cashew | Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021

OK, first, The Untamed is a horrible translation of the Chinese title. I'm seriously offended. It completely fails to capture the original title's meaning, which is something like (excuse the terrible translation) "by the order of suppressed/hidden/old emotions", with a metaphorical meaning of "enslavement to unspeakable desire". Personally, I would've gone with a title such as "Entangled".

Next, uh, I was dragged into watching both the cartoon/anime MDZS and the live action The Untamed by a friend who was curious why this thing has taken over the English speaking fandom. I was wrong. This series is not a Wuxia. It's straight up folkloric fantasy. (Edit to add: tanithryudo says it's Xianxia, which I'm going to note here because she's better at this stuff than I am.) Allow me to go on a tangent and quickly explain Chinese period drama tropes.

( Degrees of historical accuracy in Chinese period drama/novels. )

So, what am I trying to say with all this?

I guess I'm starting to understand why Saiyuki is a thing. But also, why can't the better written folkloric stories be the ones that get popular. Why did it have to be《陈情令》? (Also, I can't call this series by its English translation with a straight face. It's so bad it makes me want to die.)

Finally, the live action TV series is so, so much better paced and plotted than the anime adaptation. Even with the cheesy special effects, the live action still outstrips the anime by miles. (To say nothing of the MDZS web novel. Kill me. The unrestrained indulgence is soul-crushingly embarrassing. I couldn't read past the first chapter, it's so bad.) Ugh.

Friend aptly described this as "Chinese Twilight, but with more gay". Yeah. That about sums it up.

*crawls into a hole*