Is City of Zak Worth Reading? Review & Where to Read

Quick facts
Format	Manhwa, 27 chapters
Run	2018–2019 · completed
Where to read	Toomics — official

Overview

Aria City is the last place with real water, and Zak spent decades defending it as one of its guardians — until the mayor and the people he protected turned on him. When the city falls apart without him, Zak comes back, and City of Zak spends its short run watching him and his remaining allies take it back one confrontation at a time.

It's a simple hook, and the manhwa knows it. This isn't a story reaching for a sprawling plot; it's a betrayed-hero-returns western wearing a wasteland-fantasy coat, and it plays that structure straight.

What it does well

The pacing is the strongest thing here. Zak doesn't spend chapters brooding before acting — the story gets him back into the city fast and keeps the pressure on scene to scene. Choi Hyunjoo's art carries a lot of that momentum: the environments look scorched and desperate in a way that sells the water-scarcity premise even when the plot doesn't dwell on it, and the fight scenes are laid out with a clarity that a lot of shorter action manhwa don't bother with.

Zak himself works as a lead specifically because the story doesn't overcomplicate him. He's a man who was loyal, got burned for it, and came back angry — that's the whole character, and it's enough to carry a revenge story this length. There's a real satisfaction in watching someone who was clearly wronged start dismantling the people who wronged him, and the manhwa delivers that payoff consistently.

At under 50 episodes, it also respects your time. There's no arc that overstays its welcome, no filler stretch waiting for the next plot beat — it moves toward its ending with purpose.

Where it falls short

The tradeoff for that lean pacing is depth. Zak's fellow guardians and the people around him rarely get more than a role to play in the next fight — you'll be hard-pressed to name more than one or two of them by the time it wraps. The mayor and the city's other antagonists are similarly functional: obstacles to clear rather than people with real motivations of their own.

The water-scarcity setup that opens the story also mostly fades into the background once the revenge plot kicks in. It's a good hook, but the manhwa doesn't do much with it beyond justifying why Aria City is worth fighting over in the first place.

Verdict

City of Zak isn't trying to reinvent the revenge story, and it doesn't need to — it tells a lean, well-drawn western with just enough fantasy dressing to feel distinct, and it's over before any of its shortcuts start to grate. Go in wanting a quick, violent payoff rather than a rich cast and you'll get exactly that.