Daughter of a Thousand Faces

Non-spoiler Review

I picked this up because I saw that it was made by the artist of Scum Villain and thought it looked interesting. This story is such a fun read. It's about a 16 year old named Shen Yuhua from the most prominent cultivator family in the world with absolutely no prospects in fulfilling her duty to her family so she takes a risk and ends up in a blood pact with a demon. It explores complicated family dynamics, how fillial piety sometimes isn't the best course, discovering that your family lowkey sucks, dealing with being othered, oppression, and choosing who you surround yourself with and how that changes you.

These demons aren't Frieren demons btw they're pretty much weird-looking humans with magic powers and based off chinese mythology (I think). I'm only halfway into season 2 and I'm curious to see if they expand on the differences between humans and demons but I'd be fine if they didn't because that just reinforces the themes with the protagonist's family duty conflict.

The title both refers to the fact that the protagonist can nab a face off a corpse and shape-shift into the face's original host and her inner conflict of constantly lying to everyone around her except her demon master. I like that she actually feels 16. She's inexperienced, emotional but not in a childlike way like a lot of stories present teenagers, constantly being challenged and finding ways to deal with it. She's also quite sheltered and slowly breaking out of her shell. The story is good at making her lose fights which I like, it just reinforces her future character growth.

Swallowtail, Leng Feng, Chu Tian, and Qiao Yu are all very interesting characters. I often find myself thinking Swallowtail is acting to grown up then remembering my guy is a complete dumbass most of the time. He's very shady, protective, developing a romance and he doesn't even know it, and trans (it's not confirmed but it's clear). Leng Feng is someone I ignored in season 1 and then became very interested in in season 2. The hints he drops every now and then give a lot about his character and there's still so much more to learn about him. Chu Tian feels very, I'm scorned but I'm trying to show it nonchalantly by casually building an army but hatred seeps out of my bones anyway, and I support him. I wish we could see more of his evil side so there's more of an explanation on why he was hated. Like obviously we know he does cruel things but it seems like more demons should be on his side because he's doing them to protect fellow demons. Qiao Yu is just good at sniffing out intentions because when she met Chu Tian she was on high guard because she could sense his malevolence but instantly warmed up to Shen Yuhua because she could tell she didn't want to hurt people which I find interesting. She's a good parallel to the main character because they're both very similar moral wise, story (minus a few things) wise, it's just that they were born in different circumstances.

Side note: a big controversy in this fandom is people saying that Chu Tian and Luo Binghe look the same which isn't true. Could they be related? Sure! Luo binghe looks like a puppy and Chu Tian looks suave, the vibe is completely different. Also Chu Tian looks significantly older.

Art Show Because the Art is Pretty