Placebo is a manhwa that follows two stepbrothers who don’t have the best relationship. Woojin is the younger of the two, and he has a dark fascination with his older stepbrother, Wooyeon. We don’t really understand where this obsession comes from, it seems like it may have started as admiration, which then morphed into something twisted. Wooyeon finds his younger stepbrother annoying and is often irritable towards him, treating him poorly. As a way to get revenge, Woojin comes across a book on hypnosis and suddenly learns how to hypnotise his brother. He uses this to sexually assault him. This continues for quite some time untilWoojin starts to grow bored or frustrated, realising that it’s no fun when the person doesn’t remember or isn’t really present.

Reading this is extremely unsettling and uncomfortable. We see a character who, in a state where they are not conscious or aware, is being violated repeatedly. It’s disturbing, not attractive...and to think the creator still tries to force a romantic relationship between these two characters in the end is shocking.

There’s another love interest for Wooyeon; someone he genuinely likes and has a big crush on. This character felt like the silver lining in an otherwise twisted and disturbing dynamic. I thought the story would take a healthier direction; Wooyeon would find out what had been happening to him, be understandably traumatised, and possibly find support in this new love interest. But the creator seems intent on destroying any possibility of that, forcing the two stepbrothers to end up together despite the endless abuse, manipulation, and sexual violence between them. Oh, and ignoring the fact that they are step brothers. It doesn't matter to me as a reader that they are not blood-related. The fact is that they were raised as siblings. Therefore, to me, they are siblings. So, this dynamic is quite sickening, and I was willing to look past it if it took a healthy turn, but alas, here we are.

To make this happen, the story ruins the potential love interest in a ridiculous and uncreative way, and introduces other characters who serve very little purpose. All of it seems crafted solely to make the ending with the stepbrothers somehow "work", which is appalling.

The story was horrible...horrible in how it handled its themes, horrible in the creative direction it took, and horrible in the way these acts were portrayed. The fact that someone could write something this disturbing and not present it as disturbing, or fail to acknowledge the harm being done, is not something I can praise or show grace towards.

It reminded me of the recent French case involving a woman who discovered that her husband had been drugging her and allowing men to assault her while she slept. Reading Placebo around the same time made the experience even more horrendous. Both stories hinge on the same violation: someone unconscious and unaware, being used and harmed.

As a reader, I truly hoped that the gravity and immorality of those acts would be addressed. I hoped the story would acknowledge how vile and violating Woojin’s actions were. I remember thinking, There’s no world in which these two can end up together. But the creator forced that ending anyway, leaving behind a horribly written piece of fiction that is neither romantic, nor compelling, nor worth recommending.

Each chapter manages to sicken you more than the last. There’s little to no closure for many characters, and the ending itself feels abrupt and terribly thrown together. It reads as unfinished.

I firmly believe that any theme, no matter how disturbing, can be presented in fiction. But what matters is how it’s handled. You would hope that topics like these would be addressed with care, and portrayed for what they truly are: harmful, disturbing, and immoral. Instead, this manhwa sexualises and normalises these acts for the sake of the plot, and that, to me, is unforgivable.