General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

The Legend of Qin (秦时明月)

The Legend of Qin (秦时明月, also known as Qin's Moon) is a Chinese 3D animated wuxia series produced by Hangzhou Sparkly Key Animation Studio (杭州玄机科技股份有限公司), adapted from the novel of the same title by the Taiwanese writer Sayling Wen (温世仁). Set against the rise and fall of the Qin dynasty, it follows the boy Jing Tianming (荆天明), son of the assassin Jing Ke, as he grows into a hero among the forces resisting the empire. The first part premiered on CCTV1 in 2007, and the series is widely described as China's first 3D wuxia animation.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	3D historical wuxia animated series, planned for seven parts; five parts completed with 175 episodes, covering a 30-year story span from the Qin unification to the fall of the dynasty⁴
First broadcast	《秦时明月之百步飞剑》 premiered on CCTV1 in 2007²
Production	Hangzhou Sparkly Key Animation Studio, founded in 2005 by Shen Leping (沈乐平, born 1973), the series' general director, producer, and chief screenwriter⁵
Technology	Described by the series' director as the first fully 3D wuxia animated serial in China and the first Chinese TV animation to use motion capture, combined with hand-adjusted animation⁶
Viewership	The first five parts exceeded 4.8 billion views across platforms; part five averaged 37 million views per episode; the series' cumulative network plays later surpassed 10 billion⁷^•⁵
Reception	Douban scores of 9.1, 9.3, 9.4, 9.3, and 8.6 for parts one through five; the sixth part, 沧海横流, fell to 5.4⁸
Current status	No mainline episode has been released since March 4, 2021 (part six, episode 25); the planned seventh and final part, 亡秦必楚, has no announced broadcast date⁹

Spoilers

Premise and source material

The story is set in the turbulent decades around the end of the Warring States period and the life of the Qin empire. After the king of Qin, Ying Zheng, conquers the six rival states and declares himself emperor, pockets of resistance continue to fight Qin rule. The protagonist Tianming, hunted by the empire for reasons he does not understand, travels with friends, allies, and teachers and is fated to change the course of history.¹⁰ The planned narrative arc covers roughly 30 years, from the founding of the Qin dynasty to its fall, ending with Xiang Yu's capture of the capital Xianyang.⁴

The animation borrows the historical background, characters, and some relationships from Sayling Wen's novel but retells the material as a wuxia story aimed at all ages.¹¹ The title's two lead characters, Tianming (天明) and Yue'er (月儿), correspond to the ming (bright) and yue (moon) of the Chinese title.¹²

Historical setting and the Hundred Schools

A defining feature of the series is its integration of the thinkers of the Hundred Schools of Thought into its factions and plot. Scholarly analysis in China Radio & TV Journal describes how Mohist "universal love and non-aggression" governs the defense of the Machine City, Daoist divisions between the "Heaven" and "Human" branches embody the tension between withdrawal and engagement, and the actions of Li Si and Ying Zheng dramatize Legalist centralization and rule by law. Characters and techniques draw on classical sources: Tianming's identity as Jing Ke's son carries the motif of inheriting a father's will, the Yin-Yang School figures Da Siming and Shao Siming take their names from Qu Yuan's Nine Songs, and weapons and moves such as the Yuanhong sword, Shark Teeth, and Hundred-Step Flying Sword extend poetic imagery into combat.¹³

The production company summarizes its creative principle as "history as the bone, art as the wings" (历史为骨，艺术为翼), keeping the substance of historical knowledge such as the Hundred Schools intact while styling characters for contemporary young audiences.² Critics have placed the series in the tradition of blending wuxia with history: Tong Qingyan, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's School of Media and Design, compared it to Jin Yong's Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, noting that both combine martial-arts fiction with real historical turning points rather than crudely overturning them.¹⁴

