A sudden disappearance. And a memo from the lost student's seat. That was only the beginning to the unbelievable events that unfolded.
NoNameD is a webcomic about students in a surreal school that is supposedly the best in Korea; the main character, who suffers from regular Easy Amnesia, finds himself transferred in immediately after another student disappeared, and rapidly gets embroiled in investigating the mysterious disappearance.
A Naver Korean webcomic, with an English translation available here
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Be aware that as a Psychological Horror / mystery comic, it is almost impossible to list anything about NoNameD without spoilers. The major plot-relevant ones have been spoiler-tagged, but nearly everything about the setting and characters is a spoiler to some extent.
This webcomic provides examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Played straight with most of the teachers and administration, who are either under 31's control or were disappeared by him early on. Averted with one of the teachers and the sophomore student director, who are increasingly aware of how bizarre things in the school are becoming and trying to investigate it.
- Bedlam House: Lee Ji Eun and her friend were at one of these before ending up at the school.
- Boarding School of Horrors: Played with. The school is supposed to be soul-crushingly difficult, but the rules are actually incredibly lax in some respects (allowing students to leave their classrooms whenever they please, for instance.) It's the other students that are the horror. Also, there's the fact that it's controlled by an Eldritch Abomination.
- Cursed with Awesome: Each of the main characters suffers from a different inexplicable symptom, which interferes with how they perceive the world. Each of them is actually useful; for instance, the kid who sees people in monochrome can identify who has a symptom.
- Deliberately Monochrome: All of the main characters, and nobody else. Seeing certain people like this is the 'symptom' one of the unusual kids suffers from, and identifies other kids with mysterious symptoms.
- Driven to Suicide: The original Lee Ji Eun, who (apparently?) died before the comic started.
- Easy Amnesia: The main character occasionally forgets the past few moments of his life. The student who disappeared just before he arrived suffered the same issue; and it turns out it's because of Number 31.
- Eldritch Abomination: Student number 31.
- Evil Gloating: Number 31 engages in this to the main character while erasing his memories. From what he says, it's implied he's done this many times before. Unfortunately, the main character never remembers what he says. This backfires on him anyway when the main character eventually thinks to hit 'record' on his cellphone just before the memory-wiping begins.
- The Faceless: All students in the school aside from the main characters have nothing but mouths. Lee Ji Eun's symptom is that she sees almost everyone this way. Also, Number 31 has nothing but a huge, teeth-filled mouth.
- Faceless Goons: Anyone who isn't a main character (as well as any main characters who are unsympathetic) will have nothing on their face but a mouth. At first it seems like this is just part of the comic's art style, but it's actually a result of Lee Ji Eun's symptom; we see them the way she sees them. From her perspective, only a few people have eyes.
- Hollywood Hacking: Subverted. Even though one of the kids is established as a skilled hacker, they're still only able to access the school's administrative accounts because a teacher give him her level-3 administrative password so he could investigate a bug, and he describes how having access he wasn't supposed to allows a privilege escalation attack in realistic detail.
- Kids Are Cruel: Most of the 'normal' students in the school relentlessly bully anyone who steps out of line or who seems even slightly different. It's implied that this is because they are controlled by Number 31.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Lee Ji Eun, who is the best student in the school but all too aware of its underlying hypocrisy.
- Meaningful Name: Lee Ji Eun's name can mean "Writer" or "Creator" in Korean.
- Memory-Wiping Crew : The main character's regular Easy Amnesia isn't his symptom; it's because Number 31 regularly stops time to do this to him.
- Nameless Narrative / No Name Given: As the title implies, every single person in the cast aside from Lee Ji Eun is nameless.
- Psychological Horror: It's a story about some kids who all have unexplained symptoms that interfere with the way they perceive the world, trying to investigate mysterious disappearances in a school controlled by an Eldritch Abomination. What do you expect?
- Slasher Smile: One of these is a permanent fixture on Number 31's face. In fact, it's the only thing on his face.
- The Scully: Lee Ji Eun, who generally dismisses the more bizarre claims people make.
- Time Stands Still: One of Number 31's abilities. For some reason, it doesn't affect the main character, which frustrates Number 31 to no end.
- You Are Number 6: The apparent Big Bad is known primarily as Number 31, his (impossible) student number in the main character's class.
