On the other side, a being named Lessa had just awoken to this world and walks among its residents to observe how much the world has changed in his slumber.
These two soon run into each other and Raynold learns about the history of the Demans and how Lessa has an important role in their past and future.
Lessa is an original fantasy/action webcomic from Naver, written and illustrated by POGO. Season 1 of the original series can be read here
; Season 2 (titled Lessa: The Crimson Knight) & 3 (Lessa: Servant of Cosmos) here. Season 1 & 2 can be read in English in full here and here, respectively.
Tropes provided:
- All There in the Manual: Q&As with POGO reveal extra details about the characters and setting, such as confirming that Hexagon Island is in the Southern Hemisphere or the Apostles' heights.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The Demans. Though, as time goes on, we meet subversions—humans who just thought it'd be cool to become one, but aren't interested in killing—and learn that many of the prominent Demans had reasons to turn to evil.
- A God Am I: Averted with Lessa who is a god at the beginning of the story. Played with Ares who takes the powers of a god.
- A God I Am Not: Lessa denounces himself as a god.
- Art Shift: POGO is capable of drastically different styles and it shows. A painterly style is often used for hallucinations or when portraying Lessa and Ra's divine discussions, while a different painterly style is occasionally used for dramatic flashbacks or monologues.
- Author Avatar: POGO appears as a Deman responsible for designing the Demans' clothing.
- Badass Normal: Rano and Jin are normal humans hunting Demans.
- Bad Boss: Invoked by Ares, who only allowed the more Ax-Crazy of the Second Generation to create followers. In doing so, he hoped the Third Generation would hate their superiors enough to try and kill them, as an experiment to see whether or not the student could surpass the teacher.
- Big Damn Heroes: Happens often.
- In Season 1, when White is about to kill Rano, who was caught off-guard while buying groceries and thus mostly unarmed, Jin shows up and shoots off his horn.
- In Season 2, Mindy-Mindy is about to kill Lucy before Lessa, who'd been apart from the group since the beginning of the season, stops her.
- In Season 2, the militia ends up in a dire situation, with the commander hoping he'll have some kind of Die or Fly moment.. before Lexter's father shows up on the scene.
- In Season 3, when White is struggling against Luciel and ends up paralyzed, Lessa appears and cuts through.
- Big Damn Reunion: Between Rano and Lucy, at the end of Season 1.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Diane, Rano's previous reincarnation. Although, to be completely honest, we still do not know her exact reasons for betraying Lessa. Season 3 reveals that Luciel deceived her, and that her soul was overcome with grief after realizing what she had done.
- Bittersweet Ending: Season 2, in which Ares is defeated and the world is thus saved from the Demans, but Lessa is left to grieve as he delivers Ares's soul.
- Black Eyes of Crazy: Demans' have these when unleashing their Pentahorn (or higher) powers, although it's subverted in that this still applies to White post-Heel–Face Turn or Miena who is perfectly sane and heroic by the time she achieves this.
- Black Eyes of Evil: When Dark Lessa, who managed to escape through a small crack in Lessa's heart, takes over his body, Lessa's eyes become completely black - like space, with stars floating inside.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Ra and his Apostles have shades of this, as they're well-intentioned but don't necessarily act according to a human morality. Lessa is closer to humanity, but only after spending thousands of years among them.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: White is still holding a grudge against Rano and Jin for shooting off his horn. They barely remember who he is.
- Came Back Wrong: Ares when he was revived by Lessa centuries ago as a soul sucking immortal.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Played with. Many people see the Demans as this, and certainly, some people who certainly are this want to join them for that reason. (And a few, like Caleb, toe the line.) However, it's worth noting that in the application round we see, Mindy-Mindy—the sole subversion—is the only one White accepts, with him stating that Ares would despise the others given that Ares himself is more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist who believes Utopia Justifies the Means.
- Cat Fight: Subverted. Lucy's fight against Belle and Mindy-Mindy starts off with fanservice in the form of skimpy outfits, but it rapidly degenerates into a vicious, brutal affair where only one leaves alive.
- Chess with Death: Parodied. Raynold plays chess with Ra and thinks that he'll be given powers and be brought back to life if he wins. Ra makes it clear that this is not the case. They continue playing anyway.
- Coincidental Broadcast: A tv falls and turns on right as Raynold and Lessa finish a talk, letting them know Ares' plan.
- Cosmic Chess Game: The plot is essentially one between Ra and Dark Lessa.
