This is where the Shrek Seven Devils stop being a school gimmick and start being a war machine. The Elite Tournament format does exactly what a fan wants from this franchise: it takes the power system everyone praises, the ring-by-ring spirit ascension where every new soul ring is earned off a beast with a real cost, and puts it under a scoreboard where Ning Rongrong's support buffs, Oscar's recovery sausages, Ma Hongjun's fire, and Zhu Zhuqing's speed all have to click in the same thirty seconds. Tang San's Blue Silver Grass being written off as trash spirit hits differently now that he is fighting ranked academies who still underestimate it. The animation is genuinely the draw here, big set-piece spirit fusions carry the fights even when the tempo sags. Fair warning: 52 episodes at this pace means arcs breathe long and sometimes stall, so treat it like a season you live in rather than binge in a weekend. Stick around for the team fights where the seven of them stop calling plays and just know.

Douluo Dalu: Jingying Sai is the second part of the Douluo Dalu ONA, running 52 episodes that cover episodes 27 to 78 of the story. It continues the tale of Tang San, a hidden weapons master from the Tang Outer Sect who was reborn in a world where every person carries a spirit, and whose own awakened spirit is the supposedly useless Blue Silver Grass. The series mixes action, adventure, fantasy, romance and supernatural elements.