Noblesse

노블레스

8.08(45K votes)

Ranked #775Popularity #139

chapters

544

volumes

—

Status

Finished

Published

Dec 30, 2007 to Jan 7, 2019

Authors:Son, Jae-Ho, Lee, Gwang-Su

Action

Worth Reading? — Global Verdict

7.1/10

Average Review Score

56%

Recommend It

Reviews Worldwide

International Reviews

Jajoe

Mixed Feelings

No explicit story spoilers, but story and character structure If i had to condense my review in one sentence: Huge wasted potential. The plot usually goes like this: Strong enemies appear -> non-important Heroes losen - > Boss Heroes appear -> win -> research data found -> now we are stronger! -> Rinse and repeat 500 times. It has the Dragonball Z element into it without an equally likeable cast or story structure. The reason are the two Characters Frankenstein and Raizel. They are always so on top of things, like extremely on top, there is no real danger or any lasting consequence. They just walk through things.If i had to explain it in RPG-terms it would be like level 1000 and lvl 600 characters go to a lvl 5 dungeon and then 10 and then 12 and so on. Enemies just appear and disappear. Raizel and Frankenstein are interesting characters but at the same time, really bad for the plot. The character designs are awesome and the world building is handled pretty well. The constant we are too cool for this world stares and looks get annoying though. It is the Aizen stare from bleach, without the mocking smile. It still is a fine Manhwa and worth a read in spare time but especially in the end and at some parts you get the feeling the author just wanted to be done with this.

83 found helpfulMay 27, 2020

Community Discussion

Synopsis

Within an abandoned building in South Korea lies a white coffin, from which rises Cadis Etrama Di Raizel "Rai"—an unimaginably beautiful, dignified, and noble man. Awakening in this unknown time, Rai must seek out someone he can trust—his loyal companion, Frankenstein. To begin with, Rai attempts to blend into human society by transforming his old-fashioned clothing into the pristine blazer of the nearby Ye Ran High School. As it turns out, the principal of the school is his servant Frankenstein. After slumbering for the past 820 years, Rai requires Frankenstein's help to adapt to the current age, so Frankenstein enrolls him as a new student in order to help him understand modern society and experience a normal life. Frankenstein's plans, however, soon go awry not only because of the problems stemming from modern society, but also unresolved conflicts from him and his master's troubled past. Left with no other choice, Rai must resort to using his mysterious power to protect those he holds dear. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

