From Japanese to Chinese anime

The few things in my life that have been consistent would be my love for tech, games, cartoons, anime, gadgets and music (to some extent). There are obviously other things like drama and whatnot, but I guess my point is that the otaku in me has been consistent through time, everything else seems to change ever so often.

(I’d probably still be into cosplay if I’m not a fatty right now lol.)

Funny story. If you’re an anime lover like me, you’d probably have watched at least Naruto. Truth be told, the amount of anime I’ve consumed has kinda overgrown my brain capacity of the names I can remember. It’s come to a point that I’ve pretty much run out of anime to watch, kinda. I mean there are animes I’ve not watched, but I’ve come to a point that some titles are just a bit blah.

Lately, I chanced upon WeTV and got addicted to Soul Land (Dòuluō Dàlù 斗罗大陆). One thing led to another and I ended up watching a dozen more similar anime in mandarin. When I say similar I don’t mean exactly the same but action type films.

The funny thing about Chinese animes, I guess cause it caters for the short attention span generation, many of them are less than 10 minutes long. Even titles that go up to 4 seasons, I pretty much finish it within a day.

Here are some other observations I’ve made;

1. The graphics are amazing, especially the fighting scenes; can totally understand why MMOFPS games are stirring up esports in China.
2. The sceneries are amazing, it’s like you’re walking through China in the days that it’s more “nature” oriented that is.
3. Like Japanese animes, there’s always a romantic scenario with multiple gorgeous characters; the strange part is that the main character seemingly portrays the devoted to one aspect, which does kinda make it favourable. It sheds a good light to the culture.
4. It mixes a lot of historical references. It can be confusing cause the lines between non-fiction and fiction tends to blur and considering I’m not as familiar with China history, it can give the wrong impression. I take it as fiction and if it intrigues my interest, I’d Google for the facts; and the portions about the magical power are obviously fiction.

Undeniable, the graphics are what attracted me to this new addiction; not to mention, the plots are also not that typical, comparable to the better Japanese anime. But the plus here is given the lowered language barrier, it makes it easier to understand and multi-task at the same time. I mean, after all, I might not be able to read or write mandarin but understanding isn’t an issue.

In my next blog post, I’d share a list of to-watch.