Da Zhu Zai (2023)

A rather good cultivation donghua. It follows a young man with an exceedingly strong talent for combat and spiritual development. He undergoes a special trial in the spirit world that only powerful young cultivators can go through, but for some reason that is not explained he gets kicked out and branded a "drop-out". This label sticks to him for quite a bit and it causes friction with his peers. There is a lot of friction actually. An episode doesn't go by where someone isn't actively trying to get into a fight with the main protagonist for many different reasons and the conclusion is always "how ... could someone like you beat me?!?!, no way!". The story in this season goes through two acts. Each with a different setting, different goals, and mostly different cast of characters. Ultimately it's just the main character getting more powerful for the sake of being more powerful so that he can protect his family and loved ones.

The character cast is varied. The friends are kind and loyal, the bad guys are arrogant and angry. The most memorable character besides the MC is the father who is alive and who actually has a healthy relationship with his son which is so very rare in donghuas from my experience. There is also the spirit animal who is clearly the most interesting character but sadly doesn't get much of a backstory. All of the supporting cast goes through varied and enjoyable levels of character development. Although they have a tendency to just stop existing all of a sudden.

Animation is pretty good. I feel like it gets better and better over the run of the show. Combat scenes are very showy, utterly predictable and have an overwhelming tendency to devolve into a Beam-O-War type of battle that gets decided whenever the MC yells out with a strained voice and makes a pushing motion. They are still fun to watch though. He learns a handful of different abilities throughout the show and you'll begin to predict when he'll use which ability.

Music is fine. There is this one rock music piece that they use over and over whenever the MC shows up at the last second to save one of his friends that got on my nerves after a while though. It happens that often, yes.

Overall I enjoyed it. I've seen better and also worse. Any fan of cultivation donghua will find this a decent enough experience.
7.3/10