I picked up this manhwa a few months ago because a lot of my friends were raving on about this nonstop and I saw this being on the top 30 manhwas in MAL. Noblesse is that manhwa where everybody hypes up to be the THING. But for me, it's just a shounen manhwa bordering between a 7 and an 8 on the first half and a 5 or a 6 in the second half. I will admit, even if the art is a bit average to say the least(as far as Korean manhwas go), I can say it's slightly distinct against the cesspool of average worksin the same genre. The arcs go up and down(up, meaning slightly average, down meaning average as hell) and I had to will my horny on main self to keep reading it till the end for me to make some sort of opinion about it. It was a very arduous journey to self control from reading Tower of God for the umpteenth time. Before we move on, I will preface by saying I actually enjoyed reading Noblesse, before it devolved into a painfully average piece of work. I like the way it delivers dry humor and the character designs were actually really good. My biggest gripe about this manhwa is the fact that the dialogues are very tongue and cheek, a pain to read and are unnecessarily long. We readers don't need to hear their monologues for the millionth time. We get it, you love humans at the point of sacrificing yourself. The author only needs to put that in our face once. I tested the waters and read 5 chapters without skipping or skimming any dialogues and my god I never would've thought to be more bored than having to survive a day on a blackout. And it took me 1 hour to read it all. But my efforts weren't wasted for nothing as I realized at that point that nobody needs to read all of these; they're the same thing repasted and the characters always repeat themselves. I would appreciate it more if the boring dialogues and expositions be paired with some visualization, like what Nisio isin did with the manga adaptation of bakemonogatari. This is awful writing on it's finest and it is disheartening that not many people noticed that. Might as well write a novel if the author wanted to and it wouldn't make any difference. The second thing I noticed that the manhwa delivered awfully is the characters. We have raizel, the handsome Kuudere bae that I really wanted to like because of that quirky personality of his, but the execution of Raizel in the manhwa just fell flat the more I think about the character. Instead of making him this reserved and cool character, he's a one dimensional character that was eventually downgraded to a boring deus ex machina. Frankenstein is a henchman of Raizel and I can't seem to grasp why he submitted himself to Raizel at first sight. A good reason for this is the fujoshi fanbase. I never realized I read a whole fujo bait piece of work without even realizing it. Tae-soo's dynamic with Ken Kitano was way more believable than Frank's and Raizel, to be honest. Both dynamics are surface level, but there was way more character in the former the more we see them having a conversation. Whereas Raizel's speech bubble were mainly composed of trails of periods. I don't need to go over all the characters because of how forgettable they are. The orange haired guy is basically beta -Itadori(from Jujutsu Kaisen). Apart from him, all others were very very forgettable. The art quality is a gradually evolving thing you see in mangas where the artist uses his/her work to improve his/her skills because it is a weekly release. This in itself is a double edged sword because 1) One can appreciate that this artist wouldn't settle for less but 2) it's very hard, as a reader, to go back to that scene in the first chapters. That's kinda why I never would want to read the first 50 chapters of Tower of God regardless of how good the story is. The moment I see a butt ugly panel of Endorsi my Waifu, that's where I draw the line. And then... There's the plot progression. I already mentioned before that I preferred the first half(<chapter 250 and below) rather than the second half. Here's why... The way that the manhwa ended in a semi-cliffhanger didn't sit well with me. Not to mention, it ended in a flash and I was never given the chance to absorb what was going on. It's not a cliffhanger as much as it's an open ended one. The only resolution we get is the bad guy dying and that's it(I won't get to too much spoilers). But that's not the only problem I had with the second half. I also mentioned before about the lame ass dialogue of the characters; they all happened on the second half. At that point, they were just spouting nonsense over and over again that those were the times when I repeatedly put this manhwa on hold. Also forgot mention that on the second part, the manhwa took itself too seriously and there was no point on getting invested to anything: to the characters nor to the story. The comedy skits they used always do in the beginning were just thrown away and the first human character to appear in the first chapter (and his friends) were downgraded to mob characters until the last chapter. Plotwise, I could not remember a single thing about the second half and I won't bother to remember it. The formulaic pattern I remembered was: bad guys appear and wreak havoc, good guys are notified, big battle commences, bad guys defeated. It was rinse and repeat until the last big battle and the finale flopped. Tldr: Noblesse is a decent manhwa until the second half where everything just flopped. I'm not gonna stop you from reading it, but if you want a manhwa that structured its story and characters very well even in the long run, read tower of god. You won't regret it.

owidx_123

Recommended

Minor spoilers review - completed 2021 Story- a manwha with so much premise but ultimately ruined by the writer wanting to be done with it. It started off so great, Rai and shinwoon especially, seeing Rai interact with society - then just went downhill with repetative arcs. A quick summary of the story is werewolves , vampires ( nobles) and humans fighting essentially over centuries in secret, with Rai being 'the noble' and just wants a normal life. Eventually the union ( a mixture of all three with evil purposes ) start to do things and things escalate. Its not a bad concept at all right?The issue is there is SO many plot holes and just generic combat type themes that are used that essentially ruin it. Why does Rai stop using mind control? How come the union never used missiles at all? The story is pretty much : funny scene - bad guy appears - either get saved by Frankenstein or they lose, and ask Frankenstein to make them stronger - refight, bad guy loses - next bad guy appears and repeat. P.S. the ending is disappointing - just rushed. Art- honestly, wasn't bad at all, the characters themselves look REALLY well done, my only gripe would be in some fight scenes, it's so hard to tell what's going on. Character- this was really nice. Minor characters got a lot of development , and it wasn't just focused on elegant Rai being overpowered. M-21, yao and more had so much screen time and it was so nice watching them develop. It really does suck the writer hinted at romance but never commited to anything at all - another reason why it feels like he rushed it. He starts character development then just forgets about it. E.g. did m-21 find the names? Why does he hint at shinwoon being recruited for the KSA but never do anything with it? Enjoyment/overall - honestly, it's worth a read. The beginning 100% got me hooked, but as you read more you'll find out it's so predictable and you'll probably end up skipping through a lot of the fight scenes, since they're so minor and so many of them. If I had to describe this show in a short sentence it would be: 'A great concept with such wasted potential' Feel free to message me if you're agree/disagree and why!

