manhua Archives - Animefangirl!

Arranged Marriage With My Beloved Wife – Chinese romance manhuas are just too rapey!

Arranged Marriage with My Beloved Wife is NOT a good manhua. I thought it would be because it sounded a bit fluffy from the blurb, but boy was I wrong.

Blurb: She was forced to marry a crippled president for the sake of her family. Reluctant to accept the marriage at first, she kept a distance with her nominal husband. But his love and respect slowly unsealed her heart…

Why it’s so disappointing

Aight, the blurb didn’t lie. She was forced to marry him and he does treat her well and they do slowly fall in love. If that was all there was to it, I would be ecstatic. You know how rare it is to find a Chinese romance “in love with a CEO” manhua that doesn’t start with rape? Nigh impossible, that’s what. So impossible, in fact, that Arranged Marriage with My Beloved Wife isn’t one of those rare exceptions.

Indeed, the only reason why Lin Chulian has to marry Li Haonan is because her half-sister and scum fiance drug her and she ends up in his bed. So far so typical, now we know how she ended up there. But what’s HIS excuse? A woman just shows up unconscious in your bed and you don’t call the police or the doctor, instead you sleep with her? What was he even doing in her house in the first place?

The matter is never explained, so no matter how good Haonan is to her or how much they start to like each other, the issue is always there in my mind like an elephant in the room. “He’s a rapist, he’s a rapist, why isn’t she asking anything?” It’s even stranger because there were many ways to explain the incident to at least mitigate the rapeyness of it. E.g. He was very drunk and it was very dark (a.k.a. the Jacob excuse), or he was drugged with an aphrodisiac – another ridiculously common trope in Chinese manhua. It doesn’t make it any better, but at least it’s an excuse to make him seem like less of a monster.

But no, he was just randomly in her house, randomly did the deed, then decided to take responsibility… even though he’s powerful enough to wipe out the whole Lin family for tricking him. Which means they didn’t trick him and he was fully aware? Dammit Li Haonan, I’m trying to like you but you’re a rapist, dammit! It’s a shame because he’s much more decent and less abusive than some of the crazy MLs you find in other manhua. Except for, you know, the whole rapist thing. Which is really a deal breaker, seriously.

Looking on the bright side?

Okay, how about we look past that massive obstacle and focus on the rest of Arranged Marriage With My Beloved Wife? The art is pretty poor and cheaply drawn, but I’ve seen worse. The plot is junk, though. It’s yet another series where the main character has the IQ of a brick and keeps talking to and hanging out with people who clearly mean her harm.

How many times is she going to run over to her Dad’s house when she knows he clearly favors her sister? Why does she keep working with a clearly vengeful coworker who almost killed her? Why would she follow that obviously evil coworker to a hotel room without letting others know? The list of Lin Chunian’s stupidities are endless. Just when it seems like she’s starting to wise up, the manhua ends abruptly. That’s right, all that frustration and annoyance and then it ends before it gets good. =_=

The other good things about this manhua: As I said, the ML is decent apart from… you know. They have a good relationship without too much bickering or arguing. Misunderstandings are quickly resolved. At least one member of his family is decent. Li Haonan protects Lin Chulian all the time but backs off and lets her handle it when she insists. If only it wasn’t for… you know. *sigh*

Arranged Marriage with My Beloved Wife is licensed in English, so you can read it at Mangatoon, but I don’t recommend it. Not only because of the problems I’ve stated above, but also because although it says “Complete,” it’s not really complete. It just ends abruptly after 80 chapters with a bunch of unanswered questions. Unless there’s a season 2 announced, I wouldn’t waste my time. I’m really disappointed.

Peerless Alchemist (manhua review)

It’s been a while since I reviewed a Chinese manga, a.k.a manhua. When I first started this blog I hadn’t read much Korean or Chinese stuff, nor did I intend to. But I’m on an isekai kick lately and eventually I ran out of Japanese stuff to read. Not to mention most Japanese isekai manga only release once a month, which is torture to wait for. So I had no choice but to go foraging for other series. I found some good ones, too, which I will introduce on this blog as and when I get the time. Today: Peerless Alchemist.

Blurb: A nameless 24th century cultivator is thrown back in time after being struck by a missile. Yes, Truck-kun was busy so he sent a subordinate. She takes possession of the body of the late Ji Fengyan, a much bullied and mistreated young lady of the Ji family and goes on to become the head of Ji City. And to all those who used to mess with her, beware! There’s something different about this new Fengyan…

And by something different, I mean she is one tough cookie who is a ton of fun to read about. I’ve been reading a lot of isekais with female main characters and they’re usually very good, but the main characters tend to be soft-hearted little flowers who go about sparing enemies, trying to hide their powers and being flustered whenever a male character shows the least bit of interest.

