Ringing Fate Ep 1 Review: Step Into The Ring

January 10, 2025Episode Review,  Mecha Discussion,  ,  
Well well well, what do we have here? A sudden announcement of a new mecha series out of nowhere for the start of 2025? Not quite, the series in question is a Donghua – a Chinese anime – that has been broadcasted in China before, and now is getting a Japanese dub and air in Japan as well as various streaming services. The show’s name is Ringing Fate or Mingyun Quan Tai. It is helmed by the same people that did the Link Click anime, which was pretty popular. And with the first episode, we can already see some very interesting things.

As always, the first episode will have the mission of introducing the characters, as well as a brief explanation on the overall settings of the world. And this time, we’re not on Earth – well, not technically anyway. The series is set in the world of Kong – the afterlife. Anyone who “lives” in this world has already passed away in the real world. But there is a way out, a way to be revived again: the Ringing Fate tournament. The tournament is a mecha boxing tournament that granted the winner access to the “Gate” – where they will fight the final fight for their chance to return to the living realm. The winner of each match is rewarded Qian – a resource synonymous with “memories” of your past life. The more Qian you have, the more you remember your past life, and if you have nothing, you’re just an empty shell.

The main protagonist of the series is an extremely young girl named Kaname (Ah Gan in the original). She suddenly awoke in Kong with no memories of her past life. And had to navigate this new world with the help of others. But this world isn’t as gentle, maybe even as brutal as the real world, as deception and violence still roam. Kaname met a guy named Eason that seem to be helpful to her at first, but he quickly revealed himself to be a selfish bastard who just wanted to steal of Kaname’s Qian in a Ringing Fate match. The story of the episode goes extremely fast – almost like a video game. We jumped straight into the plot and rush through to the battle all at once – basically to quickly established the main characters and give the viewers some eye-candy combat. There’s a lot of subplot setup for the series – which will be plenty for the series to explore down the line. Let’s go over some points that are very interesting in the show!

First is the art style – the series is fully CG-rendered. But unlike most full 3D anime, the animation is very fluid and natural. Imagine D4DJ but with Chibi style. Yep – the characters in this series is entirely SD – super deformed. Their heads are large and their limbs small and cute – much more so for Kaname. And we also learn that in real life, she’s also extremely young as well. The normal human animation is already quite impressive, the combat is even more so. The mecha combat is intense, weighty and has good storyboard. If you play Chinese Gacha games with high-speed combat like Punishing Gray Raven, Zenless Zone Zero or Honkai, you can see some of their animating style in this series also. The quick-paced slash-and-dash is coupled with the heavy Mecha blows. The mecha design is also quite nice – with the main character going full Max Gridman. Furthermore, while the mecha looks very…real robot – squared, straight edges with pistons all over etc… it is a full blown Super Robot series with matter manipulation. Basically similar to Gurren Lagann where things pop out of nowhere. And yeah, as long as it’s cool.

Next is the story telling, the series blend a very deep and impactful story with a bright and colorful setting quite masterfully. The world of Kong is bright, filled with light and color. Yet the connotation behind all of those is quite…unsettling. Kaname is a young girl who lost her life to a disease, and she wanted to return to life to find her family again, and experience life again even though it might be cut short still. From the looks of it, she’s definitely a teenager at most – since she acts completely innocent and naive. But her will and determination is not weak at all. Basically, she was dropped into an unfamiliar world, where the first experience she had was someone threatening her with violent, then the person who helped her turned out to be a lying bastard. And finally, she found out the truth about her death. For a young girl, this is an extremely disturbing experience, but even so, Kaname still presses on to pursue happiness again. The vision of her past life was done using real life footage with some anime filter, it really tugs at your heartstring. The series will no doubt pose some serious questions about life and death, as well as life after death. The way a young girl navigate this strange cruel world with her naiveite and innocent might make us think twice about our lives.

Following that is Saburo – the helmet “Core” that was in Kaname’s hand. “It” appeared useless at first, but after awakening, it revealed itself to be an extremely powerful mecha. The Mechas are ranked in this world, like S-tier or something like that. And Saburo is even above that – you cannot obtain such rare entity even with Qian. And during the “takeover”, Kaname’s spirit was sent to a strange dimension – probably the inner place of Saburo. And we can see a blackhole-like object in the background, and a mysterious boy was there. That boy is most likely Saburo’s true form, and his backstory is also a mystery that we should explore down the line too.

The pace of the first episode is extremely fast – but was able to establish the essentials for the series. We’ll definitely focus closely on how Kaname will fare in Kong, as well as her relationship. The shopkeeper guy might be a reliable ally since he fits the description of the “jaded” mentor that had seen too much to even try, but was reignited by a young, pure soul. The series is undoubtedly cute with many funny moments, but if you look through the surface, you can find some pretty deep stuff. It’s definitely a series worth following for the season.

=Aaron=
Check our more reviews here: