Quanzhi Gaoshou

**TL;DR at bottom* *Spoilers are clearly marked*
The fact that this series is getting rated so low really saddens me. To put it simply, the King's Avatar is great, and hopefully, in this review, I can provide a reason to convince you.

Before I begin, however, I want to preference this is NOT an anime about eSports. This anime does not deal with, nor care about the struggles of, eSports players. It has eSports elements to it in order to logically and naturally bring in the topic of video games and how the main character Ye Xiu is so good at them. Elements of this are glorified ... quite often, if nothing else as a love letter to eSports in general. It is not about the struggles of players and the industry. If you're looking for something like that, I suggest Valve's eSports documentary Free to Play.

So, if TKA doesn't deal with eSports, what does it aim to do? The answer, quite simply, is to watch a likable character and his friends be good at video games. That may sound boring, but it's really not, due to the sheer quality of TKA.

The only real and only main character is Ye Xiu, who is, like many of his contemporaries in video game anime, a total God at this universe's most popular game, Glory. The justification for this is that Xiu is a former leader of one of the best professional teams of the game, and after a decade of leading it, is maliciously kicked off from the team and is forced to make a new account and grind his way back up.

If the fact that he's spent a decade playing this game confuses you, then let me inform you on one of the bigger selling points of this anime -- all characters are adults. Xie is said to be between 25 and 26 in the series, and he only plays with adults throughout. That allows the majority of the annoying, overused anime tropes such as excessive fanservice, stupid love triangles, a high school setting, etc. to be totally vacant from the anime. This really helps the series both focus on being about games and also have a fresh feeling to it, as it's not super interested in feeding into the wish-fulfilment teenager crowd many video game anime target.

Ye Xiu, (Western order Xiu Ye) is a really well written character, which is important since he's the only one who gets a major amount of screen time. A big element of the series is watching Xiu grow from replaying the game out of spite (and simply not knowing what else to do with his life) into loving it once again, which is done very subtly but ends up being satisfactory in the end.

A big element of Xiu's character is subtlety, primarily considering the air of "I am better than you" he frequently puts on, however, the series shows time and time again that he has doubts about his own skill, fears, and goals of his own, even if he could easily wipe the floor with anyone he battles.

A fantastic example of this, and a great example of the amount of care put into the show, is Xiu's smoking. Both a symbol and an indicator of his stress, the cigarettes always come out when he is put into a situation that upsets him, notably when he's reminded of his eSports past.

**MINOR SPOILER WARNING** In episode five, he does just that -- Xiu, a character still keeping this sense of superiority around him, makes some remark about a professional event going on, before leaving the net cafe he's in to take a smoke outside. The way he does it in private, and the stance he takes, including his expression, show simply how upset he is about the whole thing, and that he's not the one up there in the tournament.**END SPOILER WARNING** It's subtle--quietly great--but tells so much more about Xiu's character than any dialogue saying "he feels this" could ever do. TKA has so much of this sprinkled throughout, and it works great to really make the audience sympathize with Ye Xiu.

I've spent so much time talking about the lead simply because the series focuses on him, but for anyone interested in both interesting side characters and fantastically animated fight scenes, TKA does both well.

No supporting character gets as much development as Ye Xiu does, but some do grow quite a bit from the introduction to the conclusion, notably Rou Tang, a friend of Xiu's. All of these side characters are still very likable, and none are some dumb anime trope designed so heavily to be liked, they just come across as artificial.

As for the animation, TKA's is both experimental and well done. Many of the smaller scenes are where the series falters, having to opt to use 3D models for background characters to allow for room to the incredible animation during in-game fight scenes. Absolutely all of them are extremely well done -- great fight choreography, framing, and extremely detailed animation, especially during the bigger fights. If you're the type of person who loves good fight scenes or animation, this series will more than please you.

Regarding the voice acting, yes, this is a "Chinese anime", more properly referred to as donghua. Donghua has a bit of a bad name to it, considering it's known as both invasive to Japanese anime and lesser quality, to which TKA is neither. Yes, the people in the series speak Chinese. If you can get past how odd it's going to feel initially, the voice acting is very good, albeit different, than Japanese. Rather than the bigger, more campy style voice acting that tends to come out of a series like this, the Chinese opted to do something a lot calmer and natural sounding, which definitely helps the series stand on its own and makes the entire show seem more grounded.

(TL;DR)
Overall, the King's Avatar is a fantastic series about skilled video game players. It uses a logical setup, interesting and developed characters, and well done but easy to miss symbolism and character development, while not slacking on the action and animation in the slightest, to bring a great story about adults who love games. While it may not be the best representation of the eSports scene, it doesn't aim to be, and still manages to have compelling characters and growth.

In the recent years China has begun to invest in Anime, and in this case we see the result, a fully animated series with probably some of the best art in this season.

The story is pretty....normal? A guy loses his job over office politics and works his arse off to regain his former glory. (Read the description I won't spoil it for you)

Art is amazing, considering this is a relatively new field in China and that their art is a whole lot better than even some of the more popular series (e.g. Boku no hero academia), its safe to say it won't take too long ... for most of their series to catch up to the Japanese quality. Unfortunately though, whilst mob characters in the game are all right, IRL they seem a bit..off (perhaps a reflection of our real life as well) The one complaint I might have however is the fact that they add very generic effects in anime to some characters, which can conflict slightly with the more serious art style this series has at times.

Sound is probably where this falls off a bit, I speak for myself when I say that the use of Chinese rather than Japanese makes things a little weird, but even ignoring that the voice acting is still far from the quality you get in Japanese anime, which I tend to use as a standard. This won't affect dub (assuming someone does it later on), but those of us who watch it raw or subbed (I speak both languages but still prefer sub) may find it slightly lacking. Background music is also pretty average, it isn't bad by any means but isn't something that particularly stands out, plus the amount of bgms/osts compared to most other anime is quite limited.

Main Character is pretty standard and likeable (hard working resulting in being overpowered combined with bad luck, which gives him his arrogant and yet slightly humorous means of talking) People who dislike harems should be pleased because from the looks of things we won't be getting one, due to the relationship between the males and females mostly being ones of master and disciple or brother and sister, although there have been hints that there could be something more. In addition, the characters in the team compliment each other and bring out an array of jokes, though some of which would be hard for those who don't speak Chinese to understand.

Fairly enjoyable, as you can see from the scores, so I won't dwell on it, an overall 9 for me because it is fairly enjoyable and different. And also shows a lot of promise, so long as the Chinese doesn't bother you too much I would recommend you to watch it, even if it is just to get a feeling for Chinese Anime.

First of all if you bear hostility towards chinese anime. Don't come here.
Supposing you bear huge distastes towards chinese dub, just turn your back.
Looking for another widespread virtual fantasy game ? Look elsewhere.

However, if you're seeking for something new, willing to attempt something fresh, then please do give <Quan Zhi Gao Shou a.k.a The King's Avatar> a try as it is probably relatively unlike what you have seen in the anime industry so far. You may come to love it, or also detest it but its definitely not a waste of time in my opinion.

Story:
You should have a good idea what it's about from the ... synopsis on MAL. It's basically about a top pro gamer that got kicked out of the industry because of a fallout with his team mate due to various reasons. With nowhere else to go, he ended up working the night shift at a local net cafe and surprisingly a new server opened on the game he spent his entire career on.

