Review Detail of Vanaxity in Lightning Is the Only Way
Review detail
Lightning is the Only Way is a story about Gravis, son of the Opposer, the only being that can fight against heaven equally. Because he is the son of the Opposer, he has zero luck, and due to heaven taking away a companion of his, he decided to fight against heaven as well. So, it's very clear that the author lacks experience when writing. At first the novel was okay, it was readable and wasn't *terrible*. However, once it got to the parts with the bandits (around chapter 38) it started getting stale and weird. Writing quality is pretty bad. It isn't as terrible as some in readability, but is worse in some other ways. The entire tone of this novel constantly changes, and it's pretty random. On some chapters, even when something serious is happening, it will have a comedic undertone, while non-serious events will have a relatively dark undertone. It's hard to take many things seriously because of this, and it seems like the author hasn't decided what "genre" this is. Is it supposed to be a comedy? A tragedy? Both? (3/5 stars) As for the story development, it had a decent idea but was executed pretty horribly. When I said the main character had "zero luck" thats merely what the author stated. I'm not an expert on probabilities or anything, but the way they describe luck is very weird. Zero luck for some reason means that you will automatically get the worst possible outcome. Is that not negative luck? Shouldn't have zero luck be true neutral? Would've been way better if they just said the main character had bad luck. Anyway, story is rather generic. Main character goes down to a lower realm to train, immediately joins the hunters guild to make money (adventurers guild), proceeds to wow everyone with his amazing skills, etc. It's just a bunch of lackluster events that you would find in every other fantasy adventure novel. (2/5 stars) Character design, oh boy. This might just be due to the poor writing quality, but the characters are kinda bad. While it isn't to the level of typical chinese antagonist IQ, everyone is stupid. Everyone attacks the main character due to greed, but would realize a young boy sitting completely defenseless in a waterfall while a valuable pill with zero guards is somewhat abnormal. Also, as I said at the start of the review, the way they introduce banditry is so stupid. The author immediately paints bandits as neutral, as if they aren't criminals who kill people wantonly. This isn't how a xianxia world would work, not even remotely. The author shows bandits as "valiant" people who use banditry as a excuse to train in combat, and that they are harmless and no one wants to kill them. (1/5 stars) As for the world background, it makes no sense. Not a whole lot of this is realistic in any sense, in fact not many things in this novel make sense. Everyone talks like a modern person, it was relatively jarring when the main character was in his original world, but became extremely jarring once he descended into a lower world and people still communicated like a gen z. (1/5 stars) Overall, it seems like the author didn't really know whether to make a tragedy or a comedy novel. Story is rather uninspired, characters are shallow and unrealistic, and world background is completely unbelievable as well. I give this novel 2.4 stars out of 5.
Lightning Is the Only Way
Warmaisach
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Completely disagree. While it's true everyone needs to fight, the unrealistic part is how everyone is a bandit with a identical personality. It seems more like a video game at this point. This is a world ruled by the strong. A sudden encounter with a monster and you die. I find it incredibly unlikely that theres a large group of people being "bandits", mugging people, and expecting not to immediately die. As for the waterfall portion, you are kinda missing the point. To travel in this world, you need a fair bit of strength, with bandits and monsters running around will nilly. You also aren't going to get money for these expensive pills super easily without a good bit of danger. In a world of supernatural beings, you will be hard-pressed to find someone alone, with a lot of money, with no combat strength. It's basically a fantasy. Furthermore, after the first one, there HAD to be rumors of people going missing near the waterfall. As for you talking about face? Zero clue what your talking about.