- Crapsack World: In this world, if you're not rich enough to afford living in the Hexagon Field, your fate is practically sealed: you either become a Deman, or have your soul sucked out by one of them. Even more of a crapsack world after Ares takes over the Hexagon Field.
- Cucumber Facial: Miena, Yuzuru, and Lucy do one together.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Diane's betrayal.Rabiel: After that day, Lord Lessa, "the complete good", lost his innocent belief. The only reason Lord Lessa could counter that woman was because he originally contained an absolute good that juxtaposed the absolute destroyer. However, since realizing that there is no such thing as an absolute good, he became more like us. Fearing betrayal, crying at unfairness, wishing that the world would change..."
- Dark Is Not Evil: Lessa and Lucy, as two Demans/Deman-adjacent beings but completely heroic.
- Death by Origin Story: Rano and Lucy both on the same night, but in different ways. Rano watched his mother (and dog) be killed by a Deman, blacked out because his powers awakened, and woke up the next morning to find Lucy missing. Meanwhile, Lucy's friends were slaughtered by Belle and she herself was made into a Deman and essentially abducted.
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Subverted. Rano makes an attempt to do this in order to get Ra to revive him, but Ra outright tells him not to bother with trying to outsmart him.
- Disappeared Dad: Rano's father, who was killed by a burglar many years ago.
- Downer Ending: Season 1, which ends with The Bad Guy Wins.
- Downer Beginning: Season 2, which starts off with Rano apparently committing suicide.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Subverted in the Season 2 finale. It's made obvious to the reader that this isn't the case, but when Lessa is sent to the past, he initially believes that the events of the series were only a prophecy he saw in his dreams. It serves as something of a cruel Hope Spot for him, as he vows to do better with this knowledge of the future, only for Dark Lessa to reveal that it already happened.
- Dream Walker: Lessa.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: A lot of people have noted that Lessa looks remarkably feminine; there was even this one time when a man, who worked in a brothel, suggested that Lessa should work there for a couple of days. There is actually a reason for this: after Dark Lessa was sealed inside of him, originally a simple goat, his appearances changed to match those of her, as she was trying to get out.
- Eldritch Abomination: Dark Lessa. Also, to a certain extent, Ra, The Father of All Beings.
- Evil All Along: Played with. It was clear from the beginning that Ares, the current leader of demans had some sort of a hidden agenda (and, well, you know, the whole "being the big bad guy ruling over the Obviously Evil demans" thing), but no one could've guessed just how much of an evil bastard he is.
- Evil Is Cool: What a lot of people seem to think in-universe. Those criminals were sure very eager to throw away their humanity and become Demans because it's so amazing.
- Expecting Someone Taller: The first reaction of Demans to Lessa, their God and creator, is:Deman: [surprised] That little one is our Father?
- Extreme Omnigoat: As a goat, Lessa chewed through just about everything. It's Played for Laughs when he eats Rabiel's papyrus, though also Played for Drama as him eating Luciel's flowers is one of the reason why Luciel hates him.
- Eye Colour Change: Lessa's eyes change their colour whenever he uses his divine powers. The same happens with Lucy, when Split Personality Take Over happens.
- Eye Scream: We don't see what exactly happens to Lessa's right eye, presumably, upon the fall into the ocean, but the results aren't pretty: later, we're shown a large amount of blood running down his cheek, and for the whole next chapter he's got a bandage, covering it entirely. And Rano in the second season post time-skip.
- False Friend: Diane, though she subverts it when it's revealed that she believed Lessa was this to her. Ares plays it more straight, as revealed in the last chapter of the Prelude.
- Fangs Are Evil: Subverted in Lessa's case, played straight with most of the Demans.
- Fantastic Science: Jin and Miena are delighted to have Lessa around, as it means they can scientifically research the nature of a god.
- A Fate Worse Than Death: The beings in the god realm consider being barred from reincarnation to be this, as it means being deprived of all the encounters and experiences of your future lives.
- From Bad to Worse: In Season 3, it turns out that sealing Dark Lessa is part of Luciel's plan, and doing so allows him to transform into a god. Things look dire... and then it turns out that the sealing failed, and Dark Lessa awakens—which is far, far worse.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: How most of the higher Demans came to be. They generally started as slaves, child workers, or victims of persecution—which then drove them to obtain power at any cost and lash out at the rest of the world.
