Wei Wuxian’s Defense Attorney

The series' cute artstyle belies how brutal the story is. One city is shown to be almost entirely razed to the ground in retaliation for the death of one of Genghis Khan's sons-in-law.

Another example is that it's possibly implied Sitara is raped by a Mongol soldier in the second episode. Her disheveled state can be attributed to the fact that Fatima was just murdered in front of her, but it's somewhat notable that she's missing the sash around her waist, the room she's in is now completely trashed, and this scenery is shown in tandem with the plundering of goods in her household.

I thought it was very impactful that they chose to depict Genghis Khan not as a man, but as a wolf atop a cliff, overlooking vast stretches of land.

I love that they got actual Japanese-Mongolian sumo wrestlers to voice Tolui and his soldiers. Presumably, their Japanese voice actors will step in as Sitara, later to be known as Fatima, comes to better understand Mongolian.

Also please note this ring on Tolui’s thumb!

This is an archery ring - You can see there’s a protruding part on the ring with which to hook the bowstring — this prevents putting too much strain on the thumb. In contrast to European styles of archery, traditional Mongolian archery uses the thumb to hold the arrow in place/draw the bow, with the arrow notched on the outer edge. This allows the archer to shoot at any angle, such as the infamous Parthian shot (pictured here)

I do also enjoy the portrayal of the lives of people who are enslaved in 13th-century Iran. Sitara is treated well, it isn't as though the entirety of her life as a slave is pure misery, and she does manage to form genuine bonds. Fatima, Sitara's mother-figure/mistress, is even the one who says:

However, as her peer Anis notes, they're still not considered people, but property; it is at the whims of the family that owns her that she is educated, though they care for her, and there's no guarantee they will free her (though in this case, Fatima does say she wants to free Sitara)

This fact is confronted when the Mongols attack and gather women and children in order to sell them as slaves; Anis's last act of agency is to die a slave to her Tus family, instead of a slave to her Mongol captors.

Seeing as Sitara will eventually become a slave to the Mongol royal family and eventually rise to a much higher position (alongside with a few of those members being prisoners of war who were later married into the family), I hope this is something continuously brought up in the series.

Furthermore, Muhammad is meant to be the historical figure, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, which can be deduced from a read of Al-Tusi’s childhood, so, even though the narrator states Sitara never saw him again, at least he did survive the siege of Nishapur!

Anyways, I don't know if I'll be able to hold back my anticipation long enough to wait for the next episode, but either way, I loved this debut, 10/10, incredible