Webcomic / Eleceed

They’re stronger than they look.

Eleceed is a Korean webcomic about a kindhearted cat lover named Jiwoo, and the Great Kayden, a wizard-turned-cat.

Hidden in the shadows of the modern world, there is an underground of people with superhuman abilities known as the Awakened. In order to maintain secrecy and peace, many different clans of Awakened exist. However, the most powerful Awakened, the Great Kayden, is a loner. This comes back to bite him one day when someone manages to ambush him and injure him. In order to hide and recuperate, Kayden takes on the form of a cat he sees nearby. And now he's stuck.

Enter Jiwoo, an Ordinary High-School Student who loves cats and often takes in strays. He comes across Kayden and provides him with a home, and Kayden soon realizes that Jiwoo can understand him. It turns out that Jiwoo is an Awakened, but is completely unaware of the hidden society people like him live in, and lacks training. Kayden then decides to make Jiwoo his disciple.

Illustrated by Zhena, and written by Son Jae Ho.

You can read the official Korean version here. The official English translation can be found here.

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This comic provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: The professor is the closest thing Wooin has to a father, and isn't above threatening him or even attacking him if Wooin tries to stand up to him.
  • Supil to Sucheon after he loses in a fight to Jiwoo. He throws his son into a wall hard enough to leave a massive dent.
• Academy of Adventure: The groups of Awakened run a sort of summer camp where younger Awakened and go to train. It usually requires a sponsorship from a group to attend, but some unaffiliated are allowed to go as well. The whole thing winds up highly emphasizing how much better it is to be in a group, so even though no one's said it out loud the implication is that the unaffiliated are only allowed to attend in order to pressure them into joining up. They don't even get the same level of training, although the policy is later changed to favour an egalitarian approach.
  • There's an even more exclusive World Awakened Academy that only admits the top students from various academies around the world.
• The Ace: Kayden. At a young age, he became recognized as one of the strongest Awakened Ones in the world, on par with the top 10 rankers. Many Awakeners admired Kayden and attempted to imitate his legendary lightning abilities.
  • Jisuk's elder sister Yoo Jiyoung. She became the chairwoman of Shinhwa and South Korea's No.1 Awakened One at a relatively young age, and when she fights Vator demonstrates that she's at least as strong as the World Top 50.
  • Many students at the Academy which trains Awakened Ones from South Korea. Jisuk, Soocheon, Subin, and Gangseok are regarded as the best young talents of their respective groups. Wooin and Jiwoo later rise to prominence despite not being an official member of any particular group. Jiwoo is arguably the strongest of his generation, just like his master, who is regarded as the world's strongest unaffiliated Awakened One.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: In chapter 181, Vator gives this to Suman Kang: He can bring him either Kayden or Jiwoo or he starts wreaking havoc until Kayden comes to him.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: It would be easier to list the Awakened characters who aren't this trope: Wooin, Jiwoo, and the unaffiliated kids at the Academy, the former two due to personality and the latter since they're painfully aware of how weak they are.
• Awesome Ego: Kartein's healing skills and Kayden's combat power are matched only by their gigantic egos. Jiwoo sincerely agreeing with their egotistical proclamations helps sell the trope.
• Batman Gambit: After Kartein enters the story and sticks around, Kayden quickly becomes adept at poking at his ego to get him to heal people Jiwoo wants healed but is too polite to just ask for.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Many poeple who were initially unfriendly towards Jiwoo gradually become friendly towards him because of his unwavering kindness.
  • Implied to be one of the reasons Kayden chose to teach Jiwoo. In the past, Kayden turned down many people who wanted to train under him because they were obsessed with power. On the other hand, Jiwoo genuinely cares for Kayden and never bothered about becoming powerful.
• Becoming the Mask: Parodied. Kayden as a cat isn't just a human pretending to be a cat, he develops behaviors that are exclusive to felines. Such as a love for certain cat treats and flashing his butthole to someone who annoys him.
