Lord of Mysteries

When it comes to anime and donghua, the first episode of a show is extremely important. The premiere of a series sets the tone, lets the viewer know what they’re in for with the future of the series, and when it comes to Asian animation, episode runtimes often don’t give shows a lot of wiggle-room when it comes to captivating their target audience. However, the first episode of Lord of Mysteries won this battle, standing out as one of the most captivating shows of the season, amidst fairly stiff competition. However, as the show progressed, it was clear that this adaptation was fighting an uphill battle, not against production costs, not against network restrictions, but rather, against the labyrinthine story crafted by Yuan Ye in the original web novel that Lord of Mysteries is based on.

Today, we’re reviewing Lord of Mysteries, the latest Chinese donghua to catch the attention of anime fans across the globe. We will be discussing spoilers in this review, so be sure to watch the series for yourself before you scroll any further, and be warned! I have a lot to say about Lord of Mysteries, and a lot of it is negative. I know that this series has developed quite a dedicated fanbase across the last 12 weeks, but hear me out on this one. Let’s dive right into the review.

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Lord of Mysteries Review

Image by B.CMAY PICTURES

In tackling a review for a series as intricate as Lord of Mysteries, let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Lord of Mysteries is a visual masterpiece, and easily stands as one of the best-looking animated series of all time. It’s clear that B.CMAY PICTURES, the team behind The King’s Avatar and The Master of Diabolism, have given this series their all from an animation perspective. Whereas anime fans have learned to deal with animation quality spikes, even when it comes to the most popular anime series, China continues to prove that if they bring one thing to the table when it comes to Asian animation, it’s consistency. While I would argue that the animation can be overly-indulgent at times, particularly in the first three episodes of the show (I’m not sure a cinematic transition of a rat running along a pipe was needed), there’s simply no denying that Lord of Mysteries is a visual triumph.

This animation, when paired with Lord of Mysteries’ unique aesthetic, really draws the viewer into the world that this series is creating. The Victorian-steampunk vibe works perfectly when mixed with the over-the-top fantasy elements that the story introduces. It’s difficult to pin down the exact style of Lord of Mysteries, but it all works together, making for a unique, but never jarring experience. All of the visual elements of Lord of Mysteries flow and melt together like butter, crafting what is, funnily enough, one of the most fantastical, yet believable, worlds in the anime and donghua industries. To paraphrase somewhat, the show is extremely cool, filled with breath-taking moments, so that even when some of my later issues with the series come into play, it always remains an enjoyable watch through pure stimulation.

Before I go into some of my major issues with Lord of Mysteries though, I do want to make clear that I have no doubt that the web novel is an absolute joy to read, and I’m sure that Yuan Ye has taken far more care of his narrative than this donghua has. There’s clearly a lot of thought behind this show – the author undoubtedly understands everything he himself has put together here, and the apparent cohesiveness of the show’s underlying story makes me wish that the donghua itself had let us, the viewers, in on this potentially magnificent plot. In short, Lord of Mysteries is not at all shallow, and clearly possesses a lot of depth to those who are given the chance to understand it.

Image by B.CMAY PICTURES

With this in mind, we come to the first issue of the Lord of Mysteries donghua – its break-neck pacing. This series is ridiculously fast-paced, to the point that rather than feeling like a fully thought-out television series, it feels like watching a compilation of a show’s best moments on YouTube. There’s rarely a clear direction for each episode, with the usual order of events being something magical taking place, a character with infinitely more knowledge than the viewer spewing a lot of convoluted exposition at us, followed by a jarring transition to a new location.

The resulting confusion is extremely frustrating as a viewer. As the title implies, there are plenty of mysteries to be solved in this donghua, but this series does not encourage the viewer to solve any mysteries as much as it completely isolates the viewer in their lack of understanding. Perhaps a fan of the web novel would not have felt this way, but I found myself constantly asking questions as the series went on, and oftentimes, these questions were never answered. Lord of Mysteries does not encourage healthy puzzle-solving, as it rarely gives its viewers the pieces to even begin the jigsaw. Instead, it opts to leave the viewer completely stranded, as even the initially befuddled main character, Klein Moretti, eventually evolves past the viewer in his own understanding of the world around him.

On the topic of Klein, I feel that his sudden arrival in Tingen was the perfect opportunity to gradually let the viewer understand the world of Lord of Mysteries alongside him. After all, his musings on his situation in the first episode of the show are fairly easy to follow, and we feel that everything we’re in the dark about, Klein himself also doesn’t understand. However, as the series progresses, particularly by the time we reach Episode 4, it’s clear that somewhere along the line, Klein left us, the audience, in the dust. Klein does things in the fourth episode that, from a narrative perspective, make absolutely no sense. It’s the equivalent of a horror movie character initially arriving in a strange house, unaware of the danger surrounding them, and then out of nowhere fighting back against the killer, with complete knowledge of their surroundings, including where all of the weapons in this strange house are kept.

Image by B.CMAY PICTURES

Klein’s shortcomings as a main character brings me to another of Lord of Mysteries’ biggest issues  – its characters. I could not name more than two or so characters that I cared about in this series in the slightest. Rather than feeling like actual people, their contributions to the story determined by their relationship with Klein himself, the cast of Lord of Mysteries feel entirely evaluated based on the exposition they can dump onto us. Beyond Klein himself, Old Neil, and potentially Melissa Moretti, I couldn’t even tell you a character trait of most of the characters in this show. They’re all just sort of brooding, magical figures, who only contribute to the story by relaying largely nonsensical lore to Klein. Luckily, Klein himself seems to get what they’re saying. The viewers, on the other hand, remain completely alienated.

