"Scrawny high school student Hobin Yoo is probably the last guy you’d expect to star in a NewTube channel that revolves around fighting. But after following some advice from a mysterious NewTube channel, Hobin is soon knocking out guys stronger than him and raking in more money than he could have ever dreamed of. Can Hobin keep this up, or will he eventually meet his match?"note
Viral Hit (Hangul: 싸움독학 Ssaumdokak) also known as How to Fight is a webtoon written by Pak Taejun (Lookism) and illustrated by Kim Junghyun (Raid). The official English translation is available to read over at Webtoon
. The original Naver upload is available here. Viral Hit also has a prequel series called Manager Kim, which has Taehoon's father, Song Hansoo, as the deuteragonist.
VH has a Japanese anime adaptation, which aired in Japan on April 2024 via Fuji TV's +Ultra block with a South Korean live-action TV series being announced.
Shows examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Wangguk's father was a drunk who liked to beat up their mother, and then Gyeoul.
- Action Girl: Han Gyeoul isn't as demure and fragile as she looks (and plays up) and is a dangerous boxer in her own right.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Despite Bomi and Hobin's mutual attraction, they still have unrequited love interests in the form of Moonsung and Gaeul.
- Badass Teacher:
- Hobin begins his journey towards fighting after discovering an obscure NewTube channel hosted by a presumably very strong MMA teacher wearing a chicken mask. Though initially thought to be Logan Gracie, a UFC Divison 3 champion and Moonsung's teacher, it's in fact a Red Herring. The real teacher is Gaeul's father, who looks drastically different in the present day after an unknown incident.
- Surprisingly, Taehoon's father is showed to be one, while not at his son level, is made clear that he is highly skilled at both ITF and WTF Taekwondo. He gets to show this off more in the prequel ''Manager Kim'",where it was show that in his prime he was even stronger than Taehoon ,and even in recent times, if needed to get serious enough, is still a very dangerous fighter.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Jiksae decides to not rat out Hobin's location to Pakgo after learning from Hobin's mother that the boy genuinely sees him as a friend.
- Big Bad: 244 or Lee Jinho
- Bland-Name Product: Hobin and Bomi work at WacDonald's, various characters are seen sporting Cucci, the video uploading site NewTube or NewTubU in the anime.
- Boring, but Practical: Mang-gi specializes in Ssireum, a Korean martial art similar to sumo, lacking the flashiness of Taehoon's taekwondo or Hobin's versatily and fast growth. He is still a force to reckon with because he both take his craft seriously and absolutely massive.
- Bully Turned Buddy: Jiksae, after he loses the social standing to be even a Peer-Pressured Bully, offers to team up with Hobin. They eventually become best friends.
- Book Ends: Hobin ends his last fight with Jinho the same way he won his first real one: with an overhand hook.
- Character Development: Hobin becomes more level-headed and mature as the series progresses, stops fighting if he doesn't see a realistic way of winning, having more confidence in himself, and while he is still a huge dork, he can act much more composed in front of people.
- Jiksae's closeness and trust in Hobin grows with time. By episode 60, he considers himself Hobin's best friend and deeply trusts in his decisions, but that doesn't mean he is above of teasing him constantly.
- Characterization Marches On: In the first few episodes Pakgo seem to have some genuine fighting sense and is able to learn how to counter the calf kick quite fast during the fight in the school against Hobin. Once he came back, though, he is portrayed as a brute without any ability to grow as a fighter with only his raw strength, being easy prey to even the most basic techniques.
- In the first few chapters, Bomi acted more reserved and almost shy around people, before she was depicted as an energetic and active girl, not afraid of speaking her mind (and is even portrayed as one in flashbacks).
- Chekhov's Gunman: Gaeul's father, a lanky, grumpy old man, not only knows Logan Gracie, but he's also the one who made the videos to begin with, making him Hobin's teacher, albeit indirectly.
- Combat Pragmatist: Hobin will not hesitate to fight dirty, particularly against opponents much stronger than him. Han Gyeoul also pulls out a pair of brass knuckles when she gets serious.
- Baek Seongjun uses eye gouging, crotch shots, improvised weapons and utilizes a countertop to immobilize his opponents. This is in spite of being a judo prodigy who could likely still win a clean victory if he preferred. He is also former Yakuza with more experience with life-or-death struggles and is genuinely trying to kill the members of Hobin's company when he confronts them.
