Time to Read:
During the first year, peace remained…
During the second year as well, peace remained…
And during the thirteenth year as well, peace still remained…
Gi Musen (CV: Suzuki Tatsuhisa) wakes up one day, several years after his death. He realises he was called for a reason; the person sacrificing themselves for something, but they missed the part in the summoning giving him a reason and now he’s only been offered the body. It’s not too difficult to figure out though, and soon he’s working on the vengeance of his host, while hoping to stay alive himself now that he’s back from the dead.
Season 1 Episode 1 (37 minutes)
According to rumours, Gi Musen turned to an evil path of cultivation, which meant he would raise the dead and control them. He was called Iryou no Rouso. The four big clans got together and got rid of the great evil. But even as he was dead, it wasn’t entirely certain that he wouldn’t return, and the clans tried to ensure he would never rise again. For thirteen years, nothing happened. People believed he was gone for sure, and he became a tale of the past.
Until that fateful day…
Gi Musen wakes up, confused, only for some rando to shout as he beats him up. While being assaulted for inexplicable reasons, the guy notices there’s an array for a sacrifice and Gi Musen realises he was summoned. He finds some papers that the person who sacrificed himself left, asking Gi Musen — Iryou no Rouso — to avenge him. But there’s nothing that explains how the man wanted it, so Gi Musen assumes he wanted the household massacred.
He notes he’s hungry and tries to leave, but the door to the shed is locked. He kicks the door open and servants call him a madman. Which he doesn’t really mind, and he goes to find something to eat. He overhears some cultivators are coming as guests to the madam of the place.
He goes to crash the party and hears a mention of a cultivator in the house, which he knows is a reference to his host’s body’s previous inhabitant. He asks if it’s about him and notices the cultivators that have come are disciples from the Ran clan, led by Ran Shitsui (CV: Kobayashi Yuusuke), dressed in white, as if going to a funeral. The madam asks for him to be chased out, but he confronts her and her son about the things the youth stole from the Gi Musen’s host. The guy attacks him, and even if Gi Musen doesn’t get hurt, he already has bruising and uses that to his advantage.
The madam tries to explain it away to the disciples that it was just borrowing, as they are in the same home, but Ran Keigi (CV: Shimono Hiro) doesn’t sound so convinced. Gi Musen asks to have his things returned. Not to mention, how shamed he is that his own cousin had come in the middle of the night and he’s known to be gay. Gi Musen says his chastity is important because he needs to find himself a good man. Baku Shien shouts it’s nonsense and is acting aggressive in front of everyone. The cousin throws a fit and Ran Shitsui effectively kills it by explaining they won’t concern themselves with the problems of someone else’s house, but they’ll have to exorcise the evil spirits. They ask that people won’t walk around in the yard, especially in the west area.
The disciples are putting up Evil Attraction Flags that should attract weaker spirits and evil beings, which is something Gi Musen once upon a time created. It’s a little ironic that they use these since they see the creator as someone evil. He takes one of the flags in the formation and makes sure it looks right, pretending he just wants the flag. He then throws it back, saying he can make a better one (which seems about right, lol). Ran Shitsui asks him to return to his room, and once back in his shed room, he takes a moment to praise Ran Shitsui in his mind.
Out of nowhere, as he’s resting, Gi Musen is pulled out of his shed room and is accused of murder. It turns out his cousin has died and was found in the east area of the yard. The madam wants her son back and wants to avenge him. Ran Shitsui explains that something evil was what killed the boy, not Gi Musen. She says he must know a curse or two and says the missing left arm is proof that he did it. Gi Musen, however, notices Baku Shien has something and they find an Evil Attraction Flag on him. The madam still blames him though, as Baku Shien wouldn’t have gone outside if Gi Musen hadn’t blamed him for stealing, and says the disciples are useless. Gi Musen, however, defends them by pointing out they were particularly clear to avoid the western area of the yard where the flags were and that no one should touch anything.
She gets angry at her husband that just stands there and lashes out on him next, and he just pushes her, effectively shocking her, but unfortunately she’s not surprised enough to fall silent (she sounds so annoying). And next, the master of the house is dead, and the madam faints out of shock. And they notice that the master’s left arm is also missing. Gi Musen and Ran Shitsui both realise something is clearly amiss, and Ran Shitsui asks Ran Keigi to send a signal in the hope of reinforcements. Until help comes, the Ran disciples decide to stay and try to figure out what’s going on. Gi Musen figures it’d be bad if someone who knows him comes, so he would be better off leaving, but he needs to get rid of the curse first.
