Hei Men

The story follows the company OASIS, a leader in brain technology that is relied upon by the entire country to run its infrastructure. Recently, the company has been experiencing anomalies in its systems, known as the "SWARM effect," which its top scientists are unable to fully understand or prevent. The protagonist, Tu Yi, appears to be a student who suffers from epilepsy and is connected to the recent SWARM incident that caused major disruptions in the city. As with any successful company, OASIS has dark secrets in its past that may have contributed to its rise to greatness. The incident may not have been as ... accidental as it initially appeared, and the full extent of the situation is yet to be revealed. The world is not ready for the changes brought about by advancements in brain technology, and it remains to be seen how these events will impact the course of human evolution.

Over promises; doesn't quite deliver. Early on, it seems to establish the premises for a mind-bending psychological sci-fi thriller. The CGI is great, and setting is really cool with futuristic technology like self-driving vehicles, computer brain interfaces, autonomous exoskeletons, and some kind of artificial intelligence overmind. It's refreshing to see a sci-fi world which looks futuristic, rather than retro-futuristic (since our sci-fi classics are mostly pretty now old). Mysterious stuff happens which will leave you wanting to know more. But, the plot starts to go in certain directions which seem kinda dumb.

If you are looking for a satisfying conclusion, you'll have to wait. The plot ... is not finished by episode 12, and we are left with a "to be continued" at the end. It's kind of hard to rate the story given the situation.

The main sci-fi concept that is explored here is good. It does sound like a (slightly) plausible thing that could bring a paradigm shift in society. And it involves a lot of psychological stuff like entering the mind.

I'd say the problems start when exploring the brain universe. I feel like this should have been portrayed more metaphorically, rather than having avatars physically flying through weird nerve clusters and explained using a bunch of technobabble. The show adds artificial tension by injecting physical danger into the brain universe in a cringey manner. They tried to make exploring the brain dangerous, but the types of dangers do not feel appropriate, and they should have stuck with psychological dangers.

Later on, the tone jumps ship, borrowing tropes from superhero movies. It feels out of place. The constant "we gotta break the rules" feels forced and cheesy. The debriefing a squad of heroes feels like something from x-men.

The show is full 3D CGI with sufficient facial and skeletal animation to avoid the robotic look you get with some CGI. The lighting and depth of field effects are good. Liquids don't look so good. The backgrounds are nice and detailed.

The voice acting is meh. We don't really get a lot of emotional depth.