Yi Nian Yong Heng

Giving score of 7 based off the first 4 episodes.

If I had to explain this anime. It's like looking out a window at the ocean and beach. You have an amazing, but scaled down, view.
The Novel is like being at the beach with not just the scenery in front, but unlimited all around. There is depth in the wind, salt air, sounds, water, waves, foam, and birds.


Don't get me wrong the Novel is amazing. There is a reason the novel is on the top of most charts.
Just the a slice of scenery from the novel makes for a fair-to-good anime and it's worth watching.

What is missing "Scale" and "Depth". BC should slow down. They have a top anime that could last 15 years on their hands.


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(Below are my personal notes, sharing my thoughts)

Notes:

I have read the entire novel on wuxiaworld. Amazing translation by deathblade.

I am glad this anime is not another wreak of a cultivation adaptation.

I hope the anime drives more people to read the novel.

Anime is good, but lacks depth. It's needs to slow down and take it's time. This story is long enough that even without fillers it could rival Naruto in episode count.

Seems like the writers and producers are going off a summery or manga adaption. They need to sit down and read the novel.

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What I fear:

The scenery art increases, the story gets dumbed-down, and the population/scale shrinks.

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What I hope to see:

"SCALE"
This is a cultivation story, It's not written to fit into our environment.

More attention to scale. This is a large sect. Testing areas will not have a single room, but a hallway of rooms. Get it together.
Having a single bathroom in a mall would not work either. We all feel something is off.

Have a huge population supporting even a basic sect.
All Cultivation novels are a pyramid scheme. For one high level cultivator there are an exponential number of low level cultivators and in turn an exponential number of normal people.
GO FOR SCALE! We love it.
Give us a village or city scene.

The size of the world based on the novel's object sizes, travel speeds, and travel distances is huge. The planet is the size of our sun - with a world population reflecting that size. Give us some scale!

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It is harem. It is romance. Once again, MAL, you've done me in with your wrong tagging. I hope someone will have corrected the tags by the time this review is up.

There are a handful of things I've logged in to say here:

Just to state the obvious, this anime is targeted at Chinese audiences. It is based off a novel by the same name (of which you may find more detailed information on Novelupdates). The directors obviously didn't intend to include the English audiences as part of their target audience, so to watch it, you have to have a certain degree of knowledge on the Xianxia troupe -- which is basically people cultivating their Qi to various levels so as to achieve immortality.

Do not expect to go in without that background knowledge and come away with any new knowledge. You'll just be miserably lost.

(And as usual, if you have to read an entire novel just to understand the plot of an anime, is that even worth watching? I mean, the whole goal of an anime is to draw new audiences in. I can't even--)

Even if you have knowledge of the xianxia troupe, there is still a chance you might strike this anime off your list, and for good reasons at that.

Just for background knowledge, the source material had 1250+ chapters and got axed in the end. The beginning is naturally slow-paced, as the author spent much time developing the world around the MC's sect, comrades etcetera. I myself had watched this anime at 2x speed, and even then, it is only because of the rather dry season this time that I even stayed throughout the mundane opening. The middle section, however, was what kept me going.

I didn't expect much from this show. You see, the Chinese anime industry has had a record of lazy directing for a long time now. For all of bilibili's bold proclamations at the start of the year that the Chinese anime industry would overtake Japan's, their shows clearly displayed a fundamentally lacking concept - that just taking popular novels with existing fanbases and adapting them would be enough. None of them have even tried to make an appeal to attract new fanbases. Tbh, even MDZS suffered tremendously from that problem in its S2.

But surprisingly, where the first half of the this anime lured me in into this false sense of security that everything is just another 'slice of life' troupe, it sure grabbed me by my non-existent balls and kept me at the edge of my seat near the beginning of the second half. All of a sudden, we were just dropped into this dangerous situation where the protagonist's OP halo may not work for once, and episode after episode, grueling minute after minute, we were just forced to bear witness to the suffocating struggle for survival by the protagonist and his seniors in a hopeless situation. It was long and tiresome, but really, it was because my heart kept racing throughout, feeling the exhaustion, desperation, and hopelessness my guys were feeling.

I even shed a few tears here and there.

Then. Well. After the memorial episode where the MC was honoured for his sacrifices, we're just dumped a scene of the MC spending time at a pavilion with his senior, flirting, KISSING. I just- I zoned out there. MAL, you dropped the ball in tagging. Honestly, how could you even, with the tags already on NU all spelled out for you? But what disappointed me most was the show. It completely dropped the ball with that sudden romance scene that came out of nowhere. Not only did it trample upon all the respect we as readers had developed for one of the characters, it completely trashed both the MC and love interest's characterizations, making them seem no more than flimsy, typical anime troupes who are even somewhat scrummy.

I thought that was the worst until I carried on to the next episode. Lo and behold, a budding romance with the junior disciple sister (not by blood, but having knelt before the same Master) who goes around call the MC 'Big Brother' and the MC who started flirting with her despite his lingering interest for the first female lead.

Yeah. I'm done.

I'm done with this show, and I'll drop it here, because I fear watching anymore would simply ruin what good memories I had of those precious few episodes in the middle.

