According to my dictionary, a "Mary Sue" is a female character who is unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses. There's little else to add to this when using it to describe Changge. I don't mind (and rather like) a hero who does less than acceptable things and even terrible things, and then slowly grows and evolves. I'm not sure how many episodes I made it through, ten or so. Changge most emphatically had no weaknesses. What was so much worse, however, was that her many (many) flaws were depicted as not her fault. Within those episodes that I watched, she did so many truly selfish, selfish things and every time she, and other characters, shrugged it off as somehow her right given her situation. And again and again she was treated like a godlike entity of ultimate, singular, isolated perfection. I felt like I was reading a Nancy Drew book.

I simply couldn't tolerate her. Enormously unlikable character completely wrapped in Mary Sue-level armor to a point that created a plot comprised exclusively of deus ex machinas. Her storyline is predictable, flat and made dull by her general unlikability. I have no interest in her sorrows or sufferings given her scoldy moralizing and petty, immature self-righteousness. Her anger and pain are robbed of their weight by her need to place herself – as victim – in a place of greater importance than anyone else in existence. I can't abide a hero who uses their own pain to justify causing pain to others. Nor can I abide a story that refuses to acknowledge such behavior as selfish to the point of iniquity, but rather portrays it as if it's some vindicable complexity. And I can't tolerate a character who is treated like a hero despite the fact that they do not behave like one. If she's meant to grow, perhaps that will make up for this, but from what I can glean from the reviews, what growth occurs doesn't happen till late. I'm uninterested in sitting through dozens more episodes of her current behavior when there are too many other things on my list.

I would consider watching only the parts with Hao Du, as he is arguably the most interesting character, but I'm not sure it's worth it. And as it stands right now, the thought of watching one more frame of Changge makes me want to chew glass.

If the story had been worthwhile I might not have even minded those truly, truly dreadful cuts to animation at the moments of big action scenes. But that was really the horrible icing on the pain cake. What a terrible decision.