REVIEW: The Epic Revenge (a.k.a. Marshal/Sergeant, Your Wife Ran Away Again!)
This review is about a completed webcomic with a total of 502 episodes. (I tried to avoid spoilers in my review, so I won’t be discussing any major plot points.)
The Epic Revenge, also known as Marshal (or Sergeant), Your Wife Ran Away Again!, is available to read legally through the Mangatoon and Webcomic apps. I alternated reading it on both before ultimately settling on sticking it out on Mangatoon.
This comic follows the story of the strong heroine Qingzhou Gu who moves to the town where her paternal family lives in order to get revenge. Over the story, Qingzhou runs into the young Marshall, Pei Si, which complicates things more often than not. Despite wearing the veneer of a naïve young girl, Qingzhou is a brilliant strategist and uses all her skills to best anyone who tries to take her down.
Despite some rough translations and sloppy typesetting, I was spellbound by Qingzhou’s cleverness and strength. While she occasionally relied on the help of others, it was her expert planning and quick thinking often got her out of tricky situations. In fact, when she meets Pei Si in Episode 1, it’s her quick thinking that helps him (and, in a way, her) escape unharmed from a bad situation.
With over 500+ episodes, Qingzhou has a lot going on, and there are very few people she can trust wholeheartedly. Eventually, she puts together a close circle of trustworthy friends and even gets married. (Although, if memory serves, her marriage is completely out of spite.) There are multiple big reveals that leave readers on the edge of their seats as they wait excitedly for Qingzhou to achieve her revenge.
While Qingzhou successfully learns about her familial background, what happened to the maternal side of her family, as well as her nanny, and defeats many of the smaller bosses along the way, the final episode was a huge disappointment for readers who have hung in there with her for years. I, admittedly, spent more time reading The Epic Revenge than I’ve spent employed at some jobs! So, to end the comic with a happy ending without wrapping up her (and everyone else’s stories) feels like a bigger letdown than Y2K. In fact, episodes leading up to 502 make it seem like the story is ongoing, only for readers to be shocked by the last few panels of 502 and the author’s note in 503.
Seeing her character development over 500+ episodes was interesting. Sometimes, it felt like she was devolving, while at other times, it felt like a clever ruse. The plot around her marriage and divorce was a little contrived but helped move the plot along and make ML Pei Si seem more desirable than his moody and cold brother, Mu Si. Although it was clear that Pei Si was always meant to be the end goal for Qingzhou, it would have been better for the story to go on for another 500 episodes to give readers proper closure so we could enjoy the ending.
Although I can’t recommend this comic to others based on my personal feelings, I have to say that I really enjoyed the story (up until the ending) and the artwork. I loved seeing a strong female protagonist use her mind to solve complex problems while also enjoying newfound friendships. The one positive thing I can say is that since the comic is completed, readers who are interested in giving it a try don’t need to wait 2+ years to find out what happens — they can simply binge it on Mangatoon and, depending on reading speed, enjoy the whole story in a month or less.
Source: Mangatoon