That being the case, this story aims to showcase the hardships of a pro gamer in the industry, relationship between people be it friendship or rivalries, with a little drama here and there as the man character embarks on his journey back to the top. Unfortunately, with only 12 episodes I feel that there are only that much that can’t be covered and it might be difficult to bring out its true potential. The pacing is on the fast side but not to the level where its unbearable if you don’t nit-pick comparing it to the actual source material.

Characters:
This is one of the main selling point of this franchise, the characters all have their distinct personalities, motives and drives that makes them who they are. You have good interaction between each characters and the dialogues always tend to be funny. (The mc just has the talent to piss other people off tbh, and the anime really made him out to be a person that you’d wanna slap seeing his smug face rofl) The relationship of the characters are explored and play an important role in this story as they embark on an adventure bonding, competing or fighting against one another. All in all, the characters here are more mature and realistic than the usual japanese characters.

Art & Animation:
Now this is finally one chinese anime adaption I can proudly claim to not lose out to any of the major studio's in their effort put into it. The visuals are just spectacular, the use of cgi merge very nicely. Of course there are minor cases such as the badly disfigured mob crowds in the background at times but those are not really that distractive as its pretty much inconsequential details since you’ll only see those like less than 5% of the time. I really like the mature theme this anime has unlike the usual japanese artstyle, the over exaggeration and reaction is still present but toned down a lot. The visuals really give off an atmosphere of watching a movie.

The background just looks fantastic without words to describe it really, the amount of details put into the scenery be in the real world or game was similarly awesome. Those camera angles switching between third and first person perspectives or panning from the ground to the view from the sky across the city was just beautiful. I love how they depict the scenery and cinematic used in this anime. The background and scenery are just a sight to behold. In terms of action the animation wasn't the best but still very good.

Soundtrack:
The osts used in the anime is my personal favorite. The soft piano melodramatic music is just tender to the ears during those touching and sad occasions. The intense and fast paced osts that was used during the fights and actions scenes are fine quality, then you have that theme music to showcase how our main character kick some ass. There's the tipsy pop-ish music for all those comedic moments that just puts a smile on your lips. How they mix it in between in conjunction across fights is excellent. They really done well in fusing those melody and make the most out of it to bring out the atmosphere. Both OP and ED are splendid but I just adore the ED song, it really brings out the meaning of the story and feels from the story (especially so for those who’ve read the novel).

Enjoyment:
What else is there to say ? I’m disappointed that it couldn’t adapt all the good portion from the novel and really feel pity such a good piece of story could only do so much as an anime adaption but nonetheless it didn’t wither down my enjoyment watching this anime. I appreciate every moment of it and despite the waste of not being able to have the full experience for non-novel readers, it’s still well done for the most parts.

I've played my fair share of games. I will fully admit that I have played games since I was 4, and I managed to git gud at some pretty hard games, like the Megaman Zero games and Robotech Battlecry. Now, I must confess:

I am not a pro or competitive gamer.

I've never done any E-Sports, nor have I done any real competitive gaming. The closest I've gotten to is dabbling in some online Pokémon battles and some "For Glory" on Smash Bros. 3DS. So, this was certainly an interesting series to look forward to, as while we've definitely had some game-oriented anime in the past ... that ended up being popular (namely SAO and No Game No Life), we never had one that showed the competitive side of gaming, since other game anime merely used gaming to basically flesh out a fictional game by putting players in it or have them celebrate them. This anime, made in China, shows a true badass in the realm of E-Sports. Given that China is more passionate about E-Sports than any country in the world (if World of Warcraft is any indication), it's no surprise that they would make the plunge into this before the japs would. I'm sure that plenty of E-sports players find this show to be great since it seems to really understand the terminology and what makes a good MMO game that is capable of E-sports. As for me, this show is, for most part, will adequate, if not amazing. Again, if I were someone who dabbled in E-sports, I’d probably be even more fond of this show but nonetheless, it's still a good series to have come out, and is proof that even a Chinese anime can be not only popular but good as well since those have been getting a lot of bad rep recently with titles like “Cheating Craft” and “Bloodivores”. So, how did this series do it? Well, let’s find out, shall we?

Ye Xiu (formerly known in-game as Ye Qiu) has just been forced into retirement of the team and of the game “Glory” by his old team “One Autumn Leaf”, and interestingly and refreshingly enough, we see a protagonist (him) keep a level head in all this as opposed to the traditional angry retorts we’d normally hear from a situation like this. This 25 year-old man is a bit rusty, but given that he is still basically a gaming god, it's frustrating to see his team just discard him and lock him into taking only one approach for his contract. Afterwards, he simply goes “oh well” and begins like working at a café. Even though he starts a new account (Lord Grim) and decimates everyone, we still see a really human touch that is somewhat prevalent in this series. After all, like any real-life sport, people take it very seriously, and people do have to retire earlier than with most jobs. We see moments of true, civil familiarity that doesn't remotely touch the realm of melodrama like most anime do, like when he and his old friend Mucheng meet up again in episode 5 long after he was kicked and she had to watch, or when he and one of his old rivals square off in the finale, only for us to see their battle history in the middle of this to really sell us on their relationship. It's refreshing to see all of this. To add onto how refreshing this show is, I should make note that every single character here is a full-fledged adult, which is insanely rare nowadays.

I don't have any major problems with the story to speak of in terms of any plot holes or inconsistencies or major leaps in logic, and in fact, any and all worries I began having were actually addressed. When I began wondering “how come no one realizes that Lord Grim is Ye Qiu”, we see veterans hypothesize and come to that exact conclusion. After I thought “man, you'd think more people would be apprehensive to his assholish behavior and start turning him down”, we see him fail to score a bargain in episode 9 for demanding too high a price. I really like when a story can assuage our worries of it. I'm not gonna spoil anything much, but the story does pick up after the first 4 episodes and we really get to see all sides grow tensions and even some members in many teams grow as people,and the finale, while not really giving a sense of finality, even for a season finale that will segue into a sequel, it still builds character and shows up a pretty well done human side to this whole thing. The story isn't grand or anything, but it is really solid, do I have to give it that much credit, especially since it actually assuages certain fears we have. Plus, it's very in touch with E-sports culture given how they properly use terms like “aggro”, “PK”, etc.

Apparently, there are a number of people sort of upset about character development, or lack thereof, namely for our protagonist. Let me tell you why, in this particular instance, this isn't that much of a bad thing. The main character, Ye Xiu has already grown into an expert, and it's not only about seeing him deal with new situations in his already grown state as opposed to most characters growing while dealing with their problems, but it's about seeing how he makes others develop, not only as people, but often as rivals that team up to try to surpass him. It's not like Mahouka in which the show is about GodSuya trouncing everyone and no almost no one developing as a result of trying to reach his level since everything is all about him and how “badass” he is. We see Ye handle things in a way that actually forces others to grow. Also, he is a total dick, often making witty trash talk comments at anyone and everyone, or exploiting people for his own personal revenge in episodes 1 and 4. He is still a good person at heart, like how he encourages Yi Fan to grow by changing styles. That's what this show is all about: seeing a cocky bit usually well-meaning badass adapt and force others to grow, which more shows that have OP protagonists should focus on instead of the usual “look at our main character, he’s so cool that he dominated everything effortlessly and everything revolves around him” like that other show I brought up.

