The Ravages of Time - I swear, this is Godly manga...

[JERI]

It's really a Hong Kong comic, but since it's serialised on a manga magazine, I suppose it qualifies to be in this forum.

Most of you reading this probably never heard of it, or ever will hear about it, but God, this is such a fcuking brilliant comic I absolutely NEED to praise it.



The Ravages of Time is a praphrase manga based on the Three Kingdom Period of the Chinese history. The author, Chan Mou, obviously has done thorough research into his subject. The entire comic is highly imaginative, offering interesting intepretations to the characters/events of the era, but on the other hand, it stays faithful to actual recorded history.



It's currently one of the most popular series in Chinese speaking regions, and justly so. The comic excels in all elements of a comic - story telling, themes, symbols, imagery, character development; but best of all are the action sequences. Examples below.







It is a pity that English readers (if this ever gets licensed in English) won't be able to enjoy it as much as Chinese readers, for the comic draws heavily on Chinese culture, puns and historical allusions. Nonetheless I'd recommend it to anyone.

For anyone interested, English versions maybe found here: http://fifay.net/

[huh]

so,where can i get the chinese version

[Yebyosh]

Is this 凤火燎原?

[ubb]

Yes @ yebyosh.

[JERI]

Originally Posted by huh

so,where can i get the chinese version

Ravages of Time, from the beginning to the latest chapter can be viewed here.

[USCPharmacist]

Too bad his story telling style is.....let's just say very hard to follow if you are not too familiar with the romance of three kingdoms. It's kinda like Final Fantasy 6 where the story does not always focus on what you consider "main" characters. His drawing style is superb, however, much better than a lot of Japanese mangaka.

[haunterex]

I love this too~
the story is full of twists and strategies that are deep and cunning. This comic isnt just a simple action war story. It's full of hidden and meaningful elements that make you think about the meaning and implication of every sentences and every actions on every pages.
Too bad the author always suddenly stop for an issue or two...

[crushproof]

thanks for the link guys, this is a pretty good series that i'm enjoying

[Xion Valkyrie]

I can't believe there aren't more posts on this fantastic manga.

Just read everything in 2 days, and man is it EPIC. I love how he made Liu Bei's character. At first I was like, wait, this is Liu Bei? However, he's turns out to be a much stronger and more likable character than in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so it's a pretty big plus. Sima Yi, being the main character, doesn't really show up all the much though. It'd seem Zhao Yun has way more screen time than he does. I guess it makes sense, considering the timeline involved Sima Yi shouldn't even be in the story, so there are a lot of liberties taken. The only thing I'm not that sure I like is the fact that Zhao Yun is loyal to Sima Yi.

Anyways yeah, I'm somewhat familiar with the ROTK storyline and I still need to have wikipedia open to look up the names once in a while. Also, it doesn't help that all the main 'younger' characters have the same bishounen face, which makes telling them apart really hard when new characters get introduced.

[king12354]

There are too many characters and it gets too confusing to follow. Tough read for someone not familiar with the story already.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

I can't believe there aren't more posts on this fantastic manga.

I had no idea there was a thread about this.

And yes, it is the most epic thing since the original novel itself, lol.

But while I can praise this awesome work until the end of times, I'd rather raise points of criticism in the hopes of more fruitful discussions.

Forgot to add: SPOILERS BEWARE

Spoiler for The Ravages of Time/up to circa 250+:

For one, I've never liked Sima Yi, and I never will (though he himself is far more interesting and likable than just about all of his descendants, who idiotically allowed a reunified China to fall into centuries of disunity and "barbarian" rule because of their elementary mistakes). The author's choice of core protagonists will always bother me until the end. They really aren't a team you can cheer, with one kickass exception with a fake surname of Zhao.

I can already sort of predict the ending too, combining the hints in the story and what happened in the historical/original sources: Sima Yi will triumph, but not before Zhao Yun turned against him as his innate righteousness and discomfort with Sima Yi's tactics grew with distance and the influences of men like Zhuge Liang (we'll probably have something like the assault on the palace in the dreams). It would be a hollow triumph for the Sima clan, however, as Zhuge Liang would be proved right that the new Jin regime would not last without something truly substantial to uphold it...

The whole idea of the Sima clan -- or any power for that matter -- having a hand in all of the events of the era is also hard to stomach. Things like young Sun Quan working for the merchant families is like, whuh? I for one am glad that the author keeps that aspect of the story to a minimum and focuses on more peripheral yet far more compelling characters like Lu Bu, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Ce, and Zhuge Liang, whose characters he brilliantly adapts and subverts.

