God of Desolation · review
Tian Huang Recap (Mild Spoilers) Tian Huang is a cultivation xianxia donghua that follows Ji Xiaofa, a once promising young cultivator Jishui village and the son of the village head, It all went wrong when Xiaofa simped for a girl and gave his cultivation base (wheel of life) to the girl and crippling himself as a result; He ended up being used and discarded stooping down to the village's cripple. Young cultivators from Jishui village are scouted by the kingdom to help fight against beasts and blood races. Fed up with the treatment of his son, XIaofa's father went in search for medicine to re-establishhis son's wheel of life but goes missing instead all the while Grandpa Hu gave a mysterious relic that helped re-establish XIaofa's cultivation. XIaofa's journey now steered into finding his father and reuniting with his friends as well as destroying enemies.
Story: 4/10
Tian Huang is basically every other cultivation donghua about a main character who used to be the rising star but turned into trash and after a string of events gains an unfair progression in cultivation. Except, the same main character makes some very questionable decisions that lead to illogical outcomes and a lot of repetitive content. We see Xiaofa constantly fighting enemies that underestimate him, random enemies that keep coming back to him after losing, power abuse of elders and betrayals. There are some donghua that have this style of writing but there's always a twist to at least differentiate it from being the same weak plot. The story is so predictable that you don't even need to watch half the episodes to know what happens; The episodes are full of meaningless encounters with smallfry enemies or some random examination that happens once every three years or some bs like that.
Art & Sound: 5/10
At this point, Ruo Hong Culture are known to re-use visual and audio assets in their projects to save time on character designs and set design. Nothing wrong with preserving budget but they don't improve on quality with the same assets they've used for years and the character rigging is rough as ever.
Character: 4/10
Xiaofa is a sheltered and spoiled main character who barely cultivates and is always finding trouble for himself with his weak cultivation. His character is obnoxious and unbearable to watch because of his lazy, over optimistic outlook. The female characters with love interest with him feel superficial and come out of nowhere especially Xiao Douya who has barely any background with Xiaofa in the beginning. His male friends basically exist in the series to suck up to the main character at every encounter.
Enjoyment & Overall: 5/10
Not a good show. Too predictable and the characters exist to make MC look better. MCs cultivation isn't that special, we still aren't introduced to his mysterious power that the fox beast king mentions earlier with the bird beast king. So much unconcluded details that just doesn't add up despite the first season ending.