Humans say that ghosts are the scariest beings on earth. But we like to think otherwise.
Ghost Teller is a Korean Webtoon by LICO with illustrations by QTT, telling about the story of ghosts who tell tales of the most terrifying things humanity does.
The original Korean version can be found here
with an English version here, Thailand version here and Indonesian version here. There is also an English fan translation in LINE webtoon for the first season here.
Ghost Teller started in 2017 and is eventually completed in 2020.
This work contains examples of:
- Accidental Murder: In "Story of a Family", Hayun accidentally killed a bully who made fun of Dayun and the end result gave Hayun Trauma-Induced Amnesia and the father took advantage of it to swap identities of his daughters to protect Hayun who was made to believe that she is Dayun and tried to keep her out of the loop of the truth of the incident as much as possible.
- Asian Fox Spirit: The ghost who tells Misun's story has nine tails and claws in the style of a gumiho, the Korean version of the nine-tailed fox.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In "The Story Of The Woman", the titular woman wished for two happiness and one suffering. Said suffering is her husband herself which led to her suffering a case of paranoia due to people badmouthing about her looking plain and not as beautiful as her husband and ends up killing her husband and son, destroying her life in the process.
- Big Brother Instinct: The protagonist of "The Story of Brothers" had this as his biggest motivation so his little brothers can have a good life. This ended tragically for him in the end as he is willing to do anything for his brothers.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Father Kim from "The Story Of That Place".
- Bittersweet Ending:
- "The Story Of That Place". Which doubles as an Ambiguous Ending. The orphanage is closed down and Father Kim's lies are exposed. But it comes at the price of Sister Maria's death along with the children before her arrival. That, and it's implied that Youngshin maybe doing the same thing as Father Kim had, but this time, it's in a twisted idea of paying back the deceased Sister Maria for her kindness.
- "The Story of Brothers" ends with the youngest little brother cured and they lived without too much financial troubles thanks to all the money Mingyu gathered... But Minseo is aware that none of these would be made possible without Mingyu's sacrifice and his death will haunt Minseo for years to come.
- The Cameo: Several characters from "Refund High School", a collaboration project QTT took part in, make some appearance in the season 2 stories.
- A Day in the Limelight: The stories consist of five chapters telling the story of each ghost. The second season involves seven ghosts and seven stories.
- Dub Name Change: The protagonist of "The Story Of Their Love" is named Miho in the Indonesian version while in the English webtoon, she's named Misun.
- Downer Ending: Most of the stories end like this (with the exception of "The story of that place" but it's quite ambiguous).
- Driven to Suicide: Due to constant harassment and cyberbullying, Aram from the story "The True Story Of The Girl" decides to end her life by jumping from a building. Her friend, who started the cyberbullying in a bid to try and get Aram away from the idol business and back to being her friend, is implied to also take her own life in the same way out of crippling guilt.
- Gone Horribly Right:
- In "The True Story Of The Girl", Aram's best friend spread fake rumors about Aram to destroy her idol career in hopes of taking Aram's attention away from the show business and return to being her friend again. It worked, but those rumors had mentally scarred Aram so much that she was Driven to Suicide.
- In "The Story of Brothers", the older brother started as a streamer to gain additional income for the youngest little brother's surgery of pneumonia. He did get the income he needed, but he ended up starting to take his stunts to great extremes which eventually led to his death.
- Green-Eyed Monster: A few incidents that led to the character in the limelight dying is because of this. Examples include:
- Misun's brother in law had liked her for a long time though he gave up after she chose his brother, Sangmin. But seeing her getting along with the boy who was the son of the person he and his brother fought for made him envious to the point of killing her.
- Aram's best friend spread fake rumors about her as she is envious of Aram's fame and how her attention is at her fans instead of her. Spreading it in the hope that Aram will stop being an idol and be her best friend again. It went as well as expected.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: A titular theme of this webtoon is that humans are far more terrifying and evil than the ghosts are. One of the ghosts even lampshades this by stating that she doesn't want to be cruel to the living because "it feels too human."
