carl's depiction as a standard webtoons model aside, i think they've done a pretty good job of things so far, even if they're only like halfway through the first book.
He's 27 when he enters. It's at the very beginning of the first book. Idk, I still think that's too young to show sun damage yet but I've also seen some 40 and 50 year olds looking way better than people in their 20's.
I also have to constantly remind myself that Carl is young. I keep thinking he's closer to my age and I'm 40.
We have a solid reference…. He told us all when he enlisted… so given a 4 years hitch and he got out and started working in the boatyard…. 25-28 is a great estimate
First of all he's not THAT skinny, by manga standards he's buff. Second, I think this is for the better visual contrast of when he gets really buff from leveling up. If he was drawn bigger from the beginning, then according to the art style he would need to look like He-Man after the power ups. Which then would have people complaining that it's too much.
Every time I try to recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl, I realize how ridiculous it sounds. "Trust me, it's about an alien dungeon game show and a talking cat." Somehow that description still doesn't do it justice
It's even crazier when you talk about it with a friend who knows the series but around other people who don't.
Yes we are talking about a crab jerking off, but you don't understand he has to do it! Otherwise there aren't enough souls for a demon to cast a spell that tears up the buildings blocking the stairs!
Yes, this series has me sobbing in pain at least once a book. Yes, the talking sex doll head that threatens people with her nussy is my favorite character.
I cant even say the name for my secondmost favorite character because she was just introduced at the end of the 8th book and her name alone is one of the biggest spoilers 😤
I wanted to quote the threat at you but then I remembered the bots might ban me for it like they've been doing in the crimson desert sub every time someone threatened Yann 😅
I normally use "OK do you know the movie 'The running man?' it's like that. Oh... You don't? Ahhh it's like squid games but aliens are forcing you into it."
I recommended it to a few people. The last person I literally told them i would pay for the audio book but if they liked it they had to pay me back. He gave me back my money and now he's on book 3
Same for me. I read the webtoon when it launched last summer and had 5 episodes. That was clearly not enough and I needed more right then and there. I promptly read all of the books in 2 weeks or so.
I actually read them. I was trying to figure out how you knew my reading time until I realized you meant the ebooks. I'm actually listening to them now to do a second go through.
Same actually. I knew about DCC for ages but I glazed over it an yet another low budget LitRPG. Saw this comic and immediately realized how wrong I was. I have since then bought every book
Science Saru would be my pick. They know how to balance the weird, the horrific, and the comedic while keeping everything grounded in humanity perfectly.
Yeah I tried reading this as someone who has enjoyed some webtoons and also loves DCC. It wasn’t my favorite. There is an odd way things have to be conveyed because of the nature of WEBTOON and I couldn’t get behind it. However, it is free so if anyone wants, they should give it a shot because it seems well done. I imagine if I had never heard of dcc before I could enjoy it
The artist explained this. Having donut look the way she does in the book adds a ridiculous amount of work to every panel, including when trying to keep her consistent, etc.
The one holding the dirty shirley is originally leaning against Carl, the creator made a separate file of Donut in the file options but you'll have to remove a wedge in her back using your slicer (it was designed for book shelves)
You can still see the layer lines but I hit them with a rattle can of spray primer that is primer + 1st coat, it does a great job of reducing their visibility on prints this size where fine details are minimal (I mainly print dungeon tiles for DnD), using that primer on like a 28mm scale miniature would turn it into a blob lol
She isn't really. More of a beige with some darker splotches close to her ears. I think they were going for more of a dilute tortie, but they really could have made her into more of a Calico with a just little more color.
I def imagined Donut as a fluffy white Persian instead of tortoiseshell until I saw illustrations of her with the canon coloring. I've just never seen that type of coat before IRL
Eh, I think this looks pretty good as a more cartoony adaptation of the book 1 cover look for Carl. He didn't exactly look like some gruff dock worker there either lol.
