Fabulous Beasts (有兽焉, Yǒu shòu yān) is a Chinese webcomic created on October 15, 2017 by Xue Xia Mao Yao Zi, eventually spawning an animated series adaptation which was announced in 2021.

The series takes place primarily in modern day China, in a version of our world where mythical beasts based on Chinese mythology live alongside humans. Following the lives of numerous mythical beasts, it is largely presented as a cute comedy series, but can sometimes delve into a more serious and emotional tone.

Both the comic and the animation are on BiliBili (manhua, donghua), with the comic also being updated thrice weekly on Weibo here, and there being multiple YouTube subs of the animation available, an official compilation being found here.

Fabulous Beasts contains examples of:

• Actionized Adaptation: The cartoon has significantly more action scenes than the manhua, with multiple fights breaking out in strips that had no fights, and multiple other action sequences like an escape from a flood or Taotie falling into his own traps being added.
• Always a Bigger Fish: At one point in the ancient past, Tianlu is out looking for food, and happens across a glade, through which appears a small, one legged chicken. Just as Tianlu tries to eat the chicken, however, another larger beast snatches it up, then another, and another, and another... until we get to a giant sauropod like beast that happens to be the very thing Tianlu is standing on, which causes him to panic and run off of its back as it starts moving again, nearly being stomped by the beast before being saved by a flying red puffball passing nearby.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In the cartoon, Jinjiao and Yinjiao list off the valuables they lost to Pixiu's ravenous hunger to Sibuxiang, which consists of several notable artifacts from Chinese Mythology... and a Sixingdui era bronzeware vase (an entirely mundane, if important, treasure) and a Beijing area license plate.
• Ate the Plate: Pixiu is often shown eating the serving dishes and cups instead of normal food when dining, enough that Diting had to blacklist them from the underworld after Pixiu ate through all of his mansion's tableware and treasures.
• Big Eater: Tianlu is regularly shown eating impossibly huge meals, such as statues and large machines.
• Black Comedy: Tianlu eating the chickens when he breaches the chicken car, up to and including leaving two alive as Food Reserves A and B.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Strip 57 does this as each of the characters wonder who's the main character.
• Cats Love Laser Pointers: During the Mountain God Quarterly Meeting, the head mountain god Dafa uses a laser pointer to point at a board containing important regulatory information on how the mountains are supposed to be run. However, due to the mountain gods all being cats, they promptly all start chasing after the laser pointer dot, causing them to get into a big brawl, leading to Shanque coming out on top, laser pointer in hand.
• Comical Overreacting: When his shop was demolished due to renovations, Sibuxiang immediately ran off to live a secluded life in the mountains in a fit of rage, despite Tuye's offer of letting Sibuxiang simply move in with him for a while.
• Compressed Adaptation: Due to the comics numbering in the hundreds when the cartoon was first made (now just past one thousand), the cartoon chooses to only adapt certain significant character moments and plot relevant strips rather than all of them, with many strips having no cartoon equivalent.
  • For example, the first two seasons only adapt Pixiu coming to the Luren (Deerman) Store, his encounter with Jinjiao and Yinjiao, the introductions of Tubaoshu, Tuye, Tuye's burrow, Diting, Taotie, Zhanhu, and Squirrel, as well as merging several strips' story beats together in a single episode:
    • Diting's introduction in the cartoon combines both his initial introduction in the comic strip searching for a way to rest from his hard days of work, and the strip where he is shown managing Qinming Festival deliveries to the inhabitants of the underworld.
    • The New Years celebration happens concurrently with Pixiu helping Sibuxiang with his illness by having him sleep on his empowered body.
• Continuity Nod: To other works in FENZ's modern mythical webcomics:
  • In Episode 5, after the visitors coming to pet Pixiu rub all of the fur off of his back and butt, Sibuxiang takes out one of Li Jing's Immortal Shampoos to restore his hair, only for it to grow into a large fur mat covering his body, which Tuye has to cut down.
• Couch Gag: Season 5's end credits has Sibuxiang fishing in a pond and at the end of it, he catches something that's related to the episode.
• Crossover Cameo: Shares some (especially in the cartoon) with fellow Chinese webcomic Fei Ren Zai, which the artist has worked on due to both being published by the Chinese webcomic publisher/cartoon maker FENZ.
