I've only seen a handful, but besides Shiguang Dailiren/Link Click from 2021, which became one of the more, perhaps the most famous one in recent years in anime-watching online communities anyway, which is solid (albeit a still incomplete and ongoing work-in-progress), another I'm really enjoying is Aiyou de Mishi from this season (also called Aiyou's Secret Room or X&Y as far as the alternate English titles).
Aiyou de Mishi is particularly recommendation-worthy if you're also someone who enjoys the thriller genre and thinks newer anime is in dire need of some more thrillers, and also mystery. I don't know when the slump or dearth in mystery thrillers began exactly or how quantifiable it is, but it seems real enough to be noticeable and bothersome. This is a good antidote to that trend of us thriller and/or mystery fans increasingly feeling an empty hole, as was Shiguang Dailiren before it. It's airing first run currently, but right now it's still relatively early days to judge or assess where it's really going as we're only six episodes into a season which is slated to be 16 episodes. Oh, also it's an ONA series.
Bai Yao Pu is another worth mentioning, maybe of particular interest to those who appreciate the episodic tales of a supernatural adventure mystery type show with a mysterious traveler, like Mushishi. Maybe a little less iyashikei or borderline philosophical, but can't say in full as I've only seen the first season so far. I think it has a rather beautiful art style for a newer series though, as I have not been as fond of the ones in many newer series. It looks pretty great. This one started in 2020.
The only thing that bothers me in some of these/some episodes of these and some other Chinese anime is that the subtitles tend to suck, especially early on when they're first released, compared to Japanese anime where there's obviously a much larger more effective system in place for either company professional or even fan groups translating Japanese into English as opposed to Mandarin Chinese into English. Still though, I would rather much them in their original Chinese than with an English or Japanese or any other language dub, as I prefer watching everything in its original language.
Also, another user further up the thread mentioned how these Chinese anime really should be identified and classified as donghua rather than lumped in as anime, and while that's technically true, they are factually donghua, and the Korean variant is aeni, technically they can all also be considered anime like the Japanese ones as it's simply the Japanese name for all animated works, and while that can be said to therefore apply to, say, American, French, Belgian, British, and Canadian cartoons too (to prompt some who would then ask "Then why not call and consider everything animated as anime?"), for instance, the difference is there is a great shared market for viewers/consumers, overlap in animation studios' work and collaboration, and shared history and cultural influences connecting Japan, China, and Korea in a way which isn't the case with distant Western countries and others. That's why I also started considering them all anime the way MAL does and decided to organize them, even if I've still vastly seen far more of the still more successful and popular Japanese ones. |