We return to another one of the Turtle's extremely infrequent anime reviews, where I'll go over The King's Avatar, China's hotshot anime of 2017. As of writing this review, I've only seen the base series, but I plan on finishing the prequel movie and ONA miniseries that follows. I'm pretty sure that watching either of those won't really change my base opinion of the series, so I'm going to go ahead and review it now. (Alright that was a lie, the new artstyle sucks the life out of the show's character designs, especially Ye Qiu, but it's better animated at least.) Anyway, on to the review.

The sound design in the King's Avatar is about as meh as it gets. Sometimes the SFX is really obnoxious, like most of Glory's sounds and certain Voice Actors (looking at you Shaotian and Steamed Bun Invasion). And at other times, it's incredibly solid, like some of the world bosses or ability SFX. Also, Ye Qiu and Mucheng's Voice Actors are really good, which kind of drives home the point about the sound design being so up and down. Musically, I was never very impressed with the King's Avatar, only the ending really stood out to me as far as music goes because, boy, does that song go hard. Everything else is very forgettable though.

Aesthetically, there's not a lot that stands out either. Character designs are rather standard, background art is somewhat nondescript, and the CGI is consistently underwhelming. The animation quality is generally pretty inconsistent too, never really impressing at any point, but it qualifies as passable at the very best. Overall, I think The King's Avatar gets a pass on most points on the technical side, despite not being really good at all, but like I said about the sound design, it's really up and down on most technical aspects.

Favorite Character: Mucheng Su (Mu Mu)

I think the cop-out answer here is Ye Qiu, who is the best character in the show and a superb main character, but Mu Mu is just far too pure and cute for me to not choose (my weakness for blonde girls rears its head once more). The cuteness of Mu Mu's loyalty to Ye Qiu is what really pushes her up in my favor (and, yes, I do ship it), but more than anything, I think she and Ye Qiu benefit from just simply not being annoying. The King's Avatar tends to have pretty gimmicky characters who really push the limits of their trope and this makes some characters wear very thin as you spend time with them. Just stop shouting, please.

Now, I may sound a little nitpicky with The King's Avatar to this point, but I really do like this show. I believe the appeal of The King's Avatar lies more than anything, in Ye Qiu's brilliance and the cool factor of those moments. If you don't like overpowered main characters, or extremely intelligent ones, then the King's Avatar probably won't appeal to you, even though he's not overpowered per se, but extremely smart and experienced. Since I enjoy a good overpowered protagonist, Ye Qiu really appealed to me. Nothing was cooler than seeing him pull off another cunning maneuver on some plebs or deceiving his former colleagues. The whole show is honestly in the title. The King's Avatar. And if you don't want to watch the king flex on some noobs, then this show just won't be the one for you.

I think the real drawback to the King's Avatar is purely technical. Maybe you could say that the show's obsession with APM is laughable, but I think that's a pretty easy factor to overlook for its silliness. One final thing that I haven't really touched on is the e-sports aspect to The King's Avatar. It's shown off in a really interesting light, where the scale of it is massive. The money and competitiveness really take to the forefront of the show's depiction of the Glory stars and their arrogant attitudes and tinges of corruption. It's a really cool look into that kind of world, which is another thing elevating it.

As long as you're not looking for top of the table production values and deep characterization, I can heavily recommend The King's Avatar. It's more of a power fantasy than anything, but there are certain interesting takes on e-sports, age within it, and competitive gaming in general. If those things really speak to you, then The King's Avatar may do it for you.