ShortCircuit

ShiMei is a bit complex. But yeah, he starts up being male and they made him a girl in the drama. Then again, we'll have to wait and see if 2ha ever escapes from limbo...

Danmei novels are the best :D

Though from MXTX I still think Scum Villain's Self-Saving System is the best after MDZS :)

(And there are SO many to choose from, from wuxia, xianxia to modern danmei, it's a whole new world :))

This has no romantic subplot.

Did they finish airing it on TV? Was the ending different?

I so, SO wanted Kang San to go back to the past and stop it all from happening... Then again, the superpowers are back, we could always get a second season where he does just that. Could we?

This was one useless female detective, BTW. If they HAD to have a female (lead or main or support) why wouldn't they make her actually efficient? This was... lacklustre. I'm not sure if it's the role (it feels like the writer couldn't make her be actually important) or the acting (the actress feels so low-energy throughout the series, I've no idea how the director didn't notice). Even KS's friend from the past had more energy than her.

But still... dammit, LMS! DongJoo is right, the apples didn't fall too far from the tree in that family. So sad - they had the greatest frenemy bromance going on in the first half of the story.

The plot is a bit loose here and there, some of the detectives (yes the female one) were kind of useless, the science (beyond the obvious) was missing (LOL, if that was a meteorite, where's the damn crater? A small one. Or at least some burn traces in all those dead leaves LOL), then some solutions were... at least strange (so they did bury the body WITH the broken bottle that just HAPPENED to have TaeMan's fingerprints on it?! And that guy was the go-to killer LTM had used all those almost three decades, too? LOL). And what happened to Mr. No? Is he still in a coma? Does he ever wake up?

All that being said... this was so much FUN!! I mean, I'll be missing DongJoo's barked responses to whatever. And I grew to love his mom. I want DongJoo and Kang San to go and save the world together, and then write novels about it. They're not superheroes (despite the superpowers), they'd just go and right small wrongs and maybe help other people not drown in despair.

Seriously, this does beg a second season. I'd love to watch it!

Oh dammit... LMS, you big letdown!

There are two timelines. The present (1-2, 33-50) and the past (3-33). The first two eps set up the latter half of the drama (what happened after WWX was resurrected) and the 3-33 eps explain how did it come to that.

The novel the drama is based on was written to include lots of shorter flashbacks. The drama producers decided to keep it a bit simpler and consolidate all the flashbacks into one story, then return to the present and what happened next. (The past is not just WWX's story, but basically EVERYthing, including the reason why he would be resurrected - or need to be resurrected - in the first place).

So the idea is - this is going to be a ride. Usually, if you weren't caught in it from the very beginning, it happens around episodes 15-17 (when the going gets tough). But it won't return to the present until 33.

Jin Ling WILL be present in 1-2, 33-50, but not in all episodes. He's in the juniors' adventures though, so he does show up a lot (particularly in the Yi City Arc, that starts right around 33-34 or thereabouts.)

Then again, he DOES grow fonder of WWX in the end, cut him some slack :D And by the end of the series, he is still running around with the juniors and dealing with dangerous creatures with them - Wen Ning too - and JC allows it all grudgingly. They're definitely bonding by then. (It happens in the book too, more obviously than in the drama).

The one junior you should be paying attention to isn't necessarily Jin Ling, though :D

Jiang Cheng is blood-brother to Jiang YanLi. Wei WuXian is (not officially) adopted by Jiang FengMian (their father) so JC and WWX are not really brothers, except through the bond of growing up together and being unseparable for most of their lives. Also, WWX is the standard JC compares himself to, even in light of his father's expectations and pride in both of them. He is jealous for the freedom that WWX is allowed, while he is always expected to be a golden standard of chivalry (and he's convinced his father loves WWX more than he does him, his true son. The mother has a big part for creating that self-doubt in her son.)

JC is not really mad at WWX, even when he thinks he (WWX) is to blame for YanLi's death. He does NOT try to kill WWX (not even in the drama - the first scene of the drama is a fakeout, and when it's revisited at the end of the flashback you see he missed on purpose, actually). When they all return to the present time storyline, JC is still mad about WWX's perceived's fault BUT when the truth eventually comes to light, JC understands everything and basically gives up on blaming WWX for it.

He does NOT constantly try to hurt WWX, even when he has him in his power he mostly wants to fight with him to make WWX admit to being at fault. And to be honest, it's not a game of mutually balanced advantages for the both of them - WWX did him and the Jiang Clan great wrongs and also WWX did JC unbelievable good, while JC always covered for him and even, in the end, comes through on his side when it matters the most. You could say they keep causing each other great emotional wounds, but physically... not a lot.

The leads of the drama are WWX (main POV), LWJ (secondary POV) but the others ALL have important parts to play. I'd say JC is among the most important characters so yes, he has plenty of screen time. Jin Ling, the nephew of EVERYBODY in the drama, LOL, also has a big part to play. He shows up less because the juniors are only present in the current timeline.