  • In early strips of the comic, Baize from Fei Ren Zai is a reoccurring character, albeit in his animal form, being friends with Diting. This is evident by his appearance in strip 78, where he is shown in his human form being taken back to Guanyin's house.
  • In strip 51 of the comic, Longmao and Maolong mention being menaced by a three headed, six armed child, which is a dead ringer for Nezha, and, later in the same strip, we cut to a panel of the cast of Fei Ren Zai (including Ao Lie, Nezha, Jiuyue and Xiaotian) reacting to them putting a dragon tendon belt they got from a goat man on sale with disgust, trying to buy it up. Said goat man is also implied to be Nick Holt from All Saints Street.
  • In episode 2 of the animation, one of the creatures that live in heaven is shown to be Ao Lie, the Chinese dragon who is Jiuyue's coworker in Fei Ren Zai
  • In episode 5 of the animation, one of the people who shows up to pet Pixiu is Jiuyue, the Asian Fox Spirit protagonist of Fei Ren Zai.
  • In episode 10 of the animation, after Taotie becomes a Twinkle in the Sky, the Eye Catch section shows him landing on Xingtian's neck, which Xingtian is overjoyed by, as he finally has another head to use.
  • In episode 12 of the animation, Sibuxiang at one point pulls out the 1st manhua volume of Fei Ren Zai to read while he is sick.
  • Episode 21/Strip 106 is about how Tuye is the only Moon Rabbit who likes mooncakes, and makes explicit reference to a golden haired, green bowtied, rabbit being the leader of mooncake production on the moon, who is Xiaoyu from Fei Ren Zai.
  • Episode 28 features Lord Phoenix's bird concert, which has Jingwei and Haiyan show up in their bird forms, once again throwing stones into the drinks at the concert.
  • In episode 33 of the animated series, Jiu Yue appears in her fox form briefly to cheer up Fuku and Hetao with her tail puppets, just like in Fei Ren Zai Episode 11 before being called away. Later on the events of episode 17 can be seen in the background where Nezha knocks out Xiaotian with a baseball bat in order to get him onto a plane.
  • In Episode 41, Kulou gives Diting some monitoring equipment to keep track of Baize, one scene even showing Baize lounging around Guanyin's house, alongside Red Boy (in his bull demon form) and Nezha (looking like a living lotus root) playing around, with Red Boy setting Baize's tail on fire with his True Fire of Sahmadhi. This scene in particular is based on the opening of Episode 63 of Fei Ren Zai.
• Crossover Cosmology: In addition to Chinese Mythology, the series uses characters from Japanese Mythology at times, namely Fuku and her family of Inari Foxes.
  • Chapter 194 has Diting at the Global Underworld Conference, in which he discusses underworld political matters the pets of various gods of the dead. More specifically: Orochi representing Izunami, Cerberus representing Hades, and "Demon A" representing Satan.
• Elixir of Life: Episode 34 of the animation focuses on Squirrel, Tubaoshu's main employee. Being a squirrel, he's a Short-Lived Organism, and so, when he goes on a funeral trip for his dad, Tubaoshu, Jinjiao and Yinjiao freak out after learning that he died at the age of seven, with Squirrel about halfway there at three and a half years old. Resolving to keep him alive beyond that point, Jinjiao and Yinjiao use their alchemical expertise to brew up an equivalent to the immortality food found in heaven, which is good enough to give each of the squirrels in Squirrel's clan an extra year of life, though not full immortality as most of the ingredients are not found on earth.
• External Retcon: Later in the series, we get some flashbacks to the mythical past, when beasts still roamed freely, revealing that the tales told about those beasts are inaccurate at best. For example: the Hundun and Dijiang were separate beings who mated with each other and adopted the Pixiu twins (Dijiang retains the body, and Hundun retains the name), they captured the last sun crow, saving it from getting shot down by Houyi but causing the ice age in the process, Dijiang died from letting go of the sunbird, Sibuxiang's original form is a Qiling instead of the fusion of four different mundane beasts, and Hundun didn't actively partake in the antics of his fellow Four Perils.
• Fantastic Diet Requirement: While Tianlu can eat "normal" food and enjoys doing so, his favorite thing to eat is treasure. Valuables are an important part of a healthy diet for him, often taking the form of precious metals.
