Recommended
This donghua is an adaptation of a novel. I will review it both as an independent work and as an adaptation; however, I have not done a serious read of the novel, but I have read the manhua (which is an adaptation very closly following the original novel), so I will do some manhua comparisons as opposed to novel comparisons. General Plot: During a training exercise, Wang Sheng (our MC) meets an unusual situation and is isekaied to an ancient cultivation world with his deployment equipment. He lands in a sticky situation, forced to kill an assailant and is then introduced to the world of cultivation.So begins Wang Sheng's integration into the cultivation world and journey as a cultivator in this new world.
The premise of this donghua is certainly interesting. There are currently quite a few modern world to cultivation world isekais available as of the date of this review, but there are few that are like this where the MC and what he has access to are grounded in reality. Wang Sheng has a specific inventory amount and acts like normal soldier or human would. So I think this donghua deserves a watch.
However, while the premise is good, there are some progression and plot problems that hold it back. The first half of the donghua had a relatively consistent story and was quite good, but the second half was super contrived. They "retconned" a villain death (Dai Si) to bring him back as the final villain/bad guy. They had some very unnecessary romantic drama between his enemies (that attempts to shoehorn in a reason of A Qi, the assassin into his harem), even the final fight seems very forced, between a frienemy (Song Ming). The ending even has some plot armor friend and savior that saves both Wang Sheng and Song Ming so they live to fight another day (be in the next season).
The characters and portrayals are a bit messy and inconsistent. First, Wang Sheng is shown as a battle hardened soldier who does what it takes to survive, but by the end, he's forgiving to his enemies, trying to play the "good guy" and help his enemies survive, even though they are hell-bent on killing him (much different from what we see in the opening). The blue-haired loli disciple is fine as an in-universe narrator given form, but some of her antics are really annoying; they use her as a kind of comedic relief. There is also that foodie friend who has food-gasms. This was totally out-of-place and weird since this is not a comedy donghua.
The animation quality, character designs, and action choreography is very high quality. The designs are clearly taken from the manhua which is a good call (and I really like those designs). All of it is pleasing and feels fluid. The action perfectly blends the modern weaponry and fights with the "ancient swords and cultivation" style fights. The only problem I have is that they try to shoehorn in fights whenever they can, the reason explained in the next paragraph of my review. They could have reduced or removed some, like that part when he simulates a fight in his mind in EP3 or so.
This is my own analysis so feel free to skip, but I think this donghua was too ambitious in what it attempted to do. This donghua adaptation, from my research, was created as a competitor to either Soul Land or BTTH, the giants of Tencent, and aired in the same time slot. Because of this, they crammed in too many fights, and tried to shoehorn in romance drama, harem members, comedy, epic villain plots all into a short 16 episode. This causes most of the problems I mentioned in the above part of the review.
Despite all of these problems, I'd say this donghua is still an enjoyable watch.
Regarding this donghua as an adaptation:
Note: I will split my review of this donghua as an adaptation in to two parts, the review of the first half and the review of the second half.
The first half of the Yuan Long donghua is a pretty close to the original story. There are changes of course, as is expected by any adaptation, but it is not too much. They added characters like Song Ming (the childhood friend of Song Yan), blue haired loli disciple (made the in-universe narrator), and brought forward characters like Ah Qi (assassin girl), and removed others (Mei'er who now first appears in S3). They did do some shuffling of the plot but there aren't any especially large changes.
First Half Adaptation Score: 7/10
The second half of the Yuan Long donghua is not as close of an adaptation as the first half, as there are a plethora of changes. While the MC, Wang Sheng making an enemy of all the major clans and getting chased into the "Thousand Danger Forest/Area" is the same, much of the interactions and characters are not.
Second Half Adaptation Score: 4/10
If we were to talk about the changes to the story, they are numerous. My impression of Yuan Long was that Wang Sheng, a battle-hardened, adaptable, and educated Spec Ops soldier gets isekaied into an ancient/cultivation world and despite not initially having any cultivation, is able to stand his ground using both modern military tactics, knowledge of the modern world and tech, understanding of "political power balance", and the "surprise factor" of his equipment to hold his own as he builds his cultivation base. This season should cover the story up until he reaches Wuyou City, where he starts to seriously get into cultivation. Before that, because he killed Dai Huan (that one guy he killed at the beginning), and because he was able to quickly repair his spirit and cultivate, he was an anomaly in the world, making him both a valuable ally and a potential threat to the powers in the world, this led to his being chased and eventually forced to flee to Wuyou City.
The donghua eliminated the entire business and self-sustainability portion of the plot, where the MC embarks on business as he tries to gather resources to cultivate after being forced out of the Song Clan because of his inability to cultivate. This leads to him selling stuff like sugar and refined salt to make money for cultivation resources and allows him to come into contact with Mei'er (a character whose appearance got pushed to S3 and role got changed). The blue-haired loli becomes his guide to the world, instead of him slowly gathering information and adapting to circumstances as a mature individual integrating into a society would.
The donghua also invented tons of characters like Song Ming, and all the young leaders from the 5 families just to kill them off and create some contrived romance and shoehorn A Qi (the beautiful assassin) to join the Wang Sheng's side (and harem). Dai Si was originally a nobody that was used to showcase that modern weapons were a threat to cultivators, though the threat decreased as one's cultivation went up, but they "retconned" his death to bring him back as a main antagonist. The blue-haired loli was also created to be an in-universe narrator, which is fine, but her character is so childish it hurts. The comedy can be quite immersion breaking, since they are quite random and don't really fit with the overall theme and atmosphere of the donghua.
TLDR, the first half was a pretty reasonable adaptation, but the second half really goes off the rails
Overall adaptation score based on manhua comparison (how faithful to the source): 5/10.
Note: this is based mostly on the manhua which I believe follows the novel much more closely than than the donghua, at least in the earlier parts.
