The Kings Avatar Live Action Episode 23 Review (Quanzhi Gaoshou)

This Kings Avatar episode Review covers episode 23 which introduces a new key character to Team Happy. The previous review of The  Kings Avatar introduced a different character to the team and this trend will continue for the next few episodes.

Team Happy are just getting established.  Their finances are still being sorted out but the team itself is still very small.  Sure, they have one of the all time great players as Captain, but the professional league is full of exceptional players. And, each of these have a stable guild to play for a and a base to grow.

Most importantly for the team, is the need to prepare themselves for the next Glory Championship, Season 10.  They need to jump through a number of challenges to be able to do this and the first major hurdle is simply to qualify.  Not just any team can get into the professional tournament, if you are a new team, you need to qualify in front of a ‘Tutor’ team.  This is an established, experienced, professional Glory League team.  The qualification isn’t to win, it’s just to survive, or more accurately, ‘get past’.  Confused?  Me too  🙂 Hopefully it will become clearer as we analyse the scenes of this excellent episode.

Kings Avatar Episode 23 Review – Summary

Team Happy have managed to get their paperwork in order, they are about to enter the tournament qualifier and they must succeed to move to the next round.

An Wenyi needed to make a very careful decision about his future.  On the one hand he could make some easy money by playing badly. On the other hand, he would betray his new friends and although his isn’t the nicest of people, that would still be a tough decision.

Team Happy need to start growing the team with specialist players especially a Warlock. If they are to progress past the qualifiers, they need to recruit one as soon as possible.  Ye Xiu has an idea of who to approach to join, but he is a tricky character and wont be easily persuaded.

As usual. If you need a recap of any of the episodes so far, all the previous Kings Avatar episode reviews are here: Kings Avatar Live Action News & Reviews Thread.

Key Players Appearing In This Episode

Name:  Ye Xiu ID:  Lord Grim (Jun Mo Xiao) Class:  Freelancer Guild:  Happy (Xing Xin). Once known as God Ye Qui when he was with Excellent Era (Jiashi).  He currently works for Chen Guo as the Team Captain for the new Happy Guild (Xing Xin) and raiding team and as the  Network Manager in her Internet Cafe.

Name:  Chen Guo ID:  Chasing Haze Class:  Gunner Guild:  Happy (Xing Xin). Manager Happy Internet Cafe and Guild Master of the Happy Guild.   She now manages Ye Xiu as a Network Manager in her Internet Cafe and Team Captain in the Happy guild (Xing Xin). She is a very enthusiastic supporter and player of Glory although we rarely see Chen Guo win a match. Her pet name of GuoGuo by Tang Rou.

Name:  Bao Rongxing ID:  The Invader Class:  Ranger/Brawler Guild:  Happy  (XIng Xin). Works in a warehouse. Unusual way of playing but quick and agile fighter with a good sense of spacial awareness.  His ambition is to game professionally. His old character was called Steamed Bun

Name:  Qiao Yifan ID:   Ashen Moon Class:   Assassin Guild: Happy  (XIng Xin). Considered a very weak player in his old guild Tiny Herb (Wei Cao) and not usually picked for any team activities.  He decided to change class and leave to join Happy (Xing Xin).

Name:  Luo Ji ID:  Mei Guang Class:  Cleric Guild:  Happy (Xing Xin).  The Guild tactician, he is very good with statistics and calculating probability.

Name:  An Wenyi ID:  Cold Hands Class:  Cleric Guild:  A new addition to the Xing Xin team as a cleric.  He has some issues with decursing/debuffing, but is considered a good enough player (by Chen Guo and Ye Xiu) to join the team.  Can be quite dishonest nature and lied about his abilities to get into the team.  An Wenyi isn’t frightened of being bitchy with the team vice captain but then again, nobody else is either.

Name:  Wei Chen ID:  Windward Formation Class:  Warlock Guild:  Highly respected professional player. Very experienced and the previous team captain of Blue Rain.  He was therefore the previous account holder of the Swoksaar character (currently played by Yu Wenzhou).

Name:  Yu Wenzhou ID:  Swoksaar (aka Su Ke Sa’er) Class:  Warlock Guild:  Blue Rain (Lan Yu).  Very highly respected player and venerable team captain of Blue Rain.  Accomplished tactical player known as one of the Four Tactician Masters in Glory

Name:  Huang Shaotian ID:  Troubling Rain Class:  Swordsman Guild: Blue Rain (Lan Yu).  Vice-captain of Blue Rain.  Is sometimes used as a weapon to disorientate his opponents with his quick speech and aggressive, antagonistic banter.

Name:  Chen Yehui ID:  The Darkness Class:  Battlemage Guild: Excellent Era (Jiashi).  All round scumbag.   Rarely wins his battles and although considered a good solo player, does not do well in a team.  He bares a grudge against Ye Xiu who once threw him out of the team for selfish play.

Name:  Wang Jiexi ID:  Vaccaria Class:  Witch (possibly Warlock or Wizard class since the non-female-gender use of the word Witch has not been used in this way since the 16th Century) Guild: Tiny Herb (Wei Cao). Wang Jiexi is the very highly respected Captain of Team Tiny Herb. he is famous for unorthodox play style and is often referred to as the Magician.

