Zihvuda's manga / #martial arts(28)

Rebirth of the Divine Doctor

Ongoing | MS Lotus, Yuan Man Dongman | 2019 released

The summary gives you more of the story, than the actual story. The ghostly Doctor is a much better series and this feels like more of a prototype. The MC apparently dies, but this is told to use through a nightmare, and when she wakes up, she has the powers already and we have no idea what they are or how she got them. The powers aren't even properly established and even the translators feel the need to leave hints in order for us to understand. Like that inner world thing where she found the fox. She was just suddenly there and while she knew where she was, us the readers were given absolutely no context. Then she find books there. How? Why? What??? It's bad. The story progression is kind of slow, and not as good as this author's other story. There seem to be quite a few people who like it however, and I guess that's nice. The art is passable when the subject is people, but the animals are quite badly drawn. Lol especially the horses and the fox familiar. But I honestly don't understand who would tag this with "Beautiful Art", it's honestly average at best. =_=;; The coloring on the other hand, is pretty good. Anyway, I'm dropping this.

Tale of a Scribe Who Retires to the Countryside

Ongoing | barking dog,고기산적 (studio redice) | 2019 released
2022-03-01 17:31 marked

This wasn't bad, but it is kind of harem-ish. All the girls (including children) introduced in the story fall for MC, though notably only after he actually gets into martial arts. It's nowhere near as overt as some harem stories, but i have started to get tired of every introduced female character falling for MC. It started taking away focus from the political intrigue, but that has finally come back, so it isn't that bad. If you're not a fan of harems, this can still be readable as it's more of a background kind of thing, but if you *really* can't stand harem stories, I'd give this a miss. The way MC gets stronger is also weird. You do see him training a bunch, so this is probably more of a me problem then an actual problem with the story, but he "gets gud" a bit too unbelievably for my taste. We see him train with the sword a lot, but no strength training or stamina training, so it feels like he went from 0 to 100 by simply moving in ways he really shouldn't have stamina or even flexibility to do so. I dunno, it just feels like there isn't enough effort there, but yeah, this could just be a me problem. Some other things I didn't like: for a scribe writing the martial arts master's story he was told surprisingly little of what was going on and because the manhwa is from the scribe's perspective it became a little difficult to care about the battles happening. There's so much drama, but because we as the reader are barely given any context, you end up not really caring about any of it. There isn't much tension, the person you want to win the fights, does, and often with no effort. Or should I say, all the effort was expended at the beginning of the story, and all the fights after that are just... easy. This isn't necessarily bad, i mean One Punch man is a thing after all, but it's not executed as well in this story, in my opinion. The premise was pretty cool, and i do love the big beefy master who just drags a poor random scribe along on his journey, but unfortunately the journey itself isn't executed quite so well.

Talent-Swallowing Magician

Ongoing | bread-eating squirrel , dj gonglyong | 2019 released
2022-12-01 12:48 marked

This is about a little mage boy who comes from a very prestigious family, but who has his talent snuffed out by getting sick with some sort of disease that affects him in no other way except to keep him from using magic. Because of this his family status hits rock bottom, because women don't matter I guess (he has a sister who isn't sick and so can use magic). We don't get to meet the sister directly, and while I don't think this is a bad story, it's not really worthy of the rating it has in my opinion. This story is non-stop action. It is pretty much all action and very little character. This isn't to say the MC is unlikable or boring, but that there isn't enough emotional pay off for the story beats. MC just constantly gets into fights, grows stronger, and in the end it just feels like grinding in video games. Very little plot development happens, and even after 40 chapters of story it still feels like nothing has happened plot wise and that we are *still* doing prep work for the story to begin. MC's interaction with other characters feels empty and superficial even as there are desperate hints that things are deeper. It's a shame, but I do understand the people who dropped this because they got bored... there isn't much to latch on to. The author tries to hit emotional beats during arcs, but just doesn't quite manage, and I can't put my finger on exactly how they mess it up. It just needs... more. The art is pretty good, but also there's a lot of reusing panels and cutting away from action to save on time. There was one panel in particular that irked me, which was one where mc, his best friend and some of his friend's family were sat down having tea, and both mc and his best friend were drawn in the exact same position. It made sense for the best friend because he was leaning on an arm rest, it did not make sense for mc because he didn't have an arm rest and he was right next to his best friend so it looked even more awkward. Also the explanations on magic and stuff is simultaneously too much and also badly explained. Mc supposedly swallows "talent" but when he manages it they don't really explain how he does it, the art doesn't really convey it either. For example if I were to cosplay as the mc and try to "swallow talent" at an anime con it wouldn't work cause I'd have no idea how he actually does it. All in all there's much better stories on this site so I wouldn't really recommend this one. There's too much exposition, the mc's magic system is explained rather badly, his own level and growth is shown badly, the art would be good if it actually illustrated the story better, reused panels less, and the emotional pay off for most of the story beats is insufficient.

