The spouse and kid had previously seen this Netflix hidden gem, and once season 3 dropped we committed to a re-watch so our memories would be fresh.
Art 3/10
Let's get the bad news out of the way first - I HATE the art. It's terrible for 2018. The style, everything. I'm guessing they did this series as a "proof of concept" as the episodes are short but it's obvious the art is low quality. The interesting thing is if you watch it you can almost see the manga panels from which it is animated. This scene, one panel. Transition. That scene, the next panel. I've never experienced that when watching an anime before.
Story - 6/10
Wu Liuqi, a Beef Offal seller with great Scissors skills is persuaded by Bo Dai (his Blue Chicken friend) to become an assassin so they can earn more money to pay off their debts, we later find out these are medical debts and they're USA medical system level HUGE medical debts. In the meantime our hero moonlights as a barber, applying his scissor skills to hair, naming his Salon Dai Bo Jo which is a funny play on the Mandarin Dai Jo Bo "It will be all right" a reassuring phrase. His mis-adventures as a bargain priced assassin with a heart of gold are hilarious, even if parts are predictable.
Sound - 7/10
This is interesting. If you watched the subbed version it's a bit jarring as Bo Dai and Liuqi, our main character, speak Mandarin until they get upset, and then both tend to lapse back into native Cantonese. It is a subtle point that when Liuqi remembers parts of his past self (amnesia) he regresses back to always speaking in Cantonese. This is a small, but subtle language play most people would not pick up,
Character - 7/10
The length of the episodes (they're short) means the characters are not as well developed as they could be with more time. We get the basic view of each character archetype:-
* Wu Liuqi - assassin with heart of gold, and some power
* Bo Dai - gruff mentor / protector
* Fei, Xiao - translated to little flyer, the mysterious get out of jail free sidekick
* Thirteen - another assassin and obligatory love interest
The smaller supporting characters are also interesting and provide a lot of the humor.
Enjoyment 7/10
Generally, comedy / parody anime is hard to do well, but this Donghua has no problems pulling it off, in fact, I'm astounded because Scissor 7 has no business being as funny as it is. It has a very "Mob Psycho 100" feel to it and is definitely entertaining.
Overall 5/10
I laughed a lot, but can't rate this higher due to my hatred of the art. This needs a bigger art budget, and then we'll really see this take off.