Welcome back, everyone!
Here we have the last part of what I’ve written so far on danmei donghua, where now we’re going to discuss the ones that aren’t actually out yet. As a result, I’m not going to be talking about these in detail (Lord knows I’ve already rambled way too much as is), but I figured it was only fair to at least list them out:
Liu Yao (The Revitalization of Fuyao Sect):
This is another adaptation of a Priest work! It follows five characters that are trying to revive a failing sect—which I suppose you can kind of assume by the title haha—and it looks quite lovely already! The main characters are Cheng Qian and Yan Zhengming, who the book summary describes as a “meanie” and “narcissist” respectively. Continuing with the five other characters, we have Li Yun, the “troublemaker”; Han Yuan, the “idiot”; and Han “Shuikeng (Puddle)” Tan, the “wimpy child.”
I’m excited to see how the donghua will turn out! It’s animated by Garden Culture, a studio that formed after breaking off from Haoliners. They have a very clean, pretty art style, which you can see in their most famous work, Huyao Xiao Hongniang (Fox Spirit Matchmaker)—a series I should discuss in depth some time, considering it’s one I love a lot, and also one that went through a lot of growth (basically, it started as one of those early donghua, which meant it was a bit messy and fairly cheap-looking, and it did have a Japanese dub which allowed it to be picked up by Crunchyroll, but people would criticize its lack of polish. Fortunately, it consistently got better with each season, and now it’s very well-animated—as well as very lore-heavy! Unfortunately, it’s very underrated. It’s got a great way of depicting relationships and building romances though, and I wish it got more attention).
Mo Du (Silent Reading):
Here’s another Priest adaptation—I told you she’s a prolific danmei writer!—and another one set in the modern day. It’s under the mystery and suspense genre, with Luo Wenzhou being the captain of the crime investigation unit at Yan City, who looks at cases with help from—though since these cases also seem commonly connected to—an eccentric CEO named Fei Du.
I find this one interesting since we only have one trailer to go off of so far, and it feels a bit reminiscent of some BC May works in the sense that there seem to be 3D assets in the background with 2D characters. The animation looks alright, if not the best out there, and I like the colours—it makes me think of neo-noir, which is probably perfect for such a series (wow, flashbacks to my film noir class haha)! The colours also remind me a bit of Lie Huo, the other animated Priest adaptation set in the modern day, and that one is quite stylish, so here’s to hoping this one lives up to that stylish precedent as well!
AWM: PUBG:
I’m sorry if that title makes no sense to you ahaha. PUBG stands for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, an online game that’s rather popular in China. So yeah, it’s a gaming donghua, and guess what? It’s going to be animated by BC May!
I do note with some amusement how interesting it is that BC May is doing another gaming donghua, considering how they did the first season of Quan Zhi Gao Shou (The King’s Avatar)—and they did really well! That series was one of the first donghua to succeed inside and outside of China, and it brought good press to both BC May and donghua, as it was one of the few anime-esque series out there that covered video games in a more realistic fashion. But that’s the other amusing thing—while Quan Zhi Gao Shou brought BC May prestige, they gave up the series in the end and it was picked up instead by Coloured Pencil Animation—who are also now working on some really good-looking donghua, one of which I would like to discuss more (if only because anime fans refuse to acknowledge that such a clean, fluid-looking donghua could be made by Chinese animators, a fact that seriously irks me).
But yes, I ended up talking about all that instead of AWM: PUBG since there really isn’t much content for it right now ahaha. I am looking at the novel though, and it’s interesting since it looks like there’ll be themes of child abuse and childhood trauma, as well as some other darker themes, although the novel itself isn’t too dark. Here’s to hoping the donghua adaptation is good!
Saye (Warm Sun) aka Act Wildly aka Run Freely aka Set It All Free:
This donghua will be based on a novel written by Wu Zhe, and shares a universe with their other work, Qing Kuang. While I don’t know much about it, I do know that many people like it, even if it is a bit underrated; this makes it one of the more highly regarded danmei novels I know of, in the sense that it feels like one of those series connoisseurs of a certain thing would enjoy.
This is another one set in the modern day, but with youths rather than adults. Main character Jiang Cheng is shoved into returning to a family he knows nothing about, having been left behind by his foster family. This shattering of his world and everything he’s ever known leaves him deeply depressed, but he meets Gu Fei and his younger sister Gu Miao, and the two come together in a rather rough environment.
From what I can gather, it’s rather soft and feels-inducing, and the donghua trailer was certainly pretty! I remember being taken aback by how obviously gay the trailer was, but then again, donghua often surprises us with how far they can take these things. I look forward to seeing more of it!
Bu Jianquan Guanxi (Defective Lovers):
When I give you the summary for this one, it may bring to mind Priest’s Mo Du: it features hotheaded criminal investigation team captain Qian Cuo and the cold, intelligent detective Teng Ruiyu, who also happens to be a diviner, coming together to solve various cases; they eventually get wrapped up in something a little more magical, as this is also an urban fantasy.
I don’t know a lot about this one otherwise, but it seems pretty, and there is a manhua and audio drama! I haven’t seen much of it either, but looking it up, it clearly has its fans, and it’s certainly piquing my interest browsing all the lovely art.
With this series being the one I sort of know the least about, it seems like a fitting end to the list!
Conclusion:
That’s it for this week! I hope this listicle made you guys all excited for what’s to come~
As you can see, there really are a lot of gay media in China out there… And again, as I said in the last entry, this isn’t even addressing the queer-coded ones or the explicit danmei novels without visual adaptations yet (such as one of my favourites that I’ve already rambled tons about, Erha he ta de bai mao shizun (Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun)…and I mean, Chu Wanning’s birthday is coming up in a few days so I need to prepare either a fic and/or art…). And while this is the last part on danmei donghua for now, I will very, very likely come back to this topic many times in the future—whether I’m just talking about danmei donghua or danmei itself!
Additionally, it is Shen Qiao (from Thousand Autumns)’s birthday today, so I will say that if you want to see what I’ve said about the Thousand Autumns donghua so far, you can check this post here!
I will add an update because I wrote this listicle out weeks ago, and since then, I have heard the recent news about China’s stricter censorship laws on manhua. It is admittedly quite frustrating, but I am curious how Chinese media companies will tackle it—because if there is one thing I have learned from following Chinese media, it’s that no matter what, LGBTQ+ media and content will continue to slip through the cracks. It will thus take time before I can truly form an opinion on it, but since certain explicit danmei, such as Erha, have manhua adaptations that will now have to contend with the stricter censorship laws, I will keep an eye out for how they handle things! I have written before about why China reacts this way to media with LGBTQ+ themes, but yes, censorship is still censorship, and it sucks that it limits people the way it does.
With that being said though, I will end things here for tonight. But I will indeed return to the topics of danmei (and hopefully someday more baihe) soon, so don’t forget to come join me again when I do~! 💕💕💕