#love020

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.