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Urobuchi, History, and the Wuxia Hero of Thunderbolt Fantasy

by ZeroReq011,

Gen Urobuchi's writing has left an impressive mark on modern anime. He penned the script for Madoka Magica, an anime that boasts resounding, enduring success as a large multimedia franchise. He authored the Fate/Zero light novels, a series whose anime adaptation reinvigorated larger interest in the Fate franchise — now a bigger multimedia behemoth than Madoka. He scripted most of the first season of the reasonably successful Psycho-Pass anime, and has contributed story concepts and writing to numerous other animated shows. Urobuchi hasn't limited his writing talents to one genre, property, or medium. Apart from the magical girl anime, low fantasy anime, and cyberpunk anime mentioned above, he's also written for wholly original IPs and already established series like Fate, Kamen Rider, and Godzilla. He's written visual novels and light novels, for anime and tokusatsu. More recently, Urobuchi wrote for Thunderbolt Fantasy, a Taiwanese glove puppet show.

Across genres, properties, and mediums, intersecting so many of Urobuchi stories is an oppressive and penetrating darkness. Gen Urobuchi often includes themes of dystopia, indifference, and cruelty into his stories, setting them against his characters' innocence, hopefulness, and righteousness. He was notorious for breaking or corrupting his creations in his initial works, though he's more recently allowed his creatures some compromise and even triumph — albeit, mind you, still requiring the requisite pounds of flesh. In the genres he's molded animate clay, Urobuchi tends to pick character-types to cast life into as his protagonists, archetypal characters that have two things in common: they are (1) idealists and (2) outsiders. He has a potential recruit in magical girl Madoka Magica; a lonely king in Fate/Zero; a newbie detective in hard-boiled Psycho-Pass; and Shāng Bù Huàn, the wuxia hero of Thunderbolt Fantasy. So how does Urobuchi apply his signature darkness on Thunderbolt Fantasy and the wuxia genre?

The History Behind Wuxia



But first... what's wuxia? Wuxia is a genre of Chinese storytelling centered around individuals wandering about, aiding the weak using their martial arts. These "wuxia heroes" bear similarities to the knights-errant of chivalric European tales, the golden-hearted cowboys of American Westerns, and the principled samurai-ronin of Japanese chanbara. The wuxia hero dates back to figures in history who lived long before the wuxia genre was formalized.

The wuxia heroes' earliest inspirations reportedly lived around the Chinese Warring States Period of probably 475-221 BCE. As with Japan's experience with its own Sengoku Jidai (you can read more about it in this Dororo article), China during the Warring States Period was wracked with political instability and civil strife. In the absence of a strong emperor at the helm of the Chinese Empire, Chinese lands were fragmented between petty and powerful warlords. These multiple warlord regimes fought each other to protect their territories and conquer others, with some warlords content to settle with regional seats of power, and others dreaming of a throne more ornate and imperial. Many bandit groups formed within the gaps and margins of these larger conflicts, operating where the warlords were too weak or didn't bother to police. While the obvious reasons of opportunism in a political vacuum does apply, the precariousness of an honest livelihood during this time also helps explain why so many back then turned to banditry. Warlords deprived commoners of their wealth for the armies that would ravage their lands later, and bandits pillaged whatever leftovers that these ravaging armies overlooked.

Many Chinese commonfolk suffered, and some turned to the wuxia hero precursors for aid in local matters. In the absence of a strong enough government authority that really cared, these pre-wuxia heroes ventured out to help square the local violence on the commonfolk's behalf, either out of their own initiative or by desperate request. They were the youxia (遊俠), "wandering vigilantes" – the Chinese knights-errant.

Outside of warlords and bandits, two other groups of people, the aforementioned youxia and the scholar-officials, were prominent during the Chinese Warring States Period; each of these groups responded to the era's instability, strife, and chaos in their own ways. Hailing from competing schools of thought such as Legalism and Confucianism, the scholar-officials sought to offer the warlords varying advice for how to govern both lands and subjects "correctly." They believed government has an important role to play in resolving the larger ills of the Chinese Empire, and that the adoption of the "correct" form of government policy would both hasten an end to the chaos and sustain a unified order. By contrast, the youxia did not participate in government and operated mainly outside of its control, an arrangement that engendered hostility from some public officials. While it would be a stretch to describe youxia as anarchists, the fact that some commonfolk would go to them instead of government officials for help with local violence does suggest that youxia were serving an ordinarily governmental function that the many warlord regimes back then were too impotent, corrupt, or uncaring to fulfill themselves.

