The Hunt Is On by Nie Jun is a Chinese comic book modernising some traditional folktales. The illustrations are charmingly ancient looking, the colours are in those warm reds we associate with Chinese opera and the story is not as simple as might first be thought. While this is only a first volume that ends with a cliff-hanger we are given enough to hope for the classic epics featuring many twists, betrayals and complicated love triangles in this chase for fortune, land fertility and eternal life.

The art was soso beautiful and really captured my attention! I really loved the beginning and the cultural aspects of this book, its great at pulling you in emotionally for the first part.
However, right near the end a lot of plot twists occur which are a surprise but they felt rushed and confusing. The art was still beautiful and captured these moments well however the pacing felt a little odd. As the beginning was quite slow (but nicely paced) but the end felt rushed. However, this might be all down to it being the first book in a series.
Thank you to Netgalley for sending me a free copy to review.

3.5 stars *may change
Haha. What?
I’d like to start off by saying that the art in this is gorgeous. Nie Jun is a cartoonist inspired by Japanese, Chinese, and European cartoons and it really shows in his style. It’s a very colorful graphic novel that goes along with its fantastical Beijing-esq world. I really did think the culture aspects of it were quite lovely. From the costuming, all of the market people, and the myths, it was a wonderful thing to see being illustrated.
That being said, I have no idea what happened in that story. We have characters at the beginning but then they don’t show up again or they show up and have a purpose but then they don’t follow through on that purpose. And then some weird plot twists I still don’t quite get. I mean, this is a first book in a series, so who am I to say that it makes no sense if there’s gonna be a follow up? Still, the plot was a bit weird.
I mean, it was a pretty book. A bit forgettable.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an arc.

Nie Jun’s evocative invocation at the start of the book powerfully parallels the deeper themes that run through the story. Though he has travelled far from his homeland in the western region of China, Jun says that his home has always stayed with him. Connection and longing for home is a strong, yet unnamed theme in the book. Tribes express an almost primeval urge to not lose their connection with their earthen home, dreading the possibility of being forced into a nomadic life. They fight to preserve a harmonious and spiritual way of life, rooted in the connection to their physical homeland.
The key theme of the plot is the conflict between that gentle way of life and the strong forces that seek to sever the connection between the people and their land. The life-force of the earth and nature is personified in the form of powerful, ancient and vulnerable ‘chadolo’s. When the chadolo is destroyed, the link between humans and the forces of nature is lost, and a deep sorrow follows. The story, aided by the dreamy, ethereal imagery, flits easily between the physical world and the spiritual world.
Qiliu, the central character, feels the pull of both forces - that of harmonious paganism, and that of loyalty toward the capitalistic each-man-to-himself world of his family. The conflict between these forces is reflected in the history of China that Nie Jun alludes to in the invocation, and promises to be the theme that drives the series in the volumes to come. Jun expertly meets his aim of evoking a desire in the reader to learn more about the disappearing native culture of his homeland.

Rating: 3.5

The art is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't quite catch what was happening towards the end. The fact that the mother wasn't real and the brother "killed" the main character was very abrupt with no buildup whatsoever. One moment he stole plum suckers for her and the next he slit her throat. If anything, the buildup might have been lost in translation and the emotions couldn't quite transfer over to English.

Despite this, the start of the book was absolutely beautiful. The art is gorgeous and fitting for the Eastern style. I would read the next book in the series to see if there is any development different from this one. Overall, the book is a nice read, but I am unsure for what demographic due to the sudden violence towards the end.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Lerner Publishing Group for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.


Yaaaaaaz, this was everything!!!
The art was so so beautiful and the story even better.
I find it hard to judge comics and manga cuz there are two elements to the rating process.
This one gets 2 five stars from me, a 5 for the graphics and a 5 for the story.
I will be waiting for the sequel.

ARC Copy...first ARc review of the year! So beautiful and lavish watercolour art and cultural fantasy on display here. Uniquely Chinese culture in feel and I mean outside and within the country. I can see the schools ordering this.

Three things I loved about The Hunt Is On by Nie Jun.

