Going to copy and paste my ramble to my friends but basically!!:
OKAY OKAY GUYS I KNOW THE STANDOUTS THIS YEAR FROM CHINESE ANIMATION ARE NEZHA 2 AND THE LEGEND OF HEI 2 BUT I NEED TO PUT IN A GOOD WORD FOR THE FILM NOBODY!!!! 🥺 🥺 🥺 🥺
Finally got to see it tonight (I am SO glad I live near a city with a big Chinese population so the film was still showing; I heard it only got to show in LA for like 2 weeks and it was during a road trip I was on so I was scared I’d miss it). 🥹
It’s an expansion of episode 1 from the short collection Yao—Chinese Folktales, which can be watched here:
The film is focused on the life of the small-time yao that get no names and are basically henchmen in Journey to the West where they’re basically cannon fodder for Sun Wukong ADKFJSKFJSKSH.
In the movie, the plot is that the main characters (a boar and a toad) decide to impersonate Sun Wukong and his gang to try and be respected but also gain immortality, gathering two other yao to help them on their journey. 🔥
It’s a very funny movie but also pretty low-key—less flashy in terms of action than The Legend of Hei 2 and Nezha 2 and also sillier than the former but less immature than the latter!
It also has a very hopeful message and themes since it’s focused on the underdog and kind of more clearly reflects our reality (since the yao suffer from the hierarchy system and struggle to keep/find jobs).
I even forced my younger brother to watch it and it’s actually his favourite donghua film this year out of the other 2 I similarly forced him to watch in theatres. 😆
Here’s the trailer!:
Official MV:
Behind the scenes:
And kind of depressingly, we only have one video on YouTube reviewing it… 😭
But they really liked it too!:
Plus it has legacy too since it’s animated by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which was practically responsible for all animation in China after the 1920s-1930s in the 20th century before China opened up in the 1980s, and they evidently have tons of important historical animation under their belt like Uproar in Heaven (1961-1964) and Nezha Conquers the Dragon King (1979).
Nobody even references SAFS’ work with the Journey to the West characters, along with the iconic 1986 adaptation. ^^
Evidently Nobody itself is not doing too hot in western theatres and has already left some theatres, but I’d encourage you guys to watch it in theatres if you can! It is quite a pretty film and it’s cute and funny and honest and subdued and heartfelt and adds a really fun new dimension to Journey to the West.
It actually makes it so that this story doesn’t mess up the JttW canon at all despite using a villain directly from the story, so it can totally be taken as canon. 🔥
My favourite character is surprisingly enough the weasel ALFJSKDJSKS. HE’S ANIMATED PRETTY CUTELY AND HE HAS A FUN LITTLE PERSONALITY AND ARC TOO!
(Actually all the characters have pretty strong character arcs!)
OH AND I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION THIS BUT NOBODY IS NOW CHINA’S HIGHEST-GROSSING 2D ANIMATED FILM EVER!!
Not a lot of energy to type up a detailed rant especially since I have a lot of other things I need to write, but…
Interesting phenomenon I’ve picked up recently (although this has always been an issue) is readers treating characters and fictional worlds as real and using that as an argument against someone who critiques the writers of the series behind those characters/worlds.
What does that mean?
Specifically, the reason it’s bothering me enough now to write this out is because I saw it a day ago when I saw a tweet criticizing Frieren (is that how you spell it?) as coming across as fascist because the bad guys in it are a demon horde completely incapable of empathy or goodness whatsoever. The OP specifically asked, “Why did the author write it like that? Doesn’t that sound like fascist messaging?”
Which okay, perhaps the way they worded it was obnoxious, because “fascist” is a word that gets thrown around sometimes to the point it can lose its meaning and people forget how bad it really is…
But fans of Frieren were defending it by saying, “Well, the bad guys aren’t capable of goodness ever so that’s why they have to be completely wiped out in the series!” One artist even qrt-ed it with a comic showing that someone trying to be nice to a demon will be killed, captioning it as “this literally happens in the series” and they got a shit-ton of likes—even though it completely misses the point of OP’s argument??
