The world of Throne of Seal is that of demons and demon hunters; Groups of 6 strong hunters chosen by the Alliance of Temples fight against the demon lord and his 72 pillars. The parties consist of an assassin, mage, summoner, warrior, priest and a knight - They are chosen to fight against the invading demon army's pillar and the demon lord. Long Haochen is a knight-to-be candidate who stays in the remote outskirts of Odin City while training frivolously to become a knight and protect his sick mother. He has a chance encounter with an interesting girl who kickstarts the beginning of his journey to being a knight.
Story & Characters:
The plot of Throne of Seal is a very simple one that takes a lot of typical wuxia elements like cultivation and martial arts and mashes it up with medieval style MMORPG elements. Unlike the usual martial arts story, Throne of Seal foregoes lazy character development where a side character clings to MC inciting drama and delaying the main storyline. Instead, the Throne of Seal unravels in a way where the world opens up more as Haochen grows and as a result more chance encounters with key characters occur. This way the storyline feels delineated yet natural where the character interactions feel more organic and not hasty. Another aspect where wuxia stories tend to fall apart especially in longer duration is through its pacing - Stories that are too fast or slow paced have their negatives but Throne of Seals has just enough progression that it doesn't dwell too long or speed up when it comes to pacing. Each arc in the first season of Throne of Seal has its own importance and they work together seamlessly; Even the time skips are used in training arcs to skip a lot of unnecessary filler content. I enjoyed the comedy dynamic between characters it breaks the tension at the right moment preventing a dragged out mood during scenes which a lot of donghua make use of. Overall, the characters and story are well adapted and I expect no less from the works of Tangjia San Shao.
Art & Sound:
Art and animation style are leagues above other series released in the same time period; Throne of Seal's CGI feels very high budget because the visual fidelity and particle/environmental density. The setting of many scenes feel picturesque and realistic due to the use of shading, shaping of light, atmospheric ambience through leaves, snow etc. This helps to make the viewing experience as immersive as possible without being gimmicky. Though the characters are still animated through key frames instead of motion capture the slow or minimal movement when speaking and moving during dialogue make it a lot more convincing of mo-cap animation. Donghua tend to also enjoy hair physics and this series is no exception, Throne of Seal pays attention to a lot of character hair physics and it's great to see the level of detail when watching movement in characters. In terms of what I didn't enjoy about art and animation, during action scenes in Throne of Seals we see that the shots are fast paced and in between these shots there is always slow motion typically used in close up shots. They break the sense of immersion and urgency in action scenes and I personally am not a fan when it's used in this series.
The sound design when it comes to music choice and sound effects are fairly high quality and suitable for the mood; The voice acting is also very decent quality. There aren't any monotone characters in this series and instead the characters are very expressive especially when it comes to comedy like Cai'er and her assassin squad antics.
Enjoyment and Overall:
This season was enjoyable to watch and didn't need me to think too much about cultivation system, different worlds or character conflict. It has a natural and easy to follow story and characters so that makes it a lot better to watch in longer sessions compared to other donghua. I don't really enjoy the extras/explanation scenes at the end but I do appreciate that they omit these scenes from the actual story to save on pacing and unnecessary content.
