Mo Dao Zu Shi - 魔道祖师

[akk]

I spent the last two weeks - when I was too scatterbrained to work on the Decagram, that is - with watching a very delightful donghua series called "The Founder of Diabolism", which is based on a BL novel and there also exists a live action drama series ("The Untamed") of the material. However, I very much prefer the animated donghua version - not only because of its gorgeous, almost calligraphic animation art that lends a lot to plot and referenced concepts of taoism and buddhism. In addition, there are strong elements of xianxia (fighting style, swords) and folklore (giant snakes, snake-turtle hybrids, spirits, ghosts, spells...) All somewhat familiar & absolute intriguing given my research on Yue's origin in the Decagram. ;)

In short: without giving a summary related to characters and plot (because (a) I don't want to spoil you and (b) I suck at summaries) - it's highly recommended, with my only qualm being that season 2 hang us up on an arm (thus ended on a rather fierce cliffhanger for me), and Tencent has yet to name the release date for season 3 (rumored to be in 2020; but may be later, given that there's also going to be a related animation movie coming).

If you are interested, here's my Youtube playlist for it: MoDaoZuShi-Playlist.
There are subtitles given in a couple of languages, and the English ones are fine (of course I can't vouch for accuracy of translation, but they didn't feel/read jarring when watching. Given that I usually dislike zombies, for me it was a plus that the term wasn't used descriptively, even though it technically would have fit in English.)

Comments

[primera]

I’m gonna check this out! Have you ever seen Mouryou no Hako? Really well done (although somewhat difficult to follow) horror/drama anime that includes onmyouji and other Japanese folk lore. I thought about TB/X a lot watching that show.

[akk]

No, I haven't seen MnH. I've looked into it before, but the 1950s setting wasn't intriguing to me. Maybe I'll give it a try if it pops up on my streaming service. The dvd / blueray options are prohibitively expensive.

[primera]

I’m not really particularly interested in that era either, or even in murder mysteries and detective dramas, I think it kept me hooked sheerly by the feeling that it happens in the Tokyo Babylon universe. Something about the vibe. I have it all on external hard drive, let me know if you ever want an upload!

[issenllo]

I'm more on the live action series and the translated novel, but I agree, the animation is gorgeous. As far as I can figure out, the Taoism is more handwavy (apart from repurposing some basic yin yang, qi principles) but that's the fun of it.

[akk]

Yes, I noticed that the live action is more popular, but it just has no appeal for me. Sadly, the fandom isn't structured enough to truly separate the two, it's mostly a big amalgamation, which means that the live action is setting the tone (which in my perception is quite different).
The spell casting (written and visualized) is actually quite intricate in the animation. :)