OP didn’t say Frieren the character is a fascist or that she as a character should try to extend sympathy to fictional demons that we know in her world are incapable of being better.
The question lies in why the author chose to write the world like this. In truth, you can’t easily glean an author’s morality from the fiction they write (Neil Gaiman is perhaps, most recently, a horrific and unfortunate example of this), because humans are too complex for that…
But when it comes to prejudice, it can seep into one’s work in uncomfortable ways.
For example, when people accused the Attack on Titan writer of including things in their work that felt supportive of Imperial Japan, or when Asian writers are criticized for the preference for pale skin in their work, or when Han Chinese danmei authors stereotype non-Han ethnicities in works set in ancient times.
So when OP asks why the Frieren author was comfortable with writing the antagonist as an entire species of evil beings, that’s fair to ask from a writing standpoint. It doesn’t matter that diegetically within the lore, the demons will never ever be good and that you wanting a demon to be good could get you killed—because those demons aren’t real. They are a product of the writer’s imagination…so why did the writer imagine them as an evil mass horde that deserves to be slaughtered?
And no, most people don’t have a problem with a villain who is genuinely evil. The reason Frieren gets special attention here is because it’s about an entire species—the main question is simply why, how come, and what the significance of that is, along with how it may demonstrate or even perpetuate a certain ideology, which in this case, can be seen as dangerous.
Now with that being said, I’m not a fan of Frieren or even someone who has tried it for myself, so I can’t properly critique it, nor would I make actual assumptions on the writer’s views. I’m simply saying that OP asked a question from a writing perspective, but rather than consider the nuances behind the writing choice OP was questioning, Frieren defenders defended it as if the demons were a real thing you needed to worry about where “you can’t question it because if you do and try to be nice to them, they’ll kill you!”
Again, OP did not ask why Frieren as a character doesn’t look for more good demons. OP asked why the author of Frieren the series wrote the theme this way.
Now for another example, The Legend of Korra, which has recently seen an uptick in discourse due to a new Avatar series that says being the Avatar is now a bad thing, which many Korra haters blame on Korra the character.
What I noticed is someone pointing out that the writers behind The Legend of Korra as a show constantly put her in punishing situations where she was violated and thrown around like a ragdoll much more than Aang was, and they said they felt like it was internalized misogyny by the writers.
People responded that Korra was always meant to be a darker show and, most frustrating of all—just as they did with Frieren—they spoke about the character as if she was real, because “well she was just way more headstrong than Aang so she got herself in all kinds of fucked up situations!”
Which, okay, yes, we can glean that an obvious flaw of Korra’s is her temper and stubbornness, but again, that wasn’t OP’s point. OP specifically wondered why the writers made Korra like this.
Like why make the female character so impetuous that she seems deserving of punishment through violation?
It doesn’t matter that Aang and Korra have fundamentally different personalities and approaches to battle in this particular discussion because the main point OP brought up comes back to writing choices. This invites us to consider the series critically from a writing perspective.
No matter how mad Korra makes you as a character, she’s still just a character—she’s just words on a page.
Her “choices” aren’t her choices at all because they were choices made by the writing staff, and it’s fair for some people to wonder why a writing staff would write her the way they did. Especially since they could still write her as headstrong and stubborn without making it so that everything always somehow seems like her fault to viewers, to the point no one is satisfied (because ATLA fans think she was too full of herself and thus ruined everything even as they think she deserves the punishment the series gives her, while Korra fans dislike that the writers put her through so much hell).
So with all that being said, I basically wish sometimes people would treat stories as actual stories. I know it’s easy to get emotionally attached to a fictional story or to emotionally respond to a character, whether they’re super amazing or super annoying, but at the end of the day fiction is still fiction and characters are still characters. Even if “normies” can’t look at things from a writing perspective, I wish they could look at a series as just that—a fictional series.
