Xing Hai Qishi

In the distant galaxy, on a rogue wild star are 2 transcendent beings; one fights to corrupt the galaxy and the other fights to seal the corruption. Fortunately, the corrupted King of Abyss/hell is sealed in the wild star however, with time the seal will eventually deteriorate; as such the sentient being sends shards of his power into black crystals around the galaxy for descendants to pick up where he left off. Coincidentally, a shard hits earth and humanity studies its origins and capabilities, they plan to send a scout team to the wild star and set up interplanetary colonies on the wild star thusbeginning the new federation. Knights on Debris follows Chen Mo, a Chinese scientist who becomes a vessel of the sentient beings dormant powers. He is involved in the operation to scout the wild star; However, things go south when the wormhole his team takes ends up delaying their arrival by 150 years - by this point humanity has already established diplomatic relations on the wild star and become the new federation but it is already too late since humanity on the wild star has been overrun by the abyss and the land is barren. Chen Mo is the only human on the wild star with his robot companions, however things take a turn for the worst when Thorne, a superhuman race are sent to the wild star to rescue a runaway princess. Will they be able to settle interactions peacefully or will the abyss shatter all life? Story: 7/10 The story is set in a near future world where space exploration has become possible and where species wage war in space. The time-skip aspect caught me off guard and was an interesting hook to the beginning. In the beginning, we are shown little segments of Chen Mo's life spread across 230 days as he tries to repair his aircraft. This is a pretty normal way to establish the world and introduce characters since its basically day-in-the-life routine. As Thorne slowly creeps into the story it becomes more complicated and mysterious since the robots have only heard rumors of this species; our suspicions of them being a ruthless species is somewhat true based on the first encounter with Chen Mo and Princess Kaleiti. However, as they suffer against the abyss organisms and struggle with loss, they eventually grow affection. All the while there is a sense of betrayal foreshadowing on the Thorne Kingdom's personnel. Art & Sound: 8/10 & 7/10 The visuals of this are amazing; it almost feels like a waste seeing this kind of art and animation quality on a smaller series on MAL. The character designs are pretty detailed and well informed based on the environment and storyline; the medieval knights armor in a future space kingdom reminds me of Aldnoah Zero's Mars Colony Mecha. Sounds were pretty normal, nothing notable in terms of theme music or Voice Actors. Character: 6/10 Character development felt conflicting for me since Chen Mo's robot companions kept getting violated just so Chen Mo and Princess Kaleiti would progress their connection; at this point in time I felt that Chen Mo's companions were humans just by how he treats them. The Thorne characters are pretty mysterious apart from where the series shows which Thorne character has affection when their love interest sacrifices themselves. Apart from that, the characters were very interesting and felt that they were crucial for the development of the story. Enjoyment & Overall: 7/10 Knights on Debris is a very entertaining series and it has some good conflict. The art style is very high quality and the character palette is small yet has some likeable and hittable characters from the beginning. This series definitely deserves some attention compared to the lower rated wuxia I've seen.