Heaven Official's Blessing
by STARember
Genres: Fantasy, Manga, RomancePages: 244
Series: Heaven Official's Blessing (manhua) #1
Rating:
Synopsis:A fallen god unravels supernatural mysteries and comes face-to-face with ghosts from his past in this manhua (comic) adaptation of the New York Times bestselling danmei novel by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. Featuring stunning art by STARember, the official manhua produced by BILIBILI COMICS is now available in English in print for the first time.
Xie Lian, once the darling of the heavens, is a twice-banished god infamous for his fall from grace. Eight hundred years have passed since his mortal life as the Crown Prince of Xianle, and he’s now the laughingstock of the three realms. So when he ascends to godhood for a third time, it causes an uproar among his divine peers. Ascension may be nothing new to Xie Lian, but this time he has no followers, little power, and less luck. To repay his heavenly debts, Xie Lian must descend to the Mortal Realm to hunt ghosts that prey upon the living. There, he encounters a mysterious stranger – but is this newcomer friend or foe . . . or something else entirely?
Volume 1 includes the prologue and episodes 1–14 of the original webcomic based on the webnovel Tian Guan Ci Fu published on JJWXC.
I’ve read some of the Heaven Official’s Blessing manhua before, but not the official translation, so it was nice to dig in and get to read something a bit more official and organised (though the work of fan translators can be of amazing quality!). It’s a lovely volume as a physical object, with pretty sprayed edges etc — that part doesn’t matter enormously to me, but it’s still a nice touch.
STARember’s art is beautiful, and I think it’s a pretty strong adaptation overall, introducing Xie Lian and some of the other important characters without including every single possible detail (which would be overwhelming in this format). The character designs are pretty consistent with the other formats, though I’d forgotten some of the cuter/funnier bits with Xie Lian — it’s easy to just remember the beautiful version from some of the more serious scenes, and forget the cute/flustered silly faces he pulls as well. All of that is part of Xie Lian, but easy to forget against the seriousness of his story, so this was a nice reminder.
I do find some of the character designs harder to tell apart in the manga (like Fu Yao and Nan Feng), but that’s rarely critical to understanding a scene so it’s not a huge problem.
Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)
