W, also known as W - Two Worlds or W - Two Worlds Apart, is a 2016 South Korean TV drama that aired on MBC, from July 20 to September 14. It consisted of 1 season lasting 16 episodes. It follows the romance between cardiothoracic surgeon Oh Yeon-joo (played by Han Hyo-joo) from the real world and Kang Chul (Lee Jong-suk), the main character of a Manhwa created by her father, Oh Seong-moo (Kim Eui-sung), who's a famous comic book illustrator. Can they develop a relationship when they live in the same place and at the same time but in different dimensions?
W - Two Worlds includes examples of:
- All Just a Dream: Yeon-joo tries to end the comic this way to make sure all her romantic shenanigans with Kang Chul never happened. However, he soon relearns his past ways.
- All There in the Manual: The titles of the episodes were revealed on Apple TV+ and Netflix, not when the series premiered in Korea.
- Anachronic Order: The series makes heavy use of flashbacks.
- Art Initiates Life: In earlier episodes, it is hinted that the comic has brought an entire world to life, although this is changed in later episodes to seemingly implying that the comic world has always existed and that a portal has somehow been opened to it.
- Ascended Fanboy: In universe. Seong-moo's assistant Park Soo-bong was originally a fan who volunteered to be his apprentice. He later becomes Yeon-joo's Secret-Keeper and plays a part in killing Cheol-ho.
- Author Avatar: The public initially believes that Yeon-joo's appearances in the comic are this.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: A major theme in the series. It goes both ways: Kang Chul can talk to Seong-moo by changing the comic frames, and later literally breaks through the comic frame into the real world, and people from the real world can enter the comic should its characters will it.
- Character Development: spoiler:Sang-hoon, the murderer. He was originally written as a One-Shot Character, but when he meets Seong-moo face-to-face, he learns the truth of his purpose and develops his own face and motivation.
- Chekhov's Gunman: spoiler:Sang-hoon, from both a Watsonian and Doylist perspective. He was initially meant only to kill Chul's family to motivate him to be a crime fighter. Later in the series, he becomes the main villain.
- Corrupt Politician: Prosecutor Han Cheol-ho will go to any length to arrest Kang Chul and become the president of Korea.
- Driven to Suicide: Kang Chul after he is pardoned and released from prison after escaping the death penalty. People still don't believe that he wasn't guilty and continue to call him a murderer in public. The extreme guilt almost causes him to jump off the Hangang Bridge in Seoul (a popular suicide spot, with lighted anti-suicide messages clearly visible in the series), but he remembers his "come-from-behind victory" - when he scored the winning shot at the 2004 Olympics at the very last second - which inspires him to carry on.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Initially, sales of W comics weren't performing well, which drives Seong-moo to alcoholism. Even in the present, he can be seen taking a few sips.
- The End... Or Is It?: The sixth episode is titled "The End", which shows the comic ending when Kang Chul drowns. However, the "the end" mark on the comic replaces itself with "to be continued", signifying the beginning of a new story arc.
- Everyone Owns a Mac: Played straight with Seong-moo's studio, but averted with the hospital where Windows computers are seen in the staff room. Justified since Macs are commonly used by creatives in real life.
- Exploiting the Fourth Wall: Sang-hoon, the murderer, for malicious ends.
- Exposition: Flashbacks recapping important plot points are at the beginning of each episode. Medical terms are also defined on-screen.
- Face Death with Dignity: Once Sang-hoon has been erased from the story, Seong-moo himself starts to disappear. He goes to the comic so he will die in the world he has created.
- The Faceless:
- The murderer, before his personality is fleshed out. His head is a black nothingness with random static, until Seong-moo gives him his.
- A variant when Sang-hoon uses Seong-moo as his puppet. The latter has a head, but the eyes, nose and mouth are covered by tight skin.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Seong-moo when Sang-hoon commands him to rewrite the fictional world via his tablet.
- Genre Mashup: The series is part Action, part Thriller, part Romantic Comedy, part Metafiction, part Fantasy, and part documentary about illustrators/the manhwa industry. The various genres are blended surprisingly well.
- Genre Shift: When Yeon-joo gets dragged more frequently into the webtoon, it shifts from an action comic to a romantic one. The readers don't take it lightly.
- Hidden Depths: Yeon-joo is an artist like her father and created Kang Chul in her teenage years.
- Immune to Bullets: Bullets from the comic world can't kill characters from the real world. However, once someone from the real world starts assimilating into the comic world, they can be harmed by comic bullets as well.
- Living Drawing: The characters of the webtoon. Includes Yeon-joo when she is sucked into the comic.
- MacGuffin: Seong-moo's magical drawing tablet, which allows transportation between the real world and the comic world. Later destroyed and replaced by a copy with the same powers.
- Mad Artist: Seong-moo believes he is fully within his rights to devour Kang Chul (his words), after finding he is alive and considering him a monster. He attempts to do this by ending the comic when he drowns, and later, is shot by a mysterious murderer.
