Are you tired of reading wall after wall of pretentious text?
Do you just want to know if you should watch the darn show?
Me too.
TLDR
The only way to describe the visual quality of this show is orgasmic. It has some of the most well animated and visually stunning fight scenes I have ever seen in any medium ever. Everything else is so-so. But OH MY GOD those fight scenes though…
By the way, this is a donghua, which means it’s a Chinese animation.
PLOT - Not Great
The plot centres around… uhh... a seal containing a demon is broken, there’s something about heroes that control one of the five elements, there’s dragons and stuff, and then the demons attack, or something. Honestly, the plot isn’t super important. Wu Shan Wu Xing’s main appeal is its fight scenes and it knows that. The story consists of a very standard “We are the good guys and we must kick the bad guys in the butt to save the world” scenario that I’m sure everyone has seen a bazillion times before. While watching, there were definitely points where I wanted to skip forwards to get to the fights.
Another complaint I have with the plot is that it ends right as I realized that it might have potential after all. Wu Shan Wu Xing has three episodes and about 95% of the story was unimpressive. But right at the end of episode three, a demon army appears, the other elemental heroes are about to have an "Avengers assemble" moment, and there's a setup for a huge war. Just as I was getting hyped up for a story that could be exciting even if it was basic, the episode ends, and that’s it. Mark the show as completed and move on.
There are more episodes on the way, but who knows when they’ll actually come out. The entire first season was supposed to release in September 2019 but it took until July of the following year for three measly episodes to come out. In their defence, the studio working on Wu Shan Wu Xing is insanely small, but that doesn’t change the fact that it'll probably take years to get a story worth writing about.
CHARACTERS - Barebones
Again, as of right now the show is nothing more than some fight scenes with the beginnings of a story stapled on; the characters are as barebones as the plot. We got:
- The cool, badass hero with cool, badass powers and a cool, badass scar
- The spunky girl
- The bird
- The duck
- Others
I’m struggling to think of things to put in this section because there’s nothing really worth putting in it. Don’t watch this expecting interesting, deep, or developed characters. There are only three episodes anyway, so there isn’t much that could have been done even if the creators wanted to prioritize the characters.
ART AND ANIMATION - Orgasmic
The art is different from any other anime I’ve seen. But being different is not the same as being good. Luckily for Wu Shan Wu Xing, I think the art style is amazing. It’s new and refreshing to look at. Backgrounds have a painted or hand-drawn look that perfectly complements the ancient Chinese vibe the show tries to go for.
Characters are coloured in a non-glossy way that makes them look drawn on paper or something. The art style also uses a lot of thick, bold outlines, which when combined with the rest of the visuals makes the fights seem so much more raw and “real” (yes I know cartoons aren't real). Add in bright and vibrant colours during fight scenes and you get a contrast that looks super cool and super good.
Is it possible for a man to be physically aroused by sakuga? Yes. The answer is yes. Practically the whole show is sakuga and I had a raging boner the entire time. Random scenes like a girl casually tossing a bag of money or a guy punching a duck were well animated enough for me to go “damn, son” and rewind 5 seconds back to get a second look. Obviously, the action scenes are even better. I have never seen such buttery smooth fight animation before. Everything is crisp, clean, and clear. When someone uses an attack, there are often little effects that didn’t have to be included, but they were anyways. They don’t use any corner-cutting techniques like slightly vibrating still frames instead of animating, having characters stay in one place so they don’t have to draw more backgrounds, constantly using extreme closeups, removing backgrounds, or turning people into blurs of light. Wu Shan Wu Xing's animators gave it 110% and it shows. I don’t remember seeing a single bad frame of animation.
MUSIC AND SOUND - Great
The soundtrack is mostly traditional Chinese music and it sounds great. It matches the fights well and gives them an epic, grand, and heroic mood. The OP is also traditional music and not some generic, annoying pop song. It’s not super hype but it sets the mood in a very similar way to the OST. The EDs are also of note. There’s a different one every episode, with episode 1’s being instrumental, episode 2 having more traditional music, and episode 3 being instrumental again. They were all great, but me explaining why would be super repetitive since I basically covered it twice already (epic, grand, heroic, etc). All in all, the music fits perfectly with the setting of a battle against demons in ancient China.
WHO SHOULD WATCH THIS
If you’re looking for a hidden gem, or something with amazing visuals, or if you’re a fan of action shounen, definitely watch this. I am not a huge battle shounen fan and even I had a great time watching this. I don’t have a good eye for action scenes, but if you’re one of those nerds that loves breaking down fights and looking at the choreography, you’d probably have a blast with this.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Demon Slayer takes the classic battle shounen formula and puts studio Ufotable’s spin on it. For the lack of a better word, it looks fucking gorgeous. You’ve probably seen it already, but on the off chance you haven’t and you’re looking for something with top-tier action scenes, this is for you.Another franchise that has great fight scenes is the Fate franchise (coincidentally also made by Ufotable). It can be a little daunting to get into, but click here for a Fate watch order guide.
CONCLUSION
Eyegasm.
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By the way, here are some more screenshots that I wanted to include but couldn't
Spoiler, click to view
