OniBro

Because they removed the reincarnation backstory to Tang San and made Xiao Wu much dumber, yea it would seem that way to a new viewer definitely.

With the reincarnation backstory included, Tang San was actually an orphan in his past life. That's why he holds XW and his father so dearly, not to mention his friends. XW also had no parents so that's why they promised to be family. XW in the source is also faaarrr more independent. TS was very protective over her due to being an orphan so he'd actually constantly try to stick to her to make sure she was safe and didn't do anything impulsive. XW was very much a, "I can take care of myself," girl. However TS always saw her as a sister, while XW actually held feelings for him quietly which all their friends shipped. XW would also be jealous while TS would be dense. Of course, TS does realize his true feelings for her once she confronts him about it.

The excuse they use is that the black smoke that surrounds the hammer upon summoning it blocked their vision. Which doesn't make sense since you can clearly see it clearly being thrown and its aftermath, the smoke only exists while it is being summoned and it isn't even a lot of smoke, not to mention all these students are supposed to be geniuses. Don't ask me why the screenwriter used that way to explain it, it doesn't make sense no matter how much you think about it.

@cantthink_ofname_
It's called a double standard and I don't think stans or people touting this sort of reasoning understand that they're actually just being hypocrites. With their reasoning, this comment section should be closed, reviews/ratings should be closed, and any forums/talk regarding any media should be closed until it is done, congrats on the censorship btw.

Also I don't think they understand that the large majority of the novel readers and donghua viewers are blaming the screenwriter and the director. Not once in this comment section have I seen someone from the source complain about XZ (other than not being used to his natural voice) or any actor for that matter. Ironically, the drama-only viewers are the ones stuck complaining about the acting on this site, mostly being the FL. Which, ironically, the only problem the source people have with her is that the screenwriter rewrote her to be farrrr dumber than her source counterpart, nothing to do with her acting or effort. At the end of the day I think a lot of the source viewers know that the characters and the plot is the way it is due to the director (which is his first time directing btw I think) and the screenwriter completely. None of us have called out an actor specifically from what I've seen here. Douban I hear has a lot of people calling out XZ just to piss off stans though, so we can't speak for them because MDL is an international platform unlike Douban.

There's a reason why the screenwriter had to speak out himself, and that's because people were targeting him, not the actors. And no one from the source expected this to be the exact same, especially if you know Chinese censorship. However, no one also expected it to only be less than 10% accurate to the novel considering this drama was obviously created due to source fans and was marketed to source fans far more heavily than drama-only people due to its IP. Which means the source fans were basically baited into a product that if it did not share the same name, same-named characters, and easily recognizable power-system, we wouldn't be able to recognize it at all, that's how bad the screenwriter did. They basically just slapped the DD logo on this drama and called it a day. And of course, after XZ's success and due to COVID delaying the release of this, the marketing team pivoted XZ to be the front and center of marketing.

A lot of it is just a double standard; drama-only-fans complain about Wu Xuanyi's acting, and us source people are like: "That's actually how her character is supposed to be, just not as dumb." So the irony of this is amazing, because we are from the source we know what to criticize and what not to criticize. Meanwhile drama-only take it as a personal attack on the actors and them lmao, when we're obviously complaining about how their "character" is written, not the actor themselves. We also know what they could've easily cut and kept to a pretty good degree.

Notice how everything that sings praises gets upvoted to high heaven or if it's flaming the source readers. But the moment something is not of the same opinion/you're expressing criticism on the drama, you're probably going to be told to leave or shut up by a reply or another comment rather than actually having a discussion. Meanwhile, if you actually pay attention to the comments, none of the source people are shooting down the praises, but the people who dislike the criticism actively shoot down the critics. Most source people replies are just helping with clarifying details. This means all this crap about being worried about "influencing" new viewers is hypocritical. The reality is just that the people praising the drama want to influence the new viewers into being part of their echo chamber. No criticism before the drama is done, but you're definitely allowed to throw 10 ratings and praises on episode 1 and so on. The height of this hypocrisy is insane and shameless.

It's common in any form of media, a lot people will watch something just to see how bad something can get. A lot of people also watch in hopes of something getting better or recovering from its start. Some even watch a show just to past the time since they've already started even if it's bad. Some have principles about finishing dramas no matter what, it all depends on the people.

The only reason why other dramas forums might have actual discussions is because the defenders on this site don't actually retort the critics with any discussion, they mostly just tell them to leave outright or to not say their opinion as they're scared it might "influence" new viewers into not having an opinion that matches theirs, which is completely and utterly counterintuitive as to why forums and rating systems even exist. If someone disliked a drama can they not state their opinion on a forum rating the show? If someone dropped it, can they not voice their opinion?

We're only seeing the disparity so greatly highlighted here because of the source material fans, drama only fans, and the XZ stans. There's literally people rating this a 10 simply because it's XZ or simply because it exists. Then we have people rating 1 just out of spite for the XZ fans not being sensible, source comparisons, or being ostracized by the façade of positivity going on here. There's even comments below where people think they're "balancing" the rating by rating the show a 10 or a 1 which highlights the problem even more. Comments like the OP only highlights it even more. The more adamant people are about censoring/gatekeeping/denouncing anything, the more you're going to see the opposite effect from the opposing party, and it's just a cycle.