- Crippling Overspecialization: In the early chapters, Hobin's entire arsenal of techniques is built around taking on amateurs and bullies. He actually lacks the solid foundation of a real fighter for much of the story.
- Man-gi practices Ssirieum, which makes him a nigh-undefeatable grappler. Unfortunately Ssirieum has no strikes, so against a sufficiently agile opponent he has no way of using his only weapon: the grab.
- Averted with Wangguk. Wangguk is a Boxing Battler, one of the most commonly understood fighting styles in existence, and Samdak provides ample advice for how to take one down. Unfortunately for Hobin, Wangguk is a boxer who got in countless dirty fights in a juvenile prison before he even learned to box, so he is familiar with grappling and attacks to his legs.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: During Baek Seongjun's assault on Hobin's office, all the male crew memers are quickly and easily dispatched, except Taehoon, the only one he truly had to struggle against, showing than even with the others having taken a couple of level in badass (except Jiksae who is still a Non-Action Guy), he is still the better fighter among them.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Hang Wangguk and his sister Gyeoul. Their father was an abusive drunk who beat their mother, who was eventually Driven to Suicide. He claimed he'll become a better person after her death... but then he beat Gyeoul instead. Enraged, Wangguk killed his dad, thus sending him to juvie prison. But by the time he was freed, he discovered his sister was barely living on her own.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Frequent, as expected for the genre, but justified or downplayed throughout the series.
- Downplayed with Taehoon, who sticks around by his own admittance to see how Hobin can pull the next victory out of his ass.
- Justified with Man-gi, who just needed sympathy for and acceptance of his baldness, as well as his difficulties getting dates with girls.
- Justified/defied with Han Wangguk of OnePunchTV, who gives Hobin the information to expose his boss as he's no longer under his boss's protection. He asks Hobin to avenge him, but Hobin refuses since not only did they just brawl, but OnePunchTV had just ruined Rumi's reputation, which was the reason for the fight in the first place.
- Zig-zagged with Han Gyeoul of OnePunchTV, who develops a twisted obsession with Hobin and begins stalking him. She reflexively intervenes for Hobin's gal friends in a dangerous situation, only to immediately regret her actions when it's revealed to be a setup for NewTube content, only to intervene again to finish off Hobin's opponent. She then announces her desire to kill Hobin and walks off.
- Downplayed with Ji Yeonwoo, who was never violent or aggressive against Hobin or his friends unlike the rest of XJ Company, but once he losts to Taehoon, starts to fight against his father control over his life and to constantly hang out with Hobin Crew, even helping then out to expose Baek Seongjun's crimes.
- Designated Girl Fight: Gaeul neutralizes Han Gyeoul in a vicious, bloody street fight when the boys aren't around.
- Dragged Off to Hell: Jinho has one final vision of all his victims dragging him off to hell as he dies.
- Dub Name Change: Webtoon's official localization changed a few things.
- Most notably, the titular How to Fight becomes Viral Hit, and so does the corresponding NewTube channel.
- Jiksae is now Snapper, Bbakgo is now Pakgo. The last two lose a bit of their Punny Name meaning as Jiksae (beyond meaning "cameraman", which does carry over into the official English) also has the meaning "bootlicker", and Bbakgo means "bald".
- Dying Dream: While dying, Baek has a dream of him being made a member of congress with his parents and Hobin attending his acceptance speech.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Freshly after beating (and deciding to spare) every fighter in Yoo Hobin's company, Baek accepts his guilt and surrenders to who he thinks are police but are actually the first wave of assassins sent to kill him by 244. He beats them after being surprise-stabbed and then beats more than a dozen more thugs hired to kill him while he's severely injured. He accepts death once an assassin armed with a gun corners him and allows him to tell Hobin his sympathetic backstory, and finally manages to talk the assassin out of killing Hobin to eliminate him as a witness. His final act is giving Hobin the evidence he'll need to take down 244 for good.
- Elite Mooks: Oh Dong-Seok looks like a generic goon, but is actually an extremely skilled boxer; Hang Wangguk's old coach in prision considers him a prodigy even stronger than Wangguk.
- Fake-Hair Drama: Hobin's fight with Man-Gi ends with Hobin accidentally ripping off Man-Gi's toupee, causing him to end the fight out of embarrassment.
- Foreshadowing: During Hobin's training for his fight against Taehoon, Gaeul starts nearly quoting Fighting Chicken's video word for word, a subtle hint that she was taught under him. This is also reinforced by her frequently being compared to a baby chick
- Forgotten First Meeting: As it turns out, Bomi met Hobin a long time ago, and he doesn't recognize her because he never bothered to remember her.
