Manhwa / Yureka

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and pain for pain. I'll pay back my debts, with interest of course."

— Lotto

In real life, Lotto, Boromid and Ah-Dol are average kids with average problems, but in the virtual world of Lost Saga (not that one), they're heroes. They might even become legends... if they can stop bickering long enough to level up. Whether it's werewolves running rampant or a gorgeous pair of troublesome thieves, our boys must be ready for anything, because in Lost Saga, nothing is what it seems to be and murder can happen with a click of a mouse.

In addition to MMORPG, fantasy, and game programming references, the manhwa is also about What Measure Is a Non-Human? with respect to the NPCs that make the game possible.

Written by Son Hee-joon and drawn by Kim Youn-kyung, it was published in English by TokyoPop as iD_eNTITY (유레카) until the company dropped it, but it is still being published by Madman Entertainment in Australia and New Zealand.

Compare with ½ Prince.

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Tropes:

• 10-Minute Retirement: For Lotto, twice. Once, after the Lost Saga they've been playing is revealed to have been a Beta, he feels betrayed by the game makers and swears never to play again. He cracks almost immediately, but manages to refrain from playing as his own character or interacting with his party members in order to save face, keeping it up until the situation absolutely forces him resume use of his character and chance results in a facedown between the protagonists. His second really lasts about ten minutes, or days story-wise, when he and his friends nearly die at the hands of Jaeha and he withdraws from life entirely, though unannounced. This one ends when his mother gets sick of listening to the phone ring for him.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: Though the game limits the number of levels you can take in a specific class there are no limits on the number of secondary classes you take. As a result, you see people who have double master class. Or in Aradon's case, triple.
• Accidental Misnaming: The below example of Malicious Misnaming probably started out as this. Team Triple Threat do have genuinely awful memories. On the other hand, they also really like screwing with people. However, this is definitely the case for the other characters to whom the incorrect use has bled over. And for the readers.
• A Darker Me: The Net allows more shut-in players to be their Darker and Edgier selves. Badassery ensues.
• Affably Evil: Many Yureka villains seem like this: Jung Myung-Kun^note Although close to pure evil, his goofy, easy-going side does seem to be a true part of his personality and even the Demon King, who is really a corporate executive working the register.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Aradon's certainly popular.
• And You Thought It Was a Game: When a normal Serious Business excursion in Lost Saga turned into Tonight, Someone Dies, to the gall and horror of the regular MMORPG players.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Jang Gun's sister Rose (or Jang Mi) drives him up the wall by sneaking onto his computer while he's on the Net—taxing his internet connection and causing his presence in Lost Saga to freeze.
• The Ark: The transition from Lost Saga to its final version Last Saga is projected in game as a massive, every-man-for-himself battle for keys which ultimately secure one's passage onto an Ark, predictably to escape a world-sweeping Flood. Boarding the Ark ensures the survival of your character and the preservation of your skills and items over the transition from the Beta.
• Artifact Title: Team Triple Threat / Lotto's trio is best known as such in- and out-of universe. All four of its regular members.
• Artificial Intelligence: Becomes a significant plot point (preceded by a few hints), both in its questionable nature and its relation to big business conspiracies.
• Attack Its Weak Point: For demons, the horns. For players, vital organs.
• Audience? What Audience?: Yeah, Ah-dol, who are you talking to? Incidents like the last panel of this page happen infrequently throughout the first chapters.
• Backstory: It's well written (and long) so of course. Notable are the story behind the inception of Lost Saga and Dexon (which is likely still being fleshed out, but began concretely as early as chapter twenty) and the explanation of what Jaeha's deal is.
• Badass Boast: Many—oh alright, most—players are prone to these. Notable for pulling them off are Lotto and Ah-dol, who are just plain scary at times.

