Xue Ying Ling Zhu

Snow Eagle Lord S1 Review

Before watching and dropping because it starts boring, consider that this series truly starts at 2:15:00 which is just about 30-40% into the season. The reason why my review is low is exactly because of this, there is a lot of unnecessary character establishment in the beginning that drags into the core of this first season. This might be taboo since I haven't read the source material and it might be canon but it doesn't seem necessary because there isn't much emotional attachment to any of the characters. Eventually, the daughter of that greedy uncle leaves and is discarded from the ... character palette in the future but I understand that this is a great opportunity for love conflict to brew especially with the introduction of Yu Jing Qiu. Essentially, without spoiling the plot this narrative and character establishment in the beginning will be the hardest 2 hours watching anything - watching paint dry is more bearable than this ngl.

Snow Eagle Lord is an overpowered main character donghua where MC inherits special powers and techniques to complement his beloved spear. Which was influenced by his father before he was abducted in a power struggle between political family relations involving his mother. Later in the season we get to see the devil god's presence at work on our little brother Qin Shi while he is cultivating and our MC is out completing missions.

Story : 6/10
Character : 6/10
The way MC grows is by fighting strong opponents, essentially stimulating his hidden powers to the point where he becomes a big target from everyone and in the final episodes fights the #1 ranker warrior on the human leaderboards. The brutal fight is the climax of this season as it shows Qin Shi's growth to trust in his brother again and stimulate positive relationships with the Longshan Building, informant Si An's information bureau. Xue Ying's relationship with Yu Jing Qiu also strengthens toward the end but it does put a lot of the first few episodes in the bin in terms of content. The next 4 episodes after episode 26 have much more plot and character development than this season because Xue Ying learns and grows from stronger opponents.

Art & Sound : 6/10
Nothing in particular that piqued my interests or stood out in terms of visual quality or sound effect quality. Xue Ying Ling Zhu appears to be a typical normal budget Donghua project so it doesn't really compete in this aspect with other Donghua like Swallowed Star or Douluo Dalu S9.

Enjoyment : 6/10
I enjoyed the OPMC battled at the end, and seeing Xue Ying awaken his powers but it was really short lived in season 1. It definitely missed out more fights with the spear wielding martial god Xue Ying. If you enjoy watching OPMC no matter what the visual or audio is like, this is for you. I enjoyed this because it was long and I could sustain the boring parts to an extent but when there are important events (including the future seasons) it is very satisfying.

The story is slow-paced, like really slow-paced. It takes a lot of patience to get through the earlier episodes because the early episodes is more like slice of life than the combat show you are expecting.

Even then the earlier episodes are very confusing since you have no idea why they are fighting other than knowing the parents of the protagonists are held hostage for some unknown reason.

If you are able to get past the boring episodes, the rest of the show is actually alright. To summarize it, it would be like an adventure party anime. Some of the lore in the show confuses me and ... the ranking system is also not clearly structured to me and I don't think they ever clarified it.

Music was non-existent and the animation was inconsistent a few times (like background characters disappearing in different scenes). Main character(s) were not unlikeable, so there's that.

Season one ends with a huge cliffhanger and you pretty much have to watch the subsequent OVA to understand the conclusion being moving onto season two.