If I had known it was harem, I wouldn't even have given it a chance to begin with, so good job, MAL???

For what it's worth, I'd have given it an 9 just to give this show the attention it deserved, until the whole harem thing happened. The characters were cute, even if the thievery and flagrant manipulation by the MC were mildly annoying, and that middle arc was simply phenomenal in its execution.

Harem can be good when done well, but with that preview of how badly harem is going to sabotage this entire anime, all I can say about this show is really... 'What a pity.'

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Remember Zenitsu from Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer)? That really cowardly kid that becomes super powerful when the plot allows for it, that switches on in key moments but is otherwise an annoying comedic relief that does nothing but stall the plot? Now imagine if he was the protagonist instead of the angsty Tanjiro, going through similar trials where he must learn to use his powers, in a world without all the zombies but equally punishing, yet has the same amount of plot armor in the name of comedic relief.

That's Yi Nian Yong Heng, or A Will Eternal. The world is a typical Chinese Cultivation system, but don't let that confuse you. Think of it as Naruto's ninjas, except it takes on more a taoist monk vibe, with different schools of thought and focuses on how best to exercise one's internal energy, or chi (or chakra, or nen, you see what I'm saying? same thing). Our protagonist Xiaochun (literally translated little and pure, or an idiot) fears death above anything else, and spends the entire show trying to extend his life if at all possible. He's morally ambivalent, not outright evil, but he's willing to pull some petty tricks to achieve his goals. The fact that he has a photographic memory and learns cultivation skills pretty quickly helps, although in a fight he'd always beg and whine to get out of it if he could. Of course, since being a Cultivator brings about long life if you master the skills, that's what he strives to become, carrying a lightning rod incense into the mountains in every storm until it catches the attention of a cultivator master that relents and takes him on as a student.

The rest of the plot follows a typical shounen fighting underdog story, with a twist. You see, Chinese culture isn't beholden to selling super-expensive merchandise to otaku. They actually make more money from streaming. That's why Tencent puts their shows on YouTube for free. That's also why there's barely any fanservice (the government censorship too). And although they take cues from Japanese anime here and there, the amount of obnoxious manzai comedy is few and far between compared to a typical shounen. To me, these are only positives, since it means much, much less time wasted. An episode of A Will Eternal is a few minutes shorter to make up for the conciseness. It also lacks the moral posturing that the Japanese feed their kids to bring them up as a contributing member of society.

The Chinese seems to have no artistic qualms about mixing CGI and even some vague recognizable real-life photography filtered and blended to look like anime. This might seem bizarre if you're not used to it. But on the positive side, some of the background details rival 90% of anime, and is amazing to look at. The fight animation is fluid and high bit-rate. I guess they could afford this with the lower wage in China.

Bottom line: Back to the Zenitsu detail, this show is supposed to be a blend of comedy and action. Some parts are amusing for sure, but I never found it laugh out loud funny, but I suppose it's a bit more my taste than, say, One Piece. It doesn't throw in so many jokes that it just becomes tiresome and repetitive like every shounen does, and that makes it easier to stomach. The action, when they get around to it, is artistic and fun. Once again, treat it as a shounen fight with a wimpy male lead, but with enough power to balance it out. I personally prefer calm and collected protagonists, even if they have less power (perhaps like Shikamaru from Naruto, or Killua from Hunter x Hunter), but you can't get everything you ask for! At least Xiaochun isn't another hot-headed moralist nice guy. That's something they haven't exported from anime and I hope they never do!

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My current review is based of the first 4 episodes that I've watched.

I have to say the anime really blew my mind. It was much better than what I initially expected.

Story: 7/10

Having read the novel, I would say this anime is quite faithful following the original plot of the novel.

A Will Eternal tells the story of a simple village boy, through a fateful encounter, gained the opportunity to step onto the path to become an Immortal. The first season depicts the life of the boy in an Immortal Sect, it shows the various workings of the Sect, the people and the locations within. It is extremely interesting to watch.

One particular thing which could be done better would be the pacing of the story, which I feel is a bit too quick. It does seem like the director really skimmed through a lot of things.

Art: 9/10

The artworks and animation of this series are especially pleasing to the eye. The background arts are truly amazing, and I can't get enough of them.

The important characters are all well designed, and the action scenes are all fluid and well animated. The reason why I didn't rate it a 10 would be I think a lot of the background/side characters could have been more varied and distinct.

Sound: 8/10

The background music, voice acting, general sound effects are all top notch. There's not much I can comment on, but I do think there can still be room for improvements.

Character: 7/10

I think this anime depicted the majority of the characters, their personalities and interactions very much on point. The characters have all been faithful to the novel.

I do think some of the characters are a bit bland and seem very 1-dimensional, but this can only be attributed to the novel itself. Though it did made me lower my ratings a bit for this section.

Enjoyment: 9/10

So far, I very much enjoyed watching this anime. It is really humorous, and there are enough actions to keep me interested.

Overall: 8/10

Overall, I would definitely recommend for those who haven't yet watched. It would definitely be a surprise for many, I would think.

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