The King’s Avatar is a manhua that successfully manages to bring the idea of being a gaming character to life from the perspective of the reader, as seen through the eyes of the game character and the gamer playing the character. The King’s Avatar is a visually stunning masterpiece with highly detailed character drawings, as well as equipment and technique breakdowns that captivate the reader without feeling tedious and cumbersome to ingest. Transporting readers into the world of competitive PC MMORPG. Following the character Ye Xiu, the number one player of the game Glory, and the team leader of the esports team “Excellent Era,” as he is uprooted from the team lead position and leaves behind the competitive gaming scene.

Ye Xiu starts working at a gaming café and continues to play the game Glory, but on the new server, building a weapon that he originally invented with his best friend. Gathering materials through performing dungeon raids and striking temporary alliances. As he leads teams to set records, all the top guilds try to recruit him, though no one knows who he truly is. The purpose is to return to the competitive scene within one year and regain his spot as number one. Even though this manhua is in black and white, the drawing style is well defined and detailed, leaving the reader with a real sense of movement and pacing. Characters convey the direness or the hilariousness of the situation, and the dialog is pun city!

The first season of The King’s Avatar anime was terrible. It changed the look of the manhuas lead character, Ye Xiu, to have drooping eyes. The anime degraded him from the alpha apex gamer that he was in the manhua. Ye Xiu is depicted as pathetic outside of gaming in the anime, which is just not true to the source. This is a huge gripe of fans when producers get a creative license to make an anime or a live-action show based on the source material and then don’t remain faithful to it. The creators of the anime address many of those issues, starting with the second season, changing the droopy pathetic character of Ye Xiu to being more like the badass we all want him to be. Ye Xiu was previously depicted in the anime just getting dragged through the mud by the company backing the esports team he was on during the transition of handing over team leadership. The company didn’t treat him like that in the manhua. It was the other new gamers who were behaving that way.

The outfit worn by Ye Xiu’s character in the game, Lord Grim, was changed. This was one of the funny things about the manhua. Lord Grim had non-matching, one-off armor that he was using. Despite him looking like a mess, he was doing things that no one else could do, which further emphasizes Ye Xiu’s abilities over everyone else. It’s only later that he gets a good armor set in the manhua. So much of the comedy that is in the source material ends up left out of the anime. The anime completely messes up the Blood Gunner Boss fight, which was so epic in the manhua! The environment was changed, weapons and skills of the boss, character design, even the people involved in the fight and events leading up to it. These original elements combined to make a masterpiece in the manhua, and all they had to do was animate it. The audio is the next major drag that continues through the seasons. The music does not match the vibes and setting of the story. The graphics are enhanced over a typical anime by having 3D effects implemented in CG clothes, lighting, as well as objects here and there, which is fantastic!

Another monumental change is in Tang Rou's character, the best friend of Chen Guo, who is excellent at everything without trying very hard, that is until she encounters Ye Xiu. She learns that she is just a frog in the well when it comes to Glory. After being beaten by him, she immediately wants to continue battling against him and have him become her teacher in the manhua. While in the TV series, she must be convinced to learn from Ye Xiu and tricked into joining the team. They made her character far too arrogant in comparison to the original. As she is presented in the manhua, Tang Rou is ultra-compatible with Ye Xiu as they have a lot of chemistry. Su Mucheng is not a love interest but more like a little sister. A notable difference from the manhua is the Noob Brawler character in the TV series is not using bricks to fight people. However, this aspect was included in the anime and had made the manhua hilarious. There are several more changes from the source material, including battle locations, events, and settings.