Alchemy of Souls starts off massively intriguing with a sprawling new world being introduced to us, the production design is amazing, and the CGI is certainly good enough. Visually, great. All those soul-shifting concepts are brought in, as well as the factions, characters and many dynamics are introduced to us early on too, and it looks soooo interesting and full of potential.

But then… nothing much really happens. The show shifts to comedy slapstick and relegates most of that incredible lore to the background. There is intrigue (and political intrigue), but it doesn't really lead anywhere for most of the runtime. Characters have arcs… until they don't.

But the worst offender of this is, by far, the absolutely outrageous treatment of the female lead.

We are introduced to Naksu as being a badass (and a REAL badass at that, a rare sight!) assassin wanting revenge. Then we watch her go from strong female lead to meek pushover, and never recover. What a shame.

Now this isn't to say that this is an entirely negative experience, because it isn't. Let's list a few positives:

Amazing production design and cinematography
Compelling character setups
Interesting lore and world-building
Nice and colorful CGI
The action is actually good (when it happens)

So basically, great everything outside the main storyline and characters, which bring down the show a lot because… well, it's important!! The pacing was all over the place, oftentimes meandering without aim.

Somehow the best actor in this was the actress playing the queen. Amazing performance in the penultimate episode.

The male lead is the only character in this show with a fully-realized personal arc.

I read in an article that they were still writing and filming this as it was being broadcasted. It even got delayed mid-season because of that. Kdrama writers really need to stop writing as they go, and instead write the full story before filming begins (taking a page out of western shows and leaving room only for minor corrections). How can your story make sense if it's not even fully plotted? It's obvious here that many narrative threads were made up as they went along.

So, in all, I guess if you wanna watch a show only for the male characters, you might not care that the female ones are done dirty, and that's fine, you do you. But I don't. I was disappointed at the amazing potential this show had, only to… fail to live up to it, especially concerning the FL.