Welcome to hell—I mean, NewTubu! Here, streamers with demonic faces and low morals reign supreme, caught in a neverending loop of easy cash, cheap popularity, and bulldozing the lives of others. After a compilation-style video anticipates the key moments of the episode you’re about to watch, a bloodstained opening theme shows us the face of our protagonist, Robin Hood. Ahem, Hobin Yoo. He’s a teenager with clown-style makeup staring into the camera, whose expressions reveal increasing anguish and suffering. Many of the compilation scenes play again through a red filter, and the actual story begins. Enter Pakgo, a lowlife who doesn’t hesitate to make jokes about the mother of Hobin, who has been diagnosed with cancer. In his new video, he collaborates with his classmate and beauty tips NewTuber Rumi, making 30,000 yen during lunch break. Behind the camera, Snapper, an underling, plans his future career as a videogame streamer. He needs an account linked to a bank card and uses Hobin’s. But when Snapper goes too far and our bullied protagonist finally stands up to him, their fight is caught on camera. And next day, not only does everybody on the planet know, but money starts flowing into Hobin’s account…

Man, this one was dark. Based on an acclaimed webtoon, this piece of existential horror and social critique is filled to the brink with nightmarish visuals, despicable characters, and a sense of impending disaster. Staring into the camera like Joachim Phoenix’s Joker, Hobin seems completely crushed by misery, and every element of the story furthers this until you want to stop watching. Bullied, overworked, and lying that he is okay to his terminally ill mother, the moment of blind fury that puts him in the public eye is believable and sad. “Fighting wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought,” he reflects. I liked seeing Hobin skillfully defend the girl he likes from afar against the advances of the social media predator, and his discovery of his fighting potential is satisfying after so much dread. His ultimate resolution, though, puts him on a tragic path. Watching the same scenes play out three times until you finally see them in context kind of works to convey the crazy YouTube vibe. It is also exhausting, though. I won’t say this story doesn’t have interesting elements, but I’m weary of all this doom and gloom, so that’s probably it for me.

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Viral Hit can be streamed on Crunchyroll.