Xie Wang Zhui Qi

Xie Wang Zhui Qi / The Demonic King Who Chases His Wife (donghua) - Review

Overall Rating: 6.8
Story: C+
Art & Animation: B-
Music & Sounds: B+
Characters: C+
Enjoyment: C+

Demographic: Shoujo (/Shounen)
... Genres: Drama, Romance, Comedy, Fantasy
Themes: Isekai, Cultivation

Favorite quotes:
“Miss, you forgot again that you are a trash that’s good for nothing.” - Luluo (Maid)

I started watching this way back at about the start of this year and placed this on hold as its episode didn’t get uploaded for some time and with time I just forgot about the series as a whole. I later found this title again and picked it up and thus here I am.

Story:
So I really don’t want to make this a spoiler review so I won’t mention much and also keeping in mind the fact that this is a drama anime so there isn’t much to spoil. Anyway, so the Donghua has a female lead and is from the perspective of a female. It has its decent comedy scenes and some tense scenes as well and both worked out well for the series. I for once didn’t really expected tense scenes of the intensity of saw from this dongua, it really was surprising to me and that was a good thing they include and went into that length. However, mostly its just like the usual Chinese Donghua there are, rom-com so no need to feel down or in my case be excited. So the main character gets Isekai-ed to another world due to an incident that takes place in the first episode and there she starts to discover the new life she gets and the world and people around her i.e. the usual stuff and this makes it mostly a drama donghua and most of the series focuses with the relationship building of the main couple with the instances they get drawn to.
There’s that so my opinion about this is that the story didn’t interest much, especially the latter half of the series as the villain was off and I am not satisfied with the reason they provided for the male lead to be as to why he is tailing around the female lead. and also the fact that he seemed a little bit off on some scenes at the latter half. They should have had another episode or a few extra minutes on the last one.

Art & Animation:

First, in terms of Chinese animation I prefer the character designing of King’s Avatar than coming in this designing and animation. The good thing was they didn’t have much characters which is a good thing I believe because if they did then it would be hard to distinguish them from one another or I would have to recognize them, judging by their clothes/dress etc. In terms of China, the animation is nice but overall they still need to step up a lot more. I could see that they couldn’t animate much action scenes accurately so I don’t know if they just removed the action form the Donghua because they are weak in this or the source material didn’t had any action in this arc but then overall it was nice in terms of art and good on most aspects of animation but underwhelming on a few big parts like action as I mentioned.

Sounds & Music:

Firstly, I’ll write about sounds, so all the characters with their respective voice overs were alright specifically, Luoluo, Luluo, Suxi, Lingfeng. However, Jinwang did seemed off on a few scenes, but that’s because of the expressions of the characters and the movement of it, i.e. animation so they could have fixed the animation or could have made sure the voice over did his part accurately according to the scene animation they had. Also to mention, sometimes the characters steps sounds didn’t match the character’s movement or was louder than it should be. Other than all this it was good.

Secondly about the opening and ending themes. This is one of the best things about this donghua as both of them sounded good and were done very well. The opening theme starting visuals, music and the vocals is the best part of it in my opinion. I have no problems with this aspect of the donghua. The opening is something that I liked better than the ending.
As a standalone, I’d say it’s not something I would listen to all day rather sometimes so I’d say its pretty nice to listen to. The music and the vocal composition match up pretty well and this results in a pretty decent song. Probably, all other listeners would’ve loved this song as well. I’d say this was a pretty good attempt.

The ending theme is pretty much romantic as the series is but this season didn’t deal with much of that aspect which in turns doesn’t make this song much related, but anyway, this theme lyrically is how it should be and there was nothing of that I could find and that is if the translation was accurate. In terms of listening, it goes pretty well. I don’t think the Chinese vocals would be a problem for anyone listening to it as most people doesn’t like to listen to the Chinese as they cannot bear the toning of the language but this wasn’t and isn’t the case with me. In terms of visuals, The art and animation they had in the ending theme was good.
As a standalone, I wasn’t able to find a full version as that’s usually how it is with a Chinese material so I don’t know it actually has a full version or not, but I think even if it did then it would be that like repeating the same lyrics and music on the second phase of the song so I judged it on this aspect and would still be nice and pretty decent.

Lastly about the OSTs, again, I wasn’t able to find a full list as its a Chinese material so I’ll skip on this matter now. Mostly I have no problem with this aspect of the series. Nearly all of the tracks matched the scene they were used for and I like a 2-3 of them specifically Luoluo’s theme track for ROM-come scenes and the theme used for tense scenes was nice too. However, I would say they don’t have much action so not having a good track for action is okay.

