RINGING FATE Is Really Good

A few weeks ago, after a watch party with a friend for Back to the Future on Friday Roadshow (a weekly Japanese TV movie block), we decided to put something on U-NEXT (a Japanese streaming service).

In truly terrible taste, we decided to find the worst-rated trash anime (kusoanime) of the current season to watch. If I remember right, the final two contenders were:

“You May Touch for One Minute…” (1-punkan dake Furetemo Ii yo…)
RINGING FATE

(both tied for the worst rating on U-NEXT at 2.5 stars). For reasons I can’t remember, we went with the latter and put it on as background noise while chatting, but…

After Episode 1
- The art is gorgeous, and honestly, doesn’t it feel not trashy at all so far?
After Episode 2
- The premise actually looks interesting. Around this point, we realized we couldn’t just keep idly chatting.
After Episode 3
- Wait, what is with this live-action segment!?(A bit late to notice)

…and that’s pretty much what happened. It actually turned out to be an insanely entertaining anime.

What Is RINGING FATE?#

TVアニメ「RINGING FATE」公式サイト

この拳で運命の扉を叩く

b8station.tv

RINGING FATE is a buzzy original anime from China that began broadcasting in January 2025. In Japan, alongside terrestrial broadcast, it has been released on several subscription streaming services. While the anime itself can be watched on Bilibili and YouTube, apparently those versions don’t have the Japanese dub.

Synopsis#

Those with deep attachments in their hearts are led, on the verge of death, into a world between life and death called “Kong” (pronounced Kuu in Japanese). The rules of this world go something like this:

There is a martial arts tournament called the “Ring of Fate” where competitors pilot mechas to battle.
Memories serve as the currency in this world. Winning a match lets you recover memories, but losing means losing memories.
The tournament champion is granted a chance to be resurrected—though with their memories wiped clean.

Having descended into this world, the protagonist, Kaname, decides to challenge the tournament in order to return to life.

…or so the synopsis goes.

Highlights#

The art is gorgeous. It feels like watching a continuous 3D cutscene from a Chinese video game. The character designs are quite to my liking, too.

When it comes to Chinese animation, I kind of had an impression that both the visuals and story would be low quality, but this work completely shattered that preconception.

Even just on its own merits as a show, it’s genuinely really entertaining, but on top of that, having abrupt live-action segments cut in makes it hilarious (in a meme-y sort of way). And since those live-action segments depict memories from before death, they’re intimately tied into the anime’s storyline, making it genuinely fascinating all over again.

So far, there is not a single trace of trash anime in it, and I can’t make any sense whatsoever of why it only has 2.5 stars on U-NEXT. In fact, apparently it boasts an impressive 9.7 out of 10 on Bilibili. Whether that low rating comes from prejudice against Chinese productions, or if there’s some element Japanese viewers just can’t stomach, it’s an utter mystery.

Now, since I don’t have a U-NEXT subscription, I was pondering what to do to keep watching, but recently I noticed it’s also streaming on Amazon Prime.