Tian Guan Cifu

Chinese animation is on the rise.

With anime enjoying an explosive surge of popularity in China over the past decade, it’s a bit of a surprise as to why higher budget, domestically produced works tailored to an older audience have taken so long to appear. Nevertheless, donghua has finally begun to make its mark on the wider anime community, most notably with The King’s Avatar in 2017 and Mo Dao Zu Shi in 2018.

Tian Guan Ci Fu is the first donghua that I’ve watched in its entirety - like many others, I was intrigued by its placement in the top airing list, alongside the eager ... recommendations of novel readers. Unfortunately, thanks to a horrifically executed second arc, almost non-existent character development, and some of the worst editing I’ve ever seen, Tian Guan Ci Fu is a resounding disappointment.

Two major arcs occur throughout the course of this series. The first, taking place over the course of a brisk three episodes, is the better of the two. In order to pay off a massive debt caused by his third ascension to Heaven, our main character Xie Lien travels to the mortal world as a Heavenly Official to solve the mystery of the ghost groom at Mount Yujun, accompanied by the hot-headed Nan Feng and Fu Yao. On most accounts, Tian Guan Ci Fu actually does really well with this first arc. The mystery is well crafted – the suspense is built just right, and with some nice action sequences sprinkled into the mix, it does a good job with drawing in the viewer.

Much of this introductory arc’s success hinges on a couple of key points. Hardly any of the world’s mechanics are explained: the ascension/banishment process, magic formations, and what actually goes on in Heaven are some of the many details that are barely elaborated on. Character development takes place - mostly on Xie Lien - but is minimal, although this is pretty forgivable since most of the focus is on the mystery. And the resolution of the mystery itself is lacklustre – the rationale behind the apparition’s actions had more or less been deduced by Xie Lien, but for some reason the writers decided it was necessary to have a convoluted flashback backstory written out, something that added little to the overall experience for the amount of screen time it took (kind of difficult to make a character morally ambiguous after they’ve murdered seventeen innocent brides). Addressing these issues was key if any initial momentum was to be kept.

Tian Guan Ci Fu doesn’t just ignore the issues, but flat out magnifies them to the point where later episodes are legitimately painful to go through. Recurring characters get ZERO development, and I’m not exaggerating when I say this. Apart from basic character traits established by superficial interactions, we really don’t learn anything about the personalities of any of the characters. The biggest offenders of this would be Nan Feng and Fu Yao. Their sole defining traits are that they have temper problems and that they dislike each other. As a result, they’re also the main source of comic relief, but their antics get old very quickly, and the constant yelling does not help. The world building is awful, with constantly shifting, unconnected settings that largely remain unexplored – a real shame, because the world itself is really intriguing. There’s a critical lack of cohesion here, and everything feels more like an arbitrary chain of incidents stringed together than a natural progression of events.

A major reason for all of these problems stems from Tian Guan Ci Fu’s boring and flat-out wasteful dialogue. The second arc is extremely heavy on dialogue, but it’s dialogue of the worst kind: sloppy exposition dumping. So much of the show is spent on a character explaining really minor plot points in intricate detail, usually accompanied by a flashback of some sort. Any time there’s a “twist” or a character feels the need to explain their actions? Flashback. Not only does this feel clunky and unsubtle at times, but it also eats up runtime that would have benefited way more on character or setting development, and it’s also just a mind-numbingly tedious thing to go through. So it’s a double blow of sorts: lazy, boring exposition that has no right to take as much time as it does. The second arc in general is a bizarre change in direction and I’m struggling to understand why this decision was made.

Because there’s so much exposition, not much actually takes place over the course of the second arc, and everything moves at a snail’s pace. The majority of the exposition is delivered by San Lang, a mysterious young man who seemingly knows about everything. Well-written dialogue can convey both information and the personality of whoever’s delivering it in a concise manner, but the laziness of the script means that San Lang joins the list of flavourless characters. Apparently there’s supposed to be some romance going on between San Lang and Xie Lien, but when characters with the personalities of wet flannels flirt with each other for no clearly established reason, it’s hard to get invested.

Good editing can often save scenes that would otherwise be a slog to get through. But Tian Guan Ci Fu’s editing is just horrible. The editor has this really weird obsession with fade to black transitions when switching between scenes. Due to taking significantly longer than something like a cut, fade transitions have a major slowing effect on pacing. This isn’t the greatest choice, because if an episode spends half of its runtime on information dumping, the last thing you need is something that makes things even more slow paced than they already are. Some conversations and interactions awkward too, with characters regularly reacting in unnatural time intervals.

Then there’s the completely inexplicable errors: in episode 6, there’s a shot involving a botched looped animation of Xie Lien walking that has a frame with his mouth open, which cycles for about ten whole seconds. In the same shot, Xie Lien’s mouth movements stop prematurely, and then San Lang’s mouth starts moving while the audio of Xie Lien talking still plays! Speaking of which, the show has a consistent issue in lip flap and audio sync problems, but this segment is the worst offender by far. I also need to mention how this shot happens to involve one of San Lang’s many exposition dumps, so the fact that the shot lasts over ten seconds in the first place is another big no-no. In episode 10, there’s a shot involving a girl dancing to the beat of Xie Lien’s clapping and a person playing the tambourine… except that Xie Lien's clapping very clearly does not match up with the tambourine player. And in certain episodes, the VAs for Nan Feng and Fu Yao stand way too close to the mic, because whenever they yell (which happens a lot), you can hear this annoying distortion effect on their voices. These are really basic errors and the fact that all of them went unnoticed by the editor is mind-boggling. At times the result can be funny, but more crucially it's distracting to a fault. I honestly don’t remember the last time I got this distracted by bad editing. I raise these examples at the risk of coming off as nitpicky, but these are just the ones I can think of from the top of my head. I don’t mind the occasional mistake, but when it happens consistently like this, it just completely takes you out of it.

That being said, it’s not like Tian Guan Ci Fu does everything wrong. It has a decent, well-produced soundtrack. The voice actors do a serviceable performance. And, as mentioned earlier, the first arc was great. In fact, earlier episodes in general were fairly enjoyable, benefiting greatly from gorgeous backdrops, fluid animation and well-choreographed fight scenes – qualities that degraded as the episodes progressed but nonetheless remained at a reasonable level. It’s clear that some serious time, money and effort was put into producing this, which makes it all the more confusing why they couldn’t hire a better editor, or director for that matter.

Tian Guan Ci Fu’s novel is widely lauded by readers for its masterful storytelling. This quality does not seem to have translated to its donghua adaptation. It really is quite frustrating because it had all of the tools needed for something special: a possible fate hinted by an encouraging introductory arc. Unfortunately, the show fails to maintain its initial high and spirals lower and lower into the abyss as the episodes go on, before crashing in a heap by the end. Because of how uninteresting I found the second arc to be, I have to say that Tian Guan Ci Fu has overall been an unenjoyable experience. Unless watching beautiful men flirt with each other is your thing, stay clear from this one.

Eh, to be honest, it isn't that great. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but not gonna lie here, it's not that great, at least not as great as everyone is raving about. I was never a huge fan of the original novel, but some of the problems of the original are exemplified even more here.

Let's start with the good stuff: the animation is really pretty. Sometimes there are mistakes, but most of the time, it's amazing. I love the art style, and the animation is super smooth and the subtle clues included in the animation is enough to make these kinda bland characters ... feel a lot more 3 dimensional. Sometimes the CG is pretty shaky and worryingly bad, but at other times it's included almost as well as MDZS is. The music and soundtrack is also impeccable. The songs are all beautiful in their own right, and the vocals and instrumentals haunt my dreams. There's not a huge variety, as most of the songs are romance songs, but they're all so good that I can ignore it. Some characters and plot points I love a ton.

The lady in green and black that show up in episode 7 and 8 are mysterious and may lead to some great character development. Nan Feng and Fu Yao are amazing support characters, as well as being funny, cute, and integral to the plot as well. The monsters are really well animated, and some of the themes of this novel also run through the donghua too quite well, arguably better than the original because the original really didn't flesh out the themes that much.

Sometimes, I really do like Xie Lian and San Lang. They're cute at times, charming even, and sometimes the things they say and their actions have genuine emotional impact. I really don't care for their characters most of the time, but at some points, the jokes they make or the sequences they do really hit me

Now onto the stuff I don't like. First of all, the story is very "monster of the week." In MDZS, the story has a natural flow and progresses in a natural way, but that can't be said for Heaven Official's Blessing. In between arcs, we get these really fan service and pointless scenes of XL and SL at Puqi Shrine essentially doing nothing. It's like they go on a mission, solve a random mystery, fight some monsters, and then they return to XL's home/shrine and everything returns to the status quo. It doesn't have that same tension and flow as MDZS, because we kind of already know that XL is going to get out of the situation and return back to his shrine for more domestic fan service and trash collecting.

