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Ah, the most famous or infamous of CN harem donghua. This is also one of my favorite manhuas from back in the day. It was adapted, with changes, into donghua. I remember back when it was released. It later became so controversial that it got reported and banned in China, so it is technically illegal to watch, but it certainly won't stop me from doing a full watch now in 2024 and reviewing it.

Plot Summary: Jiang HaoYi, the most ordinary of ordinary students, is happily living a quiet and ordinary life; that is until the school belle appears in front of him to announce she ... is pregnant with his child!? WHAT!? And then as he is trying to figure out what is going on, girls appear one after another to announce or accuse him of something crazy! What the hell is going on!? Turns out, not long ago, he found a cupid-magic-infused cake and brought it to a clubroom that these girls all consumed. The magic manifested in creating false memories for each girl centered around their insecurities or wishes and involving the MC. Once he is able to resolve this for them, the false memories will disappear. Will HaoYi be able to help each girl and return to his ordinary life?

Plot
A very general overview of the plot is: a classic school setting harem anime; these types of shows were much more popular and prevalent in the 2010s when this story was written and adapted. The plot starts with a crazy event, acting as the hook, and moves on from there as the MC tries to solve the problems presented in the opening. While it can be considered a relatively generic start, it does go into each character presented in the harem and tries to grow each one. However, the progression of the plot can be a bit forced and disjointed. This problem, in my opinion, is an adaptation problem (I will explain more in the adaptation section) as the original manhua did not give this feeling when I read it. Overall though, it was interesting enough, but there are ALOT of cringe "comedic" harem event/encounters (as expected of harem comedy stories).

Characters
At first glance, the characters all seem like the standard characters from any harem show, and for the most part, they are. The MC is a quiet person who avoids conflict, or standing out for that matter despite is personal abilities. Most of the girls have very standout characteristics that fill some harem girl cliché, but they get their development (to some extent) throughout the show. The show does give each girl a backstory with a unique circumstance/struggle and time to develop rather than simply add them to an ever growing collection without reason; the development of each girl's character passable, but there are some problems due to the how the plot can be choppy and feel forced.

Animation
Classic harem anime aesthetic, this is how I would describe how the animation and designs are presented. Since this is a school harem type show, there are the usual: beautiful girls, bouncing "assets", etc that you would expect to see in a harem type show. The animation, even for this first season is surprisingly crisp and fluid though, something I definitely did not expect. If you disregard the overexaggerated harem animation tropes, this is actually animated quite well. The designs for the characters are directly lifted from the manhua, so no complaints there; and the designs of each important character are very unique and hard to confuse with each other. There are also some exaggerated (cringe) comedy animations which could have been done without. The ED shots of each character also look very nice and clean.

Final Thoughts
Surprisingly, I did not enjoy this as much as I thought I would, given its high praise and my enjoyment of the manhua (source). The plot and hook of this donghua was a bit fresh and unique, given they had a reasonable (albeit magical) explanation for the harem circumstance. But the storytelling was a choppy and disjointed. This made the plot feel a bit forced and disconnected. The characters themselves were alright and the animation and character designs are nice. If you enjoy school-setting harem-type stories, this is certainly a recommended watch, but if not, then you should probably skip this.

Score: 6/10

Adaptation Review (contains spoilers):

The first difference is observable difference between the manhua and the donghua adaptation is that age and setting that the story is taking place. In the manhua, the characters are in high school and 15 years of age while in the donghua it is set in college (presumably) and the characters are 19 years of age. While this change isn't that bad, it does create a bit of dissonance for some of the jokes, actions of characters, and some of the dialogue because these were intended for a high school setting. This change probably happened because of some of the topics that the setting touches on. Teen pregnancy, teenage parents, pre-marital relationships, PDA aren't exactly recommended behaviors, especially in China, where this was released and is set.

After that, there are many changes to the plot, mostly for dramatization purposes. This is first seen in how the opening was changed. The chasing, drama, and even the "jumping off the roof to commit suicide" scene was very different from the opening in the manhua. This is the first blatant change, there are many many many more that follow throughout the show. From an adaptation perspective, the core story and each girl's scenario is basically unchanged, but the progression of events is VERY different; the ending/result is the same, however. The donghua changed many of the events/encounters during the scenarios with each girl to make them ridiculously harem-tropey, so much of the encounters now overflow with the classic harem-comedy-cringe-misunderstanding aura. In essence, the manhua was much more realistic and grounded in its approach, making the story and plot much more believable.

The next change I'd like to point out is the oversexualization/suggestiveness of some relationships. Clearly, as a harem story donghua, this kind of portrayal is not unexpected, but they, in my opinion, went way overboard. The MC's relationship with that teacher is the premier example in this donghua (it happened to other girls too, but that was expected). The MC has a very complicated relationship with the teacher he visits late at night (the manhua does explains better, and gives more details later in the story); in the donghua, they really made this scene way too sexualized and suggestive, contrary to the more parent-child relationship the manhua suggested. It was clearly a harem-trope comedy situation and change.

Then, like stated in the general review section, the plot is very jumpy and disjointed. I don't remember the manhua feeling as disjointed as the it does in the donghua. I do believe this is an adaptation problem; part of this likely stems from the fact that some character thoughts are translated/adapted as flashbacks or character dialogue and enhanced by some of the exaggerated visuals/animations, and another part because of how they end episodes to create a cliffhanger instead of single panel teases that we get in the manhua.

The character designs are basically lifted directly from the manhua, there is basically no difference in artstyle between the two, though the designs/art in the donghua are a bit more refined since it is newer (the older chapter art is much more rough).

There is one change that got removed I would like to have seen. This was what I considered the punchline and what hooked me to the manhua in the first place. After solving ZiTong's wish (first, pink-hair girl), HaoYi finds out that the magic gets dispelled but the memories of him helping her remain, the punchline after was: "When the Cupid's Magic is dispelled... is when the TRUE STORY begins". I thought this was a great setup for the story; was disappointed this wasn't in the donghua.

The donghua "adapts" chapters 1-63 of the manhua with quite a few changes to the progression of events (not changes to the core story). After watching this, I still prefer the manhua and would recommend that over this adaptation.

Adaptation score(how faithful to source): 5/10

I have started and tried to watch this original season 1 of BTTH multiple times, but the difference in style and storytelling from the rest of the series has pushed me away each time. Now about 1.5 years since I watched Origins -> NianFan 1 (S5 P1), I've finally decided to tough it out and do a full watch and write my review on both as BTTH's S1 donghua and as an adaptation of the novel.

Plot Summary: Xiao Yan is a fallen genius, once having reached the Dou Zhe level at age 11. But due to reasons unknown, his cultivation fell back down to Dou ... Zhi Qi rank 3, making him the ridicule of everyone in the family. Because of this, his fiance, borrowing the name of a powerful sect, comes to force the annullment of their marriage agreement. Prompted by her immense disrespect, Xiao Yan stands up to defend himself and the agreement; Nalan Yanran (the fiance) concedes and strikes a Three-Year Agreement with him to delay the annulment. After that agreement, Xiao Yan finds out the reason for his decline in cultivation and under the direction of a mysterious teacher, trains in preparation for the Three-Year Agreement duel return the humiliation Nalan Yanran foisted onto him.

Plot
The plot for BTTH S1 is pretty standard, especially for a cultivation story. The MC, Xiao Yan, is a fallen genius, and is now the ridicule of others who once looked up to him. Others come to kick him while he's down, including his fiance. But he soon finds out why he has fallen and once again regains his talent under the guidance of a mysterious teacher. This storyline is (now, maybe not back when this novel was written) a very common opening for a revenge-type story.

The portrayal/plot presentation does have many issues, but that's mostly an adaptation problem; as a standalone story, it is not as bad as I originally thought, but it does seem way to childish and convenient.

Characters
The characters for the show are also pretty normal for this type of Xuanhuan cultivation story. The MC was a genius, fell, and is now a genius again. The villains/bullies are your typical stock "bad guys". There isn't anything exceptionally good or bad to say about them. The show (and novel) are more known for Xiao Yan's personal adventure than the world building, plot, or the villains.

Animation
Okay, so despite my initial impressions on the character design that made me choose to watch Origins as my starting point for this donghua series, I have to say the designs of the environment are not that bad. The animation overall is also done fairly well, considering the age of this season. The character models, however, are horrendous. The character model designs/style remind me of disney character designs (though the clothing is inspired by ancient chinese clothing), except they are not as polished and thus I consider it a discounted disney aesthetic; the "good" characters look better than the "bad" ones in a very disney-esque fashion. When it comes to the fighting animation, it is also very basic and average, nothing to write home about; they follow the same basic design/appearance as the characters and I personally consider them unappealing(ugly).

Final Thoughts
Despite my severe distaste with BTTH S1 because of how it presented the plot in the donghua medium, it was not as bad as I thought once I put down my disgust for the plot changes and the character designs. The animations and designs are, as a whole, consistant and pretty good, the plot is cohesive enough, and the important characters have their own distinct traits. However, the biggest problem by far is how childish everything seems, especially compared to the rest of the seasons.

Score: 5/10

Adaptation Review:
Okay, this part is the review of it as an adaptation with a comparison to the "remake" Origins. I WILL eviserate this because I think it does a great number of things wrong as an adaptation.

To start, after watching this in full, I still suggest going to Origins, both because of the uniform character designs with the rest of the donghua (this S1 was done by a different company, which got fired after the disasterous reception of S1) and because it presents the most important parts of S1 in a more novel-accurate light.

Now, let's talk about BTTH S1 and what it does right from a adaptation perspective. There are two main things that this does well: it covers more of the events from the novel (including many of the frivolous and annoyingly childish confrontations) and it has all the basic information for understanding cultivation basics presented in some kind of infodump explaination. The infodump format isn't the best, but at least it has that information (unlike Origins). But that is where the good ends.

Now when we get to the things that BTTH S1 does wrong:

The first and most obvious change is that they changed the atmosphere. Starting from the hook, the marriage annulment, the scene got changed to be VERY VERY childish, both the characters and the atmosphere. Xiao Yan was supposed to be matured after 3 years of ridicule while Nalan Yanran was selected as the successor of a very powerful sect, yet the two engage in a name-calling shouting match? This doesn't conform with their respective positions. After that, many other scenes feel dumbed down and childish.

After this would be the changes to the actual plot. There are numerous changes here, changes make developments too convenient or don't make sense. For example, Xiao Yan's interaction with Ya Fei, the proprietress of the auction house; in this scene, instead of the business negotiations in the novel, she is simply attacked by kidnappers when he is doing a negotiation: that is the dumbest way that negotiation could have ended in Xiao Yan's favor, why would you leave potential witnesses for something like this AND he revealed his identity unlike the novel where Ya Fei figured it out herself. Other examples include: Xiao YiXian's entire encounter with Xiao Yan; the donghua encounter felt like a very cliche harem member introduction instead of the more nuanced and complicated realtionship beginning that the two had. Finally, in the ending of the season, they made Xiao Yan some kind of chick magnet where basically every girl he interacted with has some kind of feelings for him or he has some kind of feelings for her setting up a harem setting when romance was not the focus of this portion of the story at all.

Then comes change to the characters and how they act. Xiao Yan, rather than the matured individual from the novel, acts much like a child. He crys easily and makes very dumb decisions among other things. For example, he cries after the marriage annulment, which is out of character when compared to the novel. For the villains, the head of the other families are just empty suits, as the son, Jia Lie Ao is the one apparently making the plans for his father.

For Xun'Er, this season was the best chance they had to develop her relationship with Xiao Yan. They did some decent scenes, but most of her concern and helping Xiao Yan in the dark (without his knowledge) was mostly cut out. In the novel, Xun'Er clearly has a powerful background, but this isn't really even hinted at in this season and most of her covert actions to help Xiao Yan were excluded, like: paying off the family when Xiao Yan's father wasted money on the pill from the auction, sneakily trying to take out more money when Xiao Yan looked like he didn't have enough, or giving him a powerful Qi Method other than simply mentioning it in the donghua. They also eliminated some of the subtle but not subtle implications of Xun'Er's affection for Xiao Yan (like the comment about Xiao Yan only treating her like a sister when she wanted more).

Finally, I was annoyed by the fact that they changed Xiao Yan's signature weapon from a ruler to a greatsword.

Ugh, anyway, I think I have made it very obvious that I dislike this season's adaptation of BTTH. There are so many changes to the story that I have given up trying to point them all out, and even though it covers more events than Origins, I think it does a worse job presenting to story. I still prefer the Origins "remake" to this.

Adaptation score(how faithful to source): 5/10

his donghua is an adaptation of novel by the same (Chinese) name. I haven't read the novel so I won't be speaking to how this does as an adaptation.

Plot Summary: Wei He, the youngest of 3 siblings, is a sheltered and somewhat naive young man. His family is supported by his eldest sister's reputation as a fierce martial artist of the slums. Believing that their parents are still alive despite their disappearance, his eldest sister regularly goes out on searches to find clues about their whereabouts. Before one of these trips, Wei He has a bad prenomination, prompting him to join his eldest sister. On ... this trip, they encounter an accident leading to his sister going missing. Once without their protective shield, he and his second eldest sister are at the mercy of thugs around the slums. Faced with these new harsh realities, Wei He joins a martial arts school in order to become stronger so he can protect his family and continue to search for his parents.

Plot and Setting
Our MC (implied to be a transmigrator), first starts off as a sheltered and naive young man, who quickly mans up to protect his family once tragedy strikes. The transition is a bit abrupt, but given the condition the world is in, makes sense. While the story and plot are mostly focused on the MC, there is a factional war going on in the background over control of the city, which the MC becomes an unintentional catalyst in escalating the conflict. In regards the the ongoing factional war, it is a bit difficult to understand the web of alliances at first, but as you get furthur into the season, we can get a clearer picture. The highlight of the show is really the MC's growth and character.

The setting of this donghua is fairly typical, set in an ancient world during a chaotic time (modeled after ancient China). However, what really stands out is the mature depiction of the world: casual murder, attempted kidnapping, attempted s**ual assault, selling one's children for food, etc are all depicted in the opening episodes. There are also rather gruesome displays and gore, though they tend to tone down some of this (likely for censorship reasons). All of these explicit depictions are quite unusual for donghua.

Characters
The main character of importance is, of course, the MC. He starts off as a bit sheltered and naive, but quickly steps up and grows once he loses his shelter. His growth throughout the season, his compassion for friends, cunning, and ruthlessness towards enemies makes him a compelling and relatable main character. As for the other characters, they have their own unique quirks and traits; there isn't anything that breaks the mold, but they flesh out the world.