None of that for our Ji Fengyan. She doesn’t go out looking for trouble, but if it comes knocking at her doorstep, whoo boy, get ready to see the fur fly. My favorite part is when an enemy threatens to spill her misdeeds to the emperor and she answers, “How can you tell him anything… if you’re dead?” And she wasn’t kidding either, though she did end up sparing them because they wisely struck a deal.

But it’s not just her ruthlessness that makes Peerless Alchemist such a good read. I don’t know about others, but I really enjoy the Superman/Clark Kent dynamic Fengyan has going on with the male lead Xiao Liu Huo. She picked him up from the side of the road and decided, hey, you’re mine now. And that was fine, but it turns out Xiao Liu Huo has another form… Hidden behind a very thin disguise that absolutely no one but the readers can see through!

It’s better explained in the novels where Xiao Liu Huo is a teenager who is even younger than her while his other persona, the State Master, is much older. But in the manhua, apart from different eye colors, a different face mark and a much larger physique, they’re practically identical. It’s hilarious seeing Fengyan going “Squee, Xiao Liu Huo!” one second and “That damn state master!” the next second without knowing the truth. 😀 She’s going to find out eventually but until then, it’s just too funny.

Though truth be told, I think the State Master is better looking… And even Fengyan agreed, until he made an unwarranted pass at her… Chapter 54, nevar forget!

You might be wondering if there’s much of a story behind Peerless Alchemist beyond Ji Fengyan beating up the haters and being lovey-dovey with Xiao Liu Huo. For the first 70 chapters, that’s pretty much it. She moves from beating one dumb enemy to the next without a break in the middle. No real story, no rhyme or rhythm. It’s only now after 70 chapters that things are starting to move, in the form of a relic known as the Destroyer Armor left to Fengyan by “her” late father.

Everyone wants to get their hands on it. It’s the Empire’s trump card against the evil demons, and yet… Why does Xiao Liu Huo make her promise never to use it? Why is he determined to get the Armor off her? Why are all the bodies of past destroyers missing? The latest raw chapters have Fengyan going to the Imperial Academy for Destroyers, so maybe we will finally get some answers there.

Wait, the latest raw chapters? Yes, the latest raw chapters. I like the series so much that I started reading the raws online. I’m up to chapter 80 now. With my intermediate Cantonese skills, the Japanese kanji I recognize and the little Mandarin I learned back in college, I can get the gist of most chapters. Ideally I would do some hardcore Mandarin studying and be able to read the original novel by the end of the year, but I like the manhua so much better because the art is great. Reading the manhua is good practice too, because the pictures make things easy to follow.

This isn’t the last I’ll be posting of Peerless Alchemist, not while we still have at least another 200 chapters to go (the original novel is over 1200 chapters long). In the meantime, go check it out. You’ll like it if you enjoy: Powerful main characters who aren’t afraid to show it, great art and good-looking guys, bad guys who get what they deserve, a romance where characters don’t hide their feelings. Apart from that, it’s not that different from other xianxia manhua out there, so if you’re sick of the same old formula… well, try it anyway!

Tian Jiang Xian Shu Nan manga review (spoilers)

Tian Jiang Xian Shu Nan (天降贤淑男) is a manhua title I randomly picked up to read when I was looking for completed series to read. I haven’t read too many manhua (and TBH if it’s a Chinese comic then I would rather read a wuxia title) but it was complete and I was bored so I gave it a try. The title Tian Jiang Xian Shu Nan literally means “Goddess of Mercy” according to Google Translate. Yeah… that doesn’t help but thanks anyway.

Story: It’s the story of a love triangle between tomboy martial artist Su Jia Ao, her ultra-submissive fiance Ji Chun Qing and wild guy Xiao Yao Jing. You see, Su Jia Ao is from a tribe where women are expected to be rough and tough while the men passively obey. Having been brought up in the city, Su prefers macho bad boys like Xiao Yao Jing. And yet there’s something about that Ji Chun Qing…

…and that something is an almost-stalkerish level of persistence. Talk about Dogged Nice Guys. From start to finish it’s never clear what he sees in Su Jia Ao besides tradition demanding that he marry her, but that doesn’t stop him from hanging in there anyway. In the real world the police would have to get involved, but in Tian Jiang Xian Shu Nan it’s almost funny after a while.