1. Such unique artwork! The images, colorful and boldly designed, really stand out and quite memorably so.

2. Wonderful fantasy! The inclusion of supernatural elements alongside very human characters was stellar. Just the right amount of dreaming included.

3. A bracing adventure! Nie Jun keeps the plot moving, and there's enough going on this book to capture older and younger readers.

Recommended reading for graphic novel lovers.

4/5

Seekers of the Aweto: The Hunt is On, by Nie Jun is an exciting beginning of what seems to be a fantasy/historical story with absolutely beautiful artwork with deep, fascinating folk and myth base.

We start off looking upon the journey of 2 brothers, Xinyue and Qiliu, travelling from place to place in search of the rare and valuable aweto.

To be honest I’m still a little confused as to what aweto and chadolo are, so I can’t explain much more. Because this world and lore is so vast, I know it’ll take a lot more than this first instalment to fully realize the extent.

That being said, I am so excited to read more of this interesting story and world. I don’t get much exposure to anything Chinese, so to see all the love the author ha put into this is amazing and I’m grateful for his passion.

That artwork though!! Utterly beautiful! The use of colours and tones and lighting is so beautifully done. I don’t see many graphic novels/manga/man wha with artwork as stylized and colourful as this anymore, so I was completely stunned. The artwork was the most amazing thing about this book. I would gladly read the entire series just for the artwork. Lucky for me, the story is compelling too. Win-win all around.

I am so interested in finishing this series, and I can’t wait for book 2.

*I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

“I was born in Qinghai,” says the author, Nie Jun, in a brief introduction, “…and the culture of that region has always been dear to me. I have carried it wherever I go, though over time, it has almost completely disappeared. I hope that this story, with its air of mystery, will inspire readers all over the world to find out more about my native land”. I believe Jun will be successful. I want to know more, already, and I’m halfway across the world, opposite China, in a Spanish-speaking, America-owned tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean. In one word, like Jun wanted: I’m inspired. I want to know more, because there’s nothing quite like learning the myths of foreign, far away cultures, seeing the similarities and differences in how our ancestors tried to explain this world. Jun’s work provides plenty of space for such an exploration, and every second of it was intriguing.

The Hunt is On is the first book on The Seekers of Aweto series. The volume does a lovely job of presenting its characters, world and mythical lore, through gorgeous, watercolors that seem to amplify the magical quality of each page. This is easily the book’s strongest asset; the art style is beautiful. It’s vibrant and thoroughly colorful, with a dream-like quality that reminds me of Studio Ghibli. The story itself, however, remains engaging, if slightly rushed.

The book follows a group of "aweto seekers”: Xinyue, his brother Qiliu and their mother. They travel across a fantastical version of the Silk Road, hunting awetos to sell on the marketplace. The awetos grow upon the head of chadolos –earth deities that seem to bless the soil on which they slumber and perish once their aweto is harvested, destroying the livelihoods of the tribes surrounding them. Xinyue and his family are hunters, and their work is neither nice nor pretty. This means that our protagonists are morally ambiguous, which adds to the story’s mystery.

My one complaint is the pacing. Everything covered in The Hunt is On could’ve been better handled if split into two volumes, giving us more time to get to know the characters, and fall in love with them, before the plot throws them head-first into chaos. But this is a small gripe; one that doesn’t really diminish my appreciation of the book.

I’m truly eager to see where this goes!

Trigger warning: The art style is so peaceful, so calming, it can be misleading. There are few panels of brutal violence, with blood and flying heads, and they always felt unexpected. Thus, I advise caution to parents and guardians considering this for small children; it’s clearly meant for teenagers, at the youngest.

Without a doubt, what marks this graphic novel is its art, its illustrations are beautiful, magical, and pleasant, it is an art that I feel favors history a lot; Now in terms of the rhythm of the story, it was somewhat confusing, and in parts very slow, without a doubt a second installment is expected, it is a story that can be greatly favored, if the narrative and dialogues for its second installment improve.

The art of this was cute and I especially loved the art of the little chadolo-it was so adorable!

