Guimi Zhi Zhu: Xiaochou Pian Episode 4 Discussion

daaawg i am so confused

i think there's too much anime out rn and I'm losing track on what is happening with each one weekly

i keep losing my place on what's been going on in each one lol

Did bro just start a religion of himself

Still not over the fact that this looks absolutely stunning

@Afriyieau1 I'm not obsessing over the nitty gritty, I couldn't even get the big stuff like the incantation or what not, I think they should explain it better

what about Audrey how did she make that potion? how does she know the recipe

when justice did the ritual 4 dots appeared on his hand did he connected to gray fog because of that?

LOL the " Lord of Mysteries accused of storyboard plagiarism from Violet Evergarden" incident. Weird that a day nearly passed and neither MAL nor Reddit has discussed about this.

Am i supposed to know where he learned all these incantations and powers or am I just supposed to be shutting my brain off and drooling at the fun action. Also am I supposed to know why Klein seemingly has all this supernatural knowledge while he's in the gray fog?

@Mathi786 The part the donghua deemed important to explain about the incantation was shown by Vincent in the divination class, the one Klein spied on.

The stuff you’re asking about are lores that get better grasped through the expanse of the novel. What you can do with an incantation or can’t do with it wasn’t something that was explicitly stated in the novel either. They are knowledge you slowly grasped as the novel develops, some cues being revealed as far as later volumes.

Again my point stands. If these kinda lore details are gonna be a stump in your experience of the donghua, you’re better off picking up the novel. The magic system and lores are too big for the donghua to spend time detailing everything to the audience. They are already pushing themselves doing almost 40 minutes per episode

Am I watching the same show everyone else is? I've watched every episode up to this one multiple times and I have absolutely no clue what the fuck is going on. Antagonists come out of nowhere with no context for anything. Not sure how Klein became God in the above-clouds world. Almost no characters are given any introduction before being incredibly relevant to a storyline that is never established.

Genuine question, what is happening in this show?

I've watched plenty of fragmented timeline shows, plenty of mysteries, plenty of psychological thrillers, and almost nothing in this show makes sense.

It looks beautiful and has a great soundtrack but that's all I'm getting out of it week to week.

@EmilioRecore

"having the ingredients for a ritual" What I liked most about this question is that each responder has their own distinct explanation for why it happened.

"Your second point is just nitpicking." My whole nitpick is that you have to figure out why things happen in the anime on your own. To me, if they’re already cutting tons of content from the original novel, why not just cut that whole scene with the sick guy to get to the point without this directorial crutch of "I was here this morning" when in the anime, the two scenes happen back-to-back.

@Ki11grave

"not to introduce a villain of the episode?" Well, they already introduced him at the start of the episode, he was even munching on a finger.

"What if she was a new friend?" Then your argument that the villains just logically figured out the MC’s sister’s habits doesn’t hold up. If the friend is a new element, there’s just too little room for planning. Unless the friend herself is a spy. Otherwise, it’s just another prediction that solves everything.

"That receptionist was listening to the sick guy's conversation in the background." Ugh, if we’re going into "how it was in the novel" territory, you don’t need to make up excuses to defend that scene. As I understand it, the MC spent half a day doing all sorts of divinations, which just didn’t make it into the episode. She started praising him with words from the "villain of the day." I was talking about the directing here and how the scenes are clumsily stitched together, not a question of "if you thought about it, you’d get it." It’s a question of "why couldn’t they make a proper transition between scenes or just do them differently?"

"You can't go to the next seq without digesting the current one." Does he have anywhere to rush to? He literally only knows the name of the second potion and that’s it.

"What I talk about can be understood from watching the show alone." Where did I say I didn’t understand the scene or something like that?

"you, yourself, don't even bother to remember characters' faces." I especially loved the moment where they introduced the brother without any introduction, as if I was supposed to already know who he is and cheer for him.


@M_Yue

"he is 'sniping' the MC knowing his schedule by spying on him in the shadows." If he’s directly spying on him, why not just break into his house at night and attack him while he’s sleeping? They could ambush him after work and put a sack over his head if they didn’t need him alive. Why bother with this overly complicated three-step plan when he’s always in their sights anyway?

"Chibi animations (all 4 of them, 1 for each episode's post-credits) are not even 2min long!" Hmm, I remember someone shared one of those animations a couple of weeks ago, and it was like 13 minutes long. Maybe that was my mistake then, I’ll admit. Still, that’s extra side material, and the viewer shouldn’t be obligated to watch it. If it contains something so important, why didn’t they just put it in the episode itself, especially since it’s only 2 minutes?