Now, because I’ve read the novel, I know everything that is going on, but for those that have not read the novel, the storytelling would be atrocious. None of the xianxia/fantasy elements are explored or explained. The settings are hardly developed on after the arc is over, and the character development is pretty much nonexistent. Although I loved Nan Feng and Fu Yao from the novel, and still enjoy them here, their constant use as comic relief and only that gets really grating pretty quickly. XL and San Lang have some character development, but not enough to convince me worthy of an entire 1st season.

And info dumps everywhere. I usually don’t have as much of a problem with info dumps, but this anime/donghua does it ALL THE TIME. Explanation needed? Flashback/exposition dialogue info dump. Backstory needed? Flashback/exposition dialogue info dump. Literally the only way this show knows how to explain is by flashback info dumping, which is what the novel does too, and it gets kinda annoying.

There's a lot of fan service in this anime/donghua. It's not as rampant as the novel, but it really is there. There are fans out there that don't mind it, but it really serves to show how much this donghua puts romance over plot and characters, at points neglecting the plot for more fan service, which feels really jarring to me. MDZS had some hugging and implicit fan service, but at the same time, those are sort of afterthoughts from the main plot. In Heaven Official's Blessing, the romance is the main plot, and considering how much I don't care for the main pair, is an issue for me. Others may not have that issue though

And also I have a ton of issues with the main pair. San Lang is probably the worst out of the two, as he is not only shallow and one dimensional, but also a Mary Sue. His entire life revolves around XL, and besides loving XL and being a total asshole, he has no other character traits. No other character traits besides being a Mary Sue. He is all knowing, all powerful, and good at literally everything but handwriting. This really deflates the tension as you know he'll have the answers to everything, and he's also capable of scaring ghosts away with just a single glance, and you really just begin to wonder "why are we going on these missions anyways if San Lang can just beat everyone up and that's it?" Also, he falls in love with XL enough to live 800 years for him, despite only being caught by him once and barely ever interacting. The logic feels kinda shaky to me...

Xie Lian is slightly better. He has some character depth, but none of the forms of media have made me convinced that he loathes himself and he's really that deep. I enjoy his inner conflict about putting himself in danger, but he again feels like a Mary Sue. He has no weaknesses besides being "too nice" and "not valuing himself enough." He has this solve all problems pet ribbon, Ruoye, and is also very smart, strong, and kind. He is literally a flawless human being and besides being "kinda insecure", he has no moral wrongs. I wish we got more internal dialogue/monologue of him thinking about how he deserved to be alone for 800 years and the self loathing the novel really wants you to believe, but it really isn't there most of the time.

Let's end on a positive note though, the side characters are super endearing. The emotional arcs that truly hit the hardest are still yet to come (no I'm not talking about book 4, I'm talking about Qingxuan's arc), and more and more amazing characters will continue to be introduced. While I didn't like the original novel, I think the donghua has potential, and I hope it realizes that potential by toning down the fan service from the novel and using better characterization.

Beautiful anime with terribly translations and confusing storyline. Storyline goes between dragging and tons of characters and plot being introduced within 1-2 minutes.


Story: 5/10 - Mediocre and confusing. Goes between dragging and break-neck speed plot development wise.

Art: 8/10 - Very good. There are parts with 3D animation that looked low quality/like they're from the early 00s

Sound: 9/10 - No complaints.

Characters: 5/10 - The series really isn't long enough to delve deep enough into their backgrounds for real character development, but from what was able to be developed, was okay. Nothing amazing.
...
Enjoyment: 5/10 - Mediocre. Honestly I feel like I wasted my time.

Overall: 4/10 - Decent but only because it was well animated. I wouldn't actually recommend this to anybody looking for a BL anime because it feels like the idea of one but it just never comes to fruition despite having the ability to.

SPOILERS:

If you're looking for a BL anime where there's any kind of confession of love/a kiss/any real romance in it, this isn't it. Not even slightly. The closest they get is sleeping next to each other. Nothing physical ever happens between them, nor any verbal exchange of their feelings. Not even an inner monologue of their feelings about the other. Would not recommend for anybody looking for a BL anime.