I’m undecided right now if I’ll continue on with this. The ending of this graphic novel clearly indicated that that will be a sequel, but I am not totally sure if I want to read it, While I liked some of the art and the concept, I felt like the pacing of this graphic novel was a little bit off, and the plot was a little bit confusing, Some things got explained all at once near the end and I think more exposition near the beginning could have helped the story,

Not my favorite type of art, but it's nice in its way. The story is cute and different and the little deity thingy is adorable! Wish it was longer, because you don't get much of a story before it's finished.

The art style of this book is gorgeous, the watercolor style makes the emotions so much more poignant. I also enjoy the Xinyue's moral ambiguity throughout this book it felt unique in it's own way especially in comparison to his brother. Also the baby chadolo is the cutest thing since Baby Groot, possibly even more so.

This book is a page turner you find yourself invested before you know it and the cliffhanger will make you desperate to pick up the next book.

4 baby Aweto stars!

I must admit that the graphics and the colours in this book were stunning.
The Hunt Is On is a Chinese graphic novel that follows the story of two seeker brothers named Xinyue and Qiliu who, alongside their mother, go around hunting god-like creatures called Aweto. In one of their missions, Xinyue comes across the baby Aweto and secretly becomes its caretaker. I loved the story and the turning of the events and can't wait for book 2 to come.

Love the beautiful art; the watercolor theme has to be my favorite part about this book. The story is very engaging and I’m looking forward to seeing what is going to happen to the brothers in the story.

The Hunt is On, the first volume of Nie Jun’s Seekers of the Aweto graphic novel series, is something truly beautiful. Drawing inspiration from everything from traditional Chinese art to contemporary western comics, its watercolour style and vibrant, almost psychedelic colours are simply mesmerising, bringing a mythological adventure and the stunning world it takes place to life in a way that’s not quite like anything else out there. The Hunt is On is sheer artistic beauty on every page.

And the story that unfolds through those pages is an enchanting one. In a fantastical version of ancient China, it tells of a group of “Aweto seekers”—nomads who travel the land in search of rare creatures that are part plant, part worm, that a worth a whole lot in the marketplace thanks to their scarcity and strong medicinal properties. (Mythical though they sound, aweto are actually real—caterpillars with a cordyceps fungus growing from their heads).

Xinyue is the youngest of this particular group of aweto seekers, and has the unusual ability to control insects by playing his drum. His older brother Qiliu is part man, part animal, with big dragonfly-like wings, and their mother, Bu Ren Niang, has the wisdom, experience, and love that only a mother can bring. The three of them travel the Silk Road in search of aweto, with no end of troubles from other aweto seekers, and from the people committed to protecting the earth deities (chadolo) upon whose heads the aweto grow.

But the group’s latest aweto-seeking adventure takes an interesting turn when a baby chadolo starts following Xinyue around. Without knowing what else to do, Xinyue decides to take it with him, at least for now, until he figures out what to do with it. As you might guess, this child is more than just a regular earth deity, and might be the clue to finding the fabled celestial aweto that grants immortality to anyone who eats it.

With that setup, The Hunt is On sets Seekers of the Aweto on the path to being something enchanting. There’s something almost Indiana Jones or Uncharted-like in its story of rogue treasure hunters, but seen through a lens of myth, fable, and Chinese history, with a dreamlike art style and a sense of atmosphere that channels Studio Ghibli. It’s exciting, funny, spiritual, surreal, and poignant in equal measure, and brings all those moods together in a way that’s effortless.

The Hunt is On is a gripping read in its own right, but it’s also the first book in an ongoing series, and it lays the groundwork for what should be some wonderful developments to come. The relationship between Xinyue and Qiliu is a curious one, with two brothers who seem to love each other deeply but couldn’t be more different as people and in what motivates them—and for all the love they share, those differences bring their share of conflict that goes beyond sibling rivalry.

There are some fascinating other characters the aweto seekers meet who are only minimally involved in The Hunt is On, but seem like they’ll be a big part of the ongoing story, like Ashmi, a fierce warrior from a tribe of chadolo protectors who makes it her duty to find and bring home the baby that’s latched onto Xinyue. And in its final pages, this first book drops a shocking cliffhanger that’s going to make the wait for the next volume an agonising one.

