Chinese Animation Guide – Part 3: Haoliners inputs

This part we explore one Chinese animation studio’s works. I choose Haoliners partly because they are independent studio, and their works are not hard to find. Just established in 2013, Haoliners is an indie studio but gathered more reputation in the last few years in their homeland. My experience with them through those titles below have been hit or miss, but even me can say that their production is quite great and they are a creative bunch. Their shows, while mostly anime style-wise, cover many genres: from comedy, romantic to thriller. Their climax action scenes are quite impressive as well. Here are the 6 shows in no particular order:

Yaoguai Mingdan – Monster List (妖怪名单)

 Yaoguai Mingdan

The story started on the campus of a university. The poor university student Feng Xi can occasionally see demons, but he didn’t trust his marvelous senses. An unexpected snooping allowed him to find out that the school beauty was a demon fox? What should he do during the date with a demon fox? The beautiful demon fox gave him a small present, and then he realized his university was full of monsters. This is by far their most popular show but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Here we have the most ecchi show of the whole bunch, which is quite fitting seems those monsters are girls seducing their prey (horny young boys). I had to say the final fighting scene is very entertaining, but this is not my type of show.

More after the jump Continue reading “Chinese Animation Guide – Part 3: Haoliners inputs”

Chinese Animation Guide – Part 2: Chinese Anime shows

As much as I hated the term Chinese Anime (Anime stands for Japanese animation, strictly speaking), this is the exact term for those shows. Their influence from the Anime was so heavy that apart from the voice cast and some scene settings, you can’t tell those apart from the original anime. With that said, judge from anime standard, some of the shows here are solid or at least entertainment. Here are the 6 shows in no particular order:

Spirit Blade Mountain – Reikenzan: Hoshikuzu-tachi no Utage – 从前有座灵剑山

Spirit Blade Mountain

In the anime’s story, a comet falling will bring about a great calamity, and in order to choose a child fated by the falling comet, the family of the “Reiken” clan with a long storied history is once again resuming its entrance examination process to find disciples. The protagonist, who possesses a special soul that is only available once in a thousand years, decides to take the exam, and he starts down the path toward becoming an exceptional sage. This is an anime adaptation of the popular manga “Spirit Blade Mountain“ by Studio DEEN and just released in Winter 2016. This first episode benefits both from the double length (20 minutes compared to other series’ 10 minutes) and a huge likeable cast on their way to the Reiken trial. Each of them have their own designs and personalities so this is fun to watch them working together. This is the most anime-quese of all the shows I watch, but considering an anime studio adapting it, it would make sense. The story is good and fun so far but I’m not quite convinced to watch more of it.

Chu Feng BEE (雛蜂-BEE-)

Chu Feng BEE

In 2017, a group of genius scientists achieve a remarkable breakthrough in bioengineering. However, all the new technologies are put into military use, beginning a new round of arms race. Vanguards, as the most significant achievement of the modern bioengineering and the most advanced weapon, are widely utilized in the race. The heroine Liuli has also consumed too much of her lifespan after executing missions for a long time. With only 380 days left in her life, Liuli receives a new mission, to rescue a hostage being held in a civilian facility. During the mission, Liuli surprisingly finds that the man who holds the hostage was once a vanguard. The art is gorgeous and the production is very solid here: from the background design, the sound, the music, everything just in high standard here, but the story, even in its 1st episode, is so heavy-handed. I don’t really like all the political elements of the show, but it seems like they going for that direction. This is one of the most popular Chinese titles out there as well. I will give it couple more episodes to see how everything unfolds.

Nüwa’s Growth Diary (娲成长日记)

Nüwa’s Growth Diary

A girl finds out by her creepy father that she is in fact Nuwa, the goddess who creating mankind and repairing the pillar of heaven. Now she has to come to term with it. The first episode focuses on the father who keep convincing her daughter that she’s a goddess, but she understandably thinks that he’s a nut. I think this is one of the most solid comedy show in this list. My favorite part would be when the father and daughter stop arguing for a moment, turn back and ask the director if their “acting” is good enough. I don’t think this shows will break any rules but it is an enjoyable work.