Admittedly, most of the characters here aren't inherently very memorable, even if I like how they bounce off each other. That does become a problem given how many characters there are to keep track of, so I'll say that they are all pretty decently characterized despite not having much to them, and leave it at that for everyone but the major protagonists that Ye recruits for the second half of the show (and onwards). Mucheng is a beautiful badass who seems almost romantically interested in Ye, and is almost as playful as him in some regards, even if her role is more minimal than the rest of the team. Guo is the manager who has the most banter with Ye and is probably my least favorite, since honestly, after the initial episodes, she hardly provides anything to the story, bit even being part of the major team. Rou ultimately had to nod to learn since while she was powerful with hand speed, she was beyond unskilled for her talk, but ultimately, she became one of the more prominent characters to the team, even if she doesn't have that much to her personality, even less so than most of the characters. Rao Xing (Steam bun) is definitely a more nooblike, almost idiotic character who has muscle, but he actually provides some amounts of cleverness that save him from truly falling to that dreaded archetype. Ultimately, Ye carries the show in terms of the characters since we don't really see much nuance to them, but we do get to see some of them grow, whether it be these guys or some of Ye’s rivals, even if I'm not showing the full extent of that (for brevity and spoiler reasons).

To be honest, I’m aware that this one of G.CMay Animation and Film’s first anime projects, but there are some things I’d like to see them improve on. The character designs are pretty good, and the flashy animation is well, flashy, but the choreography isn't anything really great. Their use of CGI is...interesting. On the one hand, when doing establishing shots and first-person perspectives on certain things in their real world, it can look pretty good, sort of like a trailer at EA for a PS4 game (especially in the first few episodes), but when they get to using character models or other objects in either stock-footage or CGI, it all looks terrible, and honestly, a lot of the techniques here, especially the ones that don't work out well, remind me of Hand Shakers, which is frightening. It doesn't do any of that anywhere near as badly as that show did, so that's a plus. However, there is an unnerving amount of reused animation, particularly when Ye switches his weapon to gun mode or when he is battling goblins (namely him throwing them and them colliding and falling in CGI “glory”). Certain CGI models either look pretty bad or look like bad claymation models that were simply painted on to the point where they look melted. Overall, the series isn't badly animated, at least for a newer studio, but I hope they can tweak the CGI and improve on the choreography.

The OP, “Xin Yang (信仰)" by Zhang Jie (张杰), is just an eh OP to me. Maybe it's partially due to me never hearing Chinese music before, but it's just rather meh to me. Same applies to the ED, "Rong Yao Zai Lin (荣耀再临)" by Da Dan Yin Zu (大胆音组). In fact, the OST, while it does fit everything, it's rather meh and unmemorable, though the alternate rendition of the OP in the later moments of the final episode was pretty nice. Not a bad OST, and both the OP and ED were simply ok, but overall, it's just meh.

Ultimately, this first outing of The King’s Avatar has more substance than some people might give it credit for, but despite the relatively entertaining humor and action, the characters and production values don't hold up all that well, even with the surprisingly solid story. Again, I imagine that E-sports players (or MMO players in general) on the whole, probably find this show more enjoyable than I do, but that doesn't mean it's not a pretty decent show, because it is. I just hope that when the next outing of this show arrives, some of these issues are ironed out and that we get to have more reasons to invest in the characters. Either way, I'm really looking forward to what the rest of the series has in store if they choose to keep animating it. With all that said, I bid you adieu.

TL;DR: Ex-Challenger player creates a secret smurf account to have fun with noobs in this epic MMORPG game called GLORY! In other words, if S.A.O and Log Horizon had an illegitimate unwanted child, this would be it.
[Story: 2/10 , Characters: 2/10, Art: 8/10, Sound: 5/10, Enjoyment: 4/10]

Quan Zhi Gaou Shoul or The King's Avatar hypes itself up as this hardcore e-sports anime that will have fans of online multiplayer games watching just to get a glimpse of the life of an e-sports player. However, does it really deliver at the end? Not really. Not even close to it at all. Though this anime is based ... on the award winning Chinese LN written by Butterfly Blue, the adaptors really let the author down. Just read on and you will know why.

The premise of the story is interesting. Ye Xie (Battle God) was once a pro in Glory but now no longer in form so he is conned and forced to retire. How will he climb his way back? Sounds interesting right? Well, it wasn't. The story just moves along linearly with him creating a smurf account and playing against noobs in this internet café he works at. Every now and then you will see him carry out raids and beat the high score because he is smurfing. It's not really surprising is it? Of course he will beat noobs, he is smurfing. Eventually pros figure out this person is a smurf and all gang up to take him down. Hype it up as much as you want but after a few fights, the repetition in the attacks and strategy just made the fights mundane. Honestly, there really wasn't any complexity with the plot and it was too simple to even have plot holes. So overall, meh.

If the story didn't fail the viewers, the characters did since they barely stood out. Besides the all mighty MC and the guy who talks too much, everyone else seemed like placeholders. They just existed because they needed to be. They didn't have any purpose. They were just glorified pawns for the MC to obliterate and look cool doing it. Massive credits should be given to the seiyuus in this show. They really tried but a lack of substantial plot foiled their efforts.

The best thing about this anime was its animation. Though this anime is created by a Chinese studio the animation was on par with studios like Ufotable and Wit Studio. Outstanding work with their cinematography, world building and fight sequence animations. It was crisp, detailed and the CGI blended really well. The OST and the OP/ED were good as well. It fit the anime and gave it a soul that the story lacked.

Overall, the anime just didn't live up to the hype it portrayed in its trailer. It was fun to watch the fight sequences and some form of intelligence the pros displayed. However, you can only watch so many episodes of a smurf player manhandling noobs in a game. The characters became stale and story became too linear to the point where viewers might just want it to end. Who knows, knowing a second season is declared to come out maybe they will fix the obvious flaws. One can only hope. Anyways, give it a watch and let me know later how you like it.

P.S. Thank you for reading. I hope you found this short and supaishi review helpful!

THIS REVIEW COULD CONTAINS SPOILERS

Hi everyone, I'm here writing this review cause this anime definitely catched my interest in this season, mostly cause I played a lot of online games and I am defnitely a RPG addicted, or at least, I used to be one.

-Story: 7
If we already saw from SAO, Log Horizon and hack//Series the "trapped in a videogame" plot, this time the subject is for sure something more "actual":
The eSport scene. Putting aside it's an intresting concept by itself that is probably the main reason this anime catched your attention, I felt uneasy by not having a certain knowledge ... of the game they are playing, quite often it looked like a music beat game where you have to hit the notes, or a typical hack and slash (maybe this was supposed to be in the enjoyment paramenter, but I consider it a very important missing background to be fully aware of what made so many people play it, creating such a huge follow/bringing it to be an eSport).
Going forward in this short 12 eps. adventure we still get the chance to have some thrilling moment based on pure RPG concepts such as speedruns, strategies, plotwists that keeps the attention level constantly high.

-Art and sound: 7
I really apprecieated the scenaros where the story take place, even the character desing was in my likes, not something exceptional or innovative, but they gave the idea of how the scenarios where stories like this take place. But what about battles? Amazing skills in synchro with some metal with an orchestra background, making every fight looks like it's the final one, absolutely a good way to keep the tension and show how much concentration was required making it sounds fairly intense.

-Characters: 8
Here we are, I was waiting to discuss this point since when I started reviewing this anime. Finally we see both games and animes arent something related to high school guys, which made this serie even more attractive by not seeing the classic 17 years old having in his hands a really heavy burden. Might look like something "minor" to the majority, but this is very important to me cause I was starting to feel out of place by being "too old" compared to anime characters and confronting myself at their age.
Overall characters have their own personality and they reflect it on their avatars while playing. We see some of the most common categories of players we can meet online (for example, did you just meet someone typing 300 messages in one second saying the same thing?)