Animation
The animation and character modeling is done very well for this donghua. The character models are detailed, reflecting a high budget style, and has the usual xianxia/ancient world type style. The models for characters are both unique and uniform, allowing viewers to easily identify characters and factions. The animation for normal movements is smooth and the choreography for the fights is good, though there are times when there are minor kinks in this fluidity.

Final Thoughts
This donghua was much more enjoyable than I anticipated. The story was engaging and characters likable. There was a greater conspiracy plot that gets a full reveal at the end (it does get hinted at throughout the show if you pay close attention). If you are looking for a cultivation style donghua with a more mature tone and world depiction, this is a highly recommended watch.

Score: 8/10

Like I said in the S1 review, this donghua is old, with this season being 7 years old compared to S1's 10. The production quality and cringe of the first season made it almost unwatchable for me despite my love for the manhua (source). However the changes made to season 2 changed my entire outlook of this adaptation. Having worked on the manhua of this as a translator, I am very happy to see how the second season did this work justice and brought this work to life.

Plot Summary: Due to breaking the seal on him twice, Feng Xi, the MC, has been outed as ... the legendary Yang Eye. In order to fulfill his responsibilities as the Yang Eye and to protect himself, he starts to study under the daoists to learn how to use his powers. As he dives deeper into his past and powers, he starts to learn of a greater number of past lives, his ties with allies, and the goal he has pursued across reincarnations.

Plot
The story in this season can be divided into 2 chapters (yes 2 chapters, not arcs). The first chapter, EP1-15, directly follows S1 (even teased at the end), where we follow the MC, Feng Xi, as he starts his training and learns about taoist techniques, about the taoists' mission in the current world, his own past, and takes part in a taoist operation to keep the peace between monsters and humans. The chapter has some of the typical cringe harem/romance comedy from season 1 (and it is from the manhua), but for the most part, it very thoroughly builds up how the world works and the relationship between the monsters and humans. Most of it is presented through the eyes of Feng Xi, a newcomer to this "world of monsters", and a newly born AI monster. This allows the show to provide a crash course for more exposition into the world without feeling forced. A job well done in executing this.

Note: Episode 16 is a sneak peak at Part 2 and an interview episode with contributors to the donghua.

The second chapter, EP17-21, is about Long SanYuan's past with a past life MC. This chapter, totaling 5 episodes, is disconnected from the other because it jumps directly to this flashback. The transition into it from the manhua has been removed, but since the previous chapter concluded and this flashback can be viewed in its own, it isn't too bad; just consider it like another season. This provides a very emotional story about the pains of long-lived species romance with a short-lived one. I think this portion is also done quite well.

Characters
Most of the characters important to the story had shown up by the last episode of the previous season, though some barely got a cameo. There isn't much more to say about the totality of the characters in season 2, though Feng Xi, our MC, does get some better development moving me away from a stock harem MC, making him more unique. All the other characters get screen time and we get a more in-depth look and backstory of all the other important characters as well.

Animation
The character designs are still have the same style as Season 1, though asthetic now matches the manhua more than before, ditching stylistic choices like the large eyes. The character design/models are more proportional and the animation is more fluid and natural (though it can still be a bit stiff at times). The quality of the rendering is better (it is less pixelly and more crisp). Overall, much better quality than Season 1.

Sound
The sound work in this season is done light-years better than the previous one. Almost all the problems from the last season have been addressed. The voice-acting is more human, natural, and conveys emotion through intonation. The volume of the BG now meshs well, unlike before. The OP and EDs are still good. The only complaint regarding their work on sound this season is their attempt at spatial sound; when the character is "furthur away" they make their voices softer, which sometimes makes it hard to hear because of the constantly changing volume. Other than this, they did a much better job is syncing all the sounds together.

Final Thoughts
My only reaction after watching this is: wow. Because of the disappointing production quality in the first season, I thought this season would also be a drag. However, they suprisingly fixed almost all the issues I had with the first season. The designs of the characters have been improved, the sound production quality has been vastly improved, the animation is much more fluid. The plot and characters have also gotten better, though that mostly has to do with the script. If you liked the first season (or like the story from the manhua), this season is a highly recommended watch. Otherwise, I would still recommend this if you enjoy stories within this genre.

Score: 6/10

Adaptation Review (may contain spoilers of the manhua):
First, this Season adapts chapters 75-152 (Part 1:EP1-15) and 188-200 & 279-281 (Part 2:EP17-21). EP16 is a sneak peak at Part2 and mainly an interview special.

Wow, just wow. I didn't think it was possible to be this faithful to the source material. This season's adaptation is basically animated panel for panel what was in the manhua; in fact, in the S2 EP1 recap, they even did a soft-retcon of one of the "biggest" changes to the first season (where Su Jiu'er took out the internal alchemy of the tree demon vs her destruction of it in S1 EP6). In addition to the soft-recton, there was just one little scene added in about Feng Xi being a "bad kid" growing up, but that's all. In the previous season, I suggested simply reading the manhua for a better experience. For this season though, I think I would recommend the donghua, though I still suggest reading the manhua.

There is a disconnect between the two chapters since they skipped straight to the Long SanYuan flashback without the portion in between, as indicated by the chapters that I listed that they had adapted. They essentially skipped over chapters 153-187 which originally provided a transition to the recall. For this adaptation, what they decided to do was to tell the story of a specific life, combining two different recalls (one for Long SanYuan and one for Su Jiu'er) into a single flashback story. Because of this combination, they changed now the flashback was narrated, added/changed some details, and tried to make it a stand-alone story. In the manhua, because of the events that led up to the recall, it was understood that this was Long SanYuan's flashback on her life with the MC. The adaptation, however, made it a combination of two flashbacks, therefore they had to make specific parts specifically narrated by Long SanYuan, while including Su Jiu'er's parts, thus weakening the impact that this flashback should have had. Su Jiu'er also seems very childish; the progression of time, a significant part of the sadness, is also not as noticable because of the combination as well. The timeline for the two was originally counted by how long each knew the MC in this life, and because the difference in time lengths, they eliminated this part of the narration. The final change was they added a tiny segment of him being accepted as a disciple by a daoist and his senior disciple scenes. Overall, while this part of the adaptation envokes the proper emotions, they don't hit as hard because of the lack of full context for the flashback. In the end, it is simply a standalone chapter flashing back to one of the MC's previous lives with the girls.

Last but not least, I really hate how the Part 2 OP teases scenes from the skipped chapters 153-187.

Adaptation score for EP1-15: 9.8/10
Adaptation score for EP17-21: 8/10

This donghua is an old one. I've finally gotten around to watching it. I remember when this first came out, almost 10 years ago, when the manhua was at the height of its popularity This donghua is adapted the manhua by the same name and is one of my all-time favorites. I once spent about 2 years translating about 250 chapters (chapters 69-331) under the name Yue Er. Considering that this donghua has 2 seasons out, I will also talk a little bit about S2 in this review.

Before I being my review, I would also like to point out something out. This was among the ... first attempts by AC.QQ, now owned by Tencent, at breaking into the animation/donghua market, so some of the poor production quality can be attributed to this.

Plot Summary: Feng Xi, our MC, is a run-of-the-mill new college student looking to start the sterotypical college life (fun times, getting a girlfriend, etc). The campus beauty, Su Jiu'er, quickly starts to get close to him, even becoming his girlfriend. Other girls also start to associate with him, some even in suggestive ways. The MC is at the peak of life, but not everything is as it seems.

