#uhhh warning for graphic violence and mentions of cannibalism

[llycaons]

ep14: HELLO yiling laozu

bad cgi crows here :/

I wish they used "sunshot campaign" it's much less clumsy than "shooting sun campaign"

I love getting actual numbers for the scale of the war. 8000 cultivators fighting against the wens!

I remember nmj hanging wen xu's head! it was kind of a disturbing scene in cql esp since yanli showed up and there were dead people everywhere but here it's triumphant

donghua war storyline stays strong, if a bit...bland

I forgot to mention earlier but I really don't like donghua wen qing. she made a bad first impression on me, I think her aggression and harshness towards her brother was over the line. and she's not a very well-developed character in any of the adaptations anyway but very clearly occupies the stereotypical "mean older sister who is also a caretaker" and will die for the mc. but maybe she'll grow on me idk

cql wq was very different from her but I liked how clearly she struggled with doing the right thing, you coukd see her internal struggles, and how she connected to wwx because of his older sister...they had a strong relationship early on I loved that

wait, aren't the wens dark-skinned? I remember that wen qing specifically was. the donghua is colorist

also why are her boobs drawn like that. is she wearing a push-up bra

wen qing being wrh's personal doctor was cql-only ig. I kept waiting for it to come up and I guess it just isn't a thing

also the drugged wine lmao I loved that scene *blows a kiss to cql lotus pier massacre afterparty scene for somehow being funny as hell*

in cql all the wen cultivaters died "in different ways" and here it's they were "scared to death"

"childe" JUST SAY YOUNG MASTER

here's jc rebuilding the jiang sect during a war and wow that's pretty impressive! also amazing that he could get all those bright purple robes ordered while co-leading a secret rebel army against the wens

tho all the bg characters look exactly the same/sob

lwj and jc don't really look like they're working together here so much as co-leading the rebels and exchanging information when it's mutually beneficial

the jyl and jc reunion would have been less awkward if jyl hadn't been standing in the middle of nowhere with her back to jc when he came in...also the animation was very jerky. the VAs did a nice job, especially jyl's, but the animation for character emotion and physical interaction was still pretty flat

it's a little ironic how jyl praises jc for maturing when he swears vengance on the people who murdered his parents, because I don't think jc at any point in time was not ready to murder people who crossed him. if anything, growing out of that at the end of the show is his actual growth. I don't think it was a sign of maturity? eh, she was being nice. what else was she going to say

but her awareness of her brother's issues and her own relationship to each of them and her feelings about being in the middle of a WAR is SO lacking like there's nothing here scream

like this is literally like her third scene in the ENTIRE show so there's this huge emotional disconnect between her and the events of the massacre and even her own family and other characters!

as soon as wwx left lwj became like 80% more expressive...was this intentional? it was unsuccessful I still think he's boring as fuck and super predictable

it is so jarring how visually gorgeous some of these scenes are - the action sequence with the water demon, the removal of the tortoise's head, the guqin fights, ALL the backgrounds and landscapes - and then a relatively simple thing like realistic-looking water pouring into a cup, or a hug that looks natural, is a complete miss. fascinating

oh fuck I can recognize "what are you doing?" in Mandarin. nice

wlj realizing the truth abt wwx far before jc does lmao

I wish this series was not so goddamn misogynistic

subs translated "get in formation" as "get information" lol I was sitting there struggling to understand why he'd be ordering recon when the wens are RIGHT there and about to attack

oh my god I do remember this scene it was a fucked-up baby wasn't it. incredibly macabre

wwx made wen chao eat his own dick in the book didn't he. jesus. if there's a metaphor in there I don't want to see it

WAIT NOOO I LOOKED IT UP. SHE bit off his dick and then killed herself by shoving a stool leg down her throat. that's not what I remember but it's cited on the wiki and everything. damn?

looks like wlj gets eaten by corpses here instead due to censorship. I mean, I'm not surprised. that's incredibly graphic

mxtx should just do a horror next time I'm sure she'll do great. no romance

the atmosphere for this scene is phenomenal you have the eerie dizi and the battle music ramping up the tension too

the jc fight scenes are pretty fun and I love the detail that lwj played until the strings broke and his fingers bled, but there's something missing from these fight scenes that don't bring them quite to the quality of a good anime fight scene

like a sense of weight? I saw jc punch someone and didn't feel it at all. no wind-up, unsatisfactory payoff. the rule of stretch and squish or whatever

I think it's because these characters are too stiff, not malleable enough to convey that sense of impact in the most effective way in animated media. that's the core issue from which a lot of my problems with the animation stem. despite great music and backgrounds, the characters still move unnaturally and they don't really change to suit their environment or to add emphasis to an action. they're stuck in their models of attempted realism and the animation suffers as a result because the medium isn't being utilized to its fullest potential

this is less important for inanimate objects and landscapes and nature than for people, which is why there's such a difference in quality imo

not that the anime (and disney) techniques are the only techniques or even neccesarily the best ones, but there's definitely a lot of work to be done in that field, in whatever way works best for the animators

also please PLEASE find a better design for rabbits that is not what rabbits look like

I saw a really interesting video from accentedcinema about the Chinese animation industry and how it's a relatively new field with (iirc) bascially its first generation of decently funded and passionate artists and so I understand why it wouldn't be as polished as longstanding studios with experienced staff, and I do enjoy the unfamiliar style of other Chinese animation, but there are definitely plenty of improvements to be made. nezha reborn is my favorite Chinese animated movie to date; it's on netflix and it's gorgeous. I liked legend of hei as well (not as stiff!), the tgcf donghua was so-so, and this one is at the bottom

wen chao's taunt to lwj sounds weirdly knowing? "wei ying has been waiting for you, you can join him in hell." does that not sound like he knows about lwj's feelings? if so, umm...how???

anyway I like how beaten up and battered lwj gets here

so umm...crows? oh shit, lots of crows

GREEN FLAMES??? HELLO??? FOR REAL??

oh and the red eyes YES HE'S HERE HELLO

let's see some blood