Is There a Reverend Insanity Anime? What Actually Exists

There is no Reverend Insanity anime. No studio has made one, no streaming platform carries one, and nobody has announced one. When we searched for the novel's Chinese title, 蛊真人, on October 24, iQIYI told us "抱歉，没有找到相关视频" ("sorry, no related videos found"), and the anime tab of Bilibili's search came back empty.

So why do the searches keep coming? Because plenty of things look like an anime from a distance. There's an official manhua, two short AI-made films the author supervised himself, and a steady stream of fan videos. Here's what each one is.

Why There's No Reverend Insanity Anime

The short version is the ban. Gu Zhen Ren's novel was serialized on Qidian from 2012 until it was removed in 2019 during a national campaign against online literature. According to Wikipedia, it "has never been restored there," and Tencent's reading app WeRead keeps a page for it marked as withdrawn. The text stops right before the final battle.

Wikipedia's adaptations section lists exactly two things, and neither is animated: an official manhua and a fan-made remake of it. Nothing on the big Chinese streaming platforms is labeled as a licensed show. Tencent Video's search does turn up two 2D animated series called 蛊真人, one at 16 episodes and one at 61, both tagged 原创动画 ("original animation"). Each was posted by a small personal account: the 16-episode one by 古月秋明, with 435 followers, and the 61-episode one by 雕真人剧场, with 167. Neither page credits a studio or a license, so we treat both as fan-made, not a studio series.

The Closest Thing to a Reverend Insanity Anime: The Manhua

The only licensed adaptation is a comic. Ran Hui Culture (燃绘文化) drew it for Tencent Comics, where the page says it was adapted "经腾讯动漫授权" (under license from Tencent Comics) from the Qidian novel. It went up on October 26, 2018, and is marked 已完结, completed. It has a 9.5 rating from 7,617 readers.

Screenshot: Tencent Comics, 蛊真人 manhua page, October 24, 2026

We counted the chapter list. Its 101 entries include a preview and three notices, so there are 97 story chapters. The first 32 are free and the remaining 65 are paid. The last one is called 锯齿金蜈, which we'd translate as "Saw-tooth Golden Centipede," and Wikipedia says the whole manhua follows the novel's opening arc in the Gu Yue clan.

We read episode 1 for free. It opens on the novel's first scene: Fang Yuan, white-haired and surrounded by the righteous sects, is told to hand over the Spring Autumn Cicada. He tosses them one, it blows up in their hands because it's a fake, and he shouts "我方源不悔入魔道" ("I, Fang Yuan, do not regret taking the demonic path"). If you've read chapter 1 of the novel, you know this scene.

In English, the same comic is on Webnovel under the author name Ranhui Culture, with 91 chapters and 4.1 million views. Webnovel's own page description calls it an "Anime written by the author Ranhui Culture," which may explain some of the confusion. It's a comic.

Screenshot: Webnovel, Reverend Insanity comic page, October 24, 2026

Why we don't recommend starting with the manhua, and where to begin the novel.

Reverend Insanity Reading Guide →

The AI Shorts Gu Zhen Ren Supervised

This is the part most English write-ups miss. Gu Zhen Ren joined Bilibili in 2025; the account 作家蛊真人 carries Bilibili's personal verification as "网文作家蛊真人" (web novel author Gu Zhen Ren) and has 475,000 followers. That year a studio called 异类Outliers posted two short films on Bilibili with him attached.

The first, 《大爱仙尊》最强还原 全网首播, went up on June 14, 2025 and runs 3 minutes 27 seconds. Great Love Immortal Venerable (大爱仙尊) is the title Fang Yuan gives himself, and it's what many Chinese fans call the book. The page lists two directors, says "本视频由作者@蛊真人 监制" ("this video was supervised by the author @Gu Zhen Ren"), and credits his account as 编剧, screenwriter. Bilibili labels it 含AI生成内容, "contains AI-generated content." It had 4.3 million plays when we checked.

The second, a 6-minute-54-second short about the Legends of Ren Zu, the creation myth woven through the novel, followed on September 5, 2025, with the same credits and an AIGC tag.

