Legend of Awakening leaves a bad message for its viewers. Basically, this story tells people to forgive and love a blood enemy who murdered one’s parents, uncle, close friend, close friend’s father and clan, and so on. This show leaves a message to befriend and to love a murderer who specifically killed people who were close to someone, provided that the someone is not targeted by the murderer.

Liu Song’s revenge is correct. Yan Qiuci, the Grandmaster of Wuji Manor, brought ruin to the Big Dipper Sect, as well as destroyed the peaceful life that Lu Ping should’ve had and that Liu Song desired. Also, the Shuo Nation is an unjust regime founded by rebels who fought against the Dan Nation for unjust reasons. However, these unjust people win and they can frolic at the expense of people like Liu Song, whose regime would’ve been the right one, and of Lu Ping, who can never have the chance to avenge his parents who birthed him and raised him when he was a baby. Just where is the justice in this world? What kind of message are the writers of this story trying to leave for the viewers? For the people? For society? Furthermore, Emperor Zhai Rong of the Shuo Nation, for some reason, keeps desiring Lu Ping, as an Awoken, to fight for Shuo against Liu Song and his Mountain and Sea Sect. Zhai Rong even makes Qin Sang, a warrior from a respectable military family, utilize romance to seduce Lu Ping into fighting for Shuo against Liu Song. At least Liu Song fights against the Shuo Nation using his intellect and talents as a sect leader, a martial artist, and an alchemist (Not to mention that Liu Song is far better-looking compared to that dwarf, Zhai Rong, whose stupid, prepubescent face honestly makes me feel as if “God is projectile vomiting right into my eyes… and it burns. It really burns” [Jason Statham, Hobbs & Shaw]).

As for Zhai Rong, he’s an emperor, a ruler of a whole nation, yet he doesn’t have an aura or a composure that commands respect and demands loyalty. Instead, he threatens people with death and other similar punishments to do his bidding, or he tricks and manipulates others to do his bidding, like how he threatens Ling Ziyan with killing Yan Xifan or Lu Ping if she doesn’t do what he orders, or cowering behind Qin Sang, a girl who is loved by Lu Ping, to protect his cowardly life from a man whose life he ruined since babyhood, the man being Lu Ping. Zhai Rong is a clown playing emperor who only knows how to hide under a skirt. This man has neither pride nor honor as an emperor. There was once a time that he ordered Ling Ziyan to take with her the Soaring Dragon Army to kill either Yan Xifan or Lu Ping if Xifan failed to bring Lu Ping back to Kaifeng City. This isn’t how a wise emperor would operate; a wise emperor would only order the deaths of Lu Ping or Yan Xifan should either of them openly display any rebellious behaviors or intentions. Nonetheless, this is the kind of foolish, untrustworthy ruler that Yan Xifan and Lu Ping would happily serve under? As for Ling Ziyan, that double-crosser is really someone whom Xifan wants to marry? Nonetheless, the writer makes it appear that these people are happy to die for Zhai Rong, who’s nothing but a villain, a coward, a tyrant, and an unjust ruler. Liu Song, on the other hand, utilized his own wit, intellect, and talents to take on the Shuo Nation, rather than deceiving and betraying people to their deaths to fight for him.

