Webtoon Spotlight

Spotlight#129: Record of Ragnarök

Have you ever wanted to brush up on your mythology? If so, then I am more than happy to bring up the next manga on our list: Record of Ragnarök by Shinya Umemura and Takumi Fukui, illustrated by Ajichika.

Summary

Every millennium, deities across every worldly pantheon gather to decide the fate of humanity. Yet, time and time again, we see them escape their almighty wrath until now. However, before the culling could begin, a lone valkyrie named Brunhilde offers the mortals an ultimate gamble.

A grand tournament to the death, one in which the thirteen greatest humans and gods throughout history will fight. Whoever gets the majority of wins will decide whether or not earthlings stick around for another millennium. With seemingly every soul, both living and dead, as their audience, these brave combatants must pull out every stop, for losing may cost them everything.

Characters

Due to the high amount of characters on both teams, I might as well make this simple with the most prominent players.

Brunhilde: Representing humanity is a tough nut to crack. She's incredibly resolute, cold, intimating, domineering and ruthless as she uses every dirty tactic she can muster to win. However, despite her usual stone face, lies a woman with a set of maddeningly crude language and desires. Still, there's a touch of humanity as she hides the cost each round of the tournament bears.

Goll: The youngest of Brunhilde's twelve other sisters, Goll serves as the audience surrogate. Her understandably jittery expressions at the tournament's twists help ground her immensely amongst the cast. However, beyond Mankind, she's more worried about the safety of her sisters.

Zeus: Arguably the strongest god there is, Zeus is a wrathful warrior trapped in an old man's body. He holds an incredibly jovial sway over his kind, treating most of what he sees as a playground. However, once more losses happen, Zeus's real side emerges. For behind that smile belies a battle-hungry berserker willing to fight.

Overview

When you think about it, Record of Ragnarök has no right to be as good as it is. By having a simple premise and all 26 fighters revealed very early, the life and death stakes, and bland locations, RoR is already operating with both its arms tied behind its back. No gimmicks or potential hype over contestants means the series relies completely on getting the audience to rely on its cast.

And what a cavalcade of characters we have. If you've seen my Goh reviews, you know I'm an action junkie and mythology buff, so seeing my two interests combine spectacularly is a treat. Seeing how the different pantheons' mythologies react to each other or hearing commentary from the fighters' respective eras is fun.

While Record of Ragnarök tweaks characters' backstories for their benefit, the results speak for themselves. I think in this modern age of big blockbusters and goated animation. I feel people forget that a good fight isn't necessarily how good the punching looks but rather the story behind it.

Every fight gets built on a dynamic or parallel that leads to a meaningful conclusion. A flashy fight will always be cool, don't get me wrong but having a buildup or something to think on after is exciting as well. Adam vs Zeus is a fight between the patriarchs of gods/humans, Jack the Ripper vs Hercules is a good and evil clashing, etc. If you're not knowledgeable about these characters, the series will be the end, have you cheer or cry for them.

I could go just as long writing about the visuals as well too. Whether manga or webtoon, RoR has some downright gorgeous character designs. The drip on display and the fun dialect, body types, and ethnicities make every character look unique. Add some complex martial arts, godly powers, and mystical weapons, and the dynamics never suck away from the goated yet unpredictable fights.

Now that we are entering the tournament's tail end of the tournament there are still a lot of twists and turns left to come. Nevertheless, the various plotlines and subtle inklings of the winners' development work into establishing some oncoming subplots during or after the match. First, however, we'll have to go from there.

Epilogue

Record of Ragnarök is the series I feel the most passionate about in this cluster. But, unfortunately, the series has been nothing but back-to-back bangers with more potential to be unlocked later down the line. Something that I fear the immensely rushed anime adaptation was sorely lacking. Though that could be a rant for another day, as I would rather talk about what the spotlight reaches next.