• Big Brother Instinct: Jiwoo has caused this in multiple different characters so far, Kayden especially.
  • Kayden also develops this kind of relationship with the cats Jiwoo takes care of.
• Big Damn Heroes: If Kayden gets angry enough, he can return to his human form.
  • Suman Kang manages to find a missing Jiwoo before Kayden even does and quickly gets him to safety once the latter arrives to clean house.
  • Jiyoung returns the favor to Suman, saving him and his entire group when he refuses to aid Vator.
• Blood Knight: A trait of Kayden's that has rubbed off on Jiwoo. Both want to test themselves; additionally, Jiwoo believes that the best way to live up to his teacher is to accept every challenge that comes their way.
• Born Winner: Kayden never required any training or support from groups. He created his own Force Control method, with which he became one of the strongest Awakened Ones in the world. He has never lost a battle and exterminated entire groups in the past. Even after sustaining a severe injury which uncontrollably turns him into a cat, he is still more powerful than most Awakened Ones in the top 100 ranks across the world.
• Break the Haughty: The second stint at the Academy is about the top students beating the crap out of the elites from the World Academy.
  • Happens again on a larger scale when The Four, plus Jiwoo and Wooin, visit the World Academy and fight their Top Ten.
• Bullying the Dragon: Dusik Kang and his elder son, Supil, stupidly provoke Kayden, and they both pay the price with their lives.
• Cain and Abel: Suman is benevolent, compared to his egotistic elder brother, Supil.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Right before their third match, Duke Grayne allows Earthquake to embed some of his energy into Jiwoo, rigging the latter to become severely wounded if he increases his speed beyond a certain level. During the fight, Jiwoo becomes hurt by Earthquake's trick while Duke arrogantly gloats over his opponent. At the last moment, Jiwoo overpowers Duke with a one-inch punch, while Roist immediately declares Jiwoo the victor. To add insult to the injury, Frame's rookies loudly cheer Jiwoo for defeating their fellow member. Duke's master, Schnauder, decides to spare him because no matter how hard he tried, Duke would never surpass Jiwoo.
• Child Prodigy: Jiwoo quickly shapes up to be one, mastering techniques that ordinarily take years to figure out in a fraction of the time. It isn't just raw talent, however. Jiwoo is secretly being trained by Kayden.
• Combat Pragmatist: Wooin's opening move in every fight he's in is to blast his opponent the instant it starts, often in the middle of a monologue. By the World Academy arc, his opponents are finally starting to clue into this habit.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Almost every fight Kayden participates in. Only one of the top 10 World Rankers can contend with him on equal terms.
  • Jiwoo finally gets to deliver one against Duke Grayne in their rematch. Granted, Duke insists on fighting Jiwoo with a fighting style he's not familiar with, but the fight is shockingly one-sided.
  • Jiwoo delivers three successive curb-stomp battles, defeating three of Frame's rookies, who had defeated the World Awakener Academy's top 10 students. He also defeats Duke Grayne for the third time.
• Distressed Dude: Jiwoo does eventually get kidnapped by criminals seeking information on Kayden. He's badly tortured before getting rescued and requires intense surgery. Fortunately, Kartein heals Jiwoo by healing his damaged core, which was believed to be impossible.
• Dude Magnet: Yoo Jiyoung has more than one admirer, all of them similarly powerful Awakened.
• Dork Knight: Kartein. He is a handsome and powerful awakened one, as well as the world's best doctor, and some of the world's most influential Awakened Ones are willing to pay with their lives just to avail his exclusive services. Kartein is also obsessed with becoming a cat and channeling his powers in his feline form. After learning that "skill" from Kayden, Kartein spends most of his time as a neutered, skinny cat.
  • Goo Inhyuk is one of South Korea's top 20 awakened ones and a prominent member of South Korea's leading group, Shinhwa. He is also obsessed with cats and forms silly leaps of logic to explain mysterious phenomena involving cats.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Everyone at the Academy believes Jiwoo has extraordinary control over cats, due to Iseul mistaking his relationship with Casein Nitrate (a.k.a Kayden) for a superpower. Kayden decides to roll with it, and Jiwoo claims that Casein Nitrate specializes in combat (which is true in a way).
