Kao Ni La Zhanshen Xitong

As of the time of writing this there are only 8 episodes out. Still, I'm giving the series a 9/10. The art is more amateurish than high-quality studios, yet the animation is still very fluid and the art style and colors are actually very refreshing. Sound quality isn't bad, voice acting is on point, and, unlike many donghuas, the translations subtitles are easy to read and make sense (or at least the version I watched was). My favorite part of this show is that even though its about cultivation, its still light-hearted and every character isn't secretly (or not so secretly) an arrogant asshole. Certainly ... gives me a new appreciation for futuristic-cultivation media and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this series and the studios future works

I have to say in advance that I generally see not many Chinese anime, this because I gotten too used to the Japanese anime and I don't seem to find many Chinese ones. I will take that part on my shoulders. I however needed to read the subtitles a lot more then usually.
As there are not many people that seen this show, I will try to keep out the spoilers.

Story:
The story is quite well done, although I do have to say it gets confusing at times due to the 'need to focus on reading subs' thing. I did notice there were parts of the story ... that were attempts on being funny or helpful, but were failed attempts. This could be because a failure in translations, but it could also be that the story was written this way. It just gets annoying regardless.

There is slapstick humor that when added are hit and miss things. There is a scene where a boob gets touched when a male character trips. Of course with the woman freaking out and it turning into a break between the two for a bit that can be noticed in multiple episodes. There are more things like this that seemingly attempt a flowing storyline that includes humor. It just doesn't seem to flow nicely as both the intro as outro cause issues in this. The intro takes too long and the outro is just missing. The story suddenly stops suddenly which might be a bad thing.

The combat lacks severely, often also over in just a few attacks which is a bit odd, but there are Japanese anime that suffer as well from this flaw. If the studio would shorten the intro a bit and fit in a little more fighting scenes or additional info where needed it would be awesome.

In the last episode, or rather after the outro, there is a summary of what happened in this anime and you get a announcement for season 2 mentioned by one of the characters. The flashback/summary thing I couldn't care less for personally, but others might actually like it. The season 2 announcement is done right.

Characters:
The characters did have some of the Japanese anime characters ideas, but do act a bit differently which gives them a more own personality feeling. So that would be a positive thing in my book.

There is some form of skill and level progression for Lin An, but it isn't done in a smooth way and there for causes a disconnect to some extend. There is more to this, but then I will have to go into explaining while using spoilers. There is some sort of reasoning, but I feel this could have been explained better.

Graphics & Animations:
The graphics look rather basic, as if the studio left it with basic drawings and colorations. This could work in one point, but completely fail in another. So I do have mixed feelings regarding this. I do think it could have used more attention.

The animations are often flowing very nicely, running around or simple walking looks very good. Also other animations like clothing works amazingly well.

Sounds:
This is actually quite well done for a anime like this. You often hear background noises from other characters or environmental. I'd say this is good. Also the music is done nicely, although the intro song needs to grow on you if you don't watch Chinese anime often.

Final conclusion:
While it does have some flaws I can say it's well worth the effort watching this anime. It sure isn't the best out there, but not the worst either. Far from it even. I do hope the studio will take in my review and apply a little to season 2 where possible. If this anime had better graphics and the humor would have hit better, this might have been a 9 or 9.5 worth. I will however recommend watching this anime!

I was not expected much at all from the beginning of watching this show. It played out somewhat how I was expecting in the beginning.

It starts out very fast, almost too fast, specific to character development, the MC becoming used to his new circumstance and acquaintances. Although eventually everything settles down to where it needs to, and the story continues on. The subtitles, perhaps irrelevant to the anime and production team is quite fast at times, due to the limitations of the English language as someone who speaks Chinese would perhaps say. Regardless words and sentences are crammed in tight sometimes, reading must ... be very good from the viewer.

Production wise this anime requires a lot of attention, good and bad. The animation style is brilliant most of the time. Reactions of characters, fighting scenes, effects and so on. The design style within production can differ as a result of different methods used for animation, CGI as a primary and most obvious example. It can make things look out of place.

BUT, particular to animation style, design, quick sequences; I have not seen fighting scenes this good in a long time. You can really tell that the team really put in the effort to making and thinking about certain aspects of this anime, and others seemingly not, which is strange. A prominent example of this would be the lengths of each episodes, the introductions and ending sequences. They are not particularly the best and can seem out of context or feeling with the movement of the anime itself, almost as if the production team for these things were different or had no or little say so.

The lengths of each episode are not uniform or is there a set standard duration. Perhaps this anime is supposed to be watch in a movie like manner? As introduced again after the 1st episode we are brought abruptly into the show again as if we were never supposed to stop watching, which can be a little strange.

Transitions during and sometimes between scenes have surprised me as they are unlike anything in most other animes today. Not that they are bad but they are insanely specific to happening of events, and are not leading the viewer to know or think to know what obviously is going to happen next. Which is great

Comedic timing and even the comedy itself is some of which I have not seen before played out like it has here. Perhaps I am used to the cliché Japanese style of anime in its now seemingly solidified form as a result of not wanting to change too much and disappoint audiences I suppose. I would argue as much to say that this anime is novel in a sense. As it does not play by the commonalities of present day animes and does for the most part, its own thing. However it does not of course have in every respect a novel aspect of being completely new, as with something such as anime that already exists, hard it is to create something completely original. But this show certainly does something of the sorts, and I hope to watch more of it!

Episode 13 I need to mention was the only episode of the anime I felt to be out of place. Or arriving abruptly with perhaps little suggestion of context. I assumed the presentation to be of a backstory to the current present in the anime.

Overall. I wish to see more, and I was NOT expecting anything worth the writing of this review for a Chinese anime.

this is your run of the mill power fantasy set in the world of wuxia cultivations. the story is very simple and if you are familiar with the world of wuxia cultivation you can understand most of the world building. if you never heard of wuxia cultivations then you might get confused with the way the world works.

the best thing about this anime/donghua is the fluid animation and very stylistic fight scenes, i can always believe in donghua to produce great action choreography they are sometimes better than anime fight scene. martial art although kinda ridiculous in real world makes for a fantastic piece ... when it comes to the fantasy world.

unfortunately everything else is just too plain and uninteresting, the characters are kinda boring and undeveloped through out the series, the world although interesting is too much of a mess to be good. the story is really the weakest thing when it come to this donghua. the story is just basic, all the plot development comes and goes and none of them is actually interesting.

overall, the battle choreography really did carried the weight of this otherwise boring and plain story to the point where it is watchable. i wished they gives us more action scene instead of meaningless dialouges throughout the series.

4.8/10