Domain Tnemrot

An OEL Manga webcomic created by David Herbert and Tatiana Lepikhina, Domain Tnemrot, or just Tnemrot, is the story of a future (year not identified) where slaves are given special bands that allow them to become super powered, while losing all free movement to their masters, who control them remotely, as in a video game. The gladiator-style battles are set in the titular stadium.

The story focuses on Dae, a former free man but now a slave, and his owner Mia, an 8-year-old girl who enters him in the gladiator games while not fully understanding the consequences of doing so. While preparing for the fight, Mia forgets to attach a special collar that would give her full control of Dae, allowing him free movement while in the ring. During his first fight, Dae's opponent, a girl named Angel, asks him to kill her, but Dae manages to free her without anyone realising what he has done. Angel becomes Mia's pet as well, but with a constant fear that her old master will find out she's still alive and come after her.

The comic features decompressed storytelling but is very action based, with artwork inspired by Bleach. It updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can read it here.

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This webcomic provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents - Chapter five's flashbacks show this was how Dae lived growing up.
• All There in the Manual - The About and FAQ sections provide info on the cast and the back story of the comic.
• Berserk Button - Watch out when Dae's gets hit.
• Bread and Circuses - The games are meant to distract people from the crippling poverty the slaves would be enduring if they were free.
• Cry Into Chest - The end of Chapter Four
• Deadly Game
• Deadpan Snarker - Dae has exhibited this once or twice.
• Decompressed Comic - According to Herbert, his original script for chapter 1 was 10 pages shorter. Also, all the pages tend to have each person's actions between panels where they're speaking.
• First Episode Spoiler - Angel becomes one of the main characters.
• Friendless Background - Dae was a homeless scavenger, Mia is shunned by her father and Angel was a slave.
• Genius Ditz - Tempest. Dear GOD, Tempest.
• Gladiator Games
• Involuntary Battle to the Death - None of the gladiators has the free will to say no to the matches.
• La Résistance - Part of Dae's back story is he belonged to one that dissolved after a mass-scale attack.
• Lonely Rich Kid - Mia.
• Non-Indicative First Episode - The first few pages make it look like it's about Dae surviving in an apocalyptic wasteland Twenty Minutes Into the Future. Then he's captured and we see it's Pokémon with real people.
• Parental Neglect - The only time we see Mia and her father interact, he gives Dae a glare and walks off while she's talking to him. He has yet to say a word on panel.
  • He came back recently. Douche.
  • And again. Seems he really doesn't want Mia talking to him.
• Parental Substitute - Angel and Dae seem to have become this for Mia.
• Punny Name - Dae Shyn.
• Rape as Backstory - While implied for Angel, it is instead averted with Word of God confirming it never happened between Angel and Morris. He is in fact a eunuch
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money - In chapter 2, Angel breaks a lot of Tnemrot's regulations while rescuing Dae, but it causes the crowd to spend so much that the ref actually praises them.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right - Angel in chapter 2.
• Sdrawkcab Name - The title.
• Somebody Else's Problem: Morris assaults an eight-year-old girl in the middle of a crowded ballroom. No one notices. Then Angel slams his head into a table hard enough to break his nose. Nobody notices that, either.
• Suicide Is Painless - Angel wanted Dae to kill her the first time they met.
• Training From Hell - Dae grew up with a trainer who believed that offering food to starving children, who the man was training, was a sign of weakness. Also, his parents starved him in an attempt to get him to read, or beat him bloody and insulted him while teaching him to fight. At that point, he was younger than Mia.
• Troubled Production - The comic took a year and a half to get off the ground, and Tatiana wasn't the first artist on the project.
• Twenty Minutes Into the Future - It's stated how far into the future this place is, but a lot of things look very modern.
• The Unfavourite - Mia to her father.
• Word of God - In the comments section of each page, Herbert sometimes gives us info on the comic. It's also the only way we know the people attacking Dae were his biological parents.
• Zettai Ryouiki - June.