• Even Evil Has Standards: Roist may be a senior apprentice of Frame, the largest criminal organisation, but he does respect rookies who uphold the honour of their masters. He respects Jiwoo for being a worthy apprentice of Kayden, but disdains Duke for being an embarrasment to their master, Schnauder.
• Friendless Background: Jiwoo has had to move a lot and has been hesitant to get close to people for fear of his powers getting discovered. This changes when he meets other Awakened Ones of his age.
• Genre Savvy: After finding out his brother may have helped a pair of dangerous Awakened Ones get into the country and that they kidnapped someone, Suman Kang drops everything to save the kidnapping victim without even knowing that it's Jiwoo. While he's previously been shown to be altruistic and nothing like his brother, it's implied a big factor in his decision is not wanting to get other groups to turn against Baekdu. He's very aware that Kayden could singlehandedly destroy them.
• Forced Transformation: Kayden doesn't like being stuck in cat form most of the time.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Jisuk is this to his friends, who only hang out with him because he's rich and physically strong. He soon abandons them and starts hanging out with Jiwoo, Wooin, and Subin.
• Informed Attribute: Kartein is very stingy with his ability and won't heal people in need unless he is bribed (and he still might not). However, in practice, he heals all of Jiwoo's injuries, even minor ones, and he is easily manipulated into healing everybody that Jiwoo wants him to, which is sometimes Played for Laughs. However, it is revealed that Kartein's healing abilities tend to leave him vulnerable for a while. Since Kartein has many enemies, he usually refuses many requests to treat people.
• Join or Die: Jiwoo gets a double dose of this in chapter 96. Dusik threatens Jiwoo and tries to kill him when he refuses to join his clan. Because of his clan's influence, nobody can stop Dusik without risk of starting a literal war, save for Seongik, who says that he'll only have the authority to intervene to protect him if Jiwoo agrees to become his apprentice. To Seongik's credit, he's also ready to step in when Dusik tries to kill Jiwoo before he can even answer. A timely intervention on Kayden's part is ultimately what saves the day.
• Kind Hearted Cat Lover: It's not just Jiwoo. So far there's been a 100% overlap between the characters who treat cats kindly and the good guys. If they don't start off openly affectionate and aren't a bad person, they'll warm up to Kayden and/or Jiwoo's cats eventually.
• Laser-Guided Karma: We actually get the good Karma variety when Suman Kang is backed into a corner by one of the world's most powerful awakened. His previous actions helping Jiwoo help motivate Yoo Jiyoung to come to his rescue.
• The Masquerade: So far all the different groups of Awakened agree on one thing: Don't let the general public find out about them.
• Mr. Fanservice: Kayden and Kartein are known to be very handsome. Kartein is considered to be the most handsome Awakener in the world.
• Noodle Incident: For over a hundred chapters the question of how Kayden came to be so injured that he had to hide has been in the air. We find out that it was because none of the Top 10 World Rankers would fight him due to it being a guaranteed Pyrrhic Victory for the winner, so he waited till 3 of them were in the same place and attacked the meetup not imagining that they'd all retaliate at once. When he explains this to Jiwoo and Kartein they both do a Face Fault and Kartein calls him an idiot.
• No-Sell: Kayden does this to Yu Iseul who has the ability to control the minds of animals at one point.
  • Kartein does it to another Awakened with the ability to control the minds of animals and when they refuse to give up leaves them concussed and without memory of the event.
• Only Sane Man: Suman Kang is the only sensible member of his family unlike his egotistical father and elder brother. After their deaths (at the hands of Kayden no less), Suman assumes leadership over Baekdu group and does his best to prevent his nephew from following the same footsteps.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Kayden demonstrates this by utterly obliterating a skyscraper with a heavy lightning bolt.
  • Basically anyone in the World Rank Top 50 qualifies for this but the ones in the Top 10 are in a league of their own entirely.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: Wooin's backstory is that a group of scientists unaffiliated with any of the groups of Awakened discovered Wooin's powers and thought it was something completely new. They inhumanely experimented on him until the professor rescued him.
