#cdrama

When I initially encountered this series, I started watching because I’m a sucker for just about every story that features an MMO in it somehow.  I got one and a half episodes in and realized “holy shiz, there’s 30 episodes, I don’t have time for that!” so I abandoned it.  I didn’t even give it a second thought until I saw the movie come out.  The movie gave me some warm and fuzzy feelings, but also it abridged so much content that there’s definitely loose plot strings dangling about.  Even so, it was worth the watch.

I think it started off on the wrong foot trying to prove Bei Weiwei’s programmer cred so aggressively.  Her amazing schooling of someone who wrote something slanderous about her came off as more “hack the Gibson” rather than “genius programmer.”  Also, the insistence that her friends have that she ignores her appearance is also ridiculous as she is model beautiful from the start.  But if you can get past all the goofy things that don’t make sense, her connection to Xiao Nai does seem to come from an authentic place because even if it’s a fast relationship in the start they really do have a ton in common.  They are sweet to one another, which is welcome over dramatic posturing and garbage behavior.  Plus there’s no weird love triangle business, which I feared but was delightfully surprised not to have to deal with.

The in game sequences are not really used to their full potential.  A lot of time spent in MMOs is very rote and repetitive, and it would have been nice to see them gathering resources when they have conversations rather than standing around in front of a green screen.  Also, if they are respectively No.6 and No.1 ranked in PvP and there is little to no PvP shown that seems like a missed opportunity.  The gripes are minor, though, as this movie is a happy bit of fluff and worth the time to give it a watch.

Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (or Hana-Kimi) in both manga and live action form is a story I have consumed in media time and time again and every time I love it.  The base plot is ridiculous: girl (Ashiya Mizuki) ends up at an all boys high school because of the fact that she wishes to encourage her sports hero, (Sano Izumi) a high jumper her own age.  Hijinks ensue when she ends up roommates with said sports hero and he discovers her real sex/gender immediately and decides to help her preserve her secret while not giving away the fact that he knows she’s a girl.

The manga has quite nice art, and every time the live action version is cast they always find lots of lovely looking guys to fill the school, but in my heart my favorite version is the Taiwanese one starring Ella Chen of S.H.E and Wu Chun of Fahrenheit.  Mizuki in that version had the energy and the perkiness that I love, and Izumi was sufficiently serious and yet good humored.  I also think the Taiwanese version had the best Nakatsu Shuichi in Jiro Wang.  Nakatsu coming to terms with crushing on a “boy” when he thought he liked girls always strikes me as a more interesting situation than the Mizuki/Izumi angle, but that wasn’t the story being told here.

In stories like these I always end up thinking back to Twelfth Night, and wonder if maybe the author read it and was inspired by it.  Clearly, there’s something to this story that brings people back time and again for it to have been remade so much, and other than pretty men I think it’s because the relationships are all weirdly pure.  The friendships are strong, and the comedy and drama doesn’t diminish them.  Because the friendships are strong the romance is more touching, which is probably easier to see in the manga because it had longer to tell the story, but the best casts in the live action series also convey.

Sailor Moon will punish you in the name of the Moon!

nuteeya:

No time for a proper Heimlich Maneuver. We going straight for a punch

wanderer-stan:

My Dear Guardian (2021)

Let’s play a pushing game. The loser will have to do the dishes, okay?

wanderer-stan:

My Dear Guardian (2021)

Xia Chu, my mom wants to see our photo. *proceeds to took photo* [….] Look, this photo is so ugly. [….] We are so far apart. We don’t look like a couple who are crazily in love. If you send that to your mom, she won’t believe in us [that we are in a “relationship”].

I’ll sum up tencent awards show in this only post since it was a very sad day as a yizhan fan ,to watch em being restricted into an awkward mess .

Thankfully the rehearsals weren’t that devastating ❤️