Mookhyang: Dark Lady

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[More info about my review style can be found on my profile]

▶Summary and recommendation: -----------------------------------------------------------------
❗It will be useful for the reader if they have some knowledge of the Cultivation genre. Which is a subgenre of Xianxia. Chinese fantasy. As that is where our hero hails from.

It appears as a Power fantasy at first glance, with a very powerful protagonist. However; the appeal of this story is not (just) the main character showing off how strong they are, but a complex political landscape in the world our hero finds themselves in. The setting and the lore is very well developed, albeit perhaps not extremely ... well explained at the start.

I recommend this to newcomers and fans of the genre with the warning that it may require you taking notes to be able to follow the story, or perhaps need a second or third read.

It is a breath of fresh air in this subgenre.

▶Story: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This author is attempting to tell a story that is a bit more mature than most in this subgenre. Quite successfully.
The lines between good and evil is not that clear and with an attempt at realistic portrayal of politics, international conflicts and morals. No one is entirely evil, and no one is entirely good.

Here I will be making a claim that is going to upset some people and make me seem like a pretentious stuck up asshole:
This Manhwa is too mature for most readers to handle.

I am basing this on the numerous comments complaining about "injustices" that happen to our main character as well as the choices of the main character. Angry comments when our protagonist ally with characters and factions that the commenters consider "evil".
Those coming in expecting a power fantasy and escapism might not be able to handle that. As things will not go the way you want it to.

Onto the actual manwha;
It has a somewhat unique premise. Where the protagonist who is from a Eastern Fantasy setting (Xianxia). Is transported into a Western Fantasy setting (medieval fantasy).

The intro is well paced with some of the most well hidden exposition dumps I have seen in Manhwa. The story has perhaps too many characters though. As no matter how good the story is at introducing them, I personally found that there are just too many to keep track of.

The manhwa is strongest when focusing on the politics, and sadly can stumble some times when the focus is on the protagonist fighting. Like many other stories wih powerful main characters, there is only so many times you can show the audience how strong they are before it gets stale. To keep the tensions high, the author some rare times has to resort to writing unusual circumstances that restricts the protagonist from using their full powers. It comes across as quite awkward and stands out in particular in the later seasons.

I also need to comment on the title of the manhwa. "Dark Lady". The reason it is called that is because this manhwa features "Genderbending", or as MyAnimeList weirdly calls it "Magical Sex Shift".
It is entirely pointless and irrelevant to the overarching plot. I can't imagine any other reason for it than that the author wanted a gimmick to put it apart from other fantasy series.

▶Characters: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The main character is brash, and much of the story is focused on him developing as a character. Which the story does a good job of most of the time.

Some commenters have noted that they found a lot of the characters surrounding the main character to be off putting, and unlikeable. While I do not want to comment on how much I liked each individual character; I think the intra-group conflict make for an entertaining and colourful party.

▶Artwork: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Similar to the story, the art feels like a mix of Eastern Comics and Western Comics. The result is gorgeous, with the character art being particularly great.
Action scenes are sometimes a bit chaotic, but it is otherwise very serviceable.

▶In conclusion: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is a really good fantasy story that manages to have a lot of depth and complexity while keeping the tensions high.

It stumbles at times, and the repeated use of the same comedic elements over and over again can feel a bit worn out after a hundred chapters. However keeping it exciting for over 150 chapters out of 200 is still quite the accomplishment, and an accomplishment worth reading.

This manwha is quite the amalgamation of genres & themes, so I think writing a review to warn readers could help some people.

The main character is a 70 year old male from a murim world, who gets transported to another world & eventually turns into a female.
Most of the fights are done with mechs, rather than martial arts. The MC is also often times sidelined in order to showcase plot developments & other characters. Later on the politics will be about 90% of what you read.

From my personal view:
I honestly never liked the characters or plot in this manwha. I kept going because I was ... curious where the story was going and was hoping to see some fun scenarios unfold. But I never feel like I got the payoff I was hoping for at any point.

231 chapters is quite a chunk, although I read quite quickly, I spent several days reading this and my opinion changed constantly as I read. Because: this is not really a straightforward story, there are twists and turns, ups and downs. While I will try to avoid spoilers, I have to warn you that I would like to talk about things in Chapter 100.

“MookHyang: Dark Lady “ is about Dark. The only person who achieved legendary power and was considered virtually invincible. What do his enemies do? Send him to another dimension!
Here he wakes up and doesn't know where to go. First he finds out ... that it is a different world and soon he has to somehow familiarize himself with the customs, the monsters and even the language. After he feels halfway ready, he sets off on an adventure to find a way back home.


Since the manga is so long and it has two big breaks where it seemed like a new story was being told each time, I want to warn that the description only counts for about the first 30 chapters. In retrospect, they seem like a VERY long introduction, but I really enjoyed them.
I would even say that the introduction is by far the most fun part. First, I was impressed by the unusual, watercolor art style, which provided some unobtrusive but extremely pretty backgrounds and scenes. Dark's adventure feels like exactly that, mainly because he is very curious about the world's abilities and the reader learns more and more about them too.

However, there is a break here that will really drag the next 10-20 chapters into the dirt. There are many reasons for this and I think with 231 chapters I can talk about chapter 30!
Dark is defeated by an unknown force and loses his powers. After a brief continuation of his adventure, in which he searches for a way to get his powers back, he ends up as a count in the kingdom that cursed him and he knows it. So why is he suddenly working with them? The manhwa never really provides an explanation and the switch from light-hearted adventure living to intrigue and war between kingdoms only succeeds after a tremendous amount of time. If I hadn't been so convinced by the 30 chapters, I would have stopped here.
From here on we get to know some really likeable characters and to my surprise the manhwa also manages to mention a very large part of its cast time and time again. It was nice to see familiar faces again and again, even if more could have been done with the characters.
So once the transformation from adventuring life to soldier in search of his powers - or soon to be extremely powerful soldier - is complete, the manhwa drew me into its spell once again. Many of the quality issues - e.g. a near-disastrous translation, strange timeskips (which felt like some chapters had been forgotten) or missing explanations - gradually disappear. The biggest and most exciting part of the story is definitely the fight to somehow defeat Dark. After he made some enemies as a soldier - which was also very entertaining - they try to take him out somehow in increasingly creative ways. However, Dark has learned from his mistakes and is now wary of the forces of the new world, which do indeed threaten him time and again.

With a huge timeskip of 6 years, which made me extremely angry, we come to the last part. It was so terrible that I abandoned it. Since these are fairly new chapters, I don't want to say too much, but my biggest problem is probably that the cautious battlemaster with brains named Dark turns into a rash, arrogant man-child who pulls off actions I couldn't stand.


In general, the Manwa always has problems explaining things. Some of it might be because this is a sequel to another manhwa and simply requires prior knowledge, but there are some situations that can't be excused. For example, why Dark is now working with the kingdom that cursed him or why it went on such an extreme confrontational course in the first place.


Conclusion: "MookHyang: Dark Lady" is a fantastic work that drew me into its spell for well over 150 chapters despite all the quality issues. It looks unusual and creates a genre combo (isekai + murim + op protagonist + intrigue) that I've never seen before and it works fantastically. Mainly because of Dark himself, I could forgive many of the 'flaws' of the manhwa, but when this really good character disappears in the final arc, a 9 out of 10 story turns into a real pain in the ass within a few chapters, and I don't want to give these a single point. Can't recommend a story where I despised the last available chapters.