ShortCircuit

The novel explains the burn scar on LZ. It probably was too much for the censorship, so they had to skip the explanation in the drama - but the readers know. The novel is also being published officially in English, in about 4 volumes, the last of which comes out sometime in the Spring of 2023. Want a spoiler on the burn scar in the mean time? :D

It's not explained in the animated version, IIRC.

The novel is worth the reading, IMHO. If for nothing else - if you like horror, there'll be a much better explanation about why in-world people don't really like the YiLing Patriarch just as much as we do. Also - zombies, not spirits. Lots of zombies (well, fierce corpses, same difference). And QUITE a lot more intimacy and a way more PDA-prone Lan Zhan LOL.

TBH, Scarlet Heart shouldn't get a second season, if it's another story fixating on secondary characters. Not to Kang Ha Neul's fault, but it got me so MAD every time she would foolishly go back to the 8th prince instead of getting along with Wang So. I mean, which was the main romantic pair and why did we spend two thirds of the drama on a one-sided love NOBODY cared about?! And LJG is playing Wang So to perfection - they had the perfect setting, the best actor in sageuks, and they decided to go with a secondary pairing fated to be doomed in the end and that left all viewers unsatisfied.

So, nope. No second season for me, please.

Vagabond, on the other hand... That one was among the first bait-and-switch Netflix Korean dramas, and I just couldn't believe that final scene. Are you serious?!! THIS was what it was all building up for?!

And now that I've mentioned Netflix... Dammit, Arthdal Chronicles. There won't EVER be another season. No resolution of any kind, except for the storyboard in the final credits. Those sets looked expensive as hell, they filmed in exotic places (Brunei, if I remember correctly?!), they hired huge names for MCs - that sequel is never going to see the light of day.

It still makes me so mad - I think (at least for me) AC was the first Kdrama that was serialized (and totally crazy, too) and also the first with no ending whatsoever and a clear TBC. Then a lot more followed, so I learned not to watch SK dramas made by Netlix, if they're not finished (it helps they like their silly zombie series, that I don't really watch. Ever.)

It seems to be an ongoing thing with MangoTV - I watched Hunter/Wolf Hunter from them, and the subs had the same problem. It made me so sad such a great drama didn't get the love it deserved - and all because it was nighly impossible to make sense of some of the dialogue.

Maybe they'll get picked up by some TL team *keeping fingers crossed*

So in the end, the boys might NOT be brothers after all?!

Very good. Short, well-scripted, filmed, acted. An actual gem.

The cdrama. I didn't know there's a kdrama too, LOL. Is there?

Are they brothers? I mean, Gao Yang, Xiao Wen and Mi Jia? The first eps seem to hint the mother did get around a lot, but if XW and MJ are twins or something, I guess it could work.

Or are they not siblings?! In which case, how come XW ends up in GY's home so easily? Though Gao Bin seems to say at some point that both his sons are home, so I guess at least the boys are brothers.

I'm only on ep4, even with the atrocious googlebabble TL, this is hilarious.

Spoil me on this, if anyone knows, please.

Flower of Evil & Life on Mars deserve all the praises they get. I haven't watched any of the others, but these two, yes, they're the ones to remember.

And Reset. Reset should be on this list somewhere.

I'm just glad to see CGK again, if he accepts.

If you like time-loops and time-paradoxes, I highly recommend the anime Steins;Gate. There's a reason why time travel begins, there, and it takes a while to get going, but it's all amazing.

When it first began airing, people who had read the novel said the chain of events was set off by MengMeng trying to stop her parents from killing people, from the afterlife. So she somehow manages to cause a glitch in the matrix-type of event to get someone in the living world to solve it.

Since China doesn't allow supernatural themes (ha! in the context of a time loop drama), the working theory was that LSQ and XHY got caught in the loop because they were asleep when the bomb got on board the bus and they were the only people who got off it multiple times after riding the bus for a while in the presence of the bomb, too. XHY might have been pulled into the loop by LSQ, but a condition of being able to remember succesive loops might be he too was asleep alongside her. At least that's how it was explained that Lu Di didn't get in the loop - he never rode the bus before being dragged off by LSQ, neither was he on the bus when the bomb was brought, or asleep at any time during his ride.

I guess the novel might have more insight on this, but I'm pretty happy with what we got :D

I was SO afraid HeYun would not be able to either wake up at all, or get some serious health problems, but so far so good. Maybe his health only deteriorates when he's hurt in the loop, and getting out of it might cure any side effects.

Everybody made it!!!! YAY! But I don't think the bus pervert has many chances if he and Wang XingDe remain in the same prison.

Was the med grandma's nephew the kid in the car who wanted watermelons? It didn't look like the same kid, but I hope if the first kid is someone different, he won't get caught in another loop. I really need to read the novel.

The main cast was amazing - this is definitely a binge drama, it's a drama to watch in one sitting LOL. Bai Jing Ting and Zhao Jin Mai are great - I didn't expect less from him, her I only watched in this drama, she does have what it takes :) Shoutout to all the actors who played police officers - Cpt. Zhang and Sgt. Jiang's mentor-and-mentee relationship carried a lot of weight too.

Also, the soundtrack! Not just the OP song - there were a few gems strewn throughout the series, I really need to find some of those songs.

Overall, a very good drama, I wish there were more like it. Definitely one to rewatch :)

PS Lu, Apostle of Cat, Conqueror of Asthma, Chosen One of the Light, Di got a cat! LOL that Sphynx didn't like it :D but I liked the Sphynx! Those amazing blue eyes planning the end of the world hahaha!

