Mar 31, 2024
Go read the manga, please. The animation ruined all of the key worldbuilding, growth and emotional moments in the show. The animation is good but the story, while on the surface being the same, lost all of the little things that made the difference and make the manga get the popularity it did.
I'm rating it a 6.5 because of animation quality and engagement but there's SO MANY THINGS THAT ARE MISSING FROM THE ORIGINAL
Some stuff I'd like to address (may contain spoilers after this):
- the official translators put a lot of effort into the word choice for the english version, which the japanese adaption CLEARLY
...
loses (how can "arise" be compared to "wake up"?? "Wake" is still in the same plane, maybe, but casual language makes the whole thing so unserious. The difference in this was how the series actually felt like a fantasy, not just a kid on a power trip with stupid level-ups, and obviously that nuance was lost in the anime.
- worldbuilding; jin woo is a hunter because other jobs can't get him money like being a hunter can. In the anime he just casually is doing it; you see a lot more of the struggle, images of the fucked up economy, and the need for an overall change, in the manga. He doesn't just go out for a patrol whenever he feels like it and have a tough time; he spends his life between dungeons and recovery, and that kind of lifestyle is what gives him a lot of the desperation and strong mentality needed for the harsh situations later.
- emotional connect; in this, sung jin woo is SO EMOTIONALLY DEAD he might as well be a log. In the manga you can actually feel for the character, and HE DOESN'T just blandly state, "oh im weak" "let's work hard anyways and then have luck actually make the difference" hdfewoghwoig it makes me so mad how terribly the animation ruined all the work the authors put into the manga... just because they wanted a japanese version of the manhua that got so popular... they even destroyed all the cultural context behind the two... they didn't take this job seriously and it shows.
- cultural context because I mentioned it in the last point: the two nations have a history because Japan colonised Korea. This shows up in current day politics, media, etc - Japan was this big tech hub and the only main one recognised in the west for a long time other than China, etc etc, before Korea grew massively in its soft power and influence through media and entertainment. Anyways; a big reason why people care so much is because he's a KOREAN hunter, where Korea was previously dominated by Japan, and obviously, the adaptation removes any of that context because they have the power to, and of course would rather sweep all of that under the rug. The output is a generic, bland ahh anime TT
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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