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elyusion
Title: The Legend of Luoxiaohei: The Gate of All Living Beings / 罗小黑战记 众生之门 / Luo Xiaohei Zhan Ji: Zhongsheng Zhi Men
Year: 2021, 2 years after the first movie and a decade after the first season.
Type: ONA (thank you bilibili)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Supernatural
Poor Summary: In the first season, Luo Xiaobai (Little White) finds a black cat and brings it home, naming it Xiaohei (Little Black). Unbeknowst to her, the strange cat is actually a spirit/elf/demon/depends on the translation who is on an important mission!! If he successfully completes it, he can become an Executor (less violent than it sounds. I guess it's kind of like Spirit World Special Ops?) and work alongside with his absurdly overpowered master. Lots of shots displaying the beauty of nature and everyday life interspersed by breathtakingly fast action scenes follow. This season is about his final mission, in which he and the friends he's made along the way have to >_> enter a VR game >_> which is popular among both humans and spirits >_> and he has to like do missions in it or something IDK I don't remember his exact mission because I hate when cartoons or comics are video games. #LetGamesBeGames
Why Did I Watch This??: Loved the movies so much I decided I have to have the full scoop on this little cat, so I intend to check out all the other media from the same series too.
Strongest Aspect: Just like the movies and first season, the animation is great and the art style is too cute <3 I really really love the art of this series.
Favorite Part: Definitely the last episode or 3, because the entire concept of the season had me worried it was gonna be bad and it WAS kinda of me~h until we finally got some major asskicking involved, as well as the master-father finally showing his face(!! the show had been avoiding showing him like he's some kind of final boss, even if I know full well what he's like from the movie) and having a very very very sweet moment with his student-son who lowkey has separation anxiety at his big age.
Least Favorite Part: How often Shanxin had to infodump about how the world works 😭 Even the show itself acknowledged it was all boring at some point. At least they're aware?
Blahblah: They're so lucky that they made this the plot of the first season, because if the first season's plot was entering a realistic video game and being infodumped all throughout the season I would've dropped it so, so fast. But since I already have an attachment to these kids, I had to see the season through to the end. And I'm really glad I did! I had to suffer for it, but in the end there was hype moments and aura galore.
I've already said most of what I had to say, but here's something new I thought of while typing all this: In the end, Wuxian tells Hei that for humans, adults take responsibility and go to work while children play and learn. It's okay that the two are apart, because at the end of the day the adult always comes back home. Very cute, so cute I felt guilty about it and had to make a post on fediactpub about how I only enjoy parents in fiction and I know in real life they're all evil and need to be turned into a fine puree (which I ended up deleting because I only feel comfortable hating violently on parents on here. If you're a mutual of mine reading this and you're a parent I will make an official exemption for you).
But thinking on it further... that is a very human perspective, and has nothing to do with the job Hei wanted. Is Wuxian imposing his human beliefs on Hei by telling him these things? Will Hei have a harder time getting along with other spirits if Wuxian keeps spitting this humanity nonsense at him? Am I overthinking this work of fiction and applying real-world ethics to it when it's literally not real and the point is actually what the show wanted to show/tell ME, presumably a human? Yes, yes I am.
Well, they'll never get me!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK your birth rate crisis + I love you Legend of Hei
(Kamisama Kiss has made me sensitive to when a work feels like it promotes "human superiority" even against all reason, but that isn't even a real issue when we aren't in contact with other beings as intelligent as us/intelligent in the same way as us. OTL)