• Badass Creed: For Lotto, refer to the quote at the top of the page. Brrr.
• Bad Guy Bar: A certain digital bar is where the individuals at the top of the Killing field hang out with the corrupt schemer ruling a legitimate corporation from behind the scenes in the company of the occasional abandoned AI. Our less-than-reputable heroes enact a few business deals there as well.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Ah-dol and Ryuga.
• Battle Couple: Rapha and John, Lotto and Yureka, Remy and Kazbar.
• The Beastmaster: Myriah
• Beneath the Mask: Offline, Lotto is quiet, inoffensive and studious, especially in school. His classmates think his whole life is harmless studying. He's standoffish, but sweetly polite. On the Net he is heartless, manipulative, violent, and basically his real self.
• Berserk Button: Don't call the real Yureka "Fake Yureka".
  • Do not allude to Lotto's height deficiencies. He will blast you till you're at least medium rare.
• Beware the Nice Ones: If Yureka gets really mad at you... you are going to die.
  • As a matter of fact, every single character who's ever been nice in Yureka? Be afraid.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The end of the Demon War. Turns out the players actually cared. A lot.
• Bishie Sparkle: Shows up in the art sometimes for equal parts hilarious, touching, and hilarious when it's supposed to be touching.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The popular opinion of Yureka amongst the main cast she is friends/acquainted with that don't know she is an AI, due to the fact that Lotto doesn't change his bipolar behavior very much when he plays as her.
• Bland-Name Product: Dexon, the developer of the Lost Saga virtual reality MMO sounds awfully similiar to Nexon, the publisher of the MMO game the manhwa authors plays.
• Blind Weaponmaster: Lowe after being temporarily blinded. Sure, he can barely walk, but he knows his way even better around his sword.
• Blood from the Mouth: May happen after a bad injury (check the entry for Punched Across the Room). Has been used both in extremely dramatic and ludicrously comical situations.
• Bounty Hunter: Aradon
• Brain Uploading: Method Dexon has used to create experimental NPCs. Also Jaeha's much-sought-after method of AI doppelganger creation.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • An in-series fourth wall break is when the characters pressure a goblin NPC into admitting that the data processes of the game was slow and that it was the cause of them having to wait for the Final Boss.
  • References to the fact that the characters are in a manhwa pop up at times.
    • A Running Gag involving this trope is done by Boromid who complains about not getting enough close ups. He even goes as far as commenting on panel design.
• Break Them by Talking: Lotto's specialty.
• Broken Pedestal: Might be a factor in Jijon Jang's view of the higher-level players who were the "heroes" of the end of the beta. It's hard to say, as he decided to show the admiration we've seen him express for them by being a complete Jerkass to them and manipulating them in every way he can think of, picking them out specifically as targets to scam. If his admiration for them changed after actual encounters with them...who can say?
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Sort of. K.C. and Julie's involvement with Team Triple Threat was the most embarrassing and horrifying of all their online experiences. For the protagonists, it was just another of their scams ( that was actually not for personal profit) and they have no idea why the Fallen Angels threw them into a pit.
• Butt-Monkey: Boromid and the Three Black Stars.
• Calling Your Attacks: Magic spells are named and casting is usually accompanied with the calling of such, which text has implied is necessary.
• Calvin Ball: Most times, the ways and whys of Lost Saga are meticulously explained. Other times, the reader is left to wonder what the heck is going on. Can any one game be this complicated? Really?
• Celibate Hero: Lotto has to go out of his way to avoid his admirers at school. This is real life, so they think he's a quiet-but-cute scholarly kid. If they try too hard, he sics the way-too-enthusiastic Boromir on them.
• Cerebus Syndrome: While never the whacky tale of high school hijinks, its summary makes it seem like it could be, Yureka has definitely dipped deeper into the grim and philosophical over its run, concerned less with the quirks and nuances of playing an MMORPG and more with the Myth Arc of corporate corruption and its analysis of a Grew Beyond Their Programming -based Mind Screw. —The humor grows less dense, but retains the same tone throughout.
• Character Focus: Events succeeding the Demon War Arc zeroed in considerably on Lotto. Many characters get their time in the limelight in such a fashion, though rarely to such an extreme level.
• Character Class System: Certainly. Lost Saga uses an intricately simple one.
• Chekhov M.I.A.: Fans are calling it on Lotto's father.
• Clark Kenting: It's illegal to alter one's appearance on the Net, so characters who want to exploit the G.I.F.T have to disguise themselves entirely with clothes and attitude. It's a recurrent theme, but is played with realism and isn't infallible: those actively invoking this get delayed recognition at best.
  • In-game, pop duo The Lovely Angels don't wear makeup.
  • Out-of-game, Lotto wears glasses and combs his hair (and tries to act mild-mannered).
    • Jyung Mung-Gun eventually connects the loud-mouthed manipulator he rendezvoused with in a digital bar with the quiet (shorter) kid in glasses and a baseball cap he showed around a hospital for a friend.
• Class and Level System: Utilized by Lost Saga. Encompassed by Character Class System.
• Comedic Sociopathy: A sizeable chunk of the misfortune befalling all characters falls into this category. The author seems to find it an invaluable writing tool. It's done well, so the schadenfreude kicks in and you laugh every time one of our heroes gets dealt a hand of hard luck. Mostly utilized in brief gags.
• Common Character Classes: All of these types appear in Lost Saga, most including multiple classes. There are, of course, other classes as well. Ranger, anyone?
• Competence Zone: Averted. The age range starts fluid and widens as the series goes on.
  • Lost Saga is likely aimed at teens and young adults in-universe, but the writer is clearly aware that children and adults outside the target demographic can excel in such environments. Serious players (so, threats—Team Triple Threat makes enemies of everybody) include: master-class mage Tablen, younger than the main characters; middle-aged Happily Married couple Remy and Kazbar; and Il-Ban, the oldest player in the game and one of the most formidable players in both Lost Saga and Cyberquest.
  • Matters of intrigue outside the game are part programming innovation and part corporate politicking, and Lotto is starkly aware that he has minimal influence as some high school student in the latter. He takes little comfort from the offered help of his similarly-aged friends, and adult characters have to be recruited. Younger characters also become more deeply involved, but Adults Are Not Useless.
• Cool Sword: Since most of the story is set in a fantasy RPG, expect these all over the place, in the hands of only the most deserving characters.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mingling with more idealistic members of the same companies, and those in the middle, who don't care.
• The Cracker: It's eventually revealed there are technologically skilled people who use the Net for real-life assassination.
• Crippling Overspecialization
• Cross Player: The plot starts when Lotto finds Yureka's ID card and, mistaking it for his own, logs in. Sure, he's confused. This doesn't stop him from messing with his friends a bit, though...
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Seems to be a standard character trait.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • We get our first taste in the first chapter, in which the protagonists totally decimate a cave full of monsters after spending most of the chapter concealing their true classes.
  • In battles between named characters, Yureka's attempt to take on Basara stands out.

