Heaven Official’s Blessing (Early Impressions)

Anime, Series 1 Minute

I started a fair few shows from the current season but haven’t really drifted back to many of them yet – with one exception, Tian Guan Ci Fu.

Only the first 4 episodes are available but I’m enjoying it a lot – it has plenty of things I love: action, fantasy, historical aspects and fantastic costumes, lovely art and engaging characters, so I’ll definitely continue on.

This early, the romance hasn’t really kicked off – in fact, the show is a little darker, more supernatural perhaps than I was expecting, but that’s not a problem at all. Xie Lian is a great lead too and I’m keen to see how he’ll hold his own against the Demon King.

I’m also enjoying this introduction to the Xianxia genre (which is closely related to Wuxia, I believe), with the heroes not just being warriors but also gods – which creates some interesting problems for the story; how to make them not too overpowered too early etc

Looking forward to more!

It’s also my first introduction (I think) to Chinese animation group Haoliners Animation League, and this is beautiful work so I’ll definitely seek more of their productions in time.

I will say, that I have one minor issue so far, which is with the typsetting for the subtitles, they’re a touch small. Obviously, that’s because both the Japanese and English are placed onscreen, one above the other. Maybe that’s just my poor distance vision, but the alternative is to have no translation at all, and I would not like that!

Published by ashleycapes

Ashley is an Australian poet, novelist and teacher. He's currently running a casual review blog called "The Review Heap" focusing on anime and animation. He is the author of half a dozen poetry collections and a few novels, some published traditionally and some self-published. He also occasionally publishes other folks too.

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16 thoughts on “Heaven Official’s Blessing (Early Impressions)”

  1. Perhaps you’re just not familiar with the name–Crunchyroll has carried several of their series, including Fox Spirit Matchmaker and Evil or Live; I also remember seeing To Be Heroine, although I don’t remember if that was actually on CR or another streaming service. . .

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      1. To Be Heroine had some funny moments. Wasn’t overly impressed by the other two, although probably more a matter of my personal taste than anything on their end. . .

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    1. I feel the same when I can’t get access to something (like ‘Black Jack’ for one!). At least I can turn to something else on my list 🙂

      (I’ll aim for a full review when this one is finished, hopefully it ends up popular enough that it reaches other services in time)

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      1. Fingers crossed it will🤞 I’m going to watch an older anime first now that’s been gathering dust on my shelves for ages: Berserk. Have it on dvd and have still not watched it, so guess this is as good a time as any to do so! 😀😀

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          1. Well, I am definitely looking forward to it! It’s been a while since I’ve watched some classic anime, so I hope I’m going to enjoy this (that and I haven’t seen much fantasy anime either)

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        1. Ah, via AnimeLab for me – I didn’t realise it wasn’t available elsewhere (with subs).

          Can’t remember what sort of region-locking stuff AnimeLab do, but they offer a free membership (with ads etc etc) if you’re still stuck?

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