Xiao Mo Tou Baolu La!

Manhua spoiler warning, I will mostly spoil the plot points of some side characters, so please don't read the description if you don't want to be spoiled.

Story (6/10):
I've been on Webtoon & Bilibili Comics for a while now, I've come to see that, I love a lot of Korean Manhwa, Chinese Manhua, and ofc Japanese Manga. Not long ago, about twenty days ago, I've started to read Xiao Mo Tou Baolu La!, or Busted! Darklord. Not long afterward, I've dug deeper into the rabbit hole, and I found this anime, an anime adaptation of a weirdly enough, entertaining "harem". Positive about this anime, the story ... follows the source material & have the basic Chinese Manhua martial art feel, the negative part about the storytelling is that it hasn't reached the peak of the Manhua yet. Why is it a negative point? The Manhua digs deeper into topics like "This party is gender-specific" & "Your NSFWs are not permitted in this party, you are under arrested", the topics get way deeper into the history of mankind, and the unspoken parts of most, if not all martial arts/demon hunting shows. Overall, the story was quite well executed, the plot twist can sometimes be confusing, but it doesn't get in the way of the plot enough to stop it from advancing, a solid seven out of ten.

Art (7/10):
Art is similar & crisp like the Manhua. The only point I disliked was the animation SOMETIMES being lazy and feels like it cuts corners at less important sections of the story, overall, not bad, but nothing to write home about either.

Sound (7/10):
Voice acting was superior to most other Manhua adaptions, the overall sound effects were great, I personally didn't really like the OP, it was not the genre/type of music I like, but it doesn't make the show unbearable, and overall the OP was bad is just my opinion. And currently, there are only Chinese, and I haven't managed to find an English subtitles version yet, so good luck to everyone who doesn't understand Chinese.

Character (4/10):
Of course, just like the Manhua, this "harem"/ecchi anime doesn't offer fantastic characters, this is more of a comedic show, so I didn't expect much of it anyways, and overall, the side characters always get pushed to the side. The side character introductions & return is way better in the later chapters of the Mahua though, so I am looking forward to that.

Enjoyment 8/10):
I liked the Manhua, so I liked it.

Overall (6.4/10):
Overall, even though I liked it a lot, the highest I can give is still just a seven, it does have cliche plot writing & easily guessable plot twists that you "totally don't see it coming", and at the end of the day, it is still a "parody of" harem animes. An entertaining show & that is all.

Recommend? Depends, I will say, wait for English subtitles, or just read the Manhua from Bilibili Comics app, the anime doesn't offer new content, except for making the world more immersive & lively(Visually). If you liked the original Manhua, then go for it, if you like harems, then it's a 100% yes, it offers a unique spin to harem/ecchi shows. Who will I not recommend it to? People who want a solid plot that have great impacts on each action the character does and will affect the story heavily if they failed to do what was expected, or people who want to watch just a pure harem, this offers more than just a pure harem, so if you only like lust scenes, don't go for this show.

If this show could be summarized with one word, it would be: underwhelming.

I’ve read the webcomic this donghua is based on and I enjoyed that. The webcomic is colorful and full of life despite being still images. That is not present in the donghua. The colors feel a little stale compared to the webcomic and the stiff animation doesn’t really help. But let’s just say that the reason for this is a lower-budget. The story structure has no excuse.

Most anime have 22-25 minute long episodes. Usually it takes around the first few episodes to introduce important characters and the setting, but this show takes the ... entire season to do that. Busted Darklord only adapts one webcomic chapter per episode, which means the story moves super slow. So this entire season is basically just exposition. The show suffers because its episodes are so short. Shorter episodes are common for most of the donghua I’ve watched, but they’ve all managed to get the exposition done no later than halfway through the season.

While this isn’t inherently a bad adaptation of the webcomic and isn’t a terrible show in its own right, the way it is structured makes it lose points. If the premise of the show does actually interest you, I would suggest reading the webcomic instead as the story is better executed there and the more interesting parts of the story have already been written.

firstly, i hate when you get an 8-minute anime, and 3-4 minutes seem to be taken by credits/title. I honestly think is stupid. If you can't make something long enough or want to make it just to fit x minutes, then taking from the story for credits is stupid.

The idea of the story has merits but has been carried out in the worst possible way like the writer is trying to sabotage themselves. This unknown child of the demon lord somehow seems to be known to everyone. It doesn't add to the humor, it gives ... no base idea on who is telling people, and when the portrait comes out, with the hair same, no one notices. It's not funny, just stupid.

It goes on with many ways the person is caught out, but they are never thrown out, or it really cared about, This made it even more stupid, and not stupid funny. The idea of a justice school, run by people of injustice, showed hypocrisy, but of course, was no punishment from above.

So overall the story stays poorly run, the episodes are too short from any real story or character development, the art and sound are mediocre at best, and they all contribute to it being a horrible anime.. There is so much deceit, humor, and subterfuge that could have been run, and instead, they seem to aim for the lowest common denominator and it was horrible