Skibbies

MXTX locked the book so you can't see it anymore, but TGCF is tagged as xianxia xiuzhen (it's one tag, xiuzhen is cultivation) rather than dongfang xuanhuan (eastern xuanhuan), so I'm pretty sure MDZS is tagged as it too. It's definitely most often refer to as a xianxia novel.

TU is xianxia but low magic xianxia, and lean towards the xia (chivalry) rather than the xian (gods/immortals), it's closer to Chinese Paladin (2005) and Chinese Paladin 3 (2009?) and its entire game series than the recent ones focused on immortal realms. Chinese Paladin is very wuxia adventurey but it has immortals + cultivation (and daoism, which is sorely missed in recent xianxia dramas). It could also be a xiuxian/xiuzhen (cultivation) one because they use concept of core, but TU's focus isn't really on levelling. It can definitely be argued that it's Xuanhuan, because that's literally fantasy with eastern twist, I think it's a bigger genre that also contain xianxia but that's just me. The thing is xianxia existed before xuanhuan really became a thing so it's just...a separate genre lol. Xuanhuan technically goes under fantasy too but it's too big of a genre LOL. (Xuanhuan's term came from Huang Yi, who's a wuxia author lmao)

I found it kind of difficult to distinguish between the three. In my experience, the web novels aimed at male audience that's tagged as xianxia are usually xiuxian/cultivation novels, while the female audience ones (and thus most of the dramas you see recently) are focused on "xian" than "xia", I legit don't recall any BG novels that's focused on xia (and they all end up being romance centric so eh), you can find cultivation novels too but they are rarer. Xuanhuan from my limited experience fuse eastern and western concepts and use levelling up terms that are new and made up, like Ever Night. if it's completely western, it's Xihuan/Qihuan/Mohuan which is just fantasy (western fantasy/fantasy/magic fantasy, the three are used almost interchangibly). There's bunch of subgenres under cultivation but I don't read them enough to get them LOL.

Oh yeah I know about that, I was really surprised when I first saw it, but it make sense. They don't promote their dramas as much and their dramas are definitely mostly low budget. I like a lot of dramas that iqiyi invest/produces, but......they had.....140 dramas last year (in total, not just stuff they invest in i think), when mangotv had like 30 dramas. iqiyi i only remember maybe 20 of your shows off top of my head so i most definitely probably never saw 1/3 of your shows!

Hunan specifically sacrificed ratings for some popular variety shows and made them web variety shows and exclusive to get it started. Their inhouse dramas also get the chance to air on Hunan TV if they get lucky. Hunan is also the most trendy of all the tv stations, they started airing the popular "idol dramas" before everyone else, they started broadcasting popular high rating dramas every summer, they were the biggest stations besides CCTV 20 years ago and they were reigning king till last 5 year or so. Of course they have lot of issues too, but so do the internet giants. Jiejie last year got them lot of members that it was almost youku level for awhile, and then the show crash and burned LOL (but still most popular variety show of the year!)

I'm pretty sure Gank Your Heart only got a rating because of WYB lol, and I think I watched it because it made a splash in esport community (negative one, but it turned positive when one teams used a technique mentioned in the book for fun and people got over the fact it's a romance drama with romance tropes LOL)

because it's a mangotv drama LOL, a lot of mango dramas just finish airing without rating, the platform is too small (half the size of youku? and youku is smaller than iqiyi and wetv) and a lot of its subscribers use it to watch variety show rather than dramas. The mini reviews and reviews don't look too promising to be honest...

roll around bilibili and weibo for a bit. I want to rec you awakening age but it's more serious drama and not sure if you can get into it l o l. (actually, probably better to line it up after qin empire)

It's all up in the air, previously the rule applied to tv dramas, 2019 (70 years of PRC) didn't have prominent historical from late Aug till Nov when Joy of Life showed up, but first quarter's tv dramas was lackluster anyways LOL, and webdramas gaining prominence so it probably apply to both tv and webdramas. iirc, the rumour mill have producers rushing to air historical dramas in first quarter (or at least before May) so it sounds about right. CPC's anniversary is July 1st, National day is Oct 1st, so November could be possible for historical?

The streaming platforms also have those short small budget historical dramas that might not be affected because they don't actually get the promotional banners. Aside from historical, there's a number of police/military dramas starring popular actors that's been highly anticipated that'll likely air in May or June (Li Yifeng's, Yangyang's, Chen Xiao & Wang Yibo's off top of my head). iirc Yangyang and Dilireba's You Are My Glory (modern romance) is rumoured to be summer. Likely because the male lead works in aerospace now that I think about it lol. So there's still fair amount of dramas international audience might be interested in.

saturday, there's 33 ep right now, and you should see one ep a day till saturday.

*shrug* i'm mostly speculating. even if they unlock it, i don't think it'd drop that far down so it's a good score regardless.

he named his daughter nianxiang 念湘, which means in memory of a xiang ;___; oh you precious child.

I also want to note that he didn't marry Gao xiaolian, His disciple calls her Gao shigu, which imply that Gao is Chengli's shijie or shimei (so they share the same shifu)

Re: Chengli in ep 36

Chengli's disciples calls Gao shigu 师姑 which imply that Gao is Chengli's shijie or shimei (sister sharing the same shifu), so chengli didn't marry her, he must have married someone else.

when there's huge influx of ratings, esp if it's 5 star or 1 star and esp if they come from new accounts, they lock it while they clear out ratings they deem invalid (bot ratings or newbies that just rate one drama but doesn't do anything else). douban clear out invalid ratings regularly without locking, but when there's too many, they probably can't do it fast enough or something?

the rating looks like it's been locked actually, probably from influx of ratings earlier. I say it looks like it's been locked because rating tends to fluctuate as update goes but this is just stuck at 8.6. Not sure when they'll unlock it.

did you look up word of honor? there's shan he ling and word of honor, WoH should be the international version that's eng subbed and not region locked.

look up "Word of Honor" and that version should have the eng sub.

she never commented on it, her weibo is all just audiodrama and a donghua repost (different novel's adaptation), she liked the film wrap up post since the drama acc @ her. It's probably for the best, a lot of her book fans were upset that scriptwriter used vital dialogue + key item from different novel. The scriptwriter meant it as a homage, but some fans found it overstepping boundary since it wasn't a nod, it was stuff central to different novel that have upcoming adaptation. ah well.

look up "word of honor" and that version should have eng subs :)

for reference, there was something like 15 dramas that's 8+ last year (it's closer to 20 now since year end dramas were really strong), less than 10 in 2019, 3 in 2018 (idk what happened that year lol), just under 10 in 2017 (there was a boom of quality webdramas this year), about 5 or 6 in 2016 and 2015 (i can't be sure because i didn't watch some of the dramas at the time so I don't remember their score lol).

9+ dramas in the last 5 years are Nirvana in Fire, last year's thriller Long Night (Bad Kids is stuck at 8.9 rip), then it's dramas most international fans aren't particularly interested in, all aired recently, Like a Flowing River 2 (about economic reform, from 88 to 92), Min Ning Town (about reducing poverty, 90s to early 00s), Awakening Age (early republican, 1915 ~ 1921, literary movement that led to social and political reform)

you can buy the episodes at 3 yuan/ep every tuesday and friday (vvip/on-demand), you basically watch the episodes slightly ahead, eng sub follow the vip schedule and will finish on saturday.