Heaven Official’s Blessing (Tian Guan Ci Fu) to be Simulcast on Funimation!

Incredible news! With just two days to go the anime streaming site Funimation has picked up the Chinese donghua series Heaven Official’s Blessing (Tian Guan Ci Fu)!

If you have no idea what Tian Guan Ci Fu is, I wrote a pretty extensive write up about it over here: Heaven Official’s Blessing (Tian Guan Ci Fu) Donghua Coming October 31st! Of course, at that time I had no idea we’d be so lucky as to have it picked up by a streaming service, so I provided some instructions on how to sign up for the Chinese website Bilibili. Thank goodness this just got a lot easier for you guys. Unless you went through the trouble of signing up for Bilibili like I have… in which case, enjoy it on both, I guess! Give the show some love wherever you can.

The series will debut with English subtitles on October 30 with Episode 1, and will officially be the first donghua (Chinese animation) series on Funimation. In addition to streaming North America, the series will also be available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, as well as Mexico and Brazil when Funimation launches there this winter! (source)

Yep, this is a first for Funimation. Needless to say, none of us saw this coming! While we have a pretty solid pipeline for material from Japan, it’s not so easy to enjoy content from China. Hopefully, this will be the first crack in the damn and we’ll get even more.

The series is from the author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, who also wrote Mo Dao Zu Shi. It follows the story of Xie Lian, an 800-year-old immortal who has been kicked out of heaven twice already, but manages to ascend for a third time. Upon his ascension, he’s given an assignment that leads him to cross paths with the fearsome Ghost King Hua Cheng. Instead of being fearful, Xie Lian is intrigued and decides to learn more about him.  

The story is BL, so if you’ve been looking for a new BL series, I recommend this one more than anything else. It’s one of the most incredible love stories I’ve ever read and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. And if you want to enjoy it beyond the 11 episodes of the donghua, there’s also a novel (the original source of the story) and a manhua (Chinese comic) to enjoy. I outline how to access those in my original TGCF article.

For those of you who prefer dubs, Funimation has also announced that you can expect a dub of the series in 2021. That’s a pretty vague date, yes, but at least we know they’re invested in this series and that we can expect easier access to it going forward. Perhaps we’ll even get some better access to some merchandise! Maybe even a legal translation of the manhua? This is speculation, of course, but a girl can dream!

Will you be watching Tian Guan Ci Fu? Are you a fan of any other Chinese BL stories? Got any recs?

Comment below! By Heaven Official’s Blessing, no comments are unbound!

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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