Kannadin

Ok Dropping this.

It's not a bad show at all... As written below by many people, it's actually a very wholesome show.
If you enjoy slice of life J dramas, you'll definitely love that one. Not a lot happening plotwise, it's just a relaxing watch...
Also apart from the beginning you sort of get an individual story each 2 episodes or so. It's very episodic which explains why 2 seasons is possible. It feels more like the main cast are secondary characters in the story they have to tell in a way. Dunno if I explain myself well.

Anyways, I was really in the mood for that type of drama when it started last week, but since it's a genre I usually avoid, I've had my dose of "slow healing drama" after 3 episodes. I was planning on waiting a couple more days to watch episode 4, but I really no longer feel like it so it's a drop.

I'd put it on hold, until I'm in the mood again but per experience, I know that I always end up dropping shows I've put on hold so I'll probably pick this one up again in a couple of months... Maybe in Winter to warm myself.

Channel A is a small cable channel. Even getting 3% would be considered a success honestly so I doubt the ratings will have any impact. Also they probably knew this wasn't going to be a ratings hit... This is just not a genre that attracts lots of viewers in the first place.

I myself tend to watch episodes as soon as they're available when I watch airing shows from the start like this one...

But honestly I don't think it's the kind of show you can binge. I need to really be in the mood so personally I don't watch both episodes back to back. It's something I watch to "relax" between more "stressful" shows.

Agree especially given how much of a success Na Zha was, if they don't list that one I don't know what else deserves to be listed.

Oh my! That's quite a HUGE change.
They probably would have needed two seasons to remain faithful to the original novel then.
As somebody who is just discovering the story through the drama, it doesn't bother me but I would expect fans of the novel to be disappointed⋯though on a personal level, I'm not a huge fan of the reincarnation trope (most of the time, depends on the story of course) so I'm glad they got rid of that in the drama.

Ah yeah I had forgotten that Jade thing! Maybe it's explained in the novel why He Yan is always referring to him indirectly when talking about the Moon then ^^

Well I haven't read the novel... BUT I did stumble upon the chapter in which he founds out who she used to be... and it's very VERY late around chapter 210 out of 260 chapters + 10 extra chapters.
In the novel, He Yan actually accepted her fate, she got married to another man but her family still wanted to silence her and blinded her... though I'm not really sure they effectively killed her... I think she died by accident. Anyway she was known as Mme.Xu from I've glimpsed.

It's only when she reincarnated that she learns that Xiao Jue (why do we write it like that...Isn't his name 月 - Yue? I mean there's this whole analogy about how she indirectly tells him she loves him by saying she likes the moon) used to help her at their martial art school even in her previous life.... through various means (these are the snippets we see at the beginning of some episodes). Apparently she already had feelings for him but these feelings faded for another person ( though I don't know if that other person was to become her husband). At some point, when she learns that, it reinforces the feelings of love she had for Xiao Jue that never truly disappeared so their story goes a long way.

Apparently the Emperor approves Xiao Jue and He Yan's marriage at some point after some scheming from one girl who's been in love with Xiao Jue's for years that backfired... the fact that Xiao Jue learns He Yan's real identity comes even AFTER that.

This is not cause for angst in the novel though. 1. He's already madly in love with He Yan by then 2. He already knew that the Ru Fei he knew and the Ru Fei that met the Emperor and betrayed his trust is not the same. In fact, he already learned that "his" Ru Fei was a girl, he just didn't know it was He Yan.


And yes... I didn't read the novel...

But I spoiled myself quite a lot because I couldn't bear the wait...
To be fair, I was looking for some romantic scenes, but for the life of me, I couldn't find any... Too many chapters to check.

Well it's mostly a matter of cost. I don't care for western shows... that included shows produced by my own country, which aren't as violent as American shows... but are much more "sexually liberated" than Americans'. It's always about people cheating this person or that person, ending up in bed, being slapped... And there's always some boobs on display at some point. Romance is dead in my country. I understand people cheat and have sex but I don't care, in my free time I want my DREAM-LIKE ROMANCE F*** REALITY.

If you pay for Netflix or Disney +, most of what you pay is for their American franchises. I personally don't feel like spending 18€ or more each month for shows I'm not going to watch.

For me there's this thing... I enjoyed K dramas because they weren't overly violent nor overly sexualized. What was important was story telling. I'd argue it's still the same for most of what they produce buuuuuuuuut there's quite a lot of them that are going for that explicit western way of telling stories now... and I really do not like it... it's making me turning away from them and watching more C dramas.

