Story & Character: 6/10
I want to like this series in terms of its narrative accomplishments but it's so hard. Zi Chuan starts off as a faction battle between the young leaders to see who can achieve the most contributions to the war efforts and this was met with an enjoyable series of arcs that featured incredible world building elements, new characters with wild personalities and even some potential love interests. However, as the story progresses along with the war we are greeted with slow paced arcs with political talks that lead to absolutely no action whatsoever. In the end, the story gives us a brute-forced conclusion to the series with incomprehensible character decisions and even more unexplained plot logic. The story strays away from team-building and war strategies and instead aims for a dull plot focus on constant betrayal, corruption and fabricated court trials (inevitably leading to dead-ends)
Character development was the better of the two in terms of consistency and depth. At first it is confusing to discern who the main character of the show is because we follow through the footsteps of the three Zi Chuan brothers and their individual perspectives. However, it becomes clear that Zi Chuan Xiu is the real protagonist among the three main characters. Beyond that, Dilin and Sterling don't lack in terms of depth; They try to solve their own personal issues just like Xiu. The characters surrounding the brothers lack in terms of depth but many aren't discarded in superficial plot events or involved in meaningless internal quarrels especially characters that Xiu has picked for his squad. There are some side characters that really lack in impact to the story like Princess Kardan or old President Zi Chuan where they are used for dialogue, shock factor or in a complex romantic subplot. I did enjoy the antagonist character's factions but they felt intentionally inferior in terms of combat tactics and decisive formations despite their species being on par with the Empire's technology; For a group of species that caused trouble for humanity over hundreds of years you'd expect the Demon army/God's race characters to have a cunning and calculative set of leaders no?
Art & Sound: 6/10
The art is of higher quality in comparison to the CGI series released in its period and that makes this viewing experience a lot better. However, there are times where shots feel very cheap and it tends to be scenes with high population density - This makes the background textures look low-poly and budget. The fight scenes also felt too wide angle in some scenes making the battles less immersive. The character designs were very detailed; I liked Princess Kardan, Ka'dun Emperor and Zi Chuan Sterling's character designs both because of their detailed faces and detailed character clothing.
Sound is passable, there weren't anything out of the ordinary. The background music in many of the battle scenes were suitable to the mood. Especially the Pai City defense, the background music choice and timing were perfect for the mood. Voice acting is good quality, there were some characters that sounded the same in tone and talking speed so it was hard to discern between them - Mainly the Empire officials VA. Sound effects were good, nothing too bad.
Overall & Enjoyment: 5/10
I really enjoyed the earlier arcs of this series with the team-building and team bonding but the story led all the progress astray in order to focus on the three brothers and their factions overall. I did enjoy the funny scenes with Zi Chuan Xiu being a menace to his troops and the Demon factions. Overall, it was a little hard to watch the latter half than the former half but it was because of the slow pace and unnecessary characters.
