I have heard of this series for a long time now and just now diving into it. I have heard good things about this.
And it did strike my interest when I heard it was a BL.
Hey, just because I am interested in BL does not mean I ship everything same-sex. In recent years, I have stopped shipping in the same energy in my teenage years.
Like I still ship Suzalulu and Shirlulu till this day.
I barely ship anything beyond things that ignite my interest.
I'm not a big fan of Chinese dramas though I do like wuxia. Probably because of the movies I see in my childhood and Kung Fu Panda have something to do with that...
Regardless, BL is my thing and I am unrepentant about that.
If you want to read or watch this thing, you can go see Exiled Rebels Translations or go to Tencent Youtube for live-action and donghua; if you have Netflix, you can see the live-action there. The manhua could be read here. As for the audio dramas, I only have seen extras on Youtube but you have to seek it out through downloading the thing last I checked around; I don't have reliable links for this one.
The live-action might be easier to obtain for people to have Netflix. Chinese animation isn't well-known and not everybody would know there are audio dramas. Perhaps a manhua might be easier to access at some level since people would have at least heard of manhua even if it's just in conjunction with manga. A Youtube is in reach too so you could find the Tencent Youtube channel. Or just check out the links I gave ya. The TV Tropes page provided links too.
For now, I'm just diving into the beginnings and it's mysterious and confusing.
It doesn't feel like a straightforward BL where we just follow the romances.
It feels like it is genuinely telling a story that just happens to have BL. Well, the BL still has a central part of the story.
Because it wouldn't be BL without it.
Just to be clear, it's not an LGBT story, it's a BL story. This is just a head's up since I am fully aware BL isn't well-liked and BL does deserve its criticisms, especially its starting point. I just need to tell you this because, for certain people, the way Wangxian was written in the novel can rub the wrong way. I am a bisexual demiromantic and I am open-minded about BL to let things slide due to being exposed to it. But I don't think those people won't be as...polite - I think that's the word - even though they know it's BL.
Yuri on Ice is LGBT listed but MDZS is BL listed as a genre. Though there is even more of a difference there with Japanese and Chinese allowance of showing LGBT rep. In Japan, if you want to be LGBT, you must be subtle while in China, you must go under the radar with a heavy subtext or keep it more subtle than normal. In manga, women and LGBT does love using it to express themselves while you must go in a pseudonym if you want LGBT or just outright erotic BL stuff in China when you really don't want to go to jail.
MDZS is not pretending to be an LGBT story - a genre in media that I categorized as a story of LBGTQIA+ characters in the realistic sense, dealing as people. A BL is exactly this: a story of two same-sex characters getting together sexually or not because there's a lighter subset; bonus points if it's a good story and interesting characters, negative points for falling into pitfalls of the genre.
MDZS has its flaws and not in the least because it still has the pitfalls of BL written all over it. The women in the fridge are still at play and the only female who stayed alive in the end was MianMian. Look, I love the women in MDZS and just wished they didn't die at all for the men's sake; many readers have pointed out that there are ways to tell the story without ridding the women. Yanli's death was something people should see coming and not just because we didn't see her at the present time. The women are awesome in the story and deserved to be more than fodder for the men's pain.
MDZS and its various adaptations are flawed. They aren't perfect. The main plotty plot is what makes it interesting from revenge to rumors/reputation/gossip (I find this an interesting theme since living in this day and age, cancel culture is so prevalent that it could ruin careers) to the gray moralities. I don't have any comments on that end since the main plotty plot is fascinating.
But that's a backdrop to the love story going on between Wangxian. Wangxian is the backbone where Lan Wangji's devotion was what supports Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian's love for the people around him was rewarded with the equally loving Lan Wangji who does everything in his power to aid him.
The way Wangxian is handled can differ from each adaptation since CQL handled the romance with delicacy while the novel is... rough... Again, the novel falls into the pitfalls of BL, just to be clear on that end.
