Stuff I Have Read Recently

Formless Form by Fongqi Dongman    

This is another manhua that I read recently (well within the last few months) . It is a series focused around daoism, the origin of its title coming from Laozi's 'Dao De Ching' the most important book for daoism. Formless form in particular focuses on the exorcist and magical aspects of it. The main character is a strong master of daoism talisman arts since he is part of the maoshan school / shangqing school - a real daoist school and the name maoshan being the place the school established itself. The author's certain level of knowledge does allow him to build a somewhat consistent worldview at least at the onset of the series.

Moving on to the characters, in this series the main character is the carefree, lax title that likes first and foremost to enjoy himself. He lives nonchalantly and he can live like that because he is absurdly powerful. He is sort of a powerful card that the organization that is tasked with managing supernatural cases turns to when difficult tasks involving strong evil spirits come up. The first arc that is built up from the first chapter involves a difficult case involving a spirit that takes over the body of a dying girl. This arc runs until chapter 20s or so. In a sense,

 
In a clear comparison I believe this series is similar to shounen manga but it has better pacing since it does not have to rush because of poll results. For example, since this first arc builds up a starting point for the series, in a Japanese battle shounen series it would have put those 20 or so chapters into a single long first chapter. So it takes more time to establish the world and the actors involved. But it still is a heavily action focused series, so the narrative is not really anything new and the characters are to a certain extent the generic type. Overall, it's an alright read, it is definitely not any worse than most Japanese battle shounen series.

I have Twin Girlfriends by Tian Kong Shuman Gong Factory     

This series was a surprise for me, it did look like a wish fulfillment series from the title and image. but it was not at least not blatantly so. Of the first 20 or so chapters, I was impressed. The first chapter begins with the main character saying he wants to break up, his puzzled girlfriend dismisses it and leaves for work saying they can talk about things later.

At work, the main character is given a promotion by his boss for his latest successful short film and they hold a celebration for him. However, the main character, a bit depressed, turns to alcohol and after having a few too many drinks cannot make his way home by himself. His boss, who is a friend he knew from university, takes him home. It might sound like this happens in the first chapter but these things actually happen over the first 5 or 6 chapters.

At this point, we are kind of told why the main character is a bit dejected and its because a man that works with his girlfriend tells him that she is not happy with him and that he is holding back her ability to shine. This only exacerbates an inferiority complex of the main character in comparison to how able his girlfriend is. In his drunken state, at home we finally see the twins that live together with him but he obviously does not know that they are twins. The events that unfold after that is as the summary and the title of the series suggests, he finds out his girlfriend (s) are actually twins.

There is actually a reason the twins live the way they do and it can be stupid at surface level but looking introspectively it does raises a few questions. Overall, I like the slower narrative, it could have been a lot faster and stupider but it took over 7 or so chapters to show the twins and a few more for him to find out their secret. So it takes its time and its better for it because it does not rush into dramatic developments, it tries to first show relationships and demonstrate their inner workings. It did stand out in my mind in comparison to other series in this genre, regardless if they are either Chinese or Japanese.

The art is good, and whilst the opening chapter cover is usually fan service-y, the series itself is not as heavy on fanservice. I had very low expectations coming in and it managed to counter them by showing itself to be an alright romance series that tries to be at least more mature. In addition, the slower pace and how smooth it flowed is what kept me reading despite the fact I usually do not read more than one chapter of a series like this. I stopped at 20 because I had to do some other thing and I never returned for no real reason.