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... EST. ⏎ How was the first episode? ⏎Nick Creamer ⏎ Rating: 2 ⏎ Xuan Yuan Sword Luminary is one of those shows that reminds me why I love contributing to the preview guide. Not because it's a great show that I wouldn't have discovered otherwise - Xuan Yuan is certainly not a great show, whatever else it is. But because it's such a strange show, a show whose successes and failures are so unlike what I'm used to. Xuan Yuan has narrative ambition and great animation highlights, and yet is in some ways one of the most amateurish productions I've seen in years. ⏎ The show's writing is its main failing, and also the main thing that makes this show interesting. Set in a world where the Taibai Empire is busily crushing dissidents with awkward CG constructs, this episode introduces far too many incidental characters, and proceeds with an almost dreamlike clumsiness of narrative structure. Pu Zhao, a boy who was forced into slavery when his village was destroyed years ago, develops easy friendships with his enslavers' chief engineer and also the literal empress, who no one recognizes in spite of her wearing regal formal wear from her first appearance. When that chief engineer flees the capital, the Taibai army burns down a random village in response, because this is a story where only the locations that key characters inhabit exist. Xuan Yuan struggles so ferociously against any sense of real place or grounding that it almost feels more like a stage play - or rather, like all of its characters live in a country which itself is no larger than a theater stage. The overall story being told here is standard enough to be parsable regardless, but all of the incidental details are hampered by a clumsiness that I actually find almost charming. ⏎ The show's aesthetics are similarly lopsided. There are some genuinely excellent cuts of animation in this episode, from the first demonstration of sisters Ning and Yin's martial arts prowess, to the final summoning of Yin's new familiar, Yun. But those animation highlights are undercut by awkward CG, a far greater number of clumsy cuts, and genuinely atrocious visual composite. Characters never feel like they're attached to their environment in this show - they look like they're being transposed over Nintendo 64 textures, with no sense of depth, flat lighting, and fundamentally simplistic background art. This awkward visual contrast ends up playing naturally with the writing's lack of grounding and awkward beat-to-beat transitions, resulting in a show that is almost cohesive in its clumsiness. ⏎ Overall, I can't recommend Xuan Yuan based on genuine merit, but I found myself weirdly sympathetic to this ramshackle production all the same. There's ion and ambition here, but both the storytelling and much of the visual design make this feel more like a student project than a professional production. If you share my weird fascination with shows that fail in unusual ways, I'd heartily recommend giving this one a shot. If you're just looking for an exciting and competently executed anime, you can probably skip it. ⏎ James Beckett ⏎ Rating: 1.5 ⏎ Xuan...