So good!

And Lu Di's father carries the day, too, that cosplay was da bomb LOL :D

OK, so for context... A few years back, there were a lot of incidents involving school or kindergarten staff (teachers or admin or other employees) but usually strangers, that attacked kids (a lot of knifings, with deaths of students involved.) Some of them were terrorist attacks (in certain provinces), some were "motivated" by untreated mental health issues. Some included parents of bullied kids who commited suicide. You get the picture.

The idea is, the news stories about such things dried up recently (don't know if they're censured not to give ideas to more people, or just don't happen for various reasons - better mental health treatments, or more involved people noticing and informing police/hospital staff about erratic behaviour, or what not.) They're just less than there used to be.

So I imagine - this is my own opinion, I can't verify if it's true or not and I haven't read the novel yet - the script writers wanted to make absolutely sure the theme of the story won't "inspire" people who lost their children in any kind of situation to take revenge in any similar way. Maybe not with a bomb, since that's kind of hard to build, but just to take revenge on whoever they feel slighted them. So even if the parents are presented for long enough to better understand how the mom (and actually the dad too, he went through with it even if he was inclined to just let it go in the beginning) got to be so destructive and anti-social (none of the other passengers had ANYthing to do with their daughter's death, and she - and the husband - do NOT care one bit), the people watching the drama are probably supposed to know why they did it but still not feel empathetic to them.

The second aspect is the social media cesspool. There's a rising tide of venom poured daily in social media forums that poisons anything and everything it touches, and it's not rational - it's the mob on the internet. Anything that netizens feel slighted with becomes a target, and it can lead to lives destroyed, careers gone, or deaths. (For example, there was recently a story of a kid in China who thought he was stolen from his parents and sold to his current family, who couldn't have children of their own. He grew up and believed there was a chance to find his bio parents. He did find them, and learned they actually didn't want him, but had him and gave him away then divorced and each married other persons. From a pretty reunion picture, social media posts from the parents and the teen emerged that were used by the netizens to accuse him of trying to get money from them, and being disrespectful etc - he got such amount of hate messages that his probably not strong mental balance was destroyed and he killed himself a few days back. Now his current family - who did want him even when his bio parents gave him away - and his bio parents too, if they ever cared one bit - get to live with the guilt. That is NOT normal, but it really happened.)

Ep. 14 has the other former student on the bus with MengMeng, who wanted to confess to what happened and was attacked by fellow students, close to her, just for suggesting MM wasn't crazy to try and escape the molester, and she didn't even dare try again, in order not to get ostracized and/or attacked herself. It was hard for her to start talking even 5 years later.

Sorry for the long wall of text.

TL;DR: for me, the context of the social situation in China (as much as I can see and remember, looking from way over half the world apart), it makes sense to explain but not make bombers sympathetic to the public (no matter how justified their motives looks to them), AND use a second or more in a well-watched series to pin some attention on the unhealthiness of internet mobs.

It might be just that I'm in a particular mood that makes me receptive to the pace of the drama. I don't know. Sorry again for the long comment.

Ep 15 in EngSub premieres in 2 hrs from now on YoYo TV (youtube), 15:00 GMT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYHZXJg89u4&list=PLvpAVnYN4lb2yscd60VA82_R0qIiS7HzD&index=6

Lucky you, I watched from ep 1 (first day it released and there was a sub LOL). And the TLs got pretty slow in the later eps :( but I still very much appreciate the works of the subbers - better to see it later than not at all or raw :)

The one with Gulf being a make-up artist (because as you said, he sure does look veeeery nice), and the ghost and the God of Death sound interesting (this later one reminds me somewhat of Arang and the Magistrate, LOL. Though the magistrate wasn't a Death God :D)

I want something nice and not TOO long, and DIFFERENT, (well not that different, but enough to notice).

We'll see :D

It IS MengMeng's ring tone that's used before the bomb goes off.

But Mr. Ma definitely is NOT the target, and the loop also isn't linked to whenever HeYun wakes up, so those theories are busted.

I just wish now that they tell Sgt. Jiang about the time loop, to give him some hope even if he won't remember it - but I guess at this point they're not even sure the loop continues, so they won't want to appear deranged in front of him. He's kind of fragile now, I want them to give him something to hold on to :(

So ep 14 proved one point of my previous theories right...

The footage had to be saved to be used in investigating the accident. The police had it - I don't think they leaked it - but also the company that manages the bus routes (they fired the driver who opened the door for MengMeng.)

Then "everybody in the campus was talking about the accident" (mentioned in ep 14), enough so that the chatrooms had to be locked by the net admins. If there was so much interest, some IT students could have hacked the bus company systems to get the file.

Or it might have been given to the press, for some reason (again, most probably by someone with the bus company, definitely not the police, they're making an effort here to show the police is pretty competent, all things considered) - not sure how accidents footage data is managed in China. From the press... it would be everywhere.

14 is used to show how she didn't go crazy out of the blue - it took 6 months of self-torment and then discovering how people were only blaming her daughter. Normal people don't descend into madness once tragedy strikes, and she was a normal person before the accident.

And it's also used to slow down the pace - as 13 was - before the final loop.

I don't know about other watchers, but before these pre-final two episodes, the bomber was kind of generic to me, her motives pretty cliche. But she was fleshed out in these eps. as a villain should be, so that however it all ends, there won't be any questions starting with "but why would she...".