Jun 13, 2021
Yo Anjuros
Here is the story of Yuan Zhou, that one artistic kid who knows how to paint and uses his paintbrush like a spear. From the first few chapters, I saw the potential within such a story which may have been very basic with several instances of the manhua just dumping information about its power system which was a bit confusing but as it expanded became an interesting part of the story, sadly most of the more essential elements were lacking.
Story (6/10):
Beginning with the story, we have a 6/10 plot. Very Basic in its premise of a prince and his family getting cucked
...
by a rival kingdom and centers around prince Zhou with his companion Yao Yao as he travels around unlocking powers every other chapter growing plot armour every time he beats a basic villain as he aims to beat the bastards who cucked him. Adventure and Action stories like these don't have to have an exceptional plot and I could tell that story had the potential to become a tale filled with interesting world-building, politics, and fights but unfortunately, it would never hit such heights. The cost to the plot is more highlighted in the conflicts within the story. The characters are all very bland with some exceptions but otherwise, their bland personalities along with very predictable character types make the story's conflicts fall flat. The lack of engagement and creativity make every fight and conflict of the story seem very unfulfilling. And along with Zhou's plot armour stats getting boosted every other chapter - makes it all feel undeserved. The pacing of the world-building and events themselves were fine and the introduction of several locations provided interesting elements of the world but was explained through several info dumps rather than letting the reader explore the world. Preferring to focus on rushing straight into the action and badass one-liners to boost Zhou to greatness through very predictable fights. Overall, it set itself up very simple but the potential was there with the world, its power system, and the politics of it all - but it fell flat on how it was actually executed due to lack of lustre performances from other aspects of the story.
Art (8/10):
Yuan Zun being my first manhua, the quality of art and the panels were all very engaging. The art and style of the story was the best part of it as it captivated attention. Character designs carried a nice pallet of bright colours and the contrast of dark colours in the villains gave of a proper villain-like atmosphere for the characters. The fight scenes - which were given the most attention within the entire manhua - were complimented by the art style and the colours were captivating with many of the techniques in the story capturing your attention though the same could not be said for other parts of the manhua.
Characters (5/10):
Easily the worse thing about this story is the characters. These characters quite simply, are plain as. The only interesting type of character in this story is Yao Yao due to her background being shrouded in mystery and personality being engaging and kuudere type girl as she interacts with the different characters leaving room for growth but other than this all others are bland. Zhou Yuan, protagonist-kun who gets plot armour every other chapter, makes every win feel undeserved. His personality consists of an apparent badass who is badass because he says edgy and cool statements then a more playful side only serves as comedic relief. The backstory of Zhou is all dumped on the reader during the first chapter sets up a complex character on a journey for revenge - simple yet engaging - but this is contradicted when all he does is again, gets powers through some random encounter or latent power then spanks villain. In each fight, he doesn't grow as a character but only receives a new power which serves to spank more villains more after. There is no character development and all are centred around the building of an op character who is very bland beating bland villains as the only thing which grows is his ego and his powers. The villains are very stereotypical as there is no laid-out goal in their actions other than wanting to see the protagonist suffer and die. They have personalities of annoying flies who need to be killed off for the sake of boosting the protagonist's ego but this gets overused and every villain just falls into the trap of messing with Zhou then proceeds to get smacked and defeated instantly. The girls in the story lack development and seem to follow a sort of harem-like relationship with the protagonist as they just seemingly fall down and follow his harem bandwagon as he smacks the villains around even more. In conclusion, lack of development, bland personality types, and a lack of proper exploration of motivations leaves the characters and their interactions within the plot all effectively, very very plain.
Overall:
Yeah, it's got that simple story, it's got the art, it's got the harem-type relationships that reminisce a power fantasy - but this isn't an isekai. It aims to be a military-political adventure shonen-type manhua but through lack of execution in branching out makes it fall flat of such standards.
But very pretty art.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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