- Godzilla Threshold: As it turns out, Logan made Gaeul promise not to post the final fighting techniques video because he's worried about what would happen if the wrong people learned these techniques.
- Hate Sink: Both Pakgo and Jeongchan have no redeeming qualities.
- Heel–Face Turn: Most of the people Hobin fights to get one of these eventually.
- Justified initially with Jiksae, who teams up with Hobin after their embarrassing fight video leaks online primarily to rebuild his reputation. Played straight by Episode 11.
- Averted with Taehoon. He shows up whenever Hobin's in danger, but it's never mentioned if he's repented for his past bullying, or whether he's even stopped beating up his classmates. As of Episode 55 he's still using his old tactic of attacking a target's friends to humiliate them, so we can assume that not much has changed deep down.
- Justified with Han Wangguk after losing to Hobin, as he knows he's no longer an asset to his boss.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Taehoon initially seems to be a master of only WTF Taekwondo, but once he is pushed by a skilled enough opponent, he reveals to also know ITF Taekwondo, the more violent, North-Korean variant.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Even after Gaeul learns Hobin likes Bomi, she understands his feelings and asks him to treat her nicely.
- Averted hard for Moonsung though, who still wants Bomi despite her feelings.
- Lightning Bruiser: Man-gi may be enormous and heavy, but he actually runs 19 miles a day and can easily keep up with much lighter foes sprinting away from him.
- Market-Based Title:
- It's known in Japanese as Kenka Dokugaku.
- In Korean, it's Ssaumdokak.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Lee Jinho being pulled to hell by Baek may have been a hallucination from drowning, but this webtoon shares a universe with Loser life/Life completely ruined/My Life as a Loser which cannonically has supernatural elements relating to the afterlife...so it may have really happened
- Non-Action Guy: Jiksae is this to the male members of Hobin's Company, being that he is the only one not able to fight in any capacity. He is not even Made of Iron, being that every time he takes a bad beating he has to stay sometime in the hospital, while the rest of the crew can more or less leave it quite quickly (Mang-gi stayed a while too, but it was mostly to get a nose surgery, both reconstructive and cosmetic.
- Prisons Are Gymnasiums: The backstory for Han Wangguk of OnePunchTV involves being put through a hellish training program while in juvie, this being the reason for his high level of skill.
- The Reveal: Logan Gracie is the chicken man behind the How to Fight series of videos
- Chapter 79 and 80 reveal that the laid-back 244, real name Lee Jinho, is the one actually behind XJ company, having a great deal of political power and being involved in money laundering and business on the dark web.
- Sixth Ranger: Ji Yeon-woo is an unofficial one to Hobin's company. Once he leaves XJ, he starts to hang out with them and help then when he is needed, but he is currently retired from Newtube to take care of his father after a failed assassination attempt ordered by Baek Seonjun. While they're friends now, he hasn't officially joined them. He eventually became an official member in chapter 116, alongside Han Wanguk and Han Gyeoul.
- Stalker with a Crush: Hwang Man-Gi is introduced stalking Bomi. It turns out he's an okay guy acting on terrible information from a pick-up artist handbook.
- Standard Evil Organization Squad: XJ Company, a conglomerate of popular streamers, many of whom are extremely capable fighters.
- Theme Naming: For the girls; Bomi ("bom") means "spring," Yeo Rumi ("yeorum") means "summer," Gaeul means "autumn," and Gyeoul means "winter".
- Thinly-Veiled Dub Country Change: The anime adaptation seems to have changed the setting to Japan, considering how all text and character names are Japanese. However, the changes are completely surface level, considering that everything else about the series is still very Korean, with the dead giveaway of the neighborhood that Hobin lives in is obviously comprised of Korean style houses. The electrical outlets used throughout South Korea is the Type C/F, unlike Japan since it uses Type A/B plugs.
- Token Good Teammate: Ji Yeonwoo is this to XJ company, he is mostly in the dark of their more questionable actions, being a member just so his father can easily control his study session through his streamings.
- Took a Level in Badass: Hobin's forced to do this as he faces tougher and tougher opponents, the most notables are:
- His very first real one was against Pakgo, when Hobin finally master offensive techniques for the first time.
- During his fight against Taehoon, Hobin begins to think much more strategically, using the environment to his advantage and changing his battle plan when something goes wrong.
