Douluo Dalu

Tang San is one of Tang Sect martial art clan's most prestigious disciples and peerless in the use of hidden weapons. With high expectations, the sect's elders believe his future will be bright; yet Tang chooses to forsake this life at the cost of obtaining the sect's forbidden lore—an action punishable by death. Tang, now content with his ascension of knowledge, sees no reason to keep on living and jumps from Hell's Peak, but little did he know that that would not be the end of his existence.

In Douluo Continent, the strong prevail and the weak perish. Each person possesses an innate spirit, some of which can be cultivated and strengthened, bestowing its user with various benefits. Those who were born with such spirits can become Spirit Masters, a profession regarded as one of the continent's most noble.

Tang, reincarnated into this strange world, knows only the life of a blacksmith's son. At the age of six, he takes part in the Spirit Master ceremony, and discovers his spirit is Blue Silver Grass—supposedly the world's most useless spirit. In contrast, however, he possesses strong spirit power. Now, aided by the memories of his previous life as well, Tang's future as a Spirit Master is in no way bleak.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Tang, San Main

Xiao, Wu Main

Oscar Main

Zhu, Zhuqing Main

Ning, Rongrong Main

Dai, Mu Bai Main

Yu, Xiaogang Main

Ma, Hongjun Main

Tang, Hao Supporting

Flender Supporting

Tang Jia San Shao Original Creator

Cai, Tiannan Music

Reviews

Nov 19, 2019

mushimk

Recommended

Chinese Harry Potter. This is somewhat how I felt watching the show at times, because of the nice and well-thought adventure and story, in a beautiful and complex world : a believable world.
Now the problem is, to get there, the viewers have to ... cultivate (^^') an incredible amount of patience.
Because this show is also a perfect exemple as to why a carefully craft story can be crushed by its production nefarious flaws. And there are numerous, these flaws. Here's some example : in a video player, one episode is about 20~24 min. From these 20 min, remove 3 min for opening theme+previous ... episodes resume, then remove 1 min for useless interludes and finally remove 5 to 7 min for product placements and ending theme (and I'm not joking, I've timed the thing).
Honestly, this take a fair amount of patience, and maybe must even take your stubborness out in order to watch this 3d production.
But at times, you wil be rewarded with somptuous backgrounds and scenes, straight out from a video game (special mention for the time the hero is trying to "sense" the world surrounding him). And while I hate the 3d aspect of the characters (not so bad actually, it's more of a personal opinion), I can't deny the tremendous amount of work behind these characters, background and scenes which in turn must explain why we have to endure the pathetic and obvious products placement.

So... you've been warned : while I think Douluo Dalu is worthy of your time, you will have to struggle past the scenes made with an economy of CG in mind, and deal with the product placement scenes badly integrated into the show. Despite all that, Douluo Dalu might be one of the best chinese 3d anime production so far, even if far from perfection.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 13, 2021

khaiwatching

Mixed Feelings

The first impression of Douluo Dalu wasn't amazing. They say that the first 20 seconds of a show determines whether the show is good or not. And in most cases, that first 20-second rule is quite accurate from my experiences.

Art (5/10)
The animation and the art style were hard to convert into. I didn't like it at first, but I know I got myself into it and I shouldn't have expected much from it. It's not good but it's not something that I looked for so, in the end, it slightly matters, but it doesn't ruin the show. You can have a good story with terrible ... art and animation, and I'll still watch it.
One thing that annoyed me the most about the animation was how fast it moved. It was like watching an extremely fast slideshow. Every second is a new cut from a different angle, it's hard to see what is going on.

Character (3/10)
I don't know what's so bad about it. It's just unbearable. The characters weren't that interesting at the start and they were blander at the end. The majority of the time, side characters get tossed away like last night's leftovers.
There are characters I don't care about who gets more screen time than other decently developed characters.
Character development is so weak in this show with the main characters not even getting a development. There are some characters I wanted to care about, but there was no development or screen time on them, instead, they focus on characters I don't find all that interesting
They tried at some points to develop some characters, but in the end, after two episodes, they just give up on them, giving little to no screen time and reverts their personality to what they had originally.

Story (6/10)
It's unoriginal and predictable. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just means I zone out and I don't have to think much about what is happening. The show isn't something I would seek out, I don't think much about isekai and overpowered MC storylines. All I can say is it's predictable. What you would think would happen in a generic shonen will most likely happen.
Every episode has a fight scene or at least the start of a fight scene. That in of itself is entertaining and carried the show. There weren't any meaningful plotlines that were touched upon, with even more useless and meaningless scenes that last up to one full episode, and it didn't even advance the story. It was fun to watch at least, but it didn't make the show any better or worse. It felt as if the show was being dragged on when it didn't need to be.
It just reminds me of cutscenes of a free RPG game with all the cutscenes spliced together making a somewhat coherent and continuous storyline. They just forgot to add the gameplay elements. If they made it into a game, I would be down to play it, but as a donghua that it is, it's not that great, it's just meh. I will watch it, I just don't think much about it.

Sound and Music (4/10)
It's not the best, but I have heard worse. It's poorly edited. With music ending abruptly, generic and unsatisfying, probably royalty-free too, sound effects. Not saying it ruined the show, it just more distracting than it should be. The soundtrack isn't all that amazing, sometimes the soundtrack they use just doesn't fit the mood that the show is trying to show. It just ruins the experience and connection.

Now it sounds like I have criticized the show with no positivity and all negatives. But I still somewhat found an interest in the show. Story development isn't that good, but I still have high hopes that it will improve and develop especially in Douluo Dalu 2. I hope the worldbuilding of the show can expand and improve.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 26, 2022

plutorenjun

Not Recommended

I started this show in 5th grade and now I'm a high schooler, I kept watching because it had some nice memories from when I was younger but after episode 213 I'm finally dropping the show. (the donghua has 240 episodes as of now but the site seems to have it as out of 26)

the episodes are getting shorter and shorter, its becoming really tiring and no longer an enjoyable experience which is really upsetting considering how much I loved it as a kid. After about the first 100 episodes, it started to feel like a chore and by now the story feels pointless and ... repetitive.

the story has a lot of likable characters and it was really fun seeing these characters grow which was the primary reason why I even bothered to keep watching.

I'm not sure whether to recommend this donghua to anybody because I really did love it for a long time but now its just become a disappointment. the experience felt like biting into a really good apple that turned out to be completely rotten with worms on the other side once you got to it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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