July 18 Short Drama Top 10: AI Takes Seven of Hongguo's Latest Ten (2026)

Snapshot and caveat

Data cutoff: July 19, 2026, 08:00 China Standard Time (UTC+8). The latest complete public Hongguo snapshot I could verify by that cutoff is the July second-week heat chart, published by 骨朵网络影视 on July 18 at 15:49 China Standard Time. It is not presented here as a fabricated July 18 daily scrape. The chart ranks ten titles by Hongguo heat; all ten rows below are therefore Hongguo entries, with AI/manhua titles labeled explicitly. 1

The chart image reports seven AI/manhua titles and three live-action titles. A cross-platform check did not surface a comparable public July 18 Kuaishou ranking; Rednote results were individual clips rather than a like-for-like chart, and no verified Douyin play-count snapshot was available. Those signals are not blended into the Hongguo order below.

The board at a glance

Rank	Drama	Type / genre	Platform	Episodes	Hongguo heat
1	万妖图录传第八季 (Wanyao Tuluzhuan Season 8)	AI/manhua · fantasy cultivation	Hongguo	Not listed in checked source	89.19m 1
2	都重生了，谁还装富二代啊第二季 (Dou Chongsheng Le, Shui Hai Zhuang Fu Erdai A? Season 2)	AI/manhua · urban rebirth	Hongguo	69 2	67.11m 1
3	山野奶爸，大力士老爸带娃记 (Shanye Naiba, Dalishi Laoba Daiwa Ji)	AI/manhua · rural brain-teaser / family	Hongguo	184 3	64.11m 1
4	号外，重生大佬掉马甲了 (Hao Wai, Chongsheng Dalao Diao Majia Le)	AI/manhua · rebirth/status-reversal	Hongguo	Not listed in checked source	64.05m 1
5	野火燎原 (Ye Huo Liaoyuan / Wildfire)	Live action · urban romance / revenge	Hongguo	72 4	63.36m 1
6	勇敢后妈，专治不服 (Yonggan Houma, Zhuanzhi Bufu)	Live action · family / domestic	Hongguo	71 5	63.17m 1
7	发配边关，罪妻开荒养出战神第七季 (Fapei Bianguan, Zuiqi Kaihuang Yangchu Zhanshen Season 7)	AI/manhua · frontier farming / historical fantasy	Hongguo	109 6	60.06m 1
8	剑归 (Jian Gui / Sword's Return)	Live action · new wuxia	Hongguo	72 7	52.94m 1
9	穿成破产太子爷的刁蛮前女友 (Chuan Cheng Pochan Taiziye de Diaoman Qian Nüyou)	Live action · sweet romance / time-slip	Hongguo	72 8	52.40m 1
10	烬九州第四季 (Jin Jiuzhou Season 4)	AI/manhua · historical fantasy	Hongguo	91 9	60.06m 1

The heat values and row order above transcribe the chart image attached to the July second-week report. The source displays 烬九州第四季 at No. 10 with 60.06m, higher than the No. 7 and No. 8 rows; that is a source-display anomaly, not a silent re-sort by this digest. 1

What is driving each title

1. 万妖图录传第八季 — 89.19m

The summit belongs to a long-running AI fantasy line rather than a one-off live-action launch. The source describes the series as continuously expandable across seasons and reports cumulative play above 6bn, a combination that helps explain why a fresh-season title can hold a large heat gap over the rest of the board. 1

2. 都重生了，谁还装富二代啊第二季 — 67.11m

This is the chart's urban-rebirth counterpoint to the fantasy and farming cluster. Its second-season status and 69-episode listing give the title a ready-made continuation hook and a substantial viewing runway, while the No. 2 position shows that the current AI/manhua surge is not limited to cultivation stories. 1 2

3. 山野奶爸，大力士老爸带娃记 — 64.11m

The rural family premise gives the AI side a softer, more domestic lane: children, country life and an exaggerated strength-and-survival hook. The related Baidu Baike entry lists 184 episodes, the longest verified run in this table, which supports a serial, high-volume viewing model rather than a compact prestige format. 1 3

4. 号外，重生大佬掉马甲了 — 64.05m

A rebirth-and-identity-reveal hook places another AI/manhua title inside the top four. The important signal is its adjacency to No. 2 and No. 3: the chart is rewarding repeatable reversal engines across urban, rural and fantasy settings, not just one visual genre. The checked sources did not provide a reliable episode count, so none is supplied here. 1

5. 野火燎原 — 63.36m

This is the only live-action title in the chart's top five, giving a real-person production a clear foothold against four AI/manhua entries. Its 72-episode listing, Zhang Chi–Hou Chengyue pairing and urban romance/revenge setup provide the conventional star-and-conflict package that can still break through when the board is heavily AI-led. 1 4

6. 勇敢后妈，专治不服 — 63.17m

Family conflict is the other live-action lane that survives the chart's upper half. The 71-episode listing and the story's stepmother-and-child household frame offer a warmer, recognizably domestic counterweight to the AI titles' cultivation, rebirth and frontier-survival loops. 1 5

7. 发配边关，罪妻开荒养出战神第七季 — 60.06m

The seventh-season label and 109-episode listing make this one of the clearest examples of the long-tail franchise logic behind the AI side of the board. Its frontier-farming premise also sits exactly where the source says AI/manhua is strongest: repeatable cultivation, survival and reversal beats that can be extended season after season. 1 6

8. 剑归 — 52.94m

The new-wuxia title is a live-action outlier with a different kind of attention engine: Li Lianjie is credited as a special appearance, and the 72-episode series launched as a complete release on Hongguo. That celebrity and genre hook did not translate into a top-five weekly heat position here, but it keeps real-person wuxia visible below the two family-and-romance holdouts. 1 7

9. 穿成破产太子爷的刁蛮前女友 — 52.40m

This is the chart's sweet-romance live-action slot, positioned near the bottom rather than the upper-half breakthrough occupied by 《野火燎原》 and 《勇敢后妈，专治不服》. The 72-episode listing confirms a full short-drama package, while the chart's own genre split places this kind of romance among the few remaining live-action lanes. 1 8

10. 烬九州第四季 — 60.06m as displayed

The fourth-season AI/manhua entry closes the source's ten-row board with a displayed 60.06m. A contemporaneous update listing gives the season 91 episodes; because the chart places this value at No. 10, readers should treat it as the source's row-level display rather than assume the list has been numerically sorted. 1 9

Three patterns worth carrying forward

1. AI/manhua has the majority, and the majority is concentrated at the top. Seven of the ten rows are AI/manhua, and four of the top five are AI/manhua. The gap is not simply a matter of count: the No. 1 title sits at 89.19m, while the first live-action title appears at No. 5 with 63.36m. 1

2. The two sides are separating by story engine. AI/manhua occupies cultivation, rebirth, rural superpower, frontier farming and historical-fantasy lanes. Live action keeps urban romance, family drama, sweet romance and new wuxia. That is a sharper split than a simple live-action-versus-animation label: each side is building a different repeat-viewing promise. 1

3. Seasoning and runway matter. The visible AI side includes Season 2, Season 4, Season 7 and Season 8, while the verified episode counts run as high as 184 and 109. The board is therefore measuring accumulated franchise habit as much as a single launch burst. The next useful check is whether the July 17–18 live-action premieres can convert their initial attention into a comparable multi-day hold.

Bottom line: The latest complete public snapshot says Hongguo's top ten is no longer a mostly live-action shelf with occasional animation. It is an AI/manhua-led chart with three real-person counterweights, and the remaining live-action wins are concentrated in stories whose emotional stakes are immediately legible: romance, family and a recognizable star-powered wuxia hook.

July 18 Short Drama Top 10: AI Takes Seven of Hongguo's Latest Ten