When I reviewed the webtoon adaptation of singNsong's novel series Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, I said that it was for the smug readers. Having now read the first two books of the source material, I stand by that assessment. This is a series for everyone who has ever wondered why the characters in a genre book or film act so astoundingly stupidly, for everyone who felt even the least bit annoyed when people express shock at a plot twist in an adaptation from a book you read decades ago, and, perhaps most of all, for the readers who quietly gave up trying to get others to read their favorite obscure title. Because protagonist Dokja Kim is all of us: he's the only person who read the entirety of a webnovel that turned out to be a blueprint for the coming apocalypse – and that means he's the only person remotely equipped to handle it.

But he's also not a hero. That's actually a good thing – where Dokja is completely altruistic in his motives, he'd be a less interesting character, and possibly a bit less sympathetic. It's not that he wants to watch people die as they fail to navigate their new reality; it's that he's familiar with the genre he's now living in and knows the terms. And he does his level best within the constraints of the death game; the book opens with him making sure that a character who would go on to be a serial killer doesn't survive and goes out of his way to ensure the survival of Gilyeong, a little boy. That Gilyeong turns out to be an asset to his team is incidental, because as a character not mentioned in the book Dokja read (Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse, better known as TWSA), he has no way of knowing anything about Gilyeong's power. That also goes for Huiwon, a woman he saves just because she needs saving, who turns out to be a strong ally. And although Dokja occasionally makes a good argument that he's just a cynical jerk —even to himself —underneath, he does care.

Which is not to say that he's not also very, very cynical. As he guides his team, made up of one character from the novel, Hyeonsong, and three people just stuck in it (the third is Sangah, a woman he knows from work), he balances keeping them alive and safe with working his way through the dangerous plot points he's familiar with. Mostly his cynicism comes out when he's interacting with the protagonist of TWSA, Junghyeok Yu. Suppose you've ever wanted to smack an isekai hero upside the head. In that case, there are some remarkably cathartic scenes of Dokja doing just that to Junghyeok, and his constant frustration with the man's plot armor and selfish protagonist actions are some of the most relatable content across these two books. Junghyeok, Hyeonsong, and Jihye, the three TWSA characters Dokja interacts with the most, are all written in a much flatter style than the rest of the cast, all clearly archetypes from TWSA-style webnovels, and while I would hesitate to call Dokja, Gilyeong, and Sangah “nuanced,” there's still a clear difference between the way authors singNsong (a pen name for a duo) write them. Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is, in some ways, a very self-aware series.

It's also a fairly grim one. That's not surprising, given that it's a death game story taking place during an apocalypse, where cruel goblins livestream the action to the “constellations” (people from myth and history) using the Star Stream system. The story doesn't get too terribly into the idea of how livestreaming and monetized content are part of the story's active metaphor; this isn't like Gretchen McNeil's YA series #Murdertrending. But children and the elderly are murdered without many second thoughts, violence is the order of the day, and it soon becomes clear that Dokja, despite his cynical decision-making, is actually one of the least selfish people in the story. Most of what he's doing is figuring out a way to game the system – he bucks the “sponsorship” trend players are meant to take the constellations up on, he makes a deal with Bihyeong, the goblin in charge of the channel, and generally refuses to play strictly by the rules. The implication is that he knows them well enough to break them, even though that also means he's fully aware of the human cost of doing so.

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is better in its original novel form. The format allows for more details to be shared, making Dokja more understandable while also cutting down on that cookie-cutter isekai feel the manhwa sometimes has. (Yes, I regret to inform you, there are stat screens. No, nothing makes that better.) Both story and translation are compulsively readable, and if I'd had more than two volumes to hand, I would have read them all in quick succession with no breaks for other books in between. It's a bit shy of being an unqualified “good” story – it's no Battle Royale – but it's the right kind of schlock. If you're going to read it before the anime (upcoming as of this writing) debuts, this is the way to do it.