-Enjoyment: 8
I can't denie I had fun watching this first season, that kept me willing to watch every second of it without skipping any sequence of it as I usually do, which is quite something to me.

In conclusion, if you read my review and made it this far I apologize if something is out of context or it looks poorly described, it's my first one.
If you wanna join a new world where the characters aren't trapped into it, you like eSports and you are willing to close one eye for some strange premise, this anime is for sure something you'll enjoy, both as Player and as Viewer which has a very good potential to be one of the best animes of the videogame genre.
I'm looking forward to the second season already, hoping it has a good developement, overall this 8 is well deserved.

The King's Avatar (Quan Zhi Gao Shou) short review.

Positives:

Characters - Each character has a goal or reason for being there whether its for redemption, fun, a challenge, revenge etc.

Setting - Mostly based within an MMO game with some E-sports type elements and real life in there as well. Although mostly set within the game itself. So don't get your hopes up for it being an E-sports anime at this point.

Negatives:

Animation/Art - Although clearly good for a Chinese made anime, wouldn't say it quite matches Japanese anime. But is the best I've seen so far out of China and is likely to catch up ... to the Japanese sooner rather than later.

Not Positive or Negative:

Story - Although I enjoyed the story, I kinda feel like this season was only the ground work for the future. Therefore, wasn't particularly amazing nor was it bad.

Sound - I liked the opening and closing soundtrack for the anime, but the sound quality in the episodes when it came to certain weapons didn't seem quite right to me.

Character Development - Although lacking overall, supposedly the anime has been planned out for somewhere between 3-6 seasons according to rumours that I've read so far. So the lack of character development isn't as much of a problem if it does get fleshed out in future seasons.

Overall Score: Recommended.

Although it may seem as though The King's Avatar may not have all the things for people to love to bits. It does enough things right in my opinion to be worth saying to others, "hey, check this chinese anime out, its pretty good for what it is" at the very least. What will carry this anime in particular is the MMO setting and following the main character of Xiu Ye. If you like games, fighting or action its likely that this anime will be for you. If you want story or character development then you should wait for this anime to get more seasons/episodes first, otherwise you probably find it disappointing. Even though the majority of the things I've said are not under the positive category, I quite enjoyed watching this and each episode seem to have gone by quite fast for me with none of the episodes feel like it was dragging. Plus I think it might be the anime of the season for me (Spring 2017). Since I rate anime on how much I enjoyed it overall instead of averaging out all the different elements, I gave it a 9 and its highly likely that I'll be rewatching the anime in the future.

Since i just watched finish this anime,i shall make a review about this. I will keep the spoilers to the minimum.

To be honest, i have very low expectation about this. At first, I thought it will be a typical anime about the main character getting stuck in the game or going in the game through the virtual device. However, it is about professional gamer, playing games using their computers. This idea is original as i think there is no anime or maybe few anime having contents about professional gamer. The main protagonist is also very strong and overpowered others which is something that I like. ...

Story: 9/10
i gave high score for the story since the ideas are original and not typical. I also learnt about the life of professional gamer through this anime.

Art: 10/10
I have to say that the animation/battle scenes are really in the top tier. There is no flaw to point about the art.

Sound: 7/10
I don't think the voice of the voice actors really suit the characters.It kind of feel weird at first but i kind of used to it after a few episodes. It is not bad but it can be better. The sound effects of the battle scenes are all at top tier.

Character:10/10
I liked the main protagonist a lot, he is very good at what he is doing.

Enjoyment : 8/10
I would have give 10/10 for the enjoyment from the start to the middle of the series. However since from the middle of the series, i think the contents are kind of repeatable which i cannot enjoy it to the fullest. Therefore, i gave 8/10 instead , 2 points are dropped from it due to that.

Overall: 9/10

For those who like OP main character as well as gaming, i think this anime is for you.

What kind of impresion if you heard about Chinese anime? Usually its not that good, mediocre is the best to describe Chinese anime this past season. We have Hitori no Shita, Bloodivores, or Spirit pact.

Then came Quan Zhi Gao Shou or King's Avatar. What kind impresion i got the first time i watch it? Disbelieve. I dont believe this show is a Chinese anime. Because its that good. The art is gorgeous, the story is enjoyable, and the character is goofy, stupid, funny, and sometimes cool af. This is one of the best i ever seen in Chinese anime.

The only thing i convinced this ... as a Chinese anime is the dub. Because its in Chinese. Its the different that make me believe this is indeks a Chinese anime. Its awkward at first but it is one of the charm point of the show.

If this is the path Chinese anime going to take. Then i assure you We have a very bright future in the Chinese anime industry. Its a good alternative for the over saturated moe-harem-ecchi anime We see today. Give it a chance. You Will not disappointed by this anime.

Esports, through the years, have yielded amazing stories tempered by colorful and magnetic personalities. It promises a wealth of untapped potentials for stories that can go toe-to-toe with some of anime's best character dramas and captivating sports series.

Sadly, Quan Zhi Gao Shou offers little and captures less of the allure of the narrative weaved by esports. It’s worth noting that the genre tag did not even include “Sports”, given that esports is sports through the medium of video games. It’s a run-of-the-mill redemption action series with the questionable virtue of not having moe or harem elements, which apparently is enough to be praised and loved ... in this day and age. Claims that the series is mature due to simply having "adult" characters are equally hilarious as attitude and temperament, not age, defines maturity. This is not mature, grounded series by any means. Especially not when your adults are nothing more than upscaled teenagers.

First off, we need to make one thing very very clear: adaptations are suppose to stand on it’s own. So zip it with the piteous noises about the source material. Quan Zhi Gao Shou as an anime stands or falls on it’s own (de)merits.

Let’s start with the basics: a drama is as compelling as its characters. Nothing cripples a show as much as the lack of character investment on the side of the viewers. This is supposed to be a man's journey back to the top, a sports drama people have been perfecting for years, decades even and they fucked up the one single crucial element: character motivation.

There is only one character of consequence in this show: god-mode MC-kun who’s APM (actions per minute) is so god-tier glorious he can solo MMORPG bosses. The numerous side characters the anime crammed without proper pace and care are simply background props and cheerleaders relentlessly praising and gaping in awe over MC-kun. The antagonists on the other hand are busy trying to outdo each other in a contest to see who is the most irredeemable prick to make MC-kun look better by comparison. It does get aggravating how the show executes character investment with all the skills of a stereotypical 90s high school movie.

What this show really needs and what it tellingly lacks is his reason/motivation for soldiering on despite everything so far. That should have been the core of the show’s drama and it should have been established early on immediately why we want to root for him. But they didn’t. Instead it’s left to the viewer to project their idea of why he is doing all of these. Every single platitude by non-LN readers points to various reasons they assume is his motivation and struggles moving forward. (LN readers on the other hand seem to know what I’m sure is some emotionally manipulative boohoo story somewhere detailing the why of his love of the game to fix it all up. The characterization is so sloppily executed that they're overdue at least one boohoo scene to compensate.)

The alternative is to set him up as the complete/mentor character, a paragon, that enables the growth of the people he works with. While the setup was indeed teased later in the story with just one other side character, there was never enough commitment to develop it.

A even better option is to have the main cast bounce their development off one another. Maybe they help rekindle his love of the game, and he in turn build them to a competent team from the ground up, all the while learning more and more about himself via their interactions as they form a professional team together. I assume that is the intention, yes?

