twiz aka unagibento

Damn. Happy Saturday

Both seasons are on iQiyi (I'm in the US)

This is on iQiyi and suitable as a casual watch. It's a nice action/adventure with some treasure hunting and light comedy. I wish I could update the cast info, because there's only 2 characters added that are shown on the main poster, so keep in mind this isn't everyone. The auto subs are ok by iQiyi standards, maybe like 7/10 with some messed up pronouns. I wouldn't recommend it for romance and the main romance is frustrating. But I like everyone's personality and the motley crew. The one-on-one fight scenes are pretty well choreographed, but there's a lot of mass shoot-outs that get a bit redundant toward the end. Personally I think it peaks at the mid-point: there's some really good scenes around then, afterwards it kinda winds down and it was a bit hard to stay engaged in the main plot.

This may be the only series I'll ever see with this many guys talking about, handling, selling and marketing feminine products, lol. At first I cringed at the theme, but it's good to normalize and de-stigmatize this subject.

I'm glad there was more romance and skinship in the 2nd season, so if you're wondering if it's worth continuing, I definitely enjoyed the scenes. But it's also very business office heavy and that theme stays central. I also think the FL deserved a better wardrobe. She's extremely petite and most of her clothes just swallowed her to the point that she looked a little sickly. But the few times she had a nice outfit, you could see the rest of her wardrobe doesn't do her justice. Anyway, the ML is a super dish, also watch him in My Girlfriend is an Alien because you'll get a better romance.

Sorry I took a long break from the show and had to remember all the roles! Yes, it is Zi Yi. Just finished Season 2, can confirm.

First ep is subbed on Viki (US), looks like 2 released so far with the 3rd out tomorrow.

And just one more peev: I had to scroll the comments to figure out what the hell was up with the umbrella and milk at the end. If that was mentioned as a game prize in the first ep, there's no way I'm remembering that 23 episodes later.

My main criticism is this totally lost track of the concept of the real world right from the beginning. As it drew out longer and longer and never came up for air (return to the real world), it really irked me to keep waiting for that to happen. Considering that it really never did, the plot did ok and developed what they had solidly. But maybe if this was the case, it should have been better off as a time traveler or parallel world show instead of a game. Her strong attachments and the ML's actions grew harder to justify in a game. By the time it was halfway done, I was kinda hoping 1) maybe the game would end prematurely/unsatisfactorily and she would get close to the ML irl instead 2) that the 2nd half would be pure irl after the game finished and the two leads were forced to deal with each other at the office 3) that the ML maybe had a crush on the FL from the beginning and developed an elaborate plot to pull her into a game where he could interact with her. Obviously none of that happened, and all of it would have made equally strong if not stronger stories. Still, I really liked her developing real powers and facing complex emotions/betrayals. I also like that the female-centered plot kept strong relationships (with some GL hints), but the antagonist's final motivations were a bit of a letdown. I wanted her to stand for more (or perhaps less, something as simple as Murong Chen's role in his sect), just keeping her sect alive, and not some jilted lover revenge plot.

This was fun, easy to watch and never dragged. I was seriously impressed at the size of the female cast and the female-centric plot, it's probably the largest I've seen on a cdrama. The FL stayed funny and she really had that "regular girl" type look that was believable for her role. The SML was adorable and his face was always priceless. Even though the 2nd half veered a bit, I did appreciate that the FL had a chance to develop her character/maturity more.

All these lit candles in this show are giving me anxiety lol

Part of me feels like Gumpa is old enough to be like, uh let's not do that lol

IMO the weakest part of the plan was taking the truck. If you want to nail someone on possession & intent to sell, the last thing you want to do is remove the drugs from their possession. It's just too easy to get framed or assumed guilty instead. They should have snuck into one of the trucks in the back or just followed them.

Yes, but it moves a little slower

The subs are not great on iQiyi, but neither is this drama overall. Warning as it's also a cliffhanger with apparently no conclusion. This is a fairly mediocre, watch-in-the-background while doing something else level show. Honestly, the SML Tao Si Yuan was probably what kept me watching and gave the show a pulse at all. The ML is fairly lukewarm and gets more so as this goes along. There were some surprise twists in the last episode, but... it ends abruptly and doesn't seem a sequel was worth it.

It was ok - the resolution was a bit of a surprise, but I also found the story a bit flat. It seems to be related to the Luoyang series and uses the same set, but it's set before the drama. However, the story is almost entirely unrelated except for the Unwelcome Well being featured, and a character mentioned in like the last minute of the movie.

This is on iQiyi with good subs. I really liked it! I was surprised by the quality of the production and special effects. If you enjoy a good pirates on the sea movie, you'll probably like it.

*sigh* I hate being this type of complainer on shows, but scrolling down, looks like the consensus is this will probably end up as a bromance. Admittedly I've been avoiding most BLs recently that were obviously made for cishet fan titillation and not true representation. But here I'm genuinely surprised and disappointed, as jdramas don't pull their punches in this space, at least not recently. If this was a cdrama it'd be expected. But watching something like a cdrama with that expectation already is different. If it is a bromance, I'll say they have some strong interactions that I would usually interpret as romantic. But I don't want to search for shadows that maybe aren't there. And I hope they don't force Ichiro + Nakaba, because their relationship feels like just senpai/kohai.

Hahaha jeez that Death Prince spin! I hope someone adds the new female character in ep 4 to the cast. She seems like she has real martial arts training.

The directing of this drama is so well-done. Not a single scene drags. I hope they don't mess up the second half of this series because the rewatch value is already so high for me. The birthday party are my new favorite episodes. It's hard to pull off good dance scenes and this show has already managed two. Meng has grown on me, I love his devilish character. I've got a little SLS, but the chemistry of the leads is fire too.