Title: Live with Yourself!

Type: Webcomic

Year: 2016-2024

Country: United States

Genre: Comedy/Sitcom/Sci-Fi

Status: Completed

Platform: Webtoon (read here)

Appropriate for 30+?: Yes

My rating: 3.5/5 stars

(Rating scale: 5/5 = masterpiece, 4/5 = quite good, 3/5 = mostly good, 2/5 = bleh, 1/5 = I regret ever being exposed to this series, 0/5 = affront to humanity)

Live with Yourself! (LWY) is one of those many-genres-in-one series: mostly a comedy, but with a sci-fi premise, a sitcom style, and plot-lines that vary from action to slice-of-life to romance to drama. The plot is organized with one large over-arching plot that lasts all 545 chapters, and lots of tiny sub-plots, some of which only last a few chapters, some of which pop in and out every few dozen chapters, and some chapters are standalone one-shots. In other words, this series is kind of all over the place, but in a mostly good way. Like most semi-episodic series, some plotlines/chapters are way superior to others and you’ll encounter a few duds along the way, but fortunately the chapters are so short that even during its lowest points LWY typically doesn’t take more than a few minutes of reading before it picks up again.

For a mostly fluffy, goofy series, the premise and plotlines can be somewhat heavy: after interacting with a mysterious machine, the protagonist, 20-something-year-old Todd, accidentally becomes four versions of himself (Todd the baby, Todd of today, Todd of tomorrow, and Todd the old man) and is thus forced to “live with [him]self.” While he tries to continue life as normally as he can while dealing with constant time paradoxes and shenanigans, he encounters a variety of other supernatural and weird individuals and experiences, culminating in “Time City,” a place outside of time that regulates and polices time anomalies (such as himself). However don’t expect hard-core sci-fi out of LWY: the rules of comedy prevail, and when your entire premise is based in a paradox, it’s easy to make logic take a backseat as needed for the plot or a joke.

LWY is a fun, albeit somewhat forgettable, easy-read series. Most sub-plots are only a few chapters long, and the chapters only take a minute or so to read. There aren’t a lot of laugh-out-loud jokes (this is more an “amusing” comedy series than a “funny” comedy series), and the goofiness factor can sometimes get out of hand, but if nothing else, LWY is unique and generally engaging. It’s a doozy to try and marathon, but fortunately its episodic nature makes it an easy series to pick up and read a few chapters here and there whenever you have downtime but don’t want to get into anything too engrossing (like on a work commute, or when you’re stuck on hold). The characters are a mixed bag: Todd is IMO a bit too much of a typical “white guy nerd” in that he is techy, likes video games, is a bit of a bumbling idiot when it comes to “adulting,” is slightly socially awkward, and… that’s about it. This primary character blandness can pull the series down a bit at times (especially given that it’s a sitcom/ensemble series, and a full quarter of the ensemble–baby Todd–has basically no personality at all), but fortunately as the series progresses more characters are added to help add substance (even though most of them are also pretty two-dimensional). LWY is a bit like the old days of newspaper comics: not a lot of depth (except in occasional small chunks), but that’s not what you’re here for anyway. There’s not anything in LWY in particular to attract or repulse the 30+ crowd, except that Todd can be annoyingly immature at times.

While far from groundbreaking, LWY is amusing, easily digested, generally upbeat, and definitely different. I found it lagged a bit somewhere around/after chapter 400, but it picks right back up around chapter 500 for a solid, albeit slightly abrupt, ending. While a bit lacking in substance and subject to quality variations, its fun nature that isn’t afraid to play around with its paradoxical premise and try different things throughout the series makes Live with Yourself! a (mostly) worthwhile read.

As always, this review is nothing more than my personal opinion. Anyone familiar with this work is encouraged to express their own in the comment section. Or submit your own review… it’s a free country fediverse.