• Cycle of Revenge: Team Triple Threat gets caught up in some comical ones.
• Dark Action Girl
• Dark Is Not Evil: Aradon the Black
• Deadly Dodging: How Yureka handles a pk mob
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Unless you're an NPC, die during an in-game event, or use a sacrificial ability. Otherwise, standard MMORPG resurrection rules apply.
• Delinquents: Phuan and her crowd, outside the game.
• Developer's Foresight: There is a skill for identifying different poisons, a cooking skill, there are Easter Eggs, self-aware NPCs, a karma system, magic fusion, and hallucinogenic drugs (for tricking people into believing you have clones). It turns out it was only one guy who programmed all of Lost Saga, making it so that it would self test and implement new facets. Self-evolving game. Awesome.
• Diabolus ex Machina: The Demon God was literally a demon from the machine (the programming of Lost Saga, rather). Its appearance was triggered by a ridiculous but preplanned series of events, and its purpose was to kill every player, with no way to win or fight back, resulting in mass character deletion. An in-universe example.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Lotto's life motto is the quote at the top of the page. And he's serious.
• Divided We Fall: Boy are our heroes masters of this one.

  Demon King: "You humans really should learn to work together...at least then I could deal with you all at once, instead of stringing it out like this."

• The Dividual: Slayan turns out to be various people playing one more powerful entity.
• Dragged by the Collar: When Adol attempts to drag the injured (but irked) Lotto to the top of a pillar.

  Lotto: "I can walk just fine on my own! You want me to change places with Woonha, is that it?! Okay fine! Then stop treating me like a sack of potatoes!"

• Dungeon Crawling: Bit of a Lost Saga game staple. We often come across a protagonist doing this either right before something more interesting starts to happen, or as a Slice of Life moment.
• Easter Egg: The lead programmer (who frustrated all the other programmers and basically created the whole Lost Saga game himself), Doctor J, was uber-awesome at his job, and while he worked himself to death—literally mind you—he hid Easter Eggs that allow characters to "glitch" the game (but it's not really glitching since the functions of the exploitations were completely intentional.)
• Elemental Embodiment: High-ish level mages can summon these.
• Elemental Powers: Some of the magic of Lost Saga is styled like this. Lotto, for example, is a fire mage.
• Enemy Mine: Phuan decides that since she and Jijon Jang were both attacked by the same person they should join up to find her and settle things.

  Phuan: (ruffling Jang's hair) "I've found someone who experienced the same thing as I did. We'll get along, right my friend?"

  Jang: (horrified) "N...no, I don't want to."

• Evil Gloating: ...Mostly on the part of our protagonist.
• Establishing Character Moment: For Team Triple Threat, the I Am Not Left-Handed moment in the first chapter.
• Experience Points: It's about an RPG, so you can earn them, fight for them, sacrifice them in dramatic ways, etc.
• Expy: an unique example - Phuan is apparently modeled after the character the author of the manhwa plays as in Mabinogi
• Failure Is the Only Option: The entire Demon War, it turns out, due to the existence of the Demon God.
• Famed In-Story: Who in all of Lost Saga hasn't heard of Team Triple Threat and the other heroes of the Demon War? Not to mention, oh, all master level players. (Or so they think.)
• Fandom Rivalry: In-universe. Players of Lost Saga and Cyber Quest hate each other.
• Fantastic Racism: Demons are just like humans, only with no punishment for killing them.
• Fingore: He just happened to have those nail clippers with him...
• Flaming Sword: Lotto can charge his master item with a simple fire spell, Fireball, with fun, sometimes explodey results.
• Foreshadowing: The series' grander Artificial Intelligence plot has been brewing for ages.
• Gambit Roulette: The events which eventually summoned the Demon God had to line up just so, and amazingly enough, they did.
• Game-Breaker: The three rings Lotto recovered during the Demon War are together an in-universe example. They could, if used improperly after the battle they were devised for, completely unbalance the game. Lotto chooses to defend its integrity and refrains from using them, save in truly hazardous situations.
• Gender Bender: It's not played up as much as one would expect, but Lotto is in a female game character's body occasionally.
• G.I.R.L.: Actually illegal if it requires hacking your physical appearance, as when Jang-Gun logs in under a different ID card to play as Yureka. (If there's no hacking it's just crossdressing with your true-to-life Digital Avatar.)
• GMPC: Dexon hires people to act as mostly-players for general upkeep, or in roles that would otherwise be relegated to NPCs for big events.
• The Glasses Come Off: Lotto only really wears glasses outside of the house, and they're an integral part of the disguise that is his appearance in everyday life. He doesn't need them on the Net, and he doesn't wear them much at home. Cue badass behavior.
• Gratuitous Greek: Wun-suk heavily abuses this trope when selecting screennames. It's no wonder he's so recognizable.
• Gratuitous Ninja: Wun-suk tries to fit a ninja class into a medieval-themed role-playing game, and is a strong believer in this thoroughly viable method of instant awesome.
• Greed: How many times has it gotten the better of our heroes and their adversaries? But then, it is a series about gamers....
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: There are no pure evil villains in Yureka. There aren't many pure good heroes either.
• Hair Color Dissonance: Brothers Ah-dol and Alpha have clearly blue hair on covers.
• Handicapped Badass: Lowe when he's blinded by a PKer.