- God in Human Form: Lessa. Also, Dark Lessa, who looks just like a human woman, and Ra, who resembles a man with long black hair. Dark Lessa is later revealed to be something of an inversion, as it's not that she looks like a human—Ra made humans look like her.
- God of Evil: Lessa. Subverted, since while he is a god of night and death, he's one of the, if not the most, kind and innocent character in the series. Played straight with Dark Lessa, who's only wish is to swallow the universe and destroy everything.
- God's Hands Are Tied: A recurring theme throughout the series. On one hand, the gods' lack of interference in the mortal world is why Ares resents them—and why he wants to do better—but on the other hand, it's shown that the gods' intervention can cause a lot of problems, and there's a price to pay for it.
- The Gods Must Be Lazy: How Ares feels, after witnessing so much misery that the gods seemingly do nothing about, and it drives his Godhood Seeker tendencies so that he can give the world with a proactive "god". In reality, the truth is more complicated, as it's more that God's Hands Are Tied.
- Happiness in Slavery:
- In Zone 3, the only way to live a good life is to become one of Belle's "dolls". As a result, despite the fact that it means selling oneself into slavery, many people make it an aspiration.
- In the past, Lessa freed Ares from a life of slavery, only for Ares to devote himself to being Lessa's servant, much to Lessa's confusion. As Ares put it—though he hated being a slave—he finds peace in "oppression" if by the hands of a benevolent god like Lessa.
- Healing Factor: Even with most of his powers missing, Lessa still manages to recover in a very short period of time from being impaled through his abdomen by a giant tentacle monster - the direct result of which was his guts being "all over the place".
- Hellbent For Leather: The choice of modern attire for Demans is all-black leather.
- Hellish Pupils: During his transformation from a goat to a human, Lessa's eyes still have horizontal, goat-like pupils. Rather than creepy, though, it looks goofy and adorable.
- Heroic BSoD: Lessa experiences a brief one after Ares takes away his powers and then throws him off the cliff into the sea, asking Jin to kill him, since he's "a corrupted person". Then he tries to jump out of the window. Granted, it was the second floor and, most likely, Lessa was aiming for escape, but still. Note, that when they stop him from doing that, he becomes borderline hyterical, screaming that they're not going to get anything out of him; judging by the bottle of pills and a glass of water we see afterwards, they had to give him some sort of sedatives to calm him down. Actually, understandable, since he was betrayed by someone who was like a son to him and who he thought would always be on his side. In the second season, we have Miena, who has been turned into a deman by Belle and saw Dark Lessa.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: In Season 1, humans create an artificial sun, with the idea that it'll protect them against Demans even at night. Only for Demans to take over and repurpose the sun for their own uses so that it creates fake sunlight. However, at the end of Season 2, Lexter and Blake hijack the sun so that it produces real sunlight once more—therefore wiping out most of the Demans in Hexagon Field.
- Horned Humanoid: All of the demans. Also, Lessa, during his transformation from a goat to an actual person.He still has them, but they only show up when he's angry and/or uses his powers.
- Horns of Villainy: The Demans. Subverted in Lessa's case.
- Humanoid Abomination: Lessa's true form is a giant, faun-like creature with goat's legs and ears, two huge horns curving back from his forehead, long wavy hair and glowing pale-blue eyes.
- Humans Are Special: Lessa believes this, citing that there are things that humans can do that even gods cannot.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: A recurring theme is that although the deities don't help matters, a lot of the problems and tragedy caused throughout the series came from humans and their own despicable actions/screw-ups.
- Humble Goal:
- Lexter admits that, as silly as it might sound, all he wants is to go home and eat a meal with his family again, to which Rano replies that his own dream is pretty much the same.
- Subverted in the bonus Christmas episode, though Played for Laughs. Lucy goes around playing Santa, with the intention of giving her loved ones nice items for gifts... except Rano (in his sleep) asks for a girlfriend and Jin (also in his sleep) asks for someone to marry, much to her dismay.Her solution? Lessa, meanwhile, asks for world peace, at which point she gives up.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Lessa in the past, being run through by Diane's spear.
- Individuality Is Illegal: Individuality is discouraged among the Apostles, as it led to Luciel's defection. It's why they all wear the same clothes and the white crown. However, it's subverted at the end of Season 2, where Ra tells them that they're now free to remove their crowns to unlock their full power.