Characters:

So there were only a limited number of characters which I believe was the right thing for this show as by doing this most characters got enough screen time. I believe the protagonist was alright and Luluo (maid) was done exceptionally well in terms of a supporting character and Suxi did her part well in the series, but the series lacked a central antagonist as Suxi was more of a supporting antagonist for a few episodes. I mean we had one, but he seemed underwhelming to be honest but then as I mentioned before that this mainly focused on the main couple’s interactions and focused on the relationship of both leads hence this could have resulted in the antagonist to be underwhelming but he as a character seemed off a lot. Other than that I really couldnt grasp Lingfeng’s role in the series.

As this is somewhat of a short drama donghua so I won’t be mentioning most details since you can catch that easily if you watch it. I’ll mention their names and a little intro as tracking websites doesn’t have characters listed on the donghua’s page.

Luoluo, our main female protagonist. Is a Assassin for an organization of the real world and gets Isekai-ed to this world of cultivation with magical creatures and spiritual powers.

Luluo, the maid of our main protagonist in the new world she gets Isekai-ed. She’s loyal and caring for our protagonist and a little bit dreamy.

Prince Jinwang, The male lead who acts as the price charming and forces himself on the female lead as he is interested in her due to a reason. Well he is kinda prince Charming to every person in that isekai world as he is known to be the best cultivator there.

Lingfeng, probably the aid of the male protagonist but he seemed unnecessary for now but lets see how he goes on about in the nest season.

Miss Suxi, The evil female which serves as the antagonist for the first few episodes. She wants all the limelight to her so that she gets chooses by Mr prince Charming.

Liu Jue, the crown prince and the main antagonist of the season 1 and probably season 2. He is probably the brother of our male lead I believe so. As I mentioned he was pretty much underwhelming throughout the series. Lets see if he can be better at season 2.

Yunqi, the assassin boyfriend of the female protagonist from the first episode.

Conclusion:

So long short, this isn’t a series one should watch no matter what rather its something one can try out just like a change of appetite as this isn’t bad rather it’s an alright shoujo material to watch.

Tags:

Xie Wang Zhui Qi (donghua), The Demonic King Who Chases His Wife (donghua), 邪王追妻 (アニメーション)

This show is promising (it's similar to Leadale no Daichi nite in the way that it has a female MC who got isekai'ed, which in itself does have a massive twist in s2 that I cannot reveal), but it has many flaws. Even though the premise is interesting, pacing is wack. That is mostly due to the episode count and episode length. Having at most 8-10 minutes of actual watching per episode is way too short, but they do not seem to rush the story too much. Second season does account for the episode length, so if you finish this to the end - you ... may as well continue on to season 2 because it will be much better compared to the first one.

Last episode finishes it off on the weirdest cliffhanger that I could imagine. It just doesn't work where the cliffhanger is - you know those cliffhangers before the next episode when something big is supposed to happen (so the fanbase needs to be hyped up for the next ep)? Except without the massive hyping and drawn-out fillers before it. It doesn't have an impact, you don't even realise that was the last episode and boom - you see credits and behind-the-scenes of the show.

The animation is, depending on the situation, bearable to watch. During fight scenes it isn't that bad, but it's obvious that the budget was limited. It becomes eminent at times without fighting that the animation is relatively choppy. However, besides that, there is one issue as with many shows like this - the sound effects are lackluster. You definitely don't feel the impact of the hits, swings, jumps, drops and whatnot, which ruins the immersion.

Overall, it's a great show to pass time and enjoy a nice story. It has an interesting plot behind it, but at the end of it all, it is (kind of) another isekai without enough budget. Depending on your tolerance (which would mean surviving like an hour), have fun watching it until season 2, which greatly improves upon the shortcomings of this season.

It feels like they took the plot points from the story and strung them together without any connective tissue putting them together. They go from one thing happening to the next, without sufficiently developing the characters or world. The story is very rushed, and there's no time to take in the world.

The animation is acceptable but not great, with a fair amount of still panning shots. Action scenes are short, often cutting away and jumping to the conclusion.

The acting is meh, but to be fair, it's hard to convey a realistic dialog when the relationships jump forward so quickly.

The story is a standard isekai cultivation ... plot, with a MC with weak power but lots of potential. Except this MC is a woman so men are trying to get in her pants.

The whole thing is similar to, but significantly worse than, Tong Ling Fei.

But the best reason to watch this season is to prepare for season 2, which is superior in every way, and maybe worth watching.