• Heroic Sacrifice: Rapha sacrifices a huge amount of XP and as a result most of her levels to cast a spell to save John during the Double Trouble Tournament.
  • Jaeha switches places with Jang-Gun at the last second when Elca is about to stab him.
• Heroic Safe Mode: After Lotto's encounter with Jaeha in-game causes all his friends to be killed in front of him, for real, followed by the person who did it sacrificing herself for him, in the Net he'd trusted not to have real life miseries, he lounges around his house for at least days, having nightmares, avoiding the Net and screening calls (read: missing important plot developments).
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Pretty much every character, to varying degrees. Especially the heroes. Especially especially the main character.
• Hero Killer: Slayan
• Hobbes Was Right: Considered, even discussed by the protagonists, but averted fundamentally in principal in regards to the players and the game (Lost Saga is sort of hardwired to let players affect things, usually with good results, and they take charge in game-effecting events when pressed), and even Dexon's handling of their game and its players (programmers and CEOs consider their players as they make changes). The random players who populate Lost Saga tend to prove the point straight, though. Every time, watching them panic...is a bit pathetic. It makes you weep for the masses before the somewhat sensible people step in and give you a group to desperately hope you'd be part of in the event of a crisis.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The Demon God. Also, dragons. Unless you're Basara.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Sometimes considered by the narrative, but always the opinion of the hero.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: In the first chapter, it looks like Team Triple Threat is pretty evenly matched with the monsters they encounter in their Dungeon Crawling. Then they get impatient, and reveal that they were fighting the whole time with their secondary classes, much to their companions' shock. A Curb-Stomp Battle ensues, causing them to lament that they'll never get anywhere if they can't refrain from using their main classes.
• I Have Many Names: Our favorite ninja prefers to remain anonymous. Doesn't work so well after the first time. Still, he seems to be cycling not only through classes but also through letters of the Greek alphabet, introducing himself as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, is he going by Epsilon now?
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Manipulative Bastard Lotto pretends to invoke this trope to confuse the heck out of an AI he suspects has real-world memories, half-convincing the penultimate boss monster in question that his name is America and that he was Lotto's best friend before being lost in a car crash. It's convincing enough that the demon follows Lotto around in a daze instead of attacking him until they reach the event's Final Boss.
• Implausible Hair Color: Hair color is somewhat unusually varied for Korea. Yureka is blonde, most notably. Of course, nothing states that all the characters are of Korean descent (although text suggests the Net can only be used within the country) and it is set an indeterminate time in the future. Can thus be reasoned out or interpreted as Hair Color Dissonance.
• Ineffectual Loner: Aradon, despite being a convincing badass and skilled gamer.
• In Harm's Way:

  Myung-Gun: "How can you be so relaxed even though you've nearly lost your life?"

  Woon-Ha: "Does it sound reckless if I simply say...I like the danger?"