[ Ah by the way, now that I'm thinking of it, C dramas I saw years ago and dropped were always ending badly one way or another. The Chinese loved their tragedy... This is a no no for me, I don't mind it from time to time, but I need my happy ending.]

I'm not a huge fan of censorship overall... But on that particular aspect, I've got to say, I think it benefits dramas because writers are forced to create emotions through good writing instead of relying on cheap tricks for shock value. These western writers are not building emotions, they're traumatising people's brain.
That's a generalization of course... I know some shows don't... but the most popular shows do.

And finally...
I HATE, LOATHE, AND UTTERLY DESPISE the multi seasons format. I like my stories to have a beginning, a middle and an end, not to run for eternity until I'm sick and tired of the story and its characters.

Look at what they're doing with K dramas now...😑

Lol the comment is overly long, I just don't want to take too much place on the page when people scroll down.😂

That's actually an interesting comment... I'm not really sure about the origins of the website but I'm curious to know if K drama MDLers really outnumber C drama ones.

I personally started watching Asian dramas a bit more than 20 years ago through a J drama called Densha Otoko: https://kisskh.at/269-densha-otoko

Apparently that was from a real story and there was a manga done.
ANYWAYS, back then the only way to watch Asian dramas was through torrents websites, the biggest one of those being D-addicts.com ( which I think still exists now but is now only a forum last I checked).

I don't remember C dramas being available there... Or if there were, there must have been so few that nobody noticed. Most dramas available were either Idol Taiwanese dramas, J dramas or K dramas and among all those K dramas were the most popular given the hallyu wave that had started in Japan following the hit drama Winter Sonata ( which I tried to watch 5 years ago and... that has aged like milk unfortunately. Dropped it) which led me to give it a go and fall into the K drama hole.

I would guess most early drama watchers like me ( non Eastern Asian obviously, if you're Asian, you probably grew up watching some with your family) started their drama journey through K dramas and then branched out when China started to really try to push their soft power... which is something pretty recent. They're started to eat the Japanese anime market and K drama market.

I personally don't consider myself a K drama watcher... I just happened to have started K dramas before and discovered C dramas pretty late in the game ( Really fell into that C drama hole only 3 years ago with Love Between Fairy and Devil in spite of having tried a couple of C dramas before... which I had dropped except for one which I found meh).

I personally watch Thai Dramas ( mostly for BLs though I'm trying to find some interesting lakorns but it's not easy), C dramas, K dramas and the occasional J dramas ( not a big fan to be honest, some are GREAT, but I dislike most of what they produce, I'm more an anime person).

I think most people who enjoyed K dramas are now branching out on C dramas... and my personal take is that is something you see in lots of viewers. You start with K dramas because most of us started there... but since the platforms you use also have C dramas, you end up giving them a try and being hooked especially since in terms of stories and production value they have nothing to envy to K drama productions, quite the contrary I would say.

Also another thing is, personally I don't have neither Netflix nor Disney +. There used to be a time when most K dramas were on Viki.. unfortunately with the success of Squid Game, these very expensive platforms are now licencing the K drama blockbusters and leaving the crumbs to Viki. Sometimes you get some sleeper hits such as Lovely Runner last year... but most of the time... it's just that... the leftovers.

HOWEVER, for C dramas it's different. Most of the biggest most awaited C dramas of the year are all available on Viki. And so as a viewer with empty pockets, what do we do? We turn to C dramas.
Or at least that's how I see it.

I'm of the opinion that MDL is probably going to go under some shift at some point and we'll start to see more and more articles about C entertainment. There's already more articles about Chinese Entertainment compared to before.

In my heart though... not to bash K dramas... but these last two years... weren't really good. I had a couple of K dramas that went direct to "favorites" but I can count them on the fingers of one hand... Feels to me they're loosing their soul by trying too much to appeal to a western audience.

But maybe that's just me...

It's just a matter of how you put the bar. Basically overall on MDL, if it's rated below 8, the show is supposedly disappointing ( I've seen some good drama that were rated between 7.5 and 8 but they were few inbetween).
On Viki, people tend to be more generous... Anything below 9 is not that good. If it falls under 8.5, there's essentially no need to bother.
This being said, it has more to do with the fact that you can't rate by halves on Viki unlike MDL. I would argue most shows that would be rated 8.5 here, are rated 9 there because most people round ratings up instead of down.

Actually the story moves pretty fast for a C drama. I haven't read the novel but I tried to spoil myself some events and one thing that happened in episode 3 was actually in chapter 40 of the novel.

This being said, every hyped drama this year, be it Chinese or Korean, were huge disappointments for me... EXCEPT for this one.
So you should definitely check it out yourself.