Despite my initial muted, but high hopes for watching this very old adaptation for an all-time favorite manhua of mine, I have to say, it is a very very sub-par, and that is putting it nicely. A more apt and honest way of putting it would be a dumpster fire production. Why? This is because plot presentation, sound work, animation, almost everything is done very poorly. Like mentioned before, this is one of the first attempts to create donghua by this company, but it borders unwatchable for me in 2024. It may have fared better back when it was released, but there are plenty of similar shows (especially anime) that would be more worth watching, not to mention simply reading the manhua would be a better use of your time and provide a better understanding of the story. Let's go over the different aspects of this donghua:

Plot
The plot of this story (manhua and donghua) is set in a "modern" college setting. The plot development, characters, comedy is all reminiscent of mid-2010s school-type romance/harem stories. It includes all of these tropes, the good and the bad. The season can be seperated into 2 arcs, the first being 6 episodes and the remaining 12 for the second arc. From a "bigger picture perspective", the first arc briefly introduces the world with a very generic hook, and the second arc starts to dive into the meat of the story, but the problem is how the plot is structured. The donghua tries to mix the harem/romance/jealousy comedy (that is EXTREMELY CRINGY) into the story then flips around to immediately try to progress the important plot, creating a very disjointed mess. The plot also intermixes flashbacks in a seemingly random way, making things confusing. If I hadn't read the manhua (source before) the story would have been very difficult to follow and confusing; only with this crutch can I actually understand what the donghua was trying to portray. Not a very good job in my opinion.

Characters
The characters for this manhua/donghua are very generic. All of them in this season fall into very obvious tropes. The MC is the "ordinary nobody who is somehow special and girls gather around him" type that is a staple of school setting harem type stories. All the girls introduced are all part of the "harem" and fit into some category as well. Despite the generic start, the donghua does begin to grow the characters past their cliches by the end of the season.

Animation
This donghua is 10 years old, as of this review (2024), so don't expect anything extraordinary. In fact, even if you go back in time to 2014/2015 when this was released, it was mid-low range for the animation quality. This was originally released as either 480p or 720p back when it first came out, so any higher resolutions are simply upscaled reuploads (even on official uploads). The character designs are also very reminiscent of mid-2010s style as well, with big eyes and such; they designs themselves are taken from the manhua and anime-fied. The animation itself uses many repeated frames, quite common to older 2D animations. The action, when there is some, isn't that fluid or great, but it is still watchable; again, just don't expect high quality.

Sound
The sound work in this is terrible. The voice acting is a bit off key and not very pleasant to listen to. The taoist girl is supposed to be act like a kind of emotionless machine but her "monotone" voice comes off as grating. The BGM, likely used to "set the mood", is loud, desynced from other sounds (like voice acting) and goes on or off at a flip of a switch without transition, making them seem seperated from the actual show. Other effects are also not well synced in volume. On top of this, the BGMs themselves are pretty bad. There isn't much good to say about the sound production, other than the nice OP and ED.

Final Thoughts
This donghua starts off as very generic and only starts to distinguish itself by the end of Season 1. It followed the trend of stories that were popular at the time: school-setting romance/harem dramas. The base story, from the manhua promises potential, but the show did a very poor job in adapting that story to the screen. I do not believe watching this show is especially worthwhile; I believe reading the manhua would be a much better way to experience this story (at least for this season, CH1-74).

Score: 4/10

Adaptation Review:
As I said earlier, this is an adaptation of a manhua of the same name and S1 covers chapters 1-74. I spent quite a bit of time translating this manhua many years ago.

Considering the age of the donghua, I can't say that this was great. As an adaptation, it does follow the story, and does try its best to fill in some of the blanks/plot holes, and since the manhua is furthur along in the story, they bring foward some foreshadowing plot points from way later to explain some things.

As with any adaptation, there are changes. The changes are minor though (if you discard censorship), they change a bit of the MC's behavior so that they can make the MC and FMC get into a relationship earlier. They also rush the first arc a bit, instead focusing the donghua more on the more original and compelling story that starts from the second arc forth.

As with any Chinese work, there is of course censorship of gore and any R-18 activity implications. There are some pixelated scenes and some of the R-18 activity was either toned down or more implicit rather than explicit.

Overall, while this adaptaion does closely follow the manhua, it rushes the first arc to get to the more "divergent from tropes" and original second arc. The second arc is where the original source material starts to build the story up (instead of relying on the usual school harem tropes) so I can't complain that they rushed the beginning. However, despite them following the manhua, the messy and cringy presentation of the plot makes it difficult to recommend, so I would suggest simply reading the manhua for this season.

Adaptation score(how faithful to source): 7/10

So this came out on YT literally the day after I finished watching the series. This Extra is a donghua original ending; this was apparently crowdsource funded since this show wasn't going to get a season 2. I'll just give my quick thoughts on this.

I originally thought this would get a S2, but since it won't, this does at least provide a full conclusion, unlike S1. S1 ended with the MC Joon and Duna getting into a relationship, but it was kind of a cliffhanger as there could be more, but now this is at least a conclusive end. This is different from the manhwa ... source material, but I can't complain since that ended on a very frustrating note.

My final thoughts on the whole series: I would have liked a bit more. I would have definitely wanted to see them actually date; this extra ended with the wedding/marriage and vows but it kinda skipped everything in between which would have been nice to watch/enjoy. Oh well, at least we didn't get the trainwreck original ending. If you liked the donghua adaptation, might as well watch it, it's only 10 minutes.

This donghua is an adaptation of the Korean manhwa, Lee Doona!. I did read the manhwa so I will be reviewing this as both a donghua and as an adaptation. I will also use the manhwa translation names as opposed to the Chinese Pinyin names in this review.

Plot Summary: Our MC, Joon, is a new college student, having worked hard to study and test into the college his high school crush is attending. Upon moving into a share house, he meets a weird but strangely familiar looking woman at the the entrance. He soon recognizes her as the recently retired idol, Lee Duna. Once recognized, ... Duna, afraid of having her location revealed, waits outside to request/threaten him not to tell anyone. This wait prompts her to collapse and Joon, as a new dormmate, to help her. And thus the two become closer, beginning Joon's tumultuous "spring" (romanctic life).

Plot
This donghua adaptation is about a new college student Joon, who now attends the college of his crush and whom he wants to get into a relationship with. Since the story is set in a modern college setting (likely Korea, since it is a manhwa), there are drinking parties and many activities stereotypically associated with college. This donghua falls under the romance category, with multiple potential candidates for our MC. The plot progression is not perfectly linear so watching it as single episodes may cause some confusion (usually resolved with the pre-OP scene in next episode); however, this is not much of a problem if you binge watch the show. The show starts off with a "conclusion" of what we can expect in this season, then goes back to tell the story on how it reached that point (this follows the manhwa so I can't exactly fault it). Many people like to skip the OP and ED, so I do warn you to be wary of doing that with this show, as there are rather important plot elements/exposition pre-OP, usually expanding on side character backstories or continuations of previous episode events.

Characters
The characters are all believeable and unique enough to recognize individually. All the characters were great, and I like them all. The internal monologues provided good insight into each characters thoughts at certain times, though if you don't have a sharp ear you may not notice the difference in intonation that differentiates between speech and internal monologues. How the characters evolve/change throughout the season is also great a believeable, helped by all the monologues/character thoughts.

