ANI-MOVIES, *The King's Avatar: For The Glory

A donghua based on The King's Avatar novel by Hu Die lan came out in 2017, followed by a live-action TV series in 2019. The same year also premiered a theatrical animated release which acts as a prequel titled For The Glory. The movie takes place before the anime series, but acts as its own separate entity, especially since it is one of the few titles from this franchise that actually got an English dub. This was entirely animated in China, so it;s not totally considered anime, despite the strong anime influence on it. The movie tries to bring interest into the field of electronic sports but fails miserably in its execution.

A hit fantasy MMORPG titled Glory has gained enough fame for it to be considered a professional esport. Two friends, Ye Qiu and Su Muqiu, decide to go pro for the upcoming team trials when they're not working at an internet cafe. Ye Qiu comes from a rich family, and he wants to keep his esports prospects secret otherwise they would kick him out of the business. Su Muqiu on the other hand lives with his sister, no parents, and his uncle Tao Xuan who owns the cafe he works at. The two friends decide to form their own pro team called Team Excellent Era made up of other players, but Su Muqiu gets killed just as the team is assembled. The film tries to make this cinderblock of tragedy to act as the players' motivation for the rest of the movie. False sentiment fuels the last two-thirds of the movie which is just one long session of Let's Play as the characters fight each other in a virtual death battle.

The movie does contain some impressive animation, notably in the battle sequences, although this is all done on PCs with no VR hook up at all, so there isn't the usual "if you die in the game, you die for real!" malarky. The dub is bland with an unmotivated cast, even though there is also a Spanish dub available. With there being no actual real version of the Glory game, the whole story is just a bunch of gamers playing with the unfounded incentive of trying to honor their dead colleague's dream to be trophy-winning player for something that is in all reality just a pop culture phase.