Webtoon's Riz Gukgak is too cute in Fantasy High

The first three episodes of Dimension 20's Fantasy High adaptation dropped on Webtoon at the end of March, and so far, we seem to be in the Owlbear spirit! The setup of the characters is giving fans everything they could want: from Gorgug and Fabian's fight to Riz being spiked in the trash and dubbed "The Ball." The comic seems to be framed from the point of view of Riz, our young goblin unlicensed PI. This makes sense, since it means the audience will be following the story through Riz's discovery of information to help his quest of finding his missing babysitter. Riz is right at the heart of the plot, so it would make sense for him to be our focal point.

The problem is that he doesn't really look like a goblin: on Webtoon, he's just a tiny green guy. Part of what makes Riz as a character so funny and interesting is that he's a 14-year-old kid desperate to be taken seriously, which is made all the harder by the fact that he's a Goblin. Goblins are kind of bottom of the barrel in the DnD world—more often than not, an adventuring party's first skirmish will be with a horde of goblins. They're starter monsters. A throwaway group.

While the world of Fantasy High is certainly elevated past the baser prejudices of classic Dungeons and Dragons, those biases are still real and shape the story. Ragh dunking him in a trash can is certainly evidence of that! But for those who are coming into the comic with fresh eyes, they might not see the subtext behind that targeting. They might see this event as just an example of a bully picking on a nerd because he's awkward and small.

And he is those things! But he's also a goblin! And the way Riz is giving the face of a My Hero Academia protagonist, I don't think the webtoon is giving us the visual cues for that.

What's with this round chin? What's with this nothing nose? Give him a honker! A strong nose for sniffing out clues. Give him an angular face! Sharp, like the bony goblins before him. Yes, Riz is a child, but he's a goblin child. He can and should be at least mildly off-putting.

None of the other character designs hit me as wrongly as Riz. I think Gorgug should be a bit scrawnier, and I wish Kristen had her tie-dye shirt, but overall, the rest of the case is passable.

Riz being the POV character feels to me like they really should have nailed the design. And they just didn't.

I'll still be following along every week, of course, but as far as I'm concerned, this is the real Riz Gukgak.

Or at least he will be in two years.