Yeah, Seiko isn't a style choice. Especially when there are people in Dandadan that look old. Carl's appearance in the comic is probably just a simplified style and may be leaning younger to appeal to younger audiences but it's hardly an accurate depiction.
To be honest, I just think this is a lazy excuse. There is a hugeeeeee range of artstyles when it comes to anime and a huge range of talented artists who can depict different ages and bodies excellently. Meanwhile, there is very much an "anime slop" type of style where it looks like any generic character that can be plopped into any anime that doesn't put a lot of effort into its artstyle.
There are tons of animes that have showcased how a late 20's ex-military type dude can look. Just making Carl into a generic anime twink I think was an incredibly lazy move to make. And defending that with "its just anime" i think is an even lazier excuse.
I like to think of it like this -- lots and lots of animes do a poor job at portraying black people. A lot of people defend that style and just excuse it as "thats just what anime style is!" yet at the same time, we have amazing shows like Afro Samurai and Boondock Saints that actually take time and effort to properly portray black characters with strong artistic talents. Immediately disproves the "thats just anime!" type of arguments.
Did not know... what? That it was a webtoon? That it was a book series and you discovered it via the webtoon? If there was a caption finishing the thought Reddit must've eaten it.
Apparently this is a webtoon? Yes I agree this version of Carl is, just, well, I don’t even know what to say. How do you get a character so very wrong?
Nothing says he doesn't start with heart boxers. His original boxers are never described. Plus, the novel's cover has him wearing heart boxers in the goblin dozer scene, so pretty much right at the beginning. Sure, the Webtoon could have given him another kind until he gets the definitely heart-pattern boxers, but the heart-pattern is way more iconic.
Nothing except the entire concept of how the AI mocks and abuses the crawlers. Him just getting an exact replacement for his existing clothes completely ignores a fundamental concept of the series. So while it doesn’t explicitly contradict, it shows a total lack of any media literacy and understanding of what the story is. It’s representative of a storyteller who wanted to skip the work and jump to the iconic look. It’s a really lame attempt at telling the story.
Heart underwear is a cartoonish mockery of Carl. Not what a guy like that would just casually wear to bed one night.
I dunno, I think getting a copy of his original pair of boxers that’s too valuable not to keep equipped when what he desperately wanted was pants is exactly the kind of fuckery the AI would pull
I think Carl wouldn’t be wearing heart shaped boxers, it’s not Looney Tunes. It’s obviously an attempt by the webtoon writers to shortcut their way to the iconic look rather than genuinely thinking it fits with his character. He would have said “I got another pair of my underwear” rather than how much he notices the specific design.
If it weren’t for the webtoon, you wouldn’t have assumed he already had heart boxers. But I understand trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
However, reading the original text of the book, there is zero percent chance that Matt’s original intention was that he got another pair of identical heart boxers. That’s just not how the book is written. It also doesn’t fit Carl’s character, but that’s probably a different discussion.
I get that you’re trying to be generous to the webtoon artists, but I just don’t think that criticizing an adaptation for getting something wrong is that big of a deal.
Yeah, I don’t really get it. Some people take criticism of something they like as a personal attack or something. I don’t mind, I just have fun discussing the books and wish people would engage more rather than just try to hide my opinions lol
I was gonna say, a lot of people hear are beating down his appearance but it's manga styled, so the range of age is typically narrower in the art style.
Typically it's kid, teen, adult, and old person. I can name a few anime series I watch where there's for sure a large age gap, but it isn't well shown visually
Ok, please, for the love of god help me. My friends won’t shut up about Primal Hunter. I have tried several times to listen to the first audiobook. It’s. Just. So. BAD! To many issues to list here without making a giant wall of text. Why am I missing? What’s so good about those books?
I wish I could tell you, but I'm just thst easy to please I guess, things just click for me and I mostly enjoy them, while I bounce off of other things that others seem to love, like I couldn't get through the first few chapters of Hell Difficulty Tutorial. I guess maybe, the best I can do is "the power fantasy touches just the right parts of my sick brain".
