Webtoon continues with your favorite fantasy webcomic series which is a deadly circus in Marionetta (Part 2).
(PLEASE READ THIS WEBTOON BEFORE READING MY REVIEW: https://www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/marionetta/list?title_no=4425)
Miriam Bonastre Tur’s or just Miriam Bonastre’s second webtoon was the one everybody and their mothers and grandmas wanted to read that is coming from the author who created Hooky. So I did review Marionetta, since February, but there’s more to it. I only said that I could keep going until I read 10 to 20 episodes so I can get a better understanding of the rules of the world that she made and make a second review. And this is going to be a lot of Sahed talk if that’s what you people want. Another thing that I didn’t notice is that Ms. Miriam hired an assistant to help her with the coloring of her webtoon which goes by the name Eiden Marsal Zamora, who is Eiden? Check out his Instagram page which is @eiden.art and his art is like having him as a Picasso painter than some comic assistant. She just hired that color chameleon just to help with her coloring. I always thought that she was done with all her coloring by herself. If the coloring actually changes by the work of her assistant, I’m gonna be mad, because I like the way she colors the comic just like Hooky; the same way as I like Abigail Jill Hardin’s coloring who illustrated “Ask For Mercy” on Dark Horse. So I’m gonna keep going up to Episode 20, and this is as far as I can go for the rest of this review.
Okay, where was I? So as I was saying last time at the end of episode 5 and the beginning of episode 6, Dotty takes Julia to meet Anthonn who just face painted as a clown and then called him “The Wimpy Clown”, well obviously he looks like the clown from the memes. What really surprises me is that Anthonn was the clown the whole time since the first episode when he was harassed by kids and Julia scared them off. However, what bothers me is how Dotty and everyone at the circus call him “Tonny” as his nickname. I mean why would you call him, Tonny?? For girls calling him “Tonny” sounded cute, but for me, I’m not gonna call him that because that nickname sounded too soft for a man who happens to be Julia’s killing target. So while other readers, Dotty and everyone else, and Ms. Miriam kept calling him by that nickname, I AM CALLING HIM BY HIS FIRST NAME AND NOTHING ELSE.
The whole drama in episode 6 goes when Julia bursted out of her steam yelling Anthonn to know that they kidnapped Kamille, and it turns out that he’s responsible for signing the pact which brings to another point of who made Julia sign the contract. But then he popped up his head that it was Sahed who just manipulated her to sign the contract in secret, meaning that other world that Julia was being sent to. Anthonn explained the situation of the whole reason for her death and how magic actually existed in this world which makes it so confusing that the whole circus is the only thing in this world that can perform or summon magic. It only makes everything awkward because most of the people didn’t see that magic exists in this world, they believe the use of black magic would bring the world into chaos, just like the witches on Hooky. The whole purpose of Anthonn’s existence is either life or death because from what I see, Julia was being tricked by Sahed into signing the contract just to become their circus group, in addition to killing Anthonn until she dies. And as for that, there’s the string that is attached to the back of the neck that is controlling her like a puppet. And if she gets tired of working there, she will die permanently. I mean if she’s going to kill herself in the process of explanation, she might as well sever her head or her hand, so she doesn’t have to deal with all that superstition.
Episode 7 shows Julia and Kamille being reunited, but Kamille was not happy to see her because Julia just got into a huge mess to rescue her. But in reality, she just came to the circus by her own will before her birthday. And that’s where her backstory comes in in episode 8, it starts off when Kamille’s parents called out some suitors to meet her at her house because her parents intends her to get married on her 19th birthday. This comes to the point that this world has a law of the country called “Kalgratt” where young women have to be obligated to marry someone when they’re old enough, and that’s how it is in a fantasy world like that. Also, the name Kalgratt is too obvious to be called a country because that country is all military biased, and whenever I look at the flag it looks like an Argentina flag with a crest, plus the emblem has two snakes entangled together with a sword that looks like the staff that Hermes was holding, WHAT IS THIS WEBTOON MADE OUT OF GODS?? Well maybe, and Ms. Miriam is an angel of love rather than being the grim reaper. And my second favorite scene of this episode is where Julia goes triumphantly while posing herself like she’s a tough girl. I mean for Fred Fuchs’ sake, she looks like some World War II poster that says “We Can Do It!” But seriously, LOOK AT HER! She looks so damn proud of herself. That’s it, Julia’s my favorite girl, I changed my mind that is the best scene ever.