For some Chinese, the legendary youxia served as a folklore protagonist to the systemic antagonist that is the scholar-officials. The existence of the youxia ran counter to the Legalist and even Confucian scholarly visions of an orderly China, as (1) the youxia were seen as an alternative form of protection for commoners in the absence of a strong central government, and (2) the strong central government that arose later on were run by scholar-officials who wanted subjects to respect the state above all. The individualistic outsider youxia were too rivalrous and heretical for the scholar-official class to tolerate either philosophically or politically once they came into power. As a result, the scholar-officials influenced Chinese emperors post-Warring States Period into suppressing the youxia into "retirement." China was able to reunite under a scholar-official run government through the Qin and especially Han dynasties – with life locally for most Chinese improving beyond the conditions of the youxia's heyday, making the youxia redundant.

And yet, the youxia legends continued to be recalled and re-told century after century. The legend of the youxia would persist long after the 2nd century BCE, as popular folktales of lonesome warriors who followed their consciences with actions they thought were right. The youxia served as the basis for the heroes of the wuxia genre, a fictional genre which saw formalization just after the collapse of the Chinese Empire in the early 20th century CE. The times inform the culture produced during it, and wuxia's development takes not only from youxia legends but also draws on reformist fervor from an early 20th-century movement aimed at modernizing China and resisting the Western powers partitioning the nation, much like the regional warlords of old. For some Chinese, wuxia was seen as an reformist expression against the scholarly Confucian government and values that left their country too impotent, corrupt, and uncaring to defend against Western imperialism. The atmosphere here is not unlike the one leading up to and following the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan.

Government in Thunderbolt Fantasy



It's through this examination of history that we arrive at the wuxia hero's brand of idealism and outsider status. Wuxia heroes are the kinds of characters Urobuchi likes to write as protagonists of his stories, and like his other protagonists, he can't help but stress the limits of their idealism and make them hurt for being outsiders. That's not to say Urobuchi writes superficially about the wuxia or other genres he works with, however.

Take the setting of Thunderbolt Fantasy. The Urobuchi-wuxia show takes place in a premodern China-themed fantasy world. Some wuxia stories are more rigorous about tying the events of their narratives to existing historical records, while other tales are much looser with their treatments of what counts as historical fiction. While Thunderbolt Fantasy leans closer to epic fantasy than historical fiction, the show still captures a bit of the historical spirit behind the youxia legends and reformist fervors they're inspired from through critical commentary on unjust governments. In the world of Thunderbolt Fantasy, a catastrophe wrought by a great war between humans and demons physically splits one unified empire into two. Humanity ultimately prevails over demonkind in the war not due to any grandiose or desperate government action, but an independent sect of warriors operating outside of the government called the Hù Yìn Shī. They accomplish this feat using special sorcery and swords.

Fast-forward to the present, the events of Thunderbolt Fantasy mainly take place between the two countries formed after the physical divide: Dōng Li and Xī Yōu. The first season mostly covers Dōng Li, and the third season has been mainly exploring Xī Yōu. The second season physically takes place in Dōng Li while introducing more Xī Yōu characters and perspectives to the larger narrative.

The government of Dōng Li is mostly absent and impotent. At the beginning of the first season, the people of Dōng Li are effectively at the mercy of a malign bandit group. This group is powerful enough to sack a Hù Yìn Shī stronghold and massacre its defenders in search of one of their demon-sundering swords. The government neither mounts a response to this incident – a potential disaster if left unanswered – nor is it looked up to by the sole survivor of the attack as a credible enough party to work out a response with. The grave danger posed by this bandit group's latest action is ultimately left to a motley crew of individuals (including the wuxia hero Shāng) to address, and they end up wiping out the group with no government help. The government possessed neither the power nor will to take care of this bandit problem earlier, and provided no meaningful contribution to the group's later destruction. The bandit group infringed on its sovereignty and tyrannized its subjects, and the Dōng Li government didn't or couldn't do anything about it.

The government of Xī Yōu, on the other hand, is actively corrupt and tyrannical. At the beginning of the third season, the official head of Xī Yōu is a cloistered emperor who refuses to interact with anyone, and the acting head is his self-absorbed, cruel, and psychotic princess daughter. A dissident general discusses how he was recalled from the front lines at a crucial moment in the ongoing war with the country's neighbors, leading to the needless deaths of his soldiers. The psychotic princess divulges how she sent many hapless soldiers to their deaths trying to hunt down a fugitive artist whom she dearly regards as her pet boytoy. A different malign group also stalks the lands of Xī Yōu, but instead of being seen as bandits, they've credibly presented themselves as rebels whose ranks include dissidents like the aforementioned general and whose aims include the government's collapse. That's not to say that the group wants the best for the people of Xī Yōu, as it's also working with demons who are just the absolute worst in this show. Regardless, the country's grim climate is at least partially a problem of the Xī Yōu government's own making.