Name:  Gao Yingjie ID:  Kind Tree Class:  Witch (possibly Warlock or Wizard class since the non-female-gender use of the word Witch has not been used in this way since the 16th Century) Guild: Tiny Herb (Wei Cao). He is a very good player and respected Vice Captain.  He is modest and self-effacing and a very good friend of Qiao Yifan (the two of them are like winey sisters! together)

The Kings Avatar Episode 23 Review

The episode continues from the previous episode with the discussion between An Wenyi and Chen Yehui about how the new Team Happy Cleric is not able to dispel debuffs.

It’s a pretty serious thing for a professional player who is playing the Cleric class not to be able to perform such an important spell for his team. Chen Yehui in his usual dastardly and dispicable style agrees not to tell An Wenyi’s team colleagues provided he plays badly and Team Happy lose the qualifiers.  Even better, Chen Yehui will double whatever fee he is likely to receive from Team Happy.

Reporting – But Might Wimp-Out!

Meanwhile Wimpy Yifan has been watching how the Tiny Herb team have been playing and passed on the information to his team via email.  He however, is nowhere to be seen and they are worried that he won’t actually turn up to play in the qualifiers.  Wimpy Yefan suffers, as we are painfully aware, from poor confidence. Unfortunately, the writers of the show, think that the best way to bolster the confidence of the hapless Vice Captain, is to get Ye Xiu to meet up with him in game and beat the shit out of him a few times.

Alas, that’s what happened and Ye Xiu not only beats the hell out of Qiao Yifan but then has the gaul to tell him, “Glory has never been, or ever will be about single players.”  Again, this interpretation probably suffers from poor understanding of culture and some pretty bad subtitles.  Nevertheless it was painful to watch and such smug attitude from Ye Xiu is not prevalent in the light novel or the manhua (manga).

A few professional gamers however may disagree. The pro gaming circuit is full of guilds that bully the best out of their best players and it’s pretty miserable place if you aren’t used to it.  I’ve seen a little of it with hardcore guilds that weren’t professional so I guess it could be worse the higher up you go – It still seems a silly way to motivate players though.

After being bullied, Qiao Yifan actually turns up and joins his team mates for the battle with Tiny Herb. Bonkers! I’d have shown up to punch the dude!

The Kongzhi Forrest Side-Step

Next we see both teams assemble to battle in the Kongzhi Forrest area.  As you may remember, Team Happy must get from one side of the battleground to the other (where there is a portal to the main Kongzhi City). They can fight or run but they must get through.  Only one player needs to get through, but if they fail, they will not be allowed to compete in the Glory Season 10 tournament.

The battle starts and Tiny Herb team immediately take control by cutting off the Team Happy players from their path to the portal.  Tiny Herb have two Witches (Wang Jiexi and Gao Yingjie)  who are able to fire debuff spells at their opposition. Their airborne attacks are devastating and within seconds, Team Happy have lost 40% of their health points.

Break for it!

Team Happy need to make a break for it and charge towards the portal so they can get at least one person over the line. Miraculously, Wimpy Yifan hasn’t had all his courage kicked out of him by his Team Captain and tells the team that he will manage to hold off both of the Team Captain of Tiny Herb AND the Vice Captain of Tiny Herb – and he can do it all by himself – such amazing confidence,m where did that come from! Strangely, Ye Xiu agrees and the rest of Team Happy charge off leaving Qiao Yifan alone to ‘handle’ the two Witches.

The Witches however, had already done their bit, they had cast debuff spells on Team Happy players and their health was subsequently diminishing at a steady rate. Of course the team urgently need the cleric to dispel the debuff so they can continue otherwise they won’t make it in time to get through the portal.

It seems that everybody is expecting An Wenyi’s character (Cold Hands) to dispel and the teams health points are dropping seriously low.  An Wenyi now has to make a decision, does he play purposefully badly for some quick money and betrayal of his pals, or try his best to get across to the portal and help them progress.   Tang Rou and Bao Rongxing make a run for it as the Portal is now tantalisingly close.  An Wenyi decides to cast a healing spell on them to help them but his procrastination and indecision means he is unable to complete the spell in time and they die a few feet from the portal gate.

Heal or Be Disgraced

An Wenyi re-doubles his efforts to keep Ye Xiu alive and when Qiao Yifan joins them, you start to feel that they may just make it.  An Wenyi manages some very timely heals on Ye Xiu and runs towards the portal.  He is just about to cross over when he stops and reconsiders.  The extra drama was a little silly to be honest. Imagine the drop in reputation if he walked away while standing next to the Portal! – it would have been too obvious a betrayal.

He decides to cross into the portal gate and saves the day. Team Happy are through the qualifiers!

After the match An Wenyi leaves the arena and while he is in the corridor, he telephones Chen Yehui and tells him that he doesn’t care if his secret gets out – little did he know that his conversation was overheard by Ye Xiu. He admits to his Captain that he can’t display debuffs and that he had lied to everybody for money.  Ye Xiu is in a forgiving mood and tells him that if he stays, he will teach him how to debuff.

