The story follows the titular Xiao Hei, a cat spirit who has stolen a powerful spiritual item called the Pearl Of Heaven and seeks shelter in the rain. He then awakes to find himself in a human's home with a girl named Xiao Bai who happily adopts and names Xiao Hei. The story recounts his adventures living amongst humans and learning more about the elfin who have taken to adapting to modern living and existing alongside humanity.
A prequel spinoff, Lanxi Zhen, was released in 2019. Instead of Xiao Hei, this manhua follows Laojun during his exploits in the war.
Tropes in The Legend of Luo Xiao Hei:
- All Myths Are True: Downplayed. Immortal beings and Elfin exist in modern day China, but as Laojun admits, not everything in mythology is accurate. For example, he confirms that Journey to the West did happen and Sun Wukong exists (albeit not as strong as the book says he is), but the Jade Emperor does not, and neither does Heaven. CAT 14 does show that deities from other countries' mythology exist as well, since all of them can use the spiritual internet.
- Always Night: The furthest reaches of Laojun's domain (and where he lives) is a tower on a cliff under an unchanging starry sky. Bluestream Town is the opposite, in that it's eternally daytime under an overcast sky.
- Animal Talk: Xiao Hei speaks in meows, which is then translated below for the audience to read. Xiao Bai, later on, is able to understand Xiao Hei whenever he meows.
- Animated Music Video: One of the three extra shorts is "Goodbye Meow", a short nursery type song with a critter-focused accompanying video.
- Art Evolution: In the early uploads, while sizes were often inconsistent, the cast was overall drawn proportionally, and characters received shading. By the later episodes, the series began adopting a Puni Plush style; human and creature alike began to develop rounder designs, proportions were chibified across the board, and shading was notably dropped.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the season 2 finale, Xiao Hei is at A'sian's mercy and about to have his avatar killed before Wuxian swoops in to save him. While Xiao Hei's not in any real danger since it's a video game, his path to clearing the Elfin King Folan quest would have been permanently barred if he was defeated here, and Wuxian uses the quest as an assessment of Xiao Hei's prospective Executor career.
- The Cameo: Tan Ju, Mu Si, and A'Xian are all the avatars of MOSSPACA STUDIO, a Chinese webtoon group. Mu Si is treated as the leader of the trio because the real Mu Si is the same in real life.
- Cherry Tapping: He probably didn't intend to do this trope specifically, but Wuxian easily defeats A'sian's remaining crew not only by using a single ball bearing, but also by felling them in an instant with hardly any HP shaved off of them. They can't even be mad at him for it since he gives them monetary compensation.
- City of Canals: Bluestream Town, Laojun's domain, is an ancient abandoned city whose main mode of transport is by boat. No roads truly exist at the time the main crew first visits it.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The last bit of the first series has Qingqiu and his associates stalk Xiao Hei's group for the Pearl of Heaven. They turn out to need it for their friend, who is ill. When Qingqiu tells the heroes this as they've come to a stalemate, Xiao Hei simply gives them the pearl. A'Gen then comments that they'd have given it to them if Qingqiu came forward with their problem in the first place.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: "Xin", the ending theme of Season 2's last episode, is sung by Ah Suo (the voice of Bidiu and other small creatures).
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: All Living Things allows any player to become anything they want, be it animal or human. The game is also only populated by player characters, who take on the role of bosses, become NPCs, go on adventures, or act as wildlife.
- Fake-Out Fade-Out: In the middle of CAT 14, it cuts to credits just after A'Gen tells Fenmo that her friend may be possessed. Fenmo immediately pushes the credits aside to ask A'Gen for more information.
- Forced Orgasm: There are a couple of spirits hiding as shuttlecocks. When Shanxin starts loading them up into a carrier, the bottommost one gets their behind stuffed with its three compatriots, and upon the addition of the fourth involuntarily orgasms.
- Foreshadowing:
- There are numerous small moments where Xiao Hei's humanoid form is teased:
- On her first night with Xiao Hei, Xiao Bai muses that kissing the cat might result in him taking a handsome male human body.
