The Fall 2024 K-Comics Guide

The Red Knight Seeks No Reward

What's It About? 

After dying at the hands of her backstabbing superior, money-grubbing Judith learned the hard way that bounty is never worth bloodshed. When she somehow finds herself alive and well, six years prior to her death, she decides to use her second chance at life to abandon her greed and become a genuine knight. She begins by accepting Captain Kaillou Lewalmeigh's offer to join the honorable Order of Red Knights. Will Judith be able to redeem herself by overcoming the wrongdoings of her past?

The Red Knight Seeks No Reward has a story by Rosiwon and art by Song Jaemin, with localization by Kakao Ent. Published by Tapas.

Is It Worth Reading?

The Red Knight Seeks No Reward is a K-comic I like the look of, both in its art overall and its cool sword girl Judith. And I appreciate how Judith's life-loop do-over opportunity doesn't let her immediately be an over-experienced badass who steamrolls over her challenges—if anything she's only more disoriented and uncertain about how to turn her life around now that she knows what tragedy she's on track for. This is a story that seems comfortable playing the long game, letting Judith mull over her options and ponder if she should even be allowed to have the kind of happiness she's ostensibly pursuing now.

That decent footing only left me wanting to like The Red Knight more than I actually did, though. It honestly seems to be taking too much of its time, as Judith meanders around her early days describing characters and their fates, acting like she knows she should do something to save herself and others, but not really committing to any sort of action plan for doing so. Compounding this is the story's overall disinterest in explaining much of anything to the audience. There are four color-coded orders of knights, but the differentiations between them or what they even do aren't really articulated. "Aether Masters" are a thing, of which Judith is one, apparently, but there's no explanation of what they are until twelve chapters in, and then it's a vague spiel about metaphysical energy that makes you immediately wish they'd stop explaining it.

The sheer nebulosity of The Red Knight, the way characters and plot points are regularly forgotten about or Judith seemingly forgets her own plan (or forgets that she had a plan) is so frustrating because of the glimmers of potential. The art can look a little rough, still cramped by the format in some spots, but can bust out some very cool visuals, like one of a snake around Judith's sword. When the emotionally impactful moments hit, they really hit, as in the scene revolving around the tiara in Judith's previous life. But every time it seems like it's getting close, the story throws out more terms I have no context for, some repetitive and clunky exposition, or new plot points that never get brought back up. Looking nice can't wholly make up for being this frustrating to read.

You can't redo the past… unless you're a manhwa protagonist. This is a do-over story about a former Black Knight who wants to change her ways. Previously obsessed with obtaining money and nothing else, Judith decides to use her second chance at life to follow her principles instead of a paycheck. Perhaps along the way this unbelievably powerful knight can also repair some of her greatest regrets, which in this case are watching her friends die one by one. It's a motivation that instantly hooked me, with only one issue. Everyone looks down on Judith for wanting money, but I don't see anyone helping her with the completely understandable reasons she needs it: paying the hospital that is hounding her for her dead mom's medical debt. The story makes it seem like Judith wants to atone for her previously greedy ways, and it falls apart when you realize that she's anything but: just a victim of bad things happening to good people.

This story begins with its main character's death. After faithfully obeying her superior's order to assassinate a member of the royal family, the same superior immediately executes Judith for treason against the royal family. To add insult to injury, he tosses a couple of coins at her as she bleeds out, taunting her for her well-known money grubbing. However, Judith wakes up an instant later in her own body just a few years earlier, when she was in knight school choosing which order of knights to join. Previously she joined the Black Knights (led by the aforementioned superior) and now that she has a chance to turn over a new leaf, she's going to walk a different path as a Red Knight. What's more, she is no longer going to pursue knighthood for transactional ends. Instead, she will hone her considerable abilities in order to save her friends' lives. That's a very upstanding way to live, but I can't fault Judith for her previous life, because the girl had a tough time of it: no parents, medical debt, plus nonstop costs to put herself through knight school. The conflict comes from the way everyone reacts to Judith's personality shift because there certainly isn't any challenge for Judith when it comes to knighthood—she's effortlessly strong and can even face knight captains as an equal.

One thing that irks me about this comic's art style is that Judith and her fellow female knights may be as strong and powerful as the men, but they are depicted as willowy and delicate. I'd like to have seen them drawn with some muscle on them! It's rewarding to see Judith use her knowledge of the future to make better choices, but I can't resist thinking that her initial choices weren't so bad to begin with. She just got unlucky.