mushimk

Chinese Harry Potter. This is somewhat how I felt watching the show at times, because of the nice and well-thought adventure and story, in a beautiful and complex world : a believable world. Now the problem is, to get there, the viewers have to ... cultivate (^^') an incredible amount of patience. Because this show is also a perfect exemple as to why a carefully craft story can be crushed by its production nefarious flaws. And there are numerous, these flaws. Here's some example : in a video player, one episode is about 20~24 min. From these 20 min, remove 3 min for opening theme+previousepisodes resume, then remove 1 min for useless interludes and finally remove 5 to 7 min for product placements and ending theme (and I'm not joking, I've timed the thing). Honestly, this take a fair amount of patience, and maybe must even take your stubborness out in order to watch this 3d production. But at times, you wil be rewarded with somptuous backgrounds and scenes, straight out from a video game (special mention for the time the hero is trying to "sense" the world surrounding him). And while I hate the 3d aspect of the characters (not so bad actually, it's more of a personal opinion), I can't deny the tremendous amount of work behind these characters, background and scenes which in turn must explain why we have to endure the pathetic and obvious products placement. So... you've been warned : while I think Douluo Dalu is worthy of your time, you will have to struggle past the scenes made with an economy of CG in mind, and deal with the product placement scenes badly integrated into the show. Despite all that, Douluo Dalu might be one of the best chinese 3d anime production so far, even if far from perfection.

khaiwatching

The first impression of Douluo Dalu wasn't amazing. They say that the first 20 seconds of a show determines whether the show is good or not. And in most cases, that first 20-second rule is quite accurate from my experiences. Art (5/10) The animation and the art style were hard to convert into. I didn't like it at first, but I know I got myself into it and I shouldn't have expected much from it. It's not good but it's not something that I looked for so, in the end, it slightly matters, but it doesn't ruin the show. You can have a good story with terribleart and animation, and I'll still watch it. One thing that annoyed me the most about the animation was how fast it moved. It was like watching an extremely fast slideshow. Every second is a new cut from a different angle, it's hard to see what is going on. Character (3/10) I don't know what's so bad about it. It's just unbearable. The characters weren't that interesting at the start and they were blander at the end. The majority of the time, side characters get tossed away like last night's leftovers. There are characters I don't care about who gets more screen time than other decently developed characters. Character development is so weak in this show with the main characters not even getting a development. There are some characters I wanted to care about, but there was no development or screen time on them, instead, they focus on characters I don't find all that interesting They tried at some points to develop some characters, but in the end, after two episodes, they just give up on them, giving little to no screen time and reverts their personality to what they had originally. Story (6/10) It's unoriginal and predictable. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just means I zone out and I don't have to think much about what is happening. The show isn't something I would seek out, I don't think much about isekai and overpowered MC storylines. All I can say is it's predictable. What you would think would happen in a generic shonen will most likely happen. Every episode has a fight scene or at least the start of a fight scene. That in of itself is entertaining and carried the show. There weren't any meaningful plotlines that were touched upon, with even more useless and meaningless scenes that last up to one full episode, and it didn't even advance the story. It was fun to watch at least, but it didn't make the show any better or worse. It felt as if the show was being dragged on when it didn't need to be. It just reminds me of cutscenes of a free RPG game with all the cutscenes spliced together making a somewhat coherent and continuous storyline. They just forgot to add the gameplay elements. If they made it into a game, I would be down to play it, but as a donghua that it is, it's not that great, it's just meh. I will watch it, I just don't think much about it. Sound and Music (4/10) It's not the best, but I have heard worse. It's poorly edited. With music ending abruptly, generic and unsatisfying, probably royalty-free too, sound effects. Not saying it ruined the show, it just more distracting than it should be. The soundtrack isn't all that amazing, sometimes the soundtrack they use just doesn't fit the mood that the show is trying to show. It just ruins the experience and connection. Now it sounds like I have criticized the show with no positivity and all negatives. But I still somewhat found an interest in the show. Story development isn't that good, but I still have high hopes that it will improve and develop especially in Douluo Dalu 2. I hope the worldbuilding of the show can expand and improve.