AbyssalSword:I'd have to disagree with you on the realism part. If you lived in a world where it's "if you want to get stronger, you have to fight", everyone will accept that it's just the way of the world. Just like when you apply to college and some rich kid bought his way through to take your seat, some might find it unfair, but life's life. People buying themselves to the top, or people taking a little advantages from you but helping you a little, or even people with absurd amounts of luck do exist in our world. Just because you don't normally see it, doesn't mean it's unrealistic. Everyone has a hidden motive, so I like to look at any story from a D&D DM mindset. What's this character's goal? How far will the character go to achieve it? What would be the consequences? What are the chances? And last but not least, what are the gains? If we take your kid under a waterfall example, his goal is to get stronger using Gravis' pills. How far he'll go? Probably to murder in a world like that. Consequences? This random kid just goes away from people to train in a good place like a waterfall, if he had a good background, they wouldn't want him to train in a non-top-tier place. He has a decently powerful background for the area, so the consequences are not that bad. What are the chances? Gravis has a lot of pills so he probably just started while the kid is so close to breaking through. What are the gains? A huge amount of expensive pills he can sell after breaking through. All in all, go with it. I don't know about you but it makes sense in my head. You're seeing it from a point where "he's the main character why would you mess with him?" but the characters think "oh it's just another kid trying to become stronger". We tend to forget that there are millions of kids trying to train like Gravis in the beginning, most of them not making it. If you see him as just another kid, why not just mess with him like you could with all the other ones? The realism makes a 100% sense for their world, because that kind of thing happened in the past of humanity. Why do you think people were trying to please royalty with gifts, poetry or giving them face? The concept of 'face' is still alive in a lot of countries today so I understand where that might come from. This was a tangent but I just love this novel so much.
I'd have to disagree with you on the realism part. If you lived in a world where it's "if you want to get stronger, you have to fight", everyone will accept that it's just the way of the world. Just like when you apply to college and some rich kid bought his way through to take your seat, some might find it unfair, but life's life. People buying themselves to the top, or people taking a little advantages from you but helping you a little, or even people with absurd amounts of luck do exist in our world. Just because you don't normally see it, doesn't mean it's unrealistic. Everyone has a hidden motive, so I like to look at any story from a D&D DM mindset. What's this character's goal? How far will the character go to achieve it? What would be the consequences? What are the chances? And last but not least, what are the gains? If we take your kid under a waterfall example, his goal is to get stronger using Gravis' pills. How far he'll go? Probably to murder in a world like that. Consequences? This random kid just goes away from people to train in a good place like a waterfall, if he had a good background, they wouldn't want him to train in a non-top-tier place. He has a decently powerful background for the area, so the consequences are not that bad. What are the chances? Gravis has a lot of pills so he probably just started while the kid is so close to breaking through. What are the gains? A huge amount of expensive pills he can sell after breaking through. All in all, go with it. I don't know about you but it makes sense in my head. You're seeing it from a point where "he's the main character why would you mess with him?" but the characters think "oh it's just another kid trying to become stronger". We tend to forget that there are millions of kids trying to train like Gravis in the beginning, most of them not making it. If you see him as just another kid, why not just mess with him like you could with all the other ones? The realism makes a 100% sense for their world, because that kind of thing happened in the past of humanity. Why do you think people were trying to please royalty with gifts, poetry or giving them face? The concept of 'face' is still alive in a lot of countries today so I understand where that might come from. This was a tangent but I just love this novel so much.
Face basically refers to how people are viewed by surrounding individuals/members of society. If someone receives something very valuable in public, they feel like people's evaluation of them has improved. However if someone loses a fight/shares their knowledge or opinion publicly and immediately gets proven wrong, they feel like people's evaluation of them will have dropped to some extent/completely. Face is usually a big factor in the cliché of "young master's family takes revenge for a loss". It's a concept that only sort of makes sense when you think from a chinese culture point of view, where your honor and dignity is almost more important than your life. Sorry for going on about this for such a long time and thanks if you're still reading. Only wrote this because I'm thankful that you give proper, accurate reviews.
Vanaxity:Completely disagree. While it's true everyone needs to fight, the unrealistic part is how everyone is a bandit with a identical personality. It seems more like a video game at this point. This is a world ruled by the strong. A sudden encounter with a monster and you die. I find it incredibly unlikely that theres a large group of people being "bandits", mugging people, and expecting not to immediately die. As for the waterfall portion, you are kinda missing the point. To travel in this world, you need a fair bit of strength, with bandits and monsters running around will nilly. You also aren't going to get money for these expensive pills super easily without a good bit of danger. In a world of supernatural beings, you will be hard-pressed to find someone alone, with a lot of money, with no combat strength. It's basically a fantasy. Furthermore, after the first one, there HAD to be rumors of people going missing near the waterfall. As for you talking about face? Zero clue what your talking about.