"no it is not the villain guy." In my translation, it literally says, "you must be that outstanding seer Vincent was talking about." So I have no idea what your friend could’ve figured out or why he had to discuss the directorial choice of scene transitions. Just to be sure, I checked four other translations, and they all mention Vincent. The MC even asks, "VINCENT?" and you can hear it even through the Chinese dialogue. Honestly, it feels like you’re trying to gaslight me and just making up these all-knowing friends.

"Digesting the potion is the way to fully realize its principles." Then the scene from the last episode where they didn’t even try to find another seer for the spell doesn’t make sense. If, as you say, he’s not that great at his job until he fully digests it.

"one has simply has to pay sufficient attention, it's all in-there." Did I ever say I don’t understand the local RPG system? I literally asked why he needs to digest potions.

"Blud, he literally had a Tarot reading by a random beast tamer in carnival tent back in Episode 1." Were those Tarot readers from the same club the MC went to in Episode 4? It was literally a market, and markets always have that kind of stuff. The question is, how can you tell from the anime that these fortune-telling clubs are so widespread when we’ve only seen one in the first episode and one club in the fourth? The answer, again, is "figure it out for the author."

"he is literally part of the Nighthawks, freaking secret police, why would he not get to know about some club." Show me a quote where the anime says this or where they gave him a task to investigate a suspicious club. The transition from "they tell the MC about the ritual" to "oh, I’m at the club" literally had no information other than a sign on the wall.

"needless to mention he is a seer, can't you remember how he figured out the location of that criminal back in EP2?" So now he’s always going to be divining off-screen, and the viewer is just supposed to accept it as fact? Will every future fight and scene look like someone already divined it on coffee grounds and knew exactly where to go? Next time the MC struggles with eating a steak, I’ll just assume he divined off-screen that this is exactly how it’s supposed to be eaten.

"he stated it is a ritualistic magic, ritualistic magic as Old Neil had already said always requires addressing a target for prayer." So the MC knew they’d misunderstand him and think he’s literally a god, but still chose to present the information in exactly that way?

"the girl is but a vessel for the true creator's 'corruption' and Vincent's cursed mirror forwarding that connection with actual ritualistic magic." That’s obvious, and it was clear that the villain of the day wasn’t personally possessing her, and anyone could see she wasn’t herself.

"by he appeared in Episode 2's post credits." Yeah, like I already wrote in my last reply, I mentioned that in my first message. Do you even read what I write carefully?

"they are literally superhuman with improved dexterity, memory capacity, and more flexible senses." Where does the anime say that?

"this is kind of similar to Steins;Gate." Honestly, I can’t stand Steins;Gate, so that’s not a great pitch.

"MC figured out that the Clown is literally using his intuition to counter any shots 'intentionally' shot his way, you are literally more likely to be able to shoot him if you just shoot randomly instead of trying to target him 'actively.'" So basically, he intentionally shot in the Clown’s direction without intending to harm him. I could accept that scene if the guy wasn’t making just one single shot but was blasting away with a Maxim machine gun or something. As it is, it feels like an exercise in mental gymnastics.

"It almost feels like you are not interested in the story at all." Well, so far, nothing interesting has been shown, and I’m not the type to get impressed by a fancy, expensive picture just for the sake of it.

"again, if we as WN readers have been praising it text-only for years." I recently checked out the manhwa *The Beginning After the End*, which everyone was hyping up from all sides. What I got was another *Solo Leveling* in different scenery with endless grinding for the next weekly boss fight. And don’t get me started on how the entire internet was raving about the *Solo Leveling* manhwa back in the day. I even remember a WoW guildmate showing up to a meetup in a *Solo Leveling* hoodie, shamelessly promoting it to everyone, lol. What’s my point? It’s up to me to decide what I end up liking, and I don’t see any problem with sharing my thoughts about what’s happening online.

@1kirua_aim

So you’re telling me a literal deity possessed the girl, and the MC just waved it off with a puff of fog? And they say the fog isn’t OP, lol. Next thing, you’ll want a cold beer on a Friday night, and it’ll show up with a bottle opener.

Yeah, yeah, it’s real fun watching you argue with some random take about deity battles or whatever. I can just picture your friend sitting there, arm around you, saying, “Oh, that was the gods fighting, I totally understood it perfectly.”