I’m not a fan of or even someone particularly well-versed in The Legend of Korra or anything, but I can still tell how silly it is when someone questions the writers and writing choices of a show and fans of the series as a whole respond that “actually it’s fine because it’s meant to be darker and Korra is flawed so she’s the one who makes a mess of things.” That doesn’t engage with anything in any critical or thoughtful manner.
Like yeah, we get it—the character of Korra is super stubborn so she messed up a lot in the plot and it backfired on her, or the character of the demons in Frieren are indeed irredeemable and it’s pointless to discuss otherwise. But who’s the one making them so flawed in the first place? They don’t actually exist; their traits and what happens to them are all details assigned by the writer(s). So it isn’t pointless to question why a writer chose to write these things the way they did.
Of course, you should not speculate either, and calling Frieren the series “fascist,” even in terms of its messaging, may be going too far, but thinking more critically about the different series you consume is usually a good thing.
If nothing else, it exercises your brain, which I’m starting to get worried that people refuse to use.
Remember: no matter how much a fictional character pisses you off, they’re still merely a fictional character who is a tool within the narrative. Some characters, like Boruto or Damian Wayne, are meant to be spoiled brats who go through character development, and other characters or themes or plot developments may be worthy of criticism even if they “make sense” within the established lore.
The end of 2024 has proven that 2025 seems to be a huge year for donghua and I’m gripping everyone to give all these donghua besides just the most popular ones a chance!!!:
Link Click, Yingdu arc: releasing December 27, 2024
Nezha 2, sequel to Nezha 2019 aka Nezha zhi motong jiangshi, confirmed for January 2025
To Be Hero X, likely April 2025 release (I hope people will also support the version with Chinese VAs! 🙏)
Lord of the Mysteries, 2025 summer release—accompanied by more good news: the novel has officially entered the British Library and it will also be translated into English by Yen Press
False Memory, series version, confirmed 2025 release
I am making this post because False Memory just released its new trailer and I am very much so looking forward to it! The series started as an indie short before growing into a bigger thing, much like Fog Hill of Five Elements and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei and Alita’s Trial. We’ve thus been waiting a couple years for news so this is really exciting, especially after it recently got a Twitter account!!
Bonuses:
Ya She, released a couple months ago but late enough into 2024 I’d still love for more people to check it out!
Scissor Seven, another one that’s had its newest season out for a while now, but I assume that for those who have Netflix, it hasn’t been officially English subbed or dubbed yet. We’re also still getting trailers for its game!:
I Am What I Am 2, released Dec 14, 2024 in China!
Reminder that Mo Dao Zu Shi is now on Crunchyroll! They may have removed it from Tencent’s donghua YouTube channel for this, so definitely go support it if you do have Crunchyroll!
Some children’s donghua have also recently released, including news of the new Balala the Fairies season and the other magical girls show, Rainbow Crew! The latter is confirmed for an official release in English.
The Yi Ren Zhi Xia game is also coming soon to global, and Fox Spirit Matchmaker even updated their OP recently after quite a long time of silence.
And speaking of silence, even the long-awaited SVSSS donghua saw some movement recently!?
Now if I could get a confirmed 2025 release for White Cat Legend season 3 (and maybe God Troubles Me and Lie Huo Jiao Chou and Fei Ren Zai and All Saints Street and The Legend of Luo Xiaohei and Wo Jia Dashixiong Naozi You Keng etc…)), I could die a happy man (gender-neutral)—after watching all of these newly released donghua shows and films and seasons, of course ahaha. 🙏
For more news and info on donghua, you can check here:
TABLE OF CONTENTS: Quick Intro to the owner of this list, Kuku (kuku88 aka kukuandkookie) Current Releases: shows I like or have heard good
There’s a bunch of new donghua information in the above document that came from 2024, even though they don’t have official release dates yet! Including but not limited to:
The announcement and PV of Call-Up Girls, based on a baihe manhua
The announcement of a Nirvana in Fire donghua, based on the danmei novel with a famous cdrama adaptation (with the manhua having recently gotten an official English license via Aloha Comics)
Trailer and announcement for 《向火而生》, based on Shui Qian Cheng’s danmei novel Blazing Armour
More announcements for Jing Wei Qing Shang, based on the popular baihe novel
Trailer for The Story of Rong Song, a spin-off of the famous Big Fish and Begonia movie
and many, many more…!
Hope everyone can join me in watching more donghua for 2025!! :D
Same as the last part—if you remember when I translated an update from Papa Wolf for my friends… Well, the author/artist Ma Wei updated again on Weibo and I'm finally home from my road trip, so I figured I'd translate the new chapter too because it's still about our favourite blue and yellow duo, nicknamed Xiao Lan and Xiao Huang by fans!
And since I'm home, I tried my hand at typesetting again, which I haven't done since doing a few chapters for Don't Say You Love Me, but this means you now get both parts of the new Papa Wolf updates in fully readable English!
Saw that Frankenstein 2025 is trending on Tumblr (in a way where you know there isn’t anything huge ongoing at the moment so there’s nothing really active to put in trending which causes Tumblr to pull up older popular things to put there) and since I’d actually viewed the film recently in a watch party with a couple friends, I figured I’d visit the tag, specifically for the art shown in the preview…:
Anyway I couldn’t find them even after scrolling for a while so thanks a lot Tumblr. 🧍
I did find other neat posts though and put them into queue, so when you see Frankenstein 2025 reblogs from me in the future, it may seem very random, but this is why lol. 😆
As for any deeper thoughts I have regarding the film…
I won’t leave much since I really only write long-winded tangents about my thoughts on media and themes in a semi-review/recommendation when I’m really fuelled by passion which fuels my energy, and you guys know that passion and energy from me is most obviously seen with Chinese media like donghua and danmei nowadays ALDJSKFHS.
For Frankenstein 2025 though, I will say I enjoyed it. It was a solid film, and since I watched it in a watch party, I was able to let myself relax and take off my thinking cap that’s always trying to consider themes in the moment, and I did enjoy joking about the potential of toxic fucked up yaoi between Victor and the creature (if only because I’d seen people going 👀 at the homoeroticism of the film before it actually released).
But I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way, as if I took it less seriously and thus made fun of it. I found a different way to watch the film and have a different kind of fun with it.
I think watching it with friends and having a more lighthearted tone while watching elevated the experience in a new way, since beyond the potential of toxic yaoi that people were looking forward to, the film itself just has a queerness and camp to it that is perfect for a queer viewing in general. And indeed, the creature being an Other, and here an even more misunderstood Other because he’s even more morally upright in the film than in the novel, makes him an outcast that can feel relatable and/or one you’d want to dote on.
I find the changes made by the film interesting although I’m not 100% sure I could parse out all my thoughts on how I feel about the changes (especially since it’s been some time since I read the novel), but the creature is definitely more sympathetic here. I know some people were less happy with the creature still being arguably quite attractive and perhaps him being made more attractive and sympathetic is also something to be critiqued, but I also find it neat that it’s less of a story about humanity at large and who the real monster is, becoming more of a story about humanity on a smaller scale, and specifically in families (it does kind of feel like a story about generational trauma, you know?).
This does mean that good ol’ Frankenstein himself, who I already rolled my eyes a bit at regarding his decisions in the novel, was even more smack-able here since he’s 100% made to be even less likeable ALDJSKS.
If novel Frankenstein is a coward as well as an arrogant man who falls to hubris, movie Frankenstein feels like a narcissist…or at least just too arrogant in an even more self-aggrandizing, pompous way.
But the push-pull between the creature and Elizabeth (which feels reminiscent of Tarzan and Beauty and the Beast) is interesting when compared to Frankenstein and the creature (who have some sort of…Oedipal, Freudian, toxic yaoi and/or toxic family (father-son) thing going on with generational trauma and perpetuating the cycle of abuse thrown in).
Though as I said, I’m not in the headspace to even try and deeply analyze Frankenstein 2025 right now ALFJSKS.
Instead, I mostly made this post as a heads-up about why you’ll randomly see multiple Frankenstein 2025 reblogged posts pop up from my blog later over the span of a few days when I mostly just reblog random non-fandom stuff or stuff from Chinese media.
But there is another thing I did want to note, that I don’t think anyone else has…:
The reason I joined the watch party with my friends at all was because they mentioned that they were watching it and in one scene they’d just passed, Frankenstein mentions the Chinese concept of qi of all things when lecturing about reviving dead bodies:
“The flow of energy through the body follows a different notion entirely. An eastern notion known as qi.”
And that made me realize…
If you wanted to lean into that Eastern notion even more regarding the creature’s birth, then…you could argue that Frankenstein’s monster is a jiangshi.
And any of my friends know that I really like jiangshi a lot. 😆
In fact, I have quite a number of jiangshi OCs and I kind of intend to have more!:
(These are my babies Huajuan, Mantou, and Baozi. Yes, they are (nick)named after foods. 🥰)
So yeah, Frankenstein 2025 mentioning qi in regards to the revival of a corpse has made me want to make a Frankenstein’s creature-inspired jiangshi OC and perhaps even a Chinese-themed “retelling” of Frankenstein. :3c
Just imagine if the creature was even more of a jiangshi and rather than the focus on science the original novel has (which is so prominent that the Chinese title of Frankenstein is actually 《科学怪人》, aka “Scientific Monster”), there was a sprinkling of Daoism in there…
I translated the new Papa Wolf chapter for friends so I figured I’d post this here too. I’m travelling so I can’t typeset or anything, but maybe I’ll try that when I’m finally home. 😂
*Note: I’m going to use the fans’ nicknames for them ALFNSKS
Xiao Huang (literally “Little Yellow”): “Ah-hem—hello, here’s the room service you’ve called.
“If you have any other needs, I’ll do my best to satisfy them too~
“SO COLD!”
Xiao Lan (literally “Little Blue”): “What kind of attendant acts like you? Be careful not to be seen through.”
Xiao Huang: “I was just playing around… [You’re] so boring.”
Elevator: Ding—
Xiao Lan: “Proceed according to the plan.”
Xiao Huang: “Okay.
“Room service.”
Security: “Inspection first.”
Security after inspection: “Only one of you can enter.”
They exchange a thumbs up and nod.
Narration box: A few minutes earlier:
Xiao Lan: “The thing’s been hidden. The rest is now up to you.”
Xiao Huang: “Oh~
“It’s just about bringing the item into the room so after Boss goes in, he’ll have an easier time handling things, right~?”
Xiao Lan: “These guys are highly vigilant. Don’t raise their suspicion. Just leave the item and then get out as quickly as possible—
“And also…”
Xiao Huang: “What are you so anxious about?
“It can’t be that you’re worried about the Boss, right?! Just that group of people, Boss can deal with them no problem!
“Boss is super handsome! Boss is the strongest! Boss is number one in the world!”
Xiao Lan: “I’m not worried about him…!”
Xiao Huang: “??”
Xiao Lan touches Xiao Huang’s lips.
Xiao Huang: “Is there something in my teeth?”
Xiao Lan: “No… Hurry and get ready. I’m going out to take a look.”
People keep claiming Chinese BL manhua really only have stories featuring toxic male leads, so I offered to give recommendations with green flags... Someone finally said yes, so here's what I typed up in response!:
I Ship My Rival x Me:
One of my personal favourites!
Based on the hilarious novel, commonly known as I Ship My Adversary x Me and also has an audio drama adaptation on MaoEr FM. Basically a story about two actors who are seen as complete rivals by everyone except the actors themselves, which annoys the main character (Wei Yanzi) enough that when he discovers there are actual fans who ship them instead of pit them against one another, he’s so excited he sort of starts shipping them too (in like, an abstract, theoretical manner lmao). This of course causes shenanigans as he actually gets to know the person who people ship him with/pit him against, Gu Yiliang.
