#哪吒之魔童降世

[sillysoliloquyshits]

You know the feeling where older Ne Zha is just so handsome to look it but at first you just can't bear to look at him because you're too shy or anything despite wanting to look at a photo of him?

Well the psychological whiplash is very normal for a lot of people. Because when you spent the first two hours seeing a booger cute kid and suddenly he just had a growth spurt/glow up by like 12 years and has an immaculate manicure and hand shape and face pattern and an incredible face shape with his dad's eyes and the rest of his face resembling his mom's with high cheekbones (if I'm not wrong), of course you're gonna feel like you're on a chokehold. Like dude's vocabulary even increased when he's older. We're all Ao Bing at the last five to ten minutes of the movie 💀💀

(And for some who may be confused, the Qian Kun Ring kind of stunts Ne Zha's growth as he looked like a kid since his first year and stayed that way, so if we saw Ao Bing in his first year he could have been in a similar height as Ne Zha as a kid. The Qian Kun Ring around the neck helps mostly suppress his demonic aura and putting it as a bracelet helps for semblance of control to ensure he doesn't lose his consciousness, though that slowly became not the case for the second movie which I'll talk about in another post. But anyway, I have agreed with some people on how Ne Zha still kept the Qian Kun Ring around his neck so as to not give off as much demonic energy and cause more trouble for his family, and to maybe continue being a small kid for his mom. But perhaps in the first movie he may have been subconsciously scared of his true form? And then decided to just screw it in the second.)

[rinriya]

OH MY GOD! IT'S FINALLY OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED! I'm so sick of this "they're 3 yo, they're 3 yo", Jesus Christ

[yuyu-finale]

little dragon boy

[spock-adoodledoo]

i completely missed these (<- high quality in link). posters released for year of the snake

nezha's persimmon hair buns lol. tiny ao bing looks like a marketable plushie on his dad's shoulder..

[justanotherblonde]

alright tumblr, gimme some lotus cake (oubing) content. i have a mighty hunger...

i offer u some screenshots i grabbed from the post of a kindly rednote user who grabbed the video of this scene from a behind-the-scenes documentary

i include the dialogue for this scene below the cut cuz i don't want to spoil it for anyone

Ao Guang (Ao Bing's dad, not pictured, but you should look him up and see how hot he is...): “You don't mean to say you still want to change this world?” 敖光：难道你还想改变这世界 Nezha: *dramatic pause, as pictured* “I want to try.” 哪吒：我想试试 And then it cuts to Ao Bing falling in love blushing, as pictured 😍

[plumtale]

🐆🐉

[megistusleep]

🪷

[mangshadow]

Since they gonna came back next month, this is still the craziest official art ive ever seen

[catronac7]

My birthday party is in ten days.

[littleblueberryartist]

desperately trying to figure out how to draw bigzha bc I wanna give him smallzha's gremlin expressions lmao

[snowscapism]

Various Nezha doodles

[sillysoliloquyshits]

Okay so while some do miss the younger Ne Zha for his cute crudeness, there are some reasons (in a literary sense) to why he would likely continue to be (cough hot) in his teenage/adult form:

(spoilers for Ne Zha 2) (TW: mentions of suicide)

1. Loss of innocence

After so much that happened, and especially seeing his mom die in front of him, the awful scene of him shredding out of his flesh is a painful visual of how dark reality and grief have killed his innocence and nothing will be the same after. As if his childlike self has died with his mom and childhood is over. (Some have said that perhaps Ne Zha didn't think so far and just wanted to destroy his own flesh and join his mom in death which makes reconstruction of the body something that naturally happened so yeah very dark-)

2. Emotional maturity (and rebelling)

Lady Yin's last words profoundly impacted how Ne Zha viewed himself, as previously with him trying to suppress his demonic nature and wishing he weren't the demon pill, now he has internalized on how he shouldn't deny himself any longer and be caught in his own insecurities, so as he said in the last few scenes, he's no longer going to hide either way. Ne Zha also realised the oppressive societal nature of labels and knows that just because he's exploding with demonic energy shouldn't dictate him as totally evil, so continuing in his adult form is a rebellion against what heaven tries to dictate him in the future, in which he's much more confident in his skin moving forward.

3. Almost nothing to lose

So the Qian Kun Ring around his neck was used to suppress Ne Zha's demonic nature since he wasn't supposed to be the reincarnated demonic pill, but now his spiritual identity is exposed, no point hiding it anyway, go all out in rebelling. It's a clear sign that Ne Zha has much more control over his fate and identity when he doesn't have anything to hide or lose.

4. Carrying on his parents' legacies/memories

It's my own theory but seeing that as a teenage form Ne Zha really resembles his mom much more and has his dad's eyes, perhaps subconsciously he really wanted to carry on his mother's memory now that he likely won't see her again, and keep living on as his parents wanted him to since the first movie. And with him becoming more mature and serious comes a more nuanced grasp on his own masculinity since Ne Zha has become more gentle and less scared of vulnerability (around a certain someone), so maybe it's also his way to carry on his mother's gentleness to him moving forward.

5. A kind of spiritual purgatory

The transformation is practically a baptism in fire, where the cauldron Samadhi flames were said to be the same flames Ne Zha innately emits. And with Samadhi in Buddhism meaning a state of intense concentration through meditation to help liberate oneself spiritually (which explains why everyone had to be in meditating position to ensure they're not easily turned into divine pills), it's under the cauldron's flames that Ne Zha also became symbolically liberated from his old fears and constraints and returned to his own original spiritual self (albeit demonic but in a good way). With newfound inner clarity and focus from controlling the reconstruction of his self and physical body, it could explain why Ne Zha was much more sane even without the Qian Kun Ring and even had much more control over it without reading any spells. Therefore with maintaining his teenage form, Ne Zha also learnt to become more honest in his spiritual state and sense of self unlike other spirits who hide behind their glamorous humanoid forms often.

Tldr again: the kid has grown up, yeah, but don't worry he likely hasn't changed much as people did realise Ne Zha in teenage form also pouts quite a bit like he used to so that's one thing that's cute 🥺🥺

[rinriya]

Dad let his son go. There's no other way to interpret this. His father let child go into adulthood with his beloved. Gaaah. Now it's clearly not just an OTP. I'm Nezhabing believer. Gosh. My heart is pounding so hard. I hadn't felt that from ships in a long time. Wow. It's crazy. A father let his son go so that he could return to his other half. And his half waited for him. I'm speechless.

[yuyu-finale]

painting practice ft ao bing

[spock-adoodledoo]

<///////////////3 new nezha poster just dropped. ao bing!!!!! my boy!!!!

dialogue (loose TL):

lady yin: "we got a big one, sorry to keep you waiting!"

nezha: "you finally came, our souls are already about to dissipate..."

src weibo

[hibruh1001]

some character exploration after seeing the Nezha movie. Fire animation tho