Animation
The animation is 2D, which is a bit different from my usual preferance, but the art style and animation quality is pretty good. The designs are basically pulled directly from the manhwa, and the asthetic is consistant with our modern world (it is set in "today's" world afterall).

Overall/Final
I very much enjoyed this romance donghua. While it is a bit different from my usual preferances, I still think it did a good job presenting the story. I very much enjoyed this romance donghua, though some of the narration about "future events and their conclusion" worry me. The progression of the relationships were reasonable and the characters, especially the MC, was not too dumbed down (like many romantic/harem works). I highly recommend this to anyone who likes the fluttery romance stories. It does have some drama and cringy moments, but overall an enjoyable watch.

Adaptation Review (may contain spoilers):
The adaptation of The Girl Downstairs Manhwa is probably the closest one will ever get to a perfect adaptation. When watching this, there are 2 things that stand out as different from the source. Those 2 differences are:
-Removal of the Fairy: So the fairy in the manhwa was a semi-supernatural author tsukommi self insert which was a bit annoying. The removal, in my opinion, was a good call.
-Severely toned down drinking and smoking: The FMC Lee Duna was a very heavy smoker; this got removed and replaced with "playing with a lighter". In addition, only drinking that is directly relevant to the core story is adapted, some of the less relevant displays of drinking were removed.

There is two big cuts from the manhwa to the adaptation: the Busan trip (got changed), where lots of "degenerate" behavior and irresponsible drinking happened, and the picnic that the group of 6 went out on that led to the subsequent drinking party that led to the group breakup.

There are also some minor changes, like minor changes to where some events take place, but what the scenes portrayed was not modified, so no harm no foul, though it does create minor disconnects.

For presentation, Lee Duna's instability is not as well portrayed. They could have better showed her drastic mood swings.

Overall, this was a very very faithful adaptation of the original story, where there are some changes to presentation, focusing on visual in the donghua vs text/monologues in the manhwa. The differences in atmosphere are so small it is scary how close it is to the original work. In fact, its faithfulness both excites and worries me; I love perfectly faithful adaptations, but the foreshadowing narration and knowing how the original ended scares me (the original ending was very disappointing and unfulfilling). If this adaptation did not cut out those two events, it would have been rated a 9.8 on the faithfulness scale. On a final note, the donghua adapts chapters 1-54 of the manhwa.

Adaptation score(how faithful to source): 9/10

Edit: Of course, right after I finish watching and post this review there is an "extra" episode that gets released. I'm not sure how canon it is, but be sure to find and watch it. I guess it could be considered an ending.

This donghua is an adaptation of the first Soul Land or Douluo Dalu novel. This is way too long to actually accurately score as an adaptation, so instead, I will be giving my impression of this as an adaptation and noting some obvious changes from the source. This review may contain some spoilers and will be VERY LONG, given the high episode count. In addition, watch the 2-hour Director's Cut finale as opposed to the original.

TLDR: Douluo Dalu, or Soul Land, is now a completed donghua (and probably the first for this level of adaptation). It is a great watch for beginners to the Xianxia ... genre. It starts of good and stays exciting throughout, though there are some slower, dragged out parts (especially those episodes released during the worst of the pandemic). The ending was very rushed, but still a decent recommendation for donghua viewers.

Plot Summary: Tang San having just killed the human-faced man-eating spider, now absorbs his third spirit ring. Afterwards, Tang San continues his cultivation journey to become a more powerful spirit master and re-establish the Tang Sect in this new world.

Plot
A very basic summary of the entire story is Tang San's cultivation journey to become a powerful figure. Intermixed in this is his friendship with others, a revenge plot surrounding his family (and their enemies), romance between characters, etc. The story follows a rather normal progression; Tang San is reincarnated into a different world where his old world's techniques do not exist but can be cultivated, and so we follow him on his journey to become a powerful spirit master and recreate the Tang Sect in this new world. He has talent and works hard, slowly becomes stronger while gaining friends and allies. We, as viewers, follow Tang San in his journey of discovery; like in most novels, the scope of the world we see is limited to "beginners" and gradually expands as the MC gets more powerful. Overall, the world building is done well; it has explanations/monologues that inform viewers about how the world works and there isn't anything noticibly illogical.

Characters
The important characters all have their own backstories and are developed well enough throughout the course of the entire donghua. Each of the main characters has their own distinct personality, likes, strengths, weaknesses and goals. Even the main antagonists get development, fleshing them out to be unique individuals, rather than roadblocks/speed bumps for the MC to defeat. Of course, while the main cast (and antagonists) do eventually get decent development, they are still second string to the MC, Tang San, and thus the overall development can be somewhat inconsistant, as certain elements get pushed back to consolidate information because of plot shuffling (explained more in the adaptation section) or scattered as small pieces throughout (especially for the antagonists). There are, of course, throwaway villains that are 1D, but since they are not too important it doesn't matter.

Another point of interest about the characters is the romantic pairings. While most donghua have harems, this donghua has couple pairings. The couples of this donghua are paired up early and they don't change (even though some end up liking the MC, Tang San). The romantic parts of this donghua are emotional, but they can be a bit overdone and cringy at times. What makes this donghua unique is that almost all the important characters are in some sort of exclusive relationship, which is different from the majority of donghua availible currently. The donghua also makes great reuse its "one-time use" characters as extras, not super important but its nice to see recognizable faces from earlier episodes.

Animation
The animation for this "season" starts off close to that of Season 1, since it only started a few months after that season's end. But throughout the remaining 230+ episodes released over a 5 year period, we see small incremental increases that result in significant change in overall animation quality in later episodes. The animation quality is consistantly high quality for when the episodes were released. They may feel a bit dated when you watch the earlier episodes, but the newer episodes are definitely state-of-the-art. When it comes to character and environmental designs, they mostly stay consistant with the style that was set in the first season.

Despite the high quality animation (for when it was released), the episodes themselves suffer from overuse of repeated scenes and "derp" faces. This donghua seems to love "transformation" and "ultimate move" scenes, often repeating the same animation whenever there is a spirit release/reveal or use of a spirit ability (ring). There are some times when they play the same animation for the one character 2 or 3 times in a single episode. This overuse takes up unnecessary time, bloating/padding the run time. It is especially bad when they do it for each of the seven from the main cast individually. The fights are mostly done well, but the "ultimate move" spirit ring animations and commentary/explanation mid-fight tend to break the flow of the action and sometimes makes it feel like a drag. In addition to the repeated "transformation" scenes, they also seem to love the derpy faces that result when slapping someone or beating them up, that "slow-ish motion face across the screen with their tongue sticking out" animation; it was funny the first few times, but it gets old after a while.

Breaking Immersion
There are two main immersion breaking elements (other than the some of the overused tropes mentioned above): the Spirit Battle Arena/competition fights and advertisement/logo placement. The spirit arena and competition battles break immersion because the design choice for the arena and team presentations. The Spirit Battle Arena design, like I said in my S1 review, looks much like the modern virtual idol concert stages, which is VERY different from the medieval-ish world design that the rest of the world adheres to. They also have weird out-of-place introductions, like with the Water Spirit Academy team doing a weird MMD style dance when they are first introduced. While the animations and designs look nice, these stylistic design choices (psudeo-modern/futuristic style) are very out of place for this type of world.

