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january-summers · 4 years

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Fight Breaks Sphere Thoughts

So I started watching Fight Breaks Sphere, also known as Battle Through Heavens, and I have a few confessions to make (some thoughts to ramble about):

First of all it's based off a book which I haven't read so these thoughts are specific to the drama. (also I've only finished up to the end of episode 17 and am about to start 18.)

I honestly started watching it because I found out Xiao Zhan was in it (Wei Ying from The Untamed), and I think that's why I didn't enjoy the first episode enough to immediately go to the next episode, because Xiao Zhan wasn't in it and I was only there for him.

Now Xiao Zhan's character doesn't actually show up on screen until about nine minutes into episode four, and he's very much a supporting cast member, a secondary character, and he doesn't get a lot of screen time while he's there. I knew this was likely going in, because he's listed as a secondary character in the wikipedia entry about it, but he gets less screen than the other secondary characters 'of the same importance'.

His character, Lin Xiuya, also had to go 'do a thing' at the end of episode... 12 or 13? I think it was 13, but this wasn't the worst thing ever for me as a viewer, especially since I'm pretty sure he'll be back later.

Regarding Xiao Zhan's presence in the show though? I would not have made it to his appearance if the story line hadn't 'picked up'.

Now, to be fair my primary dislike of the first episode was a combination of new episode issues (so many new characters and names and relationships and histories to keep track of, I have a whole new type of lore to start getting a handle on) but it was also a lack of Xiao Zhan.

I think if I hadn't gone in waiting for him to show up I would have enjoyed it more, but again, I was only there to see him, so...

Once I chose to watch episode two I was more prepared to be there for the story itself and I found myself getting engaged with the plot.

I'm about to start episode 18, so that should tell you how much more I'm enjoying it, but I have a few issues.

Main character is Xiao Yan, of the Xiao clan (an important sect in the land, part of important lore and backstory of the world).

He starts off as a child prodigy, and then his mother gives him a Spatial Ring right before she dies, and he suddenly finds himself with basically no Fighting Qi. (Fight Qi or 'Dou Qi' is the spiritual energy used for their fighting magic. I'd call this show a Xianxia rather than a Wuxia/ Mystical Ancient 'China' rather than a Fiction Historical China.)

Spoilers for the first episode: his mother's master/teacher is stuck in the Spatial Ring and has been absorbing Xiao Yan's Fight Qi to survive being killed, which has been leaving Xiao Yan drained of Qi and therefore unable to use it and most folks now consider him a bit of a dud.

The thing is these folks use Fight Qi for basically everything, so even though Xiao Yan has been training the physical aspects of the martial arts/Kung Fu of his clan, he's still considered no good at it.

He's told to become an apothecary's assistant and, god he's just the whiniest little shit. I get where he's coming from, I do, he wants to be a Kung Fu bad-ass, not a freaking pill maker... except being a pill maker is a super important and well respected job in this world, it's like 'yeah fighters are cool, but the dudes who make the pills are top notch!' But we'll circle back to this.

The point is, he's a typical teenager whose life isn't going the way he wants it to because he can't do this one thing, but he doesn't want to do anything else.

And then he finds out about the lavender haired lush living in his magic ring aka his mother's teacher. (Legit his old-man-hair looks vaguely purple, I don't know if this is on purpose or just the colour adjustment on my screen, and he somehow stole a crap load of wine from inside the Spatial Ring.)

And well.

Xiao Yan takes that about as well as can be expected, and tries to get the teacher to teach him, it takes a while but the guy agrees, and most importantly now that the teacher has stabilised, he no longer needs to drain all the Qi from Xiao Yan. (or something?)

Plus Xiao Yan got to watch the teacher, his mother's master known as Medicine Lord (or Medicine Elder in the translation I'm watching), make a fancy medicine which improves Qi Levels, and takes it to get back up to snuff. (Medicine Elder actually made it so Xiao Yan could sell it to buy a supply of wine for him, only Xiao Yan's dad saw it at auction and went: 'aha! A way to help my son not suck at fighting stuff' and buys it and gives it to him.)

(There are performance enhancing drugs abounds in this show.)

And just like that he's become the smartest and most wisest and most capable of all his peers, he is once again a prodigy. Which is where my main problem is with this show.

I don't mind an OP protagonist, but this guy gets a new McGuffin or super power every other episode I swear.

Worse, we have to assume he's leaps and bound above his peers because he leads the first years to victory against their senior students in their first week, and then beats a few seniors one on 'one' after a new power up is acquired, but for the most part the guys in his year level are shunted out of the way when the good fights/skill tests come along, so we don't really get to see them enough to make a comparison.

(There's a fist fight in the water room, but there's so many people in there that the screen time is pretty split amongst the 'not the protag' characters, so still hard to get a read.)

Not only with fighting skills, but he's also learning all the cool tricks to become the best medicine maker (they use the term Alchemist) ever, like he's just so good, he's better than even the seniors at this thing which he scorned back in the first episode when he wasn't allowed to learn to punch things with magic powers.

Of course, if Xiao Yan does come up against something he doesn't know how to handle, he can just pop into the Spatial Ring to ask his grand master for help and boom: new training montage and ability.

Literally time passes super fast inside the Ring so he can learn a technique that takes him a long time to master basically over night. Downside is he's dead to the real world while that happens.

And oh yeah, he keeps getting power boosts, generally its presented as he's grown wise enough to find ways to increase his power and he's just so intuitive but...

Look, long and short?

I'm sad there's not more Xiao Zhan in this show, The protag is increasingly OP, but he's increasingly OP in an obnoxious way and his primary moment of character growth just seemed to have happened 'at some point', he went from whiny angry teen to team leader and it seemed to happen very suddenly, but I can't say when, and the supporting cast feels like they're just there to let us know how awesome the protag is rather than be people.

Also, and I mention this because I had to reverse charge so hard: I did ship Xiao Yan with Xiao Xun'er, because they had this cute childhood friends to budding teen crush thing going on, and the wikipedia says she's one of his two wives in the novel, so I was all aboard cause she's adorable... she's also his biological cousin. Like I had assumed their shared last name was just a 'it's a sect name that many people in the sect have but he's from the main branch in charge' kind of thing, but no, she's full on adopted by Xiao Yan's dad, because reasons, and also Xiao Yan's mother and Xiao Xun'er biological father were siblings. So now I'm stuck with the knowledge that this really cute ship is incest, (and not just 'technically because adoption' either,) which ruins a lot.

Overall I'm definitely enjoying it, I wouldn't be about to watch episode 18 if I wasn't enjoying it, but I could be enjoying it more.

Also I much prefer his hairstyle from episode 4 onwards, it's just a superior hair style.

#fight breaks sphere #battle through heavens #just having a ramble #Xiao Zhan #should I tag him just because I talk about him for a minute?#meh #not really a review #but also kind of a review?#I don't know just thinking about stuff I guess

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