Alchemy of Souls Seasons One and Two combined.
This was a difficult series to watch and review, but I will do my best.
To summarize, this is a story in which the characters of a fantasy realm belong to families/clans of mages. A few mages have the ability to use a spell (Alchemy of Souls) that can take a living person's soul and transplant them into a recently deceased person. However, after the transfer has happened, the energy of the soul in the new body needs to be recharged every so often. To do this, they must take energy from another living person which in turn causes that person to die. If the energy is not replenished in a timely manor, the soul goes crazy and kills as many people as it can to recharge itself. This is called "going wild". If the person is unable to recharge, they petrify.
You can tell just by that brief explanation just how complicated this story is. And on top of that, long complicated words are used to describe households, customs, spells, etc, which can be hard for an English speaking person like myself to understand. So much so that I had to switch back to English dubbing just to comprehend what was going on.Another complication was keeping track of who's soul was transplanted into who, and who was now using who's body. Aaawwww.
Along these same lines, I would say this series should have tried to complete itself within 20 episodes rather than 30. But who really knows if that would have been possible.
I almost did not complete this two part series because of the above complications. Also, it took almost an agonizing 8 episodes for me just to really get into the story and become vested into what was going on. However, I am glad I stuck with it because the show really takes off after that.
One aspect of the series that I liked was there were serious moments in the show mixed comical reliefs. It exhibited to me that the show was not to be taken too seriously and to enjoy myself while watching it. Many times the show was just plain silly. I think this made the show a lot more enjoyable as it took the viewers on a roller-coaster ride of emotions.
The actors were awesome as always. Jung So Min as Mu Deok (FL) was particularly good. It was hard for me at times to let go of an actor who was playing a certain character, to suddenly be replaced by another (great) actor, due to the bodies/souls switching.
I am generally not a fan of computer generated effects. But this series did a good job overall. Magic spells were great and not overdone. Thus, they were able to perfectly mix the computer graphics into the magic/fight/battle scenes into a realistic experience for this mystical environment.
There were a good number soundtracks in this series. I have added 3 to my playlist of which one stands out as one of my favorites. The song is "Just Watching You" by Jeong Sewoon. The others were Breath by Kim Na Young, and Aching by Kassy. These soundtracks helped this series with my overall rating score. (As I write this, I just added "Scars Leave Beautiful Trace" by Car, the garden to my playlist) There were others good songs. But these are the ones that stood out for me.
Alchemy of Souls was able to finish the series in the final episode. There was so much story to conclude that I did not think they would have enough time to finish without feeling rushed. But they accomplished a really good ending before time ran out. Maybe it could have been concluded over the last two episodes a little better? But the show ended just fine the way it did.
I'm glad I finished this series. For me, the rating gradually increased as the show progressed.
I will have to rate this series as 8.5 out of 10.
To summarize, this is a story in which the characters of a fantasy realm belong to families/clans of mages. A few mages have the ability to use a spell (Alchemy of Souls) that can take a living person's soul and transplant them into a recently deceased person. However, after the transfer has happened, the energy of the soul in the new body needs to be recharged every so often. To do this, they must take energy from another living person which in turn causes that person to die. If the energy is not replenished in a timely manor, the soul goes crazy and kills as many people as it can to recharge itself. This is called "going wild". If the person is unable to recharge, they petrify.
You can tell just by that brief explanation just how complicated this story is. And on top of that, long complicated words are used to describe households, customs, spells, etc, which can be hard for an English speaking person like myself to understand. So much so that I had to switch back to English dubbing just to comprehend what was going on.Another complication was keeping track of who's soul was transplanted into who, and who was now using who's body. Aaawwww.
Along these same lines, I would say this series should have tried to complete itself within 20 episodes rather than 30. But who really knows if that would have been possible.
I almost did not complete this two part series because of the above complications. Also, it took almost an agonizing 8 episodes for me just to really get into the story and become vested into what was going on. However, I am glad I stuck with it because the show really takes off after that.
One aspect of the series that I liked was there were serious moments in the show mixed comical reliefs. It exhibited to me that the show was not to be taken too seriously and to enjoy myself while watching it. Many times the show was just plain silly. I think this made the show a lot more enjoyable as it took the viewers on a roller-coaster ride of emotions.
The actors were awesome as always. Jung So Min as Mu Deok (FL) was particularly good. It was hard for me at times to let go of an actor who was playing a certain character, to suddenly be replaced by another (great) actor, due to the bodies/souls switching.
I am generally not a fan of computer generated effects. But this series did a good job overall. Magic spells were great and not overdone. Thus, they were able to perfectly mix the computer graphics into the magic/fight/battle scenes into a realistic experience for this mystical environment.
There were a good number soundtracks in this series. I have added 3 to my playlist of which one stands out as one of my favorites. The song is "Just Watching You" by Jeong Sewoon. The others were Breath by Kim Na Young, and Aching by Kassy. These soundtracks helped this series with my overall rating score. (As I write this, I just added "Scars Leave Beautiful Trace" by Car, the garden to my playlist) There were others good songs. But these are the ones that stood out for me.
Alchemy of Souls was able to finish the series in the final episode. There was so much story to conclude that I did not think they would have enough time to finish without feeling rushed. But they accomplished a really good ending before time ran out. Maybe it could have been concluded over the last two episodes a little better? But the show ended just fine the way it did.
I'm glad I finished this series. For me, the rating gradually increased as the show progressed.
I will have to rate this series as 8.5 out of 10.
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