Mom, I'm Sorry
is a Korean Webtoon written by MiTi and illustrated by GUGU. It was released in English from June 11, 2020, to May 5, 2022.
This webcomic is accompanied by Sarah, I'm Sorry: Welcome to Our Galaxy, which occurs in an Alternate Universe, where the events of the main storyline never happened.
Mom, I'm Sorry contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: A running theme in the story. Olivia ran away from her abusive husband with a young Henry in tow. Ijun is exploited by his parents for government money. Henry is reborn to an abusive mother who nearly kills him before Sarah receives a tip about the abuse.
- And Your Reward Is Infancy: Because of Henry's noble deeds, he is allowed to be reborn. However, he is born to an abusive mother who would have killed him due to a karmic consequence to being a bratty son to his mother for most of his life if not for the intervention.
- Bookends: Henry gives a Title Drop at the beginning of the story to apologize for being a brat to his mother. He later says the same thing as he lays dying.
- Bittersweet Ending: Olivia continues living her life as a rejuvenated young woman, at the cost of her son Henry dying in the orphanage fire, primarily as part of his bargain to the lifespan dealer at the beginning. Fortunately, Henry's reincarnated self was able to find his way back to her by staying silent until Sarah rescues him and takes him to an orphanage.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Henry tries to dump Sarah because he doesn't want her to be heartbroken by his eventual death. Eventually, he lets her know about his situation and checks off his bucket list with her.
- Burn the Orphanage: Yongsik Ma douses an orphanage in gasoline and lights a match as he dies.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Platonic example. Henry's final words are to apologize to his mom and tell her he loves her.
- Dub Name Change: Several characters had their first names changed in the English translation, including Hyochan (Henry), Geumok (Olivia), Sera (Sarah), and Seongjun (Jeremy).
- Foregone Conclusion: Henry is doomed to die within a year because of his lifespan exchange, and he refuses to take back the deal.
- Happily Adopted: Ijun and a reincarnated Henry live happy lives after Olivia adopts them.
- The Hero Dies: A Foregone Conclusion. Henry dies saving children from a burning orphanage.
- Invisible to Normals: Lifespan dealers can only be seen by people who have been approached by them. Ijun can see Henry's dealer when his own dealer is in close range.
- Ironic Death: As a mob boss Loan Shark, one would expect Yongsik Ma to read the contract when he's on the receiving end of the deal. He gets scammed out of a long life by a lifespan dealer because he wanted to steal his family's lifespan.
- Laughing Mad: Even though Henry has been captured by Yongsik and is entirely at his mercy, he can't help but laugh when he finds out Yongsik of all people has been scammed.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: As Henry runs out of time to live, he arranges to have Olivia forget about him. It doesn't quite work because she knows something is missing, especially when anyone mentions his name to her. Furthermore, all of her memories about him come back an hour before his death.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Various people in Henry's group are locked out to varying degrees regarding his lifespan deal. Olivia is kept the most in the dark because everyone knows she wouldn't agree if she knew the full terms of the deal.
- Outliving One's Offspring: As a result of Henry giving his lifespan to his mother, he is fated to die very soon while she has a full life ahead of her.
- Parents as People: One of the major themes of the stories is that how much sacrifices and hardship of being a parent and how those sacrifices and hardships affect both the parents and the children:
- The entire plot is kicked off because Olivia as a single mother running away from her abusive and alcoholic husband worked herself to death and how her sacrificial personality has caused Henry to deeply regret his bratty behavior to her. Olivia loves her son so much that Henry did not disclose the deal to her fully, knowing full well she would not accept the deal and later being manipulated into lying to the Celestial Inspector to protect Henry.
- Jeremy's father heavily pushes his son hard to succeed to honor his late wife's wish, causing a lot of stresses and friction between them. It is later revealed later in the story that she also took the deal to lengthen her son's lifespan, leading to her death.
- Henry's father heavily regret his drinking and abusive behaviors and tried to make amends, first by suggesting a deal to lengthen Henry's life, and later by working at Olivia's orphanage to ensure fire safety after Henry's death by fire.
- Played For Laugh with Sally and her own father. Sally complains about her newborn child's fussiness while her father hid his cancer diagnosis from his family and tried to divorce her mom to not saddle her with medical debts.
- Parting-Words Regret: As Olivia lays dying, Henry regrets that his only memories of her are of him being an ungrateful brat.
- Past-Life Memories: There is a theory that babies remember parts of their past life, but they forget it all once they start talking. After Henry is reborn, he refuses to talk until he meets Olivia again.
- Saying Too Much: As Henry makes a lifespan deal, the dealer lets slip that Henry will not die naturally because he did not age.
- Sorry That I'm Dying: Henry's final words are to apologize to his mother for dying.
- Supernaturally Young Parent: Olivia is de-aged to twenty after the lifespan deal, which makes her physically younger than her son.
- Title Drop: Henry says "Mom, I'm sorry" at the beginning, when Olivia is on her death bed. He says it again at the end when he dies.
- Unishment: Henry is rewarded for his good deeds, with a slight caveat that actually benefits him more than it hurts him. Because he caused his mom so much grief by dying, he would be reborn to an abusive mother. However, the lifespan dealer is demoted to a position in which it is his best interest to save Henry's reincarnation, so Henry eventually makes it back to his old family and is just as well-off as he was in his previous life.
- Wistful Amnesia: Olivia is made to forget about Henry, but she knows something is off after enough mentions of his name.
- Would Hurt a Child: Yongsik kidnaps Ijun with the intent to kill him if the group doesn't comply with his demands. He later sets an orphanage on fire as his final act, leaving Ijun tied up in a room that Henry had trouble finding without the dealer's assistance.
- Your Days Are Numbered: After the lifespan deal, Henry has about a year left to live. He gets occasional reminders about roughly how much time he has left.