MDL ratings are worth nothing when a drama is airing though. So far so good I'd say, and I'm pretty enthusiastic but I'm of the opinion that ratings should only be done once a drama had aired fully because it could also go down the drain at some point.

This being said I don't agree with Praise comment's above. Most K dramas I watched this year were rated even before a single episode had aired and most of these ratings were bad. The two most popular K dramas are present are rated just above 8 and the rest can't even attain that bar... And we all know that given how people rate on MDL, if you can't reach 8, you've already got bad press.

It's either one extreme or the other to the point where I wonder if there's a secret stupid war between fans and antis which leaves the neutral of us puzzled over these numbers.

Yeah I understand... I'm practicing self control...while spoiling myself some tidbits on youtube...I'm obsessed with this show, I hate myself. I hate Wetv.

I used to have a subscription but most of the dramas I was interested in always ended up on Viki anyways + I hate the fact that you can't customize the way subs are displayed and they're usually of lower quality than the subs on Viki... and for some reason everytime I run their website, it uses a LOT of my CPU resources.

Now that I think of it...
I do have an iQiyi subscription though... but the way subs are displayed there is a bit tricky, they don't appear and I often have to rewind...
I'm stupid... though. I should have thought of iQiyi.

🤣🤣🤣

So here's what I'm gonna do from now on: Watch some key scenes raw on iQiyi + trailer and wait for Viki releases... Probably the best I can do with this subbing problem... I can't believe I didn't think of iQiyi 🤨

EDIT: Well I've checked... Put my VPN to Taiwan but for some reason, it's not available on my account sadly...

Sadly I cannot check that viral edit... It leads me to some Chinese website and apparently to see it you need to create an account or at least enter your mobile phone >_<
Hopefully it'll get updated elsewhere.

I mean he does have sharp feature and cannot be mistaken as a woman but my God he's pretty.
Let's just call him a "pretty manly man" then :D

Lol true... But personally I would qualify Ryan Cheng as a "pretty man". I mean he's got a very pretty face... not to the point of mistaking him for a woman but still. Eventually Zhou Ye with her bun up would be more a "boyish man" if you see what I mean.

Oh yeah didn't know that actress... I understand your comment ^^ she could definitely pass as a pretty man. No wonder she regularly plays men roles.

"she could pass for a girl with boyish charms but then also as a boy with feminine charms, because among others men she does look petite and frail but she doesn’t look out of place. "

For me she doesn't look out of place either... but I'm more on the "girl with a boyish charm" ^^ Like I said, It doesn't bring me out of the story... It makes it easier for me to believe Xiao Jue is attracted to her as well ^^

I don't think people are saying this because of her portrayal but rather because of how pretty she looks even portraying a man.
I remember years ago watching Coffee Prince, the K drama, and Yoon Eun Hye playing Eun Chan was just that: She was a physically convincing as a pretty boy and her performance was spot on. In fact... when she made the switch to being a girl... well, she was prettier as a boy. Sorry Yoon Eun Hye...

As much as I'm loving this drama right now, I do have to look the other way on that matter because no matter what I do, I can't see Zhou Ye as a boy except maybe when she's wearing her hair in a bun. As soon as she lets down her hair, she just looks like a girl to me. No amount of boyish behavior can make me see her another way.

To be clear... I REALLY DON'T CARE. Because I'm a sucker for that trope in the first place. Any crossdressing novel, anime, drama... you name it and I'm on board...

But that it is a very valid critic. I read some extracts from the novel and apparently, she doesn't bother with some makeup or visual tricks to make her appearance rougher so there's that... but anyway. I understand the comments.

Doesn't mean people don't enjoy the show though.

>_< Also I'm watching on Viki... So since they're always 2 to 4 episodes behind, the amount of self control not to look for spoilers or snippets of key scenes on Youtube is... gahhhhhh😭😭😭

Watching with everyone does change your perception of the show ^^
I mean it's a good show don't get me wrong but as you said your appreciation depends mostly on how much you like the mains ^^

This is SUCH a bingeable show!
I should have waited before I started it...
I'm definitely gonna read the books once it's finished.

Really? Well that's stupid then... It's called MyDRAMAlist + obviously their anime database is not complete. Either you list everything or you list nothing, otherwise people are just not gonna use it since it's your database is an empty mess and go list their anime on better equivalent such as MyAnimeList for instance.

I just checked based on your comment and I see they've listed the last season of My Hero Academia... So Season 8, yet they've not listed the rest so what's the point I wonder...

But ok let's just say, just animated movies... "Lost in Starlight" is a Netflix Korean animated Movie that came out last year if I'm not mistaken...
Not listed...
So again, I don't get the point but whatever.