DESCRIPTION

CAST

ONA ActionWu Shan Wu Xing: Xi Chuan Huan Zi Lin
ONA ActionWu Shan Wu Xing

REVIEWS

• 

  LithiumBlack

  100/100
  A must watch on a rainy day

  ___The review contains major spoilers so read at your own risk!___ There's something about some chinese animations that really makes them stand out, the way they give life to drawings when they talk about the back story, the same thing happened in the movie The Great Wall and it made it so much more interesting. The way the entire donghua is animated, it's so unique, so beautiful and so pleasing to watch honestly. This particular donghua looks amazing, I absolutely love the landscapes, the setting they chose, the way the characters act and how they added that pinch of humor that I found so rare nowadays, almost cartoon like taking me back to Kung Fu Panda. Aside from those it really shines like a diamond when it comes to fighting scenes, god tier scenes as some would say, it gave me Avatar: The Last Air Bender vibes and I absolutely loved every second of it. So let's get back to what actually happens in the first episode. Xuan gets to open the seal and fight the Sacred Beast Qilin with the intention of acquiring it's help to cure his mother's illness (Lin), during his fight the other elements tag along fighting alongside Xuan, but during the battle Qilin's son runs away, Qilin realizing that, he captures Lin and Yuan Shu (Shen's sister) and gives the fire element and water element the task of bringing him back ending up closing the seal with those two. The story then centers Su Xiao An, the daughter of one of the village leaders that ends up meeting the fire element unintentionally. He helps her get back to her village but when they get there they find some of the leaders fighting the 3 demons that Su Xiao An helped on her way. He ends up killing the first 2 quite easily but the 3rd absorbed the malice of some villagers and gained a humanoid form that seemed to have made him stronger to deal with, in episode 3 we find out it was the Beast of Wrath that he kills. This gets the Beast of Insanity and Beast of Greed to finally take action. Meanwhile Xuan finds out what the leaders were hiding and why the Beast of Wrath came there, he retrieves the son of the Sacred Beast from the leader's hands and leaves without talking to Su Xiao An when he passes her. Su Xiao An then finds out from her father that she lost her memory 3 years ago and the cause was the plague that killed half of the village back then. He told her that when they lost hope a demon appeared (the son of Qilin) and while venturing around a well one of his scales fell in there and the villagers who drank the water miraculously recovered, he left the rest for her to figure out since she saw Xuan leaving with that demon. Su Xiao An suggest to her uncles that she could talk to the fire element and retrieve it while actually wanting to find out more I guess. They leave us quite teased at the end of episode 3, showing all the fire elements that saw the signal the Beasts gave. We have to keep in mind that this isn't the end, because of the poor staff it took them 3 years to make those 3 episodes and it will for sure take as long for the next ones to appear. It is a great donghua and I really recommend it to people that feel like getting something new.
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• 

  groggy1

  75/100
  I am no longer aroused by anime women. This show turned me into a sakuga-sexual

  Are you tired of reading wall after wall of pretentious text?
  Do you just want to know if you should watch the darn show?
  Me too.

  TLDR

  The only way to describe the visual quality of this show is orgasmic. It has some of the most well animated and visually stunning fight scenes I have ever seen in any medium ever. Everything else is so-so. But OH MY GOD those fight scenes though…

  By the way, this is a donghua, which means it’s a Chinese animation.

  PLOT - Not Great

  The plot centres around… uhh... a seal containing a demon is broken, there’s something about heroes that control one of the five elements, there’s dragons and stuff, and then the demons attack, or something. Honestly, the plot isn’t super important. Wu Shan Wu Xing’s main appeal is its fight scenes and it knows that. The story consists of a very standard “We are the good guys and we must kick the bad guys in the butt to save the world” scenario that I’m sure everyone has seen a bazillion times before. While watching, there were definitely points where I wanted to skip forwards to get to the fights.

  Another complaint I have with the plot is that it ends right as I realized that it might have potential after all. Wu Shan Wu Xing has three episodes and about 95% of the story was unimpressive. But right at the end of episode three, a demon army appears, the other elemental heroes are about to have an "Avengers assemble" moment, and there's a setup for a huge war. Just as I was getting hyped up for a story that could be exciting even if it was basic, the episode ends, and that’s it. Mark the show as completed and move on.