• Insistent Terminology:
  • The Lovely Angels aren't thieves, they're treasure hunters.
  • His name is not Lawe, it's LOWE!
  • In-game, Remy insists on calling her husband "Uncle."
• Invisible to Normals: Features like the ghosts of players are invisible to those who don't work for the stats to see them.
• Invisibility Cloak: One master-level item for the thief class is the Invisibility Scarf, utilized by K.C. of the Fallen Angels, who wears it like a bandana.
• It's A Small Net After All: Mostly averted, except all the major gamers of Lost Saga seem to live within driving distance of each other. Somewhat justified because the Net hasn't spread outside Korea, but still...
• Karma Meter: Lost Saga has this for players. If your karma drops low enough you will be barred from the towns in which most life in the game operates and be be stuck out in the wastelands until your karma goes back up, with a bounty on your head to complete the lovely combination. This has resulted in a civilization of outcasts with their own ranking system and methods of gameplay.
  • Our saintly hero has used it to his advantage by manipulating his karma to effect which spells he can cast.
• Karmic Trickster: Team Triple Threat plays this role.
• Kick the Dog: Jaeha stabs at the one person who's super loyal to her. She said she'd kill anyone, but did she really have to try to kill anyone?
• Klingon Promotion: The ranking system in the Dragon Lands functions along these lines.
• Korean Honorifics: The series is Korean, so these are used occasionally and left in translations...rarely. We're probably not missing anything.
• Large Ham: LOTTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. (When he's in the game, not in Real Life.)
  • Most of the master-levels have their own hamminess, just like a lot of the high-level players in most MMOs.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The series has been going on for a long time, and early crucial plot turns play heavily into later arcs.
• Lethal Harmless Powers:
  • Lotto's "Shield of Perseus" spell is too weak to block any of the high-level magic he normally faces. Except that he can still use it to cast offensive spells on himself and deflect them at enemies, and a spell that's already been reflected can't be stopped by any kind of shield... Knowledge of this trick soon spreads, making the indestructible shield spell "Holy Cross" rather less popular.
  • Later in the story he defeats a hacker with Super-Speed by casting a "haste" spell on him, making him Too Fast to Stop. Again, this trick is used by others, though in this case the denizens of the Dragon Lands had discovered it independently.
  • Lotto does this again by casting a "berserk" spell on Yureka, who is his ally. Normally this would weaken her, but due to Yureka's personality it results in Teach Him Anger.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Whenever someone switches to their original class, reveals an ability or item they haven't been using or exploiting fully, or just has a reason to get angry and step out of their usual role.
• Level Grinding: The protagonists had to get to Master Level somehow. This fills their time when events are lacking, largely off-screen.
• Level-Locked Loot: A staple of Lost Saga, like most other MMORPG tropes. Notable are master-level items.
• Living Memory: Some NPCs are truly the projected consciousness of coma patients onto the Net. Piri, for example.
• Logical Weakness: Lotto's fire-based magic is dampened by the rain. Others exist similarly in-game.
• Lost in Translation: Many name puns are retained either by convenient/clever translations or footnotes, but some...aren't. Ijoyen and Negosia, for example, are supposed to be anagrams of some sort. Yeah. That didn't carry over.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: As of ch.194 the "self-aware" A.I.s may be powered by comatose people who were pronounced dead.
• Lovely Angels: A fictional idol group from the series' world is named this. They go by the Fallen Angels in-game to revel in their anonymity.
• Magical Gesture: These are necessary to cast certain spells (such as crossing one's arms to erect a shield or holding the fingers a certain way while casting a blessing) and used instinctually in other cases (pointing or waving a hand to where the spell should go or lobbing a Fireball)
• Malicious Misnaming: The protagonists have gotten it wrong so many times not even the readers can remember whether it's Lowe or Lawe now. He's corrected them enough (and helped with enough important plotlines) that it can't be attributed to their notoriously bad memories anymore, they're just being malicious. Which isn't exactly out of character.
• Manipulative Bastard: LOTTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
  • Accentuated by the fact that he got a powerful boss monster to do a Heel–Face Turn by using a sob story that utilized the fact that the boss had a discrepancy with his personal memories.
  • Lotto also acts kindly or acts generously in a seemingly genuine way, but then he just does the opposite of what he says and betrays people with a cackle at the success of his bastardly (and dastardly) plan.
• Marshmallow Hell:
  • So much for that dramatic declaration. Maybe it's Jang's fault for being so short that he ended up in this position, which is immediately followed by a cheerful would-be mugging.
  • Yureka to Lotto in the Tournament Arc.
• Meaningful Rename: Some, perhaps even all, ScreenNames, which players choose to identify themselves with as (sometimes) essentially different people, causing it to overlap with Secret Identity. Jang-Gun's (Lotto) is thought to be a reference to the lottery, thus chance. "Jijon Jang" means "king of kings", showing his pride and ambition. Mirenne, of course, chose a feminine name. Wun-ha abuses this trope, trying to reinvent himself with every class change.
• The Medic: Boromid and Rapha. Mirrene can heal you...one point at a time.
• MegaCorp: Dammit, Dexon, and to think you looked like you were going to be a normal, benevolent business for so long there. What with all that merger talk we thought Mega Entertainment was going to fill this role.
• Min-Maxing:
  • Played straight with Crunade and Mirenne. Crunade seems to have all of his points in defense while Mirrene has an extremely high critical hit damage modifier. Remy has all her stat points on strength.
  • Subverted with Wunha's character (Alpha, Gamma, or any other bad name he comes up with), who has points in almost every skill and class available in Lost Saga, which gives him Master Level power without the title.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Justified: it's a game with a Class and Level System, but maintaining your normal appearance on the Net is the law.
• Mysterious Parent: Who exactly is Lotto's father? We know it must be important because the writer won't tell us. Neither will Lotto's mother.
• Neck Snap: One of the more creative ways the players kill each other in hand-to-hand combat, often done in the most dramatic way possible.
• New Rules as the Plot Demands: Sometimes, the super-advanced MMORPG Lost Saga seems to function this way. Fortunately, it's done quite well, rarely stretching Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
• Ninja: Alpha has dedicated much to mastery of the ninja art. He is quite secretive and impressive...in his first fight scene.
• No Hero Discount: The city is being invaded and Lowe needs a new weapon to protect it? He still has to pay for it, upfront.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Lotto tends to pull this on people. Sometimes he's being sincere. Sometimes he's just screwing with them.
• Noodle Incident: Boromid, Lotto and Adol can't remember what they did to make Myuriah so angry. The funny thing is, neither can she. But she's sure it was horrible! Or something.
  • This is eventually subverted. Myuriah eventually remembers. She is not happy.
• Non-Player Character: Some major characters, plus Lost Saga is stocked with them.
• NPC Amnesia: As the manhwa is set largely within an MMORPG, this is Played for Horror with Piri. She's a cheerful shopkeeper NPC who is meant only to seem like a person on the surface, but instead experiences grief when her memories are wiped whenever the game resets. Except she's actually a real human, hooked up to a game ever since she ended up in a coma after an accident.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Used to varying degrees in most every permutation.
  • All of Team Triple Threat. (Although they really are that forgetful.)
  • Jung Myung-Gun...is this what you've been using all along?
• Oblivious to Love: Lotto to Yureka's feelings, or more properly said, he can't understand her feelings, at least until Elca points it out to him.
• One Head Taller:
  • Lotto and Yureka. She's the taller one.
  • Rapha and John, with a shorter girl this time.
  • Jijon Jang and Phuan, in the style of the main pair but even more divergent.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: People who've met Lotto via Lost Saga will call him by his Screen Name both in Real Life and in other games with little exception. He is only called Jang-Gun by people he met outside the Net, and only when offline, with rare variances. This holds true for most characters, as in-game they are known nigh exclusively by their user names, and thus get known as such.
• Only Sane Man: Ah-dol is often the only one with any common sense within the trio, and when he loses it Boromid has often regained enough sanity to show off, and when all three of them lose it the task of remarking that yes you are still sane and have not forgotten that the actions around you are a bit off may fall to any random passerby, but most often to Lawe. Lowe the Mighty, that is.
• Out of Focus: When Lotto splits from Team Triple Threat after "giving up" Lost Saga, Ah-dol and Boromid are barely seen until the end of the next arc, since they no longer meet in game and avoid each other in school and the rest of Real Life. And any reader expecting to see Yureka during that time was in for a long wait! This period experienced a considerable cast-shift, resulting in massive quantities of plot development and new characters (somewhat at the expense of old). The ensemble has since come around full circle, with all original characters and some few new present.
• Personality Powers: Justified since "powers" are classes characters choose for themselves in a game, but still used for pretty clear symbolism and nuance:
  • Team Triple Threat pull I Am Not Left-Handed with their secondary classes, which align with their apparent personalities: Ah-dol is a Squishy Wizard and The Smart Guy, Boromid is a fighter and The Big Guy, and Lotto is The Hero who fights with a sword. In their original, preferred classes Ah-dol is a vicious, straightforward fighter, Boromid stands in the background and buffs his teammates as a Cleric, and Lotto is a Magic Knight, a dual class which calls for more nuanced tactics, who falls back on Playing with Fire.
  • Alpha is introduced as an enigma: his class can't be pinned down by observing his skills, and the battle tactics he use involve obfuscating his presence and using Confusion Fu on his enemies.
• Playing with Fire: Lotto is a fire mage, this is kind of his thing. He gets creative with it.
• Posthumous Character: The mastermind behind Lost Saga. Probably.
• Power Trio: Team Triple Threat.
• Print Long-Runners: Clocked in at 41 volumes. Manhwa tend to be shorter than manga, so this is a long series.
• Punch-Clock Villain: All in-game villains who are actually workers for Dexon.
• Punched Across the Room: Ow.
• Purposely Overpowered: The three rings could break the game. They need to be able to, to take down the Demon King. And they're still barely enough in the hands of a capable player.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Elca and Jaeha to Lotto on how he doesn't take real death seriously because he's in a game. Makes all the characters and the readers feel like flighty hypocrites.
  • Also Lotto's explanation of why Alpha and Aradon are only "half" players. Arguably less profound, but at the very least lined up his view of the game nicely.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Player Killers have this. It's a little warning that those players would love to beat the other characters dead
  • Every time you kill a player in Lost Saga you renew your red eyes for another hour. In "The Land of the Dragons", a place where player killers call home, if you don't have red eyes, you are considered an abnormality. If you're abnormal, you should probably be beat to death.
  • Lotto's eyes, normally brown, tend to show glints of red in color pages when he's feeling particularly murderous.
• Reset Button: The events of the story's invasion arc results in the permanent death of every single player character except for Lotto. Fortunately for them, it turned out to be the end of beta event and their character data had been saved as a reward for participating in a high-risk fight they couldn't win.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: When the company president is playing the king, he makes sure he's all decked out. He even (mostly) refuses to break character because dangit he earned that scepter!
• Revenge: Usually orchestrated toward the heroes or by the heroes...mostly with the necessary second party of participants being other heroes....
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand:
  • Way to not be on the same page, Lotto, Crunade, Whan, Alpha, Jin-Woo, and Elca (and Ah-dol, Boromid and even Mirenne), with the whole save Jang, don't let her kill anybody thing.
  • The cast also did a fantastic job keeping track of the five parties scaling Great Mountain simultaneously, each counting on their being the only ones slaying monsters, therefore leaving enough alive to avoid the summoning of the dungeon's Final Boss. Those five identical plans didn't all turn identically sour or anything.
    Delta (1st to the top): (to the 2nd, 3rd & 4th to the top) "I didn't think anyone would be crazy enough to ascend from the inside of the dungeon...I highly doubt there would be other strange folks such as yourselves."
    Lotto: (appears with 2 others) "Sorry to disappoint you."
    (One finger-pointing freak-out later)
    Delta: "Still, no need to worry! We only killed three of them, that means there are still three left..."
    Lotto: "I wouldn't be so sure! This place isn't lacking in crazy people."
    Ban (8th crazy, appearing with 9th): "So that would make this the gathering place for those crazy people?"
• Ring of Power: Items of this style exist in the game Lost Saga, most notably Lotto's three rings from the Demon War Event.

