Martial Peak donghua premieres on Yuewen Animation – just a pity about the terrible subtitles
The long-awaited historical martial arts donghua Martial Peak (aka Wu Lian Dianfeng) premiered on December 5th and, while fans are thrilled to finally have a 3D-animated version of one of their favorite novels, there has been disappointment about two things.
First, the episodes are very short — only around 8 minutes in length once you remove the opening and ending animations.
And second, the English subtitles on Yuewen Animation’s YouTube channel are terrible — as well as likely AI-generated.
Get over those two things, though, and the first three episodes of Martial Peak are actually quite good.
Especially as the animation is decent, the character models, while not the best this year, certainly aren’t the worst and, so far, at least the donghua hasn’t drifted away from the original story that much.
With 48 episodes of the first season planned, though, we will have to see if that continues.
It’s just a pity about the horrible subtitles.
And something Yuewen needs to fix if they plan on growing their YouTube channel to the huge numbers like those of Chinese donghua producers like YOUKU and Tencent Animation earn.
Martial Peak details
Martial Peak is animated by CG Year (aka China Year Culture Media), and produced by Tencent Penguin Pictures and Yuewen Animation.
Tencent describes its plot like this:
Yang Kai, a trial disciple and humble servant sweeping the floors at the Lingxiao Pavilion of Zhongdu, was demoted to a trial disciple due to his poor aptitude. If he does not achieve anything within three years, he will be expelled from the sect.
By chance, Yang Kai obtains a mysterious stone pillow, which unlocks powerful skills like the Proud Bone Golden Body. Continuously cultivating and driven by his unyielding character, he pushes beyond his limits.
Eventually, he reaches the peak of the inheritance cave and stands at the pinnacle of the sect.
Along with Su Yan, Yang Kai inherits a profound martial technique, setting the stage for his legendary journey as he touches the peak of martial cultivation.
Martial Peak is currently streaming via Yuewen Animation’s YouTube channel, although only the first episode is free-to-watch as yet (which you can check out below), as subsequent releases are only available for their paying subscribers.
Just keep your fingers crossed that its subtitles will get better. (Update: Sadly, they don’t, which is why I have had to resort to “alternative” ways to watch it).
In China, you will find Martial Peak via Tencent’s streaming platform.
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