So, more spoilers (because why not)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrVNMEcPXws

It's a 5 years gap, and she's small for her age (throughout the series). It won't matter soon enough, be patient.

Myself, after each and every episode: dammit, I really didn't expect anime bishōnen to really exist in real life!!

(And I've watched CZY in dramas before, too, LOL).

1. If it's the same beach, it might be just the filming location giving you vibes of same-old, same-old. Just so you know what I mean... The beach fighting date location is the same place where they eventually go to find the missing LLH, if you're paying attention (in the first scene they're focusing on the shore and mountains, on the other, they're focusing on the sea and characters so that they would look like they're different places). Also, if you really want to get confused - look at the clouds in the special1 ep. The cloud pattern is THE SAME for the alone-on-the-beach LLH scene AND for the DFS&FDB-probably-alone-on-the-same-beach scene (that is supposedly happening months later). They very probably filmed the scenes very close to each other in time, since the clouds didn't even move, LOL. And there are some intriguing BTS that still show the same cloudy sky on the same beach, with scenes that are not included in the drama.

So don't read much into it - it's just the location.

2. Some poison was pushed out, but he was poisoned for 10+ years and it had gotten to his bone marrow. No salvation from there.

3. He didn't learn Windy Poplar, he just gave DFS some more qi so that DFS using WP could heal his own meridians. At least that's how I understood it.

TBH... I already knew CY from L&R (which I kind of liked in general DESPITE the totally random she's-a-male-god part, LOL, that was awkward~~), but this time around I grew MUCH more impressed with Zheng ShunXi (Joseph Zheng). He totally holds his own against a more experienced actor - CY - and comes out in great light. I liked his character through and through, and I'll very probably start dramas based on his presences in them, LOL.

Also this changed my impression on Xiao ShunYao. He used to be cast (at least in the dramas I've seen him in) as the evil chara and usually drops dead sooner or later, LOL, but this time, even if he started out black, he eventually became a good guy. I am totally on the side of having him cast as Yan WuShi when, if ever, they make a Thousand Autumns live action. Joseph Zheng could even be his Shen Qiao, LOL, they do have great chemistry of bickering :D

SGD was cutting out LXY's name even when they were supposedly just best-friends teens training under their master, before even starting up Sigu Sect. SGD's jealousy was always there, he just hid it very very well.

It's a painful thing to realise for LXY, considering he blew it all to hell trying to find SGD's "body" which led to the sect dissolving, his own poisoning and eventual dissolution of power, his master's death, and everything else.

Pure-hearted bromance (no innuendos of romantic-bromance, rest assured). But there were past romances, present obsessions and naive first-time flirts, just not in the focus much because it's not a romantic story.

And there are no un-related demons any more. They used to regularly chase down small-fry demons that had nothing to do with the overarching plot, but now it's like all small demons are gone and only Mr Ma's story is enough to carry the whole season - which it isn't, because we all know evil is always defeated in such stories and that Mr Ma will eventually be "rescued" and his soul will meet his wife again because that's how it is when they run out of ideas. There's no tension, no bits of off-guard surprises, none of the Counters have any other support system apart from each other, their only "action" is beating the stupid gym boxing sacks each episode... it's basically BORING.

Too bad :(

This is so painfully boring, almost unwatchable. Even the preview needs to be in 2x speed. I don't care about Mr Ma's problems, the hot evil master demon can only carry the interest so far, and none of the Counters seem to retain any of their lovable and interesting characteristics from S1. I don't care about HaNa's romance, I don't care about SoMoon's overpowered naivete, and I find the new Counter's slapstick stupidity totally overacted and uninspired.

Dammit, re-reading this I guess this is way, way far from what the first season delivered. I might put it on hold or drop it, it already began feeling like a chore watching it... Something needs to change, and fast, but I don't have much hope for it.

Is that your whole list or did you leave dramas off it?

If the list is complete, you're missing (at least):

The Blood of Youth (extremely similar, you'll love the bromance)
https://kisskh.at/683119-shao-nian-ge-xing

Nirvana in Fire (masterpiece)
https://kisskh.at/9025-nirvana-in-fire

Under the Microscope (kind of like the same genre, mystery-solving, but a tad more personal)
https://kisskh.at/700333-xian-wei-jing-xia-de-da-ming

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty (because danmei and mystery-solving, LOL)
https://kisskh.at/33272-the-story-of-ming-dynasty

Sword Snow Stride (lots of wuxia fighting)
https://kisskh.at/59487-sword-snow-stride

There are more :D

At least the extra/special suggests there COULD be a manner that they find him alive, in his right mind, just playing loner and trying to escape by himself, as usual.

In the novel, it's like his body is still moving around, but the mind is gone, so LLH is actually dead. I'd rather have the open ending.

Everybody begins guessing way sooner than that, and LLH is playing "these are not the droids you are looking for" every time. Almost everybody falls for it each and every time, LOL. His bulshi**ing level is god-tier.