Production and technology

Shen Leping entered the games and animation industry in 1996, worked on titles including Virtual Life, and began serving as general director, producer, and chief screenwriter of the series in 2004; he founded Sparkly Key in 2005.⁵ In a 2007 interview he explained that the series was the first fully 3D wuxia animated serial in China, and that fight choreography, the hardest problem for the genre, was produced with motion capture combined with hand-adjusted animation, a first for Chinese television animation; a martial-arts director with film experience supervised the action performances.⁶ The studio has described the look as cartoon-rendered 3D, pairing the detail of hand-drawn animation with the dynamic staging possible in a three-dimensional environment.³

The music has been part of the series' identity: composer Wei Xiaohan created original scores in a classical Chinese style, including pieces such as Flying Snow and Jade Flowers and Two Banks of the Yi River, while the theme song Moonlight (月光), performed by Anson Hu, moved from niche animation music into mainstream popularity.¹⁵^•¹²

Broadcast history

The first part, 百步飞剑 (Hundred-Step Flying Sword), premiered on CCTV1 in 2007, and the second, 夜尽天明, aired on CCTV and other channels in 2008. The third part, 诸子百家, debuted online in 2010 and passed 75.7 million clicks within three weeks on Ku6; that year the series was selected alongside Avatar for Autodesk's 2010 global showcase, and in 2011 it won the best work award at the MIPCOM Asia screening at the Cannes television festival.² The fifth part, 君临天下, concluded on June 27, 2019.⁹

The sixth part, 沧海横流, premiered on October 8, 2020 as a Youku exclusive, a platform choice that trade reporting criticized for its weak promotional reach, and its first half (the Farmer school arc) ended with episode 25 on March 4, 2021. The second half has not been released, and from 2021 through 2026 the franchise produced only posters, game tie-in shorts, and collaboration animations rather than mainline episodes.⁹^•¹⁶ A remaster of the first two seasons, 新秦时明月, aired from November 2021 to August 2022 in 39 episodes.¹⁷

Reception and standing

Early acclaim. The first five parts held Douban scores between 8.6 and 9.4, with the third part, 诸子百家, highest at 9.4; fans and commentators frequently called it the peak of the series' production and storytelling.⁸^•¹¹ The series won the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's excellent domestic animation designation, the 20th Starlight Award for excellent animation programs, and Zhejiang and Hangzhou "Five One Project" awards, among other honors.¹⁸ 万里长城 won the 2012 Monkey King (美猴奖) best director award for Shen Leping.⁵ In 2012, Crunchyroll began streaming the series under the title The Legend of Qin, its first Chinese animation, available in North America.¹⁰ By 2016 the studio reported distribution to 42 countries and an official fan base of over ten million.⁷

Later decline. The sixth part's Douban score fell from 6.8 to 5.5 across more than 26,000 ratings, with fans coining the pun "沧海断流" (the vast stream cut off); trade coverage tied the downturn to pacing and to the Youku release strategy.¹⁶ The series' own Douban listing gives 5.4 for the sixth part.⁸ A 2021 industry piece on Sparkly Key's planned IPO described criticism that the studio's revenue model remained fragmented and that poorly received licensed adaptations had damaged the animation brand.¹⁹

Adaptations and franchise

The IP has extended well beyond the animation. A 2015 live-action television series produced by Tangren, directed by Li Guoli and starring Lu Yi and Chen Yanxi, ran 54 episodes on Hunan TV to January 2016; it scored 5.2 on Douban, and critics found roughly half its plot original to the drama even where key settings, such as the Mohist Machine City, closely followed the animation.¹⁹^•¹²^•²⁰ A theatrical animated film, 秦时明月之龙腾万里, tells a prequel story in which Tianming and Shaoyu meet a girl named Xiaoli in a war over an ancient dragon soul; it won best art film at the 30th Golden Rooster Awards.²¹^•²² The franchise also includes the sister series 天行九歌 (Douban 9.0), multiple special episodes, mobile games, and a 2018 stage play whose reception was polarized.⁸^•¹⁹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026