Tian Guan Cifu

The heavens shake, the thunder rumbles, and Xie Lian appears with an apologetic smile—again! Eight hundred years prior, he was a beloved martial god, known as the Crown Prince of Xianle. Now, he ascends to the heavenly realm for the third time, but simply as a pitiful scrap-collecting god with no followers behind him.

On his first mission, Xie Lian finds himself alone in the dark moonlit night. There, a gentle man dressed in red guides him through the forest. However, as abruptly as he appeared, the man suddenly dissipates into a swarm of silver butterflies.

Xie Lian later learns that this mysterious stranger was none other than Hua Cheng, the Crimson Rain Sought Flower, a Ghost King feared by both demons and gods alike. But before Xie Lian can figure out why Hua Cheng would help a Heavenly Official like himself, he meets San Lang. A young man possessing great knowledge on not only the Ghost King, but also the now forgotten Crown Prince, San Lang decides to accompany Xie Lian on his journey of unveiling the mysteries of the past.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hua, Cheng Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Xie, Lian Main

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Shi, Qingxuan ing

Kawasumi, Ayako Japanese

Mu, Qing ing

Kobayashi, Chiaki Japanese

Ling, Wen ing

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Ming, Yi ing

Mori, Nanako Japanese

Fu, Yao ing

Kobayashi, Chiaki Japanese

Pei, Ming ing

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Nan, Feng ing

Furukawa, Makoto Japanese

He, Xuan ing

Li, Haoling Director

Bickham, Clint Script

Amamiya, Sora Theme Song Performance

SID Theme Song Performance

Reviews

May 20, 2025

daylilyyy

Recommended

it is a visually stunning and emotionally rich animated series that captivates with its beautiful animation, intricate world-building, and heartfelt character development.

The animation is beautiful, with detailed characters and smooth action. The voice acting is great, especially in showing the deep emotions between the main characters, Xie Lian and Hua Cheng. The story is interesting, with themes of love, redemption, and morality, and the world-building is rich, filled with gods and demons.

Of course, the pace of the story can sometimes be slow, which may confuse or bore some viewers. Some of the plot lines can seem convoluted or overly dramatic, making it difficult for everyone ... ...

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by daylilyyy (21)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Sep 18, 2023

KillyChides

Mixed Feelings

The production and animation quality is stellar, if not for some underwhelming character designs (*cough* Hua Cheng *cough*). The pace and writing, on the other hand, is a glaring issue with this adaptation.

The original TGCF book is one of my favourite pieces of fiction ever, by far the best romance story I've ever read, and I was a bit underwhelmed with this. The pacing was very strange, making the story's opening even more scattered than it was in the book (which is by far the weakest arc already). I haven't read the first arc in a long time, and even watching the donghua, I ... had a very hard time understanding what was happening. I think it should have been rewritten to be clearer and more engaging for the viewers, because we don't have the book narration to guide us through some plot beats. Xie Lian was handled extremely well in this adaptation, but all the other character introductions were lacklustre. They had a golden opportunity to expand on this world and go all out with these unforgettable characters, but the opportunity was wasted and instead, they wasted too much time on the Peis in my opinion.

Secondly, the music was very nice but equally as distracting, cutting the tension of moments and just breaking the flow of the scenes. The fight scenes were quite good, but their weird placement caused a very bad flow as well. Every piece of action was slowed down suddenly for exposition, misplaced flashbacks, and scene transitions that weren't executed well.

Finally, I was extremely underwhelmed by this version of Hua Cheng. They were able to do wonderfully with characters like Xie Lian and Banyu, but not the main love interest. For a character with such a huge presence, charisma, and notoriety, they weren't able to emphasise any of it. He's a ghost whose name causes Gods to shit their pants, and instead every time he was mentioned in this version, it felt like ing gossip. His design was more on the basic side, which is a capital crime considering how he's depicted in original art and in the manhua. I don't understand why they made him shorter, or why he looks like a black-haired version of Mu Qing's "subordinate", and why the stupid braid was THAT stupid, but I'm just nit-picking now.