• Father, I Want to Marry My Brother: When the Pixiu twins first meet Sibuxiang's parents, and are introduced to the concept of reproduction, Tianlu suggests that he could make babies with Bixie. Causing him to get struck by lightning, repeatedly.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Episode 51 of the donghua has Pipi eat a mushroom that switches his mind with Tuye's. Shennanigans include Pipi (in Tuye's body) eating dog food but since the latter's stomach is sensitive, at the end of the episode, Pipi had nature's calling all over Tuye's home.
• Food Fight: One of the episodes of the donghua (based on strip 77 of the manhua) has the members of the Luren Shop throwing watermelons at each other after getting some to cope with a hot summer's day, which escalates to the point where Tiger Mount uses Taotie to spit whole watermelons everywhere, leading to the shop getting wrecked.
• The Four Perils: Naturally, since all Four are Chinese mythical beasts, all of them appear at some point in the story:
  • Taotie is the only one of the Four Perils to appear in the modern day, and retains his goat horns, human arms, eyes in armpits, and wings. However, he got so hungry in the past that he ate his entire lower half leaving him with no legs, causing him to appear as a Waddling Head. This has caused him to try putting himself on the heads of other beasts to find a new one, but to no avail. Similarly, due to his eyes being in an inconvenient location, he's got an obsession with facial fashion, drawing a pair of working eyes onto his face with makeup, and generally having to remake them every time he gets beat up. Which is often, as he often touts his strength as one of said Four Perils to people around him, despite being easily defeated.
  • Hundun appears as two beasts, the Dijiang, who retains the familiar round body with no orifices or face but with six legs and two wings, and the Hundun proper, who is a multicolor winged dog who is entirely blind and moves around based on scent. Dijiang found and adopted the young Pixiu twins, then fell in love with Hundun, who both formed a family together. Unfortunately, they captured one of the 10 original Sun Crows to feed Dijiang with her light, which caused the Ice Age to occur when the remaining Sun Crows got shot down by Houyi. Dijiang, who loved all life, proceeded to release said Sun Crow to save the world from dying, but causing herself to starve to death. Upon the ending of the Ice Age, Hundun grew distraught and tried challenging the sun, but got badly burned in the process, being adopted by Qiongqi as the fourth member of the Four Perils, although she didn't actively attack any humans herself. Eventually, after being reunited with Tianlu and Bixie, she witnessed the last vestiges of Dijiang's spirit floating off into the world, and, growing distraught, tried absorbing all of it, causing her to turn into the mountains of Yunnan outside the Deerman shop.
  • Qiongqi and Taowu appear in the distant past, after the appearance of humanity, who adopted Taotie and Hundun after finding them out in the wild, roping them into raiding and pillaging various human settlements, which was what got them the Four Perils moniker in the first place. It's implied Bixie ate them after he blamed them for Hundun's death.
• Getting Eaten Is Harmless: Creatures can easily live on in Tianlu's stomach after being eaten by him, with Bixie spending most of his time in there, raising a bunch of chickens that live in his stomach.
• Impostor All Along: In Chapter 400, it's revealed that Heaven gave Sibuxiang's name to a random deer along with a mask from the remains of the original that would allow him to impersonate the qilin for the sake of keeping Pixiu at bay.
• Kicked Out of Heaven:
  • The rulers of heaven decided that they don't want people to just laze around in Heaven, and so forcefully sent Sibuxiang down to Earth to help his fellow mythical beasts. They at least buy him insurance on his way down.
  • Jinjiao and Yinjiao used to serve the Supreme Venerable Sovereign (a.k.a. Laozi's divine form) by tending to the Sovereign's furnace, but got kicked to the mortal world as punishment for causing a furnace accident that ruined the elixirs being made.
• Kirin: Qilin, the original Chinese depiction of Kirin, start appearing later in the comic and cartoon, having all been birthed from the Primordial (Shi) and Jade (Yu) Qilin who first appeared at the dawn of time. Together, they had many children, and Shiqilin eventually shows up in the modern day insisting that Sibuxiang is his son and that his store should raise some of his unhatched eggs. This is because the original Sibuxiang is also a Qilin, and the modern day Sibuxiang is an imposter of him.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Due to the existence of mythical Chinese beasts from Chinese Mythology, and with many of these beasts as well as many mundane beasts being sapient, the overall setting of the story is this, with most of the story focused on the locales that have more notable beasts, like the wilds of Yunnan, The Underworld, Heaven (the Home of the Gods, Celestial Bureaucracy version), or the mythical and ancient past.
