In 2025, Lord of Mysteries turned into the rare Chinese donghua that broke through everywhere at once. Adapted from Cuttlefish That Loves Diving’s hit web novel, the series streamed on Crunchyroll in more than 190 countries, drawing in both anime viewers and readers who had never touched Chinese web fiction.
The story follows Zhou Mingrui, a modern Chinese youth who wakes up in the body of Klein Moretti in a Victorian-era world of secret organisations, occult rituals, and a complex power system. Fans have consistently praised the show for its steampunk worldbuilding, Lovecraftian horrors, and the precision of its adaptation choices — especially in a year when the Disney-killing likes of Ne Zha 2, as well as Nobody and To Be Hero X, have been pushing Chinese animation to new visibility.
The team leading Lord of Mysteries were familiar with the gravity of their work. Ke Xiong, CTO and chief director at BCMAY Pictures, has shaped several major productions. Liu Xing, BCMAY’s chairman and chief screenwriter, has been a core figure in China’s modern donghua landscape. Between them is a decade of shared work, and now the weight of a legendary web novel that already has an entire roadmap of adaptations stretching into the 2030s. They speak plainly about what it took to adapt a novel known for its scale, structure, and dense internal logic.
‘Lord of Mysteries’ director–producer Ke Xiong and screenwriter Liu Xing at the AFA SG 2025 Day Stage Panel in Singapore
| Photo Credit:
Crunchyroll
For Liu Xing, the problem started long before schedules and hyped trailers. His difficulty with adapting Lord of Mysteries can be reduced to one line.
“There are two main points in making this book,” he says. “First, the story has to be original, and second, the emotions of the characters have to be expressed accurately.”
“Very difficult”, is his matter-of-fact response on describing the troubles they faced when fleshing out the web novels’ dense word building — the mild inconvenience of the suggestion only grows funnier once you have taken in the sheer scale of what they have accomplished.
‘Lord of Mysteries’ screenwriter Liu Xing at the AFA SG 2025 Day Stage Panel in Singapore
| Photo Credit:
Crunchyroll
The novel sprawls across epochs, gods, rituals and secret societies, and so the animation, by necessity, had to choose. “In terms of storytelling, the way we portrayed the world in animation was very different,” he says. “It was impossible to show the entirety of this world view, because in animation, the way we portray the world on screen is very different from how it is portrayed cinematically”. Faced with that gap, the team focused on two pillars. “We needed to make sure that all the exciting parts of the story were being portrayed fully, and on the character side, we needed a holistic portrayal of the character’s expressions and development, which we developed through Klein’s vantage point.”
The show’s world is unmistakably Gothic Revival, replete with gaslamps, coats, hats, and stained-glass churches. Its interior lore and logic however, comes from somewhere else. Asked how they kept that East-meets-West cultural collision honest without turning the script into an expository lecture, Lu Xing says, “We used the character’s behaviour. For example, Klein’s thoughts, behaviours, his manner of worshipping, and how he pays tribute at a grave — he uses the Chinese way of doing certain things.”
‘Lord of Mysteries’ director–producer Ke Xiong and screenwriter Liu Xing at the AFA SG 2025 Day Stage Panel in Singapore
| Photo Credit:
Crunchyroll
But he still resisted the urge to box these experiences into categories. “We didn’t need to over-explain that this was a Chinese emotion, a Chinese behaviour, a Chinese judgment, or the way Chinese people think,” he says. “Instead, we saw him as an ordinary person, experiencing extraordinary things. That was the basis for his story.”
Those choices also run through the visuals. Lord of Mysteries is filled with candles, fog, and long, dwarfing spaces where horror and faith often overlap. When asked about any specific visual references, Ke Xiong abstains from pinning it to any one film or painting.
“When we first started planning the project, there were a lot of elements of horror,” he recalls. “However, it’s hard to pinpoint a single element as a visual reference. After all, what we are doing is a whole new world, so in the production design, we could only follow the descriptions in the novel and combine it with our own style. Then we tried a lot of different versions and settled on the most emotional and atmospheric one.”
‘Lord of Mysteries’ director–producer Ke Xiong talks on stage at the AFA SG 2025 Day Stage Panel in Singapore
| Photo Credit:
Crunchyroll
That very “emotional and atmospheric” version did come at the price of the infamously high frame count per episode. Smooth movement and heavy mood do not come cheap, especially under punishing seasonal deadlines, and Ke Xiong’s answer to how his animators endured it is matter of fact.
“Every time we encounter such massive requirements, it’s a huge challenge for all the animators in the team,” he says. “We have been working together for more than 10 years. So, we all have a common understanding on the requirements of a project.” That shared standard also led to a muscle memory of perfectionism. “In the process, if there was ever anything that we were not satisfied with, we repeated it and kept building on it until we got to a point of unanimous consensus. We wanted to deliver something that had nothing for us to regret about.”
In the middle of all this was the novelist himself, known to readers simply as Cuttlefish. Ke Xiong remembers those early interactions were smooth and creatively liberating, and that the direction Cuttlefish gave them was infused with a refined purpose. “He [Cuttlefish] said if you were to interpret the novel word for word, image by image, then there is nothing new. He wanted us to re-edit the novel to make it more in line with the animation, and wanted us to show a new way of expression, a new core point of view, and new values.”
‘Lord of Mysteries’ director–producer Ke Xiong and screenwriter Liu Xing at the AFA SG 2025 Day Stage Panel in Singapore
| Photo Credit:
Crunchyroll
By mid-2025, Lord of Mysteries had become part of the characteristically larger shift in Chinese animation, with higher production levels, stronger scripts, and growing overseas demand. The international reception mattered to the team. “It’s a very happy thing for us to be able to resonate with the global audience,” says Lu Xing. Meanwhile, Ke Xong seemed struck by the number of newcomers that signaled something broader. “Our animation production in China is improving technically, and Lord of Mysteries has given more people a chance to see how far China can go.”
BCMAY’s public roadmap extends deep into the next decade with multiple seasons, three specials, and a feature film. Asked what he wishes he had during Season 1, Ke Xong doesn’t hesitate. “Time,” he says. “To complete such a large-scale animation project, it takes a lot of time and a lot of investment.” The two chuckle about how they too, are getting older and older as production continues. Liu Xing’s request is along the same lines. “For the screenwriters, we would usually say, ‘if you give me just 15 more minutes, I can produce something better, nicer, and tell more of the story.’”
Lord of Mysteries is available to stream on Crunchyroll
