How Faithful Is Immortal Venerable'S Order Manhua To The Novel?

I picked up the manhua after finishing parts of the novel and found it faithful in spirit but selective in execution. Major plot beats and the protagonist’s core motivations are preserved, so readers won’t be confused about the overall storyline. Where the manhua diverges is mostly in trimming side plots, speeding up cultivation explanations, and occasionally reordering scenes for visual momentum.

The trade-off works: the manhua sacrifices some of the novel’s slow-burn introspection for tighter pacing and punchier visuals, while adding cinematic duel panels and expressive character art that amplify emotional moments. For someone who treasures lore and internal monologue, the novel is deeper; for someone wanting dramatic visuals and a brisk read, the manhua is satisfying. My takeaway is simple—neither replaces the other; they complement each other, and both are worth your time if you enjoy the world. I still find myself thinking about a handful of scenes rendered even better in the comic, which says a lot about its charm.

Reading through both forms felt like watching the same movie in two different languages: familiar, but with distinct rhythms. The manhua version of 'Immortal Venerable's Order' keeps the core narrative beats intact, so you'll recognize major betrayals, revelations, and character turns. What the comic changes is distribution — scenes that the novel lingers on become quick splash pages, and internal contemplations turn into expressive facial panels or symbolic imagery.

From a practical perspective, the manhua also rearranges some sequences to maintain episodic cliffhangers and to keep the visual drama high. That means some exposition is moved earlier or later than in the novel, and occasionally motivations get tightened so the story reads cleanly in short bursts. I appreciate that because it respects newcomer attention spans, but if you crave the novel’s layered political threads and lore footnotes, you’ll miss that extra granularity. Still, the themes and the emotional core survive the transition, and the art brings a fresh perspective that made certain confrontations hit harder for me personally.

I dove into the manhua version of 'Immortal Venerable's Order' the way I dive into any adaptation I love: impatient, hungry, and ready to nitpick every cut and flourish. Right off the bat, the core story—the protagonist's stubborn climb through cultivation ranks, the central conflicts, and the emotional beats that define the novel—are all there. The manhua keeps the spine of the narrative intact, so if you read the novel and come to the manhua, the main arcs will feel familiar. That said, the ways those arcs are handled are frequently different, and that’s where most of the adaptation choices show themselves.

The biggest practical change is pacing. The novel luxuriates in internal monologue, exposition about cultivation mechanics, and slow-burn worldbuilding; the manhua has to show rather than tell, so it compresses, trims, and occasionally skips side arcs or background sections. Several supporting characters who are given room to breathe in the book appear more streamlined on the page—some get merged, others reduced to a few powerful scenes. Conversely, the manhua leans into visual spectacle: key duels, realm-breaking moments, and ancestral flashbacks get lavish, cinematic panels that can feel even more dramatic than the prose description. If you’re someone who loves grand fight choreography or gorgeous character designs, the manhua often compensates for what it condenses in plot.

Another important difference is tone in dialogue and pacing of reveals. The novel’s inner thoughts and gradual philosophical notes about cultivation are hard to translate directly, so the manhua substitutes visual metaphors and occasional added scenes to externalize those ideas. A handful of interactions are rewritten to be punchier for the medium, and yes, there are a few original scenes created to heighten tension or provide cliffhangers between chapters. Those changes didn’t feel like betrayals to me; rather, they felt like the manhua finding its own language. If you want the deepest lore, chapters of reflection, and slow character folding, the novel remains richer. If you want compact storytelling with striking imagery and tightened momentum, the manhua delivers beautifully. Personally, I bounce between both: I read the novel for breath and nuance, then flip to the manhua when I want the heart-stopping panels. It’s a pairing that scratches different itches, and honestly, both versions make me love the story a little more.

If you want a compact take: the manhua is lovingly faithful where it matters and pragmatic where it must be. The principal plotlines and the protagonist’s arc are preserved, but expect cuts to side arcs, a lot of narrative compression, and the loss of interior narration that the novel enjoyed. The bright side is the visuals — some fights and emotional beats are upgraded in the manhua with atmospheric panels, color choices, and pacing that make scenes resonate in new ways.

I treated the comic as both an adaptation and an interpretation. Reading the novel first gave me context and patience for slower reveals; reading the manhua first gave me a visual road map that made the novel’s details click later. Neither replaces the other for me, and together they form a fuller picture of the world. Overall, the manhua honors the source while trimming and stylizing — which, to my taste, works really well and left me excited to revisit favorite moments in both formats.

I get genuinely excited talking about this one because the art of translation between novel and comic is such a neat puzzle. In my view, 'Immortal Venerable's Order' the manhua stays loyal to the spine of the novel: the main protagonist's goals, the major turning points, and the broad progression of power and politics are all recognizable. What changes is mostly how the story breathes — the novel has room for long internal monologues, elaborate explanations of worldbuilding, and slow-build character arcs, while the manhua trims those stretches to keep pages moving and panels dramatic.

Visually, the manhua leans into what a comic medium does best: it amplifies fight choreography, expressions, and scenic moments. That leads to some scenes feeling more intense or cinematic than in the book, and occasionally the art team will add connective moments or visual flourishes that weren’t explicit in text. Conversely, a few minor side-characters and subplots get compressed or skipped, so if you loved a particular tangent in the novel, it might feel undercooked here.

If I had to sum it up: faithful in terms of plot and theme, adaptive in terms of pacing and detail. I enjoyed both for different reasons — the novel for depth and the manhua for visual punch — and reading them together felt like watching a director’s cut alongside a behind-the-scenes featurette, which was really satisfying to me.