  There are more episodes on the way, but who knows when they’ll actually come out. The entire first season was supposed to release in September 2019 but it took until July of the following year for three measly episodes to come out. In their defence, the studio working on Wu Shan Wu Xing is insanely small, but that doesn’t change the fact that it'll probably take years to get a story worth writing about.

  CHARACTERS - Barebones

  Again, as of right now the show is nothing more than some fight scenes with the beginnings of a story stapled on; the characters are as barebones as the plot. We got:

  • The cool, badass hero with cool, badass powers and a cool, badass scar
  • The spunky girl
  • The bird
  • The duck
  • Others

  I’m struggling to think of things to put in this section because there’s nothing really worth putting in it. Don’t watch this expecting interesting, deep, or developed characters. There are only three episodes anyway, so there isn’t much that could have been done even if the creators wanted to prioritize the characters.

  ART AND ANIMATION - Orgasmic

  The art is different from any other anime I’ve seen. But being different is not the same as being good. Luckily for Wu Shan Wu Xing, I think the art style is amazing. It’s new and refreshing to look at. Backgrounds have a painted or hand-drawn look that perfectly complements the ancient Chinese vibe the show tries to go for.

  

  Characters are coloured in a non-glossy way that makes them look drawn on paper or something. The art style also uses a lot of thick, bold outlines, which when combined with the rest of the visuals makes the fights seem so much more raw and “real” (yes I know cartoons aren't real). Add in bright and vibrant colours during fight scenes and you get a contrast that looks super cool and super good.

  

  Is it possible for a man to be physically aroused by sakuga? Yes. The answer is yes. Practically the whole show is sakuga and I had a raging boner the entire time. Random scenes like a girl casually tossing a bag of money or a guy punching a duck were well animated enough for me to go “damn, son” and rewind 5 seconds back to get a second look. Obviously, the action scenes are even better. I have never seen such buttery smooth fight animation before. Everything is crisp, clean, and clear. When someone uses an attack, there are often little effects that didn’t have to be included, but they were anyways. They don’t use any corner-cutting techniques like slightly vibrating still frames instead of animating, having characters stay in one place so they don’t have to draw more backgrounds, constantly using extreme closeups, removing backgrounds, or turning people into blurs of light. Wu Shan Wu Xing's animators gave it 110% and it shows. I don’t remember seeing a single bad frame of animation.

  shit why is there white stuff on my monitor

  MUSIC AND SOUND - Great

  The soundtrack is mostly traditional Chinese music and it sounds great. It matches the fights well and gives them an epic, grand, and heroic mood. The OP is also traditional music and not some generic, annoying pop song. It’s not super hype but it sets the mood in a very similar way to the OST. The EDs are also of note. There’s a different one every episode, with episode 1’s being instrumental, episode 2 having more traditional music, and episode 3 being instrumental again. They were all great, but me explaining why would be super repetitive since I basically covered it twice already (epic, grand, heroic, etc). All in all, the music fits perfectly with the setting of a battle against demons in ancient China.

  WHO SHOULD WATCH THIS

  If you’re looking for a hidden gem, or something with amazing visuals, or if you’re a fan of action shounen, definitely watch this. I am not a huge battle shounen fan and even I had a great time watching this. I don’t have a good eye for action scenes, but if you’re one of those nerds that loves breaking down fights and looking at the choreography, you’d probably have a blast with this.

  RECOMMENDATIONS

  Demon Slayer takes the classic battle shounen formula and puts studio Ufotable’s spin on it. For the lack of a better word, it looks fucking gorgeous. You’ve probably seen it already, but on the off chance you haven’t and you’re looking for something with top-tier action scenes, this is for you.

  Another franchise that has great fight scenes is the Fate franchise (coincidentally also made by Ufotable). It can be a little daunting to get into, but click here for a Fate watch order guide.

  CONCLUSION

  Eyegasm.

  ---

  Visit my profile @groggy1 to give feedback or to see my other work

  By the way, here are some more screenshots that I wanted to include but couldn't

  

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