The servant, Tou-chan, going with the master was unconscious, but suddenly wakes up. Upon doing so, though, he strangles himself, and immediately after he dies, it turns dark all around them, which makes people panic. And once they have light again, they notice… the left arm is gone! (Again!) Gi Musen figures the situation out and starts laughing, saying it’s not actually Tou and the master, because they were right-handed, not left-handed and the master pushes his wife with the left hand and Dou killed himself with the left hand as well. Gi Musen notices that the madam’s left hand is really big and says it can’t be a woman’s arm and the disciples surround her. The (dead) madam starts attacking them with her left arm (although it’s kind of unclear what she does based on the sound alone, to be honest… she just sounds kind of like she’s at a hospital bed, groaning in pain as she dies) and she almost injures Ran Shitsui. Gi Musen pushes Ran Keigi in the way so the arm touches his clothing (which has talismans woven into the outer robe so it burns) instead. When Ran Keigi scolds him, he says it wasn’t him.
The arm eventually sucks the nutrients out of the dead body. Ran Shitsui tells everyone to calm down and not move. He figures the arm must be the left arm of someone who has died and mutilated, and the resentful energy is searching for the rest and will try every body until it finds the true owner. The demon arm starts hunting for a new host, and the disciples try to catch it to avoid further victims. It’s not working, but Ran Shitsui remembers there are talismans in the robes and tells the other to take their outer robes off to use them to restrain it. However, Gi Musen knows that this is only a temporary solution, and he needs to do something about it or everyone (else) dies. He just needs something with some evil energy and realises he has three resentful corpses on hand. The Baku family! He wakes them up to fierce corpses and sends them to attack the demonic arm. At first the disciples think they suddenly have three more opponents, but Ran Shitsui realises they’re after the arm. He figures that because they were killed by it, they will go after it, but he’d confused about why they turned fierce.
It looks like things will turn ugly and Gi Musen feels like he might have to do something, but right then Ran Bouki (CV: Hino Satoshi), aka Gankou-kun, appears.
THOUGHTS
By chance, I read the novel version Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation right before the audio drama’s first episode was released. Man, what a good coincidence! This means I will naturally compare this to the novel itself as I haven’t consumed other adaptations.
So, like, I guess I need to explain where I stand on the novel first. I am not going to make a review at the time of writing, but I loved it! Wei Wuxian (JP: Gi Musen) was unexpectedly my favourite character. He is perfection! I still think of him pretty much every day and it’s been a month! I also love the interaction between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji (JP: Ran Bouki). I happen to really like BL, mystery, the darkness of the human mind and (some) dark fantasy, and Mo Xiang Tong Xiu did a really good job with mixing those to make this novel. Fantastic!
There were obviously content I wasn’t fond of (the sexy parts) but overall, I really adore this novel.
But now, to the audio drama.
This audio drama has one of the funniest scenes: when Gi Musen is speaking of protecting his chastity. It just makes me laugh out loud. It was funny in the novel, but even funnier hearing it. I really loved this episode and during my first listen, I actually started to cry. There was literally no reason to, but I just got so emotional hearing the characters come to life (in a language I have a fairly fluent understanding of).
I do feel there is some lacking information. Naturally, some things need to be left out, but for instance… In the scene mentioned above, Mo Ziyuan (JP: Baku Shien) kicks Gi Musen and there’s no way to truly tell. On top of that, I think Lan Sizhui (JP: Ran Shitsui) actually helped Gi Musen avoid the kick, but that’s also sort of lost. These small things do make a great impact. Other things I felt were fine. It didn’t really matter that there was no mention of how exactly the sacrifice circle for the transmigration worked, because it doesn’t give or take away anything to or from the story.
Suzuki does a fantastic job as Wei Wuxian, and I really feel it catches the characterisation of the character. I also think Kobayashi as Lan Sizhui is great.
I’m still dying because one of my big biases, Shimono Hiro, is playing Lan Jingyi (JP: Ran Keigi), which is a recurring support character. The idea I had of Lan Jingyi was completely ruined by Shimono, but I don’t mind. While I did see him as less mature that Lan Sizhui… I don’t know why, but I just thought of him as calmer that the Shimono’s voice is, but as soon as I knew Shimono voiced Jingyi I threw all expectations of what I thought of Jingyi out of the window. Lol.
Summing that up it would be “Darn, the voice actors are doing so great I can’t even decide what not to praise.” but at the same time I can say I’m not all that happy that the narrator (in episode 1) is MikiShin.
The sound effects are in general awesome. But as mentioned, there are these instances where it’s just really vague. if you’ve read the novel, you’ll know, but if you haven’t you might be rleft a bit confused by what’s happening.
There isn’t all that much soundtrack that does “take up space”, but it has some of the most beautiful soundtracks I’ve ever heard, and it’s very fitting for the scenes. However, I must say the ending outshines it by far.
I still prefer the novel over audio drama because it has more details, but one can only expect so much from any adaptation, right? And it’s really well made!
If you’re interested in Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation and know Japanese, you can give Madou Soshi a try. I feel it can be a gateway into the fandom. The first three episodes (and an extra) are free on MiMi fm, a Japanese app available for Android and iOS. Though it’s just ¥1000 for the rest of the episodes, so… The story’s definitely worth it if you’re into BL as well.
This post was originally part of a batch of the first three episodes. I decided to divide them and the sections have been edited to fit the new standalone format. This was reposted on August 8th, 2025. Since the original post, the novel has been released by Seven Seas.
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