Guonian Zhe Lianmeng: Xinchun Saima

Imagine a fever-dream fantasy version of ancient China where a team of exaggerated historical figures and folklore heroes—basically the Avengers, but for Chinese New Year—have to protect the holidays by winning a magical horse race that determines the fortune of the entire upcoming year. That's the setup for this ONA from Sparkly Key Animation Studio, and it's exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. The main crew includes 'Captain Spring Festival,' a parody of Western superheroes who takes righteousness to absurd extremes, a deeply cynical version of the legendary general Guan Yu, and his meme-obsessed horse Red Hare. Their problem: the Nian Monster's minions are trying to rig the race, and qualifying alone involves surviving obstacle courses and sabotage from rival historical factions. The power system runs entirely on Chinese New Year traditions—weaponized red envelopes, explosive firecrackers, magical spring couplets used as attack scrolls. The animation style keeps you off-balance too, flipping between crude chibi meme art during conversations and genuinely impressive sakuga when the racing kicks in. If you liked the irreverent historical comedy of Gintama or the tonal whiplash humor of Scissor Seven, this hits a similar nerve. There's also a weird Uma Musume energy to the whole horse racing premise, except filtered through nonsense humor and Chinese folklore. It's one episode, it's pure comedy, and it doesn't waste a single minute being serious about anything.