- Interfaith Smoothie: The "true" religion in Lessa's version of Earth goes with the idea that to an extent, all religions have aspects of the truth/call the same thing by different names. Ra is known as an Egyptian god but also seems to be the God in Christianity (Rano accuses him of being responsible for the flood, although Ra doesn't confirm if this actually occurred), with his Apostles representing the known archangels in Christianity. On the other hand, the notion of Reincarnation as an afterlife, rather than the existence of Heaven or Hell, takes its cues from other religions.
- In Mysterious Ways: Why Ra doesn't believe in directly interfering with human affairs. Humans, good or bad, will eventually get their karma in one lifetime or another, and so everything balances out.
- Irony: Before the beginning of the story, Anderson was dangerously ill. Fearing death and desperate, he turned for help to demans and immediately after turning slaughtered all of the other hospital residents, all the while blaming his doctor, Jin, for not finding the cure in time. The dramatic irony is in the fact that the exact same day when he gave up, Jin was going to tell him that they're, in fact, have found the cure and that the clinical trial had also been successfully finished. If only he waited for at least a day or even just a couple of hours more...Jin: The one who made it good-for-nothing was you.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Lessa
- Kill It with Fire: The Deman are weak to fire.
- La Résistance: The militia in Season 2.
- Like a Son to Me: Lessa considers Ares like a son.
- Luke, You Are My Father: At one point Ares calls Lessa the father of the Deman. This is also relationship between Ares and Lessa, with Lessa being the father.
- Mauve Shirt: The militia—the commander especially—who are given enough screentime to be Back for the Finale. And who are subsequently wiped out at the start of Season 3 to up the stakes.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: There are several characters who slender yet incredibly strong.
- Mystical White Hair: Interestingly enough, in the beginning Lessa's hair were much more closer to white than they are now, which could be a metaphor for Lessa slowly losing his childlike innocence and purity. You can notice them slowly begin to change their color after he, full of despair, revives Ares, and finally, in the end, become ashen-grey, the way they're now, after Diane betrays and kills him. Compare this and his hair color from any other chapter.
- Nightmare Face: This manhwa has it's fair share of terrifying faces.
- The Nothing After Death: What eternal death is: those who die eternally, such as Ares and Ra, are sent to the void within Dark Lessa.
- Now, Let Me Carry You: Lucy to Rano.
- Older Than They Look: Many Demans.
- Once More, with Clarity: In Season 2, Gabriel guides Rano through Ra's memories of the beginning and his encounters with Dark Lessa, showing her Lack of Empathy. We see these memories again in Season 3, as Ra thinks over them, which shows a more emotional depiction of Dark Lessa, as she expresses remorse over destroying Ra's gifts and actually looked fond when they first met.
- Our Angels Are Different: There's Ra's Apostles, who are all real-life angels from Christianity such as the Archangel Raphael, Archangel Gabriel, etc., and who take the stage in Season 3.
- Our Demons Are Different: Although Deman are much more closer to vampires than to actual demons, they have some similarities, those being horns, fangs, supernatural strength and an unholy power to take other people souls.
- Our Souls Are Different: Can be used to prolong one's life, can become a ghost, like Rano's mother who's still tied to their old house.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The Demon are kind of this. Sunlight burns them, they can sire other Deman, but suck souls instead of blood. They also have the fashion scene of the vampires from the Blade movies.
- Painting the Medium: Characters have different colored speech bubbles based on what they are. Humans have normal black on white, Demans have white on red, the Archangels have black on bright blue. The gods have unique speech bubbles; Lessa has white on dark blue, and Ra has black on a yellow to white gradient.
- When characters are using large amounts of power, their speech bubbles change to reflect this.
- Parental Issues: Ares. Lessa was basically his father figure, and most of his motivation stems from his relationship with Lessa.
- Pietà Plagiarism: Ares cradles Lessa's body in his hands after Diane impaled Lessa's chest with a spear and Dark Lessa almost escaped his body
- Playing with Fire: Ra’s powers Ignition.
- Please Put Some Clothes On: Young Ares' reaction upon his first meeting with Lessa. Lessa, not having any idea what modesty and nudity is, politely refuses, saying that Ares can keep it to himself.
- Poke the Poodle: How Lessa declares that he's become corrupted: he's so evil now that he can even steal bread.
- Power Dyes Your Hair: Every Deman's hair becomes a few shades lighter when using their Pentahorn powers; e.g. Lucy's hair becomes pink. Similarly, Lessa's hair returns to its original pale blue whenever he's using a significant amount of power.
