Apr 10, 2023
**Updated** Preliminary Review at the top with full/after review lower down.
This is a preliminary review, after having skimmed 5 episodes:
As a standalone piece/work, so far, this donghua is nice. The animations are fluid and organic, the art/designs are nice. And the story premise is quite good, however, if you look at it from an adaptation perspective, it really leaves much to be desired. There are simply too many changes to the plot to really be called an adaptation. I saw one commenter on Youtube say it is only kept the name the same, most everything else has been changed. It was given the Yuan Long
...
Season 2 treatment.
For the changes, they seem intent on reducing the number of characters in this donghua from the original. The princess was originally insufferable (she made me want to throw my computer out the window pretty much every chapter, but later disappears so it made things better), but now she's less annoying and more normal(?), and she seems to be the main focus/FMC for now, which was NEVER THE CASE in the novel. I might write a more detailed review later after this full season is released.
All in all, I think it's worth watching as a standalone work, but might not be if you loved the original novel and expect an accurate adaptation.
Adaptation Score (how faithful to the source): 3/10
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This will be a more comprehensive review of Shen Mu after I finished watching the whole season. I will do a review of the work as well as going through what changes were made in the work as an adaptation. My "preliminary review" opinion still stands, so you can read that if you want a 100% spoiler free impression. The following review may contain spoilers.
For the Shen Mu donghua, if you look at it as a standalone work (not as an adaptation), it is still a decent donghua, though a bit light-hearted and generic. It is not a bad watch, however, the tone and direction is much different from the original work (novel).
General Plot: Chen Nan wakes up 10,000 years after his death (he remembers dying), to find himself in a tomb where all the most powerful figures of his time buried alongside him. He wonders, why is he alive? After finding out about how much time has passed, he originally plans to look for some answers and live his life exploring this new work, but an unexpected reunion with the HouYi bow, his family's heirloom divine weapon drags him into the conspirisies planned for tens of thousands of years.
As a standalone work, the story and plot of this decent. Unfortunately, because this is an adaptation that had a huge departure from the source material (more on that in the adaptation section), there are large amount of inconsistancies in both character and plot. However, despite these problems, this donghua story is still good, it is just not as well paced as it could have been and there is some questionable motives/decisions made by the characters. There is also an overly complicated romantic entanglement with a tsundere princess and political machinations (and clearly defined villain) that I felt were shoehorned in to create a huge climax for the season, espeically since the season ended most of the plot threads. Overall, it can be considered a relatively generic shounan donghua with a "OP" protagonist. Enjoyable, but very disappointing for viewers who read the original work.
The character designs and the animations are done well, the art style is very appealing and the animations are smooth. The action scenes flow well and feel impactful. At least the animation department did a good job.
Overall, an enjoyable watch, though the plot can be a bit incosistant and messy. 7/10
Review as an adaptation (comparison to source, spoilers ahead):
As for how this stands as an adaptation of the novel...........it's horrible. While it started off fine, the opening was pretty cool, it almost immediately began to change the plot; I thought it would only be small tweaks like most adaptations, but as the season progressed, the changes became greater and greater. By the end, it's even hard to call it an adaptation.
Plot Explanation (SPOILERS FOR PLOT COMPARISON):
Chen nan was originally a genius, a young master with great cultivation talent, but after his duel with Tantai Xuan, his cultivation started to regress to Rank 1 (from Rank 3). This caused others to treat him as a cripple/trash (typical). Because of this he was sent to travel the world to cure his depression by his parents, he met Yu Sheng during his travels, and the two fell in love with each other. However, he was later attacked by one of this father's enemies as revenge, during which Yu Sheng sacrificed herself to save him. While his father was able to go against the laws of nature to revive Yu Sheng, it was not perfect causing them to be seperated again. Chen Nan falls in to a depression again. Feeling tired of life, he goes on a deathmatch suicide mission to fight the son of the one who killed Yu Sheng. He dies and someone does something to his body (seen in the opening). Now we get to the beginning of the novel, where the donghua opens (All this was Chen Nan's history as is revealed later).