Why does Zhai Rong want so much to kill a guiltless fellow like Liu Song? Why did Yan Qiuci have to kill righteous people like Lu Ping’s parents, the Grandmaster and Grandmistress of the Big Dipper Sect? These questions beg more questions, like why did the House of Zhai rebel against the Dan Nation in the first place. Was Dan really such a corrupt, inefficient, and unjust country, or did House Zhai bear within its dark belly greater ambitions than what Dan could afford? Furthermore, why is it not okay to hate people like Yan Qiuci and Zhai Rong, who are villains by default, but it’s perfectly all right to hate Liu Song, whose villainy was born from the sins of other villains? The so-called heroes of this story don’t exactly practice what they preach about how people should let go of vengeance and not bear hatred in their hearts. For comparison, I look to the hit video game of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy franchise, Final Fantasy VII, specifically towards Sephiroth and the Shinra Company. The Shinra Company was an iron-handed, unjust regime that lorded over Midgar City with tyranny and fear in order to siphon the life energy of their home planet, the Lifestream, without resistance. Furthermore, in order to enforce their rule over the land, they created superhuman warriors called SOLDIERs, and Sephiroth was one such warrior; in fact, he was one of the best. Sephiroth was a 1st Class SOLDIER and a bona fide hero to both the Shinra Company and the common folk of Midgar. However, when he found out about the origins of his birth, from his father being the psychotic Professor Hojo to his own body being infused with body cells from an ancient alien demoness, Jenova, Sephiroth turned into a villain who was hellbent on not just Shinra’s destruction, but also on purging the entire planet of all life, ascending to godhood by absorbing all Lifestream energy into his body, and presumably setting sail for the void to conquer new planets using the combined powers of Jenova and the Lifestream. Sephiroth actually started off as a hero, but because of Shinra’s sins, Sephiroth turned mad and became a villain. Meanwhile, the Shinra Company remained as they started off as: Villains. In Legend of Awakening, Wuji Manor and the Shuo Nation turned Liu Song into a villain because of the sins they committed. Liu Song was the victim of Yan Qiuci and Zhai Rong, and he determined that he would become a new villain in order to strike down these two old villains. Liu Song is a villain who represents chaos, Yan Qiuci is a villain who represents vanity, and Zhai Rong is the biggest villain who represents tyranny. Why is it that the Shuo Nation and Wuji Manor are now heroic factions while Liu Song and his Mountain and Sea Sect is the one and only villainous faction whom nobody even attempts to empathize with?

The universe of Legend of Awakening was truly made according to the immature whims of the writers. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in that world, from the relationships to the politics to even the supernatural powers, operates according to things in reality, like how humanity operates, like how nature operates, like how even supernatural powers would most likely operate in reality. Apparently, friends and family being murdered in cold blood means nothing in this world. Apparently, because Wuji Manor and the Shuo Nation supposedly did a good job providing for the citizenry, that means that the friends and family of people they’d murdered before can now all get along and frolic together in paradisical bliss.

Also, as for the Six Pneumas… after watching so many other science fantasy shows, as well as wuxia and xianxia shows, I find that the powers featured in this show are truly written in a poor and sloppy manner. The Six Pneumas are all just ordinary abilities that any martial artist can attain after years of practice and chi-cultivation. Even the so-called “most mysterious Pneuma”, the Pneuma of Essence (精之魄 Jing zhi Po), is simply the art of hypnotism, a skill that mentalists and magicians use for magic acts. Additionally, the way that these powers function within the human body makes no sense. These Pneumas are extremely taxing on the human body, but in return, these Pneumas provide their users with magnificent, magical power that no mere mortal can defeat. However, these taxing, yet powerful, abilities can be so easily overcome by mundane, non-supernatural weapons. These Pneumas give great power to their users, yet they cannot be used to also provide great defense to their users? Are they supposed to be super-powerful or not super-powerful? Apparently, a maximum of five Pneumas can be activated, but only five since activating all six would be physically impossible. However, there do exist special people who can activate all six Pneumas, and these people are the Awoken. However, even the Awoken are actually not special: Even though Awoken can activate all six Pneumas, they’re doomed to die at an extremely early age due to the intense stress that their bodies suffer in order to wield all six Pneumas. Nonetheless, this fatal condition is nothing that can’t be cured with some acupuncture and herbs, with the use of medical devices and substances that have no supernatural properties whatsoever, despite the fact that the affliction which threatens an Awoken’s life is of supernatural origin.

Watching Legend of Awakening is an upsetting, sickening, and mind-raping experience, as the viewers are compelled to sit through a story that is created according to the immature whims of the writers. This became especially worse when Yan Qiuci and Liu Song each told their stories of what happened back then in the Big Dipper Sect: The writer’s conflict resolution for this story was undeniably terrible. To the writers of Legend of Awakening, refund the time I’ve wasted on watching this awful series of yours.