Genshin Impact (Season 4)

The fourth season of the British-Japanese Shonen anime series *Genshin Impact* aired from February to November 2023, for a total of 40 episodes. The season was broadcast on TV Tokyo in Japan, and was released digitally on Netflix internationally. The season is based on Act 4 of Chapter 2, and the entirety of Chapter 3 of the miHoYo action-roleplaying video game of the same name, and was directed by Jay Stevenson, being produced by J-Animations. The season's soundtrack was produced by HOYO-MIX, featuring songs from the video game, in collaboration with Shiro Sagisu. The season features four theme songs: "Everlasting Shine" by Tomorrow X Together and "Sakurabito" by Sunset Swish serve as the first opening and ending themes respectively that ran for the first 20 episodes; "Senkou Shoujo" by Tokyo Incidents and "Film Out" by BTS serve as the second opening and ending themes respectively that ran from the remainder of the season.

*Genshin Impact* follows Aether, a teenager from another world who arrives with his twin sister Lumine in a world called Teyvat, where they fight Asmoday, an unknown god who watches over Teyvat. The siblings are separated and Aether, alongside his companion Paimon, travels through different regions in order to re-unite with Lumine, who landed 500 years prior to Aether and is a leader of the Abyss Order. Season 4 is split into 3 segments: the first 6 episodes are 60 minutes long and focus on the mountain of Dragonspine in Mondstadt and the Chasm in Liyue, featuring storylines with Dainsleif, Xiao, Yanfei, Yelan, Arataki Itto, Kuki Shinobu, Albedo, Eula, Bennett and Amber. The subsequent 14 episodes follow Aether and Paimon as they enter Sumeru, a rainforest and desert region, and team up with Tighnari, Chief Officer of the Forest Rangers, to investigate a series of disappearances across the county which Aether believes may be connected to the Abyss Order and, as a result, his sister. The original storyline ends abruptly in episode 20 and episode 21 begins adapting all 6 acts of Chapter 3, whereby Tighnari's mentee Collei falls ill due to a Sumeru endemic and is treated by a Fatui Harbringer known as The Doctor, and Aether and Paimon experience a series of peculiar events during their time in Sumeru, including being trapped in the looping Sabzeruz Festival caused by the Six Great Sages of Sumeru Akademiya. They are assisted in their investigations of said events by Nahida, the Dendro Archon, and the story centres around the characters' efforts to uncover the sages' plans, recruit allies such as Alhaitham, Cyno and Deyha, and unravel the mysteries surrounding Sumeru's scholars and their ties to powerful entities like the Akademiya and the Fatui.

Development of the season began in early 2022 and was notoriously troubled. According to staff at J-Animations, miHoYo refused to co-operate efficiently with the animation studio, with holding the main plot of the video game which miHoYo has stated was due to suspected leaks emerging from the animation studio. Because of this, J-Animations only had information about certain areas of Sumeru, and certain Sumeru characters, leading them to produce their own original storyline for the first half of the season until Chapter 3 of the video game was released in Summer 2022. After the plot was eventually divulged to J-Animations after the introduction of the region in the video game, the original storyline was quickly resolved and work began on adapting the video game's story faithfully in the shorter run of episodes left in the season. Despite being a faithful adaptation of its source material, a key issue that arose is the role of Scaramouche, who survives Chapter 2 in-game but was killed in the anime. Thus, Scaramouche is replaced in his role by a new character known as Tezchnomin who serves as a substitute for Scaramouche's role in Chapter 3, albeit with certain story aspects being scrapped. Unlike the previous two seasons, which added and changed a lot of content, season 4 actively cuts content from the source material as a result of its shorter runtime.

Zach Aguilar reprises his role as Aether, joined alongside by Corina Boettger as Paimon. Multiple other characters reprise their roles, including Yuri Lowenthal as Dainsleif, Johnny Yong Bosch as Xiao, Lizzie Freeman as Yanfei, Max Mittelman as Arataki Itto, Kira Buckland as Kuki Shinobu, Suzie Yeung as Eula, Cristina Valenzuela as Bennett and Kelly Baskin as Amber. Laura Post and Khoi Dao are introduced as Yelan and Albedo respectively. The supporting cast in Sumeru includes Kimberley Anne Campbell as Nahida, Zachary Gordon as Tighnari, Christina Costello as Collei, Nazeeh Tarsha as Alhaitham, Amber May as Dehya, Alejandro Saab as Cyno, Dani Chambers as Nilou, Shara Kirby as Candace, Anjali Kunapaneni as Dori and Ben Balmaceda as Kaveh. Jamieson Price plays Tezchnomin.

After the success of the series' third season, *Genshin Impact* season 4 was highly anticipated. Initially receiving positive reviews for its adaptation of story quests taking place in Dragonspine and the Chasm, the season received more mixed and negative reviews beginning with its Sumeru storyline. The original storyline was criticized by many as not having any significance to the over-arching story of the series. It was viewed as too slow-paced and low-stakes and didn't explore many characters or much of the region, dismissed as filler by the majority of viewers. Its abrupt conclusion was viewed as unsatisfactory and half-baked. The second half of the season was received even harsher: a significant amount of cut content resulted in complaints from fans of the video game who felt that J-Animations should have delayed the anime instead of continuing ahead with their original storyline - Jay disputed this, claiming he didn't think his animators' hard work should have gone to waste. The season's pacing was seen as inconsistent, and its characters were criticized for lacking development. Scaramouche's death in the previous season had been polarizing and received even more criticism during the airing of the fourth season as his replacement, Tezchnomin, was far less interesting and lacked the story connections Scaramouche had in-game. The series' art direction and animation were the aspect of praise, as were performances from the voice cast and the series' soundtrack.

Following the backlash received from the anime, miHoYo saw a 3% decrease in their player-base which they blamed on J-Animations, eventually taking them to court for failing to follow through their contracted agreement to adapt the video game both in its fourth season and its previous season. J-Animations argued creative liberty for season 3, and in response to the lawsuit counter-sued miHoYo for failing to divulge relevant production information from the game to the animation studio due to their fear of leaks. The court case proved to be a major news story, which ended with both parties coming to a mutual agreement and an undisclosed sum of money being paid to miHoYo by J-Animations in order to grant them creative control over their adaptation of the game. Following the trial, J-Animations announced that subsequent seasons of *Genshin Impact* would not be following the narrative of the video game: this announcement was highly controversial and resulted in significant backlash at the time.

The critical disappointment of the season damaged viewing numbers: the anime peaked at number 8 on Netflix's weekly top 10 most-viewed programmes. However, the series remained successful in Japan, peaking at 8 million viewers in an episode. Retrospectively, the season as viewed as the weakest from the series. The season was collected into 4 Blu-Ray volumes and was succeeded by a fifth season in 2025.