PLOT OF NOVEL COVERED BY DONGHUA:
Chen Nan wakes up 10k years after his death in the "tomb of the gods", a place where the most powerful people of his era were buried. After he ressurected, he left the tomb and traveled to a border town where he spent one year learning the new era's language (it has been 10k years after all). Then when he embarks on a journey to travel the new world, intending to start a new life unconnected to his past, since everything he knew had disappeared into the river of time. However, he has an unfortunate encounter with the princess Chu Yu, and ends up being captured as a slave (not servant like in the donghua) for peeking on her bathing. They continue to the mountain to get the fire lotus for the emperor's birthday present (not to cure her father like in the donghua). The princess uses the HouYi bow during the fight, which allows us readers to know understand the bow can only be shot once every 10 years (needs to recharge). During the fight, Chen Nan is able to escape, but is captured by the neighboring empire's prince as he tries to steal the HouYi bow that the princess snuck out. During the subsequent bluffing/ambush on the princess, the HouYi bow ends up in Chen Nan's hands as a "hot potato", with no choice, he is forced to try to use it to save himself, revealing he can use the bow without limitations. Then there is some plot revolving Chen Nan capturing the princess, princess taking a bite of the lotus, and reversing their captor-hostage roles. As punishment for capturing her, she uses that absorbtion technique on Chen Nan as punishment to weaken him, but ends up sucking all the Qi out of his body, revealing the hidden qi that caused his cultivation to decline. Because of this, others end up treating him as a cripple, while he is able to recover his cultivation talent and quickly return to the level he once was (he hid his cultivation from others and pretended to cripple). He hid his cultivation intending to not develop any ties with any powers, so he can remain free. The older princess manages to track the two down and decides to try to heal/nurture Chen Nan because of his ability to wield the HouYi bow, employing Nalan Ruoshui (a deleted character), a practicioner of medicine/healing arts. Chen Nan develops a close relationship with Nalan Ruoshui, since she's genuine to him. By now, his goal has changed, while he was intending to live a life free from his past, his reunion with the HouYi bow (a family heirloom), and revelation that his mortal enemy, Tantai Xuan has become revered, he decided to dig up the secrets of the past 10k years and get his revenge. To do that, he continued to hide his cultivation while he scoured the ancient books of the empire; once he finished he planned to leave (not to overstay his welcome as he is a "cripple"). However, he learns that Nalan Ruoshui is to be married off in a political marriage (and live a lifetime of misery), he makes an irrational choice to reveal his power to prevent that, by officially tying himself with the empire. The emperor first agrees, then renegades, making Chen Nan mutiny. He finally is able to prevent the marriage through mutiny, and takes Chu Yu hostage in order to escape, ending the plot corresponding to the novel that the donghua should cover.
The changes to the plot are numerous, but I will try to categorize them. The changes include: side character reduction and role consolidation, plot thread shortening and shuffling, political climate, and a plethroa of MC changes.
Changes to the MC (character, motivations, etc.) -
The MC was weak because of his cripple cultivation and not as "badass" as in this donghua. I guess this change was because most people don't like pathetic, self-loathing, and weak MC's, which he would have been for the first half of the season. His original motivation was to travel the world, then changed to learning the secrets of the past as his encounter with familar objects drew him into that vortex. He was also very independant and did not like to be attached to others, unlike what is shown in the donghua, as it seems Chu Yu, the princess, will be a mainstay in this donghua.
Changes involving HouYi Bow -
First in the donghua, the mysteries/secrets of HouYi bow came to light earlier, with the whole revival thing, this was something that was slowly revealed to readers as MC dug deeper into his past and found out about his family/clan's deeper secrets.
