I haven't seen the animated version. I've heard people who've seen both animated and live-action version consider them as separate stories. (Donghua is...what? Don't want to use the wrong terms) Apparently the anime had a lot more lisence than the live-action series b/c the Chinese censors aren't as bird-doggish on gay and supernatural issues as they are with live-action. I will say, these particular actors managed an awful lot with facial expressions, body language, and line delivery. Some of the actors' voices were dubbed, for whatever reasons (do they do ADR in China? Or just have voice actors do their thing at the same time as the onscreen actors are filming, to save time? Just curious), including at least one of the leads, but having heard his voice, they cast the VO actor *very* close.

I'm currently watching The Wolf, which is also gorgeous, live-action. And once you get past the squeaky ingenue and wardrobe's suggestion of raised-by-wolves in the first two episodes it gets pretty quickly into politics, intrigue, loyalty, soulmates, and all the good stuff. I've heard good things about Heaven's Official Blessing, and there is a live-action series in the works.

Bev, donghua is Chinese anime. (Probably only matters to anime nerds like me). And yeah, the censors are much tougher on live action. Heaven Official's Blessing is also BL (Boys Love, which most Asian countries use to for gay male protagonists.)

I watched the most recent ep. of The Mandalorian, and I am (possibly) unreasonably mad about it. Spoiler-ish: OH MY G-D Mando you are a bad stepfather. As soon as those stormtroopers showed up, you should have ran back to where you left the baby and STAYED THERE.

Ah! My from-osmosis guesses were both right. Thanks. So, donghua isn't a specific anime genre? Just all Chinese anime?

Ooh! I just found Mo Dao Zu Shi on YouTube, and after watching a minute, I've got it tabbed to watch later. It looks amazing! Thanks for the rec.

I assume Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is the sequel to MDZS?

And also? Oh goodie! A new rabbit hole to fall down. Thanks, Cash!

That's a very valid point, Atropa, but I'm sure the second time he failed to get through the Force field at all he thought "well, at least he'll be safe there" and just had that assumption sitting in the back of his mind from then on. From the previous week Ahsoka is my girl but are we sure she got that name right?

So. How about that Mandolorian, eh?

No Groku (sp?) this week. But plenty of Din’s face. And it’s a nice face, don’t get me wrong. But I’m all about Baby Yoda. I did like the somewhat morally complex fight scenes. Yes, go you guys with the blowing up of Imperial freighters. Just not right this minute, ok?

Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewey didn’t need to bother to overthrow the Empire. In a few years, the Imperials would have all fallen off of ledges and blown themselves up due to lax Occupational Safety standards.

That line about safety railings a couple of weeks ago made me chortle

I don’t know how I feel about the whole helmet thing yet. As a sacrifice, it was well done. I’m just anxious about the long term effects on Din’s identity

I have questions about several things--like how does this database work? It just looks for faces that are known "criminals" but allows anyone else? That doesn't seem to make sense. Why were Mayfield's clearances still good? He hasn't been in the Empire for along time so...they just don't update anything and hope that the facial scanner will catch anyone who shouldn't be accessing things?

I was also wondering if the pirates were just people who have been exploited by the Empire and are trying to fight back and under normal circumstances Din would have helped them but instead he was killing them.

Also I thought storm troopers were clones.