Biao Ren

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In my almost 3 decades of reading manga and watching anime, I have just written a review here, once. After finding out that this has no enough rating and review, I was like "What??!! Why?!!" I got frustrated so I logged in and made my second manga review.

To all the people out there who's contemplating wether to read this or not, PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND READ!!! This is the type of story that will make you want to end your day fast from work or school so you could just open your mobile and continue reading. THIS IS A MASTERPIECE!!!

Im too lazy ... to write a long review so Im gonna write this in few lines only. Story is beyond awesome! No dull moments! Characterization is great and art is superb! I can hear even the creaking of stones in the mountains! This is action-packed. Fight scenes are amazingly drawn. Oh my! I even added their discord link.

I fell in love with this manga after reaching 5 chapters. This became my top most favorite Chinese manhua now.

If you want to complete your day, read Biao Ren♥️

This story is hard to describe, at first it feels a little like a western then Game of Thrones, but by chapter 109 it came into something of it's own, I can see it forming into something that could be better.

Something peculiar is it's use of metaphorical art which lead me to believe there is fantasy in this. But it is purely a historical fiction with Kings being likened to dragons and wolves, cannibals to monsters.

It's hard to recommend as it doesn't focus on one character but multiple characters. It's more of an ensemble cast, and it really does focus heavily on ... the ensemble aspect more than every other manga I have read.

The political situations are also very complex and there are a lot of names that might be hard for you to remember.

Another reason it's hard to recommend, is from everything I have read so far however, it feels like I have only read the prologue (a solid read nonetheless) .

As only so far, we are just now getting into our first main character's backstory after little glimpses even when we pretty much got a rundown of every other characters that were introduced after him even the supposed villains.

It's pretty hard to get invested in Dao Ma as you would to Miyamoto Musashi from Vagabond, Thorfinn from Vinlanda Saga or Li Xin from Kingdom. He already gone through most everything but that doesn't mean he isn't an interesting character in his own right.

I think that could be one of the reason why Biao Ren isn't a straight hit everyone is talking about.

Since one of the other character, a little guy called Shubao has more of a protagonist vibe with his naive strength and determination, coming fresh out of a mountain but extremely skilled after training for his whole life, ready to become a man of justice. I wish I can see him more.

But I believe the anime that is coming out this year could shoot this manga into everyone's priority list.

The author is updating slower, so I hope it isn't suffering from the same unfinished Seinen manga sickness. The fact the anime is coming out could probably determine it's popularity in the west.

The art is peculiar. Something about it feels off yet still right. The further you go into the series, the better the art gets. Though the fight scenes are always enjoyable from the start.

It's a solid 8 so far in terms of everything. But if you enjoy westerns and Game of Thrones, I definitely recommend this manhua.

*I have been procrastinating from writing a review for Biao Ren for way too long. Today, I finally get to do it.

As the previous reviewer mentioned, so far Biao Ren feels more like a prologue. Even while reading the manhua, I don't know what the story is really about, which direction it is going for. One of the bloggers I follow describes Biao Ren as "a nerve-wracking action [soon-to-be] donghua that brought the chaotic historical era of the Sui dynasty to our plate this year. It revolves around assassins, man-eating demons, and a whole conspiracy where people’s emotions go haywire and the turmoil of war ... is everywhere." Now that we get the general idea of the story (not really though), let's move on to the actual review.

Biao Ren reminds me of Vagabond, and probably will suffer the same fate that it will never finish. However, I think it is definitely worthy of your time (I mean I read it ~2 years ago, and yet, I still remember some of the scenes).

Story: Starts off pretty solid, but as the story progresses, it gets messier and more confused partly due to my lack of understanding of the history of the Sui dynasty. Well actually, it's more like the mangaka expects us to know everything related to that timeline before reading the manhua. The story involves politics and conflicts between multiple groups of the time, so it's really hard to follow. The second issue is that the number of characters keeps growing. And many of the characters share similar names, so I got lost easily (despite having been reading several Chinese web novels which made me quite confident initially).

Art: Just amazing! Though the drawings do feel quite rough at first (I mean you can literally see the erased/semi-transparent sketches which probably means that the mangaka does not have enough time to polish the drawings), but the attention to detail is commendable. Some of the latest chapters, however, are not as messy but also not as detailed. There are scenes where the mangaka uses ink brush, and I am a SUCKER for ink brush, so that's definitely a plus.

Characters: I love all the characters' designs. Other than that, the characters themselves are just slightly interesting, not enough for me to feel emotionally invested.

In general, the series has its strengths and flaws. But I think that the flaws may overwhelm the strengths as its serialization continues. Why would anyone want to keep reading if they don't even understand the story? I also feel like even the mangaka is having a difficult time coming up with the story, hence his slow updates. Anyway, I recommend this manhua for anyone who tries to get into the manhua world and take this series as evidence to retort those who said that manhua art is trash.