Advertisements
Other the above mentioned stylistic choices of the competition stages and team introductions, advertisments are the other category of immersion breaking elements. Most of the advertisements in this donghua are labeled and placed either at the beginning (before the episode) or during the mid episode "commercial" break. While some are not labeled, this donghua does do a good job adding the advertisements label, so it doesn't become too intrusive. However, there are some product placements and the more ergregious logo placements that do show up. While the product placements are not too bad, since they are integrated well, the brand/logo advertisements are quite jarring, especially during the competition, when it is placed all over their uniforms. I understand that (from an adaptation perspective) it is a play on Flender's love for money, but they could have chosen something more native to the world.

---War Arc (some spoilers as I talk about narrative inconsistencies)---
Everything in the review up to this point applies to the pre-war arc, which started around EP???. Before this, most of the fights and journey were either solo or small group based; however, once the war started, the scope of fights exceeded small groups the "rules" that the previous portions built up started to go out the window, making things less believable. The visual specticale (how cool it looks) is the main focus now, as individual abilities are no longer as important. While the return of familar faces as extras is great, the battles in the "war" are very effects heavy and the progression of the plot is no longer smooth. For example, there are tons of flying spirit masters (on flying sword spirits or the wasp sect), yet when the angel brigade arrives, the strategists start talking about how the Spirit Empire wants to employ/use flying spirit masters to gain an advantage; excuse me, but they were already employing tons of flying spirit masters so this discussion doesn't make sense. They also character assassinated Bibi Dong, the main antagonist. They initially built her up as a powerful and collected rival, but in the subsequent fights, she asks like a deranged and insane stock villain even using the classic "this is impossible" line. Also, whenever they fight, despite them stating that she's equal to a rank 99 limit Douluo, she is the one that keeps getting injured while Tang San miraculously only gets "tired" and and only needs rest before jumping right back in. Overall, the war arc is just a huge mess, which I will talk more about in the adaptation section. Finally, while the war arc was okay, my engagement fell as they boosted the MC to ridiculous levels while nerfing the enemies and breaking pre-established rules of the world.

---Finale (mostly Director's Cut)---
The finale itself has huge problems. The main focus, starting with the seagod arc to the war arc, started to shift away from narrative consistancy and adaptation of the novel to a more visual effects appeal. Alot of the fight started to be less tactical and more visual effects/wow-factor heavy. This ballooned into a kind of narrative disaster by the finale. The original finale, at 90 minutes, had many problems, which the subsequent Director's Cut release tried to fix. However, despite the two different releases, there are still plenty of narrative problems with too much focus on visual grandeur. The narrative presentation is very disjointed, feeling very choppy as they rush the ending. The finale feels disconnected from EP260 which originally preceeded it, because they back track a bit. The director's cut (at 120 minutes) tried, but failed to fix many of the original problems with the finale, but it feels like a greater disjointed mess because they simply spliced in extra scenes. Overall feeling of the finale is: an unfulfilling ending and narrative mess.

Overall/Final Thoughts
This adapatation can be split into two distinct arcs based on the age of the main character, his childhood years and his young adult years. The first 140 or so episodes could be considered part of the "childhood years" where the main focus is on team work, and defined by the general goals of growing up and growing stronger. The rest of the donghua has a very concrete goal, defeating/destroying Spirit Hall, where things start to turn more forced and illogical, especially the forced powerups in order to level the playing field for the main cast against the antagonists who have lived decades longer. Many "established" rules also start to get broken in order to create more drama/tension and raise the stakes for the war. However, from an overall perspective, the donghua is still enjoyable and worth recommending to those new to the genre.

Score: 7 -> 5; Overall: 6

Adaptation (GUARENTEED to contains spoilers for novel comparison):

This is too long to give an accurate score; instead I'll describe some general and list specific plot changes that I noticed while watching the series. Also note, I don't remember the final parts (Sea God Island and War Arc) as well as the earlier parts of the novel.

TLDR: This adaptation of Douluo Dalu or Soul Land is quite accurate to the novel. The most obvious and significant change is plot shuffling, where they move certain plot elements and group them together; most of these changes are done for more concise storytelling, so that certain world building details are presented together instead of in a scattered manner, but it does also hurt when it when they push back exposition for some less important characters. As for the plot progression, it follows the novel, though it starts to get more rushed at the end of the donghua, cutting or altering many of the finer details. Other changes from the novel include increased focus on Tang San (pushing back backstory of other characters) and a greater focus on action (less focus on the nuanced emotional/character/relationship development). The shift in focus in the story also drags it down because the plot no longer progresses naturally. The original goals (getting stronger) were general, but as the goal became to fight against the Spirit Empire, the powerups to "level the playing field" became too obvious and felt forced, leading to degradation in quality (fights were still good and enjoyable though).

The Douluo Dalu or Soul Land adaptation comes with all the typical adaptation changes. The biggest change is plot shuffling, which acts as a double-edged sword, both helping and hurting the plot development in this donghua adaptation. Many of these changes helped the overall plot development, especially earlier on: revelations surrounding Tang San's family's grievences are hinted at much earlier, consolidating some of the explanations (like regarding blacksmithing) into one continuous exposition rather than scattering it; all of these help the plot be more concise and engaging. However, on the flip side, some exposition regarding less important characters (not Tang San) is pushed back, so much so that certain developments don't make much sense; for example, Da Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing's background and fiance status should have been explained during the spirit arena competition along with the origins of their spirit fusion ability, yet this gets pushed WAY back to when they meet their older siblings, and Ning Rongrong's spirit limitations are not explained at all until later, which may confuse others regarding why she was so elated she kissed Tang San when her spirit evolved from 7 levels to 9 levels.

The adaptation also likes to play fast and loose with some of the rules that were in the novel or change them outright. Examples of this include the ability to fly, which was considered VERY rare in the novel: only those who had beast spirits and had spirit ring abilities that allowed flight usually had it; this is also why Oscar's third spirit ring ability is so OP (not to mention the time limit seems to be forgotten during later parts). Modification of Ocsar's 6th spirit ability is another example: he can now use his personal rings AND everything from the copy, INCLUDING spirit avatar and domains, instead of the limit up to 6th spirit ring of the copy and NONE of his abilites; others can also use the mirror sausage when it was originally limited only to him. Tang San can be seen using dual domains and spirits together when the novel explicitly states he cannot, because spirits can only be summoned one at a time and domains are linked to individual spirits; also, even though Tang San can be explicitly seen using both spirits and domains at the same time, other times he seems like he is unable to use both together because that's "now" how the rules of the world work.

Censorship of gore/killing/murder is also a big change, especially in the earlier parts. When the main cast first killed in the underground spirit arena, the donghua described it as only crippling the opponents when it was an explicit killing in the novel. The Slaughter City arc was also completely butchered; it was supposed to be full of slaughter, but most of the cooler parts described in the novel were just told to us rather than shown.

Qian Ren Xue, the one with the Angel Spirit, gets quite a bit of development and focus in the donghua, especially during her final ascension trial. She is clearly a favorite by the adaptation team, and thus she did not get quite the same ending that she had in the novel. They changed her final ascension trials to combat with the actual people who symbolized "inner demons" that she had to overcome rather than illusory replicas in the novel. These modified ascension trials, and attempts to link her current predicament/grudges with past ones tried to paint her more as a victim of cicumstance rather than personal flaws. This attempt to clean her up and present her as a victim and paragon of virtue really rubbed me the wrong way. Also, Qian RenXue's romantic subplot with Tang San was removed.

