MelodiaMaverick

This is one of the best series I've watched in a while. How did I miss it before? This has everything.

They will be together for majority of the part. The separation is basically politically motivated and involves being her bonded. You'll understand when you see it.

There’s no misunderstanding; it’s mainly He Simu refusing to stay with Duan Xu for reasons that would be major spoilers if revealed now. This happens near the end of the drama, but they reunite quickly afterward, so there’s that.

Yan Ke toward He Simu, but there’s also a great plot, so I don’t want to give away too much. The main pairing stays consistent, so if that’s what you’re wondering about, you can relax.

Yeah, I didn’t mention it because that was modern clothing. I was only thinking about costume dramas, and the outfits in this one are instantly noticeable and really well done.

They were tiny errors, but it didn't detract from my viewing experience, so I didn't mind.

If you think one-sided obsession counts as a love triangle, then this drama does have that, but only near the very end. Personally, I don’t see one-sided obsession as love, so for me, it doesn’t have a love triangle at all.

There weren’t many mistakes, but the flow felt messy in episode 1. Other than that, I have no complaints.

This is the most beautifully styled Dilraba drama I’ve seen. She looks absolutely ethereal here.

The editing of ep 1 looked a little messy but it progressively got better and ep 3 and 4 was great. Loving this a lot.

Happy

I'm a fan of Genius. Somebody give me that ball of sunshine.

No.

Not really. In the first half she was engaged but it got broken up and there was basically no romantic interaction between them. So, no need to worry about love triangle.

Well, I like the premise and most of all, I don't have anything else to watch. I'll just skip ep 7 to 9 then and go from there. From the comments, it seems like 7 to 9 is the main problem.

Should I really skip it? Does this really not have a iota of redeeming quality?

I grew up on manga and anime, and after watching countless dramas, I’ve realized that Japanese directors and scriptwriters often don’t adapt the manga or anime storylines for live-action in a way that works. By idol dramas, I don’t mean ones about actual J-idols, but rather shows with fluffy, mostly substance-free stories. In manga adaptations, they tend to keep the exaggerated actions and reactions that work fine in manga or anime but feel cringy or like bad acting in live-action. There are so many series like this that people lose hope for something better. That’s why J-dramas have relatively few international viewers. Good series like "First Love" are rare, and often the best ones are melodramas. Episode count, in my opinion, is another limitation for Asian dramas. Writers often stretch or compress the storyline to fit a preset format, which ruins immersion. I prefer a story that takes as many episodes as it needs to wrap up—where the story decides the episode count, not the other way around.

I think it's mostly because often times J dramas have some unhinged story line and most of the good ones have sad ending. Acting style is a issue in idol dramas. For the melodrama type series or something like "First Love" the acting is really good. But I really wish they would cut down the over the top acting in idol dramas or even Rom-Com for that matter.

Rewatching it right now.

Now that I think about it, I've watched almost all his projects and liked them. This is a first for me.