To say Hooni's had a rough go at life would be an understatement. After his mother tragically died of illness, his abusive drunk of a father abandoned him, leaving Hooni with the burden of paying off a ₩50,000,000 (about $42,000 USD) debt on his own. And if that wasn't enough, he's a prime target for bullies at school. With no parents, no income, no hope for the future, and very little else besides (other than a cheap little apartment that even he can't afford), Hooni believes the only thing that will save himself from this messed up life is suicide. Despite his many attempts however, he has yet to find a satisfactory way of killing himself—but ever since his landlady's outgoing son Soorim and type-A classmate Jaehoon have taken an interest in him, he finds those efforts taking up less and less of his time.
Written and illustrated by Park Gee, Suicide Boy can be found on the Lezhin Comics website
(original Korean version here—both require registration to view due to explicit content). The comic is currently on hiatus, awaiting its third and final volumen.
Park Gee is also the author of High School Boy (남고 소년), a Boys' Love-oriented work that plays on some of the concepts found in Suicide Boy.
This work contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Volumen 1 ended with The Librarian's return being teased but she hasn't appeared since then and given Harim ended up becoming Hooni's offical love interest since the Boxing Arc, there doesn't seem to be any plan to have her return.
- Abusive Parents: Not only did Hooni's dad abandon him, but when they were still living together, he both physically and verbally abused him.
- Academic Athlete: Jaehoon is good at both P.E. and more academic subjects.
- The Ace: Soorim is the best student in his class, and he's also great at everything he does, including playing video games and sports, and singing karaoke.
- Adults Are Useless: The teachers at Hooni's school either don't seem to care or don't seem to notice that he's being bullied constantly. This is double subverted by P.E. teacher Jung Cha-Ryuk, who at least tries to get Hooni included in the group of students, but that doesn't end well.
- The Alcoholic: Hooni's father, who disappeared and abandoned his son.
- All Just a Dream:
- In one chapter, Hooni's main bully gets a life sentence. Then Hooni wakes up.
- In the "Hooni's First Date" storyline, Hooni dreams of successfully asking out the librarian he has a crush on.
- All-Loving Hero: Soorim is pretty much the ultimate Nice Guy, he's constantly shown to be an extremely nice person to everyone around him and rarely seems to even get upset.
- Always Someone Better: Jaehoon is frustrated to find out Soorim has perfect grades and is the best of his class and school while he has almost perfect grades and is the 2nd best of his grade and close to being of the first ten spots in the school.
- Amazon Chaser: Jaehoon gets blushed when he sees Minseon's muscular body.
- Apologizes a Lot: Hooni sometimes, probably due to his low self-esteem caused by his past and present experiences.
- The Artifact: One of the things that drived Hooni to his suicidal tendencies was having left a debt of ₩50,000,000 (about $42,000 USD) which he has to pay on his own. After the first bunch of chapters, this is never treated as an issue but given it would be odd to have Hooni suddenly having enough money to pay all of that, is still mentioned every once in a while but is never treated as an problem anymore.
- Artifact Title:
- Thanks to Character Development, Hooni is no longer as suicidal as he was at the beginning of the story by the time Volume 2 kicks in and he rarely (if ever) tries to kill himself. Even when he's still shown to be depressed and having hard periods of his life he never seems to consider suicide anymore.
- Volume 2.5 suffers of this in a different way, not only is Hooni not suicidal but he's not even the focus character anymore. As the first half focus on Sana and the second half on Harim.
- Black Comedy: This is a slice-of-life Manhwa about a suicidal teenager. What else did you expect?
- Book Worm: Except for a few occasions, Jaehoon is always shown studying.
- Break the Haughty: In The Big Brother Arc Sana gets in controversy for supposed plagarism and his comic is suspended indefinitely leading him to fall into a Despair Moment Horizon and insolate himself from the rest of the world and almost abandon his brother out of pure rage.
- Bungled Suicide: Hooni either chickens out at the last minute (hanging/cutting), his methods are so ridiculous they don't work (Korean fan death), or something gets in the way (carbon monoxide poisoning).
- Camp Straight: Hooni.
- Cerebus Rollercoaster: The series will commonly interchange between being a Kafka Comedy, a Slice of Life or being Played for Drama.
- Christmas Episode: One chapter is about Hooni celebrating Christmas. It doesn't end well
- Cliffhanger Wall:
- A strange example with the Hoonirella arc. The arc is already a humorous Whole-Plot Reference What If? to Cinderella but the arc stops after his second part and then comes back for a three-parter 25 chapters later.
- Volumen 2 ends with Hooni meeting again with Yang Heemin, a person of his past with who he has a mysterious relationship. Instead of continuing directly with that the series continued with a Volumen 2.5 which was an 29-chapters long Interquel focused on Sana and Harim and after that it went into
Series Hiatus.
- Creator Cameo: A guy looking suspiciously like Park Gee is seen with a girl in the Christmas chapter.
- Cute Little Fangs: Soorim has one, probably to show his energetic and youthful personality.
- Cuteness Proximity: Harim, Soorim's sister, is usually sensible, serious, and straightforward, but her love for cute things makes her an awkward mess in front of boys like Hooni and Sanya.
- Dark and Troubled Past
- Hooni was abused by his father, his mother died of an illness, and he's been living in poverty and bullied in school.
- Jaehoon is implied to have one as well.
- Decoy Protagonist: Hooni becomes this in the Boxing Arc. The story is set up as Hooni and Harim's Romance Arc only for Hooni to dissapear halfway throught in the Darkest Hour so it focus on Harim only, He does eventually come back for the Relationship Upgrade
- Demoted to Extra:
- Jaehoon in Volumen 2.5. If it wasn't for the Filler Arc involving Hooni's masturbation and him being one of the friends Soorim invites to Harim's Boxing Tournament he would be completely absent of the whole Volumen.
- Hooni is reserved to The Cameo in the Big Brother arc.
- Disappointing Older Sibling: Jung Minhyuk is this to Sana.
- Driven to Suicide: Hooni due to his past and present life, which includes debt, having little to no money, and getting bullied on a regular basis.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Sanya.
- Everyone Has Standards: Soorim usually remains with Hooni no matter what, but even he's weirded out when he finds him naked surronded by adult magazines and decides to avert him for some time.
- Extreme Doormat: Hooni ends up doing whatever others want him to.
- Fanservice: Done occasionally in the manhwa, and also in standalone pieces of art drawn by Parkgee featuring characters present in the manhwa.
- Chapter 117 is essentially an entire chapter where Hooni does nothing but masturbate.
- First Friend: Hooni is this for Jaehoon. Not that he would admit it.
- Flashback: The pizza day in Hooni's middle school.
- Flashback Cut: When attempting suicide for the first time (shown in the comic), Hooni remembers things his father said to him and the beatings he got from him.
- Flash Forward: There's a shot of Jungsu, Jaehoon, and two other top students of Hooni's class being adults and wearing clothes indicating prestigious jobs, such as a scientist and a civil servant.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Minhyuk is the foolish one, while Sana is the responsible one.
- Friendly Rivalry: Implied between Jungsu and Jaehoon, the two best students in their class.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: Soorim and Jaehoon are mentioned multiple times to be friends of Hooni together and hanging the three together often but rarely having anything to talk to when they are alone. With that said there are glimpses that it may not be the case anymore as in later chapters they will sometimes walk together and Soorim invites Jaehoon to the Boxing Match without Hooni being included.
- Gang of Bullies: There's a group of delinquents in Hooni's class that bully him on a regular basis.
- Good All Along: Lemon Fairy, Sana's Sitcom Archnemesis who he thought was the one that tried to get his comic cancelled was actually the one who pushed the editorial to bring back Sana's comic and always saw their relationship as a Friendly Rivalry.
- Good Parents: Hooni's mother was one until she fell ill and died. Jaehoon's mother also seems nice, although we don't see much of her.
- Happy Flashback: In one chapter, we see a glimpse of a happy little Hooni with his mother.
- Hate Sink: The unnamed trio of Bullies that constantly torment Hooni for no reason beyond them finding it funny, unlike other jerkasses characters, there's absolutely nothing close to redeemable or likeable about them.
- Headlock of Dominance: Hooni has had this done to him on more than one occasion.
- An unexpectedly positive example of this trope occurs when Soorim does this to Hooni as a ploy to keep him hidden from his bullies after the two of them run into each other on the way to their respective schools.
- I Can't Believe A Girl Like You Would Notice Me: Hooni is surprised that Harim, a popular, sucessful, beautiful and social girl could be interesed in him.
- Karaoke Box: In one of the early chapters, Hooni and Soorim visit one, and a bonus chapter shows Hooni going there with one of his "dates".
- Kafka Komedy: It's a given, since this is a comedy about a suicidal teenager who lives a misfortunate life.
- Lighter and Softer: The story, despite still dark and edgy, is actually lighter and softer than early sketches of it. Furthermore, the plot of the actual comic becomes more upbeat as it unfolds: Hooni makes friends (who even clean his home for him), tries harder with his studies, and doesn't think about suicide as often as before.
- Manchild: Jung Minhyuk leeches off his younger brother, has no job, and spends all his time and money on video games. Hooni also has shades of this as well, though to a lesser degree.
- Maybe Ever After: Hooni and Harim promise to start dating once he can properly start taking care of himself and if she's still in love with him.
- Mess of Woe: For the most part of the comic, Hooni doesn't care about his appearance or apartment. At least Jaehoon makes him try harder in school.
- Missing Mom: Hooni's mother has died of an illness.
- Morality Pet:
- Hooni is basically the one single person Jaehoon has any kidness towards and seems to be the very first person he considers an actual friend, even if he won't admit it, his relationship with Hooni slowly starts turning him into a kinder person.
- Soorim acts like this for Sana, who is the only person he seems to be legitimate nice and like to be around with.
- Nice Guy: Soorim is probably the most prominent example. He never so much as says a single malicious word about Hooni, and is more than willing to spend time with him, just to make him happy and help him be a better person. This is notably despite the massive difference in social and economic status between them.
- No Name Given: The Librarian who Hooni falls in love with is never given a proper name.
- Nosy Neighbor: One subplot is about Sana trying to learn as much as possible about Hooni, so he could base his next comic character on him.
- Older Than They Look: Soorim thinks at first Hooni is the same age or even younger than him, even though Hooni is actually about a year older.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Soorim is a Perpetual Smiler that's always cheerful and relaxed, In chapter 52 however after he tried to wake up Hooni to go to class and not to get an answer like the usual he believes he simply left earlier, later on when Jaehoon tells him he didn't went to class he abandons his usual calm behaviour and runs to Hooni's apartment desperate.
- Opaque Nerd Glasses: Worn by Jungsu.
- Out of Focus:
- Jaehoon gets hit with this around the second half of Volumen 2, while he's still around he doesn't get much storylines on his own and mostly reserves to being the third guy in the main trio rather that his own character, in Volumen 2.5 it gets worse. Given Volumen 3 has being announced as a story between Hooni, Soorim and Yang, is probable this trend would continue.
- Hooni and Soorim fell into this in Volumen 2.5 where they become secondary characters in the stories of Sana and Harim
- Parental Abandonment: Hooni's father ditched him so in order to avoid having to pay ₩50,000,000 worth of medical bills and gambling debts, forcing Hooni to have to bear that burden instead.
- Redemption Rejection: Once Sana starts having feelings for Soorim, he briefly decides to become a better person inspired by Soorim's kindness but after Soorim see his notebook reading everything he thinks about him he says uncomfortably he feels bad and that he should go home, humillated knowing what happened he decides to no longer try to become a better person.
- RPG Episode: Soorim once brings a tabletop game for himself, Hooni, and Jaehoon to play.