Gu Yiliang is a true sweetheart and the greenest of green flags. He’s a complete puppy and I love him. And this means, naturally, the only misunderstandings in this story are of the hilarious kind (you’ll know what I mean if you read it lol). 😂
This one actually used to be available officially in English on the Bilibili manhua’s international app before it got shut down, but it recently got picked up by Seven Seas, the company behind a lot of official English translations of danmei (Chinese BL)!
Touch Your World:
A literally colour-blind boy (as in, he cannot see colour at all and only sees things in black and white) discovers someone who he can see colour on. This person is a designer who has suffered past betrayal and trauma that has caused him to shut himself up and grow much more on edge, but this chance meeting draws both parties out of their shells.
Pixiu’s Eatery, No Way Out:
Not a green flag top in the traditional sense, but here we meet the mythical Pixiu: an ancient Chinese mythical creature who now runs a restaurant. While he’s a penny-pincher with a temper and he doesn’t get along with his love interest at first (a ghost named Wen Xi who he finds suspicious due to Wen Xi’s ties to a past rival of his named Taotie), Pixiu and Wen Xi eventually grow, quite naturally—and hilariously!—into a found family.
The Wife Is First:
Based on a novel of pretty much the same name (and is written by the same author as the popular manhua and donghua, No Doubt in Us (a heterosexual body-swap romance, which also has a subtle gay side ship)). Here we meet Jing Shao just as he’s about to lose everything: once a royal and a powerful general, he has been betrayed by all those around him…except the husband he has never treated well.
As such, when we first meet him, we actually witness his—and his husband’s—deaths. But then he awakens and finds himself back in time to the night right after he was forced to wed this husband of his, and Jing Shao vows to treat him well from now on because he stuck with him through thick and thin despite everything.
Don’t Say You Love Me:
A high school romance with a supernatural twist: Lin Yutong was confessed to by his best friend, Qin Weiyun, at their graduation party. When he drunkenly freaked out and ran away, Qin Weiyun was hit by a car during the chase…
Devastated by his loss, Lin Yutong quickly wakes up to find himself back at the start of his high school journey, right before he meets Qin Weiyun… And this time, he wants to keep Qin Weiyun safe.
But his overly familiar attitude at first gets the wary Qin Weiyun a tad suspicious, because he’s actually quite an aloof person.
The author and artist of this one is also behind another popular manhua titled Your Dream Is Delicious, which is about a demon named Yi Kui who discovers he enjoys eating the nightmares of Lin You. This eventually leads to them—you guessed it—falling in love.
It’s Not That I Want to Wear Women’s Clothing:
Our main character is hired to crossdress to help this CEO get over his gynophobia (fear of touching women) without him knowing. Naturally, this leads to an awkward romantic journey of both identities of our main character getting close to this CEO…who at first glance seems like the typical cold and aloof CEO type, except he’s actually quite a sweetheart.
Salt Friend:
A slice-of-life high school story about the “school bully” named Tong Yang who’s actually a crybaby and the aloof person named Xiao Zhen who discovers him crying. While the two don’t seem like they’d get along at first glance, this quickly becomes a friends-to-lovers story that navigates family drama alongside the romance.
How’d I Get a Heroine’s Script?:
A transmigration story with a twist. Chao Yi is wheelchair-bound but finds himself eventually as a young lord in what is basically a palace drama (court politics, intrigue, family drama, all that good stuff). His System, Qin Que, tasks him with wooing the difficult 7th prince, Gu Yunheng, who smiles on the surface but is quite cold in actuality.
Despite the two getting off on the wrong foot—mostly because Gu Yunheng is really hard to get close to—they soon end up as unlikely allies…especially since there’s a lot of secrets, such as regarding the death of the body Chao Yi’s occupying, the scheming princes, and even Gu Yunheng himself.
See You My King:
Zhang Li, a student interested in what is basically ancient Egypt, goes on an expedition to the ruined civilization and nearly loses his life. Except at the same time, he discovers an ancient tomb with a statue that actually comes to life and saves him…
And this statue even follows him home. This statue is sweet and loving despite its inability to speak, and Zhang Li grows attached to it (or him)… But then the statue falls apart and Zhang Li is devastated.
