Biao Ren: Blades of the Guardians

This is a brand new Chinese animation, also called Donghua, by Colored Pencil Animation who also did The King's Avatar. The show is based around 3rd-4th century China and adapts the manhua of the same title.

In terms of Chinese animation, this is a show that gets extremely overlooked, because there was barely any marketing surrounding Biao Ren, as far as I know, it could've also just been in China only. The only real marketing there was was a few posters and 3 trailers. This is a shame because of the impressive result of the show. It's been in production for a long time. ... Ever since the first trailer came out, I was hyped for it. It looked amazing visually and had a cunning art style and didn't spoil that much, only a single fight that maybe lasted 1-2 minutes.

Immediately off the bat, I'm going to name a few critiques I have with this show.

For one, the show has quite a few emotional moments, especially at the back end of the season, however the voice actors try their best at sounding emotional but fail massively. The voice acting for most part is bareable. However, and this is a critique I have with most Chinese voice acting, its really one dimensional and doesn't add much personality to the characters, except maybe Diao Ma and Xiao Qi.
While the animation is great, some of the character animations, for example when they are monologuing, is a little rough around the edges and a little one dimensional, especially in episode 2, where they have this really weird camera shots going around a little kid and the hand drawn animation is trying to follow the CGI camera and it just looks terrible.
For a show thats mostly hand drawn animation eye candy, the CGI is dreadful. Since its based around 3rd-4th century China, they use horses. However, horses are extremely hard to animate with hand. so I don't fault them for it. However, we also have a lot of crowd shots and people walking in the background with CGI and they just look like the black silhouette meme.

Now, let's get to the good points of the show.

The story is very, very well written. There's a clearly been a lot of thought going into every character and making sure they are the most fleshed out character ever. A lot of the show is mostly monologuing with dope fight sequences all over the place. The characters actually feel a part of this world, and thats what makes it really intriguing to watch.

There's a lot of thought in how the character move around with their sword and their fighting styles feel extremely refreshing to watch and don't just feel like the main character just swings a stick around like a child and somehow kills the enemy or villain.

Music is great, not generic whatsoever. The music actually is one of my favourite parts about this. It doesn't feel one dimensional or sounds like its been reused from different shows whatsoever.

I have a lot more positive things to say about the show, but I didn't want to make this too long. The show overall is a great watch to binge. However keep in mind that every episode has a different length but the pacing is still really good and keeps you more engaged than ever. Not to mention the opening looks absolutely amazing.

Yeah I guess my critique and love for the show start and end there, without going into spoiler territory. I wish it was longer, and I need more!

I'm feeling a strong 7 to a light 8.

Finally, a good Chinese adaptation.

Want to know why most Chinese adaptations suck? Because a lot of them straight up adapt from web novels. Do you know how long web novels are? Thousands of chapters, millions of words. Just not suitable for an animated adaptation. Worst of all, a lot of the famous web novels are cultivation or xuanhuan novels. This means a bunch of fighting and a bunch of generic tropey plot devices, and that means a large majority of adaptations will need a lot of good animation budget to recreate the frequent action sequences. It's just not sustainable. Japanese web novels, while adapted ... frequently, only work because they get serialized into light novels, and finally, adapted into anime. Manga is even better since there are fewer words, characters are already drawn and recognizable, the pacing is more similar, and there's your storyboarding right in the manga panels. Don't believe me? Most of the best Chinese animations are not web novels, such as Mo Dao Zu Shi, which WAS eventually serialized into a novel series, and the original webnovel was only a hundred chapters long.
And Biao Ren follows these rules. It was adapted from a Manhua, or manga series so finally, I get to see a properly paced series.

Biao Ren is good. It reminds me of Kingdom if the characters weren't so self-righteous. The main character's a vagabond, a bounty hunter. Even so, he repays his debts, forgives people, and can be said to be a pretty compassionate man. He loves his son, and in the series, you will encounter more and more characters that will be part of his entourage into a plot bigger than killing bounties for money.

