Mo Dao Zu Shi: Xian Yun Pian

Continuing his masquerade as the deranged lunatic from the Lanling Jin Clan, Wei Wuxian resides in the Cloud Recesses while his former cultivation classmate, Lan Wangji, searches for answers about the demonic severed arm they have in custody. With an overwhelming dark energy emanating from the arm, the two are forced to work together in order to keep it contained. However, the demonic arm is not the only dark force lurking in the region, and as spiritual tensions rise in the mountains of the Gusu Lan Clan, it is up to the two of them to try and restore the natural order.

The story of Wei Wuxian's fall from grace continues as more light is shed on his descent into the path of demonic cultivation. The demonic arm only further strains his mischievous spirit. This is the time for him to prove that he has truly broken free from the forbidden path and is not the maniacal sorcerer that everyone remembers him to be.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Wei, Wuxian Main

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Lan, Wangji Main

Tachibana, Shinnosuke Japanese

Jiang, Cheng Supporting

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Wen, Ning Supporting

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Nie, Huaisang Supporting

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Lan, Sizhui Supporting

Tsuchiya, Shinba Japanese

Jin, Ling Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Lan, Xichen Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Jiang, Yanli Supporting

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Jin, Guangyao Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Xiong, Ke Director, Art Director

Liang, Sha Script

Liu, Xing Script

Zhu, Ke Script

Reviews

Oct 1, 2021

demimarc

Recommended

unbelievably amazing animation and music. so well done so much thought went into the music and the way the characters are portrayed. specifically for wei yings flute and lan zhans guqin.. i watched a short on the creators talking about them specifically and they really blow you away with what they did to create just the perfect sound along with the fantastic animation. i will agree with another review thouhg, if you have not read the novel you may have some trouble following alone. as someone who had already read it, i LOVE this donghua. all the seasons are amazing

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 24, 2021

weeaboogers

Recommended

Chinese animation has come a long way these past few years and Mo Dao Zu Shi is a prime example of that.
As someone who is the exact opposite of 'well-versed' in Eastern Fantasy and Xianxia, this series took a little while for me to understand in order to 'get' this big picture of it all.
When I did, though, I was hooked.
Mo Dao Zu Shi boasts an excellent and large cast of characters with intricate personalities that interact with one another in a truly entertaining way. The comedic scenes are just as poignant as the dramatic, and the pacing is quite nice so that ... you don't get emotional whiplash going from one scene to the next. It builds up and crescendoes nicely.
The world-building is an excellent backdrop for the story and is beautifully designed and animated. The intricate buildings of ancient China mixed with mystical fantasy scenery is truly something to behold. Every background in this show looks like a screensaver. Not to mention the action scenes. Wonderfully choreographed, excellently shot, and musically outstanding.

It really is a shame that Chinese censorship laws has put a proverbial leash over the developing relationship between main characters, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, though. Their progression is notable and can easily be interpreted as romantic- as the author intended (and rather explicitly detailed,) in the original novel. But it just isn't the same as having blatant representation. China has a long way to go in that regard.

Despite that one set back, though, this still is a show that is worth watching. The first season felt like a backdrop for what was to come, and season two has been building up to something huge. I'm very excited for season three.

All in all, give Mo Dao Zu Shi a chance. The double names and mythology might be confusing to a western audience- but if you give it time you'll find that it pays off to the highest extent.
If you're a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender, you'll love this more mature take on a similar story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Aug 24, 2021

SleepySera

Mixed Feelings

I can't fathom why this season is rated as high as it is, giving it a 5 feels overly generous already. I have never seen a show as rushed as this, to the point where literally nothing makes sense unless you've read the source material. Watching it feels like sticking eight bookmarks randomly into a book you haven't read and then ONLY reading the eight pages you landed on with zero context.

The story wildly jumps through time by huge increments, often without ANY indication that time has passed, nothing is ever explained, characters and things just show up and immediately are forgotten for the rest ... of the story.
I don't know why they only got eight episodes to work with instead of fifteen like the first season, but the creators seemed determined to squeeze fifteen episodes worth of story into eight anyways (and then add their own fanfiction on top of it which takes up another 2+ episodes, which is MAYBE not such a great idea when you are seriously pressed for time already...).

The result of that is a jumbled mess of unrelated scenes just vaguely strung together without rhyme or reason. A few episodes in I gave up and read the novel instead. Armed with that knowledge, I could finally understand what was going on, but even then, it was a rather unsatisfactory experience because they combined several scenes from the novel into one to save time more than once, regardless of the scenes fitting well together or not and absolutely shredding any natural character interaction in the process (for example, one character goes from hating and accusing a girl of fraud to shouting at her to awkwardly being in love to having a baby with her and getting murdered in like 30 seconds flat, without the fraud case ever getting resolved, without us ever seeing how/why they fall in love, NO TIME, GOTTA MOVE ON TO THE NEXT SCENE).
It's frustrating to watch even if you do know about everything that was cut out in between, because it leaves the characters as empty husks that just stumble through the vauge resemblance of a plot, with no time to actually show character traits or relations that make them unique.

From an adaption standpoint, there's also the issue that core concepts of the plot were completely changed, and at least in my opinion, for the worse.
SPOILER NEXT.
A big part of what makes the characters in MDZS so intriguing is that many of them aren't just shining perfect heroes. They struggle and fail and do terrible, unforgivable things, especially the protagonist, but the reader can hardly hate them for it because the circumstances they do these things in are relateable.
The animation takes these interesting, multifaceted characters and declares "Nope! Anything bad they ever did was because they were the victim of an evil conspiracy!" Not because they gave in to their anger and grief. Not because they used a power that they had always been warned they would lose control of. It's because someone secretly fed them evil energy or some bs like that. Turns out, the heroes were always perfect and never did anything risky or wrong, immediately stripping them of that entire interesting aspect of their character. Demonic cultivation is in the title, for god's sake, but I guess the writers for this animation thought it was better if it is just the same as normal cultivation, lol.
SPOILER OVER.

The only thing elevating this season is the art and music, which are once again absolutely stellar, though they did reuse quite a few shots from the first season, which does make it feel a bit lazy in comparison.

Summary:
A beautiful show that got absolutely RUINED by the abysmal pacing and massive cuts to the story. Watchable only if you've read or seen the source material or another adaption already, and even then you have to be okay with detrimental changes to the core narrative. If you enjoyed season 1, don't ruin that enjoyment by watching this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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