Published: March 8, 2025
3
8
90

#NeZha #Oubing Okay historical oubing time. I say oubing but really there's 'very little' Ao Bing in this one sadly. Feirenzai is a webcomic that began in 2015 and still running. It got a cartoon adaptation in 2018, there will be a movie of it coming out this year.

Image in tweet by James Zhu

Feirenzai's deal is all mythologies are real and the immortals depicted in them are still around in modern day China and living among us. And the comic is mostly about their daily hijinks. Nezha is a character that appears fairly commonly.

Image in tweet by James Zhu

Because of the setup, the comic deliberately goes for the widest common denominator, most stereotypical depiction of the mythological characters. So for Nezha that means androgynous kid, killed Ao Bing in the past and killed himself when Ao Guang came for vengeance. Resurrected and body now made out of lotus, the works.

Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu

In terms of Ao Bing's killing Feirenzai's Nezha is depicted as having zero remorse about it. He still keeps Ao Bing's tendon about him and sometimes even flaunts it in front of Ao Lie (Ao Bing's cousin, Ao Run's son) and Longnu (Ao Bing's younger sister) to scare them.

Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu

Despite being supposedly a light hearted comic sometimes it goes into really heavy topics. And Nezha's past tends to come up a lot in those issues. We get the idea that Nezha's "meh whatever" emotionless facade is a shell that he wears around. Underneath is a tortured soul deeply unhappy about his predicament. Over the millennia since he died he has compartmentalized his previous life as almost a different person, yet the events from Chengtang Pass still affects him deeply 3000 years later.

Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu

Nezha, per most traditional depiction has a bad relationship with Heavenly King Li Jing because he blames the failure to reincarnate with Buddhist golden body on his father's middling. The lotus root being a back up option locks him into a childlike form and limits his growth both physically as well as divine powers. Because their terrible relationship Li Jing has put him up to live with Guanyin instead, he shares a household with Guanyin's two young acolytes Red Boy and Longnu (Ao Bing's younger sister)

Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu

I was really impressed with Feirenzai because for me it was the very first work that depicts Nezha's post reincarnation life. As far as I'm aware it kind of started the whole idea that reincarnation and deification does not bring any joy to Nezha. He is now stuck in an infinite lonely experience. His mortal mother would eventually die of old age, he has bad relations with his immortal father and other deities are scared of him and his violent ways so they don't approach him.

Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu

Feirenzai Nezha is in fact stuck in a situation not dissimilar to the Nezha from Shangmei Oubing. Only difference is Ao Bing as Huagai Star God is not a thing in Feirenzai and in any case Feirenzai's Nezha hasn't done the soul searching necessary to come to the realization that all of his problems originated from killing Ao Bing and do something about it like in Shangmei Oubing. I think it's a real missed opportunity for the comic. In order to have that meme about Nezha playing with Ao Bing's tendon it means no opportunity for Nezha to have some character growth and get some closure. Even if he still feels he was in the right about killing Ao Bing 3000 years ago there's no need to be so vindictive about it to Ao Bing's relatives.

Image in tweet by James Zhu
Image in tweet by James Zhu

Naturally since the comic uses mythology this way Feirenzai fans have a high proportion of what I'll call "Nezha fundamentalist" who is very insistent that Nezha's conflict with Ao Bing is central to his story and they don't like Jiaozi's take. If the Nezha movies shift the common societal consciousness about what Nezha's story is about, as it is in fact doing it would put the comic in an awkward situation were their depiction of Nezha is no longer inline with how people perceive the mythology.

Of all the Nezha depictions, Feirenzai is probably the one that has the hardest time cashing in on the oubing ship as they made Ao Bing's death so final. See here were their official crossover art has to use Ao Lie instead.

Image in tweet by James Zhu

Share this thread

Read on Twitter

View original thread

Navigate thread

1/10