Let's talk about that. The show has a tendency to jump from one scene and one event to the next without rhyme or reason, except maybe to have another excruciating demonstration on how godly-good the MC is. These scenes should have served to showcase why we would want these side characters to help the MC in his potential comeback. The MC prattles on that Glory is a team game and yet we never get the sense of how and why they work as a team, except for the fact that the MC tells us, the viewers, that they are really good players. Oh, and that they follow his commands to a T, with little to no input of their own.

Yeah, this anime's universe revolves around MC-kun it seems. Even his rivals, pros who are supposed to be his equals, are in awe of him, constantly fellate him, and their actions are almost always done with him as context. I hate to bandy the term Mary Sue around because it has lost all its meaning and therefore power in internet criticism, but yeah, this is textbook Mary Sue.

What we have so far is more a spectacle than a story. And it’s not even a good spectacle. Yes, the visuals is well within standards, CGI notwithstanding. Yes, the background looks gorgeous. The anime is certainly pretty when you look at the still frames. Put those in motion however, and it all becomes awkward. It’s grating. The show is so scared of going off-model on the characters and ended up with motion looking stilted instead of overflowing with life and vitality.

And it doesn't help that though there were a few series over the years that embraced the concepts of character motion and grounded, subtle facial expressions as powerful narrative tools in anime, Quan Zhi Gao Shou knows only three: scheming face, evil scheming face, and wacky-tries-to-be-funny face. Maybe that’s what passes for slapstick humor in this anime because the comedy genre tag certainly confuses me.

To be honest, the show is more cartoonish compared to other anime with less detailed and more fluid designs.

The action scenes are subpar as well. The anime has a huge boner for shitty shot angles, shaky shots, poor choreography, and the firm belief that adding enough flashy fluffs would cover it all up. So in other words, your average anime. If you like the fight sequences in Asterisk Wars, you’ll like this. The problem with these kinds of fights is that you get no real sense of space or flow. A fight is a synthesis: thesis and anti-thesis, action and reaction. Some of the best fights in motion pictures have both action and reaction in ONE frame. QZGS doesn't. It has a tendency to show action in a frame and then reaction in the next. What it does is merely gives the illusion of thrill because there is movement and pretty colors flashing about. Refusing to show both action and reaction in one frame rids the viewer of a frame of reference to ground the action which ends up limiting the impact of a fight. The impact here is subdued, lame even. A shame really that they prefer the Hollywood shaky-cam method instead of the clean, wide shots, and solid choreography typical of Oriental martial or action movies.

The sound is okay, I guess. Nothing stood out but I'm not an expert on these things. It's Chinese though. I've already seen several Chinese live-action flicks so I don't really care but it might throw you off if you got so used to Japanese that you can get the gist of a conversation just by listening.

Also, I want to add that like almost all hack-writing involving videogames, there is way too much emphasis on mechanical skills/reflexes and way too little on good game knowledge, map/situational awareness, proper positioning, and the value of a good support. When you play the game at the highest level, the APM gap tends to narrow a lot. It becomes more about knowing all the options available to the enemy, predicting which one he'll chose, and then proactively stopping it instead of being reactive and defensive.

Credit where credit is due, of course. The character designs, animation, and visuals are, again, well within current standard and that retirement announcement in Episode 2 captures a glimmer of the fervor an eSports gaming community has for its own flock. And while I have a plethora of reasons to go against the MMO eSport concept of the show, it does help non-gaming savvy viewers to easily identify the characters when they assume their in-game avatars.

Here’s to hoping that it’ll get better and to knowing that it probably won’t. Let it have a good arc at the very least. Let it have it’s own Mother’s Rosario.

*slyly winks at those who understands what I am implying*

Alternatives? Well, there is Log Horizon, a world-building masterwork that captures the soul of gaming in a way no other piece of fiction has, since or ever. But the one I highly recommend in the topic of esports are the Valve documentaries "True Sight" and “Free to Play”, which are available on YouTube for free. The former is a series about the lives and times of pro-players preparing for the Dota 2 Boston Major. The latter is a story of three players, set in the beginning of one of the largest and most prestigious competitions in esports, Dota 2 The International.

People tend to meme a lot about Chinese cartoons in this community, but did you ever imagine that a genuine example of such a thing could turn out this spectacular? Quan Zhi Gao Shou—or The King's Avatar in English—is indeed a Chinese production based on an award-winning web novel series of the same name. While it is certainly not the first Chinese anime that has been produced over the years, I do believe this is in fact the first time one of them has actually gotten overall praise and popularity from the general anime community.

Perhaps the main reason for this is that Quan Zhi Gao ... Shou feels like it fills a hole that has so far been left unexplored by Japan. While there have been tons of anime in recent years about otaku, games and people somehow being transported to game-like fantasy worlds, this is the first one I've ever seen which is actually about esports. There is nothing supernatural, fetishized or parody-oriented about Quan conceptually speaking; instead it is a story about what it's like for people in their twenties to go about their everyday lives as professional gamers and everything that comes along with being a part of that industry. As someone who has been watching esports for almost a decade now for a variety of different games and genres, I must say that this anime interested me a lot from the beginning, and while it's not exactly perfect, it definitely hits a lot of the right notes.

The story primarily follows Ye Xiu, a former top level professional gamer of a fictional game called Glory who was once recognized as perhaps the best player in the world. However, that time has passed, and in recent years he has started to decline on the professional scene as he's gotten older, and in the first episode of the anime, he gets promptly screwed over by his own team owners who want some new blood to become the new face of the team. He's forced to hand over his account to a younger team recruit and is told to publically announce his "retirement", effectively meaning that he's not allowed to compete professionally again for a full year, which considering his age is basically the same as ending his career for good. However, Ye Xiu isn't willing to give up on the game he's dedicated half his life to quite so easily, and ends up getting a job at a local internet café where he decides to start anew in Glory by creating a new alt character called Lord Grim upon the opening of the game's newest server. And thus begins the journey of an old dog trying to rise from the ashes to once again make a name for himself, this time primarily by trying to break speed records in PvE raids unlike the PvP-oriented pro scene, with the added challenges of having to find new players to team up with and also doing it all anonymously.

In general the anime revolves around a number of areas. These include the in-game events starting to play out on the new server as well as numerous issues Ye Xiu finds himself having to deal with in his newfound personal life, such as interactions with his friends and coworkers at the internet café as well as connections with old pro gamer acquaintances who start to raise their eyebrows at who this new record-breaking Lord Grim guy is supposed to be. What I really like about it overall is that it all feels very believable. Yes the MC is pretty overpowered relative to his surroundings, but for once I feel that's perfectly natural considering that we're talking about one of the most experienced and formerly perhaps most skilled player in the world now playing alongside a bunch of ordinary people.

The way this is presented is also quite respectable; Ye Xiu acts mostly like an old mentor to the people he plays with and teaches them a lot of tricks he's picked up over the years in terms of itemization, raid tactics, class and skill builds, old out-of-meta strategies and more. For anyone that's knowledgeable about professional gaming in general, there's a lot to relate to here, and although not every single detail about Glory's functions are explained in the anime (but supposedly they more or less are in the novels), it explains enough for you to get the general gist of it. Glory is an MMORPG which in this universe is supposedly the biggest and most competitive game in the world. In a general sense it seems to function more or less like your typical MMO, but the biggest difference is that your APM (actions per minute, I.E: how fast you are at giving in-game commands) is a big deal here. Whereas most MMOs have capped casting times for spells and abilities, in Glory the combat functions more like a fighting game where you can actually act faster if you can input the commands fast enough on your keyboard as well as chain advanced combos together. As a result, it is not just a game where experience, intuition and strategy is important, but also your physical ability as a player.