The second season introduces Xiào Kuáng Juàn, an unrepentantly corrupt man and the first government official from Xī Yōu that audiences meet. Throughout his time on screen, he abuses people's trust in his government authority to manipulate his way into information, success, and riches. Part and parcel to his corrupt nature, he orders innocent commonfolk in his way killed without a second thought.

Urobuchi Likes Idealists, Actually



It's in Thunderbolt Fantasy's wuxia setting of government absence, impotence, corruption, and tyranny that Shāng operates. He's made it his mission to collect mystic swords for the Sorcerous Sword Index he bears, the swords being the show's rough analogy to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). True to his wuxia roots, he operates independently of and at times antagonistic to the government, as Xī Yōu's own mess of a government, in addition to Xī Yōu's resident malign group, are actively pursuing him for the swords. Reflecting both his heroic wuxia character and the popular Japanese attitude toward nukes, Shāng doesn't trust any party to use these WMDs responsibly – the government most of all. His goal, ultimately, is to permanently dispose of all the mystic swords.

Until the opportunity arises, however, he is stuck in an often lonely purgatory, dodging unscrupulous authorities and evil organizations constantly while being periodically questioned about why he doesn't use the swords himself. As a fairly humble and well-meaning guy, he holds no ambitions self-centered enough to warrant using his Index of unlimited power for himself. But what about using the swords to correct larger injustices like in Xī Yōu, that one country with the psychotic princess running the government that's also his homeland? Surely that's worth swinging a WMD around for a bit, argues Wā̀n Jūn Pò, the Xī Yōu dissident general and former comrade of Shāng's turned member of Xī Yōu's resident malign/rebel group.

From here, Urobuchi begins putting the screws into the wuxia hero's idealism and outsider status. Wuxia heroes are not revolutionaries, and no matter how many smaller cases of injustice they're renowned for settling, they don't actively work against the larger issues that allow the smaller ones to crop up in the first place. For Thunderbolt Fantasy and many other wuxia stories, one of these larger issues and injustices is the government itself. Shāng has the power to do something about the Xī Yōu government with the Index he carries, but still, he refuses to use any of its mystic swords.

Shāng's current conflict about the mystic swords and their WMD analogies is part of a larger debate surrounding the righteousness and compassion of his character rooted in wuxia. He is criticized at varying times by associates like Làng Wū Yáo and Wā̀n Jūn Pò about his obstinance against compromising his wuxia ideals for the greater good, and his stubbornness at refusing to let his heroism go and play punisher for once where it's seemingly practical. He allows evil to fester where the Xī Yōu government and Lóu Zhèn Jiè are concerned, and makes battles harder on himself by not utilizing dirtier tactics and using a literal stick for a weapon. He could end his days of being hounded and his friends being endangered and his homeland being a chaotic mess – if only he would give in, unleash his WMD swords, and just kill them all.

But unlike Urobuchi's other idealistic outsider protagonists, Shāng is old. He is experienced.

Shāng has been around the block and been battered by it without coming out corrupted or broken, unlike younger and greener protagonists who struggle with their first bitter spoonfuls of alienation trying to honor their ideals. Shāng's perspective both speak of a weariness towards the world, and a confidence that shows that he hasn't rejected the world altogether. The pounds of the flesh Urobuchi demands out of his better characters are ones that Shāng has paid and is currently paying as the ironic bearer of an all-powerful Sorcerous Sword Index who nevertheless fights battles eternal with just a silver-painted piece of wood. The physical wounds that he suffers in his battles are ones that he sucks up and deals with despite the increased peril, some of that his own seemingly needless fault.

Through Shāng and wuxia, Urobuchi demonstrates to audiences just how inspiring an idealist can be, especially one that's been tempered by experience. Urobuchi doesn't hate idealists, really, despite what his reputation might otherwise suggest, and it's through Shāng and wuxia that we can see why people root for idealists and want to follow them. In that way, even when facing down an oppressive system, idealists like Shāng are never truly alone.

Social Scientist & History Buff. Dabbles in Creative Writing & Anime Criticism. Consider following him at @ZeroReq011


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