However, the whole Xanatos Roulette is also quite hard to accept at times. It's like every major character (especially Sima Yi and Those Damn Geniuses) seem to have predicted everything years in advance. I seriously have to ask at times like, why didn't Yuan Fang (fictional) just assassinate the rest of his brethren early on and ensure his ultimate triumph? What was he doing all those years in the Frozen North (surely Gongsun Zan, while not a fool, was no match for the heroes running around, especially the likes of the First Genius with the resources of the Yuan clan to back him?) Or why did the Eight Geniuses allow the Sima clan run amok when they could just extinguish the threat. For all that though, I'm glad that the Eight Geniuses finally breaks apart, as we can finally see their conflicting schemes clash and casualties skyrocket (when before I guess they were still each small enough, and China still had enough independent warlords to subsume, that they rarely directly clashed and even then the clashes were rarely fatal).

...

Yet, one interesting thing that I have discovered long after becoming a fan of this one is that the philosophies articulated by Chen Mou in this manhua/manga is surprisingly authentic and not just the work of the author. Sure, they're cloaked in the guise of repeated Xanatos gambits, total bloodletting and flashy speeches from mountaintops, but there are surprising connections between this and historical Chinese philosophies and dilemmas.

[zero0609]

Like many poster said before, this manga is hard to follow unless you are very familiar with the original novel, but it is no doubt the best manga adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdom, ever. Every character in the manga is drastically different than the ones in the original novel, characters like Lu Bu and Zhang Fei are more like GODS than man, but the way Chen Mou portraits them actually made them believable, as heroes of a chaotic era, not like their novel counter parts who are just idiots without a brain.

Ive been following this manga for over 3 years now, and o man it just gets better and better, too bad the flow of the story is so slow, hopefully we can see the Battle of ChiBi within ten years !!!

[AnimeFangirl]

I'm not familiar with ROTK so within 5 volumes I had already lost track of everything that's going on. Who's loyal to who, who's doing what to who, when why, how, eh???? Chan Mou's art is lovely, but his characters tend to look very similar, which makes the problem even worse. Maybe one day I'll read ROTK and then I'll come back to this manhua with a new understanding.

Oh, and unlike Irenicus, I love Sima Yi and I wish he'd show up more.

[Xagzan]

Ditto for me. I got through about 25 chapters before I just couldn't get what was going on in terms of strategy anymore. And I was really enjoying it too, so that's a shame. I don't know if it's just because I'm unfamiliar with the story or if the translation made it harder to follow. I'll probably read the novel(s?) first before trying to continue.

[lightbringer]

This one's only for the ROTK fanboys (which is, like, most of us, me included). The character designs are extremely similar which is a death warrant for a manga about ROTK due to the extensive cast. So you really need to know your ROTK to understand who's who. The plot also drags on after the first couple of volumes. The artist introduces a new faction (or at least I haven't seen any one of them in the novel, except for their master) as the protagonists from the start, the Handicapped Warriors, but later on we don't see them all that much. It's also all a bit soap opera-ish in execution. I still haven't gotten past the 14th volume, unfortunately, since it drags on so much.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by lightbringer

This one's only for the ROTK fanboys (which is, like, most of us, me included). The character designs are extremely similar which is a death warrant for a manga about ROTK due to the extensive cast. So you really need to know your ROTK to understand who's who. The plot also drags on after the first couple of volumes. The artist introduces a new faction (or at least I haven't seen any one of them in the novel, except for their master) as the protagonists from the start, the Handicapped Warriors, but later on we don't see them all that much. It's also all a bit soap opera-ish in execution. I still haven't gotten past the 14th volume, unfortunately, since it drags on so much.

it is base on a historical novel, he can't really not introduce the new characters and later on kill old ones if the manga last that long.

as far as character design being the same, i really didn't notice. The background character look similar but i thought all the major characters look distinctive enough.

for people who have trouble following the story and the different factions. here is a very very general overview of the plot, maybe it will help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance...Three_Kingdoms

[AnimeFangirl]

Speaking of ROTK, Ryūrōden was fun!

[Xion Valkyrie]

It seems like the author is going to die before finishing this, as they're what, like maybe 15% into the storyline of ROTK?

[AnimeFangirl]

He's setting himself up for life. Now he can keep drawing till he's 60 and save up for retirement ;-) Maybe he'll even pass on his secrets to his as-yet-unborn kids.

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

It seems like the author is going to die before finishing this, as they're what, like maybe 15% into the storyline of ROTK?

The comic is 8 years old and the story is up till the Sun Ce/Yi Ji fiasco with Sun Ce killing Yi Ji in the latest chapter via a ploy. And I guess with the comic moving from a weekly series to a monthly one, we can spend the rest of this year seeing how Sun Ce dies and the rest of this new decade anticipating the battle of Guan Du.

BTW, Chen Mou is not the only one drawing a great saga, we have other fine examples like Berserk, Guyver and Bastard.

PS :- The disposal of Lu Bu's young daughter is heart wrenching.