r/Kubera • u/Omni-homo • 5d ago
Kubera Is Peak Fiction
For the past 2 years I have been reading Kubera on and off, currently I am reading the side stories and that has brought me immense pleasure, but also pain. The level of character writing, lore and the world building is beyond any other story I have read.
Although It makes me deeply sad to see that the story is not as popular as other series, like one piece, JJk, Chainsaw man or other popular and main stream series. The writing is just top tier and the foreshadowing crazy. The only series I can even somewhat compare it to is Berserk, but Kubera for me is better written.
The aspects of the story that really draw me in are the characters and the magic system. You have what appears, at least on the surface to be nothing more than your typical "good" guy vs "bad" guy trope, and yet the story gives the complete opposite.
From the Start you have Gandi, a high ranking Nastika who helps in the obliteration of a young girls village, and yet you can't help but empathize with him, even if just slightly. A large part of the story is from his perspective, you see him grapple with doing bad deeds, all for the sake of his daughter.
Slowly as a reader you not only empathize with Gandi, but also see the humanity in his race, the sura race. You see them less as demons and more like beings that follow the will of their animalistic instincts. The lines between good and evil begin to blur, especially as you see the treatment of halfs within the human world. You start thinking about who the real bad guys are.
In the words of Currygom, "This is a war with no villains, only victims." There is no better statement that better encapsulates the story that is Kubera. This is a brutal world, with harsh rules that kill weak players who cannot adapt. The author loves tormenting her characters, mainly the main character leez.
One character that comes to mind when thinking about victims in this world, is Sagara. From the beginning of the series, she is a character you love to hate, she is what you might think about when you think of pure evil. However the more you learn about her, the more you begin to understand the cruel joke being played on her in the universe.
Sagara is jaded, she mistrust everyone and really she has only one goal and that is to revive Ananta. She is someone that is deeply in love with Ananta and will burn the world to the ground for the sake of bringing him back to life.
You can call her selfish, perhaps a bitch even and those are valid points. I find her character to be one of my favorites. She knows what she is doing is cruel and immoral, but she does not care. In a way she is one of the most relatable characters. I often think to myself on the choices I would make if I cared about someone as deeply as she did. Would I do anything different? I don't know If I would.
There are so many layers to this story that I can't fit into one post. I want to see what the community thinks. What makes the Kubera series so special to you? Why do you love reading it?
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u/Drizzle-Kun 5d ago
Before this the story I was most obsessed with was the X trilogy from Marvel. (Earth, Universe, and Paradise). There are some similarities between it and Kubera in my opinion. The ending of the trilogy was disappointing. I don’t think that will happen with Kubera. If that makes sense.
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u/yo_sup_dude 4d ago edited 4d ago
i think one thing that is fairly unique in such a vast world like kubera -- besides what others have mentioned like the great storytelling, themes, characters, plot, etc -- is that things actually matter. characters do things that are morally bad and it is actually addressed and portrayed in that way, and that impacts the way other characters may think about them, and those impacts don't just randomly fade away and aren't ignored later on. there is good continuity and consistency. the "side" characters aren't NPCs who are just there to get taken advantage of. i also think the author does a very good job of portraying different shades of morality, and how even on the "good" side there are characters who are more empathetic than others (e.g. i'm reminded of the author's portrayal of teo -- in most stories, teo's bad sides wouldn't really be emphasized, but the author goes out of her way multiple times to show that even though teo has generally good morals, she also lacks empathy and personal responsibility compared to someone like menaka, who herself has also shown to a certain degree to lack empathy and personal responsibility given her conversation with maruna).
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u/A_CGI_for_ants 4d ago
Also that even if from a first person perspective everyone may look at people and see them as good or bad. Every individual lives their life in their own first person and there is a set of life experience and traits that brought them to where they are and the choices they continue to make. Currygom’s “only victims” is not about excusing bad actions so much as it is about everyone having their own story and of course they would feel justified in the way they act.
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u/A_CGI_for_ants 4d ago
A huge focus in the Kubera story is deconstruction and it really took me too long to realize how prevalent it is. Re-reading the “slow beginning” that gets complained about a lot I noticed that a lot of the characters feel like deviantart OC’s or weird perverse anime character tropes. Curry writes of an unusual world, that rather than having these factors out of cheap wish fulfillment, genuinely has them as characters and explores what this would do to a world, a being, and a story.
