Out of the three works by the same author I've finished, Sweet Home remains my favorite. Shotgun Boy is a good thriller and kept me reading. However it also had some of the most frustrating characters I've read in the author's works. I've noticed since Bastard that the author tends to create MCs who are unrealistically forgiving. You literally have a bully-turned-psychopathic-murderer who's going on a rampage killing innocent classmates, and the first thing the FL says to the ML is to not kill the bully. Like are you for real😕 And the ML was bullied for years and even saw thru someone else's eyes how the bully was slaughtering everyone, but he also said he was just gonna punch him😕 And when he's finally gonna beat the bully he really was gonna let the guy live. Like hey, I get that you want to give other people second chances, but the bully sure as h* didn't give a second chance to all these classmates he killed. And he sure wasn't gonna stop killing other people just cuz he got beaten by the MC. Just characters like these, made Shotgun Boy an incredibly frustrating read. I couldn't stop reading but at the same time was so glad I reached the end cuz I kept on feeling that I don't want to be frustrated by these MCs anymore 🤬

Sometimes prequels or spin-offs are unneeded and in my opinion it is the case of all post-apocalyptic stories where mystery played a huge part in the appeal of the work. Once you strip down that intrigue, all that's left is action which feels bland, and that is the case of this manhwa.

Sweet Home is, like a lot of Carnby's work, a very enjoyable thriller with a lot of suspense and definitively a solid zombie story. It has interesting and well developed characters, interesting zombies and managed to maintain a consistent plot. However, did we need to know any more than what's told in the story? Is there a need to know exactly where the zombies are coming from and what they are or will it ruin the mystery surrounding the plot? I believe in the latter, and that is exactly what Shotgun Boy manages to do.

Shotgun boy is almost entirely 70 chapters of people running away with action sequences that are absolutely uninteresting and no development whatsoever. The monsters are also pretty boring and uninteresting, they have the characteristic of talking and remind me quite a bit of Parasyte but that's where I draw the law, they are only developed in a very superficial way. The characters, likewise, fall flat. Where Sweet Home had the theme of bullying and overcoming traumas, Shotgun Boy tries to tackle the same theme but in a much less realistic fashion, and there's no proper conclusion to any of it. The main character just grows balls magically and decides that he should face his problems instead of running away... Well that was not convincing because we didn't see how he overcame his fears and all the hardship he went through, he just magically became someone else.

This is the case for pretty much all of the characters. The bully is also shown as pure evil without any redeeming trait, he's plain unlikeable and serves honestly no purpose. The main antagonist has very little motivation at all and is also merely villain. While there is a background for the bad guys, I thought it was pretty uninteresting. Honestly, I prefer pretending this story doesn't exist rather than acknowledge it as the origin of Sweet Home's story.

What I hate the most is that the story ties into Sweet Home and the last chapter, the epilogue, implies that there might be a sequel connecting the two stories. I'm sorry but I just don't want that. First of all, Sweet Home already expanded all of its material and couldn't continue any longer while remaining good, and second, Shotgun Boy is very disappointing. A sequel is pointless and I hope Carnby goes back to being an innovative thriller writer, than suddenly sticking to a successful formula.

I love Carnby's works. While all of them aren't amazing, he has proven to be very creative at time, Melo Holic being my favourite of his works just because of how refreshing I thought it was. I hope he will continue to make great things and not become a zombie author.

Gotta put aside the unrealistic expectations and just enjoy this for what it is LOL. It's better to read Sweet Home first and then Shotgun Boy even though this was the prequel, for the feels. Seems like there will be more within this series to see the adventures of One and the Sweet Home + Shotgun Boy crews. Really appreciate the last few episodes in SB that tied the two series together.

I'd say SH was more "scary" compared to this and had more quality, since it was a longer series too. But that's also because SB characters had Zero on their side, so it was clear to some extent that they'd be fine. Also felt like the purpose of SB was solely to explain the monsterization that occurs in SH, but still doesn't fully explain the origin of Zero and the other monsters.

Read this all in one go, and for 68 (short!) chapters, SB did a fine job with plot and pacing. Everything happened over the course of one night, from evening until daybreak. Can't go wrong with works from Kim Carnby. 🙂

... Last updated on August 10th, 2022, 6:00am

Gave us a better understanding of what made the monsters in "Sweet Home", while still showing us the idea that humans are more than just singular desires and fleshes of protein.

Very unrealistic. Shotguns in real life are heavy as fuck. A kid like him who has never held a shotgun in his entire life probably can't even hold the thing straight for more than 5 seconds. Never mind actually moving it with the speed and precision to hit an object in midair, wtf! Not to mention the recoil. Plastic video game shotguns do not have recoil. How is he going to learn how to brace himself against the recoil from playing some video game? Just dumb.

I seriously wonder whether the author has actually tried holding a shotgun in real life. Because they feel NOTHING like the plastic shotguns in arcade game stores. The idea that a boy can learn how to handle a real life shotgun by playing video games is simply comical.

Also the part where he stands up and starts insulting his bully. Yeah, uhm there's a thing called fear that stops real life bullying victims from doing that. Super unrealistic behavior.

Not rating this since only 10 chapters are out so far but don't get your hopes up. I'm going to keep reading it out of morbid curiosity but I don't expect it to get any better.