It drops you back exactly where the first series left a wound open: the runaway kid from Zenshinkyou and the woman who taught him everything inside a tomb nobody was supposed to enter, and a martial world that has already decided their love is obscene. That's the whole engine. Master and student, with every righteous sword in the land certain it knows better. The animation earns its existence by making Koboha technique into real motion, cold and weightless, the kind of fight choreography Jin Yong's prose only gestures at. Youka's smirk is armor, and the show never lets you forget who hammered it onto him, starting with Kakusei. Twenty-six episodes with two people who only ever had each other, and the best moments are the silences Shouryuujo doesn't bother filling.

Legend of the Condor Hero II picks up where Legend of the Condor Hero left off, returning to Youka and Shouryuujo: the boy who ran away from Zenshinkyou, and the woman he met in the Forbidden Tomb who agreed to teach him the Koboha techniques. The 26-episode TV series from 2005 carries on their story of martial arts and love, mixing adventure, drama and romance. The Chinese production aired on TVB.