• Robosexual: There are just too many AIs to avoid it. Most legitimate example is Yureka's crush on Lotto, but his feelings toward her and Rapha's schoolgirl crush on her AI bodyguard John warrant a mention, as does Lotto's presumed crush on NPC shopkeeper Piri. Certainly Piri and possibly John are not truly artificial, however.
• Role-Playing Game: Much of the plot revolves around the characters' experiences playing one—Lost Saga.
• Rousseau Was Right: The game was programmed with this in mind and grants massive stat bonuses/abilities to players who are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. That doesn't stop some people from abusing the system, however.
• Rummage Sale Reject:
  • Lotto's mostly improvised means of hiding his identity after his return to his normal character was made of Useless Accessories. It earned him the nickname "Mister Goggles."
  • Players wearing low-level gear or otherwise not shamelessly dressing for Rule of Cool can trend in this direction.
• Running Gag: Plenty.
  • Lotto's gang has the amnesia gag where they keep forgetting either plot, names, or information they should know, but don't.
  • Lotto's internet connection slowing during a moment of drama, causing his character to freeze.
• Sacrificial Revival Spell: The MMORPG in Yureka has the Sacrifice spell, which not only kills you but makes you lose levels and randomises your stats. And has a less than 100% success rate. However, one character manages to avoid Awesome, but Impractical by using it on an NPC who loves her, causing him to enter an Unstoppable Rage.
• Say My Name: The only way for Lotto to snap "real Yureka" out of it. But first he has to find her name...
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Classic examples exhibited by most vision-impaired characters at one time or another.
• Schemer: Jijon Jang, to a T. Luckily Lotto is there to occasionally act the Karmic Trickster to foil him, or he could get to the top (or at least get along comfortably) entirely through scheming despite occasional spectacular instances of ineptitude.
• Secondary Character Title: Yureka. Lotto is the main character.
• Secret Identity: Players' personas online, by a loose definition.
• Secret Test of Character: The invasion arc was designed to see if players were willing to risk permadeath in order to protect a virtual world.
• Serious Business: Naturally comes up from time to time since the setting is in an MMORPG. Notable with Myriah who holds a grudge against Lotto and his friends for killing her tamed monsters for experience and loot. —Done well and within the realm of possibilities, thus barely noticed.
• Sharing a Body: Yureka's creator is forced to do this with her A.I.s after a near-fatal in-game experience leaves her in a coma, with her consciousness shakily expressed in the virtual world. Pity they were already using her avatar....