The development from a small-scale plot to eventually, the bigger picture of the instability of the Sui dynasty and the borders around it is great. There are scale maneuvers, deployments, and politicking in the show, and the way it's presented is good. You'll find that each side of the war has enough character development, and thus the conflict becomes that much more interesting. The plot is quite slow, with the first season covering only the first major arc. Yet, there are a lot of details to unpack, the plot that's been exposed, and the characters that have been introduced. The show lays the groundwork for the next season brilliantly.

Dao Ma's entourage is only the size of four or five people, but with this small band, they encounter a lot of conflict. And yet, the animation is fine. Definitely miles better than Kingdom's garbage CGI. This is where the animation studio's art direction comes into play. Yes, Biao Ren uses CGI to recreate large-scale battles. However, the use of CGI is much more subtle, well executed, and has more production value. First off are the models. They are just straight up a level better than the Japanese ones. Still, "better a JP anime CGI" is a low bar. It still looks bad. However, the liberal use of dark lighting and CGI placement is all the difference. The entire art direction is well done. Dialogue is accompanied by hand-crafted 2D CGs that look great, characters look good, and backgrounds are superb. There is more shading, and a lot of fights have a good light-to-dark contrast. The key to the animation in this show is that the CGI is placed in a darker setting which fits the art style. This makes, well, CGI look better since it's harder to see. CGI is usually accompanied by 2D close-up shots. Even when soldiers are marching, there's always some 2D animation covering the front of the army with 3D in the background. It's the dark, more gritty art style that fits the CGI which makes me tolerate it.

Plus, there are a bunch of fights that are hand-animated. Are they particularly good? Well, not really. They're all okay. For the sheer amount of battles that happen, the show does a damn good job. I am pleased and satisfied with the fight scenes. That being said, are they particularly good? Um...not really. Again, the regular character animation and backgrounds are good, but fights are just passable. Still, I am pleased with the animation in general. It's good, and the only thing it needs is more budget.

Finally, are the themes. These tie into the bigger plot quite seamlessly, but there are quite a few themes that hover over people. The fact that people all lunge for riches. That kindness and compassion go unrewarded while the greedy and scheming succeed. That people will switch alliances as easily as flipping a hand, and that you're a poor fool if go against the tide, even if it's the right thing to do. These tie into corruption and the selfishness of man. I'll be honest, themes of rebellion against a Chinese dynasty are pretty rare in a story produced in China. Need I say why? I'm surprised this story passed the auditors. Maybe they got bribed.

If Kingdom glorifies the royalty of the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period of China, then this shows the reality of ruling dynasties that constantly wage war in ancient China. I put this score in hopes that the series continues its current quality into the next season

STORY: 9/10
Without any spoilers, this adaptation covers a few arcs from the comic. The last arc they animated really got me invested and hooked. The story was so engaging and emotional, along with epic confrontations and conclusions. Besides focusing on the events happening at hand, there is also an overarching plot brewing in the background, which makes me very interested in knowing how everything will come together eventually.

ART: 8/10
Gorgeous art that is so refreshing to see among the sea of anime I watch. The studio does a pretty good job of keeping the original art style intact, but there were definitely inconsistencies and lack of ... attention to details in the animation from scene to scene that I found distracting.

SOUND: 9/10
Beautiful soundtrack and great voice acting.

CHARACTER: 10/10
I love the character designs and character development. At this point, we still don’t know everything about the characters, but I WANT to know more and that’s just the way I like it. A story is no fun if the author gives up everything at once.

ENJOYMENT: 8/10
I love the story and believe it has amazing potential, but this adaptation is somewhat held back by the production quality. Overall, the animation can get choppy, which certainly doesn't do action scenes justice, and there are glaring inconsistencies. Having said that though, I think the studio overall still did a great job. It made me want to read the source material, which I also recommend! There are some storytelling nuances that I believe are better in the comic. If they produce a season 2, I am definitely watching it!