Gilgamesh

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Story - 9
Okay, so the story of this? Well, aside from the snippet you see in the summary of this, I will give more background to the summary. From the epilogue, you are introduced to the female MC who is a knight and her eating quirks. She meets the male MC who is quite in a bind. Ma boy was just chilling in the wilderness, ya know. Minding his own business, ya know. Just keeping himself away from problems and people, ya know. Then outta nowhere, a group of irrelevant characters (unsatisfied with their irrelevance) tried to molly-whop the MC. What the actual fuck?

It was ... an epic fail though because everyone (the female MC, all the irrelevants and we the readers) discovers that the male MC is actually, *plays drumrolls*, AN IMMORTAL! BOOM! This prompts the story to pick up subsequently into the next chapters which the male MC helps the female MC.

The manhwa just draws you into a different fantasy/magical world. There is a system behind this world. There was a beginning to the world. Even if the world is old, before it was referred to as a world, there was a witness. A creature was there from the very beginning. The characters that went ahead to become myths, legends, heroes in the story all interacted one way or another with this witness. And clearly, the witness is the immortal, the male MC.

Art - 9
This is a manhwa, what you expect, huh? Art is fire. Full coloured obviously. The art style complemented the character designs and the mechanics of everything going on in the panels and story.

Character - 10
Perhaps, you can make an argument for it being this manhwa's strongest point. I mean, for me to give it a 10, you damn sure must realise the characters were, *muah*, fantastic! Every character that was not fodder has their backstory, uniqueness, beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses etc. Every action carried out by the characters were not done just because. Even with the cliches, they made sense.

This is one of those comics that you can say almost all the characters are inter-related to each other one way or another. And the strongest link between everyone is the male MC. Do not get me wrong, there are better pieces of fiction out there that inter-relate characters better in its established world. These interactions could be stronger, however, in Gilgamesh, it does not fall off. It is consistent even the further back the story leads you into.

I will give you an example of how the male MC relates to the world. Imagine the whole "God created the world and made Adam in His own image" storyline. Now, how to draw some form of parallel between that narrative and Gilgamesh on a basic level is to make Adam an immortal and from that time period till 2020. Yeah, so Adam was alive to see everything (at least, everything MAJOR or SIGNIFICANT) that occurred in humanity's history. Adam got to meet or influence every significant character that shaped history in a certain way (e.g. Einstein, Faraday, Rutherford, Newton, Curie, Thomson etc). Obviously, in a real-world like ours, the scope is incomparably larger compared to the universe of Gilgamesh. However, you can draw that basic fictional parallel between the male MC and Adam. Plus, the world of Gilgamesh is more towards fantasy, so you got the mages, dragons, knights, and all. It is a bit more restrictive in terms of the universe in the varieties of monsters or races, but for the few varieties executed, it held well. The manhwa did not execute some massive universe and character scheme that felt too big that wrapping everything up was a problem.

Also, to be honest, for the most part, all the significant characters were not boring to me. At different points in the story, you will find yourself asking questions. However, I believe by the ending of the manhwa, most of them will be answered? If I should put it that way. Or maybe not all answered, but you will not feel like asking questions anymore. Right, that feels more like it.

Enjoyment - 10
Yo, I enjoyed the hell out of this comic. I mean, I have had it in my PTR list for ages. I was always sceptical about it during its publication period. However, for it to be this top-tier, mehn, I am glad I got to binge it. Also, this manhwa, you have to read all the side stories that were released after it was completed. They all tie-up the characters and stories better after the main plot is finished.

The author retold the story of the world in his own way, set up some mechanics and restrictions. The storytelling was stellar throughout the journey of the manhwa. The comedy was good. It was fun. As an aspiring author, there are times you get jealous of a work and wish that you were the one who created it. It is very rare for me to feel like this; however, this is one of those (plot twist: I ain't even into writing stories for comics, but rather novels) works of fiction that I wish it were my brain that conceived it.

Overall - 9 (but really tho, the average was a 9.5!)
I loved it. I enjoyed it. Art is great. The story starts off well, it is like a banana. The deeper you go into the chapters, the more it peels off to reveal more amazing stuff. However, it is interesting how I feel some sense of simplicity when I think of the whole comic. It's like the author set out to make something in the way he wanted in his own way, executed it the way it was meant to be, conveyed whatever needed to be conveyed without any hassle and ended the comic on a good note. It is all too perfect, which begs the question, is that a good or bad thing?

It is about time I end this review, no? With all this said, if you are a fan of
- Action, read this.
- Fantasy, read this.
- Stellar storytelling, read this.
- Dope worldbuilding, read this.
- Strong characterisation and strong characters themselves, read this.
- Manhwas, read this.

The Cons of this work
- Fantasy elements were not expansive enough.
- Overall execution of this manhwa can feel a bit too safe? It does not go bonkers, there were not enough high risk-taking with the author concerning the work. It was executed too well.

But then again, you read all I have said, the cons are not really cons. Oh man, I will just end it here. It is a really good manhwa. I got nothing more to say y'all. Read it if you want.

*DROPS MIC*

The majority of the series is 9/10, although there is a arc near the end (from around ch. 90 to ch. 115 ish) that drops down the ball in terms of pacing and character development. Makes the series feel like a 7/10 at that point. Still a great series if you're a fan of the fantasy genre and the immortality trope.

This was one of my first and still one of my favorite manhwas, and I'm writing this after almost finishing my re-reading. Even with the nostalgia glasses on, this is still a great series with well-built characters, well-designed lore that builds off the protagonist's ... immortality, interesting combat/magic mechanics, and fairly stereotypical yet engaging theme of the curse of not dying when the ones close to you pass away.