Da Yuzhou Shidai

Overview:
The Age of Cosmos Exploration is a chinese donghua where humanity is on the brink of extinction due to a cataclysmic natural disaster impacting Earth. The Elite class of humanity began early development on a project called Ark I which is an intergalactic vessel that will support the most important humans on Earth. The inhabitants of this vessel are those of the top 1% of society and were handpicked in secret. The status of whether the take off and search of a habitable planet were successful is still unknown days counting up to Earth's doom. MC Zhang Heng is hired as part of a bandit ... squad who hacks systems in return for a favor from the boss, all goes well until they come under fire from a mysterious crew of powerful black cloaked soldiers. Zhang Heng is faced with a choice to follow these soldiers and discover the mystery of Ark I or face his demise with Earth.

Story & Characters: 2/10
The beginning looked very promising because the story was very explicitly stated and the goals of all character involved were clear. However, the pacing slowed down and focus shifted from main storyline to side storyline very quickly from episodes 3-12 with no hints or references to the missing Ark I or its inhabitants. Many instances similar to this with characters also occurred, they were underdeveloped terribly especially Zhang Heng who had so many holes in his character.


Art & Sound: 5/10
Art is as expected of a Chinese donghua, it's not bad but motion could be improved so that characters have better fluidity in their movements especially the main character who had very badly animated/mocapped movements whenever a fast paced scene was concerned. Sounds were pretty good for the series, very high quality VA and SFX throughout the series especially the cave episode which had a lot of consistency in SFX and quality.


Overall & Enjoyment: 2/10
It didn't help that the translation for this show was hit or miss, the story definitely could have been improved and the focus on the main narrative could be emphasized. I want to know what happened to the original Ark I and any major antagonists but instead what I got was 'How long can I survive as a non combatant of Black Star'. For now, I will not be revisiting this series if it comes out with a sequel unless they improve the plot focus, character development and main character traits as well as character relationships.