Overall, definitely a decent adaptation, but I hope they rework the script for season 2 to make it more digestible. Also, Hua Cheng doesn't look bad in the trailers, so I'm excited about that.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by KillyChides (8)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Jul 18, 2022

Inter_anime

Not Recommended

Something I have been interested in is non-Japanese anime (or anime-influenced) works, and Donghua (Chinese animation) is one of the fast growing in this sphere. As of the time of this review Tian Guan Ci Fu or Heaven's Official Blessing has a score of around 8.4 on both MAL and IMDB, so I thought it would be worth checking out. Unfortunately it was a bit of a disappointing experience. I should also clarify that I have not read the source materials of the show.

Starting off with the positives I will give Tian Guan Ci Fu this: the animation is gorgeous and the production is top-notch, ... easily compatible with the best anime has to offer in that regard. The fluidity of how the animation flowed in particular was well done, including the actions scenes and op. I can't say I am much of a fan of the traditional opera-style Chinese music, but it did fit the show. While I am certainly not an expert (I took two classes in historic Chinese literature as electives in university) I thought the placement in medieval China was well done.

My first gripe with the show was the dialogue; along with place and people's names are constantly being thrown about in the conversations the characters seem to be constantly having, with little explanation on the importance of who of what these things are. Again, I did not read the source material, but I think that animation should stand on its own, and I was constantly going to Wikipedia or the MAL page for this show just to understand what was going on. It is also worth mentioning the humor of the show fell completely flat, maybe it was the translation or just different cultural norms, but the jokes the main makes where akin to the ones a friend at the party does but no one laughs, but they don't get the cues and just keep carrying on. Not even the in-universe characters ever seemed even slightly amused, which I guess is supposed to be joke that Xie Lian thinks he is funny but no one else does, only that it is not funny for the audience either.

Another problem was the characters, in the first arc of the show had a demon kidnapping bride as they travel to their marriage, so a bunch of rowdy villagers decide to disguise themselves as a bridal party to catch the demon. Some overly pure village girl begs them to stop because she doesn't want them to die. Yet a few minuets later when the protagonist show up, and propose to do what is practically the same exact thing, the same girl decides to help them wholeheartedly no questions asked. That's the worse example, but it felt as a lot of the characters' motivations and actions were inconsistent and haphazard.

The plot was also not great, the first four episodes are concerned with an arc that proves to be mostly irrelevant towards the end, it could have easily been condensed to 2 episodes. The magic system is never really explained, and what the characters are capable of seems to be what the plot needs at the time, Xie Lian especially is described as an incapable and weak deity, but it seems every time there is a situation his magical neck bandages get the job done.

Lastly a lot of praise I've seen this show receive mention the fact that it is a LGBT romance. I find that a bit misleading for two reasons 1.) maybe I'm just stupid but the male and female gods have such similar character design that it took me a full episode to realize that Hua Cheng was supposed to be a male 2.) there was barely any "romance" in the story, characters engaging in long boring conversations about ghosts and occasionally making eye does not qualify as "romance" in my book.

Overall while the animation and production were superb, I ended up disliking this show due to the issues mentioned above. It seems a lot of people like Tian Guan Ci Fu, and whatever suits you, but personally for me it wasn't fun or heartwarming in the slightest.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by Inter_anime (28)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Best of 2020-2024

by Doggo1195

50 Entries · 287 Restacks

Beyond Gender Binaries 2

by Nightflower

50 Entries · 17 Restacks

DongHua (国漫) starter pack

by RokkanShojo

50 Entries · 392 Restacks

	Madhav001 - Apr 20	8 replies	by »» May 23, 8:13 AM
	Poll: Xealias - Oct 30, 2020	38 replies	by »» Mar 15, 11:01 AM
	Poll: Xealias - Jan 1, 2021	34 replies	by »» Dec 30, 2024 12:32 AM
	L-Lawliet7 - Jul 13, 2023	6 replies	by »» Dec 24, 2024 5:40 AM
	Poll: Xealias - Nov 20, 2020	41 replies	by »» Jul 27, 2024 10:09 PM