Management: 12 Days of anime continues with the highlights of Autumn: our glorious Chuuni Wuxia Puppets

With the end of Planet With, the fog lifted to reveal a stacked Fall Season. In the summer, I had time to marathon the Idolmaster and Chihayafuru S2 (both highly recommended by the way). In autumn, no longer. Run With the Wind is based on a novel, which, sadly to say, fits a trend whereby anime adaptations of novels almost inevitably turn out to have strong storytelling. Golden Kamuy S2 continues to be wacky and intriguing. Jojo S5 had the kindness to start a new arc with little background information needed, meaning I finally had an entry point to enjoy the unhinged creative mental chess that are its battles. I even had to put SSSS.Gridman and Tsurune on hold to have the time to watch my Secret Santa shows (edit: Gridman is good y’all). The show of the season has yet to be decided, however, the moment so far goes to Thunderbolt Fantasy, our glorious Chuuni Wuxia puppets.

I never grew up on Shonen. I eschewed their long-running stories, chock full of filler, snobbishly going for the Evas and Utenas and Tatami Galaxies. While others went HYYYYPPE during high-stake battles, I adjusted my spectacles on my nose, bewildered at what the heck was going in this episode of Lain.

I’ve since come around to other genres, one HeroAca and Chihayafuru at a time. This year, I experienced the HYYYYPPE that others had, courtesy of this Taiwanese puppet show.

I’ve written before why I enjoy the heck out of Thunderbolt Fantasy. There’s the nostalgia of Wuxia. The scheming. The earnest balls-to-the-wall Chuunibyou. Oh god the Chuunibyou.

We have two humans who by all means should not be able to fight dragons. Especially if you’ve read Tolkien’s Hobbit, or even seen this particular dragon alter the very landscape around our heroes’ feet. But I guess once you’ve mastered Qigong or whatever these guys use, anything is possible.

We have a guy who barely talks because he is apparently afraid of the power of his voice.

We have a fire-breathing dragon.

 

We have this insane plan to beat the dragon’s fire-breath with the power of the human voice.

The dragon blasts his fire.

The human blasts his voice.

AND THE FRIGGIN OP STARTS PLAYING.

AND YOU READ THE FRIGGIN GODDAMM LYRICS. What you thought was gibberish is actually this Chuuni-AF line “THE LAND IS CLOAKED IN DEEPEST BLUE”.

OMG

WHAT

OMIGOD I CAN’T

I think I’ve achieved Shonen-lightenment

HYYYYYPPPPPPPEEEEEE

You can read my other 12 Days of Anime articles here.