Critical response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 94% approval rating with an average rating of 7.4/10, based on 53 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Jam-packed with inventive flourishes and grounded by lovable actors, American Born Chinese musters epic elements from Chinese mythology to tell a deeply relatable coming of age story." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 73 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Susana Polo of Polygon praised the show for the way it differs from the graphic novel, saying, "American Born Chinese shows a remarkable understanding of how to keep the spirit of a story while it's retrofitted for another medium and modern audience of young viewers," described the series as "clever, modern, serious, and funny all together," while complimented the performances of the cast. Joel Keller of Decider stated, "While it took a bit of time to get our bearings with regards to what's going on in the Heavenly Realm, we still enjoyed the first episode of American Born Chinese because of the earthly part of the story, as well as the well-done action sequences." Mike Hale of The New York Times asserted that American Born Chinese was "easy to watch but just as easy not to watch," saying it "strives to charm you in ways that may work or may make you wince from their familiarity."
Kristen Baldwin of Entertainment Weekly gave American Born Chinese an A− and described it as an "inviting blend of heartfelt coming-of-age humor and exhilarating martial-arts action." William Quant of IGN gave the series a grade of 8 out of 10, called it a "fun, bold reimagining of the American coming-of-age tale," and praised the performances of the cast. Kelly Lawler of USA Today gave the show a grade of 3 out of 4 stars, called it a "cuddly, Disneyfied version of those great supernatural teen dramas," stating, "It is the kind of show Disney Plus should really have been making all along: Too mature and expensive for Disney Channel but too family-friendly (and too expensive) for CW."
The series received criticism in Taiwan for changing the character of Wei-Chen's nationality from Taiwanese to Chinese. In Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel, Wei-Chen is from Taiwan, and actor Jimmy Liu, who portrays him in the series, is also Taiwanese. In the show, however, the character of Wei-Chen is Chinese, while the character of Jin Wang is Taiwanese.