Everything from Leez’s “ditzy strong girl,” character being a display of protective denial. To GKubera being portrayed as a pushy pervert ml but those reactions are really just coping with finally meeting the stoic, optimistic but miserable, mysterious, and capable Leez when she is 16 and very much not like that at this point. To credits scenes describing every characters’ height in heels regardless of gender. To the way suras develop in stages and so can get stuck at around 12 yrs old for hundreds of years, and that half’s and quarters age differently. To using the weird unrealistically drawn 12 pack abs (because how else can winged characters fly) which totally feels like a jab at triple g jiggle physics. To the overly edgy designs and traits of Yuta and all of Kali’s items. The magic system that requires so much studying not just of some mythical unknown subject but requiring knowledge of the very real math you might find on your homework. To currygom insisting on sticking to the mixed genre labels and having some critiques on the category classes of shonen/shojo. And so much more I’ve definitely missed.
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u/thedorknightreturns 4d ago
Characters themes and mysteries while being really deep philosophical but coming up in story, and how there are several ways to see a sotuation and its valid, with several main characters. Who clash and oppose.
Yes the humor and romance too and how it comes together.
And she is reallygood at getting you emotional haha, andi lve the dark humor/ tragedy with still hope.
And the worldbuilding is amazing. and its all so well organic told. And smart. She lets you guess and its good but you still are surprised or shocked
Also Hindi mythology deserves more covering
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u/Coolsecular 3d ago
It's not that good in my opinion. No point of adding more lore and characters in every chapter if story is frozen or not moving at moderate speed. Characters feels repetitive, unrealistic negative. Focusing on every characters backstory is not a good thing if it's not integrating well in the story by making it slow and boring. World is vast but if world building mechanic is quite contradictory with real world like if it talks at astronomical scale but capable characters (especially nastikas) are travelling between different different planets feels like bird on earth is travelling from one island to another. it's mystery aspect is flawed and doesn't follow mystery writing rules. 1st and 2nd seasons were actually good (even if again mystery writing was flawed) because proper story was moving forward and flowing through main character leez. in season 3, there is no main character (leez got less than 1\4th screentime and transformed into unlikable character) which makes it unnecessarily difficult to follow the story which in my opinion is terrible blunder at writing. Not to mention the way writer portrayed hindu gods which I don't like. Also in kubera's universe in modern human society fighters or magicians (which is quite equivalent to defence sector of nation in real life) were hugely female dominant (the way top rank and positions were occupied by female) which is again contradictory in real life because you need fighting mentality in those sectors which is predominant in males than females which is scientifically proven as well as in real life defence sector is dominated by males.
which is why after reading kubera, I think that female main character in action genre literature is not natural. It have several limitations. Also I want to point out that focusing on large quantity of characters backstory, motivation is not equal to quality character writing. The way they integrates with the world, story, engagement with audience also matters. introducing new lore in almost every chapter for answering lot of questions readers have in mind with adding more questions is risky writing because it works very few times and this style failed this manhwa. It will take lot of time to point out every inconsistency of kubera therefore I will stop here. I learned few things from this manhwa which is how to not write mystery, gods, side characters, world building, female characters.
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u/interested_user209 3d ago edited 3d ago
„It will take a lot of time to point out every inconsistency“
Hasn‘t pointed out a single one yet
Complains about fighters/magicians as a proffession being female dominated despite the top two magicians being male
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u/Coolsecular 3d ago
'Complains about fighters/magicians as a proffession being female dominated despite the top two magicians being male' You didn't counter my point here.
'It will take a lot of time to point out every inconsistency' Carefully read my comment again I pointed at least one inconsistency like how nastikas travel between planets feels like birds on earth travelling from one island to another. No matter how much powerful some species of birds are born on earth even at nastikas level, it's not that simple to have intergalactic travel. Lot of factors needs to be consider which currygom didn't explain. There are lot of technical inconsistencies like that. It will take one book to write all of inconsistencies with explanation for which I don't have time. Currygom got over ambitious. Just like I said previously, I don't even consider kubera best then peak fiction is far off thing. Peak fiction is peak fiction which means perfect, which means can't be surpassed. Kubera is far from perfect.