I especially like how CQL handled the Love at First Sight aspect of Wangxian. As Shadiversity said, one must have a mature view of who they are and what they want in a partner (They are both intelligent yet good people who want to do right and live without regrets. They see that in each other and no wonder they felt so attracted to each other beyond their great looks which they do comment) and CQL shows this brilliantly through the Cloud Recesses Study Arc interactions with the defining moment being the Lanterns Vow sequence. Afterward, there was no doubt what they are to each other, given how much they care and devoted to each other through the little moments of the intimacy of touch and emotionality.
Stories can be written in a backdrop of just about anything. But to be clear, each plot and subplot in the said story has to support each other's weight.
Its adaptations do a great job making the story, keeping to its love story as best as they can. As for the main plotty plot, where there are gray moralities and mistakes made and the atonement, the adaptation is up in the air. I wouldn't recommend the live-action if you want a very close to the text adaptation though it did try its best despite its questionable writing choices. Then again, I wouldn't recommend any of these adaptations and the original novel at all if you want unadulterated traditional xianxia.
It doesn't mean MDZS didn't create complex and interesting characters. It definitely does since it examined xianxia tropes and moral relativism AKA grey moralities. That just happened to have BL in it or the backbone thereof.
I haven't seen the audio dramas - in Japanese and Chinese - and manhua; I saw only the live-action, novel, and the donghua. I know each adaptation does things differently. If you want a close adaptation, go from audio drama, donghua, and the live-action. The live-action could be called an inspiration than actually adapting every single detail. But the audio drama and donghua are the closest you are gonna get from the most visual from the latter.
These changes can be good or bad on your preference. Just YMMV there.
By the by, I'm disappointed the donghua didn't have a duet like the audio drama and live-action took gladly. I did enjoy XianYun, but it's better if it's a male singer or even better two male singers. It's understandable why WuJi was chosen as a duet as the CQL crew wanted to tell the love story in spite of the censorship and what's better than to make the love song Wangxian a duet.
Just to know how popular it is, there's an animated series, audio drama, live-action, and manhua adapted from the original novel.
I seriously wonder why people want to adapt an obvious BL into something that has to involve censorship. Censorship isn't good at its core since it blocks freedom of speech. Seriously, even with America's full-on censorship bombardment on media today, people are both working against it and rebelling it, the latter because it's just stupid in this case while in China, there is a cultural thing that could severely damage livelihood.
I mean this is China and Asia is not kind to LGBT even though they do exist in said area.
From the outside, it doesn't look like a BL even though it is a BL. It just looked like a wuxia.
And wuxia is mightily popular. Heck, Kung Fu Panda is a parody that even the Chinese accept it.
Though in this case, it's a xianxia. A magical cultivation story. I wonder if there are cultivators in KFP...
However, I won't point to MDZS as a good starting point for xianxia. This story is a deconstruction of said genre with gray moralities everywhere. Even the live-action made it a point by spelling it out.
So no... it's a deconstruction so it's not a good starting point for anyone wanting to start out xianxia.
Xianxia, like wuxia, is black and white morality. Even if there are sympathetic villains in there, it is still black and white. A clear cut hero vs villain, no anti-hero vs anti-villain or any variation thereof. Just look at Kung Fu Panda - an American-made film about Chinese wuxia - where they know the Kung Fu philosophy and despite how sympathetic Tai Lung, Shen, or Kai are, they are still at the end of the day villains.
Also, unlike the explicit novel, other adaptations have to adapt and change things around for the laws. The donghua is perhaps the most subtle while the live-action tried to be as blatant as they could while still maintaining subtlety. I'm pretty sure the production team of each adaptation team wanted to portray the relationship of Wangxian.
But make no mistake, they have to make do with the censorship and the budget reasons. Just has a heads up that the live-action has bad CGI, maybe I'm used to seeing Chinese historical dramas with bad CGI but good makeup and costume design that I can just ignore it. I mean people can ignore the wire-fu for the most part.
