Tales of Herding Gods (Mu Shen Ji) : Destiny will find you!

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!