While there are certainly a lot of good aspects about Quan Zhi Gao Shou though, of course not everything is perfect. Perhaps most notably, the anime feels like a fairly low-budget production. The in-game fight scenes generally have average animation at best, and you can also spot a lot of reused footage, especially in the first few episodes, presumably an attempt at cutting corners and saving money. There is also some really strange and almost experimental-feeling 3D CGI utilized for various types of panorama shots of the internet café's gaming hall and the people playing in it, though fortunately these shots only last for a few seconds per episode on average. But either way, this is hardly an action-driven series at heart, so the mediocre animation isn't really a huge deal in my opinion.

Regarding the audio though, Quan Zhi Gao Shou comes with the obvious twist of... being in Chinese. Yes, this is not a Japanese dub, it is the genuine Chinese original. Of course this is by no means a bad thing, but for people used to hearing Japanese spoken in anime it can be a somewhat alien experience hearing a completely different language being spoken instead, though you get used to it in time. The anime's origins has also made accessibility to it a bit lower than normal as it's not available on any standard legal streaming service (to my knowledge), but rather interestingly enough the official (and legal) English subbed version of the anime is instead available on the Chinese streaming service's own YouTube account called "TencentVideo 腾讯视频", which is where I'd recommend you go to if you're planning on watching the series.

Quan Zhi Gao Shou is as far as I know an unbelievably long series in terms of its original novels, however only a tiny portion of it is covered in this mere 12-episode anime unfortunately. But either way, what little we got was an absolute treat to watch, even if the last episode or two don't quite end on the most satisfying ending note I've ever seen. Still, this is quite likely the best Chinese anime that has been produced to date, but I have a feeling that this is far from the last time we'll see China delivering. Current trends foresee that the anime market will be growing exponentially in the Chinese industry in the near future, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if we'll have a ton of Chinese anime of this level in 5-10 years or so. Who knows, maybe in 2025 people will look back on Quan Zhi Gao Shou and remember it as the first truly great Chinese anime that paved the way for many others to come. Or so we can hope at least.

I started to read The King's Avatar light novel months ago, When I knew there would be an adaptation i started to freak out, now we see the first Chinese anime adaptation with a excelent animation and flow, a "original" storyboard and good design.
The MC has a good charisma and a bit funny, betrayed by your team and 1000% Triggered in a new server, wanting to be the best glory player again, good secondary characters like Tang Rou, Chen Guo and the dungeon party.

Positive and negative points:

POSITIVE:

Animation is great, different from all the Chinese adaptations seen until now, with flow and nice design

Badass ... protagonist, Without appealing to exaggerated emotions and depending on others for everything.

E-sport thematic, if you like watch the E-sport scenario and see how the chair dance works, you need to see this anime

Battles in mmorpg like Raids, Dungeon, PVP and World Boss, if you play mmorpg, this anime is for you


NEGATIVE:

The dub, no, the dub is bad at all, but the anime has chinese dubbing and it may sound strange to those who are not accustomed to it, ultimately becoming the biggest negative point of the animation, although you will probably end up getting used to it

*Based on the first 7 episodes of the show

China, also known as the king of economic growth. Many industries are growing and flourishing and there is one that has recently set foot in China, the anime industry. Until now with little success however with shows such as Bloodivores and Cheating Craft. But spring 2017 brought a ray of sunshine with it, a blooming flower that might be the start of a new anime era. Yes it is Quan Zhi Gao Shou, The King’s Avatar, an anime that presumably looks like it is about eSports another growing industry. In a sense it could be the Avatar ... of the King.

So what is the show about? It is about our Main Character Ye Xiu, who is known as the God of Fighting in the MMORPG Glory, the main game of the show. He has won three championships in the first three years of the game with his team Jiashi but their results have been declining and no results have been made ever since. Our MC takes the blame by having to retire and losing his account, the God of Fighting character, due to the scheming of a cardboard cutout villain as he supposedly is not good enough anymore. It takes 1 year for a professional player to be able to return to the pro scene and come out of retirement, the chances of our MC returning are slim as he is already 25 years of age which means his reactions and reflexes are deteriorating and are important assets for a proffesional gamer. Luckily The game is so popular that it is opening it’s 10th server for the 10th anniversary on the exact same day where our MC starts his journey to return to the pro scene once more. He creates a new account and starts from scratch to get back to the pro scene once more, I think.

So we quickly jump away for the eSports side of thing which I find dissapointing but is not necessarily a demerit. A story about a person losing his way of life and trying to reclaim it against all odds is is a basic formula but can be very endearing when executed correctly. If only.

This is the part where I proceed to shit on the show.

1) Visuals

So let me get this straight, the first episode looks absolutely stunning. Both the handdrawn parts and the CGI. But it is as if all the budget has been put into this single episode. The further we get into the show the more and more the visuals degrade. We start getting awkward movements, stock footage and terrible CGI.

It is no news that CGI has a negative connotation to it in the anime community and something like Berserk (2016) does not improve the situation. But it is not as if CGI can not be good, just take a look at shows like Ajin and Sidonia no Kishi. Heck we can even look at the latest episode of Attack on Titan (Episode 7 of Season 2). But the CGI in Quan Zhi Gao Shou just turn the show in a completely different one. It doesn’t even look like the same show when they switch between handdrawn scenes and CGI ones. This contrast is a jarring one and definitely negative.

There is however something more, the expressiveness of the characters.

“Anger does not need to be shown on the face.” – Ye Xiu

Nope definitely not, but it would be nice if we actually do see something on your fricking face for once mr.MC since anime is visual and we can’t read your thoughts. ever thought about that huh? It is things like this that hinders the immersion of the viewer but is also an aspect of something which I like to discuss as well, the characters.

2) Characters

So we are 7 episodes deep into the show, what do we know about the characters in this show. (I can literally end this section here since we know jack shit but lets not do that)

MC-kun:

Likes the game Glory
Did not want to show himself in public or be used as a commercial product
Wants to get back into the pro-scene
Is selfless
Wait, wait, what can we deduce from this. First of all that he is a hypocrit since for 10 years he stayed anonymous but decides to tell someone he meets for the first time that he is the God of Fighting. And we know that he wants to go back to the pro scene, but what is his reason? We get some vague hint in episode 7 but that is it. We know nothing at all about his motivations or him as a person. The only thing he has going for him is that he is way too OP and can never lose which makes me wonder why was he even kicked? His OPness also results in zero tension since he can’t lose so he will make it back eventually. It’s just a matter of how many episodes does it take.

And what about the side-characters, bland, boring, no personality, etc. Except for one, the netcafé boss which currently employs the MC, who is a major eSports fan and naive and… wait no nothing more actually.

The characters are absolutely garbage in this show which must mean that the story is carrying the show right? RIGHT!?

3) Story

Alright so you’ve been given a brief intro into what the show is about, basically almost all of it happened in episode 1. The rest of the show has our MC playing the game getting first kills on boss monsters in the new server or breaking dungeon clear records with his band of friends that accumulates throughout the show. Which is basically what happens. There is zero progress in him making his return which is actually not that weird since he is that OP, he doesn’t need to do anything. When the year is over he can just come back.

Okay.. soooo.. the visuals are.. meh, the characters are absolute garbage and the story is non-existent. You must tell me the setting is interesting! Definitely dear reader!

OFCOURSE NOT

4) Setting

The setting is divided into two parts, the netcafé where our MC games and works and the game itself. The netcafé is just a netcafé so we don’t need any explanation for that but what about the game itself, it’s been around for 10 years so it must be pretty extensive. We are presented with one race, humans divided in classes. How many you ask? No clue since they don’t tell you. We have a battlemage, elementalist, brawler, gunner, blademaster, etc. the standard things.