- Xiao Hei's dream sequence at the beginning of Episode 2 shows a white-haired figure going toe to toe with Beelzebub, looking much like the form taken in the first episode.
- The credits for the cartoon rendition of Episode 3 has Xiao Hei's head briefly turn into his humanoid form while it's moving along the map.
- A few for the reveal that A'Gen is not Xian Li:
- A'Gen is actually surprised that Mu Si and A'Xian would believe that he's the deity, putting them in the same gullible bubble that Diting was in.
- There are numerous small moments where Xiao Hei's humanoid form is teased:
- For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Diting enjoys going to conventions because, as everyone is in costumes, no one will be suspicious of his unearthly looks. We see him at one in CAT 22.
- Gargle Blaster: CAT 27 focuses on Xiao Hei getting ludicrously drunk from a sip of some alcohol A'Gen's grandfather was drinking. At first it's assumed that it's simply a case of Can't Hold His Liquor, but even one of the neighbors passes out when drinking a cup. Meanwhile grandpa can drink it down just fine.
- Ghibli Hills: The countryside. While it has its fair share of horrendous floods and storms, on most days it's an idyllic, lush backdrop filled with mystical wonders.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: English shows up quite a bit, but mostly as accompanying text. Japanese, on the other hand, pops in and out with high frequency. You'll often see it on Xiao Bai's father's newspapers (ex. calling his wife "Wife-sama").
- Humans Are Special: As A'Gen and Laojun explain, all living things are capable of cultivating enough to reach deity level. Humans, however, have only had their potential for this increased over the years although most don't realize it yet. And indeed, the greatest cultivator of the modern age turns out to be a human.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Many opponents underestimate A'Gen's true power set. Normally, they would make do with anti-ice or fire spells, but the boy quickly proves that those will not slow him down.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Installments are usually referred to as "Cat [X]".
- Lawful Neutral: The Spirit Hall acts as a safe haven for Elfin and tries not to interfere with the human world, but because they accommodate all types, they have to permit some to hunt down humans for nutrition. Kali does mention that they can only allow Elfin to hunt down "bad" people, and even then those prey have to be evaluated so that they don't kill an "innocent" by mistake.
- MacGuffin: The pearl that Xiao Hei steals becomes the reason a lot of the events in the story even occur. Then Xiao Hei nonchalantly hands it over to a group of spirits who need the pearl to save their friend.
- Macro Zone: Discussed. Once the gang figures out that the All Living Things game was developed by elfin, A'Gen theorizes that the game was likely using someone's spiritual space as the basis for the world. When one wonders how someone could have such a large space, A'Gen then explains he thinks that the developer likely shrunk everyone down to fit within the space, rather than everyone maintaining the same size.
- Magic Map: At the top of the Spirit Hall lies a room with a map of all safe havens and contacts for magical beings. Ones that are active are red, and ones that are not are grey. Before leaving the hall, Xiao Hei wistfully looks at one on a small landmass with a greyed out marker, which is implied to be Wuxian's.
- The Masquerade: Nowadays humans and elfin dwell in the same areas, but the ones that choose to do this must hide their true forms to avoid suspicion. Most live in human disguises, but if one looks sufficiently animalistic they can pass too.
- Mood Whiplash: CAT 9 is spent entirely on fighting Diting, but before A'Gen and Xiao Hei can go all out, the group is interrupted by a not-at-all subtly foreshadowed rainstorm. Everybody (even Diting and his hounds) decides to wait it out uncomfortably.
- No Fourth Wall: The characters talk about how hard animating these scenes would be for the animators and there are plenty of written jokes that break the fourth wall. For example, one early episode has Mom outright call a cameo character an "extra" when Xiao Bai asks who was at the door, and an encounter that in-universe took four days felt longer to them because "it took too long to update the series".
- Once More, with Clarity: A'Gen and Mu Si's trio finally escape Qingqiu's spiritual space in CAT 22. The scene where they make their escape is set up so that it looks like they already escaped before Qingqiu came back. CAT 23 shows the same scene in detail, revealing how they set that up and how they really escaped the space.
- Our Gods Are Different: Beings referred to as "Deities" are generally Elfin, but they can be anyone with sufficient control of elemental magic under specific circumstances. They are still extremely powerful and long-lived, however.
- Permanently Missable Content: All Living Things enforces Permadeath for your player character, but one can play the game as many times as they like. The "Elfin King Folan" quest, however, only gets one attempt. If your avatar dies at any point, you cannot reattempt it even with a new character.
- Player Versus Player: There aren't any constructed enemies in All Living Things—everyone who plays the game is an opponent or can take on the role of an area boss. There are restrictions though; Player Killing is fine and is a big part of the game, but if a player goes on to kill someone in their faction, their name will turn red and will bar them from certain quests.
- Pocket Dimension: All living beings have a spiritual space inside of them that acts as a domain they can mold to their wishes. Uncultivated, most living things have one the size of their hand, but they can get it to be much larger. Laojun's domain is in one such space, and the sheer scale of it confirms how powerful he is as a deity-level elfin. It's implied that All Living Things also takes place inside one such dimension.
- Product Placement: For McDonalds in Episode 17.
- Quest for a Wish: Xiao Hei is out to steal the Pearl of Heaven, if not for the immense power he can obtain from it then for Laojun granting a person any one wish they want if they successfully leave his realm with it in tow. As for why Xiao Hei has to be chased by Diting over this, Laojun in his infinite wisdom forgot.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Surprisingly, from a side material to the main series. The prequel movie's ending theme "Xin" was reused as the credits music for the second season finale.
- Running Gag:
- A poor male bird gets the living daylights smacked out of him whenever he tries to approach a female bird he has a crush on. By Episode 6, he pretty much smacks himself when the female bird notices his presence.
- When the action moves to the countryside, scenes are broken up with scenes of a farmer tilling his fields in silly ways.
- Scully Box: Played for laughs. Kali is about as tall as the children characters and is level with them when observing a mock fight on Spirit Hall grounds, but when the scene cuts away it's revealed that he was standing on a box the whole time.
- Secret Test of Character: Xiao Hei seeks to become an Executor like Wuxian, so he's given a suitably hard task to prepare him for it. The All Living Things quests are used to test Xiao Hei and his ability to withstand a merciless environment.
- Sequel Hook: The last episode of the original series isn't so much an end as it is the opening to the next adventure. Just when Xiao Bai and A'Gen are pondering about where Xiao Hei is, he appears with his new quest and all but tells them that they're going to be a part of it.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Season 2 is all about Xiao Hei receiving his second, and then his final quest so he can become an Executor. The third one, completion of the Elfin King Folan quest in All Living Things before New Years' Eve, becomes his main focus. He is only around Level 50 by the end of the season and would have obtained a major stat boost, but he was cornerned by high level players and had his party wiped out by them, with Wuxian stepping in to save him. The quest is called off, and Wuxian bluntly tells Xiao Hei he failed.
- Shout-Out:
- When Xiao Bai wonders if Xiao Hei has a human form, she imagines Wizard Howl in his Studio Ghibli appearance, complete with his theme playing in the background. The Turnip Prince also appears as an ordinary scarecrow in Season 1 Episode 5.
- A dog, once hit with a flea, drops unconscious with the Super Mario Bros. Game Over theme playing.
- On the way to the countryside, Xiao Hei gets hit by a truck resembling Optimus Prime's vehicle form.
- Episode 2's opening sequence is devoted to Xiao Hei dreaming of fighting Sand Land's protagonist Beelzebub.
- One can hear the ring pickup sound effect from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise when one of the spirits wins at reversi.
- Some of the video games Shan Xiu plays are made explicit, such as her playing World of Warcraft in CAT 3.
- Several famous locations and people show up during the Luo parents' trip together, including cameos of Hideaki Sorachi's avatar, the statues in the Valley of the End, the Twelve Houses, the Spring of Drowned Girl, the Tree of Ages (with attached InuYasha and a passing Roronoa Zoro), and even Bikini Bottom.
