The purpose of this story isn't to say "rebell, do what you want, fuck your parents, live your own life", that's missing the point, entirely. The message is that you shouldn't solely focus on studies or short-lived pleasures or satisfying your parents or your hobbies or working out or whatever. You should take a step back and watch all of it, then you'll see what's really important and what you really want.

They are biking, not to run away from their problems but to find an answer.

<img width='700' src='https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/721078635251105873/1126149573023387780/669583c18a9f2b323a00555ce1eec730.png'>~~~
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