- Magical Computer: Seong-moo's tablet. In addition to its Reality Warper powers, it can apparently store files, which the real-world model it is based on (the Wacom Cintiq) cannot do.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: One of Kang Chul's plans to expose Cheol-ho is to kill Sang-hoon by dropping his body from a parking garage, and framing Cheol-ho as the murderer.
- Meaningful Name:
- "W" is the name of the in-universe webtoon depicting Chul's adventures. It is also the title of Chul's television show, derived from the words "who" and "why".
- Kang Chul's name itself is derived from the Korean word for "steel", referencing his personality. This is Lampshaded.
- Move in the Frozen Time: As a consequence of Kang Chul finding out his true nature, time in the webtoon stops. Also because of his realization, he is the only one who can move around in it.
- No Fourth Wall: The webtoon when Kang Chul and Sang-hoon realize their fictional nature.
- One-Letter Title: The Korean title is just the letter "W" which stands for the name of the webtoon in the show.
- Portal Picture: Going through the tablet will bring you to any location drawn in it. When the portal appears in the comic world, looking through it will show things in a comic book style.
- Product Placement:
- Kia cars. Every car driven by the characters is a Kia. The product placement is most obvious when Kang Chul is crossing a road to reach out to a poster on a bus, and all the cars that furiously stop are Kias with visible logos.
- Wacom tablets. Although no logos are shown, five different models of tablets are seen throughout the series.
- Samsung phones. In contrast to all the Apple devices in the studio, everyone's phone is a Samsung.
- Chinese online retailer Jumei and a brand of snacks, as confirmed here
. In-universe, Kang Chul is Jumei's Korean representative. - The book Love Is by Korean illustrator Puuung, which Kang Chul and Yeon-joo use as a guide to go on dates. Real-world copies of the book were sometimes sold with W posters on them.
- Rage Against the Author: Kang Chul initially blames Seong-moo for all his troubles and doesn't buy his explanation that Misery Builds Character. He goes to the real world and shoots Seong-moo, but the latter recovers.
- Reality Warper:
- In the comic world, connecting the tablet to a computer and pressing Enter will summon any object displayed on it, while pressing Backspace note will erase it.
- Kang Chul, once he learns of his fictional status, can go to and from the comic world at will, and bring other characters with him.
- Recursive Reality:
- The show is about a fictionalized version of Korea and a webtoon depicting a fictionalized version of its world.
- Also played straight in another sense, when a comic from the real world ends up in the amnesiac Kang Chul's world, cluing him in on his fictional nature.
- Refugee from TV Land: Kang Chul comes out of the comics into the real world and realizes that he's nothing but a mere character from a successful comic book there in a dramatic way.
- Rewriting Reality: In the real world, the tablet's users can change the comic world at will, even being able to copy the interior and exterior of a real building into the comic just by using a photo as a reference.
- Shout-Out: When discussing the circumstances of Seong-moo's disappearance (later revealed to be that he was sucked into the comic by the bleeding Kang Chul and made a deal with Sang-hoon), Yeon-joo mentions the Stephen King classic Misery.
- Shown Their Work: The series has one of the most realistic portrayals of digital art on TV, and it's not even a show made by or targeted to artists. Most obviously, characters are always seen using drawing tablets to draw digitally, which, despite their magic powers, are invariably shown as connected to computers.note Most people would assume that digital art - if they know it's even possible - would be done with a mouse (or worse, a "make art" button), and even if they knew what a drawing tablet was, they'd most likely assume they function on their own, as with an iPad.
- Split-Personality Takeover: Due to using his face, Sang-hoon's sadistic, murderous personality briefly takes over Seong-moo, which gets him admitted into a mental institution in the comic world.
- Stock Foreign Name: The fake Olympic contestants in the first episode.
- South Korea: Kang Chul.
- Ukraine: Ivan Asimov.
- Spain: Marco Suarez.
- United States: Alex Smith.
- China: Li LiJun.
- Russia: Dmitry Romanov.
- Japan: Shota Ryuheyi.note
- Germany: Lukas Mueller.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The effects of the supernatural happenings surrounding the comic are explored, and they're surprisingly realistic for all parties. For example, Yeon-joo's mysterious appearance and disappearance at Kang Chul's crime scene causes her to be labeled as a possible suspect, especially since she's carrying an ID card that is invalid in the comic world, and the comic's later Genre Shift leads to reader and publisher backlash, which in turn slowly causes Seong-moo to quit and cancel a movie deal.
- World Limited to the Plot: The webtoon literally revolves around Kang Chul. Time fast-forwards during uneventful periods in his life, and it stops when he realizes the truth behind his world. Also, once the comic gains a life of its own, the magically-created frames follow Chul everywhere, even in the real world.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Characters disappear when their purpose in the comic ends.