This could have been a good, funny love triangle series. Could have been, and almost was. I read up to chapter 95 out of 129, skipped to 120 and read to the end. Even that required me to force myself at several points.

The problem? Su Jia Ao herself. A love triangle series only works as long as the feelings of the key players are clear to the audience but not clear to the persons concerned. There should be room for doubt if not wholesale denseness. If Girl likes Boy A but isn’t sure how he feels about her and Boy B likes her but isn’t sure how she feels, that can work. But when the feelings of all parties are clear and Girl likes A but keeps stringing B along and pulling him back whenever he tries to pull away… Su Jia Ao, die in a fire.

What happens is that Su has a huge and obvious crush on Xiao – and he likes her back – and she knows it – and they’ve even dated and almost kissed. But Ji Chun Qing and her family keep putting pressure on her. That’s hard for a teen to deal with, so I was sympathetic up to that point.

Then Su got the chance to break the engagement with Ji off cleanly, no hard feelings. But noooo, for the sake of her pride she decided to fight for Chun Qing’s hand. And she won. That means she likes him, right? Nnnnot quite. When Xiao’s parents arrange a fiancee for him, Su goes crazy and does everything in her power to interrupt that deal as well. Then right after that Chun Qing gets kidnapped. And of course she runs after him again. I’d had enough of her fickleness by then and skipped to the end to find out which guy she ends up with… But I won’t tell you to avoid spoilers.

The good thing about Tian Jiang Xian Shu Nan is that it’s short, colorful and action-packed with pretty nice character designs and a likeable cast. Yes, even Su when she’s not being a horrible two-timer. The bad side is how frustrating it is to see a main character cruelly toying with people’s emotions. She’s a prime dog in a manger – doesn’t want him, but doesn’t want to see him date someone else. What do you want? Luckily the situation doesn’t drag on too long before the series ends so it’s worth the read if you’re looking for something short, light and romantic – for a given definition of romantic.

Orange by Benjamin manhua review

I read Remember by Benjamin a few months ago. It was pretty bad, but I noticed in that many Amazon reviewers thought quite highly of his previous work Orange. And I figured Orange had to have done pretty well for Tokyopop for them to pick up another work by the same author (though I’m probably giving TP more credit than they deserve). Besides, Benjamin’s art is nice to look at regardless of the quality of his stories, so ah well, I decided to read it.

Blurb: Her name is Orange. She’s a young girl in high school, coming of age in the heart of the city. And she has decided she has nothing to lie for. Not her shallow friends, not her parents, not school. Not even the empty promises of love. Her head filled with morbid fantasies of suicide, Orange finds herself standing at the edge of her rooftop when the drunk, enigmatic young man, Dashu, enters her world…changing it forever.

A heartbreaking tale of a young woman desperately trying to understand the bewildering world around her, brought to life by the luscious artwork of global manga icon, Benjamin, Orange is a profoundly moving story of loss and redemption.

Aannnd… it’s not as bad as Remember, I guess. It helps that it’s really short, with the main story covering a little over 100 pages and the rest of the volume being taken up by Benjamin’s admittedly ‘luscious’ artwork. The guy can really draw when he puts his mind to it, no question about it.

It’s also not that bad because it has a definite focus – angsty teen pretends to be happy but is actually depressed and suicidal within, let’s see what happens to her. Of course you don’t ever get to find out, and it’s never made clear what the root cause behind Orange’s rebelliousness/lack of self-esteem/mental issues is, nor does anyone ever attempt to find out. It’s sad in a way, the way millions of depression sufferers slip through the cracks every year because they’ve mastered the art of putting on a mask of normality. As a reader I was just rolling my eyes as I read her endless whinging lines “Nobody understands me” (yes she really said that) “I’m in so much pain” and so on, but there are real life people going through that sort of thing so I suppose a tiny little bit of compassion is in order?

It might almost have been good if Benjamin hadn’t spoiled the shocker ending in the first few pages. I don’t really mind an open ending that gives you stuff to think about like “How did we get here?” and “What’s going to happen next?” but it has to be an ending, not given away right at the start so that the reader goes “Yeah yeah, just forward to the part where X happens.” Maybe in a longer story where enough happens during the flashback to make you forget that might work, but it’s a risky strategy that didn’t pay off for Benjamin IMO.

