Doupo Cangqiong

As someone who is familiar with the Douluo Dalu series, this story doesn't feel quite refreshing or original. Despite that, it's highly enjoyable, hence I finished it in a couple of hours.

Story [6]:
The story is like something I have seen before, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it is done right. So far, the story is good, but not outstanding. There are things I personally would like to see go in a different direction, but for now these are OK.

Art [7]:
This series art isn't your typical 2D anime, instead it's more 3Dish. I personally appreciate the 3D animation and art style. ... The way this series looks, reminds me of a PS3 game or perhaps a Final Fantasy game. It isn't thát pretty, but very well done.

Sound [7]:
Unlike many other shows that I have watched, where I barely noticed the music, there were some sound effects in this show that I actually noticed. The music and other sound effects are more present, which adds to the show.

Character [7]:
The characters are not very outstanding in comparison to other similar shows. Yet I feel like they're still written pretty well. The protagonist is this cocky, weak lad who develops very well. I can't go in further detail about character development due to spoilers. The rest of the characters are not per se developing, yet you come to learn more about them, which is also fun and intriguing.

Enjoyment [7]:
Pretty much sums up the above combined.

Doupo Cangqiong, known in english either as "Battle through the heavens" (BTTH), or as " Fights Break Sphere", is the absolute quintessential Cultivation anime (or donghua if you prefer). If you have never seen a cultivation story, Doupo Cangqiong will get you familiar with all the tropes of the genre in their purest form.

Cultivation stories are very popular in China, in this type of story individuals accumulate some form of energy, usually called Qi, by a process similar to meditation. The accumulated Qi is that individual's cultivation and allows then to become powerfull and prolong their life. The cultivation process is often subdivided into several ... stages, which allows one to have an idea how powerful an individual is by which stage of cultivation he is in.

Doupo Cangqiong follows the story of Xiao Yan, who as a kid was touted as a genius with great talent for cultivation. However, suddenly and without apparent reason, Xiao Yan's cultivation stopped progressing and in fact started to regress, which made his reputation take a turn from genius to trash. The show follows Xiao Yan's climb in the cultivation world, from trash back to prodigy.

One of the staples of cultivation stories is that the main character is both overpowered and weak at the same time! You may find that statement odd, but because cultivation takes place over many years, older characters tend to be stronger than younger characters. There are no "old man past his prime" in cultivation stories, the older a character is, the more time he had to cultivate. Doupo Cangqiong makes full use of this dynamic, alternating situations where the main character is heavily outclassed and situations where he gets to be an overpowered badass dealing with people around his age.

It must be said that season 1 is by far the weakest of the show. This show was a pioneer in the recent explosion of chinese 3D shows and as such, it took then a while to get a proper handle on it. Based just on season 1, I wouldnt recommend this show. However, having seen the subsequent seasons I definitely recommend getting through it to get to the latter seasons. The latter seasons have improved character models, the animation steadily improved from season to season and the fight choreography improved as well.

For me, season 1 earns a rating of 5, but the show as a whole (up to season 5) earns a score of 7, with the more recent seasons being clearly better than the early seasons.

I'm writing this review after watching all 3 seasons of the anime as well as all the specials that are available at this moment.

This review will be spoiler free, so feel free to read before you watch.

The first season of Doupo Cangqiong is garbage, there are no other ways to put it. The story is stale and have been done many times before. Normally I don't have a problem with overused stories as long as the execution is good, but as you guessed it, the execution is also trash.

Story:
This story starts with our protagonist Xiao, Yan. When he was just a young boy, he ... had great power that surpassed everyone his age. He was a genius, and because of his amazing abilities, he was engaged to Yan Ran, Na Lan, a girl from a powerful family. Just as everything was going well for Xiao, Yan, something terrible happened. After he turned 11, his power stopped growing and even became weaker as time went on. After three years, he was one of the weakest in his family, and deemed useless by his peers.

Because of this, Yan Ran, Na Lan wanted to break their engagement as she doesn't not want to be married to a useless husband. This was devastating to Xiao, Yan's family as her family was very powerful and sacred off people who tried to take over.

In the Heat of the Moment, Xiao, Yan promised a 1v1 with Yan Ran, Na Lan in 3 years time. If he was to win, he can do whatever he wants with her, but if she wins, she'll get to break off their engagement. From there the story begins.

Conclusion:
The reason I said the first season was garbage isn't necessarily because of the plot, but more of the poor execution when it comes to story telling. It was incredibly boring to watch the predictable plot points happen one after another. The music used isn't that great, even the OP is questionable. Overall the whole season could have been cut down to 3-4 episodes.

However, I'm writing this review not to drive you away from watching this anime as the second and third seasons are so much better after a new animation studios took over. I recommend skipping through the first season or reading the webnovel so you know the main plot points and moving on to the next seasons.

This season is a 5 out of 10 at most while the next two seasons are easily 7-8 out of ten. So please, do not turn away from a great anime due to this first shitty season.