Bibi Dong feels like she has been both nerfed and character assassinated into oblivion so she can be both the main antagonist and a sandbag for Tang San. For her powerlevel, she has dual spirits, good rings, was an god inheritee (not really explained well in donghua), and supposedly a rank 99 Title Douluo, yet she keeps getting crushed in every fight by Tang San during the war; Tang San apparently only gets exhausted and just needs "sleep". It makes no sense. Bibi Dong's character and development were also greatly hindered due to plot shuffling. In order to keep Bibi Dong relevant and explain her progress alongside the main characters, short clips of her actions were spread throughout many episodes instead of consolidated so we could get a concrete picture. The finale (at least the Director's Cut re-release), tries to consolidate all this information, with Bibi Dong's final confession, but it did not feel as impactful as it did in the novel. This is because Bibi Dong's final confession was basically cut in half, focusing more on her regret and referenced her suffering, but did not talk about her actual sufferings (her rape is left heavily implied via imagery rather than told explicitly), and why she took each of her actions (like why she didn't go after Xiao Gang [her love], why she destroyed the Blue Lighting Tyrant Dragon Clan, or what her goals in the war were). Then when it comes to her character, she was initially presented as a calm, collected, and powerful individual, yet she exhibits petty "villainous" behaviour (like cliche villains), like having the "evil laugh" or spouting lines like "This is impossible" when her attacks don't work. Her character is molded to fit whatever makes Tang San look good in their confrontations.

---War Arc---
The war arc is great when it comes to visuals and it featured a return of many familiar faces as extras. However, due to the shift from solo/group battles to war with many more (hundreds of thousands, though that number is not animated), the pre-established rules of how spirit masters fight/operate is greatly changed. All these rules are broken in order to create a more visually spectacular display, but then "re-applied" because they need it to return back to being an adaptation. In addition, despite it being a war, the personal fights of the Shrek 7 are the focus instead of the war, often having the MC plot armoring his way through things. The focus on Tang San also overdramatized everything, making the fights all hinge on him and eliminating the more tactical/strategic plot from the novel.

There is focus on the importance of the "Angel Battalion" joining the battle because of their flight ability, but this importance has been diluted since so many others, like the wasp and sword sects (in addition to all Title Douluo), can now fly unlike how it was in the novel. The Angel Battalion was supposed to be the only pure flying battalion that Oscar's sausages were supposed to help counter (because they gave anyone who ate them the ability to fly).

This is a personal pet-peeve of mine, but the Buddha Lotus hidden weapon got turned into a nuke, because why not right? It is suppposed to be a MECHANICAL type hidden weapon that explodes releasing many blades. Kind of annoying they just turned it into a bomb. It should have exploded similar to the animation in the first(?) opening montage. This unfortunately followed the trend of showing off the "hidden weapons" and using them as guns/nukes of this world.
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Then, in Tang San's final ascension trial, they really rushed them and changed the order (the order is really a nitpick though). First, the trial was announced to be testing his 8 virtues as opposed to the 7 base sins because of his extra spirit bone; it was not a choice to evolve them all, it was required for his ascension. The order was supposed to be in the reverse in which he obtained them (not really that important), and he was supposed to grow noticible weaker as each trial progressed, because the fusion with spirit bones would noticible strengthen him (and the reverse would be true too). The trial involving lust was also supposed to involve Qian RenXue and Nana, both of whom's romantic subplots with Tang San were removed to preserve the single line romance that was present. Overall rushed, but still acceptable.

---Finale (I watched only Director's Cut, not the original)---
The finale is super rushed, like I said previously, and it has plenty of narrative/adaptation problems. They "finally" kill of members of Tang San's group (some of whom weren't supposed to die), but only to raise the stakes. And they really messed up some of the presentation for when Tang San was killed: he was winning against Qian RenXue and when she teamed up with Bibi Dong, they barely won, both almost being killed by having their divine souls severely damaged and thus basically bluffing to force the other side back. Now it doesn't look like either got seriously injured and makes for a huge narrative plot hole. They also cut out much of the narrative explanations from the novel about the ressurection and other details, doing a short-on-detail rewrite in order to rush world building elements so they could present more visual effect heavy ("epic") final battle. Overall a very poor adaptation of the finale.
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Additional List of Specific/Nitpick Changes:
-Some of the hidden weapons aren't very stealthy, with some of the designs being "cool" rather than practical.
-Spirit Avatars were supposed to be physical transformations, not illusory
-The "death's invite" is supposed to be a hidden weapon in the shape of a needle made purely of condensed poison, which melts into the body of the target, with no other forms and not reuseable like the show suggests.
-Blue Tyrant Lightning Dragon clan's unique transformation feature was excluded (in the novel it was each 10 ranks they could transform an additional body part, which is different from most beast spirits which require rank 70+ for a FULL avatar transformation.
-Tang San's Trident, when he lost it, was smack dab in the middle of the fortress, unlike at the base, which would have made more sense if retrieving it. They made it so he somehow solo'd everyone with his plot armor and forced powerup in order to make it seem more epic. It is illogical that he was able to retrieve it given where it was.

Final Thoughts: Best part of the donghua in my opinion is the beginning up to the end of the spirit competition arc (EP108-ish); after that, while the story was still good, it was not as exciting because of: excessive censorship (Slaughter City Arc), dragged things out in the intense training (Sea God Island Arcs), or too much "plot armor" (things felt to convienent unlike the early days where there were at least reasonable explanations). The later parts also felt more like a one-man show (Tang San focus), unlike the earlier parts where the team as a whole contributed more evenly. Still enjoyable overall, but not as engaging as time passed on. Finally, the ending was really rushed.

Adaptation Score (how faithful to source): 7 -> 4
[Started as a 7 but the numerous changes and rushing towards the end and downgraded it to a 4.]

This donghua is an adaptation of a novel, and has a manhua adaptation as well. While I have not read the novel, I did a quick skim of the manhua adaptation to get a feel of the story. I will make some comments on what I felt were the most obvious changes in the donghua adaptation.

Plot Summary: Ren XiaoXu, our MC, is a refugee class person, living outside the walled enclaves in a post-apocalyptic dystopian society. The harsh lives that he and his brother lead causes him to strive to enter the city as an actual citizen. Toward this goal, he works hard to earn ... money and master his supernatural power/system to strengthen himself while protecting himself and his family. Follow Ren XiaoSu as he navigates this world and slowly strengthens himself with his supernatural power/system.

The First Order is set in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world, where around 200 years have passed since the fall of the greater civilization. We follow Ren XiaoSu, our MC, in his journey to navigate the world while protecting his family and friends and learning about his "superpower". Yes, there are a small percentage of people who have awakened a kind of supernatural power that cannot be explained with "science". The story in this first season depicts Ren XiaoSu as he starts to navigate his superpower; his superpower resembles the classic system or game quest system, which is used to great or comedic effect. We as viewers are much like the MC in that we know very little about the world, so we learn about the world through him as well. The plot presentation is great this way, as the info dumping that we usually see in cultivation donghua is not here; this makes the story easy to follow and understand.

Starting episode 4, there are some ending segments that "talk" to the viewers, kind of like a Q&A that helps flesh out the world a bit without being too much of an info dump; it is a nice touch to help out the world/history building in this donghua.

Each of the important characters are unique in their own way. The MC is a survivalist and displays the necessary skills and knowledge that is consistent with what his background suggests. The others have their own quirks or characteristics that define them, making them easy to identify and/or relate to. I think most of the important mainstay characters have been introduced in this season, though that remains to be seen, given the ending. The characters give much life to this donghua.

