Majeh

It’s been over 10 years now since this series has been first released in South Korea and after a decade later it’s still one of the best manhwa series that I’ve read and still going strong in South Korea. When I first started reading King of Hell I never expected this series to last as long as it has.

The series introduces our protagonist going by the name of Majeh in sort is kind of like a soul reaper that collects souls and brings them over to the next world for the King of Hell. When some evil spirits started escaping to the living world, the King of Hell had Majeh’s spirit returned to his body (Which is still perfectly preserved in the living world) and ordered Majeh to hunt down and capture these demons.

The series introduces many characters in which some supports Majeh on his journey into finding the escape demons.

In the beginning I had mixed feelings about how this series will turn out since the storyline from the very start wasn’t as appealing and not well driven which might cause some readers to stop reading past the first volume. What really brought me back into reading this series was the superb detailed artwork that Kim, Jae-Hwan put into this manhwa. The style of art he uses is some of the best I’ve seen out of most manga and manhwa that I’ve read. Over time I’ve not only noticed that the artwork was getting better by the volume but the storyline and character development had been drastically improved.

Currently in South Korea there’s about 350 chapters released which is published bi-weekly in Comic Champ magazine every 1st and 15th of every month. There’s 42 volumes released so far with volume 43 planned to be released in the coming month. From the looks where the story is right now it looks like this series can go on another 10 to 20 volumes and I’ll be reading this series right to the very end.

Overall this manhwa provides lots of action, fight scenes, and some humor and would recommend it if you're a big fan of Bleach.

(REVIEW LAST UPDATED: September 1, 2012)

This is my first review but King Of Hell (KOH) deserves it! I am not good with technical ratings so I go with my personal opinions to give an overall rating.

When I first started reading this series, I was quickly intrigued by the art style and the humor. Even though KOH is more or less action/martial arts based it has a lot of funny parts and I wouldn't count them as "comic-relief" but more like one of the essential flavors of the plot itself.

Moving onto the plot although it has similar elements which have been used over time, they have been used to create a unique world with interesting characters. Majeh is a messenger of death/soul reaper who has been assigned the task of collecting dead people's souls and bringing them to hell. In reality his powers have been suppressed by a seal and his physical body is preserved in the real world. Anyways the the ruler of hell aka the king decides to trick him into going back into his preserved body by lying that he will remove the seal so that Majeh can regain all his powers and then capture and bring back the evil souls that have escaped from hell. Majeh's unsealed form is more mature and older which provides more action during intense battles. However since he was deceived in the first place, Majeh starts off in a teenage form.

Besides, Majeh there are several other interesting, sometimes eccentric characters. Some of the important ones include Dohwa who is a good fighter that uses poisoned needles techniques and the other one is Chung Poong who belongs to a famed martial arts family and wants to redeem his honor (even though he is a scaredy-cat) by participating in a martial arts tournament. Majeh decides to join them both and more incidents and characters unfold.

The action scenes for this series are very good and it is a shame that it is not an anime. You can still enjoy them with the lack of animation because of the different techniques and the art itself.

Bottom line, this is a very good manhwa series that I hope to follow till the end. I hope others enjoy it as well :D

Stories are forgotten, this Manhwa specializes in fight scenes.

The art was spectacular not the best I've seen but pretty darn good. Although the illustration was very almost-marvelous, the story was definitely lost in its shadow.

I mean, the story only got a bit interesting by volume 10+ but I think the writer swapped story ideas because in the beginning of the story and later on, the main character barely resembles himself, art-wise also because only up to volume 2 was the art worthy of a a high 9 and then it became awful and after that it tried, tried, to make a comeback but obviously failed because once the illustrator slacks off even for one volume, that's it, the end.

The illustrations are cursed to never again regain their previous quality.

What I am a little angry about is that some of the characters are sick, like I-need-to-see-a-good-psycholagist sick. For example, a little boy gets put through an extremely grisly traumatic experience and developes Disassociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.). And you're shown what happens to him and you can see that he isn't quite sane afterwards but the author makes this look normal (totally pro-illuminati agenda considering this same kid uses snake magic).

To add to that, the writer makes the reader feel attached to the characters by familiarity, a poor move but an easy one and so the reader might not totally accept the character; the characters (aside from the main one) were first introduced because the writer had nothing to think of and then the writer desperately wants to find a reason to keep them in the story... Which is really annoying.

The story was very inconsistent, first you were like: 'the main character is funny/annoying' and then you're like 'he's deep' and then...

It's a complete catastrophe. A complete loss of ideas, a complete loss of story.

But what makes up for the nauseous story-line was the hard-core, heavily illustrated fight scenes. If it weren't for them, I'd have died from confused boredom. But those fight scenes, wow, just wow.
Only when the characters are fighting, do you feel at peace with the story, you go something like:

'Even though it doesn't make sense why they're fighting but did you SEE that whip, it just cracked that things SKULL!! That's CRAZY!
*Crazed laughter* '.

If you adore fight scenes and don't care if the story's screwed then you'll love this Manhwa.

If you’re looking for a series to read that offers action, adventure and tons of fighting this is the series for you. The story mostly revolves around the main character named Majeh who once upon a time was a legendary and power swordsman when he was alive. Now dead he serves for the King of Hell collecting spirits from people that pass on to the next world. During the first chapter a dimensional rift opens up and seven of hells strongest and dangerous demons escape and the King of Hell sends Majeh back to his original human body to hunt and apprehend these demons.

There are a lot of characters that are introduced in the series. Most of them are never to be seen again or appear later on in the series. In the Beginning, Majeh gets acquainted with two character named Dowha Baik and Chung Poong. Dohwa is a cunning girl who fights her enemy’s with a whip and poison needles. Chung Poong, which is from a respected family, was branded as a coward and meets Majeh along the way to fight in the Martial Arts tournament to prove his family that he’s a worthy fighter. Chung Poong main weapon of choice is a Broadsword that he carries around with him. They both joined Majeh and participated in a Martial Arts tournament which afterwards they sided with Majeh to help him capture the escape demons.

The story tends to linger off from the main plot with a few side stories here and there but eventually the main plot will work its way back through the side stories. The artwork in this series is truly amazing which is better than most manga and manhwa that I’ve read. Each page that you read is drawn with great detail, which brings this series come to life.

For the story, artwork, character and enjoyment I give King of Hell 8 out of 10.