absurd

There's also a joint V day gift box between Roseonly (company XZ is a spokesperson for) and OralB (which YZ is a spokesperson for). I mean roses and toothbrushes, match made in heaven LOL

I see so many people saying they've watched until ep 25. On one hand, I'm envious, because I want to know what's going to happened next, but on the other I don't want it to be finished too soon, so I'll stick to my 2ep a day pace. All of this vpn business is too complicated for me :)
But, please put it under spoiler tag if you comment on the scenes from the episodes, social media already makes it hard to avoid spoilers.

Yeah, the world building part is for us newbies, who know nothing about this :) Hope you'll still give it a chance, it does pick up later on

I would add to that, that it's better if you give book a try after the drama. A lot of people who read the book, were disappointed in the adaptation because it was too different from the source material. So, maybe, try the drama first, to avoid comparison.

Now I can't unsee it. Every time he activates his Marital soul, it just pops in my head. *dying*

I don't think I've ever left a comment here, even though I've finished this around half a year ago. This was the first drama, I've ever seen and I actually had to try two or three times to watch it. First I've watched the anime (Mo Dao Zu Shi), because that's what I mostly stick to watching. I didn't know there was a novel, it was just one of the highest rated Chinese animations on MAL. Then I found out about the drama. Tried it... and gave up after seeing WYB do the white bat imitation in the first episode. It just looked so ridiculous, I decided that I won't be able to take it seriously. And then some time later I stumbled on the video comparison between drama and the anime on youtube and the moment that actually made me give it another try is the one at 1:45-46 of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ya3-PN2a-g
My first reaction was: Whoa! Is that guy real? He looks like animated character!
It is definitely not a perfect drama, but the overall impact that it leaves on you makes you forget all the minor problems it has. I could really feel that the production team wanted to do a good job and put a lot of work and thought into it. As much as I loved the animation, the drama gave much more attention to details and characters. And the acting (for the most part) was good. Well, Jin Guangyao was a theatrical disaster, but he didn't spoil it for me.
Overall, I really enjoyed it and can understand why so many people love it.

It is sad for me also that such a good drama gets a negative impact just because it's literally impossible to make an adaptation that would please everyone. But I also think that if it will continue to be good till the end and actually shows Tang San's strengths, making him more like anime, the overall feedback won't actually be that bad.

They seem to be doing it with everything. Definitely the more popular dramas: JOL is the same and Untamed is half and half

I think not even the most supportive of XZ fans will support it if his character is sidelined :) I hope the story will focus back on him too, previews seem to suggest so.

Yeah, I get where the negative comments are coming from. I'm not as bad with adaptations, but never get me started about remakes, I can go for hours :)))
If at all possible, try to look at is as a... fanfiction? A "what if" situation, where Tang San wasn't reincarnated.

It's really not about Xiao Zhan though. Adaptation vs Novel is a problem that exists for every adaptation.

It might also have to do with the message that the hero is sending. The Lead can not, under any circumstances, be bad. Nor ambiguous. He has to be good to the core: if he kills someone, they are ether a bad person or it was not his fault. Suicide is also not allowed. So there are probably many reasons why they avoided that. Maybe they just decided that the less possibility there is for censorship cuts, the less money they'll spend on remaking everything time and time again.
Sorry, I seem to ramble a lot :)))

I really don't know. Just seen a lot of comments about it from Chinese viewers in comments (on Chinese sites). I think it has more to do with time travelling, past life - something like that. Censorship is kind of ambiguous - they just cut whatever they consider "not right", they also change the rules every year. So from my understanding if drama needs reincarnation, they try to make it not obvious. Also dramas with real actors (unlike anime) are censored more, even more if it's broadcast on TV. And this is airing on CCTV.
The truth though, no one will say it outright, so everyone is just guessing :)

I think it's too early to judge how it will go, but it definitely didn't "not hit". Free users only got 6 episodes and I don't think a lot of people outside die hard fans would buy vip just like that. Also binge-watches are a thing. Tencent is promoting it like crazy, though and having CCTV as a support is actually very important in China. If the next season is produced with CCTV they won't have any delays or problems with censoring.

I haven't seen any original material. What I gathered from the comments is that it's different from the novel too. The main difference is that there's no reincarnation sublot (Chinese viewers say: censorship), it was changed into the dream sequence. So because of that Tang San's character is different - not as knowledgeable, strong and composed. He is shown as young and still having a lot to learn, but brave and smart.
If I had to compare, this has a pretty typical Japanese shounen storyline - hero that seems simple, but has hidden talents and powers up as the story goes.

I just fell like a lot of people equal "not what I expected" with "bad". Sure, everyone has different preferences, but I don't go around saying that no one should eat apples, just because they're not my favorite fruit.

This is not actually a bad drama - I haven't seen a single negative comment from people who've never seen the anime, but if you expect it to follow the same script as the animation and have strong feelings about it, than, yes, you might be disappointed.

Well, maybe it would be better to just stop comparing and watch this on it's own, enjoying it for what it is, instead of being angry about what it could have been. Because as someone who haven't seen the anime/manga/novel and also someone, who never had a high opinion about production quality of Chinese dramas (I started watching because I'm learning Chinese, not because they are oh, so interesting), I have to say that so far this is a really good drama, with script that obviously had a lot of thought put into it and pretty high production quality. Yes it is not perfect, but nothing ever is.
I am not saying you have to enjoy it despite your reservations. If you like animation better, than that's your preference. But just because something is not as you expected it to be, doesn't mean it's bad.

Are you sure it hasn't? Because it has 600 mln views on Tencent in just 6 days of broadcast and that's not counting people watching on CCTV (which tops viewership ratings everyday).
Tencent doesn't actually care about how it does outside of China, as long as it does well there. Sure it's a nice bonus, but just that. And it was evident already with LOF, that they don't care about reviews ether.
The only thing that can really stop season 2 is Xiao Zhan refusing to participate, because he's brining more than half of the audience in China and probably most of the investors.

I understood that reference!
(sorry, couldn't stop myself)