Today the long-awaited season two boxset of the Heaven Official’s Blessing donghua was released by Crunchyroll—a follow-up to the season one set released back in March 2023. While at first glance the Blu-ray set appeared very similar to its predecessor (minus the option for a Limited Edition), fans quickly noticed one glaring difference: the original Mandarin audio was not included.
As early as the set’s original announcement, the back cover showed it would be released with only the Japanese and English dubs. This is despite the original Heaven Official’s Blessing story being a Chinese webnovel, and the original donghua a Chinese production with a full Mandarin voice cast. The original audio is still available on Crunchyroll’s streaming service, along with the English dub they produced and the Japanese dub from Aniplex.
Why Is the Original Audio Missing?
Crunchyroll licensed season one of Heaven Official’s Blessing directly through the original license holder and production company, Bilibili. Bilibili was in turn credited on the season one boxset with a logo on both the spine and back cover. However, season two saw Crunchyroll sublicense the series through their Japanese business partner, Aniplex, as credited on the season two boxset. Via whatever agreement was in place between the three companies, Aniplex was only able to provide Crunchyroll with their Japanese audio for the Bluray release, and not further extend any necessary rights to include the original Mandarin.
During the release of the season one boxset, Crunchyroll’s website briefly listed the “original audio” as “Japanese audio”, alarming many fans. However, when the boxset hit store shelves, the Mandarin original was present. The website error was assumed to be a mistake carried over from the Funimation platform—the original English rightsholder for the Heaven Official’s Blessing donghua—and its predominantly Japanese licenses. Funimation was absorbed by Crunchyroll in 2022, and subsequently much of its content merged onto Crunchyroll’s website in mid 2024.
Crunchyroll has not yet released a statement regarding the missing audio, so fans are left to speculate on why the original Mandarin track was not included. Upon seeing Japanese audio listed on the Heaven Official Blessing‘s season two boxset, DanmeiNews reached out to Crunchyroll in January 2025 to confirm which audio tracks would be present, but Crunchyroll did not respond to our request for comment.
DanmeiNews considers the various reasons this may have happened and explores them below. Please note that these theories are speculative, and only Crunchyroll can make official statements on the matter.
Government Restrictions
The Chinese government heavily tightened censorship restrictions on media in 2021, contributing to the delay and outright cancellations of many danmei adaptations; including live actions and donghua. This included the second season of Heaven Official’s Blessing: the trailer was originally released in late 2021, but the season only saw release almost two full years later in October 2023.
Although it is possible that this matter contributed to Crunchyroll’s difficulties in securing the original audio for a physical release, Crunchyroll still has the audio available on their streaming service. Moreover, they recently added the donghua adaptation of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (listed there as Master of Diabolism) to their online library. The available evidence shows that Crunchyroll’s Chinese content selection is increasing, not decreasing, and thus seems unlikely that legal restrictions were the sole contributing factor.
Budget & Cost
Unlike their special edition release of Heaven Official’s Blessing season one, Crunchyroll offered a single regular edition for their release of season two, which included only 4 Blu-ray discs and three art cards, along with the two dubs and textless closing animation. In some cases, this could be an indication that the season one boxset did not perform well enough to justify giving season two the same treatment, as a means of cutting costs.
In that line of thinking, Crunchyroll may have sublicensed season two from Aniplex because it may’ve been cheaper than a direct license with Bilibili for Blu-ray rights. The consequence of this decision was that the original Mandarin audio could then not be provided.
It seems hard to believe that a series as popular as Heaven Official’s Blessing, with its original novels hitting the New York Times’ Best-Seller lists multiple times, would struggle to meet expectations with its animated adaptation. It seems equally improbable that a company as large as Crunchyroll would willingly opt for this product inconsistency purely to save on licensing costs, especially when they continue to offer the Mandarin version on their streaming platform. However, a company’s driving force is to earn back as much as possible on their investments, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that this was a cost-saving measure.