The Devil Ring (戒魔人)

The Devil Ring

What a great hook. The story about a freshman guy, forced to wear unknown origin ancient ring, soon after a terrible evil literally leaps out from his mouth, and attacks people, these strange monsters may hide the mystery of the origin of human. I’d say I’m impressed with the hook, but from this first episode I can’t really say where the show decides to head into? Is it a thriller Ajin-style, where everyone would hunt him and the monster down, is it a psychological one where he has to learn how to control the monster, or is it just simply a mindless action show? The art is not really my type but I don’t mind to explore more of this work.

Eros Chocolate (爱神巧克力)

 Eros Chocolate

A guy, unknowingly eats a “love” pie and shares the pie to 4 girls, as a result those four girls, with so different personalities, chase him down like crazy. This is your typically harem show, and as far as I can tell not a good one. All the girls are archetypes: a Queen bee, a Sporty one, a Bookworm one, and a Weird Weilding Sword one. Haizz, this show makes me sad that even the harem stuff still have its fan overseas.

NANOCORE (纳米核心)

Nanocore

Nanocore is a science fiction Chinese TV cartoon in 3D. The stage of the story is established on a fictional planet Birthigin. In this young planet, human will never stop longing for a bright future despite reason and fear. In revolutions and evolutions, human keeps challenging the Creator, and which eventually induces contractions intensified. People choose to wake up and struggle for their own ideals.  Seems like an intrigue idea, but what’s up with this show’s character designs? A pink hair girl with pink eyes and pink outfit, who has a brother that has red hair and red eyes; plus, they are in 3D computer animated and we have a completely ridiculous art designs. The story features a brother and sister who were looking for food, then suddenly a huge aircraft fell right behind them. Other elements are all right though, I have to say the sci-fi setting is rather well though, but not too stand out from the rest.

~SuperMario~

Chinese Animation Guide – Part 1: Computer Animated Wuxia shows

If anyone have been followed animation closely for the last few years, they will notice a recent rise of Chinese animation (call it a wave if you like), both in feature and in series. While it does not have much of an impact in any English speaking world like anime has been, they are really popular in their mainland and some parts of Asian countries. With the success of Kung Fu Panda (half-produced by China) and its power on movies industry (China IS the main market for feature films now), it is worth it to take a look on this current trend and see how they are different from anime.

While my fellow bloggers are the ones who more specialize in Games and Manga, I will be the one who cover World Animation (by that I mean anything animated other than anime and American big studio animation – they got way too much coverage already). Like majority of you guys I am not from China, my Chinese is as good as my Japanese (which is to say NONE), so this is actually goddamn difficult to look for titles, and the information I could find are sacred here on top of that find a suitable sub for it, most of them does not even have an English name, thus the title and the synopsis that I give you here are just a rough translation. So behold. This is our very first attempt to cover the animation of china.

Part 1: Computer Animated Wuxia shows

This is a staple genre in Chinese animation, the combination of modern revisit of traditional wuxia genre, together with the rise computer animation and the boom of RPG online game in China make this a very distinctive animation genre, and the fighting scenes are somewhat a trademark for Chinese animation shows. Here are the 6 shows in no particular order:

The Legend of Qin (时明)

Qin's Moon

Let begin with a blast, The Legend of Qin, or Qin’s Moon, is the most popular show right now, both in their mainland and in international appeal. As of this writing the season 5 have been aired and the live action series are underway, and that happens for a reason. The first episode introduces a young boy (Jing Tiaming) and his master (Ge Nie) are ambushed in the desert. After fending the enemy troops off, Ge Nie is injured and is found, along with Tianming, by the Royal Tribe of Chu. Set in the rich time of Qin dynasty, Qin’s Moon already had a strong backstory. I like both the two main characters, and the story while dense at times, so far is easy to follow. If you want to check out the Chinese animation, make this one your first.

