Shin Angyo Onshi is a Seinen, Historical, Supernatural, Action, Adventure manhwa that takes a piece of Korean history and turns it into a superb journey for the characters and the readers to experience.

The story follows the adventures of Munsu, an Angyo Onshi, who were special envoys of the king of Jushin. However Jushin is all but destroyed, leaving Munsu on his journey to continue his duty of ridding corruption and bringing about his own form of justice. That’s the setting of this epic Korean manga and sure, in the beginning, there’s a very episodic nature to Munsu’s travelling that frequently pays homage to some of the great classic Korean literature. Yet as the story progresses and the number of involving characters increases, it becomes clear that Munsu’s travelling has a purpose.

Munsu is an interesting main character, who’s portrayed as an anti-hero with some very questionable methods to fulfilling his goal. Munsu isn’t overwhelmingly powerful or reliant on special power ups (unless you include his Mahai) but rather he is incredibly cunning and skilled in combat. He’s fairly complicated and can come across as cruel or ruthless, when it comes to deceiving people. However he is still entertaining and fun to read, depending on the situation. Later on he is joined by other characters (Chun Hyang & Bang Ja), allowing either the dialogue or the overall journey to become far more interesting than it already is. Not to forget the vast amount of remarkable characters that appears throughout the story; each with their own tale, purpose or goal.

The artwork can be described in one word “breathtaking”. Personally I think the artwork is the best aspect of this manga, with an immense amount of detail put into each panel. The environments are superbly drawn with no corners cut whatsoever and the character designs range from realistically defined features, to some very imaginative appearances.

Overall Shin Angyo Onshi is an epic manhwa, following the lengthy journey of some great characters. It’s able to portray some of the cruel ugliness of the corrupt world in such a manner that will get any reader to think. However the story is fairly incoherent and certain aspects of the story can be difficult to comprehend. The same goes for the extravagant fight scenes. Being such a mature, gory and gritty story I can only recommend this to fans of similar mature manga.

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