In wishing for a miracle to bring them back together, the statue’s stone heart sends Zhang Li back in time…to when this ancient civilization is still present. And that’s how he discovers his stone statue is the “tyrant king” of this region, and as cruel as he seems at first glance, both this king and Zhang Li eventually grow close and unfold the different sides to one another that makes them inseparable in the face of all kinds of threats.
Trapping the Foxy Doctor:
A doctor and a psychiatrist meet…except it doesn’t seem like a perfect love story at first glance. Not because the doctor is traditionally foxy (seductive and/or cunning), but because he’s so silly and on-the-nose that he initially kind of rubs the psychiatrist the wrong way. Except, of course, with the kind of sunny sincerity displayed by our doctor Zhi Banyi, you can’t resist him for long…
And the psychiatrist, Lin Li, is himself quite a polite soul despite his complex upbringing. As such, the two end up together through a series of cases where they have to collaborate and help clients, with a lot of shenanigans sprinkled in between (including the fact Lin Li has a side-job live-streaming as a woman—and “she” just so happens to be Zhi Banyi’s favourite streamer lol).
Pirouette Into My Heart aka Salad Days:
You know the “he was a skater boy and she did ballet” kind of set-up? Well here we have a boxer and a ballet dancer…and hey, “can I make it any more obvious”?
This one is basically a feel-good story of the century. It’s childhood friends to lovers, and it’s soft and cuddly and encouraging, as we follow the main character, Jiang Shen, in achieving his ballet dreams. And on every step of the way, he’s accompanied by the boxer Bai Jinyi, who’s also chasing his own dreams.
The draw of this one is that while there’s obviously conflict to drive the plot along, it’s ultimately a comforting story, so you get all warm and squishy inside reading it. Bai Jinyi and Jiang Shen are very supportive of one another, as is everyone around them.
There’s even extras at the very end that swap the classes of the two main characters, which makes for a similarly compelling AU. 🤭
Beryl and Sapphire:
Not always BL but often is. What do I mean by that? Well it’s a story that can switch to any universe even as the characters stay the same, and some worlds are just one-off gags while some are whole story arcs. The original manhua features stick figures, so if you really want to experience this one, I’d recommend the donghua. The first season also cleverly shows the main characters as actors in the OP, which explains all the world-switching pretty easily haha.
Don’t Pick Up Boyfriends from the Trash Bin:
Unfortunately I’m not sure the manhua for this one is still ongoing, but the original novel (all about transmigration and hopping multiple worlds) 100% features a green flag top.
The Guy Inside Me:
I know the title sounds sexual lol but it’s actually a joke about how it’s a body-swap story. 😆
The original Chinese title is “This Question Is Too Difficult”) and of course, the author also wrote Fake Slackers, which has two very smart students act like terrible ones due to not wanting trouble.
Falling to Where I Belong:
The thing about this one is that the top is 100% a total green flag... It's the main character that's more of a red flag, in the sense he at first only asks the top out to humiliate him due to a misunderstanding.
But it's still a heartfelt story filled with regret and growth, and I did really like the portrayal of Cheng Feichi. Personally I think the manhua humanizes him a bit more than the novel since we didn't really get his POV in the novel that often, but I did hope for even more emotion in the ending... Still, it was a satisfying read, and while I would like to comfort the main character, Zhen Yeming, over his regrets, I really want to just give all the good things to Cheng Feichi, who definitely deserves it after everything he went through.
More Than Brothers:
For the "non-freaks" out there, they're not actual brothers, don’t worry; not adopted brothers either. Just a guy who saw his younger friend as his bro…until this friend disappeared from his life and apparently got into a bad crowd… Except in reality he is being harassed and is struggling to leave his abusive family.
The Protagonist Just Wants to Fall in Love:
Kind of a classic in the transmigration genre, except now we get multiple worlds in multiple arcs. Our protagonists are Systems on their final mission, aiming to become human by the end of it, and their task is to guide their protagonists away from the path of "darkening" (essentially corruption).
And each and every one of these systems do so by getting their protagonist to fall in love with them lol.
