Review Me! Demon Spirit Seed Manual
Hello humans and aliens, my name is Failed2Connect! Welcome to my first ever manga, (well manhwa in this case) review on my blog!
If you’ve read my intro post, then you’ll know how I’m going to break down and review this manhwa. Note: Manhwa is a Korean or Chinese comic book, at least that’s what the Internet says?! Anyway, let’s start this review of……
Demon Spirit Seed Manual!
Chapter 1!:
Demon Spirit Seed Manual (DSSM) is a Chinese manhwa written and illustrated by DAZUI (I couldn’t find much information on this author sadly :c) DSSM is a fantasy manhwa and takes place in an entirely different world than ours. In this world there are familiar things such as magic, dragons etc. There’s nothing to complex you need to learn about this world, except for the main part of the plot, Demons Spirits. Essentially Demon Spirits are extremely powerful summons and are rare and sought out amongst the inhabitants for thee power. These DS’s (Heh… DS) are sealed within seeds and require specific care to be “unsealed”. They also take some time to grow and “hatch” out the DS’s.
Chapter 2!: The story starts with our main character Yuan Ding, who is a 16 year old otaku who has left home.. Don’t know why, nor do I care.
Yuan is travelling to Akihabara, (why wouldn’t he? He is an otaku after all) but for some reason, he steps through a random portal and is transported to a completely different world!
He has landed in a garden in front of an academy that teaches magic. A groundskeeper comes across him and tells him the garden is off limits to people outside Shuo Yue (which is the name of the school, which the translator fortunately explains :3) The mysterious grounds keeper then proceeds to drag our protagonist towards Shuo Yue, informing him that the entrance exam will be starting. Silly old man.. As soon as Yuan completes the exam, he is told he has failed miserably as he has barely any magic power. His power is measured by a Sacred Stone, and the colour of the light determines his ability. Unfortunately… his is white, with a slight hint of green, which means he has no magic attribute, except the underwhelming power to command Flora. (The attribute is labelled as “Wood” but ew, that sounds more underwhelming.) The two exam supervisors also mention that the world we are in is named the “Duo Ya Continent.”
After finding out he has almost no ability to use magic, the old man approaches him yet again and asks if he would like to work as his assistant, to “garden” alongside him. Yuan agrees and as he works, his Flora ability grows stronger. He is now able to advance the growth time of seedlings, so they can become, slightly older seedlings…? After working for a week, the old man hears rustling in the bush and mentions that there’s a “Fruit Stealing” animal. Yuan ventures into the bushes and discovers 2 men and a woman being all touchy feely with each other. They notice him and use their magic to beat him basically unconscious. The story then cuts to Yuan, with the elder man treating him to tea and biscuits in his cabin. The man notices Yuan’s lack of strength and explains to him that there’s a much easier way than gardening to enhance his powers. The two then dwell into the basement of the cabin, where the Gardner retrieves a small case, and inside is a Demon Spirit Seed!
The old man then explains the story of the DSS’s being extremely powerful and rare!
After obtaining his first seed, the principal approaches him and gifts him the Demon Spirit Seed Manual. The Manual is similar to a Pokédex or Encyclopaedia, except all the pages are blank, and he proposes he’ll collect all 100 DSS’s to fill out The Manual!
There is more after this that I will not spoil for you. Really, all you need to understand is Yuan uses DSS’s and is on an adventure to collect them all! :3
Chapter 3!:
Demon Spirit Seed Manual has full colour pages, like most manwha I believe. It’s chapters are quite short, lasting around 9-17 pages and usually always end off with a cliffhanger, making you want to read on and on! The translator Rikk does a great job in making each line of text makes sense to us :) Thanks a bunch Rikk! He/She also puts asterisks on certain parts that can’t really be translated and he/she explains what it means and why, which is great! There’s often times when I feel lost in what some characters talk about, but 10 times out of 10, it’s explained on the borders of the page in easy English for most people to understand. For the most part the writing is fine, it’s nothing too special to be honest, but there are a few hilarious moments. Often the artist moves the character’s eyes apart slightly when they say/think something stupid, which makes me giggle a little. There are also some funny one liners and a few jokes here and there to keep the laughs rolling. I didn’t find myself laughing all the time at these jokes, maybe 40% of the time. The characters though, I really enjoy the character’s different personalities and how often they just don’t mix well together. But it’s cute to look at how tight they become even though they’re so different from one another. For example, one of the main character’s is so dumb, and Yuan also is an idiot himself too. But when they’re going through tough situations he does a complete 180 and becomes a responsible and brave human being, and it’s fun to read! There’s also another part of the story I like, and that’s the backstory behind the Demon Spirits. I won’t spoil anything about them, I’ll just say that each time you meet a new Demon Spirit, there’s a sense of mystery behind their personalities. Why does she not trust Yuan? Why’s this one so ruthless? How come she’s so shy? It’s quite fun to read the backstory of these mysterious demons. But even after mentioning that, I still feel that the writing isn’t very memorable, at least to me. I noticed when I picked this manhwa out it was in the top 100 of most read, which I still find hard to believe. Which brings me to the Final Chapter!
Final Chapter!:
Overall this manhwa just feels really generic :/ There are cool fight scenes on occasions, a few jokes, boobs -_-, flash backs to make the story richer and that’s about it. When I was reading I found it so enjoyable though, even with all its “genericness” I couldn’t help but keep reading on. Maybe it’s because of those damn cliffhangers! But no, it’s not. I find myself really liking all the main characters that are introduced throughout the story. I enjoy how all these polar opposites work together and converse with each other, it’s nice to read. But again, the story and everything else has already been done a thousand times :/ But even after saying how mediocre everything is, I’m still going to continue reading it, and that’s because of the charm the character’s give me. I rarely like all the character’s in a manga or anime, there’s always a few I begin to hate, but that’s not the case with this story. I enjoy the extra time the author spends on expanding the story of all the new characters too. It’s not often you see that either. Maybe in some longer manga, but not in some shorter ones. For example, have you watched Kiznaiver? There’s all these great characters in it that you want to get to know badly, but other than 1 simple sentence to explain why they’re the way they are, there’s nothing else to it :(. I’d recommend giving it a read if you just want a laid back experience, or a break from reading all those other over the top and long form manga. It takes a while to start up but it gets better once you start meeting all the new characters :3
Thanks for reading guys and ghouls. If you enjoyed this post, please heart me and repost it to spread me around, I’d really appreciate it! If you have anything you’d like to say, send a DM my way and I’ll give it a read! I’m fairly new to reviews, other than watching them on YouTube and reading a few in magazines I’m probably not the best at the moment :/ So if you have any tips on how I could improve, that’d be great too!
(Unfortunately I don’t have a computer, so I cannot put the images in. :( This won’t last forever, I soon should be able to add images. Thanks for your patience)
titsay
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
kianamaiart
amandla
theartofmadeline
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
snowghoul
