Is The Player Hides His Past Worth Reading? Review & Where to Read

Quick facts
Format	Webtoon, 128 chapters
Run	2023–present · ongoing
Community score	AniList 7.5 · MangaUpdates 7.7
Where to read	WEBTOON — official

Overview

Lee Hoyeol is an ordinary guy dragged into an extraordinary problem: rifts have started tearing open across the real world, spilling out monsters from a defunct VR game called Chronicles of Arcana. The only people who can close them are "Players" — former users of the game who wake up fused with the character they built. Hoyeol's assimilation comes late, and it's brutal in a very specific way: the character he made was Grandfell, an edgy, over-designed demon hunter from his most embarrassing middle-school phase. Now Hoyeol and Grandfell share a body and, to a real extent, a mind — two distinct personalities who don't always agree on what to do next, bound together in a world where every other Demon Hunter is already dead.

It's a "power system invades reality" premise you've probably seen variations of, but the internal Hoyeol/Grandfell dynamic — cringe past self versus present self, fighting for control of one body — gives it a hook the genre doesn't usually reach for.

What it does well

The central gimmick works because the series commits to it. Grandfell isn't just a cool new power-up skin for Hoyeol to wear; he has his own memories, his own agenda, and his own voice that periodically hijacks the narration. That tension — a socially awkward adult stuck babysitting the melodramatic teenage self he tried to bury — gives the story a running vein of self-aware comedy that a lot of "regular guy becomes overpowered" webtoons don't bother with.

The action itself is a strong point too. Hoyeol/Grandfell's Demon Hunter kit is visually distinct, and fights lean into big, clean supernatural set pieces rather than repetitive stat-check brawls. Being the last Demon Hunter left alive also gives the plot an actual stake beyond "get stronger" — there's a mystery to what happened to the rest of his order, and it gets doled out at a pace that keeps you reading instead of dumping it all at once.

Where it falls short

The rift-and-Player premise is doing a lot of heavy lifting that's familiar if you've read any of the Korean "hunter" boom of the past few years — the broad shape of "ordinary world gets invaded by a game's monsters and mechanics" isn't new, and the early chapters spend real time re-explaining rules you've likely already seen elsewhere. The Hoyeol/Grandfell push-and-pull is also the kind of high-concept hook that can wear thin if you're not into it — some readers will find the constant internal bickering funny, others will find it repetitive by the tenth chapter it comes up. Supporting cast members mostly orbit the two leads rather than getting much room of their own.

Verdict

The dual-personality hook is doing something most "hunter" webtoons don't even attempt, and it's the reason to read this over the dozen other rifts-and-monsters series out there. If you like your power fantasy with a genuine character gimmick attached instead of just a stat sheet, Lee Hoyeol and Grandfell's forced partnership is worth following.