Huan Chong Shi

From awful, to bad, to fine, to actually being pretty cool at the end. That's my journey with this "from zero to hero" donghua. It's set in a world of "Soul Masters" who "tame" monsters, put them in their soul space and then use them in combat. The protagonist, and the viewer are thrown into a ruthless world of the survival of the fittest. Summoners fight each other for a place at the top by any means necessary. Luckily our main protagonist tames a very unique pet that allows him to persevere and thrive. The story is incredibly confusing due to the fact that theanime explains NOTHING. It's not about it being mysterious or whatever, it's just plain baffling. It's like the production was making the story up as they were making the episodes. New characters, factions, pets, past acquaintances, techniques and areas keep appearing out of nowhere and the anime make it's jarringly obvious that you're supposed to know who or what they are. But we don't! It feels like it's season 2 and I just missed an entire series before watching this. The most interesting part of the story by far happens at the very end, just to end the series at a cliffhanger. The animation takes some getting used to. Especially the pets. The main pet drove me nuts by how bad it looked. Especially whenever they tried to make it convey emotions but the rigid stuffed animal model wouldn't allow for it so it just looked awful. The characters are mostly completely forgettable. Every episode there is some incredibly, over the top, arrogant person who wants to beat the main character only to be put in their place. Aside from the opponents there is pretty much noone else to mention as they all suddenly appear only to be a plot device and then disappear as quickly. Most of this anime is just fighting and "how could someone like YOU defeat ME?!". It's not terrible. To it's credit, the world is pretty fascinating and there are a few exciting moments but mostly in the last few episodes. 6/10