- While in the end they are just minor antagonists, the fight against navel thief is the first time that Hobin fights with pure instinct and completely improvising on the fly; the narration even mentions that "something awakened in him"
- The biggest one yet comes in episode 66 when Hobin completely destroys Pakgo in their second fight, delivering a curb stomp battle. Pakgo is left a bloody and tearing mess, with various broken bones and ribs in the process.
- Man-gi takes one himself in chapter 73 having learned the basic of boxing to complement ssireum and keep distant to protect his face
- The Worf Effect: Man-gi is victim of this when Wangguk beats him with visible ease.
- Wangguk himself became a victim when he fights against the only boxer his trainer considered more talented than him, and even after getting the upper hand; 244's interference ends up making Wangguk's effort in said fight a case of All for Nothing,
- Hobin and the males members of his crew became victim of this again when Baek Seonjun invades in their office after exposing and making him a fugitive from the police; Baek truly shows them the difference between public martial arts and fighting for your life, destroying Man-gi and Ji Yeonwoo with ease, having minor problems against Hobin's tricks and only truly struggling against Taehoon, who used all of his arsenal against Baek, including a couple of new moves and still couldn't put him down for good.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Zig-zagged with Joo Hyeoksoo. He doesn't have any apparent martial arts training but is a bodybuilder, so his raw strength is leagues above the average, and he at least show some fight sense and knowledge about fighting styles, being able to counter Mang-gi' ssireum, at least at first.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: When Pakgo returns it's clear he's been obsessed with avenging himself against Hobin, but hadn't bothered to follow his channel full of evidence that Hobin has become a good fighter. Because of this he experiences one of the most brutal and one-sided fights depicted so far in the story and is left broken and literally begging for his life, fearing Hobin could and would kill him.
- Dongseok Oh isn't a straight example, he is self aware that he's known for two things 1) overwhelming power and skill and 2) that he's lazy and has never had to train for his prodigous abilities. Wangguk Han proves that with enough training he can still be beaten in a straight boxing match. Even then it was a hard battle that had Wangguk mostly at a disadvantage, only holding on due to his own inherent tenacity and endurance
- Villainous Breakdown: After Baek is exposed, he heads over to Hobin's place in a fury, asking Hobin why he did it.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Multiple for poor Hobin.
- Taehoon is the first properly trained and professionally competitive fighter Hobin faces, and he makes all the punks Hobin fought beforehand look like chumps. Cheap tricks don't work on a pro.
- Man-gi teaches Hobin the importance of strength and size the hard way. The fact is, Hobin can't defeat him. Period. The only way he even survives his fight with Man-gi is due to body armor.
- Seongjun was once a champion judoka. When he challenges the Hobin Yu company, he punches, kicks, and uses weapons, and ridicules Hobin for expecting him to fight like a judoka in a real fight. He shows Hobin the greatest flaw in his style- Hobin has been learning how to combat different types of opponents, rather than learning how to actually fight people.
- Wham Episode: Chapter 58 and 59 are this for Taehoon. The reason he is so aggressive towards people who spend their whole life studying, and his attention toward Hobin, came from a incident when Dowoon, one of the few if not the only person Taehoon considered a "friend", (and a Identical Stranger to Hobin, except the hair color) ended up being killed by some thug paid to hurt Taehoon. He also blames himself for pushing Dowoon away when he realized he was a Taekwando genius who could surpass him.
- Chapter 80 takes the cake showing the first on screen murder of the whole series, and revealing the true nature of 244 business.
- A minor one but chapter 101 not only is the end of Baek Seongjun's backstory, but show that he wasn't just remembering it, but telling his life to Hobin, who managed to catch up to him. Though Hobin admits he can understand but not forgive Baek, it earns him his respect, just before the hitman paid to hunt him also declares that he will kill Hobin to eliminate any witnesses.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The final chapter skips a few years after graduation to Rumi and Wangku's wedding, showing how everyone is doing now:
- Jikase has become a movie director.
- Gyeoul's now attending college, but her social skills haven't improved.
- Mangi started a farming channel.
- Yeonwoo's training and studying to be a prosecutor.
- Eunwoo's still operating his own channel.
- Taehoon was shipped off to join the military by his father.
- Hobin and Bomi are officially together. The former's still good friends with Gaeul.
- Wrestler in All of Us: 244/Jinho Lee appears to have a wrestling background, and his go-to move seems to be suplexes. Things get especially brutal when he starts chaining suplexes together one after another.
- Younger Than They Look: Both Moonsung and Bomi have been mistaken for college students, the latter more than once.
