I'll be honest: this is my first experience with Chinese 3D animation. I decided at some point in some day of some month of some year to diversify my repertoire and see what people from the country of Winnie the Pooh can create. Especially as I have not had much exposure to Chinese pop culture in my life, at least not to the same extent as Japanese pop culture. Here, of course, we are not counting creations i.e. the poor remake of Mulan from Disney or the concentration camps for Uighurs. So how did Fanren Xiu Xian Chuan fare after that huge number of reviews on MAL, four in number while writing this in 2024, of A Record of a Mortal Journey to Immortality? It was just meh. Like a big MEH.

STORY 5/10

Let's start with the story: a poor kid joins the minor sect (that doesn't sound at all like an introduction to a psychological horror film with a theme of reliving trauma) and so soon begins his story towards immortality, surviving along the way... moderately interesting adventures. Let's start with the most important thing: the story is boring and seems to be going nowhere for most of this season. In the sense, we know that the main character wants to achieve immortality, so along the way he walks into a parade of various bad guys, defeats them, occasionally acquires some piece of equipment from them or another superpower, which makes him stronger, and that's about it. Only towards the literal end do we get some interesting plot expansion and foreshadowing of some interesting conflict. Before that, the first half of the show with the Wolf Gang resembles a half-baked side quest from Fallout: New Vegas that you want to complete mainly for the extra EXP. And this sentence is a great insult to NV, because at least there was something worth remembering from Goodsprings. The conflict itself is just resolved crudely, without any life. Overall, the whole world in this donghua seems lifeless and it's not about the graphics, we'll get to that part later.

Some people in the reviews praised this work for some philosophical message, and it made me spit on my monitor laughing as I was drinking tea. There is as much depth here as in a dried up puddle. To be clear: not every story has to have a profound message. Sometimes an idiotic action movie is just what our monkey brain needs after a hard day's work. But saying that Fanren Xiu Xian Chuan's first season has some deep message is like saying that 365 Days is the pinnacle of Polish romantic cinema without having seen any Polish film before.

I complain about the plot all the time, but I'd be lying if I said it was something entirely bad. It does have some interesting moments, I particularly liked showing that life and the system aren’t always fair, even when you work very hard. It wasn't anything special, but it was nice to see. And as I said: the ending shows some seeds of an interesting conflict, but I was simply bored on the whole.

GRAPHICS 7/10

The universe likes balance, so it's time for me to praise this ONA for something. The 3D graphics look just fine. It's not some work of art, but the particle effects and the whole thing looks good, it certainly could have been worse. The only time it really looks bad is when the camera zooms in on a character's eyes, it then looks like someone is putting their hand up their arse to use them as a puppet. It is also lazy to use real-world photos or video, but this is rare enough that complaining about it starts to border on being petty.

What I must commend, however, are the fights. These look genuinely good, even if they sometimes resemble PS3 cutscenes. And it was a nice change seeing completely fluid combat, from the usual turn-based combat of most anime. The fights themselves have nice choreography, the characters fly coolly, continuing the glorious Chinese tradition of being suspended from ropes, varied with various magical abilities and weapons, in that respect it's the full package.

CHARACTERS 3/10

Know what? The plot really doesn't have to be anything particularly good or deep. Sometimes it's enough for the characters to be easy to like and memorable. Well, you guessed it from the rating that A Record of a Mortal Journey to Immortality contains some really 'fascinating' characters to get to know.

I'm really trying to recall any characterisations of the main character. Han Li is such a white piece of paper that if the number of character elements were converted to the amount of fat in the body he would be bloody anorexic. If the same process was applied to the rest of the cast we would be left with a skeleton crew.

Authentically I am able to say more about Bell from Danmachi, Kirito from SAO, heck, even the main character of OniAi than I can about Li Han. I've seen pieces of titanium that were less stiff than the protagonist of this series. As for the rest of the characters: by some miracle it is even worse. Apart from the characters from the first half, no one is worth remembering, and the interesting ones just disappear after the first half. After that, it's only the NPCs who are defined by one trait, and you can consider a character with two traits as a luxury.

The antagonists, on the other hand, are so one-dimensionally evil that it is an insult to one dimension. Some of them aren't even fun to watch lose. Literally the one enemy Li Han fought against was somehow interesting. And yes, you guessed it, he was only in the first half.

MUSIC 7/10

About the music I have the least to say, but it is good. So much, no one track is memorable, but it adds the right attitude and is generally nice to listen to.

AVERAGE SCORE: 5,5

So what can I say more about Fanren Xiu Xian Chuan? It was just so plain. You can watch it, but you'll be asking yourself every now and then during the viewing, like me, why you're not watching the Spy x Family cinema film or catching up on the latest episodes of Attack on Titan instead of watching this slugfest. It isn’t the worst, but it’s so mediocre I’m gonna remember this only as my first attempt at Chinese animation. Of course, I’m gonna see what’s happening in the next seasons, hoping it’ll get better. But for now I’m feeling like it was a waste of time. Because with a really bad product I could at least remember how bad it was. And that will fall out of my head as soon as I watch something really good.