There are changes in each adaptation and how they execute the scenes. Some changes may be questionable on your preference.
As for adaptation, look at the audio drama, manhua, donghua, and live-action in terms of faithfulness. You can choose to read the novel before and after if you came to know there is an original source. If you want to get to the explicit, go either the novel or the audio drama. The manhua is somewhat in between since it still has the moments illustrated. The donghua and live-action toned down and made it chaster.
Just to be clear, it's Chinese therefore it's best to not be Eurocentric about this. Please don't. There is already a culture war going on with cultural imperialism en masse. While the story can be appealing, please understand that it's Chinese to its core and therefore must be understood that way.
Just to be clear about the body thing, in canon, Wei Wuxian's soul is in Mo Xuanyu's body.
In Untamed, it's much different. They kept Xiao Zhan throughout the whole series. No, it's not the other adaptations where the character designs for Wei Wuxian and Mo Xuanyu are just too similar. I mean, you can definitely recognize Xiao Zhan and not the actor that played Mo Xuanyu. And we know it's not Mo Xuanyu because his voice is different from Xiao Zhan's.
I get why they kept Xiao Zhan. Because not only he was able to portray Wei Wuxian well enough to be praised but he is also familiar since we spent thirty episodes with him in a flashback. Even though I'm pretty sure the audience would understand not using Xiao Zhan post-Time Skip, not using him would put a lot of pressure on Mo Xuanyu's actor. In canon, while Mo Xuanyu is a pretty boy and seemed to be similar to Wei Wuxian's younger self in terms of looks, he's insecure and when Wei Wuxian is in his body, he made Mo Xuanyu look beautiful on his personality alone.
So yeah, I am glad they kept Xiao Zhan throughout the whole series.
I just wonder about the debate on what the heck is going on the body? Is it a surface transformation or literally plucking him from the brink of death and transport him through time in exchange for Mo Xuanyu's body and soul? At the same time, the Mo's doesn't seem to care that much since they were the ones who told him what Mo Xuanyu does. And the juniors never met Wei Wuxian nor seen him before so they get a pass. Not to mention, instead of keeping him in ghostly makeup, they chose a mask. Literally, the seniors immediately recognized him when he was unmasked while the juniors are clueless about his identity since they never ever met either guy. Maybe Jin Ling has his suspicions because he would know his uncle's face unless Mo Xuanyu wears the mask all the time.
Though really the character designs in the donghua are not good. As beautifully animated as it is, the character designs made it hard to distinguish and seriously while physical aging is a crapshoot, they shoot at least differentiate between ages. In the manhua, I can identify better through reactions and chibi, there are slight differences enough I can see which is which. The live-action has the added benefit of having actors who look different from each other giving it their all in their performance coupled with beautiful robes.
As an entryway for xianxia, I wouldn't recommend this because it's a deconstruction. I can recommend a lot of things as an entry point for new anime watchers, I just wouldn't recommend this if you really want pure xianxia. I would recommend Kung Fu Panda as a wuxia because the movies show Chinese philosophy and knowledge well.
As a BL, I think I could suggest this to you if novels are your thing. I mean if you have heard of Captive Prince... I tend to prefer my BL in animation or comic form so that's why I don't read a lot of BL novels. As a BL story, it's a good story...mind you, depending on which canon you are talking about since the novel has some questionable content regarding the love story. Probably outside of the physicality aspect that is no way in related to kink-shaming - because kink-shaming is bad and really you do you, as long as it and you don't hurt actual people with it, fantasies are fine as long as they stay fantasies and if you want to do them in real life, get consent and make it safe like rape roleplaying are fine as long as they stay roleplaying - can get...controversial... BL is already controversial so it's best to know to go in that there will be BL tropes littered in there for the main couple.
As for fanfiction, there are many fics that either mashup from the multiple adaptations or just have one, either book, live-action, or donghua canon.
