What is a donghua? In essence, a donghua is an animated series similar to an anime, but hailing from China. About 90 percent of donghua I’ve watched have been cultivation-based, which was originally a Taoist concept that’s described as extending ones lifespan through the study of martial and mystical arts. Donghua have a whole library of sub-categories too, Wuxia and Xianxia and Xuanhuan and all sorts of others, but for the purposes of reviewing Tales of Herding Gods, we will stick to Xuanhuan, which is a Chinese fantasy-world setting often including elements of Chinese folklore, mythology, and even science-fiction. Armed with fresh cultivator vigor, lets dive into this!

The show is based on the popular xuanhuan novel Mu Shen Ji by Zhai Zhu. So Qin Mu was found as an infant by the disabled Elders of Disabled Elderly Village, with only a strange amulet and nothing else, not even a name, left to him. Picked up by the complicated Granny Si and one-armed Old Ma, Qin Mu was a strange child and would have certainly died if Granny Si hadn’t taken matters into her own hands. But a great destiny, and donghua are very big on Destiny, was determined for Qin Mu, and so all the Elders of Disabled Elderly Village are determined to help Qin Mu in their own, definitely unique, ways.

Qin Mu grows up strong, trained by the village Elders whom he grows to love – mask-faced Apothecary, feared by all for his poisons but the one Qin Mu’s believes is actually the nicest amongst the Elders; the half-man Butcher with literally no lower body but the blade skills of a Berserker, who teaches Qin Mu his extraordinary knife ways; the one-leg-missing Cripple who of course teaches Qin Mu his astounding movement and leg skills; the prayerful Blind who nonetheless teaches Qin Mu Eye techniques along with the staff and spear; Deaf, as one can imagine has no ears, passes on his methods of exceptional painting and proper etiquette; Mute is a Divine Blacksmith and makes all the specialized weapons for Disabled Elderly Village; Old Ma is missing an arm, and is the master and instructor of the ironic Thousand-Armed Buddha and Eight Thunderclap Strikes to Qin Mu; Granny Si was the Saintess of the Heavenly Devil Cult in her previous life, and her powers of blood and manipulation strings save Qin Mu’s butt on more than one occasion; and finally, the Village Chief is a former Sword God and human Emperor besides, who now nevertheless governs the Village from his wheelchair, in sheer grit and utter refusal to just die already.

A great deal of emphasis is placed on Qin Mu’s early training, for as he was determined for some kind of destiny, sooner or later he’d have to leave the Village to go find it (no-one wants a Destiny to come looking for them instead), and the Elders all determine that Qin Mu will be as well-armed in mind, body and spirit as they can possibly make him. All the Elders have pasts and each their own distinct training regimen that would certainly kill lesser mortals if they tried it, but Qin Mu is special, and quite determined. And all the Elders, despite any initial misgivings

they may have had when Qin Mu the infant was first found, come to love the precious boy that is the son of all of them.

The show is an incredible visual treat, with CGI animation the likes of which really hasn’t been seen anywhere, all painstakingly rendered to within an inch of its life, detailed and fully realized and totally immersive. The fight scenes, and there are of course many, are gorgeous and actually remind one of The Matrix if it were set in one of the many Chinese underworlds.

Everything has a gloriously dark gothic feel to it, especially the various monsters Qin Mu has to fight and the Disabled Elders who raised him, but also practically everywhere our

villain-in-training goes looks dark, dreadful, and gleefully ready to rend you to shreds at any given moment.

Fight on before fearsome destiny comes looking for you too, in Tales of Herding Gods which can be found on Bilibili.com now!

In a world infested by monsters and demons, women who wield Holy Powers known as Saints are the main line of defense, and the show begins as the title suggests, with the strongest Saint Philia Adenauer being rejected and sold by her former fiance to a neighboring kingdom!

Welcome to the Kingdom of Girtonia, where honestly, the people and especially their Royals are far too concerned with appearances. Philia Adenauer may be the strongest Saint in living memory and she serves Girtonia well and faithfully, but because she never smiles, whispers and recriminations follow her, rather than thanks and accolades. On the other hand, her younger sister Mia, also a Saint, is beloved by everyone in Girtonia, for she’s bright and kind and has a ready smile for everyone, even her awful parents and the main Prince of the Kingdom, the selfish and arrogant Julius.

The show goes on to mercilessly demonstrate just how badly Philia is abused by the folk of Girtonia, how she works continuously at all of her Saintly duties daily and people still take advantage of her giving nature by demanding yet more of her, her time, her efforts, her magic, and all without a smidgen of gratitude. It’s all the expected duty of the strongest Saint, after all, and if Philia ever dared to think about shirking all that she’s expected to carry on her slim shoulders, it would bring shame to the entire Adenauer family, plus the Kingdom of Girtonia besides. Nevermind that her dreadful parents are only using Philia’s prestige as the Saint of the Kingdom and her engagement to Prince Julius to boost their status in high society, and nevermind that Prince Julius himself is a brainless greedy little twit who resents Philia for her power as the strongest Saint even as he tries to use her prestige to in theory boost his own.

