6 Manhwa To Read If You Love Omniscient Reader

Shounen manga are great! Their loyalty to their craft and tropes is the one trait that keeps drawing more and more fans to them. There’s something truly special about witnessing a character’s incredible growth from a seemingly insignificant figure to an unbeatable powerhouse. But lately, action manhwa have been stepping up their game big time. As a consequence, the market now has some seriously impressive manhwa series featuring protagonists who are overpowered beyond belief and are actually smug about it—the one thing that manga hasn’t explored much at all.

Omniscient Reader, also known as Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, is a prime example of this. It starts off its story with a completely ordinary protagonist—so ordinary, that he feels more like a background character than a main one. There isn’t any particularly tragic backstory to him, nor does he initially have any hidden powers that make him stand out from the world apart from his obsessive novel reading habits. Eventually though, some circumstances put him in a situation where he is able to grow exponentially stronger and is understandably proud of that. Naturally, this particular manhwa has a super intriguing storyline, so it’s only normal for folks to be on the lookout for other stories with similar vibes.

6 microHUNTER

MyAnimeList Score: 6.60/10

microHUNTER is a fantasy manhwa that features one of the most unique storylines in recent times. It was released in 2019 and had a run of 110 chapters before it ended in 2021. While this particular series may not appeal to everyone in terms of its story, art, and gore, once fans overcome that initial barrier, it’s smooth sailing from then on.

microHUNTERdelves into post-apocalyptic themes of sorts and caters to everyone’s morbid curiosity about parallel worlds and hypothetical situations where humans shrink in size. In this world, humans are far from being the biggest, meanest, and most intimidating species; they’re smaller than ants and are constantly fighting to stay alive against creatures much larger than them—which is almost everything else. The good news is, in exchange for their size shrinkage, each and every person receives a unique superpower.

5 The Lone Necromancer

MyAnimeList Score: 7.07/10

The Lone Necromancer is an action-fantasy series that focuses on scaling and getting stronger, just like in Omniscient Reader. It kicks off with a similar premise but eventually diverges into a more fantastical plotline with more supernatural elements and powers.

The story centers on Yu Seongwu, an ordinary college student who has recently completed his military service and is now returning to his regular life to pursue his education. Like any other typical power-scaling series, he receives a holographic prompt from the ‘system’ that spurs him to select a ‘role.’ He obliviously goes for the role of necromancer and suddenly has powers to raise the dead from the afterlife. As hardcore as that sounds, these strange prompts come with their set of problems and calamities.

4 Return to Player

MyAnimeList Score: 7.22/10

Return to Player is an ongoing manhwa that was released in 2020 and has time travel/ isekai elements in it. Although the basis of the story is quite similar to the previous entries (after factoring in the going-back-in-time bit), the art of the manhwa is definitely its defining feature. It leans towards somewhat darker aesthetics and gives off major goth vibes, which is particularly more noticeable from the protagonist’s character design.

Return to Player is set in a fictional world that certain Gods use as the tournament front for a deathmatch between humans and monsters. For these Gods, it’s merely a fun, cruel game of tag and only one of the players knows how the whole thing ends—spoilers alert! It doesn’t end all that well. Kim Sehan, having lived through the whole thing once, is granted a second chance at life. This time, he’s determined to change the outcome and get back at these Gods for doing what they are.

3 Second Life Ranker

MyAnimeList Score: 7.58/10

Second Life Ranker is a 2019 manhwa that’s known for having one of the most cold, ruthless, hardcore MCs in the industry. It has a storyline that’s pretty similar to the previous entries, but in addition to the striking protagonist, the source of conflict for this specific series is considerably different.

It revolves around Cha Yeon Woo, a military guy whose life has been far from peachy. He went through a series of unfortunate events that caused him to lose both his parents and eventually his brother. His last straw was the revelation that Yeon Woo’s brother had actually died of very suspicious causes and was possibly betrayed. He’s now vindictive, and ready to take on everyone who has given his brother any pain.

2 Trash of the Count’s Family

MyAnimeList Score: 7.76/10

The ‘leveling up’ and skill-improvement trope—while undoubtedly iconic and prevalent in the industry right now—has become a bit redundant and recycled when it comes to action manhwa. Good news is, Trash of the Count’s Family, a 2020 fantasy manhwa, has a premise that’s so unique and rare, it borders more on what one would see in a female-targeted ‘shoujo’ manhwa rather than an action one—and its art is a testament to that. Yet, it’s an action series through and through, and proves that on multiple occasions.

Kim Roksu was just an ordinary guy leading a mundane life until he found himself isekai’ed into one of the novels he had been reading—as a minor villain character who got his life handed to him by the main hero. He’s taken on the identity of Cale Henituse, the lousy, rude, obnoxious, and spoiled elder son of a wealthy count. Cale’s mean-spirited personality got him in trouble with all sorts of people and made him the object of everyone’s scorn. Roksu, now Cale, is determined to clean up the mess the original guy made, hoping to avoid any confrontations and live out the rest of his life in peace.

1 Solo Leveling

MyAnimeList Score: 8.67/10

Solo Leveling is like the OG when it comes to leveling up and scaling manhwa—it’s basically a market staple. And if there’s one series that deserves a read after fans are done with Omniscient Reader (in case they haven’t already done it), it’s this one. It has everything that Omniscient Reader has: a strong main character, good art, considerably impressionable side characters, and a lot of powering up.

It follows the story of Sung Jin Woo, a broke college student who puts his life on the line, battling monsters in dungeons just to make ends meet. Dubbed “Mankind’s weakest hunter,” he’s often the butt of jokes among his fellow hunters. On the other hand, fate, taking the shape of something called ‘The System,’ has other plans for him. Jin Woo goes through a chain of events that changes not only his perspective on life but also gives him powers beyond perception. Withholding that information from the world, he secretly and subtly starts training to become the strongest being in the world—hint: not ‘human’, but ‘being.’