Lord of Mysteries finally premiered yesterday, June 28, as the latest animated series in a recent surge of manhwa and web novel adaptations. Two 35-minute episodes of the new series aired yesterday, likely in an attempt to pique interest among viewers. While the animation itself has generally received praise for its art style and direction, the first two episodes have seen a fair bit of criticism for their pacing, as they somehow managed to adapt over 40 chapters of the source material.
Those two episodes suffer as a result. It's imperative to point out that the novel starts out incredibly slowly—almost taking a slice-of-life-esque pace—but the anime massively overcorrects and crams in content into both premiere episodes. The lack of slower-paced scenes and careful build-up of tension leaves viewers without time to figure out what exactly is happening. A fatal choice, perhaps, in a show that adopts a slew of unpopular themes, and a rather unique magic system.
Technically, Lord of Mysteries is an isekai. It quickly swerves away from typical genre tropes, however, thanks to its grim-dark Victorian setting, and incorporation of Lovecraftian and steampunk elements. Those make it unique but also ensure it's unlikely to see mass popularity like other isekai shows or a more digestible power fantasy like Solo Leveling.
For one, though it's been referred to as one in this piece, Lord of Mysteries is not an anime. It's a donghua—a Chinese animated show made by Chinese studio B.C May Pictures and based on the Chinese web novel of the same name. Solo Leveling may be based on a Korean novel but is made by a Japanese studio, and so counts as anime. There's also the dub situation. Lord of Mysteries is in Chinese, and a Japanese dub still hasn't been released well over 24 hours after the show premiered. Casual viewers tend to prefer the latter.
All of those are reflected in the hard numbers. 48 hours after the release of the Solo Leveling's first episode, it had registered over 110,000 likes on Crunchyroll. Lord of Mysteries' first episode has amassed just 14,000 likes so far, over 30 hours after its release. It's safe to say a huge gap in mass appeal already exists. The extent to which that gap is bridged depends on how issues like the show's dub and pacing are addressed in the coming weeks.
Either way, however, it probably will never reach the dizzying heights of Solo Leveling, popularity-wise. There's no shame in that—after all, only a few shows ever do. Fans of the novel are likely to find it disappointing, unfortunately, but rightly so considering the quality and popularity of the source material.
Source(s)
Opinion