Should you read Orange by Benjamin? It only costs $0.50 used, but since it has like zero rereading value, I dunno. It’s just 100 pages of Orange whining and complaining, smoking and using bad language and making out with random guys in dark corners only to stop them from putting their hands in her underwear, and then every couple of pages Dashu shows up. I’m sure if you google for a few minutes you’ll find someone’s LiveJournal or Myspace (is that still a thing) with the same content.

The only real reason to get this would be the art. Benjamin’s artwork is gorgeous without a doubt, and it’s fun to read something in full color after all the manga I’ve been reading. Not that I don’t like manga or anything, but I love the use of vivid color in manhua. It’s such a pity more of it doesn’t come out in English because I was thrilled all those years ago when Image Comics published titles like Mega Dragon and Tiger and Solar Lord. I even bought some Mega Dragon volumes put out by an inferior publishing company, I forget their name. But I digress.

At the end of the volume for the last 30 pages or so are several pages of random artwork by Benjamin, a little extra bonus for the loyal fans who stuck this out. These look really nice, plus it’s nice to get an insight into the people who draw the art for the MMORPG ads you see everywhere when you don’t have Adblock on. I said last time that Benjamin would be better off just being an illustrator, and this just confirms it. I hope he’ll put out an artbook someday.

Remember manhua review

Remember how ‘Red Colored Elegy‘ was supposed to be a highly-influential work? When I reviewed it, I noted that I could see how people would be inspired by it, but the keyword was ‘inspired’ – I never expected someone to flat out copy the whole thing. Until I read Remember by Chinese artist Benjamin, that is…

The blurb goes:

What is the fine line that separates love from hate? How can a broken heart heal from a loss so deep? When is letting go of your inhibitions worth risking your life?

International artist Benjamin depicts profoundl moving portrayals of love and loss that get at the core of what it means to throw your heart into life. The artist doesn’t offer any comfort from the despair we all feel in our lives – while we know there is no answer, we are all better off for asking the question… and remembering the struggle.

Actually the real question they should be asking is “What is the fine line that separates inspiration from plagiarism?” I will give Benjamin props for being a pretty good artist (that cover just screams “Buy Me!” doesn’t it?), but when it comes to storytelling he is utterly bereft of ideas. And he is completely aware of it too, if his self-loathing author’s comments are anything to go by.

Remember is made up of two short stories. The title story ‘Remember’ deals with a Struggling artist with a bad attitude, girl who loves him for no reason, he pushes her away until she does go away and then he hates himself even more than ever, the end. I really didn’t need to summarize that, I should have just pointed to the original story, which for all its flaws does a better job at conveying the doomed relationship and almost, not quite, making the characters relateable.

Anyway, this struggling artist submits story after story to a comic publisher only to have them turned down because they’re not enough like Japanese manga. “Chinese readers don’t want originality! They want plagiarized Japanese manga!” the editor straight-up tells him. So it’s ironic – or maybe meaningful – that the story itself is a straight-up copy of Red Colored Elegy, with better art and with the sex cut out or made ambiguous to avoid censorship.

Is this how low Benjamin had to sink to get his work published in China? Maybe. But what is more likely is that he put that scene in just to cover his inability to write a Chinese manhua that would be accepted by editors. “See it’s not me, it’s the editors, they forced me to plagiarize! Left to my own devices I could totally write a great story!” If that’s the case, why is the copy even worse than the original?

Besides, the Remember collection includes a second short story as well, about students in art school being bullied, but it’s crap. I read about a third of it and then just skimmed through it because it was just more self-loathing navel-gazing twaddle. He probably copied that from a Japanese manga as well, I just don’t know enough manga to spot which one.

In any case, by that time the nice art had lost its effect on me and all of Benjamin’s shortcomings as a writer were on display for all to see. Rambling, incoherent ‘I’m so deep and nobody understands me’ characters dot the pages like so many teenagers at an emo concert. They’re all flat one-note characters – ‘quirky girl’, ‘misunderstood artist’, ‘unreasonable editor’ – one defining characteristic carries them through the whole story. Even in a short story you should be able to flesh characters out a little more than that, especially in slice-of-life kind of stories where enjoyment depends on getting under the character’s skins.

Benjamin can draw, there’s no question about that, but unless he can learn to write as well it really doesn’t profit him very much. The fact that the manga goes for less than $2.00 on Amazon despite being out of print should tell you everything you need to know about that. Still I’m not a mean person, and I can see some budding talent there. I’d advise him to work on his writing skills if he really want to make it as a mangaka (manhuajia?). Failing that, there’s nothing wrong with being a dedicated artist and illustrator, since he does have the skills to back that up. Good luck, Mr. Plagiarizer!