Return of the Flowery Mountain Sect

Ongoing | Biga (비가) , LICO | 2019 released

This is a standard reincarnation story with a male protagonist that practices martial arts, but also pretty interesting as what usually happens is MC is strong af and then fights a series of opponents while he gets stronger and stronger, getting the attention of very strong opponents and shit. The difference in this story, is the fact it actually has a heavy focus on restoring the sect MC is part of to it's former glory, which means it's not enough for him to just get stronger and beat people up, but the other people in the sect have to get stronger and overcome their own obstacles too. I like this aspect, although admittedly we don't get that much of it in the first season, but it's something MC is shown to think about a lot. Towards the end of season 1 the sect leader bows to MC and I burst into tears over it, even though it was just a bow. The author is good at getting you emotionally invested in the story and the characters. Everyone seems to have their flaws and I love every single one of them. The comedy is good, and I don't find it obnoxious, but that's a more subjective topic so take that into account. MC's OPness can seem out of place when juxtaposed to the failures of the supporting cast, but I don't find it quite enough to be too much of a problem for me. I can see however, how that could rub some readers the wrong way. There is one female character so far. She doesn't seem to be a love interest though, and she's not written to be really annoying either. She doesn't exhibit much of a personality as she kind of acts like those stoic emotionless emo boys, but I find it mysterious rather than annoying. She also doesn't fall for this oddly mature 10 year old, which is always a plus. ALSO she, as a martial arts warrior (not a seductress black widow), wears her clothing sensibly! She's not there for fanservice, ✧٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧ which is amazing. In fact we get no full on nude people, although the guys do get shirtless pretty often. That too doesn't seem to be done for fanservice, which is also kind of refreshing. Also, also no harem shenanigans, so that's great too. A good read and I do recommend giving this a go! Good stuff. ^_^

Manager Kim

Ongoing | park tae joon,jeong jong-taek | 2019 released
2022-12-31 18:33 marked

Read up to ch 35... really couldn't get into it, ended up skimming a lot of the chapters. More than once it just felt like the plot was spinning it's wheels in non-stop action. By the time the flash back came rolling around I was too checked out to even care about learning about manager Kim's past. The notes kept saying "he's so-and-so's dad" or a character from this other manhua by the author, so I suppose that was one way to keep some of the audience engaged, unfortunately it didn't do anything for me. Real shame, the art is good, but I didn't like the art too much when it came to all the veins sprouting all over people's faces, neck and hands. It lost it's effect after a while, because it was ubiquitous throughout the entirety of the rescue the motivation- sorry, daughter, -arc. Unfortunate for me, but yeah... found this real boring and as such can't really recommend it.

The Undefeatable Swordsman

Ongoing | sung dae-wung,kim chan-young | 2019 released
2023-01-07 07:34 marked

This started out great, and was pretty interesting with the action and the main characters. Plenty of interesting plot avenues and the like. Boy is born, gets sick, gets enchanted by a painting and loses his mind for a bit, then becomes strong and overcomes troubles with his family until he strikes out on his own. Then the girls come, and at first it was a love triangle, which was kind of annoying but fine, and didn't interfere that much with the plot. But then everyone confesses, he doesn't really give them an answer, and more girls appear and confess. And that's all women are; annoying as fuck villains, love interests, or his mom. Even when one girl is really strong, she's basically devoting her life to him, and in the end, despite the interesting plot, his growing harem annoys me, so I'll be dropping it here. If you like harems, but aren't bothered by lack of immediate romance, then by all means, give this a read, you'll love it!