Something I have been interested in is non-Japanese anime (or anime-influenced) works, and Donghua (Chinese animation) is one of the fast growing in this sphere. As of the time of this review Tian Guan Ci Fu or Heaven's Official Blessing has a score of around 8.4 on both MAL and IMDB, so I thought it would be worth checking out. Unfortunately it was a bit of a disappointing experience. I should also clarify that I have not read the source materials of the show.

Starting off with the positives I will give Tian Guan Ci Fu this: the animation is gorgeous and the production is top-notch, ... easily compatible with the best anime has to offer in that regard. The fluidity of how the animation flowed in particular was well done, including the actions scenes and op. I can't say I am much of a fan of the traditional opera-style Chinese music, but it did fit the show. While I am certainly not an expert (I took two classes in historic Chinese literature as electives in university) I thought the placement in medieval China was well done.

My first gripe with the show was the dialogue; terms along with place and people's names are constantly being thrown about in the conversations the characters seem to be constantly having, with little explanation on the importance of who of what these things are. Again, I did not read the source material, but I think that animation should stand on its own, and I was constantly going to Wikipedia or the MAL page for this show just to understand what was going on. It is also worth mentioning the humor of the show fell completely flat, maybe it was the translation or just different cultural norms, but the jokes the main makes where akin to the ones a friend at the party does but no one laughs, but they don't get the cues and just keep carrying on. Not even the in-universe characters ever seemed even slightly amused, which I guess is supposed to be joke that Xie Lian thinks he is funny but no one else does, only that it is not funny for the audience either.

Another problem was the characters, in the first arc of the show had a demon kidnapping bride as they travel to their marriage, so a bunch of rowdy villagers decide to disguise themselves as a bridal party to catch the demon. Some overly pure village girl begs them to stop because she doesn't want them to die. Yet a few minuets later when the protagonist show up, and propose to do what is practically the same exact thing, the same girl decides to help them wholeheartedly no questions asked. That's the worse example, but it felt as a lot of the characters' motivations and actions were inconsistent and haphazard.

The plot was also not great, the first four episodes are concerned with an arc that proves to be mostly irrelevant towards the end, it could have easily been condensed to 2 episodes. The magic system is never really explained, and what the characters are capable of seems to be what the plot needs at the time, Xie Lian especially is described as an incapable and weak deity, but it seems every time there is a situation his magical neck bandages get the job done.

Lastly a lot of praise I've seen this show receive mention the fact that it is a LGBT romance. I find that a bit misleading for two reasons 1.) maybe I'm just stupid but the male and female gods have such similar character design that it took me a full episode to realize that Hua Cheng was supposed to be a male 2.) there was barely any "romance" in the story, characters engaging in long boring conversations about ghosts and occasionally making eye contact does not qualify as "romance" in my book.

Overall while the animation and production were superb, I ended up disliking this show due to the issues mentioned above. It seems a lot of people like Tian Guan Ci Fu, and whatever suits you, but personally for me it wasn't fun or heartwarming in the slightest.

TL;DR this anime maybe only for the book readers. Note that this review is only after watching first two episodes.

Watching the first episode feels like watching 10th episode of something, a lot of unfamiliar concepts: ghost marriage, ascension to heaven, gods, generals, heaven's realm, heaven's official, none of them explained, even in the second episode. Because I tried to learn a bit of Chinese culture before, I know that ghost marriage is a marriage between someone and dead people, but this is just one of the many concepts. Maybe an average Chinese person, the main target audience, maybe, don't need explanation of these things, I'm ... not sure. Because of these many unknown concepts, I cannot relate with the characters, I cannot relate to the situation they are put into.

I see this title got recommended in my Netflix home, and I saw the MAL rating was unusually high, then later I found out that the high rating was given by the book readers (I don't even know if it is a LN / manga / novel, it must be a book, I'm guessing). One nice thing about the anime I can say is the animation itself is good -- it's on the same tier as the others 8-rated anime in MAL, so if you read the book, maybe it's a good go.

I was so excited to watch this. A gay story from China, with such a beautiful artstyle, and all my favourite themes - mystical powers, non-christian gods, gay romance.... An then there was antiBlackness.

Everything was okay until the part where Hua killed a bunch of Black people for no reason after he jumped willingly into the sinners pit where some were gathered. I have tapped out right after that. AntiBlackness is disgusting and there is no place for it in any media. There are better stories with better characters, better style, better storyline, better plot, better everything that doesnt include antiBlackness as a punchline in ... its storytelling.