Very generous considering he was a liar and almost betrayed them.  It was clear during the match however, that An Wenyi was a pretty good player with the skills he currently had and that once he managed to learns some of the more complicated spells, he could be a great asset.

A Secure Future

Later, back at the tiny internet cafe the lovely Chen Guo tells the team members that she is now in a position to pay them a regular salary and in a cheesy act of bravado An Wenyi tells the team that he is ok for his contract to be extended to when the team wins the championship.

Everyone else continues patting each other on the back and cheering themselves – they are now an established professional glory team.

Blue Raining in their Parade

Across town, at the Blue Rain headquarters Yu Wenzhou and Huang Shaotian are discussing the recent qualification of Team Happy.

Yu Wenzhou is actually tormenting Huang Shaotian (without him knowing) he knows that Huang Shaotian has secretly been contacting the Team Happy and congratulating them with his usual light hearted, malicious, ‘fun’ banter. They are talking about the recent acceptance of Team Happy in the championship.  In a really good scene, Yu Wenzhou asks Huan Shaotian (played wonderfully by Yu Yonghai) how he feels about his ‘senior’ coming out of retirement, “He is not my senior,” says Huang Shaotian, “he is just a little hogweed in my heart now.”

Yu Wenzhou smiles as Han Shaotian continues to type his on-line banter with Ye Xiu onto his laptop (“it’s like Yu Wenzhou can read my mind!”) then Yu Wenzhou gestures behind him and we see that Huan Shaotians laptop screen is accidentally being projected to the wall monitor for anyone to see.

Blue Rain will be the next opponents of Team Happy. They are a considerable force especially after their recent, commanding victory against Excellent Era. 

A New Warlock?

Back at the Happy Internet Cafe. Team Happy discuss how they will beat the next opponents, Blue Rain. They realise that their team is actually very small and that they are missing some key classes in their line-up – one of these for instance, is a Warlock.

Ye Xiu tells the team that he has as the ideal person in mind and later he contacts Wei Chen online to encourage him to join Team Happy. Wei Chen is sceptical and is already settled (so he says) in running a successful business.

Ye Xiu is also cynical and the two agree to consider their proposal (while they find out what each others situation is really like).

Both have managed to find out each others IP numbers and therefore addresses.  They each leave to do a bit of personal research on each other. These two are old sparring partners and although they trust each other as good players, they don’t trust each other as business partners.

Can You Pay Me?

When Wei Chen gets to the Happy Internet cafe, he scouts around and notices a large picture of Fighting God Ye Qui (Ye Xiu when he was in Excellent Era) on the wall.  He scoffs at the picture and says, “Jeez, does he still have any fans?”

The lovely Chen Guo is stood behind him and says, “I am his fan!”

The two chat about Ye Qui and and Chen Guo admits that she is managing his new team as the boss. Wei Chen immediately begins asking questions about her background and links with Glory as a business.  He is trying to find out if joining Team Happy would be a financially secure move.

Chen Guo points out, modestly, that she has neither a rich family nor League ‘connections’.

And there this very good episode ends.  Not much of a cliff hanger, the usual shenanigans and silliness which brought the show down a little, but there was still a lot of fun stuff especially some great gameplay and cool banter from the ever-popular Huang Shaotian.

Kings Avatar Episode 23 Review – Conclusion

An Wenyi is still a bit of a bitch to be honest and although he has firmly decided that he wants to stay with the team, he can’t exactly be considered trustworthy. If he wasn’t such a good ‘spot healer’, he would have been kicked out by Ye Xiu pretty quickly.

The battle with Tiny Herb was great in that it will help Wimpy Yifan with his confidence problems.  And it’s about bloody time – the whole Wimpy Yifan thing is getting tiresome.

The battle was a pretty good demonstration of how the team are able to fight together.  That cohesion and precision is one of the main reasons I like the show.   I’m not as interested in the drama as much as the cool gameplay,

I really enjoyed the new character.  He seems a little more worldly which makes a nice change. Yang Yang isn’t playing Ye Xiu as I had hoped and seems immature in his activities.  It would be good to see a different ‘older’ player imparting his wisdom. Ye Xiu just comes across as a bit of a fool lately – but maybe that’s just because he has a lot on his mind lately.

Team Happy has now established itself. It has managed to get on that first rung to League champions as a professional guild.  All they need now, is to get some good players, level up, get gear and erm… win stuff.  I guess that’s why we still have so many episodes left.  🙂

I really enjoyed this Kings Avatar episode, even Wimpy Yifan was tolerable (but only just).  I’d therefore give it a coolness rating of 8.5 out of 10.

What did you think?  Please let us know what you thought by clicking on the Users tab in the review block at the top – right of this page (you don’t need to register) – we’d love to see what you thought.

See more details of this on the Kings Avatar thread of the Sci Fi forum

The pictures, story, news details and everything else about the Kings Avatar Live action TV series are copyright Tencent Penguin Pictures, Linmon Pictures and Phoenix Entertainment. All rights reserved.

This article is copyright Tony Fawl and not for reproduction without the authors express permission.