YMMV / The King's Avatar

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Ye Xiu genuinely a Troll at heart or is he simply putting up a facade so other players can leave him alone during his climb back up to the top? It's implied he trolls people for the fun of it, as this video suggests^note Though one needs to understand Chinese, but provided it's taken as canon, as it's set after the web novel. Essentially, Du Ming confesses his attraction for Tang Rou, thus Ye Xiu and Team Happy take advantage by causing an online scandal, implying a Love Triangle between Happy members. This draws away everyone's attention from the game, allowing Happy to steal away multiple bosses under the other professional teams' noses, with Ye Xiu's last comment at the end of the video taking the cake.
• Archive Panic: At over 1700 chapters, multiple characters belonging to many different guilds/teams, and a whole ton of game mechanics to Glory, it's hard to chronicle all of Ye Xiu's antics without pulling off more than one read-through of the web novel.
• Awesome Music: "Faith" (信仰), the opening song from the Animated Adaptation, a Wuxia-inspired theme that perfectly sets up the atmosphere of the donghua, the In-Universe Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game "Glory" and the general eSports setting; this would be repeated with its Triumphant Reprise in the last episode by Jinhu ROCK (金虎ROCK). Likewise, "Light From The Ashes" (来自尘埃的光), the opening theme of the Live-Action Adaptation, evokes the same feeling.
• Broken Base:
  • The web novel, Manhua, animation and live-action never seem to stick to one appearance for every character, leading to discussions over which incarnation is better.
  • Quite a few fans of the web novel have stated the first season of the Animated Adaptation went too fast with its episodes by not properly adapting the chapters, citing how the animation studio wasn't developing the game, its mechanics and setting more. However, those who haven't read the novel and started with the animation first believe it's fine, and that it provided an incentive for viewers to start reading the web novel to fully enjoy The King's Avatar.
  • Tying in with the above, the 3-episode SP brought mixed reactions to the "One Autumn Leaf" avatar having Sun Xiang's face rather than Ye Xiu's: is it a good way of showing the fact the avatar is, of course, no longer Ye Xiu's or is the previous symbolism of the avatar still belonging to Ye Xiu in spirit just fine and it's an Unnecessary Makeover?
  • Similar to the animation, the live-action series: was it necessary to squeeze out dungeon-crawling aspects, render certain characters being Adapted Out, while turning some into a composite of pre-existing ones, with a heavier focus on personal drama rather than the eSports narrative like the web novels or was this inevitable like other live-action programs seen in other Asian countries like Japan and South Korea?
• Catharsis Factor:
  • While he technically wasn't responsible for Ye Xiu's departure from Excellent Era, Sun Xiang arrogantly thinking he has what it takes to replace the "Battle God" made plenty of fans wanting to see him get brought down multiple notches. In all adaptations, Han Wenqing beats Xiang cleanly and near effortlessly in the rookies vs. veterans event at the 6th All-Star Competition with their respective "Desert Dust" and One Autumn Leaf accounts, universally seen as one of the highlights of The King's Avatar. The cherry on top would be Wenqing lambasting Sun Xiang to his face about why he Can't Catch Up to Ye Xiu, a burden that Xiang carries with him all the way into the end of Season 9.
  • Similarly, Liu Hao and Chen Yehui: depending on the adaptation, both continue to pester Ye Xiu in-person at the Happy Internet Cafe and in Glory by breaking Xiu's dungeon records and allying with major guilds to kill and impede his current "Lord Grim" avatar. Regardless of what the former two do, Ye Xiu and his allies surpass their records and turn the tables against the aggressive guilds when out-numbered, coming out unscathed, thereby humiliating the two and their reputation. Emphasized in the live-action, where Yehui is called out by the major guild leaders for failing to succeed despite their combined efforts, while accusing him of a False Flag Operation against Lord Grim when his Excellent Dynasty guild suffered fewer losses compared to their own.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Huang Shaotian, largely due to Bishōnen looks, playing the Comic Relief (but without being a Butt-Monkey), exceptional Motor Mouth skills and combat prowess.
  • Bao Rongxing's go-go happy attitude and all-around Fun Personified characteristics has made him a fan favorite.
  • In a meta-example, the show turned into this for the spring 2017 anime season, due to coming from an unknown animation studio and the sole Chinese publication that could have easily been swept under the rug, did it not garner good word-of-mouth from social media and viewers, leading into its status as a Gateway Series for donghua.
  • After Ye Xiu created a new avatar called "Unrivaled Super Hottie" as a Paper-Thin Disguise to infiltrate and spy on the "Tyrannical Ambition" guild, some readers had called for him to use it more often in place of his pseudo-Game-Breaker Lord Grim.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Do not say the series ripped off or stole ideas from Sword Art Online (see Fandom Rivalry).
• Fandom Rivalry: To Sword Art Online - both feature an Experienced Protagonist who's an expert in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game with incredible skills, yet alienates themselves from their respective establishments. Expect plenty of people who support Sword Art Online to brush this series off as a ripoff, never minding that Sword Art Online has far more Science Fantasy elements, whereas The King's Avatar has none and deliberately uses Surprisingly Realistic Outcome and Truth in Television abundantly, with an explicit focus on a Professional Gaming narrative. Furthermore, there's the possibility the first publication of The King's Avatar was released in 2011, a year before Sword Art Online began airing as an Anime - to some viewers, this would be popular enough to rip off.