I think that this issue highlights one of the greater problems of the Asian animation industry in general. Anime can often spoon-feed its viewers, giving you information that you could have easily derived yourself from what you’re watching. I recently watched the Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle movie, and it reminded me of the laughable way that we would watch Tanjiro be slammed into a wall, clearly breaking his leg, but he would simply have to tell us that; ‘I just got slammed into that wall, my leg is broken! I can’t move as easily as before!’. However, instead of finding a healthy middle-ground between that level of hand-holding, and complete abandonment, Lord of Mysteries chooses the latter. The estrangement from the story that Lord of Mysteries forces on its viewers is simply too much for many people to handle. In saying this, I’m sure some people didn’t have this issue, and I’m sure many of them are fans of the web novel. For me, however, this was a huge problem.

Fans of the web novel are clearly enjoying this donghua, probably because when the understanding aspect is cleared up for them, they can bask in the visual glory of the series. Unfortunately, those fans who do understand Lord of Mysteries have found themselves leading some very pretentious discourse online, discourse that has only soured my feelings on this series further. There is some serious vitriol being directed at people who have dropped this show, with fans insisting that their disconnect with the story is not down to the show itself alienating them, but rather down to the intelligence of the viewers themselves. Some fans have even gone as far as to say that this series must be rewatched to understand, and to put it simply, I believe that if this is the case for a show, then the show is just not viewer-friendly. Fans of the web novel who understand what is happening here are more than welcome to enjoy the series in all of its glory. However, criticising casual viewers for not understanding what has not been explained to them is completely nonsensical, almost as nonsensical as much of this show’s narrative.

Image by B.CMAY PICTURES

If I were to compare this donghua to anything, I would actually dip into the gaming industry and say that it feels like if FromSoftware made an animated series out of Bloodborne, but kept the lore of the show as mysterious as it is in the original game. I adore Bloodborne in every way, including its lore. However, when people play it and say to me that they had no idea what was going on in it, I can’t deny that the game doesn’t exactly make it easy for you to understand its story. I almost feel like, much as is the case with Bloodborne, I need to watch some theory videos to fully grasp what actually happened in Lord of Mysteries, and to be blunt, that isn’t what I’m looking for when it comes to television.

To give the series some credit, however, the Bloodborne comparisons actually bring to mind one of Lord of Mysteries’ greatest strengths, that being its horror elements. There are some genuinely terrifying moments in this show, whether it’s the grotesque appearances of Beyonders who have lost control, or whether it’s the tendency that all of Klein’s friends seem to have for jumpscaring him. Asian animation rarely pulls off horror well, so as a horror fan, this was a real pleasure to see.

I also can’t deny how spectacular the fight scenes in Lord of Mysteries were. This ties into the animation aspect of the series, which I’ve already given a lot of praise to, but to re-iterate, the visuals in these fights were absolutely amazing. They were thrilling, brutal, and admittedly original, even if the abilities that some of these characters showcased caused some real headaches. I thought that the power system in Jujutsu Kaisen was complex, but the pseudo-domain expansions of Lord of Mysteries make Gege’s work look like child’s play from the perspective of understanding what’s happening on your screen.

Image by B.CMAY PICTURES

However, as with its aesthetic, storyline, and world-building, the fight scenes in Lord of Mysteries once again highlight that there is absolutely no shortage of originality when it comes to this series. Each episode is also distinguished from the last in how separate the events that are taking place are. It’s a shame that the connecting thread throughout these episodes is so incomprehensible, as in every other way, Lord of Mysteries hits the mark.

I think that that phrase, ‘it’s a shame’, really sums up my thoughts on Lord of Mysteries. When you can make sense of what’s going on, the story of this show is actually pretty gripping. Episode 9 was a real highlight for me, as I understood what was happening to Old Neil, and he himself was one of the most well-rounded characters in the show when it comes to personality. When you’re in on what’s going down in Lord of Mysteries, it’s pure, fantasy goodness, paired with S-tier animation. However, viewer understanding is just too important of an aspect to mess up this badly, and Lord of Mysteries fails in this department too greatly for me to ever recommend it to anyone.

Ultimately, this is not a review I enjoyed making. Lord of Mysteries could have been phenomenal if they simply slowed down, put more time into fleshing-out characters and giving them actual personalities, and just explained what is going on in this world even a little better. If the team behind this donghua had kept the mystery going, but given the viewer the tools to at least apply some logic to it, rather than simply using episodes’ runtime to flex production quality, I think we could’ve had something really special on our hands. Unfortunately, it all just fell flat for me. But what did you think of Lord of Mysteries? Be sure to let us know, and thanks for reading!

See also: Best Horror Anime

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Where to Watch Lord of Mysteries?

Image by B.CMAY PICTURES

You can now stream Lord of Mysteries on WeTV and Crunchyroll. The team behind the donghua have already thought ahead on the future of the series, and we now know that Lord of Mysteries will air in six seasons, running until 2034, and will conclude with a movie in 2035. The next season is scheduled for 2027. A long future ahead for fans of the series!

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