• Stomach of Holding: Tianlu can store a lot of things in his stomach at once, to the point where a sort of society of chickens ends up forming in there. While he can't regurgitate items on command, Bixie, his brother who lives in his stomach, can bring items back out of Tianlu's stomach through the mouth.
• Mundane Afterlife: From what we see of The Underworld, it is much like our world, with blazingly hot hot pot, it's own local currency, it's own local sightseeing destinations, including it's own tourist marketplace with a store that sells Meng Po Soup boba tea, and a Celestial Bureaucracy managed by Diting that delivers Qinming Festival sacrifices to all its ghostly residents.
• Mushroom Samba: In episode 7 of the animated series, Tianlu goes on a crazy drug trip of hallucinations after unknowingly eating a poisonous mushroom out of the mushrooms Bajin and Erliang collected.
• Mundane Utility: One comic strip features the Luren Shop employees using Diting as an icepack, as his nature as an inhabitant of The Underworld fills him with icy yin energy, to cool down with.
  • Another shows Sibuxiang and Tuye using their animal forms to win at a race, only for this this to backfire as Tianlu and Zhanhu find them very, very tasty prey.
• Non-Humans Lack Attributes: Zig-Zagged
  • Averted with beasts like Zhanhu and Erliang, who are usually drawn with a pair of balls in situations where they're visible.
  • Justified with Pixiu, as it is a mythological fact that they don't have buttholes, representative of the wealth and evil spirits within them not leaking out.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Chugou is devoid of sex or gender, but for sake of convenience is treated as a male most of the time.
• Poison Is Corrosive: The “medicine” Pixiu made for Sibuxiang burned a hole in his bedsheets, along with giving off skull-shaped vapor clouds and inducing immediate projectile vomiting.
• Rainbow Puke: Pretty much every time someone throws up in the cartoon, the vomit is rainbow colored. This includes Pixiu and Erliang when they eat hallucinogenic mushrooms.
  • Notably, Tubaoshu throws up her gemstones instead of normal vomit. 
• Rapid Hair Growth: After Pixiu’s fur is rubbed off by excessive petting, Sibuxiang applies some baldness ointment, which makes his hair grow so long as to fill the room.
• Read the Fine Print: In the cartoon, Sibuxiang convinces Pixiu to sign his contract pledging his services to him by simply offering him tons of treasure to eat. Pixiu is so giddy at the prospect he immediately inks each and every page with his paw prints without reading that this means Sibuxiang can do whatever he wants with him, like making him live in a dog house or advertising a petting service.
• Running Gag:
  • Pixiu/Tianlu trying to eat absolutely everything he gets his paws on.
  • Diting solving all his problems by laying close to the ground and asking it questions.
  • In the cartoon, Erliang and Bajin picking mushrooms constantly, with Erliang always picking unsafe mushrooms to feed to people.
• Shout-Out:
  • Tuye's collection of Sibuxiang themed art pieces are all based on existing art pieces, with Sibuxiang replacing one of the main subjects, with other characters (usually Tuye himself) replacing the others. In the comic, we have The Thinking Deer, MonaLiSi, and The Maddona Deer, while the cartoon adds The Statue of Sibuxiang, Discus Thrower Sibuxiang, Sibuxiang Sunflowers, GuerSica, The Night Watch of Si, Sipoleon, The Scream of Si, Card Playing Si, and The Birth of Sibuxiang.
  • On the wall of the Moon Palace Cafeteria shown in Episode 21 during Tuye's very first visit there, the motto on the wall reads "Every mooncake comes with toils and pains/饼饼皆辛苦," a clear riff on the famous Chinese poem Min Nong (悯农) about the hard life of Tang Dynasty farmers, which ends with the line "粒粒皆辛苦" (trans: "Every grain comes with toils and pains").