So later on, Kamille was being introduced by three men who are actually soldiers, except one of them is working at the Armament Factory. But Kamille is not interested in them, which leaves her to run away from home and get herself involved with the circus after meeting with Sahed and Anthonn. But somehow, Sahed stabbed her in the chest with just an ordinary dagger. There’s no clear designation of where to go, but she just literally joined the circus because that dumb law about forced marriage is meaningless to women. Women should start walking on their own paths just to escape a country that has a meaningless rule and find something that makes them happy and keep moving forward, even if it is finding true love with a man or a woman for themselves, or chasing a dream that will make it come true, that’s true strength and you know it.
I’m jumping a few episodes later because all of the other episodes were just background noise, other than Dotty wearing such a gorgeous transparent dress or something, Anthonn picking a fight with Sahed, and Sahed flirting with Julia, and Dotty’s performance. Now on episode 12, it goes back to square one for Julia. Staying alive just to kill Anthonn is probably the biggest issue for her, except her being in a Bee Gee song, I’m funny. Next, Ms. Miriam’s webtoon becomes one of the crime/mystery genre comics, like Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips books on Image, yeah one of those, one of my favorite crime comic creator duo. And that part had gotten real in a fantasy world like this. It starts off when Julia asked two soldiers for a report, and then some old lady accuses the masked fortune teller named Rainah who just robbed her and put an evil eye on her, which is the stupidest way to accuse someone. The lady hit Rainah and then revealed her third eye at the end of the episode. The way that these people looked at her seemed very disgusted by her appearance, even though she has a third eye which is cursed. And these soldiers got no problem assaulting a woman by telling her to shave all her beautiful hair off.
I swear, I hate these goddamn soldiers, the way they act aggressively towards a beautiful Ah’Kon woman is just a sign of sexual abuse, and so does everyone else around who just looked down to her that she has three eyes and one of them said: “Look at her… she’s gross.” Look I’m going to be honest with you, other than the children, the elderly, the other artists that I know including Miriam, and the animals, I really hate people. It pisses me off when I see them talk behind their backs, even if they’re talking smack to a beautiful defenseless woman like Rainah. They’re like cockroaches, parasites, it makes me want to exterminate them.
Let me ask a question, who is the target audience for this webtoon? Young adults by the age of 15 and up. Young women who like princesses, romance, soap operas, boys or girls love and cute stuff, while men like weird stuff, war, women, and a fantasy world filled with monsters like dragons and such. And we also like dogs, because every time I scroll down the panels there are always some cute dogs that make me feel human again, and it makes me feel guilty for not having one. But we artists have one thing in common, WE LIKE HER ART. Do you think the children would read this webtoon where Julia and Sahed holding a mysterious dagger together in a fun house and showing that first bloody trailer of this webtoon? Even so, Hooky on Webtoon is mainly made for children because the main characters were kids right until they grew up, and somehow reading her webtoon, charmed me to see their adventures, but there are some small gripes behind it. And looking at the Hooky graphic novels at the back side of the cover, the ages are 8 and 12. And looking back at the digital version, she actually curses on her comic before because she wasn’t good at English before, no wonder how they changed it into a family-friendly book.
I’ve been reading her Webtoons for almost 7 years and going through her comics, the art has left me speechless with her wonderful characters and landscapes. Up until now, Ms. Miriam’s art has been cute and adorable, but sometimes the story gets a bit out of hand, trying to understand the plot and constantly switches as if you’re reading another rom-com webtoon. And after all, I’m willing to excuse most of this crap because Ms. Miriam’s webtoons charmed me so much with the unique style that I recognize as a Hispanic guy and an artist like myself. And no matter how tempting it gets, I can’t stop reading it because just like Hooky, I want to see what happens next. You never know what she’s gonna throw at you every Wednesday.