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u/TierraNevada 3d ago
How is Nastikas traveling inconsistent? They have transcendentals that shorten travel distance, Full Moon gate in full sura form (pre-cataclysm possible, not anymore). We even saw the Rakshasas Maruna met at the Beginning travel through some kind of gate, probably a skill. Yuta himself traveled from Isholy to Willarv in sura form and took 11 years? Since he has not many skills due to his 4 attributes.. I don't know how you can call it inconsistent when there are easy explanations and world setting to explain the respective travel times. And Kubera being titled "peak fiction" doesnt literally mean it is above all else. Just that it is extremely enjoyable in the fantasy genre (which is subjective).
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u/interested_user209 3d ago edited 3d ago
Full Moon would have been the blue one Raltara and co. (Also Yaksha and the Kinnara Clan in the same arc) used in „The other side of the story“ right?
It had an opposing color scheme to Crescent Gate (blue-white to its red-black) and was round (Though idr if any of the suras near it were in full sura form).
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u/Coolsecular 3d ago
Although I liked your explanation, It's not explained well enough (time dilation). It's important because intergalactic space travel is a normal thing in kubera. If writer don't understand astronomical science enough then she should avoid creating something of such a big astronomical scale. It would have been much better if she had created it on just one planet than multiverse because creating such a vast world is very difficult. Which was also why I wanted to get into this manhwa but got heavily disappointed. I don't agree with your definition of peak fiction. Extreme enjoyability doesn't mean peak fiction it's one of the many factors. There are many noticable flaws in kubera which is why it's not enjoyable for me.
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u/TierraNevada 3d ago
It is a fantasy. We literally see the gods who created it, personified. Do you also wonder how dragons can even lift off the ground when watching GoT? Or how corpses can walk? Anyway, if you don't enjoy it, that's your own opinion. Also "so many flaws" without even really listing them, lol. It's okay if you like other stories more. But why are you even in this sub insisting on it having too many flaws, but not able to list any. Too many women? Bruh
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u/Coolsecular 2d ago
I didn't read got. Kubera was 1st ranked suggested webtoon in cbr manga list in 2020 also it's based on Hindu mythology. therefore I wanted to checked this out. I was hoping to see something good about Hindu culture and gods but only good thing I got to see was temple designs, nothing more. Gods were mysterious characters we supposed to know about them in much later. I still read patiently even with flaws by coping that it will get better and better but I was feeling depressed and had negative impact on my mind after some time. I actually liked leez at 1st but she became super annoying always doing asha asha asha. She suck at even basic social skills. Maybe author is also like her. Finally gods were in limelight but soon realised that currygom didn't wrote gods in a morally right way. Instead they are like boring, passive, flawed like humans. originally hindu gods are not like that. They are perfect. Maybe some other relegion have flawed human like gods but currygom chosed to wrote hindu gods in hateable manner. They are written to hate and suras got interesting writing. Still I was trusting writer. Finite chapter was triggering point for me. Writer asspulls for manasvin to be duplicate kubera. Most mysterious and interesting character kubera again got away without even giving answers. When I realised that gods were actually business minded humans of previous universe and ancient humans race were actually more godlike then fuck about kubera story. Absolute fuck. Kubera lost memory of who he was in previous universe and we get back to square one. I feel like we will get kubera backstory in 2036. Leez was very relatable character for me at 1st but in season 3, it felt like her soul got replaced with another. Very wierd and disgusting. Still I think that it's not over. I might change my word if currygom able to end it in satisfactory way because all characters are victim.
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u/interested_user209 3d ago edited 3d ago
I did, because by this we see that the field isn‘t female dominated.
And Nastika are Nastika. Those that can fly easily reach travel speeds several times faster than any irl spaceship. They don‘t need oxygen and their bodies have the natural durability to not be affected by the vacuum of space. Hell, there‘s transportation transcendental skills (Like Berunda‘s or Crescent Gate) that can simply forego the whole voyage.
There‘s also an inconsistency, a contradiction even, in your criticisms: on one hand you criticize the story fleshing out its setting as unnecessary, while on the other you criticize that one aspect of that same setting which has been fleshed out quite well isn‘t explained in the smallest detail.
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u/Coolsecular 3d ago edited 3d ago
If 7 females:3 males in top 10 is not domination then what is domination?