• Sibling Rivalry: Adol and Alpha can barely be alone in a room with each other. The presence of the other cracks each of their calm facades faster than anything else.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: Myriah sees Team Triple Threat as this after what they did to her. Heck, many of the elite players have grudges against this team.
• Sociopathic Hero: Lotto is a hero, but it's because of competence and an odd set of morals. Not because he's nice. He believes that the Net has worth but Humans Are the Real Monsters.
• Spell My Name With An S: His names are Roto and Yang Goon—no wait, Lotto and Jang Kun—no wait...er, yeah. Yureka is Korean, so this applies to all the names. All of them.
• Spoony Bard: As if Alpha wasn't spoony enough while trying to invent the Ninja class, his most recent class change was to that of a bard, and superficially he fits this trope to a T.
• Stealth Pun: The Running Gag of Woon-Ha cycling through the Greek alphabet for pseudonyms on Lost Saga was introduced long before his Cyber Quest screenname was confirmed to be Omega. Thinking back to his original Lost Saga screenname, his two personas were likely meant to be...the Alpha and the Omega.
• The Stoic:
  • Ah-Dol, he's often the only guy who can stop Boromid and Lotto from killing each other.
  • Later on, one could argue that Lotto is really the glue of the team. Boromid and Ah-Dol cooperate more because they are used to working together because of Lotto.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-universe examples, because it's about gamers, and pros at that.

  Lotto: (thinking) You think simple chatting is using the net? That's only a way of hooking up!

• The Squad: Instrumental in a war game Lotto used to play with frequency. May even have been the reason he stopped playing.

