Reviews

Dou po Cang Qiong, or Fights Break Sphere, is part of an old but re-emerged genre which I'd like to call Eastern or Oriental Fantasy. In this genre exist several important and distinctive conventions, including a very specific power ranking system, a strong-willed protagonist, and themes relating to ancient Chinese culture and mythologies, etc. Many authors tend to tie their works very closely to these conventions and the original author of the novel was of no exception. Although the world he created flourished along with his imagination, while I was reading the novel I cannot help but feel slightly disappointed at the hackneyed parts of the plot.

However, when I stumbled upon the manhua adaptation of the novel, I was genuinely surprised at its amazing quality.

The art was fantastic, not only because it is drawn in full color(pretty much all Chinese manhua are drawn in full color), but also because of the brilliant depictions of the dynamic elements of its battle scenes, as it coincided with my own intake of these scenes in the novel.

The characters are portrayed just like their counterparts in the novel, including their good and bad qualities. But I do personally feel that Xiao Yan, like most other protagonists of the same genre, does not possess enough flaws to make him look like a realistic character.

The thing that surprised me the most about this manga, was the extremely well timed insertion of comedic moments. The original novel had a very dark and serious undertone with negligible humor. However the manhua introduced tons of comedic moments between the serious scenes, some even relating to the modern Chinese culture (reminded me a bit of the humor style of Gintama). These scenes gave me a fresh feeling to loosen up the tension, which I really appreciated.

Overall this manhua is worth recommending to others so I wanted to share my thoughts on it with others. I hope it helps.