Ba Ma Laizi Er Ciyuan

ACG = Animation, Comics and Games (in Chinese culture).
Ba Ma Laizi Er Ciyuan or my ACG parents is similar to otaku culture in Japan.
Qi the girl MC has been brought up with parents who have always been obsessed with ACG and have a bookshop filled with this, especially her father.
Yang Wei is the normal friend who sits next to Qi in class.
While Qi tries to distance herself from her parents hobby, Yang Wei finds out an even bigger secret.
His Mother was once a famous Manga writer ( pen name Chio ) from way back, when she was younger. Finding this out Yang Wei & his ... sister set to try and help her.
She gave it all up to start a family but has always had some regrets about what if?
So this is like two halves, firstly Qi gets the beginning episodes and Wang's Mother gets the latter one's.
Animation. This was nice & clean, better than some of the dull Chinese anime.
Sound. Only an ending song which was short but sweet.
Voices. I find Chinese voice actors very funny sometimes. It is slightly different than Japanese but if more people gave it a chance i think they may come around as well.
Characters. These were definitely the best part. Qi the girl suffers with ACG 24/7, from first thing til bedtime she tries to shy away from it. We find out that she had friends who laughed at her for this so she pretended she did not like it.
My favourite character was the Mother ( pen name Chio ) who finally came to terms with what she really wanted to do, continue with her Manga. Seeing her at a Comiket type event with her fans still interested was great, never give up on your dreams.
Overall. At a short running time you still get All sorts of laughs with these characters, especially the Father ( Magical girl Long Aotian ) acting out everyday.

"You're wrong! The reason we came to the comic-con is because we are all friends. Here, we have cosers, boys dressed as girls, and people into other content. There is no discrimination! If you call them perverts, then WHAT are YOU!?" - Qi's father, episode 11.


Story 7/10

The story is told for the most part from Yang Wei and Tong Qi's point of view and sometimes from other characters, it doesn’t make it hard to follow but you do notice as if some part of the plot is not told to you due to the new items, characters and their unexplained actions appearing all of the ... sudden. Although, you start to notice that kind of problem occurring closer to the end of the show starting from the 12th or 14th episode or around that. Still, there is a development in the story.
My few critiques for this show are that it could’ve followed more manhua and included other character’s points of view, explain some terms in case of people watching that show to be more introduced into that ACG culture, and for the last keep some deep interactions between some characters like Tong Qi and Yang Wei and so on.

The complexity of the show didn’t occur for me because I read manhua, but I do believe that some moments of the series should not have been skipped - even if donghua is mostly focused on Ton Qi and Yang Wei's pov. I do see that there may appear some parts that are questionable for the viewer who didn’t read manhua.

The story was pretty unique to me because I got to see how otaku culture feels in China and for my taste I do enjoy watching or reading series which cover that genre. There are some differences and similarities in otaku and ACG culture but you still can relate to it and get deeply touched by the stories. I even had some moments where I wanted to cry and cheer for the characters.

This donghua is pretty fast-paced, it skips, for my taste, some of my favourite places. There is one scene that I may not remember appearing in manhua itself but it suits donghua in my opinion, there is also this arm-wrestling censorship which is pretty funny in some places - but it’s Chinese anime so what can you expect!

Comedy - is done well, it is very funny, especially for the people who may enjoy otaku cultured shows.
The school theme though - the only school theme there is - is that characters wear school uniforms. The show's theme focuses more on the otaku culture than school. Characters spend probably around 4-5 episodes out of 24 at school and more episodes to learn about ACG culture or the past of characters related to that.

The ending was satisfying due to the donghua trying their best to get through the whole story, but not satisfying due to the rush starting from the middle of the show. I am glad how it was finished but also sad that a lot of potentially good arcs and explanations just got skipped.


Art 8/10

The art style of this show is nothing special, but it does fit the comedy and slice-of-life genre. It’s not ugly and has that comedic effect because there are often those chibi faces with funny expressions. But in the end nothing memorable.

Sadly, the art style of the manhua wasn’t followed - but on a serious note I don’t dislike that decision

There was no mixed media in the animation, only 2D. (Bilibili intro shouldn’t count)

As a surprise for a very rushed story - the art style kept being very constant and you could still feel enthusiasm in the animation.

Backgrounds and moodiness aren’t part of that donghua. But it's not a big deal because it's a simple comedy



Sound 7/10

I didn’t find voice actors to sound bad and I think most of the characters were voiced pretty much how I imagined they would sound.

The background music was emotionally correct and fit the atmosphere perfectly to shed a small tear on my cheek. But it wasn't a very memorable OST.

This show has only an ending which I did enjoy and what I like about it - is that it fits the story! These kinds of fitting songs to the shows are found pretty rarely so I try to appreciate it.


Character 7/10

Were the characters well-rounded? Did they have flaws and strengths, or were they unusually strong/smart/stupid?

Characters there in my opinion are pretty good although as early mentioned not enough of the other characters pov for which some characters as not as explained as 2 mains. But it didn’t make it hard to understand character development, which happens in the donghua, and it was still interesting to look at them.

Simple personality and very much relatable for me, because I do enjoy anime, I want to sometimes hide that fact but I do enjoy myself more while hiding this part of me.
There is one takeaway which I didn’t personally enjoy is that Yang Wei personally in his own “intro” narrative said that he is a normie student - in my opinion, it’s not something a normal person would say about themselves. And it’s not only that but also he is supposed to act super clueless so it is weird to hear him accepting his normal nature in the first episode.

But overall the characters of this show will stay in my soul and thanks to this donghua I could’ve remembered some of my favourite characters but once again - I wish it was adapted fully and not skipped through some places.


Enjoyment 8/10

I did find this show enjoyable because it is still one of my favourite manhuas and I am happy with the adaptation. But I wouldn’t recommend this donghua to everyone due to it being about Chinese otaku (ACG) culture and it going through a lot of explanation-needed stuff, which never gets explained… like what is ACG or jianqishou (剑气兽). Due to this niche, I find it hard to recommend.

I don’t think I will rewatch this donghua - unless someone is going to clip its moments. But for the most part, my favourite moments from manhua were not covered so I don’t feel like I should be watching it again. Rereading though - I expect it to do.

Also, there are some memorable heart-warming quotes so this will not be forgotten. And the theme of this donghua is still authentic to these days - by that I mean nothing much happened to the otaku culture so I still feel like I would be reminded of it for a pretty long time.