Then what about the dungeons and bossess, there must be some story behind those. Nope. Nothing, zero explanation. At this point it seems that us not knowing as viewers is actually expected. I mean the game exists for 10 years but the players who play it don’t know jack shit about it. “Wow what is that weapon! is it customized!?” Oh you only want rare materials, no problem. Wait what! HE CRAFTED HIS ARMOR! HE CRAFTED IT HIMSELF WHAT IS THIS SORCERY.

Basically that is what the show comes down to, the MC knows a lot about the game and the rest of the cast is just a total noob, even the supposedly good players.

I don’t think you need my verdict on this show at this stage but let me tell you:

It’s trash. But if you are into eSports it does have some scenes that can resonate with you.

4/10

Antagoniz3r signing off,

Taken from: https://antagoniz3r.com/2017/05/15/spring-2017-quan-zhi-gao-shou-the-rise-of-china-and-esports/

For those who are seasoned JP anime viewers, do be surprised of this Chinese anime... I definitely was! First of all, the artwork is amazing... the music is also very fitting! I have only watched 2 episodes but do plan on watching the whole season, omg I was so surprised by this series that I had to sign up to MAL to leave a proper review because I knew there were those who would be skeptical of this awesome show due to it's origin. Trust me, I have tried other chinese anime and thought "ew" lol, I know it's harsh but there are others out ... there who think the same... I don't want to give away any of the story other than it's one of a kind and it's more than one would expect. You would definitely be missing out if you didn't give it a chance, especially if you play MMO's. :D thanks for reading ^_^

I have only watched 5 episodes so far, and are currently waiting for new episodes, with an overwhelmed excitement. I would have never imagined me watching a Chinese dubbed anime before. I have always hated Chinese dubbed anime, or cartoon, or whatever you would call it for. Chinese dub sounds in general so ridiculously bad, but this anime is something different, it is a masterpiece, even though it still sounds very differently, than what I usually like.

Story: 8
The story of Quan Zhi Gao Shou is based on a game called “GLORY”. There is this guy, the main character, who currently lost his job as ... a professional GLORY player, because he did not earn enough money for the company as an advertiser for his team or something like that, so he got kicked and had to give away his 10 years old account. Now he works at a net café where people play games on the computer and mostly GLORY. He is trying to get his honor back, by smashing every guild and old comrades, to become better than the best as he was before.

Art: 8
It Is not the best I have seen but there is no problem with it.

Sound: 6
The anime, in my opinion, lacks out of sounds in some parts. Sometimes there is silence and the sound of characters will not follow up with the mouth etc.

Characters: 9
This anime has many kinds of personalities, which makes the anime fantastic, and the characters are well-drawn, which fits well with the personality of the characters.

Enjoyment: 8
It is a great anime. I enjoyed watching so much and I hope the story won't mess up everything until the ending.

Overall: 9
If you do not have any problems with a Chinese dubbed anime or just gaming animes then you should definitely give it a try.

I normally do not write a review while a certain series is airing, but my expectation for this show *literally* blew my mind away.

Judging from the cover art of what seems like a generic plot, I watched the first episode of Quan Zhi Gao Shou with low expectations. To my surprise, after the first episode my mind keeps wanting more of those.

Quan Zhi Gao Shou follows a man named Ye Xiu, a competitive player in the online multiplayer game Glory, and is regarded as a textbook and a top-tier pro-player. He was then kicked out of the pro-team, which also costs his position to keep ... his avatar. He then work in an internet cafe manager, and when Glory launches its tenth server, he throws himself in to the game once more, using his ten-year skills to climb his way back to the top. This plot seems kinda like eSports. I may not be an eSports fan myself, but being in Ye Xiu's shoes this seems very relatable in some way.

The art in this show is glorious. It has some sort of a Chinese touch to it and felt really original. Not to mention the CGI, they're really smooth!

Sound-wise isn't so bad because I'm fluent in Chinese. For some people who do not speak and understand Chinese, however, might have a hard time catching up its fast dialogue. I have a few friends who watched this show complained to me that they have a hard time reading the English subtitles (they're fansubbed) because they talked too fast. I have no trouble reading their default Chinese subtitles though. Depending on your fluency in Chinese, one might need to pause on some scenes to read what they're saying in order to understand parts of the plot. The OST used in this is alright.

Character-wise... well, there's nothing to say other than Ye Xiu bulldozing his way back up on top.

Overall, I simply loved every single second of Quan Zhi Gao Shou. A show that what seemed like a generic Chinese-made anime, turned out to be action-packed and enjoyable to watch. This show might give some light towards people who don't like Chinese anime.

I have nothing bad to say about this anime, I've played mmorpgs my whole life and at one point attempted to enter the competitive scene on cs;go.

This anime brings back all the enjoyment of those years spent. I haven't enjoyed a new anime this much since sword art online, I can't wait for episode 8 to be released.

Give it a chance if you play any e-sports, you'll probably love it.


Art is modern and expensive, sound is actually amazing, explosions are immense, like being in a cinema. Character isn't annoying, genuine guy you could see yourself being, I'm thoroughly enjoying it, every episode had me keen ... for the next. If you're looking for a similar game after watching it, I would suggest looking in to black desert online, blade and soul or WoW, as each of these has similarities with the game he plays, but none really take the entire cake.

This is my first review ever on this site, but this show was something else too make me write one out.

I didn't know what to expect from this show at the beginning. I saw other people talking highly of this and saw that people enjoyed it so I figured I'd give it a try. With that said, I honestly could say I do not like this show very much. I figured I would continue watching it to see if I would like it more as it progressed, but it just never hooked me.

The story is fairly interesting and unique. There are plenty of shows that ... are about video games, but very rarely do you get to see shows about pros in video games. This was a very interesting concept, but sadly, they haven't done much with it in the first 4 episodes. The pro scene was only ever mentioned in the very beginning and then never mentioned again in the next 3 episodes. I was a bit disappointed since something this unique could have been expanded on, but in my opinion failed. The show just turned into another MC is super experienced and talented compared to all these other beginners. There are too many shows like this and that is where it failed to hook me.

The characters in this are very lack luster. There's no depth to them at all from what I see. Even the main characters, like the boss, just seem like another addition to the story just to make it work. There's no real attachment to any character at all yet, not even the main character. Even when they do reveal something about the character, it just does not fit at all. It's like they threw it in there for their convenience. For example, the manager (or whoever had the main character sign the contract at the beginning) mentioned the main character using his money to help his friends out who failed in the pro scene felt more like they were trying to make the plot they had in mind work rather than actually showing who he really was. Even then, it seems forced from what I can see later in the other episodes.

Compared to most shows, I have to say some of the art is pretty good. There are certain scenes where you can tell they spent time on because it seems pretty good. However, they use a lot of CG for background characters. I don't mind when they use CG because there are a lot of characters to animate in a single frame, but when they do it repeatedly, even for scenes with 3 characters in the background, it somewhat annoys me. The CG is just everywhere and it's obvious. To me, it doesn't even seem that well animated since it's very rough movements and completely different than everything else. It just seems like they did not put in the effort for a lot of scenes and just disconnects me from the show when they use CG repeatedly and badly in my opinion.

There were a few times where the transitions from one scene to the next were not smooth. It sometimes seemed like a hard cut and the animators did not make sure that the scenes were connected. It wasn't just visually rough, but audio wise as well. The music just suddenly stops at times and just picks up again when they show the next scene. The rough transitions are also what makes it hard for me to enjoy this show.