Swords of Half of a Man-ho (剑豪之半面)

Swords of Half of a Man-ho

The story seems to be about a young man who eventually become a master swordsman, but we didn’t learn that in this first episode. There’s already a fighting scene in the very beginning of the show, which we don’t even know who the main characters are so why do we care? There is a lot of action but the choreography is clumsy at best and stupid at worst. I mean there is an assassin and she easily took down our main character, but then for no reason she would turn her back on him so he could punch her in the back, all that so the assassin would lose it and tried to kill our main character, but ends up that his lover’s got knifed. WHAT? The second half of this busy episode we have a chance to see a mysterious girl, a talkative boy and again a fight at the end. None of them act like normal people. Even the main protagonist just come off as bland. The only point I can give is the above average character design.

Shalen ()

Shalen

The story is about a young boy called ZhanChi, who fated to become “one of the heroes who hold the fortune of the world” (by a weird mark in his left hand). When he was 5, his sister got kidnapped by a monster, people called them ling. He promises he will recuse his sister back someday. When he was 15, his second mother finally lets him go. This first episode plays like a prelude, telling us a story of Zhanchi before he began his adventure. While this may feel like your typical plot: he wants to get out of the house to join the heroes gang, his second mother puts him off every time by any means necessary, even to trick him. What makes it a success is its focus on the mother/ child relationship, yes she is not his own mother, but she loves him all the same and she just scare if there something will happen to him out there. I love how the show places the emotions here. His mini adventure is enjoyable as well. This is a winner for me.

Spirit of the Main Rivers and Lakes – Hua Jianghu Zhi Ling Zhu (画江湖之灵主)

Spirit of the Main Rivers and Lakes

There are two types of people, one for the living things, and the other for the dead to do bad. Through a series of events and learned of the existence of psychic and spiritual master of believers, and to eliminate their exposure to the responsibility of the mysterious organization ” Yu Ling group.” With a pile of mystery cracks, they get closer to the truth. The story is a classic wuxia, but the animation was so great and the production design was excellent that I can’t help but enjoy it anyway. The fighting scenes technically is among the best of its genres, every fight is so breathtaking and awe-inspiring, like some of the more intense action scenes, the screen would turn to black and white. There were fast forward and slow motion as well. In other word the actions are as in your face as you would get, but because they do it right, it still an impressive work. The story itself is a bit busy, with already many side stories and a huge casts of characters, but in all this could be a fun adventure and I’m eager to check out more of this.

Magical Legend (太乙仙魔)

Magical Legend

Here comes the worst show I see out of this guide, not simply because it’s bad (it is), it’s just uninspiring and will likely to be forgotten anytime soon. The episode follows a young female warrior, who pretty much unsure about herself and what she is good at. Her master, decided to go back to her past lives for whatever purposes it might be. They tried to cute-out the two main characters (by having the main girl standing in a branch of big tree and having cute music for the majority of runtime). The fighting between them are stupid and I don’t even care about why they want to learn her past’s life. And this training ends with the master hold the girl gently in his arms. What the heck? NO NO NO

Zetianji (择天记 )

Zetianji

A boy orphan Chen Changsheng, left the master and brothers, with a marriage promises to an unknown girl. During this stunning journey, he met a handsome bearded wealthy son, received a mysterious lovely girl as an apprentice, and they were forced to fight with the dragon and all the mysterious force. This is the only hand-drawn wuxia from this list, but the art style is so familiar that I have to include it here anyway. This is a slightly above the middle line of quality here. The two young boys make up for the main casts are different in terms of personality and their gestures are fun to watch. One of them is arranged to marriage an unknown girl, and it seems like the girl will be the main cast as well. I like what I see so far so I could give this a second look.

~SuperMario~