9 found helpfulMay 9, 2021

sinclairHH

Recommended

This review may contain mild spoilers. Noblesse is a dramatic story piece with a hidden agenda. A compelling story meshed with vivid and interesting characters. Please do not let the early art put you off for even a second. By the time it's gotten exponentially better, you'll be hundreds of chapters deep and won't have even realized. Characters: 9/10 - We are first introduced to Cadis Etrama di Raizel "Rai", a man of few words and even fewer facial expressions. Rai's character recieves the least amount of growth and for good reason. He's been alive for thousands of years. He's done plenty of growing. Immediatelyafter Rai, we meet the trio of high school friends, Han Shin-woo, Wu Ikhan, and Seo Yuna. Finally we meet Frankenstein, loyal servant to Rai and pricipal of the high school our cast attends. The cast of this story is immense, more than I can list off here. While Rai may not need chacacter arcs, every single person around him grows and evolves. Rai's worldview is simple, he wants humans and mythical creature to get along, and he will do everything in his power to protect that. His kindness touches those around him. His strength encourages others to evolve. His weaknesses inspires protection. Each character has such a well thought out background. Each character was loving created with hopes, quirks, and more personality than necessary. WHile at first glance they may all seem like generic fighters A, B, and C, when you really delve into the heart of this story, no two characters are the same. Plot: 10/10 - While I cannot deny the repurposed plots, I would be remiss to explain their purporse. Yes, a bad guy appears, someone gets beat up a bit, and eventually the good guy saves the day. This story is not about winning, its about how it was accomplished. This story is not about waiting for Rai to show up and save everyone, in fact it is the opposite of that. The plot revolves around the people around him doing everything they possibly can to stop him from using his abilities. They want to be the protectors. While at first, Rai seems the overpowered Saitama type, he is actually the furthest from it. This story is about the weaker characters becoming stronger and overcoming obstacles. This story is about sacrificing to protect everything you hold deal. Watching the large cast of characters grow and evolve, with Rai at their center, is rewarding. The little guy gets stronger because he fights bigger and badder foes. How else are they supposed to evolve. On the subject of fighting, this story is all about action. While the fights get more grand, the characters evolve new ways to adapt. The large casts of characters ensures no two fights are the same. The dynamics between humans, vampires, and werewolves creates dynamic fighting arenas and strategies. What worked against the humans won't work on the vampires. What worked against the vampires won't work against the werewolves. And so on. As our cast grows, so do the complexity of the action scenes. Every chapter leaves you on baited breath, waiting to see who resolves this problem and how. Will it be the werewolf companion, the human hacker, the vampire prince, or some new party entirely? This is what keeps us reading. Overall, this is personally one of my favorite reads. I can understand why some people veiwed this as dragging and repetitive. I didn't see it that way. This evolution of all the side characters is what made Rai's story so interesting. Each character is so fleshed out, so unique in what they bring to the table, I fell in love with each and every one of them. I loved loving the good guys but I also loved hating the bad guys. It was so easy to get roped into the drama of everything. This is a brilliant story with beautifully written characters. I enjoyed every second of this story. Please, do not watch the anime. It was a slap job of story beats that were fleshed out in hundreds of chapters squished into a 12 episode disaster. A poor representation of literally every character and plot.

3 found helpfulOct 2, 2022