  • The Season 5 OP parodies a variety of movie posters with the Pixiu brothers in place of the main characters. In order: The Lion King (1994), Pipi Land, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), The Shining, P.I., and Leon.
• Superhuman Trafficking: The very first page involves the main protagonist, Tianlu, running away from people - including the government - who want to capture him in order to use his powers of good luck.
• Urban Fantasy: The majority of the comic takes place in modern day China, the only difference being the existence of mythical beasts who walk the streets.
• Wham Episode: Every hundred comics of the webcomic delivers a major progression of the Myth Arc regarding Pixiu.
  • Episode 100: A red Pixiu crawls out of the main Pixiu's stomach, revealing that the occassionally mentioned brother of Pixiu's is still alive and in hiding for unknown reasons. Adapted into Episodes 24 and 25 of the cartoon.
  • Episode 200: Walnut enters Sibuxiang's dreams and witnesses a battle between Tianlu and Bixie. But before he can even ask, Sibuxiang tells him that he cant tell anyone about it, implying that he knows more than he lets on.
  • Episode 300: In the distant past, a white-furred qilin rescues Bixie, claiming his name is Sibuxiang. However, this one bears little resemblance to the more familiar Sibuxiang the audience is familiar with. Adapted into Episode 37 of the cartoon.
  • Episode 400: Tianlu is held accountable after Sibuxiang was killed by a Pixiu for reasons unknown. He seeks revenge upon heaven and heaven, and heaven is unable to kill him to prevent this, revealing why his memories have been suppressed. Finally, the Sibuxiang we've been following is an impostor deer wearing the remains of the original Sibuxiang to keep Tianlu passive.
  • Episode 500: Bixie finally learns that Tianlu has no memories of him and questions Sibuxiang for answers.
  • Episode 600: The Pixiu siblings reunite with Hundun at Dijiang's grave. However, while attempting to dig her up, they discover her body has dissipated into pure magic to be returned to the earth. A grief-stricken Hundun tries to absorb the light in a vain attempt to preserve her love, and in the process turns into the Yunnan Mountains themselves. Adapted into Episode 48 of the cartoon.
  • Episode 700: Kulou pokes the pelt of the captured beast down in the underworld and causes unrest in all three realms. The beast is revealed to be none other than Taowu, the long missing and assumed dead third member of The Four Perils.
  • Episode 800: Gazing into a magic mirror that reveals one's true form, Tianlu finally sees through the Glamour that disguises Sibuxiang as a qilin. His memories don't return, but the revelation shocks him into attacking Sibuxiang and running away from Deerman's.
  • Episode 900: Sibuxiang finally takes off his mask, exposing himself as an imposter and restoring Tianlu's memories in full.
  • In addition, the cartoon has a Wham Episode every Season Finale (every 12 episodes), on top of the aforementioned Episode 24 and Episode 48:
    • Episode 12: Previously, Pixiu's true form didn't appear in Episode 4, which corresponds with the strip it was originally introduced in in the comic. This episode shows off his full form in animation for the first time, while also ending with Foreshadowing of future Wham Episodes with Taotie asking how can Sibuxiang fall sick if he's a mythical beast.
    • Episode 36: In the ancient past, after Dijiang and Hundun caputure one of the sun crows, all the other ones get shot down (presumably by Houyi), causing the world to fall into an ice age, threatening to end all life. Dijiang, realizing the magnitude of the situation, willingly gives up the last sun crow in order to bring life back to the land, but starving to death in the process due to lack of light. In the aftermath of the ice age, Hundun, Tianlu and Bixie realize that Dijiang is not moving, and Hundun, in a fit of rage, attempts to reach up into the heavens to recapture the last Sun Crow, only to (apparently) get burned to death by its radiance. Tianlu and Bixie promptly go underground to hibernate to await Dijiang's awakening, leading into the next season.
• Whole Episode Flashback: Episode 25/Strip 107 feature this, explaining what exactly was happening with Bixie as he rolled around Tianlu's belly for the past episodes/strips.
• Work Off the Debt: Sibuxiang's main way of getting and retaining employees: forcing them to work off the various debts they incur after they arrive at his shop. Such as forcing Pixiu to foot the bill for his dog food, or charging Erliang and Bajin for returning Pixiu to the store after poisoning him with hallucinogenic mushrooms.