Unsurprisingly, my favourite arc so far—in the manhua at least!—is the historical one between the advisor and the emperor, but the third—and currently ongoing as the time of me writing this—world between two university students who started getting close during military training and by playing games is also quite cute.
And okay, man I could really keep going, especially with the manhua that are based on novels, but this post is already really long asjakfl. It was, in fact, so fucking long YouTube wouldn't even let me post it at first until I cut it down AMFKGSJDFGS.
But I still want to at least give a shout out to some of the manhua with pretty healthy, green flag tops/gongs!:
Like Han Yuan, despite the characters not getting along at first and Yu Han being rather aloof to the spoiled Luo Linyuan, is still quite sweet at its core. Lovely Allergen is as well, even with their "brotherly" relationship being the forefront of the conflict between Song Yu and Yue Zishi.
Another kind I wanted to bring up is the ones where their worlds or stories are dark, but the characters aren't necessarily. Like The Film Emperor, He Insisted on Being My Patron has a very green flag gong (he's such a puppy!), but he and the main character are up against the reddest of red flags of a villain LMDFKGSJFD.
It's also not a manhua I think people who want green flag leads would necessarily enjoy, given that beyond being "darker," it also goes into the territory of fan service-y and "problematic" nsfw content, but again, the male lead is really quite sweet to the main character despite the shitty situation they're in.
And I thought of Bu Chonghua from Tunhai aka Swallowing the Seas (another one based on a novel), since the main character there, Wu Yu, comes to see Bu Chonghua as so good and just that he pushes him away because he feels like he can't dirty such a man with his own darkness, both in his past and personality. It's a trope I really enjoy.
I'll briefly mention some ⚠️ spoilers ⚠️but the reason I wanted to highlight it is because: the latest chapter of the manhua has Bu Chonghua overhear Wu Yu saying he likes Bu Chonghua, and this is after Wu Yu disappeared and Bu Chonghua is worried he skipped town for good. He follows Wu Yu, all while wondering if the like Wu Yu holds for him is the same as his liking of Wu Yu, and when Wu Yu is about to be gravely injured in an underground fighting ring, Bu Chonghua steps in to save him... The chapter ends with Wu Yu holding him back pleading with him to stop because it's not worth dirtying his hands with such a man as his opponent, and that's such a delicious flavour of angst because like...Wu Yu thinks it's fine for he himself to fight against such a person, but he doesn't want Bu Chonghua to. ;-;
Oops. I didn't mean for this to become a deeper ramble of Tunhai KMSGFKGHSJ. It's just interesting to me since Tunhai and its prequel, Poyun aka Breaking Through the Clouds, may not have what the people who prefer green flag tops want in terms of content, but its tops are technically not that much of a red flag either.
Which also get us to the kind of stories where plot can also sort of outweigh whether a top/gong is a green flag or not. Like No Arguing With Mr. Mo has two characters who struggle greatly in their relationship, with the question of "are they in love?" being an overarching issue for them, meaning it's not exactly healthy, and prevents them from being fully either green or red flags.
I also didn't bring up a lot of historical/xianxia manhua, which I'm sure some people may disagree with... Like the leads in Tianbao Fuyao Lu are arguably quite good, and while I haven't read Dinghai Fusheng Lu yet, I assume it's in a similar boat as something set in the same world.
And then there's the ones that develop into green flags... Like Mo Ran starts off awful, yes, but he does become much better later on!! But I don't think that's what those people after green flags want to hear lol. Plus I'd argue Erha is best experienced in novel (or audio drama) form over the manhua anyway—the manhua feels more like something made for established fans in my opinion.
Regardless, I hope this shows that with so many listed above, many manhua actually feature male leads who really do care for their love interests in a healthy, respectful way, whether they're 100% green flags or they develop into green flags or they're not even complete green flags. ^^
Edit: Oh I forgot to link my full list of danmei/baihe manhua recs HMSKFJSKS. I currently don’t have any summaries, tags, or content warnings in this list though, but there’s quite the range of stories!:
