Heavens Official Blessing Season 1 Review: Came For The Pretty Characters, Stayed For The Gays

Heaven's Official Blessing is based off of a Chinese novel which I know nothing and continue to know nothing about. Like I usually do, I dove into this show with absolutely no idea of what was in store. The animation looked lovely in the trailer, with long luscious locks and delicate figures so I just clicked the play button and sat back.

The show was doing something incredibly right, because my husband and I binged through the entire 13-episode season in one day. Marathoning shows is normal for me, but not for my husband. He was glued to his seat though, despite the show certainly being a boys love story targeted at young woman.

My brain understands little of the plot or the lore. Basically a soft-boy prince has ascended to heaven (somehow has done so before and has been kicked out). There is one arc where he pretends to be a bride to stop a bride-stealing ghost and a second one where he goes to a desert just to see what's up. All this is while he and his gay-lover (who is a Ghost King) build a shrine and live domestically together.

I assume part of my confusion for what's happening in the plot and lore may be due to the fact that I know little of Chinese mythos and culture. I have been seeing more amazing shows come out of China lately though, and like anime, it may introduce their culture more on a global scale.

So the real treat in this show was the romance subplot between the prince and the ghost king. The two have opposing personalities, the prince being a passive and somewhat clumsy figure while the ghost plays someone who is more mysterious and dangerous. However, these are only surface-level glances at who these people are and the show surprised me in how mature, respectful, and understanding they could be together.

Usually, relationships between a goody-goody and a dark bad boys fall into the tropes of the bad boy talking down to the goody-goody, the goody-goody trying to change the bad boy, and just being what most would agree is a real life toxic relationship. This anime did not fall down that rabbit hole. The men actually acted like adults and any drama that occurred existed outside their relationship rather than within.

My husband and I often smiled and made little cooing sounds as these mythical pretty boys flirted and brought their faces real close to each others. Basically, we were middle-schoolers for day and it was fantastic.

Now for the review results! I rank this at a 9/10. Generous? Maybe, but remember this show glued two adults who never typically watch boys-love anime to their seats for an entire day.