• Power Trio: Jiwoo eventually forms one with two of his classmates who turn out to also be Awakened. Later, Subin joins the gang and becomes a frequent visitor of Jiwoo's house.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The reason why the top 10 World Rankers avoid challenging each other is because, regardless of the outcome, neither opponent will emerge unscathed. This can jeopardize the stability of their groups as well as create violent turmoil within the global ranks of the Awakened One. Kayden was injured because he recklessly challenged three of the top 10 Rankers.
  • Rankings become less accurate the higher they go, because the country prevents Ranked Awakened Ones from fighting to maintain national power. Also Pyrrhic Victory is a common occurence.
  • This is what happened to Subin's grandfather. He threw his all into rescuing young Awakened ones that had been kidnapped from Korea, paying for it with chronic injuries left him in severe pain and with only three years left to live. Fortunately, Kartein heals Subin's grandfather, enabling him to live a regular lifespan.
• Shipper on Deck: Jisuk wants his sister to get together with Jiwoo.
• Ship Tease: Jiwoo and Shinhwa's chairwoman, Jiyoung. Despite being older and stronger, Jiyoung is often seen blushing whenever Jiwoo compliments her.
• Sore Loser:
  • Cain throws a tantrum after losing to Jiwoo. He attempts to steal one of Jiwoo's cats (Kartein in disguise), only to get beaten up so hard that he gets temporary amnesia.
  • Duke becomes increasingly spiteful after losing on two occasions against Jiwoo. The third time, Duke lets Earthquake tamper with Jiwoo's body right before the match. Even then he loses miserably. Duke's fellow rookies at Frame cheer for Jiwoo's victory, Duke's senior, Roist deems him to be an embarassment, and their master, Schnauder, states that Duke could never defeat Jiwoo at all. This causes Duke to murder a fellow rookie in a fit of rage and attempts to frame Jiwoo for this.
• Tsundere: Kayden and Kartein, in a platonic manner.
• Villain Respect: Schnauder's apprentice, Roist, is infuriated upon learning that Kayden chose Jiwoo as his apprentice over him. Although he is initially disdainful of Jiwoo, Roist comes to respect him after watching him fight and prove himself to be someone worthy of being Kayden's student. Roist praises Jiwoo's fighting spirit while he expresses disdain towards his junior, Duke Grayne for being such a coward.
• We Can Rule Together: Jiwoo receives a non villainous and a straight example at the Awakened Academy as two of the most powerful and influential Awakened Ones of South Korea recognize his talent and offer him apprenticeships. However, he turns them down in favour of Kayden.
• The Worf Effect: During the matches against the World Academy students in the second Academy arc, Subin winds up hit with this in order to hype up Duke. She at least makes him work for the victory and scores some damage on him.
• World's Strongest Man: The top 10 world rankers and Kayden qualify as this. However, it is uncertain who is truly the strongest, since the rankings aren't accurate and the top 10 refuse to fight one another for fear of Pyrrhic Victory. While Kayden has never entered the official rankings, his abilities are proven to be on par with one of the Top 10.
• Would Hurt a Child: The professor, the first arc's villain, tries to kill Jiwoo once he finds out he's an untrained Awakened.
  • Later on the group encounters a pair of Awakened who traffic younger Awakened for profit.
  • Dusik decides to kill Jiwoo when he refuses to join his clan.
  • Dusik's son, Supil, abuses his son, Sucheon.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: After Dusik is badly injured by Kayden in retaliation for his attempt on Jiwoo's life he realizes that the best way to get revenge is to tell more unscrupulous Awakened groups about Jiwoo and his connection to Kayden. He specifically hopes that this will result in Jiwoo being kidnapped and held hostage. Kayden was listening in on the whole thing and kills Dusik, believing that he's too much of a threat to be left alive.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Parodied. Kartein believes that getting the technique Kayden uses to turn into a cat and the attacks he uses in cat form are precious skills Kayden doesn't want to share, and that he's successfully using Jiwoo to manipulate Kayden. In truth Kayden didn't think anybody else would be interested in them and only developed them when backed into a corner, so he does the minimum to go along with Kartein.