  Lowe: "Are you a moron or what? If you die trying to save me, our team will get penalized!"

  Lotto: "You bloody idiot! What's the use of being on the same team if you let your friends die?"

• Strange Minds Think Alike: An...odd variation in which Ah-dol is the only member of Team Triple Threat who can see Remy's eyes.
  Lotto: "Ah! Now I get it! Members of the Tiny-Eyes Clan must have some sort of telepathy!"
• Super-Deformed: Comes up a lot in the early volumes.
• Super Prototype: The program the main creator of Lost Saga (who died working on the project) wrote was too good, and the current programmers at Dexon can't match it to make updates of equal quality. Or that are compatible. It's the limit of their capabilities to try to understand it. Jung was apparently just that much of a driven genius, and the side effect was that the project got away from everyone else on his team.
• Teach Him Anger: When Lotto casts a "berserk" spell on Yureka? Don't Ask, Just Run.
• Tell Me About My Father: Zig-zagged. Jang-Gun's long ago given up asking his mother to do this, but Wun-Suk and Kwan-Su ask it for him, and pry a story out of her...which she cuts off right before the relevant details. As always.
• There Are No Good Executives: Everybody seems to be corrupt except the Dev team.
• Threesome Subtext: Arises from Jaeha's Split Personality.
  Lotto: ...Instead of choosing one, I'll accept them as one person.
  [Beat]
  Mirenne: You...love them?
  Lotto: (blushing) I'm just explaining! Stop asking questions!
  Mirenne: Even...Ijoyen?
  Lotto: Don't go that far!
• Threshold Guardians
• Thunder Hammer: In the tourney arc, Boromid pulls out a huge hammer with a head the size of an anvil — his master-level item, Mjölnir, which can control lightning and cause earthquakes.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl:
  • Lotto and Yureka. It's a bit of a sore spot with him.
  • Phuan and Jijon Jang, a thoroughly non-couple example.
• Tournament Arc: The Double Trouble Tournament. Prepare for all the most powerful (read: egotistical) characters to punch, stab, or blast the revenge out of each other through a series of unique power useages and newly discovered Easter eggs. Watching from the company that created the game are one of the game's creators and his assistant, and even they are bamboozled. Unknown to the participants, it is involved in deciding who participates in the next big event.
• UltimateGamer386: Averted! Lotto, Boromid, and Adol are all master-level characters, and they are quite well-known. Played straight if you think Basara is uber-powerful compared to the already suped-up Lotto Party.
  • Averted again when they reach the Dragonlands arc. The top player-killers have numerical rankings and bounties placed on their heads and are highly visible and well known in their community.
• Unwitting Pawn: Lotto throughout the entire time he was working with Elca is a more linear example. Also most people Lotto battles at one time or another, and even all Lost Saga players up until the Beta's end.
• Utopia: It is the view of some that the Net should be like this, or at least limited to its own harmless vices, and that Killers and their trade pervert this ideal.
• Walking Spoilers: Yureka incorporates a lot of character-based reveals, from the First-Episode Twist onward. Maybe avoid the Characters page if you don't want to see whose entries are all white.
• War Arc: Dexon stages the Demon War, and even though it's just another event a few players begin to worry that it may change the very essence of the game if it ends with the wrong turnout.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: ...Mostly the trio of heroes.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: All the AI's who become self-aware.
• What You Are in the Dark: Surprisingly, Lotto tends to be nicer, or more considerate of consequences (except when he surprises us and gets more brutal). The norm in Yureka tends to be more calculating and less likely to flare up. Ruthless players tend toward mercy.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: When all you have is a fireball, everything looks like flambé.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Mirenne just wants to be someone's sister! One of those rare cases that overlaps with Transgender.
• World of Pun: The entire Tokyopop translation was one drawn-out Hurricane of Puns. Especially brutal during what they dubbed the Double Trouble Tournament Arc.
• Wretched Hive: the Dragonlands. It began as a refuge from bounty hunters. Illegal player-killing is so commonplace that if you don't do it you're an aberration and people have seen certain hacks so often that experienced players can easily counter it.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: "YUREKAAA!"
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Due to the nature of Lost Saga each battle can be as much a game of the mind as a test of the body, and Lotto seems to play this every time he fights...when it isn't a curb stomp, of course. Many characters take a turn at it, but Lotto in particular is exceptional at manipulating the properties of the game and the emotions of his enemies.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Miella the MC. Her gushing about yaoi angers one of her co-workers so much the he just kills her.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: When Lotto, Boromid and Ah-dol realize they are really about to die they slide into calling each other by their real names instead of their screen names (Jang-Gun, Kwan-Su, and Woon-Suk, respectively), which they notably initially made a point of using but now come automatically.
  • Averted with Woon-ha (Alpha). Some fans call him by his original screen name, but characters drop his screen name as soon as they realize who he is with a comedic effect, because he changes his name way too much.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Lost Saga is designed so that all the senses are simulated and all sensations can be felt except pain. When a cracker unlocks the pain feature, the sensation of death is enough to kill you. For real.

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