Agreed. The art is pretty, but when it comes to storytelling, it's not there.
eg. The scene where Xinlu was drowning, he didn't look like he was struggling, and Gable didn't look like he was tired.
If the artist does novel cover and illustration inserts that's completely fine.
He didn't look like he was struggling because He had to hold his breath as long as possible and panic would make that harder. You can see emotion at the moment he realized he was saved.
Or he just tired himself out and was really close to not surviving that moment.
I personally think the art style and emotional storytelling fits the perspective very well. We're generally reading from Yuri's POV and as a person, he's pretty....monotone (or in a nicer way, stable). Yuri isn't prone to intense emotions. There's a part of the novel that describes him like a cow grazing in the field; very calm, peaceful but bland and boring. Also, from his pov, Xinlu looked beautiful as he was drowning.
That's such an accurate description lol
After letting giving it time to marinate I realised, although the art style is very pretty, I keep comparing it to the art style of the main series.
It's the issue of "if it deviates from the original, it can't just be 'just as good as', it has to be better otherwise why change it", This happens with a whole bunch of remakes/reboots, etc. If I came across this art style in any other webcomic I would love it. I'll probably enjoy it now that I figured out what bothered me - I was expecting an orange when I got a mandarin, both fruits I enjoy but there was the confusion (and misdirected blaming) when I didn't get what I originally had in mind. Cheers
Tangent: I've just watched the How To Train Your Dragon live action, it was incredibly faithful, and I did I enjoy my time watching it, but I do know that some reviews would say "Might as well watch the original animated movie", which I don't disagree, but there's the dilemma of people would be harsh and _pissed_ if changes were made. And I was acting like that for this series.
The emotion is completely lacking.