Overall, I would give this show a 5/10. They could have done much better in everything, especially the story and on the characters. I can see why people are interested in this show, but there are too many factors that don't make it enjoyable for me at all.

Quan Zhi Gao Shou - Full Time Expert, The King's Avatar is a chinese adaptation of the Manhua of the same title, which is also an adaptation of a Light Novel of the same title.
The language used in this is chinese, which can make it hard to understand, offputting as well as subtitle quality/availability fairly limited. It can also be a breath of fresh air since it sounds very differently.
I'll use the word Anime rather than "chinese cartoon" due to ease.
I will review and score this while only looking directly at the anime itself (At its' current stage!), but I might add notes regarding both ... the manhua and the LN. The story will be clarified a bit more for understanding of our MC.

Story: 7
We learn that the MMORPG Glory is an extremely popular game. This game as an incredibly popular pro-scene where there are 20 teams belonging to the Glory Professional Alliance (GPA). It's quite similar to LoL's LCS where the lowest teams get relegated, and the top teams go to playoffs and the champion is decided.
Our main character - Ye Xiu(Ye Qiu) is pretty much the GOD of the game. He's been playing the game ever since its' release and has been in the team Excellent Era since the beginning of the GPA. He has since then won 3 consecutive championships with the team, but the team performance also declined greatly greatly until we reach the "current".
Apart from the MAL synopsis, the story pretty much revolves around Ye Xiu, showing his skills and his knowledge of the game as he plays his unique character build and gathers players with high potential to play with and teach. During his levelling, he also needs an extreme amount of materials to upgrade his weapon with, and takes advantage of his own skill to sell his services expensively to all the rich great guilds, as well as punish those who oppose him.
The story is a bit rushed, we see mere seconds of scenes that should maybe have been given a full minute to fully catch the author's intent.


Art: 10
The art in this show is top-notch. The CGI used in it is actually very good.
The art quality can be seen clearly in the design of stuff that comes from the real world, e.g. their keyboards, or the whole netcafé design. Small details go a long way when it comes to quality.
Character art quality is excellent, ingame characters look quite similar to their players, and every cast character is well designed.

I know a lot of people dislike the use of recycled animation, but one has to remember that this is a game. Things SHOULD look the same or very similar. This is very apparent in the end of EP5 where he throws a goblin into the archers the same way he did in EP3. There are also a few reused frames such as Ye Xiu slowly turning around, but I wouldn't pick on that as a big minus. I also understand that saying that "It should look that way" due to it being a game is also wrong since it's probably tied to budget saving, but the pros outweigh the cons in this case. (BIAS)

Sound: 8
The OP/ED in this show are good, and the voice actors fit the character behaviour quite well. For example the high pitched voice of the chit-chatting Chen Guo, or the slightly uninterested voice of Ye Xiu himself.
The reason why I pick away a few points here are the quirky soundtracks that play at points throughout the episodes. They don't really fit in to the environment that well.

Characters: 8
This show has yet to show its' full splendor when it comes to characters, we have yet to see barely anything of the pro-scene teams who will be interacted with a bit more in the coming episodes.
Ye Xiu has also not shown his "Encyclopedia of Glory" and "Master tactician" titles to their full extent. It is most likely due to the time restrictions for how quickly paced they chose this show to be.
Then we have Steamed Bun Invasion. Such a fun character, very well adapted from the novel. It's clear that they put a lot of effort into his quirky behaviour rather than keeping the tone that the slow and calculated Ye Xiu sets.
A problem with this show is the lack of character development, as well as the time limitations in place for just this. Another small problem would be how stupidly characters like Tang Rou act - if you work at a netcafe with a boss who talks about Glory every single day, shouldn't you know at least a bit about the Glory pro scene?

Enjoyment: 10
This show is a blast to watch. Even though some soundtracks are a bit quirky, plot and characters not fully elaborated upon, the story not reaching its' potential for a while and many scenes obviously meant for pure "Preview material" and product placement, this show still caught me hands down. It's an enjoyable watch that shows a wide spread of characters. The characters are so different yet still blend together quite nicely. Ye Xiu sees potential in people, he sees both their strengths and weaknesses and it's fun to watch how he reacts when Steamed Bun Invasion does something stupid or Chen Guo scolds him.

Overall: 8.6
The thing I liked the most about the LN was the way that you could recognize the abilities they use. And in some way, the recycled e.g. gatling gun animations give a clear representation of that. In EP6 we see the same ability used multiple times in different shots and angles, and since we're used to seeing it repeated in a specific angle we now see the use of the same ability in a different manner. I look forward to if they would use the name of abilities to signify combo CC moves in the future rather than just 10 seconds of combat and an explosion.
While I really enjoy the show, I still fail to see just what it wants to show - a few examples of what I mean would be: MC OP? Teamwork? MC outsmarting everybody? They are all things that are very apparent in the LN, and so far we have only seen the MC being OP and a few tactical calls like he is buffing his team just by being there. Maybe it is too early in the show to see all of these things combined.

I'll throw in my 10 cents about this anime (excuse the pun), because I already suspect it will be my favorite this season. Ever since I read the synopsis I was instantly attracted to it and it has not disappointed since.

What do I like?

First of all, the story. This is not the first anime related to gaming that I have heard of, but what makes it stand out is the very realistic approach it takes to it. You get all the fantasy and adventure that the game has to offer, but you also get the real-life drama and obstacles that a pro-gamer has to go ... through. I think this very human approach to it is what makes it so good and also relatable. And although there is real conflict and intensity within the story, they manage to lighten the mood enough with the occasional comic relief.

Second, probably the characters. The main character is perfectly likeable and down-to-earth, although he always keeps an aura of mystery about himself, as he did during his 10 years as a pro-gamer. Thus it is difficult to spot his true motivation or his overall game-plan, and I say this after watching more that half of the episodes. There are a lot of side characters, a lot, I feel that none has been intensely developed up to now, although many have something to do with his past as a pro-gamer. So whenever a new one pops up, you feel the plot thicken. I do worry about how they will all tie in by the end and how much actual human development or human relations we will get to see. Even so, it all still feels very interesting.

Last thing I like, the music. Both opening and closing themes seem really good and I enjoy listening to them every time. About the sound, obviously this anime is in Chinese and that might be something quite new for most fans of Japanse anime, it certainly is to me. But with adequate subbing it can be decently followed. I really like the main character's voice, but am not crazy about some of the female voices.

Now, about the art and animation. Well, you will read that it's good. And it is, by what I call "modern standards". I personally really appreciate all scenes related to the game, Glory, those really are impressive. But I have a couple of bones to pick with 1. the character design, too many characters have similar faces lately and it sometimes gets confusing, 2. when showing scenes from the net-café ("real life"), I always have this sensation that some do not look quite right, that they are too similar to what you would see in some computer games, like gunner perspective or simply the animation all of a sudden looks really different. I tend to believe they do this on purpose, maybe because they want to define their own style of animation or maybe because such tricks tie in well with the subject matter, but I don't like it nontheless.

Anyhow, I really enjoy Quan Zhi Gao Shou, I think it's fresh and fun and has a lot to offer and I hope to like it even more by the end. I would also like to mention here that I don't think one has to have much knowledge or interest in actual gaming to enjoy this, maybe just a little curiosity, and that it does show-cast how amazing an experience gaming can be for people who are really into it, an experience which to me seems similar on some level to watching anime.