- Karma Houdini: The titular villains in four of the stories in the first season get away with all the crimes they did. Particularly, the titular photographer in "The Story Of The Photographer", the brother in law in "The Story Of Their Love", the corrupt higher up in "A Son's Story" and the best friend and people who joined the cyber bullying of Aram in "The True Story Of The Girl" (Though season 2 reveals that the best friend eventually committed suicide out of crippling guilt).
- Kill the Cutie:
- Jiyeon from "The Story Of The Photographer".
- Even some of the titular protagonist are prone, Misun, Aram, and Father Kim's little brother are killed at their story.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Season 2 opens with a girl heavily implied to be Sujin, Aram's best friend, jumping from the roof and committing suicide. The same way Aram died.
- Season 2 has "Story from Afar" where the epilogue reveals that Runia eventually fell out of fame and can no longer piggy back her career and fame through the incident that drew attention to her in the first place.
- Another from Season 2 in "Story of a Family" has the father who had Dayun and Hayun's identities swapped eventually died in a car accident in the epilogue and Dayun is left with no one to take care of her and the house is eventually abandoned.
- Lighter and Softer: The "Cuts Teller" extra's are this and often included Shout-Out to other media.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In "The Story of Their Love", the son of the man who wanted to demolish a town in place for a special needs center to help people like his own son befriends Misun with a Commonality Connection of being chefs and the friendship could have helped the two parties to come to a mutual understanding, but the son's friendship with Misun was made a point of contention by Misun's brother in law who was envious of such a display that he killed Misun in envious rage and eventually proceed to frame the son for Misun's death to further vilify his father in the eyes of Misun's husband and the people of his community.
- Poor Communication Kills: A few instances.
- In "The True Story Of That Girl", had Sujin actually talked with Aram, she wouldn't have been driven with envy and started a rumor of cyber-bullying her.
- In "The Story of Brothers", had Mingyu and Minseo actually talked things out, Mingyu wouldn't have taken his steam stunts to great extremes to the point of death.
- Shared Universe: The epilogue of the webcomic features a cameo of Caron from Ghost Theater and the teacher from Refund High School, another series that LICO worked on, and confirming that Ghost Theater shared a similar universe as Ghost Teller and Refund High School.
- Sinister Minister: Father Kim is a priest from the story "The Story Of That Place" who has been secretly killing the children within the orphanage by poisoning them with salt in their food.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: One of the ghosts in the webtoon is a very sad and depressed ghost girl with very long, stringy hair.
- There Are No Therapists:
- Averted for "The Story Of The Woman", they do exist, but the woman refused to take treatment for her mental problems.
- Played straight in "The story of a child" as the mother in the story suffered from post-partum depression after giving birth to her son and when said son eventually died, she suffered from delusions that made her believe that the puppy she adopted to cope is her son while the child she "adopted" is a dog and no one was there to help her out of it.
- Tomato in the Mirror:
- In "The Story Of The Woman", the woman was under the impression that it was someone else who killed her husband and son... only to find out in the end that said killer is the woman herself, who killed them out of paranoia.
- "The Story of a Family" has Dayun, the main protagonist, realize and remember that she is actually Hayun, and her identity was swapped by her father so Hayun could avoid scrutiny from her Accidental Murder. Unfortunately, this doesn't end well and Hayun later died via overdosing on her pills.
- Tragic Villain: The mother in "The story of a Child" is a grieving mother who adopted a pet dog in likeness of her deceased son to cope but her grief caused her to think that the pet dog is her actual son and the human child she "adopted" to accompany her pet dog is a dog rather than human, when in reality the child she "adopted" was one she kidnapped and eventually killed.
- Trauma Conga Line:
- The titular woman from "The Story Of The Woman" goes through this, especially when she found out about the Tomato in the Mirror moment.
- Poor poor Aram. Rumors spread about her being a delinquent and a fake, unintentionally got caught in a scandal and assumed dating with another idol, her fans then turned against her for said rumors to the point of breakdown and Driven to Suicide. She just can't get a break.
- The Stinger: The end of season 1 has a Vampire visit the mansion the six characters used to tell their stories.
- Villain Protagonist: The titular photographer in "The Story Of The Photographer". Also doubles as Punch-Clock Villain because his motive was to earn some living for himself.