The animation for The First Order is actually pretty high quality. The choreography of fights is good, the fluidity of the normal character movements is high, and the facial expressions are nice. The character models are also detailed and realistic and the environments and beasts look great. The animation quality for this work so far is top notch.

This donghua is highly enjoyable, it blends many different things together that may not seem compatible in a way that feels natural and not cliche. The comedy is great, though may not be as good if you don't understand Chinese, the characters are fun and quirky, the environments/animation and world are lively and interesting. While I am not a fan of "system" stories, the "system" in this story doesn't feel out of place or like plot armor. If you like post-apocalyptic setting type stories where there is a mix of intrigue and comedy, this is a highly recommended watch.

Score: 8/10

Adaptation Remarks:
The First Order is set in a post-apocalyptic, post-modern "Earth" so we can recognize some of the "lost" technologies and aesthetic. However, since it is set in a post-apocolyptic setting, there are some rather "unclean" or themes and displays. In the manhua, and likely the novel as well, we get to see some of the more degenerate aspects of the post-apocalyptic era. These things have been cleaned up for this donghua, likely to make it more age-appropriate for the younger target audiences. The comedy that I saw in the donghua is mostly consistent with what I saw in the manhua adaptation. I enjoyed the comedy, as it has gags, plays on common idioms, and

In regards to more specific and obvious changes, depiction of age of the characters and their behaviors/world have been changed. The most obvious one is regarding XiaoYu, who is depicted as much older than her model suggests. In the manhua, Ren XiaoSu, the MC is 15-16 years old, and XiaoYu is supposedly early to mid-20's which is why she just "considers him a little brother" during that comedic moment in the first or second episode. Xiao Yu is also an smoker and she is implied have engaged in some questionable activities to get by, considering she is a single woman in a harsh post-apocalyptic society who lives alone. This clean up of her image makes the show more age-appropriate for younger audiences and promotes her to potential romantic interest, despite what the show depicts for now, which could win over some fans. It also causes some of the dissonance that happened when originally discussing the recruitment of XiaoYu into their "family".

Overall though, I'd say this is a great adaptation so far of this work. It is fun, quirky, and delivers this story well.

This donghua is an adaptation of a novel of the same name. I have read the novel, so I will give an adaptation review in addition to a review of the donghua as an independent work.

Plot Summary: Tang San, an outer sect disciple, violated the rules of the Tang Sect and thus was pursued as a traitor. In his final moments, he reveals that the techniques and designs he stole, allowed him to recreate the technologically lost legendary weapons weapons of the Tang Sect. These weapons would be his last gift to the Tang Sect, as he knows his treasonous actions would not be forgiven. ... Since he was an orphan raised by the sect, he returns everything, including his life to back to the sect (via suicide as atonement). After this, he reincarnates up in the Douluo Continent (Dalu), cultivating the skills he learned from the Tang Sect and slowly learning about this world and applying his previous life knowledge to strengthen himself while learning about this new world and beginning a new life.

The plot for this season is pretty simple. Tang San reincarnated into this new Douluo Dalu world; we have a brief look at this previous life before jumping to Tang San at age 6 in the new world. We get a bit of infodumping in the earlier episodes, but they are important in quickly establishing the world. Considering this donghua is now finished with 263 episodes, this S1 (first 26 episodes) barely scratches the surface, covering from when Tang San starts "elementary school" then time skips to when he is 12 and starts to attend an advanced academy, Shrek Academy. With the aid of some infodumping, we get a decently fleshed out world, giving us a basic understand of how this world works. The story does contain romance, and given the makeup of the main cast, the pairings are obvious; it can feel a bit overdone as there are cringy/sappy romance moments sprinkled throughout. The atmosphere of the world is quite consistant, with the only weird portion being the spirit arena (colleseum part) as the flamboyant design felt out of place.

Tang San is the obvious main character, but other than him most of the core main cast has been introduced. They all have different/unique spirit and abilities. The core cast is shown to be the seven monsters of Shrek academy; all of them have unique personalities, backgrounds, and quirks. The mentors have been (mostly) introduced as well, making the overall cast well-rounded. At the very end, the implied antagonist group gets a very very short intro to finish off the season with a cliffhanger to the rest of the story.

The animation and designs of this donghua are quite good; they are dated (clearly as this was released back in 2018 and it is now 2023), but they still hold up in 2023. Despite being released in 2018, the animations are better than the "trash tier" donghua being currently released. Most of the character designs are unique, which make each character easily identifiable. The world is designed to be a medieval-esque/ancient world type world. The environments, presentation of spirits, spirit rings and beasts are all done well. The movement can sometimes be a bit stiff, with action scenes suffering the most due to the age of the donghua (especially the all-out-assault with hidden weapons), but the quality is still considered quite high. One complaint I have regarding the animation is that they overuse the "transformation" or spirit release scenes. Hopefully, they will tone those down since it can get repetitive.

On another note, the architecture of this medieval-esque world is mostly consistant with one sole exception, the spirit arena. The colloseum type arena that was shown was the only immersion breaking aspect of the overall world. It felt super modern, with the lights, "tv screens", and floating announcer platform (reminencent of virtual/VR concert stages); this felt out of place in comparison to the rest of the world, but since it had little focus, it wasn't too bad.

I cannot review Soul Land without talking about the embedded advertisements. There are commercials in each episode, usually one or two, with some labeled and others not. Luckily, the advertisements are mostly for the same products so your brain can tune them out after a while, but they might confuse some viewers the first time they show up. Also, there is product placement within the episodes themselves, which, for now, are not very immersion breaking, but they are still quite noticeable.

The Soul Land S1 is a pretty good introduction into the Soul Land world. It does a good job explaining the basics of the world, building up the characters, and staging plot for the continuation of the story. There is some info dumps early on which can get a bit overwhelming, and there are some product placements within the donghua which can be immersion breaking. However, despite these flaws, this donghua's S1 is good, featuring some decent world building, action and plot. If you like chinese cultivation stories (with a rather unique cultivation method), this certainly deserves a watch. Bonus is that this donghua is a completed (one of the first) so in 2023 and beyond, you can watch this from start to finish with no waiting.

Adaptation Review:

This adaptation felt very close the the original novel, though it didn't follow the plotline 1:1. The most obvious general change has been a bit of plot shuffling around to better build up the world in earlier episodes. The first example of this is the blacksmithing portion: they originally introduced some of it before Tang San left the village to attend the school, but here they consolidated and presented it during his "job-seeking" where they did some flashbacks that showed his father teaching the technique to him. I have to say this was pretty good, since the information is more concentrated and concise (it was presented in a more fragmented way in the novel).

One point of obvious confusion is that Tang San appears to use both his spirits at the same time, when he was fighting the human-faced man-eating spider, since it appeared like he trapped the spider with his blue-spirit grass before summoning his hammer to strike it; this was something that was explicitly stated to be impossible in the novel.

In the adaptation, they also seem to reference Tang San's previous life alot, bringing it up when explaining his hidden weapons/cuiltivation methods, and especially when he has any mental struggles. This is a bit different from the novel, where this plot point was mentioned only offhandedly.

Overall, the adaptation was quite faithful to the original work, it covers roughly 1.5 to 2 arcs of the original novel: the childhood all the way to the beginning of Shrek Academy. The romance is a bit overdone, but still a great watch.

Adaptation Score (how faithful to the source): 8/10