If The Hunt is On is any indication, Seekers of the Aweto is going to be a series to pay attention to in the coming years. Nie Jun is creating something remarkable here.

OK, so there are some giant earth titan things, and they sprout a very rare vegetable substance, that if it doesn't grant eternal life can go a heck of a way to healing anything thrown at it. Two young brothers, human but with the ability to fly, and their mother, are hunting the stuff, and manage to snatch such a good piece it might well be from the mother lode. But one of the brothers also comes away with something else even more maternal – a newborn titan thing…

This is supposed to evoke the culture of western China, and manages at times to visually smack of the Silk Route, which is a plus in my book. I did fear it might look a little too manga, with its oriental origins, but it survived to be a hit in the French market and now both editions have been used to create the English language version. And it's really quite good fun. It reads very quickly, and while some of the action scenes demand too much of the creator for his art to be completely understandable and coherent, I found myself on board for this. What suitably looks like Asian watercolours give everything a unique appearance, while also borrowing from some kind of cave art style to add more of the legendary to the pages. This is a world where names are meaningful in the original Chinese (we get the translations, else I'd not have known), and where at each turn you're both reading a story with many standard fantasy elements and something utterly fresh to our eyes. Annoyingly, I couldn't find evidence of any second volume being in French as of yet, so I can't possibly guess as to when we get the whole of this story. Seeing as we're in cliffhanger mode at the end here (something you can guess at the halfway stage), that's a disappointment. But little else about this is.

ARC provided by Lerner Publishing Group via NetGalley

The Hunt Is On by Nie Jun is a Chinese graphic novel translated to English by Edward Gauvin, and follows the story of two brothers named Xinyue and Qiliu. They, alongside their mother, go around hunting god-like creatures called Aweto when on one mission, Xinyue comes across the baby of a Aweto they slayed and becomes its caretaker.

What I really loved about this graphic novel was the art. It had such flair and character, with beautiful scenery and vibrant colors. Every single panel and page felt alive in this series, and the cover art is what interested me the most.

However, the story itself wasn’t the most thrilling. At times, it bordered on being a typical mainstream fairy tale type of story which was fine, but it was riddled with pacing issues, questionable character motivations, and no real subtext to explain WHY what was happening in the main text was occurring.

Xinyue towards the last third of the story starts to show more character development, and it makes previous choices made by Xinyue in this graphic start to make sense, especially WHY he is taking care of the Aweto baby. But his brother Qiliu is a walking, talking trope that feels like he exists to just do whatever the story needs — be it the somewhat aloof but caring brother to suddenly being the antagonist. It’s such a quick change that even Anakin’s turn to the dark side feels more believable. The things Qiliu does towards the end truly had me surprised in the worst way because everything from beforehand established him as a very different character.

There was a bit more to this story as well, such as the village they visited at the beginning and a warrior who is chasing after them, as well as the mother and other mysteries. I had no problem with them being saved for future volumes, but we do get a giant info dump for several pages from the mother after a certain Qiliu choice that gave me hella whiplash and reminded me of THAT revelation scene from Crime of Grindlewald because of how out of nowhere it happened and how much got piled on.

Overall, I think for a younger audience this could be a very fun graphic, as the art is beautiful and it’s a very trope heavy story. I’m definitely interested in the rest of the series, but if it’s paced like this volume, I’m not too sure it’ll be an improvement. I do, however, look forward to being proven wrong.

The Hunt Is On by Nie Jun drops March 02, 2021.

This was a sweet fantasy graphic novel with a lovely art style and characters I couldn’t wait to learn more about. Though things were left a little bit ambiguous, I grew to like both Xinyue, the protagonist, and the cast of supporting characters. I get the sense that more will be revealed in future installments, which explains some of the ambiguity of the plot, so I’d quite like to keep up with this series. Great premise, sweet character dynamics, absolutely stunning art, and enough intrigue to keep me hooked - this one’s a winner.