San Ti

If you're interested in San Ti (三体) Animated or Three-Body, you had better watch the Tencent live-action adaptation which is available on Tencent's YouTube channel for free. The live-action adapts the first book of the Three-Body trilogy, which is indeed the "Three-Body" novel, while the animation adapts the second novel titled The Dark Forest "黑暗森林" (Hei An Sen Lin). If you go into bilibili's San Ti without watching the live-action, you will be missing a decent amount of context that sets up the plot for the animated series, especially the first episode with all the narration and monologues.

That being said, compared to the long and ... steady plot progression of Tencent's live-action series (30 40-minute episodes in total), bilibili's San Ti goes into full overdrive the first two episodes, with constant action that does allow some respite from time to time. San Ti will demand your full attention to detail in order to fully enjoy and appreciate it.

San Ti, however, seems to suffer from the bad pacing, and unlike the live-action, the animation's storyline seems so weird and bizarre. It's also not easy to appreciate the MC, Luo Ji, whose manner and behavior are so grating and painful to watch, at least in the first few episodes, though it gets better towards the end.

I don't have much (or anything) to say about the content and how well it has been adapted from the novels because I have not read any of the novels, but the animation quality is pretty good, I must say. If you've watched the live-action series, you'll see some animated sequences within the series itself. Bilibili's animation is similar to that, but much more polished and cartoonish.

I would definitely recommend this series, if only just to know the aftermath of the events that transpired in the live-action series.

First off this is an adaptation of the second book "The Dark Forest" and takes a lot of creative liberties to fit in an anime format and glosses over a lot of the lore. If you're itching to see a screen adaptation then watch the Tencent CCTV live action adaptation first (Netflix series not out yet as of this review). If you're not a fan of the books do not watch this anime you won't like it at all because without background on events preceding this series it will seem really shallow and lighthearted.

All-in-all it's okay but as a whole the anime is all style ... with no substance.

If you want to enjoy ‘Tri-body problem(三体)’, please got to read the novel or watch ‘Mine Tribody(我的三体)’. This animation by the ‘Yihua Kaitian’ studio is completely shit.

The animation is a disaster. The characters have unnatural zombie-ish movements. The light and shadow shown in it is unrealistic and is breaching the physics laws. A lot of background textures are cheaply shared by multiple places. Some minor scenes are obviously cut corners in the point of carefulness. For example, in the scene of the Go game, the black player’s third move is clearly irrational. The studio does not pay attention to making this animation.

Also, the ... plot is shitty too. The first volume of the novel is cut completely, and the summary of it in the anime is kind of abstract. The plot is significantly modified from the original work, making the characters stupid and irrational. The main character Luo Ji is a clown in the animation. Side characters did not escape their fate of being ruined either; Ding Yi became completely a crazy guy in the animation. The studio does not fully understand the original work and arrogantly redesign the story, making a full digestion of turning the nutritious original work into the shitty waste presented. They completely changed the original style, but this did not make the expression better.

There is a artful criticism of this animation in China, ‘The problem facing by Yihua Kaitian (the studio) is that there are three suns (the Fanfiction ‘Mine tri-body’ the live-action ‘Tri-body Problem’ and the radio play ‘Tri-body Problem’) moving around it, and it is the planet of tri-body civilization which is being exterminating every time.’ This clearly shows the problem of watching this animation. Why should I watch this instead of the three better alternatives?

Plot & Characters 0 of 7 points
Art & Animation 0 of 2 points
Actions 0 of 1 points
Final score is 1 because the lowest score we are able to give on MAL is 1.