• Fridge Horror: What exactly will happen to Ye Xiu's friends that he was supporting with his earnings now that he's only making minimum wage that he can't split?
• Friendly Fandoms: Expect fans of The King's Avatar to get along with the fandom of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi - despite coming from different genres (eSports and xianxia/danmei, respectively), their Animated Adaptations serve as a Gateway Series to donghua for Western fans (see below). Many fans who watched Mo Dao Zu Shi tend to watch The King's Avatar next or vice versa due to the shows' popularity, while sharing the same voice actors. It also helps that both have received several adaptations besides a donghua, including a Manhua, an audio drama, and a live-action series, the latter appearing on the accessible Netflix.
• Gateway Series: While there have been plenty of Chinese animated works that have tried to catch the attention of a non-Chinese audience, The King's Avatar is the first of two (the other being Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi) to really make an impact on Western viewers because of its relatable premise and modern setting by doing away Fantasy and Science Fiction entirely from other animated works influenced by the genre (specifically the example in Fandom Rivalry), and without relying on isekai- or Stock Light-Novel Hero-related tropes.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The Animated Adaptation has not gone unnoticed by Japanese audiences, many of whom state the first episode and its Medium Blending of CG and 2D animations are done exceptionally well for a Chinese animation studio, with some even calling it the best release for the spring 2017 anime season (even though it's not listed as Anime).
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In-Universe, Witch-class characters in Glory can cast "Acid Rain" and "Lava Flask" while in mid-air and/or riding their brooms, something that isn't possible in the Real Life source game Glory is based on. Fast forward to 2017, and Witches in the Korean version are given the same ability in an update patch. Depending on how familiar people are with the web novel, this may or may not be a form of Defictionalization on their part.
  • A genius player takes the competitive eSports scene by storm in his professional debut, winning the world championship. He proceeds to win two more before languishing and struggling in runner-up positions for years. Eventually, alongside younger and hungry teammates, this prodigy wins his fourth world championship, cementing himself as the game's undisputed best player. Are we talking about Ye Xiu or League of Legends' Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok? One Reddit user even listed the similarities between them.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the third episode of SP, Liu Hao's line of dialogue, "Why does this voice feel like it's pissing me off so much?" will likely remind viewers that the majority of Anime fans, who have grown fond of the Japanese language, showed exceptional discomfort upon hearing a Mandarin voice track for an animated series for the first time.
• Ho Yay: When Bao Rongxing meets Ye Xiu face-to-face for the first time, the former states he wanted to meet up. While the dialogue can be Lost in Translation to non-Chinese speakers, what Bao said is slang for "meeting with a gay man"^note In modern lingo, the slang is now attributed to the more popular phrase "meeting up with close friends in Real Life". Ye Xiu's Sweat Drop along with Tang Rou snickering at Bao's remark only adds to the implications.
• It Was His Sled: Happy becoming league champions in Season 10 after stopping Samsara's dynasty run is already well known, even to Western fans, who may not have read up to that point in the web novel yet.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Ye Xiu has been paired with just about every character either he or Lord Grim interacts with in Glory, including, but not limited to, Bao Rongxing, Xu Boyuan, Huang Shaotian, Wei Chen, Zhou Zekai, Wang Jiexi, Han Wenqing, Sun Xiang, Su Muqiu, etc. It comes as no surprise many of his pairings are with guys when the series has a distinct lack of Ship Tease between him and female characters.
• Narm: Given the series is a Chinese-produced work, expect English translations (including the official one) of player names to be taken literally at face value. This gets exceptionally hard for audiences to take certain scenes seriously when avatar names include ones such as "Steamed Bun Invasion" and "Plantago Seed". Lampshaded by Ye Xiu in the Manhua, who states Bao Rongxing (Steamed Bun's user) is decent for a newcomer to the game, but is put off by his embarrassing identification tag.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Those who have read the web novels treat the Downplayed elements like dungeon-crawling as a comparatively small loss when there's over a thousand chapters to adapt for a live-action drama. However, what readers do have a problem with is the live-action omitting some of the novel's nuances (such as Ye Xiu's characterization and thought-processes regarding Glory) in favor of archetypal melodrama; understandably, these omissions were done as to not alienate a less eSports-inclined audience. Fans of the web novels agree the show did its job at telling The King's Avatar, but are quick to remind viewers who haven't read the source material yet it takes certain liberties - that it's more of a Pragmatic Adaptation in order to ease its audience into the topic of Professional Gaming.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: One of the complaints about the animated prequel movie is that it doesn't really expound on the backstories and/or personalities of the other first members of Excellent Era; at best they serve as Bit Characters.
• Translation Train Wreck: Good luck trying to understand the English subtitles on Chinese web streaming services for the live-action when they directly translate spoken dialogue word-for-word^note Avatar and team names use pinyin, thus "Lord Grim" and "Excellent Era" becomes "Jun Mo Xiao" and "Jiashi", respectively, while common MMORPG lingo in Mandarin like Hit Points being "blood" is called as such without consideration; Netflix would even egregiously copy those same subtitles to use for their service (although they would eventually rectify that issue later). This comes to a head when fans who are usually stringent about supporting only official sources will completely understand if viewers wish to watch with Fan Translations instead.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Thousand Creations' Manhua design gives him a girlish ponytail. It doesn't help that his shirt is form-fitting enough to make it seem like he's a flat chested girl◊ at first glance.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: While the prequel movie The King's Avatar: For the Glory is regarded by fans to be middling at best, most viewers do agree that it's very well-animated.

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