Lyson

The only one who really saw the extent of it so far is the other detective, his cop buddy, and either he is dodge and up to something, or he's trying to trust that JJK is on to some big bust because of his rep and all the years he's been in the field so he's waiting it out, or we're looking at a pretty common situation where cops will cover for other cops until there's no way to cover up anymore.

Whichever one it is, it suits the drama setting completely and it should be a lit reveal.

Second episode just as BANGING. Love the fast but steady pacing and the intense tone of the over all show. If it's this amped now, I'm hoping for even more amped scenes in future episodes, the escalation looks promising.

I just wanna' say, reading your replies to larius here was great. Kudos.

The canon material (novel) is always the best to start with imo, however the novel and series differ quite a lot while both being excellent. I read and watched them simultaneously, but I made sure to finish the book first, which I don't regret doing.
To help you make a decision, consider these notable differences:

Novel ; more detailed door scenes, more horror and violence, uncensored BL couple, focus is mainly on the main two characters, you need a good imagination to appreciate the world building

Series ; less detailed door scenes (some doors not included or adapted differently), less horror and more emotionally driven characters and scenes, censored BL (but not bromance, the MLs quite obviously have non platonic feelings for each other) and the visuals of the series are fantastic, very well done

Hope it helps :D

If we ignore the endings (where ultimately, all of them are basically fine and nothing actually happened to anyone) then yes, Manman ended up in a psych ward and Yixie left Obsidian to go off and fend for himself, but after the game was purified by Lanzhu and Jiushi, it ceased to exist, so no one had to go into the door world ever again, so the 'fate' (if you want to call it that) of players ceased to exist too.

"He can't simply escape the 'fate'."
Yixie never broke a taboo inside the door world, so there were no consequences he was meant to face and his mental state -aside from probably depression over losing his twin- was fine, so no need to end up institutionalized and once the game was purified it was gone, nothing could happen to anyone anymore and there were no more doors to enter.

This answer is about the series though, the novel is very different. So you'll be referring to the screenwriters of the adaptation, not the author of the source material.

The ending is not sad per se, rather, it's unnecessary and was the result of censorship, vastly differing from the novel. I always suggest stopping before the last 8 minutes of the final episode (ep 38). If you don't watch the last 8 minutes of the series, the ending will tie in quite nicely with the novel ending.

I like his character's stoicism too, his calm tension adds intensity to the action scenes and the film style has these moments of audio and visual suspension as we watch him process what's happening to him. Like when he was fighting with the scar face dude in the yard and he got hit on the head with the flower pot, the pause there before he got up again, loved it, his acting and the filming techniques complement each other, very nicely done.

First episode was a BANGER right out the gate. Dayum. Ji Sung came back from his break and said 'watch me work, b*tches', for real!

"Dang I can't imagine almost beating a really tough game just to be sent back to do it all over again because a whole door was down bad for you." 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 the wording f*cking kiiiiiilled me, so funny when you put it like that 😂😂😂😂😂

EEhhhhh, lolololol thanks, that was a good laugh. Oh man, ok ok, so about the second part, no one was brought back from the dead. All the people who were there (at Obsidian) when Nanzhu took over Qiushi's place as the leader of Obsidian, had never died before. As a God, there'd been people before who Nanzhu watched die as Qiushi excelled at surviving the door world, but by the time Nanzhu took over, the people living at Obsidian were all alive and hadn't died yet in the door world. So nothing was reversed or changed.

Nanzhu has control over the lives and minds of those who enter his realm, ergo, one of the things he can do is wipe and affect memory. That's how he handles the '12th door'. No one knows anything about the 12th door because after they clear, or fail to clear, the 11th door, they either die after they return to reality or they forget the door world ever existed and on with their lives. Like how everyone forgot Nanzhu existed after he entered the 11th door and took so long to come out, but then they remembered him like no time had passed when he eventually exited.

Also, Qiushi states there is no 12th door in chapter 139. If anyone makes it to the final 'door', (Nanzhu/12th Door) they get to choose between returning to their world (which is reality) or staying in the illusionary world where everyone is alive but doesn't know them (that's where Qiushi was stuck before he figured out the key was in the clock). Qiushi chose to return to reality, so all the people who died were still dead when he got back.

The FIRST time, when he reached the '12th door', Nanzhu didn't give him a choice, he just wiped his memory and reset him to Door One. But look on the bright side, Qiushi went through it all again but didn'y remember the pain of anyone he'd lost who'd died and he didn't know he was doing it all again, and then he landed himself a whole-ass god who is hot AF as a boyfriend, so I think he takes the W? 😂

The novel is full LGBTQ, Nanzhu and Qiushi are gay for each other.

The answer to your other two questions actually only differ slightly depending on your take on the ending of the series.
Which ending scenario do you subscribe to:
1) Comatose Jiushi wakes up and everything was a dream.
2) Jiushi wakes up back in his reality after having been in the virtual world, the virtual game world is purified, and the virtual world ceases to exist.
3) Everything that happens in the series happens inside the virtual world, and after the virtual world is purified, everyone from the real world who lived/died in the virtual world returns to the real world with all their memories wiped and they go back to their normal lives.

From these 3 scenarios, you can basically sum up what happened to Manman and Yixie.

There technically is no 12th door. Nanzhu is the God of the Door World, the challenge of which ends with him, so technically, he is the 12th 'door'. In the first chapter, Quishi is entering door number 1 again, with his memory slate wiped clean.

When Qiushi clears the 11th door, he reaches the end of the survival challenge and it's up to Nanzhu what happens next. In Qiushi's case, Nanzhu was down bad for him for a while already, so he just wiped Qiushi's memory, reset him back to the start of the challenge, then sent him home and waited for him to enter the first door again, so they could go through all the levels together and 'get to know each other'. Nanzhu of course, wiped his own memory as well and took on a humanoid form for maximum chances of courting success. lol

Nanzhu technically gets his memories back in chapter 139, the ending of the main story, but readers only find out the detail of the process in Chapter 140: Extra 1 - What He Is.
You can read it here online:
https://www.webnovel.com/book/kaleidoscope-of-death_26659051105826905/extra-1-what-he-is_77474358607533238

The answers here already mostly sum it up, so here's a fanart picture reference by an artist on Weibo that is very well done imo, it closely matches the novel's art style:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMfDnuGbMAEcI9y?format=jpg&name=large

I think body-wise Baijie probably didn't look very feminine, but I think his face was supposed to be so distractingly attractive no one really noticed he was so tall, lean and flat chested.😂

Agreed. Sh*t people everywhere. Best to collectively ignore it, like a bad smell, eventually it'll go away 😂

- wish it will not bite them in the ass- or rather, it should. Some people only learn by consequence. Although most of them are already mentally broken and delusional, so they're already quite pitiful.

The 'wizard' was the one who kidnapped the triplets in the second door of the series.

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You should see what a rabid mess one of them became on the page for the drama (I forgot the show's name). It was bouncing off topics like an angry little rubber ball, trying to find its point. But of course it felt validated the moment one if it's fellow unhinged clowns came along and it calmed down. The level of what is wrong with these gross people cannot be quantified. 🤣

I think his name is Li Mao, he is in the cast section here on MDL.

Ah, the unhinged have arrived here.

Note to the regulars here: my suggestion is to ignore trash people and unhinged fans. They cannot be reasoned with. They are 🤡

They'll all eventually return to the circus from where they came. The more we engage the more unhinged and gross they behave.

This is a fun space only
✌️😁