Screenshot: Bilibili, 《大爱仙尊》最强还原 全网首播, October 24, 2026

Logged out, Bilibili only gave us a 30-second preview, so we haven't watched either short in full. Even at full length they come to about ten minutes. They show the author is willing to put his name on moving pictures of his story, which matters. But two shorts on a video site aren't a season, and neither page announces one.

Fan Animations, Most of Them AI

Everything else is fan-made. A typical example: an "AI漫剧" (AI comic drama) episode posted on July 8, 2026 by an account called 松楠剧制, four minutes long, with 344,000 plays. Its own description says it is "AI 生成内容（已勾选 AI 标识），非商业同人" (AI-generated, labeled as such, non-commercial fan work). Bilibili's sidebar next to it was full of similar videos.

English-speaking fans noticed. A February thread on r/ReverendInsanity, "Chinese RI fans have started using AI to produce RI anime," drew nearly 500 upvotes. The top comment, from u/BackEndLag, said "I'm so starved for RI content that this genuinely made me pretty excited to watch, imagining a quality adaptation of my favorite work ever." Not everyone was charmed: u/PureKin21 replied "Can we please not associate peak with slop," and u/hyprgehrn, explaining an earlier joke, wrote "I was sarcastic, because we will never get the real donghua."

There's also a hand-drawn fan comic. Kodoku Studio, which describes itself as "a fan-led team creating the Reverend Insanity manhwa from storyboard to final color," began its remake in 2025 and pays for it through Patreon. It isn't licensed, and it's a comic too.

Another dark Qidian novel that did get a donghua, and how far it covers the book.

Lord of the Mysteries Novel vs Donghua →

Will There Be a Reverend Insanity Anime?

We found no announcement. What we found points both ways. The novel is still off Qidian and its Chinese text has never been finished. But the author is still published there: Wikipedia notes his current serial, Xian Gong Kai Wu, has been running on Qidian since April 2024, and his own account is credited on the 2025 shorts. A studio series would need a platform willing to put money behind a book that was pulled from that same ecosystem. Until one of them says so, treat any "Reverend Insanity anime release date" you see as a fan video or a guess.

Our Take

Don't wait for a Reverend Insanity anime. Read the novel. The official English translation on Webnovel covers all 2,334 chapters, and the first chapters do the job the manhua does, with the narration that makes Fang Yuan work. If you want faces for the names, the manhua's free first 32 chapters are a fine warm-up, and the author-supervised shorts are worth a look out of curiosity. Just don't mistake any of it for a series.

How We Checked This

On October 24, 2026 we read episode 1 of the official manhua on Tencent Comics, logged out, and recorded the full chapter list with its free and paid markers. We opened the Webnovel comic page, the two 异类Outliers shorts and their credits on Bilibili, Gu Zhen Ren's verified Bilibili profile, and the 松楠剧制 AI episode, and searched iQIYI, Tencent Video and Bilibili's anime tab for 蛊真人. We read Wikipedia's article on the novel, Kodoku Studio's site and the comments on the r/ReverendInsanity thread quoted above. On October 29 we opened the 61-episode Tencent Video series as well, to see who posted it. We haven't watched any of the videos in full; Bilibili limited us to 30-second previews.

Related Reading

• Reverend Insanity Review
• Reverend Insanity Reading Guide
• Novels Like Reverend Insanity
• Reverend Insanity Ending Explained
• Reverend Insanity's Gu System Explained

References

• Wikipedia: Reverend Insanity
• Tencent Comics: 蛊真人 manhua
• Tencent Comics: 蛊真人 episode 1
• Webnovel: Reverend Insanity comic
• Webnovel: Reverend Insanity novel
• Bilibili: 《大爱仙尊》最强还原 全网首播
• Bilibili: 《大爱仙尊》人祖传 最强还原 全网首发
• Bilibili: 作家蛊真人
• Bilibili: AI漫剧《蛊真人》 EP01
• r/ReverendInsanity: Chinese RI fans have started using AI to produce RI anime