Yaoguai Mingdan 2nd Season

The purpose of this review will be to hopefully shed some light on how great this Chinese cartoon really is, therefore this review will contain both seasons of Monster List.

Just finished watching the second season and I cannot believe the negative bias surrounding this anime, judging from first season's reviews. With a rating of only 6.73 of first season(7.13 of second) as of writing this review, this anime is criminally underrated. With any luck, that will change for the better.

Story's unique, very fluid and gets gradually more elaborate, as shows moves on, especially in second season! Characters are very vibrant, cheerful, goofy and easy to ... separate one from another, just as you would expect from such a series, and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. It's just so easy to get into, and to digest it, again very fluid, amusing. The atmosphere is very lighthearted and colorful, though it gets sad at times, which provides viewer with heartfelt feelings of joy and sadness. Nothing feels insincere, artificial or cringy, which is a big plus in my book. The series exceptionally show great promise when it ended in such a fashion that it makes you crave for more.

Only real downside, which I personally had absolutely no problem with, would be the obviously inferior voice acting, it sounds much less impactful comparing to an anime with Japanese voice actors. This is a Chinese anime, after all, and debatably, artwork feels more of a mediocre quality rather than what standard modern Japanese anime artwork looks like, though, again, in my opinion looks just fine, not 'mediocre'.

Openings and endings of the show are very enjoyable, even more so the second season. Both seasons have episodes slightly shorter than your usual 20 min run-time, so you can pass through the seasons quicker than you may anticipate.

I'm very eagerly anticipating third season, for more joyful moments and crazy adventures of our cast.

Season 2, there are 21 episodes broken down into 3 arcs each around 15 minutes long. The first arc eps 1-4 is a small arc with Feng Xi joining the Taoist sect, Guo Shuang, Su Jiuer, and Yan Chaoxue (Senior) teaching him how to use magic, and their first mission where they take on a Cafeteria demon. This arc was kinda bad.

The second arc, eps 5-15 is a major arc beginning the story of a virtual demon girl born in cyberspace. A virtual girl that is everyone’s idol but is draining the life out of her fans. Her fanbase deeply in love with her cheers ... her on and that soon causes trouble when people drained of their vitality still continues to cheer for her until they start losing their consciousness and are in danger of dying. I think this arc was too long and dragged, but it was interesting to see a demon girl that has inadvertently gathered too much power who almost couldn’t be stopped, with even Shen Lei the Eye Yin falling to her mesmerization and his strong subordinates losing to her. Yan Chaoxue brings an aggressive blade to battle, but Feng Xi who is the Eye Yang, can he see his way through this fight? The resolution of this arc was good.

Episode 16 is a Special with interviews from seiyuus and staff

The third arc, eps 17-21 the last 5 episodes had a good emotional punch and was touching and moving. In this arc, you will finally understand Long San Yuan, who is the doctor in Feng Xi’s school her story with Feng Xi. When Long San Yuan was a child as the Dragon Princess, she also met Feng Xi in another past life of his Ah Feng who was also still just a child. Ah Feng had a promise with Long San Yuan. When she grow up, he will marry her, but as you know dragons age slowly, while humans age at a much faster speed. In Ah Feng’s lifetime, he did all he could so he could still keep that promise to Long San Yuan, but it was really sad. To the present, where Long San Yuan has grown up, you can see just how long she has been waiting for Feng Xi to reincarnate. This was my favorite arc in season 2.

For those who like fantasy & with creatures and monster, its this chinese animation. This show has great thematic & plot, but sadly its a bit short for each episode and the season 2's 1st arc ended a bit unsatisfyingly, (there isn't a real conclusion to it), whilst continuing a 2nd arc (also kinna not totally satisfying because the ending was sad in which the protagonist 小疯 couldn't made up to his promise to the dragon princess and passed away. Hope if there's a 3rd season, it would be even more improvement like longer show duration, and also a more appropriate intro video, as the ... intro song for the 1st arc (the electric girl spirit arc) had some of the flashbacks which is kind of irrelevant to the 2nd season.