You just explained the entire point of why a rating system exists... I can't believe the drama community is so adamant about gatekeeping and censoring any criticism.
-_-

Even on MAL (at least in the U.S.) which has 10s of thousands of anime, only the top 500 are where things start actually nearing an 8 rating or at an 8. Then there's literally less than 20 animes that rate above a 9. The highest being FMA:B at a 9.19 no less.

And yea, even DC being at 8.1 is still too high for me too.

Seeing so many people complain about an 8.1 being a low rating on this site is so weird as an Asian American. In other forms of media in the West or I guess at least in the U.S. I feel like we try to stick somewhat close to the rating scale of out-of-10 by its mathematical definition. Meaning 10 is an absolute Masterpiece, perfect in every single way; 5 is average; and 0/1 means it should just lose its rights to exist. But here, it seems like it's become completely skewed due to the introduction of idols being casted or just keeping a cloak/façade of positivity. Criticisms are denounced and you're told to go elsewhere for the sake of the collective and it is so mind boggling to see when the entire point of a rating system is to open a gate for criticism and opinion in the first place.

In the U.S. a 7, if aside from its objective definition of "above average," is what is generally used to impose criticism without offending anyone as it sits right in the middle above 5. 7's can be seen as a sign of caution due to this as the latter reason is used to protect relations between the critic and the work being criticized along with the community behind it. Thus, a 7, at times, is basically, "We're rating this higher than it deserves because we don't want to offend anyone," and it loses its objective meaning. 7's tend to fall in the genre of it's good, but it's just mainstream things/trash, not anything different or really remarkable. But here, people are already freaking out about an 8 rating and it boggles my mind as the rating scale already lost its objective meaning due to it. I don't know about other rating sites people have mentioned as it seems to fall under the Chinese sphere and I can't read any Chinese/Mandarin. Culture shock...

Anyone notice just how much Xiaogang's (Calvin Chen) head bobs whenever he talks at all? It's actually throwing me off, I can't take the character seriously.

Very very verrryyyy verrrryyyyyy loosely based on the source material (I've seen and read the source) unlike it's marketing might lead you to believe, it's basically a cultivation drama. We follow Tang San, the ML, and Xiao Wu, the FL, together with friends as they develop their skills as Soul Masters. Unlike your standard cultivation system, the system in here is more like a video game. After reaching your current cultivation limit, you get the ability to slay a Soul Beast and absorb their Soul Ring. Soul Rings are used like abilities in an MMORPG. The more Soul Rings you acquire, the more powerful you are deemed to be. Aside from that, along with their journey to become great Soul Masters, we'll uncover more about Tang San's mysterious family history rooted deep in the current state of Soul Land and also learn more about the many factions that exist in Soul Land. In Soul Land, your Soul Level will determine how this world may treat you.

Er Ming....
Manga >>> Anime >>> Netflix Adaptation....
Look how they massacred my boy T-T

In the Donghua, Tang San is starting to build his connections to build the Tang Sect. TS also has his century millennium soul ring via XW. Tai Tan and the Strength Clan are now under TS.

All its stardom and it being called Douluo Continent is almost already enough for most people to be interested in the source material. My problem is that it's become increasingly obvious this screenwriter doesn't know how to adapt hard cultivation systems and is continually bending the rules for plot convenience (rules he himself set not to mention). The more a viewer pays attention to the dialogue explaining the power system and the world the more plot holes you'll realize he's created. Doing so, just adds more and more confusion, which is why I said I'm confident in my statement that no brand new viewer here can accurately explain anything regarding the soul ring system or the rules this world operates under because it's continuously being changed as the plot demands for it and only us novel readers or donghua viewers would know that it is. The power scaling and the power creep that is going to occur later on is already horrendous due to things he changed as HLN is here early and other changes as well. He just doesn't know how to utilize the Douluo cultivation system to build the world and its characters like the source does and thus he ends up relying on adding new subplots that you'd find in power struggle political dramas which don't exist in the source to pad the time rather than actually helping new viewers understand the world.

They took out the reincarnation plot line due to censorship of religion and making his character too morally gray. So, CDrama TS has no knowledge of poisons despite also learning the Xuan Tian Records in the drama...

All I gotta say is you might want to get used to saying, "What the hell?" when you know the source material.

Next episode should be when Tang San absorbs the Human Faced Spider to get his spirit bone. Xiao Wu was just taken away in the most recent one by Er Ming and ended there.

And yea, Acala shows up for the entry test and that's his one and only appearance so far. They said the school couldn't pay him to stay, but I'm pretty sure it's the production team not having enough budget to do his fights.

