Reviews with content warning for Body horror - The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Band 01

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Band 01 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

60 reviews

kiskisbella's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Content Warnings

ranwan_hualian's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

marileysan's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous emotional funny mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

thatpansyboy's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

wardenred's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous challenging funny medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Attempt the impossible.

A few years ago I really, really tried to get into the tv show based on this book because so many of my friends were gushing about it. Long story short, I just couldn’t vibe with it despite trying. Recently, the same friends started talking about it again, and about the fanfic for it that they were reading and writing, and the fanfic sounded interesting enough that I thought, hey, maybe I should tackle the canon again to be in the know. Maybe it will work for me better in book form.

It… both did and didn’t work for me better in book form. The super amateurish translation sadly didn’t help—the resulting prose was of such low quality and full of such weird turns of phrase that it was legitimately hard to focus on reading. Instead of getting immersed into the story, I kept poking at odd sentences and/or thinking, “I wonder what the actual author meant to say here and what the effect would be if I could read it in Chinese“ (sadly, I don’t know Chinese).

But despite that, when I did manage to get immersed, it was pretty good? Wei Wuxian was an entertaining and interesting protagonist to follow, and I was fascinated by the worldbuilding. And the plotty bits were seriously good. Actually, in a weird turn of events, I was more interested in all the external/setting-focused plottiness than the relationship developments, especially when it came to the main relationship. Apparently, no matter the medium, the hype and I are just. Completely on different pages with this story. It’s strange, because the tropes here are the ones I usually enjoy, and the dynamic should be pulling me in, but every time the book focused on Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, I was like, “Yeah… cool… can we another evil ghost encounter or something now?“

Guess it’s one of those cases where a popular story just doesn’t resonate with me enough, but I’m still glad I gave it a chance and I’m actually interested in picking up some other danmei books now.

Content Warnings

josamawi's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

harryhai's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

itsnotalakeitsanocean's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I've been meaning to re-read this series now that all of the volumes are out and I've bought them; mostly because having to wait for each new release left me forgetting where the last volume left off each time. I'm happy to report that it's still entertaining on a re-read

and has some delicious re-read value as to why Lan Wangji acts the way he does around Wei Wuxian

.

Unfortunately I can't rate it much higher because:

a) There's a lot of instances where the story flashes back to past events but the transition between past and present is clunky and left me scratching my head trying to figure out what happened where and when (even with a timeline of everything explained to me).

b) This is an extremely minor nitpick but there are so many instances Wei Wuxian is described as laughing or cackling in response to a lot of situations. This wouldn't be so bad if it was one or two situations but I feel like it's overdone to the point it feels like if anything mildly amusing happens, he'll be cackling like a hyena.

Content Warnings