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This anime made me wish I was 11 again because it reminded me of childhood classic "happy tree friends"

-Hilarious black humor
-Comic amounts of blood and simplistic gore
-Predictable plotlines
-Everything is spelled out for you by one-dimensional villain so just turn off your brain and enjoy
-Fights that remind me of another childhood classic, "dragonball z"
-antagonist with relatable goals "I don't want to study school is hard"


... Last but not least, if I was 11 again I wouldn't even know the original Higurashi and umineko so I'd smile and laugh watching this, instead of crying myself to sleep and becoming suicidal

also, reminder that the author's only job for the past 20 years was writing edgy fiction and shiposting on imageboards and it shows

Chinese animation that got me into chinese animation.

I'm just finishing a rewatch of this series and it's spectacular how much the story holds together, and how many things are subtly hinted at or foreshadowed in dialogs that only makes sense once you've seen later events. It really makes me wonder how much the author planned in advance-considering that the first draft for the story was made in 2016 with a promotional music video and a lot of things from the opening didn't even happen yet-but without doubt, A LOT.

Needless to say, this story just hits differently. At it's heart, it's a wuxia martial arts ... action adventure journey. But it has so much more going on behind the scenes, with hints of tragedy both past and incoming, various characters plotting their own agendas behind the scenes and steady but brilliant worldbuilding. I've seen people compare Feng Ling Yu Xiu to Girl's Last Tour or Made in Abyss, and they aren't necessarily wrong while not being necessarily right, either.

I can only ask you to give this series a try, even if you aren't into chinese animation. The story is far from over-second season is in production-and the plot only thickens. The first couple of episodes had at times a choppy animation(not necessarily bad) which might be discouraging to people who pay a lot of attention to production values, but it's to be expected considering that originally it was a crowdfunded passion project animated by one person. Later the animation quality goes up significantly, especially during the sakuga fight scenes.

Oh the fight scenes! Reminiscent of old Hong Kong's Jackie Chan movies, this is some of the best fight choreography ive seen in animation. The author mixes traditional chinese martial arts with fantasy qi energy and creativity I haven't seen since the times of drunken master. Rather than purely relying relying on literal magic or brute force power ups, our heroes often use cunning and terrain to get advantage over their opponents. And of course, as expected of wuxia/cultivation piece of chinese fantasy, most fighting is unarmed kung fu style-and the author really did his research in this regard! As a (former) practioner of wing chun, I could recognise a lot of familiar stances, guards and moves, such as lap sao or snake crane.

I really don't want to spoil anything about the story itself, other than it's very good and well written. The characters are all likeable- especially the main couple. Yes, it is yuri. Tho the girls never do anything sexual like kissing on screen, it's very strongly implied they are seeing each other as more than good friends through many heartwarming slice of life like moments in between action and fighting typically expected of action-adventure series.

Overall I can't help but reccommend this title. Since I've first seen Feng Ling Yu Xiu, I've seen more chinese series and even started learning chinese language, but none of them hit exactly in the same spot as this one. It's a work of passionate genius, and I can't wait to see what the author has in store for us for second season!

tl;dr a gag comedy goes serious, to it's own determent

minor spoilers below~


The first season was really entertaining. Despite choppy animation(a common problem with chinese series) it had a colorful cast of memorable characters, and made me laugh on several occasions with it's funny gags, 4th wall breaks and general randomness. It also had a pretty catchy op and ed song, that I listen to occasionally on it's own on bilibili.

Now then. Dawang Bu Gaoxing(the king isn't eager, for some reason translated as the furuious yama) is an adaptation of a chinese webcomic. I haven't read it due to my chinese not being good ... enough to understand it without english translation, so I dunno how much content was cut. I will review and share my thoughts based on cartoon alone.

The premise is simple-the lord of the underworld is a young (actually like a 1000 year old) girl afraid of ghosts and zombies. Over the course of her reign during season one, among various mishaps and misunderstandings, she eventually acquires various tools, allies and gadgets, including a magic minigun, infinitely extending 50 ton stick, a loli necromancer and a combat maid...schoolgirl zombie ghost...wielding double handguns. Their arch-nemesis are evil western demons who want to extend their dominion on the Eastern Underworld and human world.

So it's like heroes of might and magic necropolis vs inferno basically. When it was all funny and self aware, the randomness of it all served a series of quite a few laughs and was quite entertaining.
But then the story started taking itself seriously, and the charm was lost.

All the random stuff can be forgiven with the power of suspension of disbelief, as long as the series is comedic. Why is said schoolgirl suddenly supper confident double gun wielding, sniper rifle shooting pro after becoming Yama's personal assistant? No need to think about it if it's just played for the laughs. Why is Yama capable of pulling every imaginable power out of her ear(literally) and save the day just when she seems to be in a pitch? Well, cause it's crazy random, that's why.

But then imagine these elements in a series that's trying to create serious drama of some sort and make you care about events and characters beyond most superficial "what crazy shit is going to happen next, lmao"? Well exactly, two terms come to mind. First is "plot armor" second is "mary sue".

And oh boi, the mc does become a mary sue. Once her quirky cowardice trait is no longer relevant, she's just annoying. Her persistent habit of starting every episode with "You won't believe it but im a new Yama of the Underworld" doesn't help, because now that she's no longer pants pissing incompetent there is nothing unbelievable about that.

There are some good parts too, like Xiaogui meeting her "best friend" in human world, or Jiang grandma's pretty much every scarce but precious moment of being on screen, but it all drowns in a sea of mediocre, predictable, and not very well animated fights and (sometimes literal) deus ex machinas.

Oh and there is also yuri subplot. Xiaogui Zhan and Xiaoluo Yan kiss twice on screen. I guess I should give the series a thumbs up for having this kind of theme-to my understanding chinese if not society than at last government isnt very lgbt friendly, so animated series exploring these themes openly deserves a praise. Nevermind that in first season there wasn't much going on between them to warrant that, beyond a devoted servant-lord relationship. And one is like 17(ghost) the other is several thousand year old yama. But since they are both looking like teens, it's probably appropriate...kinda...whatever, suspension of disbelief should kick in just about now.

All in all, it was only kinda enjoyable and I wish the second season stayed funny and random like the first.