Ling Long: Incarnation

I rarely write reviews, but Spirit Cage is amazing. The quality of the animation blew me away and the production team's passion shines through in the highly detailed, immersive world that draws you in right off the beat. Very rich storytelling with a strong narrative, it would be perfect if it was made into a game.

Story wise it is very well crafted, with great pacing. It's an unfolding mystery that feels like an amalgamation of final fantasy: the spirits within, nier: automata and alita: battle angel, all woven into a vast intricate world filled with complex characters dyed in various shades of grey morality. ... You won't be able to truly hate anyone as you're made to empathise with the motivations of various characters.

Overall it's a true modern masterpiece that I would highly recommend.

General Plot: A disaster and mutant beings feasting on souls has caused humanity to retreat to the "Lighthouse" a floating fortress and final refuge for humaninty. Because of it's limited living space and resources, the "Lighthouse" has become a centrally-planned, ultra-utilitarian, military state. In order to faciliate the most efficient use of resources and preserve the human race, every person is expected to become a cog in the system that runs the "Lighthouse". Familial relationships have been abolished, reproduction is centrally planned, humans are seperated into classes to dictate resource investments, and religion is established to reinforce the caste system and encourage the self-sacrifices needed ... to sustain this society. Despite these restrictions, resources must be gathered periodically from the planet's surface. While the "Lighthouse" has been relatively stable, recent revelations about possible life on the ground and transferrance of leadership (and political ambitions) causes tensions to build and plotting to begin. Once the MC, Marc, gets personally affected, the idealogical battle between self-sacrfices for survival vs freedom erupt.

This Season 1 Part 1 is the build up to everything that will happen in this full season. The characters are introduced well, the political climate, living environment and situation are all shown in detail. It is all done beautifully, every aspect of life in the "last bastion of humanity" is clearly shown, from the current living situation, control through relgion, caste system, etc. This season does well in building up the conflict that will very obviously erupt, when someone in power and leadership disrupts the system set in place.

The character models and animations are smooth and well done. Even if you don't quite understand the story, the animation quality and action makes this a enjoyable watch. The world building and set up is done extraordinarily well.

TL;DR: This series is heavily symbolic and shares many plot points with the novel Handmaid's Tale. It is very distressing yet suspenseful it kept me at the edge of my seat beaming on what will happen in the next episode.

Ling Long Incarnation is a Chinese donghua set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian, barren world where humanity tries to solve the problem of interplanetary migration but fails due to natural destruction. Extremezoans, a mutated living organism capable of interpersonal communication and coordination dwell in colonies on the ground. It appears that they are scavenger organisms that feed on other living organisms as well as breed fast and ... regenerate faster. Mutants such as the Extremezoans are the main reason why humanity is on the brink of extinction.

The Lighthouse is a city in the sky that houses humanity's last hope of survival. The Lighthouse has 3 codes of survival which are rules that can never be crossed: Abolishment of Family, Social Hierarchy and Gene Optimization.

Abolishment of Family on the Lighthouse is a rule that forbids intimacy or familial relations. The introduction of this rule lays the foundation that humans must be controlled in order preserve function in the Lighthouse. An example of this are hunters who are bred and trained specifically for combat ability and awareness - Their purpose is the reason they are alive - not to find mating partners - which is heavily enforced by the Light and Shadow Religion on the Lighthouse.

Humans on the Lighthouse are segregated into social hierarchy groups called Superior and Inferior. Inferior humans have health defects which deem them unworthy of a high standard of living like Superiors and are often subject to prejudice and maltreatment. Inferiors get pesky jobs like manual labor and they also accompany the Hunters on missions. Some Hunters treat Inferiors as expendable fodder on missions which is a main reason why Inferiors don't have a long life expectancy. When humans on the Lighthouse reach an age where they cannot contribute more than they consume (in food, health expenses etc.) they are sent on a Long Journey on the ground which basically sacrifices them to reduce resource consumption.

Gene Optimization on the Lighthouse is a rule that prioritizes Superior human matching. It is pretty much selective breeding where Superior humans with outstanding features like intellect are bred with humans with outstanding physical capabilities. If a Superior child is birthed, both parties will be rewarded heavily by the Lighthouse but if an Inferior child is birthed the child is sent to the slums where the Inferior humans live. It is against this rule for Inferior humans to breed because the worm cakes ration supplied to the Inferior humans is limited.

Religion and culture are forbidden on the Lighthouse, there is only one religion that the Lighthouse acknowledges which is the Light and Shadow Religion. This religion is a controlled cult-worship religion that works in strict affiliation with the Lighthouse leaders. It seems the main idea behind this religion was to brainwash and control Superior humans to keep them contributing to the Lighthouse. In one of the earlier scenes, we can see the Chairman of the Light and Shadow Religion (Son of the master of the Lighthouse) praising Superior humans for obeying the codes of survival, one lady was praised for following the gene optimization rule and one man was praised for denying familial relations with his 'father'.

All of these aspects work together to form a series of life rules that control and oppress humans on the Lighthouse. This forces everyone to be complacent with the rules and in the chance someone disobeys they are publicly executed to set an example.

STORY: 9/10
The story is very descriptive and expansive. Without going into too much detail, we see many perspective and living situations of human life on the Lighthouse. The rules of survival is a genius way that many dystopian survival dramas use to restrict and control the characters and story progression. It also creates the sense of entrapment fearing that the characters will revolt and disobey the rules ultimately facing their demise. Thematically, the story is very aspiring and significant.

ART & SOUND: 8/10
The CGI animation isn't as flashy as some high budget series like Mortal's Journey or Perfect World but it is very visually detailed. The characters aren't all that detailed but they have realistic fluidity in their movements. The fight scene between Captain Marc and his trainer is a testament to how fluid their movements are which was a surprise. The angles are also have variation and add suspense in some senses on the ground.

Sound design is very good, during the first mission there was a lot of background music and sound effects that added suspense and evoked fear. The scene where the inferiors first encounter the spinal organism is an example of good sound effects and suspenseful music to evoke fear and suspense.

CHARACTER: 8/10
I liked how we weren't spoon fed the story in chronological order. In Episode 1 to 3 we follow the first mission but it plays backwards as a storytelling mechanism when Captain Marc explains it to the Lighthouse Master. Furthermore, The conversation between the Lighthouse Master and Captain Marc about Marc's sister left me questioning for a while until it was brought up in a flash back much later in the series. The story flows but the dead characters still have influence on the storytelling mechanism. The same can be said about the blonde girl that died in the first mission - her unrequited love picked up by the silver haired girl from Marc's squad. And the sudden news of the silver haired girl's match added the icing on the cake. The only thing that I didn't really enjoy was how the character names were hard to remember - There's about 10-15 characters of importance in this season alone and knowing every character is very tricky because the series is so short it is difficult to remember the characters that way.

OVERALL: 9/10
Although this series feels like a 7 or 8/10 it had very good world building and character establishment in 6 episodes. The animation and sound added more depth into the viewing experience and character conflicts gave the series a personality. Overall, very satisfied viewing - I hope Season 1 Part 2 holds true to these aspects.