WM

Finally a negative post about the FL, which may give me a reason to not start it at all, since I'm strongly female-centric when choosing dramas.

"She has done some incredibly dumb things" - typically, this is one of the biggest disappointments for me.

It has very good reviews overall, though.

I think it's possible that I tried "Rakuen" in the past, as I was checking out many of Nakama's dramas; maybe I just didn't like it.
I watched a bit of Trick, not my type of genre, but it was quite fun; Abe is also a very good actor.
Also, you reminded me that I really liked music there; I will have to add it to my Playlist :).

"Joshi Deka (2007)" was quite good, plus Yuki Nakama slimmed down a bit in that drama (playing a clumsy policewoman, who was a great sharpshooter) and looked super hot :).
And the music was great as well there, too.

And "Arifureta Kiseki (2009)" had some interesting moments, especially the opening episode.

Some of the dramas with her were impossible to watch because of the lack of subtitles :(

Come on; I have dozens of dramas to watch (mostly verticals these days) and many actresses I like to follow. Why would I waste my time on someone I dislike? I am not a masochist.
Cheers from Poland.

There is no clear reason why I dislike Ryoko Hirousu so much, but I just do. Fortunately, I've watched only two or three dramas with her, so she doesn't mess up my plans as much as some Chinese actors who are everywhere :).

And Yuki Nakama is fantastic, both in "Gokusn" and in more serious dramas as well.

Yingluo didn't use the seal - she used only the box , if I remember correctly (it's been a while).

"Never schemed maliciously in the background to destroy her life. " - yeah, just snitched her to hope she would be killed, knowing that without the Empress, it's her only chance to do it.
Or lied to Empress about Yongluo not doing her job properly.
Or...

If we use a very low bar, then yes, she was a good person :).

Ming Yu is not a good person, lol.

The moment she snitched to the emperor about Yingluo using the Queen's seal, she should have been killed (her surviving 40 lashes so easily is one of the lazy writing moments in this drama).

Despite so many enjoyable and entertaining moments, their life together at the bottom was possibly my favourite part of the drama.

"I hate men who think they can have anyone they want at any cost."

Yes, I hated ML in "Blossoms of Power" too, heh :).

If we are talking strictly about vertical dramas, you can check my playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL07cQXP6zFrZTavwmT5YLL3CpmMKNHJlP

Disclaimer - I like smart/capable/kickass female leads, don't care much about ML/romance; many of them won't have it.

No idea.
Not my genre exactly, but it has Wang Chu Ran as a female lead, so I am not ruling it out completely (but even WCR couldn't save Overdo for me, so...)

"How Dare You?" got 7.2 at Douban, heh :)

Actually, it's a bit higher than I thought - after the trailer and seeing how cheap and artificial everything was looking, I was thinking below 5.0 BEFORE the ending happened.

OMG, it has to sucks big time.
Thankfully, I rated Royal Betrothal as unwatchable after watching the trailer ;).

Very interesting post, appreciate you writing it in such a detailed and balanced manner.

With directors and writers butchering novels into drama adaptations one after another in 2026, I am really unsure if I would like to see it ever made it into a Big Production.

There are so many things which are atypical for standard C-Drama procedures in the novel: no misunderstandings between the leads or within both main families, no love triangle, the female lead being, by far, the most capable person in the novel, always in control, etc...

This vertical drama here did a good job presenting the source material.
Would the big production drama do the same? I seriously doubt it, as the above factors pretty much never happen in a full-time drama.

No, no, that one.
There was some big attack inside the city; the good guys got split, and the Fl got attacked in the alley by her longtime (?) friend, and they had a fierce battle.
She won, but instead of killing him, she let him go; I think at the end some of her friends arrived too,
I thought it was Ep. 13 (I remember checking it because I wanted to see how crap it was), almost definitely somewhere around Ep. 10-15.

I don't think the situation I described had anything in common with her losing her memory.
Didn't it happen after she regained her memory?
But, I could be wrong.; like I said, I dropped it rather quickly.

And also, "Are you the one?" FL also had amnesia, which didn't stop her from putting a hairpin in the necks of people trying to hurt her ;).

I dropped Fated Hearts after 5 episodes (but I've seen clips from around the 13th, I think, when she let go of a guy who betrayed and tried to kill her in the alley; so I'm not sure how smart she really was..._).
Didn't watch the other two you mentioned, although they are both somewhere on my watchlist.

From my side (and I have very high standards for female leads, high enough to accuse writers of dumbing down Minglan or Yingluo later in Story of Minglan and Yanxi Palace), I can recommend female leads in "Are you the One?" and "Kill My Sins".

How dare you?
According to tags, she is a "competent female lead", lol :).
At least she isn't a "smart female lead" anymore.

I'm not watching (yet?), but since you brought it up, let's hope the female lead here will be consistently strong and useful until the end. Unlike Manman (whom I loved in episodes 1-11, before the writers dumbed her down and relegated her to childbearing in the finale).