Yes, originally he is the one that brings out the students to hunt soul beasts for Oscar. He is also the one that fights the Titan Ape using his Final Ring at the time. It was an important scene because he was the teacher that beat the students initially with little to no effort. It was a scene for the students to realize just how big of a gap and how far they still have to go as Soul Masters, not to mention it emphasized the power of the Titan Ape because to the students, Acala was already seen as untouchable when he's not serious.

Well the thing is that they actually shot themselves in the foot because like I said, they spent a lot of time on things that don't happen in the novel or the donghua. The entire Nuo Ding School Bully arc does not happen in the novel or donghua. The Nuo Ding bully was just a random bully. Star Village doesn't exist. Bu Le was just a random thug they ran into. Drugs being capable of mutating Souls don't exist. Souls are canonically genetic even in the drama as they explained. So the drug they're tracking is casually altering people at a genetic level which means that medicine is beyond even our real life modern day science. Ma Hong Jun is a senior student to TS, he was already a student at Shi Lan Ke. Dai Mu Bai is actually extremely responsible and takes pride in being the eldest senior and guide, he isn't hard to work with; he is the big brother of the 7. He is also the one that pines for Zhu Zhuqing out of the two rather than the other way around. I know that TS had to be changed but what about all this. What benefits did they gain by changing all this other than dragging this out.

After ep 14 and 15 I can't help but think the rating for this drama is going to keep tanking. I see a lot of people praising the world building and the soul ring system when in reality I feel that us donghua viewers and novel readers are just shaking our heads crying that they've butchered our baby.

We have Bigfoot instead of the Titan Ape...
Uncle Sausage is no longer Uncle Sausage...
Food Branch is rare despite having an entire branch dedicated to them..
Purple Demon Eyes don't allow you to instantly lvl yourself up...
Purple Demon Eyes don't allow you to pull out off screen info about random soul beasts and their age...
Acala is nowhere to be seen...
We just skipped TS being badass with his projectile skills...
TS is a desperate pushover dependent on others and the plot to tell him what to do...
TS deus ex machina'd his way into a Saiyan trope again...
Hao Tian Hammer is just a plot device to speed over hurdles by one shotting enemies...
I'm sure none of the viewers here know how the hammer or the soul ring system actually works much less Purple Demon Eyes or anything Xuan Tian related...
People seem to just nod their heads at the pretty colors and the writer uses that to get away with not explaining anything by using that as the explanation...
Fake Soul Rings...
Hu Lie Na really is just useless...
Let's just have our characters become smart and dumb when we need to progress the plot...
Wanna create ANOTHER subplot that doesn't exist in the novel because we don't actually have enough budget for fights so we need more drama to pad the time till the tournament arc rather than using the source material...?

The amount I cringed at Big Foot and the Fake Soul Rings is too goddamn much...

So my idea isn't so much of it just being a tome filled with the skills, but also like think My Hero Academia s1 ep 1 where Deku has loads and loads of journals about how to go about situations with villains and how to act as hero. The tome could record more similarly about novel TS's past life. The effect is more so not just skills but sort of like if you were to take a philosophy class as well to change your thinking. In a sense, the tome/text is almost like a mentor due to it reading more like a diary recounting the life of this Spirit Master who's actually pseudo-novel-TS and his mistakes. So yes, even with this change CDrama TS would still be inexperienced but the idea would be that he's far more prepared and cautious as the tome would be like his first thread to the outside world. In such a way that he'd be more analytical about things the way novel TS always is.

It also fixes the problem of new viewers potentially thinking and expecting Tang Hao and the Hao Tian clan to fully be capable of the Xuan Tian Records. I see it as a problem because if they melded the Tang Clan and the Hao Tian clan together since Tang Hao teaches the Xuan Tian Records, that means hidden weapons already exist in the continent, so people acting surprised at TS doing the same thing would immediately cause them to look dumb and it would also be an identifier of someone of the Hao Tian clan.

So obviously the biggest change is that Tang San is not a reincarnation so his smarts and his tactical prowess is significantly lowered in comparison to book TS. His Xuan Tian abilities also are instead taught by his father which I think to new viewers might make them think not only his father but the Hao Tian clan knows how to perform Xuan Tian skills and craft hidden weapons as well.

Do you think we could've gotten a pseudo novel accurate Tang San if we had expanded upon the legend of Holy Spirit Village and made the Spirit Master of the legend actually the representation of novel Tang San. CDrama Tang San could find the Xuan Tian Records at the site of the monument or shrine dedicated to the legend and start training on his own from there. The Xuan Tian Records could function more as a diary of advice and skill book that influences Tang San's way of thinking and boom we get a more book accurate CDrama Tang San. He could train through the book in secret via throughout the series or through the four seasons scene they did in the beginning, just make it a montage. I personally like the former better because I think it's more exciting to see CDrama TS ascend into being the novel TS. He could also burn the book seeing it as its techniques can be dangerous in the wrong hands as his reason after learning or likewise his dad the same way they did in the drama for the same reason. This would definitely prop up this Spirit Master figure to be some figure in the drama's history which we can tack onto the Evil Phoenix War Story they added or even forget about it as some lost figure of a legend.