@0207xander

the supernatural knowledge that he gains "while in the gray fog", is literally just him regurgitating what he read in roselle's diary during episode 2, along with experience from Earth

as for "how he learned incantations", the same incantation that Old Neil literally used at the start of the episode, was used during the mirror fight, klein just asked for a different favor to be brought about by the evernight goddess,

if you cant understand the donghua at this point, then just drop it, because you will struggle with trying to piece together the more important and larger details during the final act

@OrigamistToo you have complaints about LotM -> they get answered -> you double down and go into obscure details no one cares about -> it's getting harder to respond to your insane takes and we end up arguing about a completely different thing from what we began with.

For example, "the new friend". You argued how Klein couldn't know her. Why would he know about Melissa's school friends? OK, she would invite them to her previous birthday party, so she's a relatively new friend. "Relatively", because the original Klein killed himself a week ago. Do you see a difference between "a year" and "a week"? No? Whatever, it doesn't matter, because while arguing about nonsense bullshit we forgot that if Klein did know Elizabeth before, absolutely fucking nothing would have changed!

Or fortune-telling clubs not being widespread. Yeah, sure, if you see a travelling circus visiting your local town, you assume that there is only one travelling circus in the world. And Audrey knowing that Klein named himself after the fool card doesn't tell that fortune telling is widespread, sure. Once again, with your CinemaSins style of criticism you can made anything look bad.

And the worst thing is that other people that don't like the anime see you have a long list of claims and assume that you're right, just because you're on the same side. Like this dude @0207xander What "all the supernatural knowledge"? You mean the one he got from Roselle's diary?

@Ki11grave Yeah the thing that happened for a couple minutes in an episode two weeks ago in irl time that I didn't remember because why the fuck would I lol

Am I watching the same show everyone else is? I've watched every episode up to this one multiple times and I have absolutely no clue what the fuck is going on. Antagonists come out of nowhere with no context for anything. Not sure how Klein became God in the above-clouds world. Almost no characters are given any introduction before being incredibly relevant to a storyline that is never established.

Genuine question, what is happening in this show?

I've watched plenty of fragmented timeline shows, plenty of mysteries, plenty of psychological thrillers, and almost nothing in this show makes sense.

It looks beautiful and has a great soundtrack but that's all I'm getting out of it week to week.

@OrigamistToo @0207xander Klein thought how he found out about the acting method from Roselle's diary between Old Neil's ritual and divination club scenes. It happened THIS EPISODE. "Yelling at subordinates who didn't understand something": that was something you also didn't understand.

You know, I'am always against gatekeeping, but you're making me have an exception. You better not watch something that is "not second screen enough".

@OrigamistToo See, this is what you do, this is what I've been talking about. You had a claim, and I gave you a reasonable explanation. It seems like that's it, we're done, but no! You double down and now a problem is that there was an information, even though you complained before how there wasn't.

So, what is a win situation for me? One thing is bad, the other thing is bad too! If Klein had chosen a seer pathway just by guessing and ~4 seasons later we found out why Roselle had said this option is better, you would've said "oh, how convenient that MC picked up the right option!" And there is a worldbuilding element to why some pathways are better than others. With the power of nitpicking, every single plot development is a wrong one.

In E2 we're not supposed to fully get Roselle's words, but in E4 Klein remembers them (once again, he says they are from the diary), rethinks them and comes to a conclusion that leads him to a divination club.

I'm sure for every my sentence you're gonna have 5 more. From time to time, you happen to be right about some hardly noticeable details, but the normal reaction to them is "Whoooo caaaaares!!?".

I'm not gonna respond to your comments anymore. I wasn't answering all of your mad naggings, because I tried to fight the illness, not symptoms, but realized that even that is pointless. As they say in where I'm from: "Only a grave can fix a hunchback". So long.

@1kirua_aim I'm talking about the card magic that he just threw out.

How am I expected to remember the text he read from a diary 2 weeks ago in real life when I have a job and am watching multiple shows lol, it's not like i'm reading 10 chapters of a donghua every night to aid my memory.

Unfortunately this seems to be an overly and at the same time useless convoluted show.

You are costantly introduced to random terms that are basically meaningless without context and prior established rules.

The audience is infodumped every 3 seconds about "lore", potions, god, grey fogs, mysticism, occultism and other random things only to justify another system based on classes (pathways), levels (called sequences) and the usual skills that you would expect from an asian videogame/moba. This shiuld give a sense of worldbuilding that results to be actually quite dull.
And it reflects on the characters; every single one of the cast is defined more about their class than actual good writing leaving them to be quite forgettable.