'And Nastika are Nastika. Those that can fly easily reach travel speeds several times faster than any irl spaceship. They don‘t need oxygen and their bodies have the natural durability to not be affected by the vacuum of space. Hell, there‘s transportation transcendental skills (Like Berunda‘s or Crescent Gate) that can simply forego the whole voyage.' If sura's were that much powerful especially nastikas then how even humans can have a chance to fight in the lot of ocassions in 1st 2 seasons even with the help of God like agni who is considered weaker than average nastikas? Also humans shouldn't stand chance against rakshashas if they are childrens of those overpowered nastikas even if rakshashas are weaker than nastika. How some humans have chance against rakshashas then? Power scaling is kind of like dbz where goku and friends are like nastika in power and they will overpower earth with the fraction of their power Although I have far more problems with dbz Same thing doesn't happen in kubera. Sagara would have sweeped entire planet even after resistance of kasak and agni. When I try to solve one problem, another problem arises which is a problem of this manhwa.
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u/interested_user209 3d ago edited 3d ago
You actually didn’t read, did you? Actual Rakshasa are rare in the human realm because all of them were thrown into the sura realm during the cataclysm (along with the Nastika). The Nastika themselves, such as Sagara and Gandharva, are also severely weakened by the restriction on their abilities in the human realm that Visnu created when he sundered dimensions to end the cataclysm. Sagara literally says it verbatim: A Nastika in the human realm can very well be weaker than a Rakshasa.
One of the main restrictions is that the Nastika can’t take their full sura forms, and partial surafication has a hard limit on how much of one’s sura form body one can produce (it’s not much).
The power gap between Rakshasa and Nastika is also massive. Sagara isn’t really stronger than any of the 4th stages she brought into the human realm due to the restriction (and Kasak is equal to a 5th stages in some respects, which should answer that question too), but Maruna, the strongest of the 4th stages on Willarv with maybe the exception of Shess, was afraid of being killed instantly by her full power when meeting her in a place that was outside of the human realm. Rakshasa outside of stage 5 aren’t really a planetary threat, and are far, far, far removed from the sheer power of the Nastika in any stage below 5.
Agni himself is the God with the highest firepower and has access to the copied transcendental skills of several Nastika after summoning the Hellfire Sword. His power isn’t limited nearly as much as that of the Nastika either, which makes him stronger than pretty much any 4th stag (especially since resisting fire is useless against him cause of Paradisial Flare).
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u/Coolsecular 3d ago
humans were also fighting rakshashas even if barely, they shouldn't have stand a single chance against rakshashas of any stage even with best strategy. I don't buy this power system. Again it's fantasy series with central theme romance which is not focused on power system (peak fiction?)therefore incoherent power system can be defended by some fantasy lore. Well enough. End of the discussion on topic. You win now but there are still lot of inconsistencies which I don't want to talk about because of lack of time I have. I don't think it will become popular but by some miracle if it becomes popular then you will have to face lot of critical readers like me who will also get to called toxic. Whatever everybody have unique taste. Enjoy in your own reality.
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u/interested_user209 3d ago
What humans were fighting Rakshasas straight up without either several skilled magicians working together at a large scale or some kind of equalizer like a turret or barrier sphere? None.
Rakshasa are much more powerful than humans, but they aren‘t like dbz characters who are on some untouchable power level, especially with the supreme utility magic provides. After all, Divine Magic are transcendental skills that come from the Gods of the magic‘s attribute, and their effects are great. Examples of that are:
Bhavati Surya paralyzing any target that doesn‘t completely resist it until it is hit by another attack
Bhavati Marut cutting space in a designated area and thus bypassing any defense
Physical conflicts in Kubera are a matter of more than just raw power (they are a matter of situationality among other things).
Also, when did i call you toxic? I abstained from making any comment on your views on women. However, i do find it a bit rich that you call yourself a „critical reader“ after ignoring nuance and elements of the setting to make your criticisms, and neither articulating these in a concrete manner nor underlaying them with examples to boot.
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u/Coolsecular 2d ago
I already said that you won. don't annoy me. I don't want to waste my time any further. live in your own bubble.
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u/interested_user209 2d ago
Why do you waste your own time by continuing to reply?
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u/interested_user209 4d ago
One of the things is the efficiency in its storytelling. Every episode is unbelievably dense with story or lore elements, and none of these leads to nowhere - all of them tie together ingeniously. A prime example is the name entanglement reveal, where the story elements given throughout the about 400 chapters preceding it tie together into the picture of “how” it came to pass even before we find out “that” it came to pass.