Philia’s own wishes have never mattered, the only one who even thinks Philia might have feelings of her own is her sister Mia, and she’s had to keep mum about them for both their sakes.

So one day Prince Julius takes it into his tiny little head to, conspiring with Philia’s own parents no less, break their engagement, marry sister Mia instead, and oh yeah, sell Philia as a Saint to the neighboring Kingdom of Parnacorta, whose Saint had died recently. All of this is done very quickly and in the most underhanded way possible, so much so that neither Philia nor Mia have the chance to protest, and now Philia’s gone and Mia’s expected to take her place in literally everything – all Philias Saintly duties and the engagement to Prince Julius besides.

Parnacorta isn’t exactly a next-door neighbor of a Kingdom, it takes a fair far carriage ride for Philia to get there and she’s even forced to walk the last few leagues or so, but compared to her treatment in Girtonia on the reg, that’s small potatoes. Fearful she won’t be able to live up to the reputation she strived so hard for in Girtonia, Saint Philia Adenauer squares her poor shoulders

and prepares to meet this new life of slavery, just in a different Kingdom, without even her beloved sister beside her.

What Philia didn’t expect, what completely floors her, was to be greeted in the capital city of Almburg in Parnacorta by Bishop Bjorn himself, at a party thrown in her honor. She sure didn’t expect earnest apologies from Second Prince Osvalt for outright buying her, but with the unfortunate death of their previous Saint Elizabeth, the Prince brothers of Parnacorta were desperate, and since Elizabeth had been Crown Prince Reichardt’s fiance, he wasn’t in much state to take care of things just then. She also did not expect to be given an actual mansion to live in, complete with servants of her own, in the form of butler Leonardo and maid Lea, who both cluck like worried hens over their new Mistress as she goes about her Saintly duties with the beaten-down countenance of someone already severely broken. In fact, damn near everyone in Parnacorta is pretty horrified at how Philia was treated in her home Kingdom of Girtonia and determine that she should never come to feel that way in Parnacorta, Second Prince Osvalt even takes it upon himself to tell Philia he hopes she will come to love his Kingdom as much as he and his subjects do.

Things have taken a remarkably upward turn for Philia, but everything comes to a grinding halt when it turns out that not only did Prince Julius not use any of the money he got for Philia’s sale in defense of Girtonia, but that Saint Mia is considerably less skilled than her sister in Saintly magic, and demons and monsters are beginning to overrun the borders of Girtonia. Of course somehow Prince Julius determines this is all actually Saint Philia’s fault, once again, and begins plotting ways to get her back to Girtonia, to fix the mess she somehow created.

Over in Parnacorta, even amidst genuine and kind folk who come to love her quickly, Saint Philia finds herself overwhelmed with the oncoming demon and monster tide, even after she takes on the inexperienced Saint of Bolmern, Grace Mattilas, for training. Philia contacts the Saints of neighboring Kingdoms to pool their magics and resources, while trying desperately to get word of the goings-on in Girtonia and the state of her sister Mia. And as outright war approaches, buoyed by the confidence of the people of Parnacorta and the always-faithful love of her dear sister Mia, Saint Philia who never smiles gathers power to her and prepares to defend all the good things in her new world!

The anime is done almost entirely in softly shaded pastels, mostly greys and violets for the Saints, with the harsher colors being left to the actual antagonists, the demons, monsters, and the belligerent folk of Girtonia who made Philia’s life miserable. The tale of an overlooked woman who gathered love and family not of her blood around her is a beautiful one, that anyone can appreciate.

Cheer on Saint Philia and her genuine new friends in The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by my Fiance and Sold to Another Kingdom on Crunchyroll now!

Earl Ciel Phantomhive and his literal hell of a Butler, Sebastian, are sent by Queen Victoria to Germany to investigate a series of mysterious deaths, a werewolf curse, and possible witch involvement!

Oh, Sebastian, your grace and poise, and yes, as always, your cooking and impeccable service to the Earl, we’ve missed you very much. It’s true that we just recently had an unexpected entire season of Black Butler in 2024, in the form of the Public School Arc, and while it certainly had all the characters of a Black Butler anime doing their investigative thing, that whole arc was actually a bit lighthearted for my taste. Fret not, loyal Victorian-age anime fans and gothic friends, for the Emerald Witch Arc is a return to the original form of the Black Butler we know and love, with mysteries and dark mayhem around every corner. Make sure your eyepatch is in place, and lets dive into this!

No matter how chagrined he may be to admit it, Earl Phantomhive is Queen Victoria’s loyal investigative Watchdog, so when she says he’s being sent off to Germany to look into a series of mysterious deaths, that is indeed what’s about to happen. The government and the Kaiser himself refused the Queen’s offer of aid, so somehow sending in the cursed Earl and his Hell of a butler and their servants makes more sense.

First and of course foremost is the language barrier problem, and that is addressed early on in this arc, which is a refreshing change from a lot of Anime that like to try and introduce other countries to their stories, but never even approach the shared-language problem. Speaking and understanding Deutsch is a very far cry from Japanese, but bear in mind, Earl Phantomhive and most of his cohorts are actually English natives, and it’s not as though Sebastian has issues with languages. Fortunately for them, most of the main German characters our Phantomhives encounter actually want to learn a shared language to communicate, and that’s helpful.

And so the Earl and his folk travel to the village of Wolfsschlucht, hidden deep within the Werewolves forest, where they encounter very unwelcoming villagers, and their Lord, Sieglinde Sullivan, and her own butler, Wolfram.

The village is full of mostly women, and they’re all entirely unwelcoming to any and all outsiders, but they seem to be willing to defer to Sieglinde as their de facto leader. She is, after all, the Emerald Witch who is going to come up with the ultimate spell that will somehow fix everything that’s going on with the witches’ curse, the werewolves’ forest, and even the miasma that’s affecting everything out there, too. In order to do that, though, Sieglinde, or Sullivan as the Earl takes to calling her, needs zero distractions to finish her spell research. Her entire life has been focused on this one moment; she’s never allowed to leave Emerald Castle. Indeed, Sullivan’s

poor innocent feet were subjected to the Chinese tradition of foot-binding so that she would be entirely focused on this one monumental task. Which, if we think about it, is a very old-German single-minded way of thinking, in the vein of Mengele and his ilk, and that is in no way a good thing.

Despite Sebastian being a Hell of a butler and Ciel encountering things like demons and Grim Reapers, both are entirely skeptical when it comes to witches’ curses and werewolves, and so even after being warned repeatedly against it, they both decide to go into the Werewolves’ forest to check things out for themselves. And there,e after a brief encounter with a werewolf, Ciel is subjected to the miasma of the forest, affecting him like poison gas quite terribly, so Sebastian has to abandon the investigation and bring him back to Emerald Castle for treatment.

Being stuck inside Ciel Phantomhive’s mind is not a fun proposition, especially when he’s been poisoned and is trying to fight his way back to consciousness and control. We are reminded of Ciel’s not-so-distant past, the tortures his own family and vile others subjected him to, of his demands for the power enough to take revenge on those who wronged him, his willingness to forge a contract with his oh-so-demonic butler, and take a curse upon his very eye for it. But also, Ciel Phantomhive the human, is all of thirteen years old, and who could blame him for being tired, and scared, and just so done with all this utter bullsh*t?

The Earl may have surrounded himself with loyal servants – the gardener Finnian who was an experimental subject himself before the Earl saved him, the house steward Tanaka who knew his family before they were slaughtered, the servant Snake who literally speaks for the various snakes he keeps about his person, the laughable housemaid Mey-Rin in her Coke-bottle glasses, the former American soldier Baldroy who now serves as the chef, even Sebastian himself – but rarely if ever does he show weakness to or in front of them, as a stoic English nobleman would. So to have Ciel, not Earl Phantomhive, sobbing like a little boy and hiding under the covers since he can’t see, is unnerving and concerning for everyone, but not his Hell of a butler. Oh no, Sebastian’s going to fix his Master by being his most beastial, blackened self, and if the Earl is not willing to claw his own way back from the darkness, then Sebastian gets to fulfill his contract and eat whatever’s left of Ciel Phantomhive. Either way, Sebastian wins. And Earl Ciel Phantomhive simply cannot have that.

The whole entire truth of the mystery of the Werewolves forest, the witches’ curse of Emerald castle, even Sullivan’s ultimate spell, turns out to be genuinely devastating in a less than supernatural and more real war-like fashion. The horror of what Sieglinde Sullivan has wrought in her tiny genius is something that Ciel Phantomhive can very much relate to, and her own issues of power and control all very much speak to his similar experiences. Despite Sullivan’s mistaken assumptions of sexual advances from the visiting Earl, the two of them actually have a lot in common, and anyone can admire the reserve of strength left in the girl, even as she determines to destroy Emerald castle and the nearby village, perhaps even the supposed nearby Werewolves forest, for what they did to her, and made her do.

Gorgeously done in the gothic Victorian style Black Butler is now known for, full of horror and the grotesqueries we do to each other in the name of acquiring power, Black Butler Emerald Witch Arc is available for your delectation on Crunchyroll now!