- Poor A'Gen's grandfather has to watch his cabbage cart and his fruits (which suspiciously have the patterning of Devil Fruits) be destroyed in the battle against Diting.
- Among Laojun's figurine collection are statues of Totoro and the Catbus, Tony Tony Chopper and the Thousand Sunny, Pikachu, and the garden robot from Castle in the Sky.
- One of Xiao Bai's dreams features a giant Bidiu being defeated by Ultraman (really her grandfather transformed).
- In CAT 17, a cow resembling Hiromu Arakawa's avatar can be seen in the background.
- The TARDIS (and the Eleventh Doctor) shows up in Episode 19. And speaking of One Piece, the Mini-Merry shows up in the background of the same episode.
- Shanxin's merch collection is that to rival Laojun's. It includes several Doraemon toys, Sophie Hatter's sun hat, a Zootopia poster, a Minion, Vault Boy, Elsa, Sakura Kinomoto, Arale Norimaki, Neko-sensei, and Baymax figurines, The Going Merry, a Mega Charizard X amiibo, a Slam Dunk sticker, and a Diamond Sword and Creeper.
- The convention is full of cosplay shoutouts: The entire Son family (plus Raditz) and Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, Itachi Uchiha and Kisame, Gon Freecs and Hisoka, Ash Ketchum, Asuka Langely Souryuu and Rei Ayanami, Magic Kaito, Cygnus Hyouga, and the protagonists of Little Witch Academia among other outfits.
- In Season 2, several fictional characters appear behind Xiao Bai when she explains why she wants to practice manipulating fire. Some include Mai Shiranui, Sephiroth, Charizard, and Portgas D. Ace.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Even though Xiao Hei and crew have a note written by Laojun himself, the guardsman to the Spirit Hall won't let them inside because (1) it's just a piece of paper with no Laojun nearby to confirm, and (2) they look like ordinary children and animals.
- Kali's method of making money for the Spirit Hall, simple commerce with humans, is his preferred method precisely because conjuring gold and other material wealth will result in inflation.
- That One Sidequest: The Elfin King Folan quest is, upon release, one of the most difficult to finish in All Living Things. It requires a player to finish all high level quests, discover all the weapon types in the game, hunt down at least 2 "red name" players of a high level, and have the player themselves (with a Human avatar) reach level 200 without turning their name red too (in a game where just reaching 50 is a challenge). Naturally, it's a grueling quest and nobody by the end of the season has successfully finished it. This is to be expected, since it's really a test to become an Executor.
- Tricked into Signing: A'Gen's grandfather asks the boy to have Laojun give him an autograph. In reality, the latter accidentally signed settlement papers to pay for the flood and property damages to A'Gen's home. Subverted when Grandpa gets the note back, but with a cheeky message from Laojun saying he'll never lend the money...and a map with the location of someone who could.
- Tuckerization: Side characters named after the MTJJ staff sometimes show up. Fenmo, for example, is the avatar of the character designer of the same name.
- To Unmasque the World: The All Living Things video game's true purpose is this. The game eases humanity into rediscovering spiritual techniques which can carry over into real life, allows for diverse pre-game customization that makes everyone aware of beings of any form being formidable opponents, and can be played by both humans and elfin. The overall goal is to get humanity ready to accept elfin as they are, and possibly elfin to get to know humans better.
- Updated Re-release: Eventually, the early episodes were reuploaded with updated animation and character models. The ending theme replaced LocoRoco's "Nyokki Nyonyokki" with a Suspiciously Similar Substitute song.
- Urban Fantasy: A lot of the action is set in contemporary 21st century China, and even the magical folk are shown using human technology (ex. Laojun's "Long-Distance Sound Transmitter" being a smartphone). There's constant crossover with both realms throughout the series.
- Wham Line: "Xiao Hei, are you an Elfin?" A'gen saying this, combined with the reveal of his ice powers, turns the series from a relatively low-key Urban Fantasy to an action-fantasy epic.
- Wham Shot: At the end of CAT 25, Xiao Hei finishes meditating and emerges from the jar he holed himself in—but as a humanoid, rather than as the cat he was all season.
