On The Edge

Zhen Dao Ge explores the Chinese idiom "When you seek revenge dig two graves". H He Fangzhi, the son of a government official tries to seek revenge for the massacre of his entire family 13 years ago. His journey begins at his former servant's bar in the Gobi desert where he kills everyone involved. Story: 6/10 The story has a lot of promise, it sets the story by showing glimpse of He Fangzhi's past and memories from his past instead of dishing it out in the beginning. We see the beginning of his journey at the bar in the Gobi desert. The story is fairly interesting but thefight scenes are a bit boring because He Fangzhi struggles for 5min and then at the end of the fight he kills his enemies and moves on to the next. Art & Sound: 7/10 The art style and animation during fights is very close to Kengan Ashura. It's not the prettiest or detailed but it does hold well in fast paced action as does the art style in kengan Ashura. However, it does make viewers shy away from this series. The only memorable sound related aspect in this series was the ending song which was played throughout the sad moments of the series. It is soft yet resilient with the tone of this story. Character: 7/10 Character design wasn't too bad. The characters fighting against He Fangzhi were mysterious to deepen the significance of his revenge all to build up and come crashing down as he comes to reality with his past. The characters that He Fangzhi leaves behind on his path of revenge also give a sense of growth as we also question the possibility of history repeating itself and a never ending spiral of revenge to ensue in season 2. Overall: 7/10 It's a pretty decent watch. The characters left a bit to be desired in terms of background and depth of personality instead of killing them and they reveal hints.

.. I'm guessing this donghua flew over people's heads?? How is this below a 7, when other 3D garbage are rated so high. It should be reversed, the scores. The setting is jianghu in one of its most classic forms. Not Jin Yong, not modern day pretty boy jianghu bs. Classic jianghu setting means: salt shortages, corrupt officials, floods, starving locals. This reference probably flew over people's heads. Jianghu: Law and order does not exist in this world, that means people make the law. The jungle. The 'hood'. The theme and code of jianghu, probably also flyingover people's heads, is that in a lawless world, society operates through: bonds, loyalty admist an environment of disloyalties, everybody following their own morals, the concept that larger morals move larger movement of people, whether you can find courage amidst a world which punishes courage, and of course, revenge. Almost all these themes are touched upon, which was fantastic, beautifully done. The story is a revenge story, because in jianghu, blood debts must be repaid by blood. that's the vicious cycle of chaos which keeps jianghu in balance. Again: loyalty, bonds, blood debt, the code of revenge, it wove so well with(or against) the main characters feelings and morals. Is the main character a hero? This show beautifully shows you that he's not He's chasing blood debt to be repaid, that's jianghu. Did this fly over people's heads? I wonder if people had trouble identifying who owes him a blood debt and who doesn't? Maybe they were thinking like "oh, who does he FEEL like killing"? Maybe your typical shonen character operates that way, but that's not how blood debt works. The poetry is beautiful, the writing is emotionally deep, but maybe this flew over people's heads too. Some translations may be better than others is my guess. - "A river splits in two, one clean stream and one muddy stream, would the two rivers ever find each other again?" Then this whole shocking scene is explained later but I can't help but feel people can't figure this one out either. Maybe I over enjoyed this due to my knowledge of jianghu, or language barrier. I wish I could share why I enjoyed it so much. There's three seasons now. The first season is my favorite. Anyway, art style and audio are poor. But animation, writing, poetry, and heart makes up for it.