Seeing how well praised it is, I suspect this poor result is due more to a bad adaptation and a general lack of good direction.

I will try to stick around for the upcoming episodes because the setting is really nice, and well animated, too. But all in all for now its just your usual videogamey isekai.

@OrigamistToo @0207xander Klein thought how he found out about the acting method from Roselle's diary between Old Neil's ritual and divination club scenes. It happened THIS EPISODE. "Yelling at subordinates who didn't understand something": that was something you also didn't understand.

You know, I'am always against gatekeeping, but you're making me have an exception. You better not watch something that is "not second screen enough".

@0207xander the card magic is a charm that dunn gave him in episode 3

@1kirua_aim when? and was it explained how he would use it or did he just give it to him and you're supposed to just assume he understood how to use/control it? Shouldn't the audience know more than the main character about the magic system? That's how you create and subvert expectations after all

@0207xander all these questions were answered in old Neil's mysticism classes

@Snapeless If the only way to understand your power system is to watch an external 15 minute supplemental video explaining it, it's poorly written and convoluted.

@Snapeless If the only way to understand your power system is to watch an external 15 minute supplemental video explaining it, it's poorly written and convoluted.

@0207xander alright its not for you then just drop it and move on

They’re only 2–5 minutes each lol. The chibi shorts are pretty cute and SoL.

As for Old Neil’s mysticism classes, they do deserve some criticism, but the biggest issue is that they weren’t included with the episodes internationally. That’s why people tend to dismiss them as "external" or "optional." But they are fully official and were released by the same studio for Chinese viewers to watch alongside the episodes. So it's not like they’re fan-made or non-canon and international viewers just didn’t get them integrated.
That said, even without watching those mysticism classes, you still get a rough idea of how the system works through the names (ex. Slumber Charm) and the showcase of their abilities.

"Shouldn’t the audience know more than the main character about the magic system?"

Not necessarily. This story is built around Klein's gradual discovery of the world and its systems. He himself goes through those mysticism lessons (in-universe, taught by Old Neil), so we’re meant to learn alongside him.

@Snapeless I'm going to keep watching it, because I think it's valuable to watch bad shows that other people like to understand why they like them. It's why I've watched SAO, NGNL, and Haruhi. Plus, if I don't finish it, then I say I didn't like it, people like you would complain that I am not allowed to talk about something I didn't watch

@1kirua_aim when? and was it explained how he would use it or did he just give it to him and you're supposed to just assume he understood how to use/control it? Shouldn't the audience know more than the main character about the magic system? That's how you create and subvert expectations after all

@Skullwild I'm not saying they're bad videos, but if they're mandatory for half the audience, it is either explained poorly or is convoluted.

And I meant that last part in the sense that we are supposed to have the understanding of both the main character's perspective and glimpses into what other characters are doing away from the MC, meaning our information as an audience should be some nonzero amount greater than the MC in almost every series, outside of some whodunits

I'm i genuinely the only anime only watcher that understood everything that's going on?? There's no way people are saying is hard to understand or they don't know what's going on, when 90% of stuff are explained, either by a dialogue or by a whole scene. Maybe is because I just binge watched all episodes so my memory is fresh to connect the dots, but damn is not hard to understand. I can't deny I had a few problems, like when Klein was making his own prayer on to himself. It got me confused but I managed to understand by rewinding, and pausing. I'd say I made like 3 pauses in that whole section and at the last pause I got that eureka moment that made me thought "mmm, so Klein is using the prayer as a medium to use the fog powers? Thus linking it to him?" And not only that I'm already liking a lot of the characters, Leonard is currently my fav even though he hasn't appear that much and Audrey is cute asl same with Susie. Klein so far seems like a blank state but I'm intrigued on where his character is going, hes pretty much doing almost everything in an accidental way and it lowkey makes me think of Cid from the eminence a little bit, maybe is linked to that luck enhancement ritual he did?? idk all I know is that im hyped and I'm waiting for the next episode today (i hate chinese ppl why they gotta air it so late at night)

@0207xander

In fact, the original novel is not a traditional Western fantasy adventure or Japanese I-sekai novel.

This novel is more like a suspenseful detective story. Each chapter of it can be read independently as a detective novellas.

At the end of each chapter, some foreshadowing and clues will be explained, but most will still remain in a state of mystery.

Finally, in the last chapter, the foreshadowing and clues of previous chapters will be fully explained, including the true worldview.

@truecyc226 Well I am not reading the novel, I'm watching the anime. I'm sure the donghua is good, but it doesn't really factor in to an evaluation of the anime