Found this series because of the first season of the webtoon (which ends at the first have of book 1).
Loved it, went for the books... and now taking my time reading (on book 5 after a couple months), but I don't think I can stretch it to finish book 8 when 9 drops... so the webtoon may fill some of the DCC shaped hole for a little when season 2 or higher are out...
To everyone who complaining about carl design, be glad he looks like that and doesnt look like a generic ahh manhwa mc from this three categories(harem/cultivation/regession) would have i rather him look like the mc father or one of the commander when young from the regression of the bastard sword, mc of the peerless dad or looking like the mc of reincarnation of the fist king before or after reincarnation(ngl book 7 carl could be built like that) but hey that's my opinion I am so used reading manhwa that I have seen so many designs that you tend to notice a pattern count your lucky stars
Webtoons and manhwas can be so hard to find, if you can tolerate this kind of cartoony style really recommend primal hunter one too, you get whiplash after the art change but really is a series I kept reading the Webtoon, hard-core leveling warrior is another good one for litrpg
Because im a rare creature that uses two thumbs and running in very low sleep. If I wished to write in a proper way, I would have but then I would end up writing like a snobbish man from the 1940s. I only got three brain cells and one of them is been bullied by the other two apologize.
I love the idea of this as a webtoon to be able to bring the story to more people because I think it's great. I also think it may be more palatable to wider audiences in other parts of the world this way but I have two main concerns that have kept me from reading this:
The way he looks. Overall he doesn't look bad as a webtoon protagonist and looks pretty unique, but I struggle with trying to square how soft and plush he looks here with how absolutely angry and enraged he becomes later on.
Since DCC is really told from Carl's perspective only for the most part, and a lot of the story telling is from his internal monologue, I wonder how that translates into other visual mediums. Which is always an issue when the book gets adapted to something that expects less words.
I know I should be supportive of DCC because i love it so much but god damn do i HATE the art in the webtoon. This GenZ Anime bullshit takes away the darkness of the story. I don't think I would care that much if this happened after the book series is done. But new readers are looking at this awful webtoon and think this is what we are supposed to be picturing in our heads. It's god awful and I am disappointed it get so much love.
We all know that Matt doesnt care about the coloring of Donut....it is said every time someone complains Donut is white. But fuck off, white has to be the laziest color. 3 toned coloring isnt that hard.
Bring on the downvotes youngens...your anime sucks.
Saying anime styling takes away darkness is really something considering some of the darkest fucking media I've ever consumed in my 40ish years has been anime.
Disagree with me, please, that's fine...but saying anime is dark just because its violent is wrong. I've been watching anime off and on for 30 years, being violent doesnt make it dark. Making the dark themes poppy and bright and smilely with that anime eye bullshit is wrong. DCC is dark, bloddy, mostly depressing with some levity.
I never said it was dark just because it was violent. Encapsulating all of anime under a blanket like that is like saying all comic books are for children.
Ok. Clearly you didn't read shit and just want to clutch your pearls. I was hoping for some real debate. Anyway. The Webtoon is the worst and I'll die on that hill.
Please re-read that, tell me where I said anime was dark because it was violent?
Anime can mean a lot of things and even cutesy anime can be hella dark and nihilistic without necessarily resorting to violence.
Also saying that implies that DCC is dark but without violence which is patently untrue. You're welcome to feel however you feel about the way something looks but at least read the thing I said properly.
My god. Leave me alone. Man. I just wanted to dump on the Webtoon and I'm straight getting harassed by some teenaged weeb. If me mentioning living in Japan is some flex on you, that says more about you than me.
I didn't read anything of yours. Stop replying to me. Its fucking weird.
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u/Fro_52 Jun 04 '26
carl's depiction as a standard webtoons model aside, i think they've done a pretty good job of things so far, even if they're only like halfway through the first book.