The King's Avatar 2

PixelB★ 7

I'm going to review Quanzhi Gaoshou as a whole series: the movie, OVA, season 1, and season 2. Honestly, Quanzhi Gaoshou really doesn't make a lot of sense if you haven't read the novel. The novel is ~1200 chapters long, and the anime series crams around 600 chapters or more in 27 episodes. That's impossible. While the anime does adapt to the original material, it's quite a bit rushed, and there's a lot of heavy emphasis on certain parts of the story, while basically cutting out the other parts. As a result, you will find the story a bit weird and perhaps not make a lotof sense if you don't read the novel. Season 1 and the OVA has decent pacing. It maybe adapted 100-200 chapters or so total? Season 2 on the other hand probably adapted 400 chapters or more. Season 1 keeps basically 1:1 with the plot points. Sure, it sort of feels rushed, but you get the idea. Season 2 liberally adapts bits and pieces while getting rid of any unimportant points, and even changes quite a few things in the plot. I think the most important thing that gets changed is how Ye Qiu is depicted. Yes, Ye Qiu is pretty OP, but that doesn't mean that he effortlessly beats everyone like what the anime tries to depict. It's like when he's fighting 1 on 10, he can win? Yeah, that never happens in the novel. What about beating Huang Shaotian in the 1v1 arena battle? He certainly does beat him with a good lead, but it's not nearly as one sided as the anime depicted. There's a lot of sticky scenarios that Ye Qiu gets in the novel, and they get trivialized in the anime, to the point where the viewer thinks that Ye Qiu has no weaknesses. That's not true at all in the novel. Ye Qiu strategizes, thinks, and only then, can he take small victories against the big guilds. It's not as smooth sailing as you'd think. Ye Qiu is not a one man army, and he can't beat everyone by himself. As for combat, same sort of thing. I like the fights in the anime. Honestly, Quanzhi Gaoshou is definitely the best Chinese anime when it comes to animation and art. Fights are frequent, yet the anime manages to keep up with good quality animation. The OVA and the movie are in a league of their own, though, really amping up the art quality. Definitely super professional, but even just the anime is good. CGI is pretty terrible when it comes to bystanders, and there are still frames and reused sequences here and there, but for an anime to have this much fighting, this is a given. I love the combat, but the combat in the game is never explained. There's a lot of in-depth explanations in the novel describing key abilities and mechanics for every single class. The anime barely mentions any skills, and as a result, you don't have an appreciation for when a pro player manages to pull an amazing feat off. Cancelling animations, parrying, special CC effects when you hit the same spot twice, synergistic combos, "true combos", vanishing step, partner combos, and just all the abilities are explained in depth in the novel, but the anime never does. Even then, the novel is quite badly balanced and doesn't make sense at parts, how does the anime have a chance? Some characters are also kind of butchered. Again, Tang Rou in season 2 probably was in the show for about a minute. Same with Bao zi. Both characters are really important, so for them to have little to no screen time when they were first getting into Pro and improving at the game trivializes them. Tang Rou was a real strong character, but in the anime, she's kind of just an ornament. Even just for all the cast of characters, a lot of relationships and dialogue are cut off due to the anime cutting a significant portion of the bonding moments they had through in game events like dungeons, raids, PVP, etc. You don't really get to understand their personality, what it means for them to go pro, and what their motivations are, and you certainly don't get a sense of progress when you see them improving in skill. Look, I love The King's Avatar, but the anime should be a supplement to the novel. It definitely shouldn't be watched first, since you won't know what's going on. I think it's not a good standalone piece. However, the animation and fights are still good, and just seeing Ye Qiu on screen and seeing key scenes in the novel being adapted is good enough for me to put this at a 7. Biased? Yes. Hotel? Trivago.

eashr37★ 3

Contains light spoilers. (Also a spoiler for season 1) I don't where the high rating is coming from. This season felt like filler. It was very boring to watch and the story does not advance at all. Pretty much the whole season was the rival guilds fighting each other. They just keep fighting one after another, each fight lasting 15+ minutes. And at this point, there are too many guilds to keep track of. In terms of the esports team that Ye Xiu is making, which is why I'd think most people want to watch this show, he barely makes any progress. One thing thatmade season 1 fun was meeting and getting to know his future teammates. This did not happen in season 2. Here are a few positives: the animation was a big step up from season 1. Then, the fight scenes definitely had a lot of action. I feel like everything that happened in season 2 can be summed up in a few sentences.