So, Kamille and Sahed came and defended her, and all of a sudden Sahed just grew more muscle out of nowhere which is coming from that magic powder that he used. Well, that’s Ah’kon magic for you, even Julia was surprised that Sahed turned into Super Sahed after eating a mushroom, or “Sahunk” that Kamille called him in Episode 15, yeah it’s hard to explain. After that, Anthonn came by and stopped the fighting. However, when they were talking privately, Sahed mentions that ‘thing’ in the attic which caught me curious to know what it is, however that image of that monster in the third episode, looks like some demon from hell, or some ectoplasm monster that you see from other comics or video games. And on top of that monster in the attic is just another Ah’Kon magic that make you transport to a different realm. At this time, there are so many characters from other comics that I’d read who uses the third eye that is cursed, magical, or something identical, but in the world of Marionetta, it’s much more different because the use of magic would lead the world into chaos, and it’s really crazy. But here’s the real kicker, you know how to make Sahed talk to tell the truth? You know what you do? Break into Sahed’s room, and start fighting like some old married couple.
Episode 18 is where Ms. Miriam cranks up the warning dial for the readers. This is where I should mention that Webtoon never adds an age rating or restriction for the readers to read like the ESRB rating system for video games, so it’s up to the creators to add something like that at the beginning of the episode that has a warning for the readers that there’s something that you wouldn’t want to see this through if you’re old enough, it’s really dumb by the way.
It starts when Julia lays the smack down on Sahed that he’s the one who manipulated Kamille, and she mentions these seal designs that he made to make magic. Well, other than her who just went Beast Mode with her bike in Episode 2, that one was hilarious and I will never forget about that scene because it’s my favorite. So she has to see this through over another explanation as she finds out if he’s the person that she and Kamille need to be trusted because Julia had a wild imagination of her being held by Sahed as if they’re engaging in a forbidden bond between a human and an Ah’kon. That’s bullshit because what I really saw is that Kamille is falling in love with Rainah right after I saw the heart-shaped on her papers on Episode 17, yeah it’s a thing coming from Miriam. As long as I went through reading this episode, there’s a mystery behind this. Sahed claims to her that the government lied to her in her whole life, because the Ah’kon race exists, and so does magic too. So truth to be known that these soldiers back then wanted to take Rainah as a prisoner at a research center to have one of the Ah’Kon to be manipulated by the government and use them as a tool of war or something. But to make it even more shocking is that Sahed claims that Anthonn is the only one controlling everyone’s lives around this circus. However, as a result, he turned one of his members into dust after stabbing with a strange dagger that has a seal. Anthonn is the murderer behind the whole circus of chaos as he shows the collection of every circus prop that the other members wore and killed. And somehow there’s a Carlo hat easter egg from Hooky.
And the most relatable scene of this episode shows that he picked a knife and slit her neck right open and said “Open your eyes, Julia.” Ok, call me crazy, edgy, prick, heartless, or a son of a bitch, but I’m actually a dangerous human being, and I’ve seen worse because I actually gotten used to reading some violence and gore comics before. Again it’s just like any other comics that I’ve read, but some of them are very violent, dark, and bloody as hell and I can’t tell you what exactly I read my friend, because this is a webtoon review, and telling you about it would actually upset you, I mean you don’t want to hear this crap from me.
I’m sorry that I brought this up, to be honest, I don’t give a damn about Sahed slashing Julia’s neck because she’s already dead. And that scene doesn’t make me feel upset at all, it makes me feel upset when a dog dies before my very own eyes. And there’s absolutely no fatality in this scene because the only reason I know why this scene is not some random Mortal Kombat move is that Sahed is showing an example to Julia that he can’t kill someone who already died, but Anthonn can erase a spirit from existence. But the important part of the story is the next one and episode 20.
