Manga 21525 Akatsuki No Yona Reviews Filter Check 3

Akatsuki no Yona is beautiful, diligent and even realistic but it is shallow and very generic. 24 long long chapter filled with insipid feeling, identical males and zero progress - that was my limit. You may tell me, “It’s a shoujo, what did you expect?”. Well, I don’t know, I guess I expected some pleasant surprise. Shoujo authors tend to write genuine, down-to-earth pieces but here it evolves into nothing but the Nadeko level story about poor little girl surrounded by noble handsome boys. What even worse is that backbone of the narration is not the thrill of adventure in form of elaborate substories but ... a cliche theme of friendship where main heroine plays oh so typical role of selfless idol of goodness disguised by tons of phony self-reproach. Mizuho Kusanagi at least could have inserted these templets into some form of action, or anything else that grabs attention, but no, Yona’s recruitment of males are the most boring friend acquisition I have ever seen.

I would be glad to pick up Akatsuki no Yona again… just tell me where the story actually starts.

This is the manga that I dropped several times.

This manga got great potentials. It has nice plot story, nice character development, the tune is set to medieval era, has great romance possibilities, but all of them are wasted.

Story(4/10) : This manga is about a princess that got betrayed by the man she loved, got her dad(the king) killed, and then run away for her life. In the journey, she learned that her father is not a great king like she always imagine, and she wanted to do right, for her father. The plot itself is quite interesting, but the execution is horrible. The plot is ... toned to a serious and darker story, but the execution is set into a comedic style, with stupid plans and stubborn yona, putting herself in danger time and time again for little to no reason at all.

Art(5/10) : The art itself is not bad, it has nice shoujo artstyle, would give this a 8/10 if this is a fluffy shoujo manga. The problem is the art is not really compatible with the timeline. The time is set to medieval era, and the characters are sometimes in a serious problems, such as kidnapped, betrayed, etc. The situations can be expressed much, much better in other artstyle.

Character(2/10) : The characters, especially the four dragons, are drawn to yona, not because of yona's personality or strength, but because she is the one dragon king. Kija, a nobleman in his village, suddenly bowed to yona, because he felt the 'throb'. Before he met yona, he would throw out all the people that visited him. Jaeha cannot run from yona even if he wanted to, because of once again, the 'throb'. basically the characters are forced to stick with yona, because she is the one. I'll give this 1/10 for characters and dropped this long ago if not for Hak being there.

Enjoyment(2/10) : I can't bear to read this manga, it is so frustating. Every 2-3 chapters, I stopped reading this manga, and read another manga instead. I picked this manga, dropped this manga, read another manga and finished it, then picked this manga, and the cycle continues.

Akatsuki no Yona has great potentials, but most of them are wasted.