“G’Day” Is an Amazing South Korean Thriller Set In Australia
Releasing from 2015 to 2016, G’Day is a Korean comic (a.k.a. manhwa) made by Choi Yong Sung, where Shiyoung, having lost contact with his sister, comes to Australia in order to find her. Where is she? And did something happen to her?.
Before I start talking about this manhwa, I want to point out that this is a webtoon — a comic format — rather than flipping your pages and reading left to right (or right to left depending on the country), webtoons are scrolled vertically for convenient smartphone reading.
I don’t intend to spoil this manga, as I figure most people reading this haven’t read about it. But I have to warn that this includes sensitive content both in the art itself and topics like abuse, rape, prostitution, violence, and drugs. You have been warned.
Presentation
It might come as a surprise who those who have only read comics or manga, but webtoons are usually full color, and G’Day is no exception. But G’day’s most striking feature is its characters’ design.
They can be very angular and definitely drift away from the norm, but I think it works well and grew very fond of it by the end of it. Though the art remains very stylized throughout, there’s a marked improvement in how characters are drawn when comparing the start to the end of this manhwa.
Setting and Story
As said before, this is set in Australia, the author uses their previous experience to draw a story revolving around Koreans using work visas to visit Australia, explore a different culture and earn money.
Those doing this kind of work often go through Korean agencies in order to take care of the paperwork and make it easier for those with poor English skills.
The Shiyoung takes a job and comes to Australia in order to try and find his older sister after she stopped contacting her family. There’s an issue, however, as Koreans take an “English name” upon starting working, and as he’s not aware of it he has a harder time finding information about him.
He eventually finds out that his sister was living in the same shared house as he is using, and one of the residents knew of his sister’s Korean name, which is to say, they were hiding this information…
Although she’s been purported to be in Sydney, it doesn’t quite fit for our protagonist, so now he has to investigate why information about his sister was being hidden and if they had a hand with her disappearance.
As the story advances, we’ll see the story being played from the perspective of different characters, which is how we’ll eventually have the full picture of what happened, and we’ll get to learn about the different characters’ inner conflicts as well with those around them. Often times we’ll get new information that’ll change how we previously saw a character thanks to the newfound context.
In The End
I stumbled upon this manhwa expecting nothing and getting a welcome surprise thanks to the gripping story that just gets better (art and story-wise) the more we learn of the different characters in the house and those around them.
This is a relatively short story with only 50 chapters (and another optional 12 chapters that I can recommend as well) so it won’t take all your time to reach its conclusion.
It can be read on lezhin, and you can actually read the prologue and the first 5 chapters for free, but be careful with scrolling as some chapter thumbnails have spoilers.
I can also be read on copin comics, if you’re patient you can unlock 1 chapter daily for free all the way up to chapter 40, at that point you’ll surely know if you’re willing to pay to read the last chapters, but this page doesn’t have the 12 extra chapters for some reason (though note that chapter are purchased separately anyway).
I have no relationship with either company and get no money whatsoever if you open the links, they aren’t referrals.
The more you read, the more you learn about the main cast, the more real they feel, and the more captivating it becomes, after I was caught up in its rhythm I was done reading in no time. As far as character motivation goes, I found them to be at least believable when not reasonable, and by the end, I had a good idea of how the different characters thought.
G’Day might not answer all of your answers, there are two things that get mentioned in it that aren’t shown in the main course of the manhwa— one of those gets covered later in the side stories, and although I don’t consider the other event being shown necessary if the author wrote side stories for it, I’d read them too.
While not perfect, I found G’Day an incredibly compelling thriller that I couldn’t just put down after reading 10 or so chapters, though I’m not going to mention my small issues for spoiler reasons, I can say that my biggest issue with G’Day is that — half a decade after its completion — the author hasn't worked in another manhwa. And I can get really picky, so that’s a testament to how much I liked it.
