Manga Review: Sword of the Emperor

Mikasa

Call me Faith!
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Hey guys, I recently made an amazing discovery. I discovered the new benchmark of terrible for shounen manga! Yes! No kidding!

Ahem, seriously though. Wanted to share this with you, so here you go. I wouldn't advise it, but if you do want to read it, feel free to search it online. There are plenty of online manga sites that should allow you access to it. Google is your best friend. :lew:

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The Sword of the Emperor

Never have a cover of a series been this misleading. When I saw it, I was like, woah, that is some fascinating art. Then you get in and you see this.

the-sword-of-emperor-4274155.jpg

I mean, WTF? How did that even happen! The cover is actually nicer than the contents of the manga?! Unbelievable. I have more gripes about the art here, but I'll save that for later. First things first. (BTW. That artwork depicted in the cover never happened in the manga)

Plot

I have gotten rather used to shounen fare. A strong-willed character or a reluctant hero, no matter. That protagonist eventually obtains amazing power and becomes a force to be reckoned with. In some cases, the protagonist is already amazing and powerful, but no matter. In most (and good) cases, the protagonist has to undergo an arduous journey to obtain that power (or to achieve another goal). Sacrifices has to be made, obstacles overcome. Of course, that creates a lot of room for ample character development. We could see more of the character's philosophy, more of how he thinks and behaves in terrible situations... It could be very inspiring, watching these protagonists overcome the hardships in their lives, protecting the people they love.

Yeah. That's what I feel shounen ought to be. I was looking for that, and an oriental, high-fantasy-esque setting. 'Neo-oriental fantasy' seemed about right, so why not? Never have I regretted so much!

The only reason why I continued, was so that I could legitimately and flat out call it terrible. After all, I read all of it, so no one can say 'oh, you didn't finish it, that's why you think that'. No. I finished it. It's terrible. And sorry for beating around the bush here. Haven't even gotten to why it's terrible!

Okay, Spoilers here. But if you're (for whatever reason) still averse to it, feel free to move along. I'd much rather you read it though (the spoiler, not the manga) since the manga isn't all that worth reading, in my honest opinion.

The story focuses on the Emperor. He is a weak-willed young man who is now facing his last moments. His uncle has risen in rebellion and has led an army in to usurp the throne. Now standing amongst his courtiers, he is being persuaded to abandon them. Live to fight another day, they say. But the Emperor is not a heartless person. Still, he acknowledges the value of his own life, so reluctantly, he escapes the Palace to seek out two loyal guards whom one of his courtier advised him to visit.

Now, that was a promising start. Here, we have a perilous, disadvantageous situation. A character amidst all these hardships. How will he overcome all that?

Well, he goes on to find those two guards. They're twins, and quite possibly the most ridiculously amazing people ever. Now, they promise to assist the Emperor. Sure. They go on to say he could put their abilities to use... And their abilities?

PLASTIC SURGERY!!!!!

Okay. It's not literally plastic surgery, but it's close. What they promised was a new identity. They also said they could call up spirits of dead people and blah blah blah. Basically, they could grant him a new identity and amazing powers. And well, what reason had the Emperor to refuse since he wasn't all that handsome, he's being hunted and he's weak as hell? So he asked to have a new, handsome face, have the most powerful skills (by calling up a spirit of the most powerful martial artist to possess him)...

And that they gave. New face, spirits in his body that imparts to him some extremely ridiculous powers. Like, extremely ridiculous powers. Of course, they spent about a chapter or so showing him honing his skills and all that. That's not the point. Once all that boring interlude was done... He steps out, have his first encounter and gets to demonstrate his skills. And damn. Okay. He utterly crushes the opposition.

Not too unusual yet, to be sure, since it's just the first encounter. How many shounen protagonists gets crushed by their first real opponents? So, okay, disregarding that one instance. We now move on.

He meets some new people... And here I get to see some weird body proportions... Not so much of the body, but of the face at times. I don't suppose anyone will complain too much about the exceptionally well-endowed female characters... Though it's rather weird considering the Asian context. More on that later....

