Review of The King's Avatar

Quanzhi Gaoshou is developed by the Chinese which some people believe is as good or is even better than traditional anime titles. It does a great job showing how intense and aggressive competitive gaming is. It contains high quality animation that makes characters look sharp and detailed. Fighting scenes are smooth and natural. It is definitely a hit. The Chong Qing CMAY Animation Production Company delivered a successful work that proves the Chinese have the potential to challenge the Japanese in the anime industry. While the artwork, voice acting, and sound are of top quality, storytelling is lacking in depth. The producers seem to havedecided to put more effort into satisfying the audience with prolonged flashy fight scenes rather than deepen the story.

The story dives right into Ye Xiu’s (protagonist) conflict. Its beginning gives the impression that the plot will focus on the dark side of competitive gaming. Players can be terminated, replaced, and forgotten at any moment. If you are an expert gamer or have many accomplishments, somebody will try to find a way to kick you out. Others may feel jealous about your fame so they attempt to sabotage you and then claim your spot. While this side of the story makes gaming feel like it is every man for himself, the plot also explains the lighter side of gaming. Ye Xiu mentors the other main characters by showing them strategies, the right skills to use during sticky situations, and the importance of synergy and teamwork. We monitor their development overtime to see if they become better players and people. This is what makes the first half of the series exciting. Each character has a unique personality, motivation, and background. There is so much room for character development and ways to deepen the theme. Perhaps some of these characters may end up in the dark side. The main characters have their ambitions and we do not know if they are willing to make unexpected or unethical decisions in order to achieve them. Unfortunately, the anime never explores this area.

Instead, we get a lot of fight scenes. The fights are great and you can tell the producers spent a lot of effort in these scenes. The background fight scenes are detailed. In a town, you can see individual bricks animated with broken pieces of wood splintered and sticking out of the roof. In a graveyard, you see trees are moist from the thick fog with each branch covered in thorns. The fights are diversified and mixed with melee, guns, and magic casting. These scenes get even better when a bunch of players fight each other and NPCs. The arena is chaotic and it feels like you are in the battlefield with sounds of weapons clashing, players roaring as they charge the enemies, and explosions from magicians’ fireballs on impact. Fight scenes come with montages of players clicking and moving their mouses furiously and smashing keys. When keys are pressed, you can actually see individual key going down and up which is visually satisfying.

But it gets repetitive since each fight is similar and usually ends the same way. Also, most characters are animated with similar faces which is irritating. It becomes boring and frustrating by the middle of the series. There is less plot and more fight scenes. In fact, each episode will have two to four fight scenes. Maybe their sponsor, McDonalds, did some surveying and figured more action means more people will watch so they can sell more dark coned ice cream. If so, it worked because a lot of people really enjoyed those scenes and the anime became popular. But some of us who are more interested in the plot and characters feel left out. Fight scenes did little to advance the plot. Minor characters who contribute a lot to the plot are completely gone. Major characters who are interesting are sidelined. Besides improving their gaming skills, there isn’t much change for them. Nobody reaches or comes close to their goals either. The plot returns to the dark side of gaming periodically but aims at clans. Many clans treat their members like dirt and other clans fall apart because of their egos. This is interesting except the anime barely expands on them and doesn’t connect with main characters. The final episode redeems the series a little by doing some character development. We get some level of depth with the major characters. We also get a huge amount of information on Ye Xiu and determine his goal. The series is planned to have a second season and his goal is most likely the basis for the plot.

This anime had a target theme and a good plot setup but went off course in order to get more viewers. If you are the type that loves action and animation but not necessarily a strong story, you will definitely enjoy it. For others, it will be disappointing. Most of the time and effort spent on fighting scenes resulted in shallow characters and an uninteresting story. The surprising success of Quanzhi Gaoshou will be a bad influence to future anime producers, especially the Chinese, who may use this work as a model. Hopefully, the producers will see through the deceptive success, learn from the mistakes, and make season two better.