Mortal's Journey is a Chinese wuxia donghua that follows Han Li, a child of a poor village family who sacrifices himself to enter the seven mysterious sect in order to improve his family's living situation. Unfortunately he fails the entrance exam but is accepted as a medic's disciple learning medicine and the path of cultivation. He encounters trauma when he finds his medic teacher Mo is not what he seems and his disciple friend who showed no affinity to cultivation suddenly changing his path of cultivation to martial arts. This story is goes very in depth with character establishment in the beginning which almost made me drop it but I'm glad that I stuck along.
Story: 9/10
I still consider this to be a somewhat overpowered main character, he has inept affinity to cultivation and has mastered medicine and potential for cultivation based on his Teacher Mo's literature. Han Li's journey is littered with small fry antagonists that get destroyed but the story stays true to development by sticking to a lower scale of characters.
Art & Sound: 9/10
The art is literally amazing. I haven't seen CGI this detailed and colorful ever. I think the characters are motion captured because the body movements and facial movement are so realistic even the minute details like wrinkles are shown in the characters faces. The color is well informed, in many scenes we see the animators have implemented 3 point lighting. For example, in Episode 4 (9:33) we see on Teacher Mo there are 2 aspects of 3 point lighting (rim light provided by ambient light from the windows facing away from the sun and fill light provided by active light probably supplied by the sun) this detail in lighting makes the art and animation more enjoyable.
Furthermore, the action scenes aren't just static fast motion follow focused shots. They are dynamic and unpredictable which also adds into the action. The focus changes in some shots where spears are thrown out of hand or when an opponent lunges forward toward MC or friendly characters. Furthermore, the specific shot types are well informed, I even spotted a dolly zoom in one of the shots where Han Li visits the Mo mansion on a bridge (I think that scene) which was a surprise.
The sound is also surprisingly excellent, the music reflects the mood and in cases of action scenes the music is often suspenseful which reminds me of well choreographed action/drama K-dramas. Although they are very suspenseful and reflect the mood well, it isn't a memorable experience because there aren't any theme songs.
Character: 8/10
Character development is the most apparent in the first half of Season 1, we are introduced to the main cast in the first episode which is a thrust into the story. I wished they didn't have a storytelling beginning that shows MC's past because it feels like a waste of having it in third person. It would have been better to not know Han Li would become an immortal yet because the beginning is confusing. The montage with a proper time scale contributed to Han Li's character training arc by condensing all the good parts instead of wasting 1 hour on forced development. This was a fairly good call to make considering the detail and quality this season had to set. At the moment, there aren't any love interest connections which is a letdown because I keep feeling this is a Shounen Ai type story. Although, the meeting of Teacher Mo's daughter and Han Li seemed a bit promising, I doubt anything will progress in that direction in terms of love interest.
Overall: 9/10
Subjectively and Objectively this is a good watch. There is a lot at stake on this series as they have maximized the detail and quality they could bring in terms of plot, art and sound as well as character development. Highly recommended, I enjoy overpowered main characters but I also enjoy rational, zero to hero cultivation stories where every episode isn't a new enemy but a progress to cultivation. Very philosophical.