But of course, trouble must happen, so that he can flaunt his abilities. Again he demonstrates his awesomeness. Utterly crushes the opposition and wows the new people. Moves on, meets some more new people, wows them. For that entire introduction he repeats that. Then finally, he decides to reclaim his lost position as Emperor.

At the advice of the spirit that possesses him (and that also taught him), he visits a cult of martial artists. And we know what that means. So he gets in. Oh, he discovers another weirdly-proportioned beautiful lady. Discovers that oh, I must beat everyone's face in to become the leader of the cult! Smugly says he will do it. Which he of course does, with not a single bit of difficulty. The only attempt at making it even seem slightly difficult for the protagonist was "oh, he can block this skill". He proceeds with "then I have to use this!" and completely crushes the opponent.

Rinse and repeat for every other opponent. Up to the last chapter, the protagonist has never encountered anyone that could outclass him. There were hints, somewhat, that there were people on a higher level... But seriously, at his level, he could easily massacre an army and not break a sweat doing it. Any higher level, we're talking God-like. Which actually, is what they sort of implied in their descriptions.

Long story short, the main character is way. Too. Powerful.

Seriously, I can accept that perhaps the main character has some latent potential that manifests itself in life-threatening situations. Or a character who has underwent a series of arduous training to achieve a level of skill. But this person. He merely went through just that one instance of change near the beginning. And ever since then, he's become this extremely invincible and undefeated monster that no one can come close to provide a challenge. This is ordinarily fine, but seriously? For the entire story?

Strength aside, personality is severely lacking. As I read, I get the sense the author has a mentality of some young child dreaming up his ideal fantasy. Which would make a whole lot of sense to me, since the character's ridiculously overpowered, everything falls conveniently in place, everyone just wants to be around the protagonist. And of course, the protagonist never develops as a person. He had an interesting premise, but once he got through the face-lift, he adopts a new persona and that's about it.

We never re-visit his feelings of loss that was featured rather prominently in the beginning. He becomes a rather superficial individual who doesn't really have any complexity to him. I imagine if one were to go through such a traumatic loss and betrayal, that person would be rather jaded or perhaps have some form of underlying hurt beneath a surface of feigned confidence and joy. If that is the case here, it has not been well emphasized. He doesn't seem to care, if at all.

Protagonist aside, the side characters are just as hollow. For much of the earlier parts, the side characters are not given a lot of emphasis. It is only later on in the story that more permanent side characters appeared and began to follow the protagonist... And goodness gracious me. They're just as ridiculously powerful. And just as lacking in personality. There was a potential for one to develop her personality, but the manga was discontinued around then. Thank goodness.

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Art

I felt rather cheated when I saw that the cover art and the manga art was so completely different. The cover art had set rather high expectations, but looking within... Sigh.

The biggest issue I have is about the weird proportions. I don't mean the body (yet), but the face. At certain times in the manga, the face just looks unrealistically... Weird. The eyes, I think, and the non-existent-nose-drawing-style are probably the cause of the problem here. Sometimes the artist either purposely or accidentally draws those two a little further than they should be. The result is an exceptionally weird face that's hard to look away from.

Body proportions... Well, it's amazing how every female character in the manga, despite their Asian heritage, could have assets these voluptuous. Being Asian myself, and having tons of other female friends and myself for reference, I'm fairly certain the body proportions here really emphasizes the 'fantasy' in 'neo-oriental fantasy'.

--

All in all, this really is a work of fantasy. The author's private fantasy of a overly idealistic world where he's extremely powerful, surrounded by buxom female characters whom are either attracted to him or just happens to be (or need to be) around him, and where everything falls conveniently in place for him. As a shounen manga, I think this has the least amount of depth to it, effectively making the worst that I have read so far. Perhaps I'm not accustomed to seeing an extremely overpowered character, but I'm certain even with that, it should not compromise character development!

But of course, as the series has been discontinued, it's not possible for the manga to salvage itself at the moment. And right at a point when character development for one of the side characters was about to happen too! What a pity. But meh, whatever, no loss there.
 
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