Year-ender: Rising stars of Chinese animation

The Young Imperial Guards

Among small screen animated works in 2017, the 3-D series The Young Imperial Guards is certainly a standout with a large group of followers.

Premiered on Feb 9, the first season with 13 episodes scored 8.3 points on Douban. Many audiences highly praised its storytelling, aesthetically designed characters and sets as well as martial arts based on real movements. The second season opened Sept 28, and is scheduled to finish around the end of 2017. It has received ratings similar to the first season on the review website.

The fictional story is about imperial guards in the Ming Dynasty (1369-1644) that inspired a large number of kung fu novels, films and TV series, such as the film series Brotherhood of Blades.

"As a faithful fan of Japanese animation, I rarely watch Chinese productions. Yet, this one (The Young Imperial Guards) is so great and I am in love with it. Thanks you for making such a wonderful work, production team and voice actors!" Douban user Saimeng commented.