- School Idol: Soorim is a male example: he's good-looking, his friends respect and admire him, and he receives love letters from girls.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Despite Hooni's attempts to hide it, both Jaehoon and Soorim are very aware about his suicidal tendencies.
- Self-Harm: While Hooni ends up giving up on trying to kill himself through cutting because it's too painful, he still does it on whenever the stress of his life becomes too much to handle as a dark form of stress relief.
- Shipper on Deck: Soorim is this for both Hooni and the Librarian and then Hooni and Harim. Is arguably less shipping on deck and more being on board with whatever makes his friend happy.
- Ship Tease: Park Gee himself frequently does this with Hooni and Soorim, usually through non-canon illustrations.
- Smarter Than You Look: Soorim is the first place in both his school and grade academically speaking and has perfect grades, which puts him over Jaehoon who's constantly studying.
- Smug Smiler: Comic artist Jim Oorang.
- Social Circle Filler: Soorim is mentioned multiple times to be a very popular All-Loving Hero and we briefly see in 2 different ocassions his other social circle but for the most part he seems to hang out more with Hooni, Jaehoon and Sana. Even when he invites his friends to the Boxing Match of Harim, he still goes with the usual cast rather that with anyone from his other friends.
- Stalker with a Crush: Poor Hooni ends up attracting a particularly creepy one after posting some provocative pictures on Twitter. This ultimately convinces him to delete his account.
- Starts with a Suicide: The first chapter is about Hooni's first attempt at suicide. He doesn't succeed. The translated name of the chapter even is "Suicide! Start!"
- Suicide as Comedy:
- Hooni's frequent failed attempts at killing himself are a recurring source of dark humor.
- After being denied money by his brother, Minhyuk runs away crying and yelling he'll kill himself. The narrator says he went to a PC café instead.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- After Hooni and Jaehoon's extensive studying, Hooni manages to answer correctly much more answers that the usual in his exams with him even completing the first page of his exam without a single mistake, but given he only bothered to start studying one week before the tests after a lifetime of not putting effort in school he still fails his exams just with a slightly higher score. At least he gets a perfect score in domestic economy.
- After a very extensive training, Harim ends up recovering her muscular build for the Boxing Match against Minseon but given the limited time she still doesn't recover her usual build from before and only has half of it at best.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: In Chapter 22, after spending most of the tabletop game as a ghoul with useless abilities, Hooni ends up being the only one who can survive the attack of the Final Boss and ends up winning the game on his own.
- Tomboy: Harim, Soorim's sister.
- Walking Spoiler: Yang Heemin, a mysterious, blue-eyed boy.
- Weakness Turns Her On: Harim - a female boxer, Soorim's sister, and Amazonian Beauty - quickly develops a crush on Hooni for being so small and cute in comparison to every other guy she's met and wants to protect him.
- What the Hell, Hero?: After a day at the sauna with Soorim and Jaehoon, Hooni reveals to them that he stole several of the facility's towels. They give him a Death Glare and an offscreen earful to make him to return them. It's hard to blame Hooni for wanting nice things he can't otherwise have, but it's still not acceptable.
- As of Chapter 78, Soorim appears to be about to give one of these to Sana, for implying that Hooni is somehow less of a person than him, in an attempt to drive them apart.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The Hoonirella is basically a 5-chapters What If? with the characters being introduced in the Cinderella
- Write What You Know: In-universe, Sanya is writing a webtoon based on Hooni's life, which can lead to the moral problems of him using the misery of Hooni's existence to gain fame and success for himself.
- Writing Around Trademarks: In the Christmas chapter, Hooni plays a game on a PC which has a monitor by Ssamsung. (That's not a typo, there's an extra S at the beginning of the name.)
- Younger Than They Look:
- Hooni initially believes Soorim is older than him but soon learns it's the other way around.
- Cha-Ryuk's description says he "looks older than he is".
- Youngest Child Wins: Minhyuk is 24 years old, he's unemployed, and he does nothing but play computer games all day. His brother Sana is 15, a talented and successful artist, and provides for both himself and his brother.