Episode 19 goes when Julia is working on creating more puppets to sell for the next stop, as she refreshes her mind about the situation about Sahed, the seals, and Anthonn, the fact that he did something to her, but then she bangs her head at the wall saying “shoo, forbidden thoughts” as if Sahed did something inappropriately to a beautiful lady like her with his idiotic toothy smug. At times when you go back to each episode to see Sahed on the panels which suddenly becomes attractive and Julia thinks that he’s “terrifying” as the opposite of him being sexy as hell, so you get to see a lot of his smiles coming from him which keeps making me think of Static from Static Shock and Sidon from Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. So Julia has one thing on her mind that she has to focus on now, spy on Anthonn for anything suspicious around him. And at the end of the episode, Anthonn apologizes to her that he wasn’t there for her enough because he has so much in his hands that he has to handle because he’s the owner of the circus. And then he asked her to come to the bonfire party.
When she got there to spend the night at the bonfire party, she gets this stupid reaction as if she was going to some night party where everyone is drinking, kissing, dancing, and pissing; just kidding, and then she said that this bonfire is like a nightmare, it’s like inviting you to Satan’s birthday party. The only thing better than going on a bonfire party would be to have Anthonn summon Satan and get Julia some therapy. So in episode 20, there’s not much to say here other than the fact that Anthonn was the one who invited her where you see someone kissing, drinking, and dancing, and one of them is wearing a pink bunny suit and I saw on the panels is that the dog is dancing, tell me when in the hell did you see your dog dance for you. So Julia pops up the question to Anthonn of why are they doing all this for her, and then Dotty started telling her story of the day when she met and fell in love with Bob, how they met Anthonn and gained eternal life at some dark castle that almost looked like Dracula’s castle. And then they started to create a traveling circus for fun and business because staying inside some dark castle is pretty gloomy and depressing because at that point, gaining eternal life is really boring for everyone around here, besides being all vampires, they’re nothing but ghosts.
First of all, I’m glad Dotty brought that whole thing up because I still don’t even know what’s Miriam’s whole purpose of the story about the circus and all. How do you make a story where everyone else other than Dotty and Bob, heck even RAINAH OF ALL PEOPLE got involved after meeting with Anthonn and got themselves killed by him and traveled around the world as a circus troupe? And aren’t there any other circus comics that I don’t know about?? It’s completely too random to make a story where everything is cryptic and doesn’t make sense. And yet Julia stood there listening to Dotty’s story just to learn more about the group and Anthonn, but it’s not Anthonn who is doing all the magic, and gained immortality after death, but that monster upstairs is doing all of that. They don’t age for nothing until Dotty claimed that her husband ‘died’ of old age a long time ago. On top of that, everything is so confusing that Julia has blanked out from the story as much as I am right now. But can you imagine what is like to gain immortality and live young forever, I would do that. However, I’m starting to understand the concept of everyone who died by Anthonn and lived with eternal life, because I think that these people wanted to escape from society and try to find a new life somewhere around the world. But how does that explain that Julia went ‘You know what am I about to say’ to chase the moving circus, ran over, and spend her one-way ticket to gain immortality temporarily just to kill Anthonn for a year? I really don’t know what to say, but I’m gonna end this review.
In conclusion, Marionetta is really a great webcomic, and understandably it’s very different from Hooky. But obviously, Ms. Miriam wanted to get a different approach just to create a Webtoon with a moving circus which is a creature of chaos. But it made something to remember, it’s actually the first time that she introduced Kamille as the first black female protagonist, not to mention, Julia’s bravery, third-eye characters, and dark fantasy style. And somehow Ms. Miriam had inspirations by other comics, anime, and movies, such as Howl’s Moving Castle, a bit of Peter Pan, some creepy carnival movies, and Jekyll and Hyde. And it’s very rare for me to read a fantasy webtoon about a circus of death, and after reading, it really charmed me both as an artist and a reader to bring such wonderful art and story, because deep down, this Webtoon is still created by the same woman who is best known for Hooky one of my favorite webtoon series. Bottom line, it’s a good webtoon, a very fun dark fantasy one, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Julia’s adventures.
Newsdesk