Second, the HouYi bow was a divine weapon that protected the Chu Empire. Its ability was to guarantee a hit on anyone it was aimed at, making it an effective tool for intimidation (you would be able to effectively kill anyone you wanted which would scare other rulers), but it had a restriction: it could only be used once every 10 years, after that it had a cooldown because it had been sealed. This made the MC's value much greater, because he could pull it without that restriction (he's the defacto owner of the bow 10k years prior). Now, there was little reason to keep him by the first princess other than the second princess Chu Yu likes him (See character changes for more info).
Side character Changes -
The changes to the side characters are quite significant. The neighboring empire's prince was painted as the main villain and mastermind behind all the "bad stuff" in this donghua, while in the novel he was just a insignificant minor character. I won't say much about him because he is so insignificant, but his villainous portrayal is mirrored by the white-washing of the princesses (which I'll talk about a bit later).
-The baby dragon that showed up in this season was only supposed to be introduced later in the story, during the academy arc, where the MC is headed after the end of Season 1. I guess they added it because it's cute and for comedic relief? The whole revalation that the dragon was a rank 5 dragon doesn't come until much much later; the reveal was quite premature.
-Now onto the changes to the important persons of the empire: there was a significant amount put on the chopping block. The asshole dragon rider that got owned by Chen Nan (our MC) was basically a typical rich young master type. In this donghua, they changed him to be "heroic" and self-sacrificing even though he was a petty and selfish asshole.
-When the MC joined the Eccentrics' brigade (where he stayed), he met some unique cultivators there, like the old poison devil and witch who were quite interesting and unique, but they got completely cut from the show.
-There was a potential love interest, a friend of the elder princess named Nalan Ruoshui, who got completely deleted from the story. She was nice to the MC and would be one of the potential romantic interests in the story. After she was removed, her character and roles have been divided between the princesses (older and FMC).
-The older princess is shown as patriotic/nationalistic and stern but loving in the donghua, however this is partially because of the role consolidation. In the novel, she is an perfect example of a cunning fox politician. She changes her face to suit whatever role she needed. She may act compassionate or understanding, but it is all calculated to achieve political goals. She even contemplated having the MC secretly assassinated after assigning him to some remote region after finding out he was useless, because her friend (mentioned above) had some good will/feelings toward him.
-The FMC, Chu Yu, is changed to be a slightly mischivious and tsundere princess. In the novel, she was an spoiled, insufferable b*tch, petty and loved to watch the world burn for her entertainment. Chu Yu, the younger princess, was promoted to FMC, which was not the case in the novel. She was semi-important as a hostage in the earlier parts of the novel (for his protection after he mutinied against the Chu Empire), but after the academy arc Chu Yu mostly
disappears from the novel. Despite being a hostage, because the ancestor of the Chu Empire was following Chen Nan, he still had to deal with her annoying antics.
Plot and plot thread changes -
The main outline of the donghua is the same as in the novel, but because of changes to characters, the major details are changed. I also heard that there were production issues with this donghua (changing studios etc) which probably influenced some of the changes, like plot theards. This donghua is VERY episodic, meaning almost everything that happened in this season got wrapped up, with very little lead-ins for the next season (they only left . Some of the things that happened in this donghua were not supposed to occur yet, like they attempted takeover of Chen Nan's body, the reveal or introduction of the baby dragon. Those should have happened in the "second arc" which takes place at the academy they are travelling to at the end of the season. Because of all the changes to the characters, many of the details changed making this a very loose adaptation of the original work (novel).
Political climate -
The Chu empire, that the princesses are from was portrayed as one of the most powerful. Of course, the prince that is the main villain of this season, was trying to hurt the Chu empire by stealing the Hou Yi bow. The other empire was also powerful, on par with the Chu empire, it could simply be seen as a "cold war" for supremecy. In this donghua, the empire is portrayed as weakening, with succession issues, etc. While the vassal states wanted to show strength and break away from vassal status, it was not like how they were presented here (used by another country to achieve some goals).
Final Adaptation Score (how faithful to source):2/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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