Review by Ian Keogh
Things have changed considerably for high school victim Si-Woon. Due to an experimental pill he’s gone from a bullied teenager to one with massive potential if only he can master the qi energy he now generates. If he can’t, he could end up dead or severely disabled. The Breaker 2 ended with him confronting the school bully and his cronies who’d intended to rape Si-Woon’s friend.
This volume introduces a new artist in Kamaro, although you’d have to be an expert to tell the difference. A few thinner people with larger eyes are noticeable, as are places where the art seems more stylised with greater exaggeration about the reactions. This is introduced early as for the first time Si-Woon meets people with supernatural martial arts skill without Nine-Door Dragon around to help him. It leads to a greater understanding of what the Murim are, and the connections between worlds. The conversation also reveals for the first time what the series title refers to. A Breaker is someone who breaches the convention of those with Murim talents not using them on ordinary people. Were this widespread it could lead to chaos and considerable deaths attracting unwanted attention, so the Murim are ruthless in hunting down any Breakers. It explains why Nine-Door Dragon has been hiding out as a high school teacher.
Jeon Geuk-Jin has taken a while to disclose the major thrust of his series, and once the background is out, the original premise of The Breaker being a high school drama disappears. Jeon underlines this by having roughly the first third of The Breaker 3 given over to a fight with a member of the Chundo Clan. Si-Woon is vastly outclassed, but a little training and his pill-given qi, remove him considerably from the person he once was.
An epic battle is spliced with foreshadowing and flashback, which serve their own purpose and that of increasing suspense. Despite the emphasis on action, Jeon pretty well lays out the motivations for most of the main cast here, including Nine-Door Dragon, or Goo-Moon Ryong as he’s sometimes referred to by his fellow Murim.
The Breaker is primarily black and white, but a few colour pages are supplied as the introduction to a chapter planned as a brief break from the intense action via a trip to the beach. What transmits effectively here is Si-Woon’s innocence when it comes to world he’s now involved with, the background meaningless as he lives in the moment.
Before ending The Breaker 3 Jeon makes a bold choice. Since the start the dynamic has been Si-Woon as the student and Goo-Moon as the cool, but reluctant mentor, but that seems to be consigned to the past before The Breaker 4 picks up. The final sequence brings a form of closure to a plot that’s been simmering for a long time, completely reversing the power dynamic, and by the end of a page-turning thriller Si-Woon’s presence has become common knowledge among the Murim gangsters.
