Min Diao Ju Yi Wen Lu

This was an easy donghua to watch, but difficult to understand. Shen Shuang, our hero is a top echelon military operative (like Seals, SAS, Special Forces) whose unit tasked with apprehending drug dealers with the help of their fat undercover operative Sun Desheng. Everything goes wrong when they are lured into a cave containing the Kunlun Pagoda, which is a conduit between realms and stores energy from otherworldly entities - Demons, spirits or aliens, depending on your take. The Pagoda is destroyed and in the ensuing blast the dark energy grounds itself in our hero. Rather than killing him, the top person Wu Hao recruits ... him to join the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation.

Most viewers were made aware of this from its trailer as it is made by Studio B.C. May, who also did Mo Dao Zu Shi and The King's Avatar so expectations were high. The animation is freaking gorgeous and the action scenes are fast paced, well choreographed and exciting. Visually and sound wise, you couldn't ask for more.

The story and characters are were things start to fall apart, because the series is way too short to do either any justice. I probably enjoyed this more since I just finished watching all the Candle In The Tomb live action dramas, there are 4 series (20ish episodes each) and 7 movies that have been made from Zhang Muye's Ghost Blows Out the Light novels. If you've watched or read the source material, then you'll know exactly what the Shrine is, why one character is looking for a way to break the "curse" and pretty much all the backstory, what the energy represents etc.

Unfortunately none of this is explained in the donghua, which leaves the viewer "guessing" at many unknown elements and turns the story into one of those trite James Bond meets X Files shows. You know the formula - new recruits to secret agency get to meet new agents with special powers and get super cool equipment from a 'Q' like character then go on missions to solve strange happenings.

Honestly, given how GREAT the art is, I'm pretty disappointed with how full of holes the story is. This should have been Awesome, but it's just good and that's only because the action and animation is so good, I can't really rate it any lower.

Note: Eng Subs available for episodes 1-11, I ended up giving in and watched episode 12 Raw but have some Mandarin so could figure stuff out. Not sure when Eng Subs will be available for the last episode, it wasn't on my usual sites as at February 2021.

This is far from what I expected. They change a lot of things regarding plots, characters and even their personality. I mean base on the original work - the novel.

- First off, I believe anyone would be annoyed with that amount of unnecessary CGI they used, the 2D art is awesome but i can't bear the CGI.

- Secondly, they're suppose to use talismans, charms and magic, like ancient Chinese culture things, not advanced technology.

- And something happened in the first episode violate to the very rule of the Bureau - which is i won't mention it as if it was a spoiler.

If you ... completely enjoy the donghua, that's good but i recommend you to try read the original work, it is too awesome somewhat comparable to "The candle in the Tomb", at some points even better from my point of view.

Overall: old computer game engine is used to create an anime which lacks substance.

Art: It is like watching somebody playing a computer game from 2000. A lot of CGI, mostly animated rocks or foliage. Animated cutscenes with animation on the level of "Full throttle" (i.e. 1996).

Story: The plot is yawn so far. "Bureau 13" premise with a bit of Hellboy and Indiana Jones. Too many cave scenes, perhaps the limitation of the graphic engine: they gave a graphic engine to render rocks so they make caves.
The scenes of secret Jame-Bond-like base are again from very old computer game/

The characters are yawn: a lot of ... cliche, mary sue protagonist who literally does nothing except walking and fighting, just ignore if he ever opens his mouth, he doesn't say anything minimally relevant, unknown hero but everybody has a file on him like a celebrity, etc. Cliche Sancho-Pansa sidekick.

Realism: The characters act like they are in a computer game and the player is not very good with the controls. I.e. jerky movements of 1995 RPG, I'm not kidding you. The dialogues are cheesy at best.

Overall 4.