This week we are given a complete flash back episode so that we can see exactly how happy Ning, Yin and Zhao were before the Empire destroyed their home and so we can see how the child Empress lost her dad. The thing is, we already knew the three were happy before hand and that Zhao believes the sisters died in the attack and it kind of didn’t really matter about the previous King being killed because we could have surmised from the age of the current ruler that either someone was killed or an illness took out the previous one.
While it might be twenty minutes of essential narrative down time because none of what is shown here couldn’t have either been surmised from episode 1 or just ignored, it is actually kind of fun to watch. Then again, I’m left wondering why not just start with this and show the events after the attack in the order that they actually occurred. I doubt anything that amazing happened in the first episode that required this to be out of sequence.
I’m actually still enjoying this two episodes in, despite a lot of the issues this show has so far had with animation, pacing, and now narrative structure. The characters are pleasant enough and there’s enough going on in the story that my interest is being held. The alternative take on history is extremely fantasised so you might as well just assume this is fantasy, unless humans playing with water and fire magic was common in ancient China and I just missed the memo. So I’m sticking with this. That said, like a lot of anime I end up low key enjoying, I probably won’t recommend this unless it gets significantly better.
- Episode 1 – A Rough Fantasy With Some Potential
- Episode 2 – Not Entirely Convinced We Needed To See Any of This
- Episode 3 – The Plot Thickens
- Episode 4 – Rising Tension
- Episode 5 – Attack of the Poor Animation
- Episodes 6 + 7 – The Sword, The Confession, and the Betrayal
- Episodes 8 – 10 – Great Heights and Great Falls; It All comes With Ambition
- Episode 11 – Give In To Your Hate; Embrace the Darkness
- Episode 12 – Everybody Hurts Sometimes Even If You Want to Forget
- Episode 13 – The Small Victory and Loss Within a Greater Battle
Well, as someone proud of his Chinese heritage, I assure you…that this is probably all fantasy and there’s no memo you missed…
Anyway, I’m surprised you continied watching. I just gave up on episode one.
There’s definitely a quality issue with this one and yet I’m kind of interested in the story so I’ll probably see this one through, unless it becomes unbearably terrible.
I had been considering this anime, but as I am now at six shows (one more than my usual five) I’ll probably bingewatch this at some point if it proves to be at least entertaining enough to give it a go. So, I will read along and watch for the end verdict so to speak 😊😊
It isn’t one you need to jump into, that’s for sure. While I’m enjoying it just because of the genre, it still wouldn’t be high on my recommendations.