I know the average Anime fan would not know what Wuxia is, and that's alright, because I'm going to slowly explain and get people knowing more about it. Wuxia Series, or I also call it - Ancient Chinese Series, are ongoing TV Series set in Ancient China. You may think, this is ridiculous, what on earth could live action have in common with Anime?
Before anyone jumps to any conclusion, I will explain the first and major similarity: Continuity.
If you watch any American TV Show or even cartoon, you'll find that they are episodic, which means - each episode has its own beginning, middle and end. Unless episodes specifically say "part 1, part 2", you can expect the episode to end in a way, that if you start the next episode, you'll at least know what's going on. This is not the case for most Anime. How I would like to describe it is, imagine a big, long story that's over 1000 hours long (or however many). How anime works is that, you get a knife and cut up the entire story, so the concept of episodes is nothing but a time limit. The overall show of let's say, 1000 hours long is one, continuous story - most likely with many story arcs, subplots, resolutions and such. In other words, the story is told as a whole. In this time, you can expect to see the introductions of new characters and such. Usually, there's absolutely no way anyone would understand what's going on if they jump in from Episode 10. Another analogy would be to imagine yourself reading an ongoing comic/book, each page is an episode - and it is continuous. The book doesn't stop after page 1 and form its own ending. Rather, it continues.
To many people, this is something that requires a lot of dedication and attention. Perhaps this isn't the right type of show for those with shorter attention spam or simply don't have the time to watch. But for an Anime fan, this is probably the very reason why they love it.
(Image: Chinese Paladin 3)
Let me just say that Wuxia Series/Ancient Chinese Series are exactly the same. If you watch ANY one of them, whether they're 30 episodes long or 50, the story is continuous. There is no such thing as episodic Wuxia. The only thing that's episodic is probably sitcoms!
Wuxia generally also doesn't have many fillers, because they are filming on tight schedule and need to have everything done usually within 30 days, so they would not have time to film episodes of fillers. Usually, Wuxia series would get straight into the story and would continue from then onwards. Just like Anime, the end of each episode connects to the next like an ongoing story. Very much the same, it's like an overall, long story that's been cut up to pieces because of time constraints.
There are also arcs in Wuxia, just like in Anime. In an arc, it's usually telling a smaller storyline that's part of the whole. An example would be, a group of people have to travel to four different lands. Land A, B, C, and D. While they are traveling around Land A, that could be considered one arc, and when they move onto Land B, that would be another. In Wuxia, this works exactly the same. In Xuan Yuan Sword for example, the overall story is to collect the sacred artifacts and save the world, but that is broken down in arcs - the individual artifact, such as the first arc was about collecting the Kunlun Mirror, then it was to collect the Nuwa Stone, and so on. Many arcs also focus on a specific character. One more thing is, many times, characters who appear in earlier arcs will come back again in later arcs, making the story feel even more connected.
If Anime fans love watching Anime for its continuous, ongoing story, rather than episodic shows which has its own beginning, middle and end, they will definitely enjoy Wuxia for the same reasons. I would say, the two are structured almost exactly the same with its ongoing episodes. The only difference being that Wuxia generally doesn't have fillers because of filming schedules.
Find the top recommendations of Wuxia and watch these series online.
No comments:
Post a Comment