Tales of Herding Gods Ep 2 recap – Qin Mu begins training to awaken his spirit embryo
Michelle Topham 
We left the first episode of the superb Chinese donghua Tales of Herding Gods with protagonist Qin Mu having been attacked by a woman emerging from the stomach of a cow.
That was quickly followed by a strange group of cultivators heading into The Great Wasteland looking for the Heavenly Demon Sect. (read the full recap of that episode on Baozi Buns).
And now it’s time for a Tales of Herding Gods, Episode 2 recap.
An episode that was more comedic than anything else and that, while it did move the story along a little bit, I think spent far too much time on just one thing — the training of Qin Mu.
But, anyway, let’s get to it.
Tales of Herding Gods, Episode 2 recap
Episode 2 of the Sparkly Key Animation Studio-animated donghua starts with Qin Mu arriving back in the village with his grandmother and the lame grandfather but, this time, the village looks different.
Where there were once just houses and cattle walking around, now Mu can see strange creatures being controlled by the old people living in the Disabled Elderly Village, while some are being killed and having their blood drained into huge cauldrons.
Meanwhile, the elders are talking about the bloodlines of four creatures — the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird and Black Tortoise — and commenting that, while they couldn’t use blood from those now ancient creatures, they could use it from their descendants.
Hence, the strange creatures they are now draining of blood.
It soon becomes apparent this is a ceremony for Qin Mu — the harvesting of the blood of the spirits so that he can “awaken” his own spirit embryo.
One of the old men draws a symbol in the sky, and this causes an enormous scroll to unfurl from the heavens and an altar to appear, which then draws the cauldrons full of the four spirits’ blood.
At this point, the donghua’s art style becomes incredibly cool as its usual 3D animation is combined with 2D to make the characters look like themselves, but more hand-drawn and stylized. (watch the video below)
This art style continues through every scene of Mu’s attempted awakening.
The elderly people then make Mu drink the blood of all four spirits but, after becoming sick from each one, it becomes obvious none of the four will awaken a spirit embroyo in him.
This suggests Mu is just a normal person, and not someone who has a powerful spirit.
After some arguing among the villagers, the village head announces this is actually “Good”, and that Mu not being able to develop a spirit embryo with one of the four animal spirits suggests he actually has a combination of all four of them — and that means he has a full power “Overlord Body”.
He then announces, if Mu just continues to drink the blood of the four spirit animals, his Overlord Body will eventually awaken.
The scene then flips to the past and to the village head’s house where he and another man are talking about what will happen if Mu doesn’t have a spirit embryo to awaken.
The village head decides that is why they need to make Mu believe he has an Overlord Body. Even if he doesn’t.
RELATED: What is the opening theme song of Tales of Herding Gods, and who sings it?
When the other man objects saying, if this isn’t true, Mu will never become powerful and be able to defend himself, the village chief replies that sometimes if someone believes something, they can will it into existence.
That is why every person in the village should now help to train Mu with their specific skills, so that he has every chance to become a powerful being.
Training Quin Mu to develop an Overlord Body
The remainder of Tales of Herding Gods, Episode 2 is of the elders training Mu in their specific fighting techniques. Training that, if he wasn’t already quite strong, would have killed him.
Meanwhile, they are also making him drink animal spirit blood every day, which he hates.
And this is the part I thought went on for far too long as, from then on, it takes up the rest of the episode with scenes of Mu learning different fighting techniques, or training to become strong.
Sure, some of the scenes are funny but, in my opinion, this part of the story could have been condensed down to just a few minutes and not the rest of the episode.
The episode ends with Mu having been taught skills that allow him to fight and, if needed, to run incredibly fast so he can escape.
It becomes obvious, as the village head points out to the man he was talking to before, if this continues, Mu will become just as strong as anyone in the village. And likely stronger.
Tales of Herding Gods, Episode 2 thoughts
While the training was a little too long in my opinion, Episode 2 of Tales of Herding Gods has to be one of the most beautiful dongha episodes I have seen.
The combination of the 3D and 2D animation when the elders are trying to get Mu’s spirit to awaken is stunning, as it combines an incredibly stylized art style you don’t see in many other series.
Every character pops off the page, and it does a brilliant job of showing that the characters are in a different realm — a spirit realm where all their rituals take place, compared to the place they live during their daily lives in The Great Wasteland.
You can watch Episode 2 of Tales of Herding Gods (aka Mushen Ji) via this playlist on Bilibili’s YouTube channel (and you should).
Episode 3 hits the same channel in a couple of days.
If you are in China, and speak Chinese, Tales of Herding Gods is also available on Bilibili, but with three episodes already out.
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