Anarya

Two of the most illogical things to happen on this show are Chun'er blaming CQ for what happened to her when she tried following Yan Xun and his troops. Secondly, when Yuwen Huai kills the emperor's new wife's kid, she blames it on CQ again. Those were absolutely ridiculous and made no sense to me.

She's got super cool parts around ep 30 I think (can't remember). I think the show had a lot of promise but could've been drastically cut short. It's very long at the moment and seems to lose focus at points because of that.

Agreed. I feel like the show is extremely beautiful visually and is well acted, and I felt some kind of immersion in the setting of the show. Where it lost me was characterisation and the way the story was told. There were far too many action sequences for a show that happens over a 24 hour period. It ended up being less believable. These took me out of the story a lot. I think I prefer subtlety and philosophical elements elements instead of intense action sequences dialled up to a 100

They’ll explain this part later on the show. The show is extremely slow for about the first 18 episodes (I don’t remember exactly at which episode things pick up, but I guess it’s around there). The middle portion of the show is the best and there’s character development. However, the ending as you all may have heard, is pretty abysmal. However Chu Qiao is one of my favourite characters ever, so I guess it’s worth watching for her and Yan Xun

You can stop on the second last episode. The last episode is very rushed and may cause frustration 🤷‍♀️

I hadn’t seen him in anything before Princess agents, but even for those few moments he was there, he was hilarious and entertaining and stole the show.

I don’t dislike the show but I do think it’s overhyped and I think the first 15 or so episodes are extremely slow. The good parts are somewhere in the middle, and the ending is very rushed and frustrating. I think it’s got some great parts and Chu Qiao’s character is one of my favourites in C-Dramaland. She has some outstanding moments in the middle half of the show. I like Yan Xun’s arc too. But it is a super long show for something that doesn’t end up saying that much eventually.

Literally my only issue is that I wish that Chu Ying had said something in that vision/dream 🥺- his last appearance on the show.

Agreed. It's its own show after all. I think people judge NIF2 harshly because they expect it to be an actual sequel to NIF but it isn't. If one goes in without that expectation, I think it's still a brilliant show. I thought Yuanqi's character is interesting because there's always a part of him that stops him from becoming a full on traitor until the last episodes. He acts in a manner of total self-preservation. So it's not until the end when he wields power that he takes over the city. In his mind, he could not trust anyone to support him and so he had to make the decision to get so much power that he'd be invincible. I didn't like him of course, but I also felt sad to see him killed off.

No season 2. I thought it ended on a perfect note though.

Same, I cannot believe anyone could dislike this drama so much. I loved all the characters and how those we perceive to be mean at first to turn out to be good people after all. It really believes in the goodness of humanity. As for Shi Guang, I loved him immediately. I don't see him as stubborn either. He's still a kid and still trying to navigate his identity. He slowly discovers his passion as the story progresses.

Beautifully said. That's a heartbreaking episode and even when I think about it (it's been months since I finished watching the show) it makes me tear up. I have only seen a couple of episodes of the anime since they took down the subtitled version of it on Youtube.

I watched the whole thing expecting it to get better - kinda fast forwarded episodes after ep 23 I think. It was actually a really good show until episode 20, but after that they really gave Asule the short end of the stick. So disappointed. Lots of other people liked it after episode 20 though when a new love interest is introduced. So i dunno.

Yup, that’s the one. It was beautiful

I relate. I loved the first 20 or so episodes and after that it was such a train wreck to me. I watched this months ago and am still frustrated that they wasted soo much potential

That scene with Niao Niao and Ling Buyi in episode 19 when he asks her to come for a private rendezvous in the Lou residence was absolutely beautiful.

Yup, it’s a mystery. Will never understand it either 🤷‍♀️

Did you try on viki? The subs are better there I think

I think the ending is very realistic but it’s not what one would expect. It’s a great drama- one of my favourite modern c dramas and definitely the best school drama I’ve ever seen

He apparently died in the novel but because of censorship around kids being shown dying, they left that out of the show😶