Heaven Official's Blessing

Welcome back my wonderful weebs, this week I watched the first 3 episodes of the not-as-well-known Heaven Official's Blessing. Although this show is adapted from a Chinese novel series many consider it to be an anime. Animated by Bilibili this show is one of my personal favorites so I may be a little biased in my review. Let's get into it!

Plot:

Before I get into the plot I want to explain the world, in this show the things of Chinese legend are real. From gods to ghosts, to cultivators (mythical/magical martial artists) and ancient cities, everything is real. This show takes place in ancient China, where our main character Xie Lian (pronounced Shee Lee-an) ascends to heaven. His arrival is not very welcome and slightly destructive as he accidentally destroys a palace and hits a god with a bell. This also happens to be his third ascension. He was banished twice for reasons currently unknown and is a very disliked god in the heavenly realm and most mortals don't even know of his existence. Due to the accidental destruction caused by his ascension, he must pay merits (gained by the offerings and prayers of believers), which he does not have, to make up for it. So, to get more credits he goes on a mission to the mortal realm to investigate rumors of a ghost who has been kidnapping brides as they were traveling to be married. Along the way, he meets a mysterious man clad in red and gains two young gods to assist him on his missions. 

That's as much of the plot that I want to give away, as this is a mystery and I don't want to give away too much. If you like ghosts, mystery, and the mystical with a splash of romance then you'll most likely enjoy this show and what it has to offer. Fair warning that the plot can get confusing at times especially later on, but I'd say it's worth the watch.

Characters:

It's somewhat hard to talk about the characters without giving away too much about the show so I'll give you a vague overview. Xie Lian our main character seems to be a very gentle, determined person with a mysterious and potentially dark past. As someone who's read some of the novels without giving away too much, his past is intriguing, to say the least. Later on, we meet a man named San Lang who is very obviously Xie Lian's romantic interest and very mysterious himself. I can't say a lot about him without giving away too much but he and Xie Lian's interactions are fun to watch. There are also the two gods Fu Yao and Nan Feng who accompany Xie Lian on his adventures, they are the show's comedic foil I guess you could say. Their interactions with both each other and Xie Lian are entertaining to watch. 

Animation: 

The animation in this show is gorgeous, from the backgrounds, to the characters, to how it flows everything is a work of art. It embodies the feeling of mythical, ancient storytelling. It's honestly beautiful to look at even if you aren't a fan of the show. There's not much more to say other than that, if you want to check out the animation and see if this show is for you I've linked the trailer below. Heaven Official's Blessing Trailer

Music: 

The composer of the music in Heaven Official's Blessing is Bingyin Yang. The music is beautiful and lends itself to the mythical atmosphere that is carefully crafted in this show. It's hard to describe it but it's full of elegant instrumentals and vocals that mix to become a peaceful melody that although I can't understand the words seems to convey the emotions behind them. It can easily go from elegant, and beautiful to epic or nerve-wracking. 

Sub or dub:

The thing about subtitles is that it's hard to keep up with, they talk quickly and sometimes multiple characters are talking at once making it impossible to read it all without pausing or I'm just a slow reader. That's why I highly suggest watching the dub, which although this show is on Netflix the dub is only on Crunchyroll as far as I know. 

Final ratings:

As I mentioned before this is one of my personal favorites, but I'll try to be critical of it in my rating. As I know that later on the show can be confusing and if you aren't watching the English dub it can be almost impossible to keep up with. Taking this into account the animation and music are beautiful and the characters are interesting and enjoyable. Overall, I'd rate this an 8/10, it's very beautiful but it does have some flaws. If anything that I've mentioned above has piqued your interest I'd highly suggest you check it out!