How to fight

Ongoing | Taejoon park,Kim junghyun | 2019 released
2023-01-14 13:22 marked

This is the story of a poverty stricken highschooler with a hospitalized mother, being bullied at school. He works to try and scrape together money to pay for hospital bills and other expenses. One day he snaps and fights back against one of his bullies. The other person is weak, so it works out and the fight somehow ends up online and going viral. He starts a channel called 'how to fight' and slowly starts making enough money for him to quit his other jobs and pay his bills. Along the way he stands up to bullies, deals with his videos being falsely claimed for copyright and other issues. The art is super good, and consistent, although you can clearly tell that there's a few panels being reused, though even then there are some changes. There's fanservice, but it skews more towards objectifying the guys than the girls. But there is both. The story is very compelling and the MC is very likable, although it does require one to suspend their belief about how certain things work. There's definitely plot holes, but I have found the story and most especially the characters compelling enough to not grow to dislike the series. Sometimes it feels a bit too queerbaity, I'm not actually part of the LGBTQ+ community so I can't say for sure if it actually is or isn't, but there's definitely some chemistry that's there, sometimes used for comic effect, a lot of the time it's just there. MC has plenty of girls crushing on him too, but not enough or in a way where I'd be calling it harem. The comedy is fucking great, it's so good and I love it. There's quite a lot of blood and violence and drama, but the comedy is sprinkled in there in such a way as to not get in the way. Some real WTF moments, that somehow make you laugh again as you think about them, but doesn't make you unable to take the drama and sad bits seriously. Another thing I'd like to gush about is the pacing. That is to say, there's plenty of action, but it isn't ALL action. You get character development, plot progression that doesn't necessarily involve MC fighting, and time to let the story breath after some intense scenes. Now, some of the characters are terrible people and then sort of become supporting cast that you then are supposed to like. Addressing some of the horrible shit they've done isn't done in the best way, and I can see how for some that would be a deal breaker. It wasn't for me, the story is already so ridiculous at times, it's easy to accept, but I can understand someone having trouble with that aspect. The translation is inconsistent. Chapters are uploaded from different groups and they range from competent to frustrating. I ended up going to death toll scanlations site and reading it from there because they have done almost all the chapters except like the first 3, and are ok. They have small grammar mistakes and typos here and there, but nothing that makes you unable to immediately understand what's being said or referred to. It's consistent and I will take small mistakes over translator app word salad any day. All in all I highly recommend giving this a read. Just be prepared for maybe having to change to different site to read.

I am the Precious Daughter of the Greatest Villain in the Fantasy World

Ongoing | Solddam | 2021 released
2023-01-31 13:12 marked

This a cute and sweet little story. The art is good and the translation for the most part is on point, except after chapter.. 75? There's translations by different people so the names change and it can get confusing. But the ppl who translated chapter 76, and 77 are bad. Anyone reading can tell from context that a character is referring to someone else, but for some reason it's translated as 'I' and the sentence structure is bad. Overall bad enough to ruin the story. It sucks. The story itself is pretty much what you would expect from the title. Cute little daughter is cute, charms the whole sect, and learns martial arts while having adventures. I like that the reincarnation happens from birth, so the main character isn't just replacing the original in the middle of the story. I just got done reading a reincarnation story about a family that's real loving but unaware that the original person is dead/gone and the person they're loving on is someone else. It's not a bad thing, and gives the story some good angst, except that in most stories it's never addressed properly. The characters are likeable and some of the plot is actually predictable, and sometimes the adults come off as being a bit dumbed down so that MC can shine. There's also a love triangle thing with 2 guys falling for MC and it's slightly annoying, but not too bad. Except when one tries to get the other killed and it's resolved a little too easily. Character development for the most part is good, and there's some pretty dark stuff in there too. Stuff to like stuff to not like, but in the end I would recomend reading the story, well unless only bad translations get uploaded in the future. It's pointless it if the translation is ass.

Reincarnation Of The Murim Clan's Former Ranker

Ongoing | sanbo,in yong | 2019 released
2023-03-16 15:50 marked

This was fine. It's not amazing, but it isn't anywhere near bad, it's good. The plot gets you interested and compels you to keep reading. In a game world, some necromancer dude swallows some kind of ruby and then gets killed. He reincarnates into a different world/time fusing xianxia with the game like world. He still has his system and is able to level up his skills and slowly recover some of his necromancy, and eventually learns martial arts. He fights bad guys. I'd say the combination of xianxia and game-like world elements is this story's selling point. Doesn't seem to be harem, and no love interest has been introduced as of yet. The MC does have that protective plot armor though, so if you really hate that kind of thing, I'd recommend giving this story a miss. Translation is good, no word salad here, which is a relief.

The Heavenly Demon Can’t Live a Normal Life

Ongoing | ZAINO, Sancheon , Altoran, ZAINO, 산천 , 알토란 | 2000 released
2023-03-21 16:04 marked

An old martial artist dies, and wakes up in the body of a young man who is the first born son of a countryside baron. MC uses his knowledge of martial arts to get stronger and be the best there ever was as per usual with these kinds of stories. It's good, I like mc, although it is a tad more violent and perhaps outright immoral than I'm used to. The lives the MC takes are no weight on his conscious even if he was technically in the right. He does not give a shit if you aren't one of his people. The art doesn't match the cover for the first 20 chapters and can lead to readers wondering wtf. The art at the beginning is really not good for the type of story this is, which makes it a relief when the artist is swapped out for someone with a more appropriate style. Although I will say I do feel everyone's a bit too pretty in the new art style, but will take it over what was before. If you like these sorts of stories with over powered Mc's than this should be right up your alley. Translation can vary. But is mostly understandable even if the english isn't perfect.