- Really 700 Years Old: Ares was born in Ancient Egypt. Many of the other Demans from third generation and up, while younger than him, are also fairly old; White is one of the youngest at about a hundred years. Ryan is the only ones who averts this and it's part of why Ares recruited him, as he wanted someone with modern knowledge (i.e. how to use the internet).
- Red Baron: The titular Crimson Knight of Season 2—a title shared jointly between Rano and Lucy. Though the true origin comes from Lessa, who went around fighting Demans to distract them from the comatose Rano.
- Religion of Evil: This is how the Ares runs the Deman, his even the high priest of his religion. Later after taking Lessa's powers he becomes its god.
- Remembered I Could Fly: Raynold doesn't remember what happened the night his family got attacked and how he survived it, until five years later at the exact moment he needed to.
- Sacrificial Lamb: "This goat actually, Lessa has the only threat to this world sealed inside. It's a sacrificial lamb to save everything".
- Satanic Archetype: Split between Dark Lessa, Lessa, and Luciel. Dark Lessa is the God of Evil who is explicitly compared to the Devil at one point, possesses dark powers as her name suggests, and tends to act as The Corrupter to others; Lessa (also crossing over with Messianic Archetype) has inherited said dark powers and whose (however accidental) creation of Demans coincided with his fall from grace; Luciel is a Fallen Angel whose name is believed to have possibly been the original name of Lucifer, the iconic example. In the last case, Rabiel eventually states explicitly that he's become the Satan of humanity, and Lessa confirms that his new name, after abandoning Ra's mantra, is Lucifer.
- Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: The Dark Lessa was sealed inside a goat, the most pure being, who later transformed into a person under this influence and became Lessa.
- Secret Test of Character: Although Ra comes off as antagonistic to Lessa at first, Lessa comes to realize that Ra is merely testing him and in fact supports his decision to help humanity.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Subverted. Dark Lessa sends Lessa back into the past with the opportunity to kill Ares, therefore preventing him from creating the Demans, but Lessa refuses and leaves the present unchanged, on the basis that Ares as a child has done no wrong and shouldn't be punished for his future self's deeds.
- Smoking Is Cool: Averted. According to a Q&A with POGO, the only smoker is Caleb and Belle; White (who the fan thought seemed like the type to smoke) refuses to precisely because he associates it with Caleb, while Jin quit for unspecified reasons and Rano also quit because the reality is that smoking is detrimental to one's health and he needed to be in top form to fight Demans.
- Spell My Name With An S: Reynold vs. Rainold, Lexter vs. Rexter, Raviel vs. Rabiel, etc.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Ra fell in love with Dark Lessa—though POGO notes in a Q&A that it's a type of love beyond human comprehension, rather than strictly romantic—but had to seal her away to protect his world, when he realized she couldn't understand. Season 3 reveals that his feelings may have not been so unrequited, though, and that she also lamented their fundamental incompatibility.
- Starts with a Suicide: Season 2 begins with Rano killing himself.
- Super-Strength: All of the Demans have it.
- Sweet Sheep: Goat, technically, but Lessa's original self—considered the purest being in existence—is reminiscent of a sheep.
- Technicolor Eyes: Lessa's eyes change their color when he uses his divine powers to a neon purple with blue and white.
- Tempting Fate: The people inside the Hexagon Field have capitalized on the Deman phenomena making masks, plays movies, and even theme parks. Rano even comments on how dangers they are.
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Dark Lessa.
- Time Abyss: Of the god realm's inhabitants, only Lessa is younger than the planet.
- Time Skip: Between the first and the second season.
- Too Dumb to Live: White, who attempts to extract Lessa's vapour for himself to become stronger without Lessa's consent and almost gets killed for his trouble. Also, Demans who attack Lessa in the beginning of the second season.
- Transhuman Treachery: People are more than willing to give up their humanity to become a Deman and there's even an application process. Once turned, the ex-human Deman stop caring about human lives and view then as nothing more then a meal. For example, newly turned Mindy Mindy has no problems with killing three people whatsoever.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Where is Hexagon Island. Conjecture can place it as potentially in the Mediterranean (Ares is an Egyptian, and the island appears to have been initially settled by Europeans)
- Whole Episode Flashback: Occasionally done, usually to exposition on Lessa and Ares's long history together, or to explain Lessa's origins.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: When Ares sees just a part of Dark Lessa's true form, his eyes literally start to bleed."The unknown being... beyond the range of a human's perception..."