Time
Licensing is a legal matter, and legal matters take time to process. Although Crunchyroll has the contractual right to stream the original Mandarin audio for Heaven Official’s Blessing season two, this does not automatically mean they have the right to distribute the original audio in a physical format.
Crunchyroll (then Funimation) partnered with Bilibili for a simulcast of season one while it originally aired in late 2020, but the physical boxset only became available for preorder two years later in November 2022 (hitting shelves in March 2023). It is possible that a direct license through Bilibili for the physical release of season two involved a time commitment that Crunchyroll was not willing or able to accommodate, leading them to sublicense through a Japanese company instead. If Aniplex was not given the right to sublicense the Mandarin audio in their own licensing agreement, they would have been subsequently unable to provide it to Crunchyroll, and instead provided only the Japanese dub.
Rightsholder Call
The missing Mandarin audio for the season is not a Crunchyroll-specific issue. Season two of Heaven Official’s Blessing was recently added to Amazon Prime (US)—Amazon’s video service that allows for streaming and/or individual episode purchases of shows and movies. All twelve episodes are currently available to purchase. However, the only language options available are Japanese and English, with the listings labeled as “(Original Japanese Version)”. Only the two lead Japanese cast members are credited as voice actors. This may point to a broader issue with the original rightsholder, Bilibili, who may no longer be willing to license the original audio to anyone.
Amazon Prime continues to offer Mandarin audio for Season One of Heaven Official’s Blessing.
Potential reasons for this are as of yet unclear. Fans can only hope it doesn’t imply further-reaching problems for the series as a whole, when the presumed future debut of season three remains a hotly anticipated event.
What Happens Next For Heaven Official’s Blessing Season Two?
Until Crunchyroll provides a statement, fans can only theorize why this change occurred, or if there will be a rerelease in the future to address it. Fans have already taken to social media and retail websites like Amazon to voice their complaints now that the boxset has been released, and the Mandarin audio has been verified missing.
It’s unfortunate that the lack of Mandarin audio, the inclusion of the Japanese dub on the Blu-ray set, and the classification of “Original Japanese Audio” on Amazon, will undoubtedly mislead many into thinking this was an originally Japanese production. While the world of anime is vast and worthy of respect, it should not serve as a catch-all for all Asian-produced content and in doing so rob viewers of the opportunity to experience different cultures and languages, especially for a work so rooted in its Chinese origins.
Fans can still stream the original Mandarin-voiced episodes of Heaven Official’s Blessing on Crunchyroll’s website. Subtitles are available in English, Deutsch, Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), French, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Русский, and العربية (Arabic).
As a silver lining to this situation, it is worth noting that there were previously no legal avenues to watch the Japanese dub of Heaven Official’s Blessing outside of Japan due to region locks. Fans of the series can at least enjoy this opportunity to hear the performances of a passionate cast…and to hear Hua Cheng call Xie Lian “onii-san.” As the otaku say: my little ghost king can’t be this cute!!
The Heaven Official’s Blessing Season Two boxset can be purchased from the retailers below:
Amazon (US)
Amazon (CAN)
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Crunchyroll
Target
Walmart
Disclosure: Some retailers are through affiliate programs and may result in payment or reward to DanmeiNews.com if the item is purchased via provided link. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Heaven Official’s Blessing (also known as Tian Guan Ci Fu/天官赐福 or TGCF) was adapted from the danmei series of the same name, written by best-selling author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (MXTX). The series began serialization on jjwxc in 2017 and ran for 254 chapters. It has inspired numerous adaptations, including a donghua, a manhua, an unreleased live-action, and an ongoing audio drama.
DanmeiNews provides the below summary from its catalog:
Xie Lian is an impoverished god tasked by the heavens to investigate supernatural occurrences in the mortal world. During his missions, he makes the acquaintance of the powerful Ghost King Hua Cheng. He finds himself drawn to the dangerously charming man, who seems to know Xie Lian very, very well indeed.
