One of the iconic members of Honkai: Star Rail’s Astral Express crew is Dan Heng, a character who is receiving a five-star variant as Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae in the Version 1.3 update.
Ahead of his debut, miHoYo shared an animated short on Aug. 28, providing a glimpse into his story. And since then, players have been making use of the excellent meme potential it provides.
In the “Animated Short: Ichor of Two Dragons” video, Dan Heng is reflecting on his past and confronting Dan Feng, the previous Imbibitor Lunae, in his mind. The duo have a few confrontations, and one of them leads to a particularly iconic scene where Dan Feng is looming ominously right behind Dan Heng.
Related: Should you pull for Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae in Honkai: Star Rail?
This scene is the main one that the community has been using to create memes. One player used it to represent the overall struggle that most players go through with gacha games like Honkai: Star Rail where you must always battle the urge to spend your pulls on the featured characters or save for future ones. This is especially true with how new the game is and with Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae’s imminent arrival since many players may have wanted to save for other characters but now want to pull for him much more after seeing this video.
Another fan shared an expectation vs. reality version of this scene, with their main desire being to pull for and obtain Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae compared to the reality that they’ll likely receive yet another March 7th instead. March 7th is one of the featured four-star recruits on Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae’s banner, so players are fairly likely to receive at least one or more of her to unlock her Eidolons as they pull for him. Most players have more than one of her already, so an E6 March 7th is a frustrating yet probable scenario for many Trailblazers.
Even the English voice actor for Dan Heng, Nicholas Leung, saw the potential of this scene and weighed in with a meme of his own.
Leung then followed up his meme with a reply underneath it, taking his idea even further and using another part of the video as a meme to represent it.
This particular meme shot is quite popular across all platforms as Honkai: Star Rail players have been using this shot to represent many different kinds of situations, whether they are instances from the game itself or more general life references.
But while most of the memes the community has created focus on the scene where Dan Feng hovers behind Dan Heng, the trailer is packed with moments just waiting for players to turn into memes, so a couple of other ones have also been made.
Near the end of the trailer, Dan Heng’s reflections on his Imbibitor Lunae burden and internal struggle with Dan Feng are interrupted by March 7th, who is trying to take a picture of him. Even though he’s deep in thought about his extremely traumatic past, Dan Heng puts up a peace sign and acts like everything is fine, which is where this player drew inspiration for the following meme.
Another meme shared by a member of the Honkai: Star Rail community features Dan Heng looking up peacefully, which is a scene near the end of the video, hoping that all will go right for the day and that he won’t have to fight his “evil shadow self.” The iconic Dan Feng looming behind Dan Heng then returns for the second half of this meme as he does indeed have to face his evil self.
As silly as these memes are, Honkai: Star Rail players are using it as a means to appreciate how stunning the video is overall and how excited they are for Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae to finally arrive in the Version 1.3 update. The comments under the YouTube video and across all the memes are extremely positive and impressed by the quality that miHoYo always brings, so these memes are all in good fun for fans to enjoy.
