Shi Xiong

Although subject to debate, this anime was one of the main influential works in recent developments in Chinese young-adult animation. On the original airing platform of Tencent, the series quickly rose to prominence, which was quite rare to see around that time given the sheer number of well-developed Japanese animations that are on that site. So, I guess for Chinese viewers it has a bit of historical significance.

Shi Xiong is, at heart, a humorous parody, meant to poke fun at certain qualities of modern Chinese society and the state of the world as a whole. The main character makes up for his lack of character ... development with his witty internal monologue, which drips with sarcasm at the end of every second sentence. Given how his cell phone ring tone is "your grandson is calling you", it comes as no surprise that he has quite a definitive personality.

The "zombie" construct is a pretty common one (though perhaps not ones that attend anime conventions and mutate from cannibalism), as is idea of the overpowering antagonist who never seems to die. The story follows the general zombie apocalypse archetype wherein the protagonist tries to survive and save as many people as possible. However, the author does put an interesting spin on everything that does happen - which is often very, very random - so overall the plot remains reasonably exciting. After all, it's not every day that you see a zombie with an obsession with paper currency.

Overall, the quality of illustration is average (still better than most of these current horrendous modern Chinese kids cartoons though, so I guess it was expected given the historical background). The first episode is in a completely different style from the others, so maybe watch the second one if you want an idea of what the art is generally like. I do happen to really like the voice actors though, especially the male lead. He plays the part quite well and adds quite a bit of liveliness to the whole dreary backdrop.

One thing I've noticed about this recent wave of Chinese anime is that they tend to end seasons abruptly at weird places, and Shi Xiong is, unfortunately, no exception. There is a second season of this (which ends at an even weirder spot) that happens to have pretty awkward pacing and is overall a huge disappointment. The conclusion we can draw from this is that, if you're going to watch this series, don't get too invested in it.

Overall, Shi Xiong is a fun series that makes you question the author's sense of moral decency sometimes (some jokes are inappropriate enough that they are now deleted from the online manga due to Chinese government censorship). It's definitely worth watching if you happen to like gore, cute kids dressed as giraffes, damsels in distress, internet language, and middle aged drag queens.

Zombie Brother recap
In H City, a populous and technologically urban city has its water supply infected with a pathogen that mutates humans into zombies. Xiaofei is the protagonist of a satire, parodical zombie donghua that picks at the western and eastern apocalyptic medium. His purpose is to make it out of H City safely to reunite with his concerned Mother; However, the government quarantines Xiaofei and other helpless people inside H City forcing them to fend for themselves, will Xiaofei manage to sneak out safely or will the ever-evolving intelligent zombies capture him.

Story & Characters: 4/10
The story starts off atypical of eastern apocalypic media ... with pathogen-contaminated water consumed by humans. The events also follow suit of a main character finding his/her way out of the apocalypse's ground zero; However, Shi Xiong does it very differently. The story events have twists that reference franchises like Pokemon, Naruto, Bleach, Fairytail, The Walking Dead, Train to Busan etc. which was a nice touch in the beginning but gradually became the go-to method to pause the plot development. The characters are a bit interesting with personalities involving a homoerotic author, policewoman, abandoned child and many others. Shi Xiong makes some good effort in maintaining a character palette but it still feels like the characters are somewhat disposable and die for illogical reasons.

Art & Sound: 3/10
The first season art and animation was atrocious to watch even for a low budget donghua, it makes sense since it was released in 2015. However, it is the art that made it a very distracting experience; I assume this was intentional considering the satirical nature and budget related constraints the studio behind this show wanted to adhere. The character designs are very artificially like even more so as a 2D animation. Overall, not impressed with the visuals of this series first season as it discouraged suspense in a lot of scenery and angles/shots.

I am not surprised with the sound either; Most of the time the sound doesn't suit the atmosphere. The sound quality itself is fairly decent for a small time 2015 donghua but there was a lot of background noise or reverberation that made it sound cheaply mixed. Especially Xiaofei's dialogue considering the series is filled with 90% of his monologue and char dialogue.

Overall & Enjoyment: 4/10
This season could have been better developed if it didn't use gag references to other franchises while it gets serious. A lot of characters could have remained in the story because of their out-of-touch and engaging personalities. The scenery could have also been created more porportionately as many different angles distorted the details of the scenery/background especially during the weeb crowd event. I may not watch the second season because of the repetitive satire of the series.