Love O2O - Rant/Review
Dec. 18th, 2018 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fangirlishnessCopy of my pillowfort post from December 2018
Love O2O
Youtube: 30 episodes with good English subtitles
Mydramalist: https://mydramalist.com/15031-love-o2o
Characters:
MAIN Bei Wei Wei (Zheng Shuang)
MAIN Xiao Nai (Yang Yang)
BETA Er Xi (Mao Xiao Tong)
BETA Cao Guang (Bai Yu)
NOT A REC
Love O2O - the main lead Xiao Nai is on the left, playing the game with his group of friends
I only started watching it because Bai Yu is in it, even though he's part of a beta pairing and thus looks like this:
There is no resisting Bai Yu's laugh, who cares about the hair and glasses
It starts out very promising: Wei Wei, a CompSci student girl is very good at gaming, fellow gamer Xiao Nai notices her in an Internet cafe and befriends her within the game. It has everything! Smart geek girls! Fun in-game interactions! Cheesy costumes! Getting fake-married and falling in love later! Mistaken identities! An unthreatened main pairing! A gay side pairing!
The female main character even gets to dress down some people for misbehaving, and people listen to her. She also gets one technically challenging task when she starts out as an intern.
Guys, the first ten episodes of this were SO much fun to watch. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. There are 30 episodes in total. It's like midway through, the writers forgot that their female characters used to be smart and had agency. I just wanted to strangle them all.
quick cut with THE cdrama question: does it have a happy ending?
Yes. For everyone. (Even those who really didn't deserve it.)
Here starts my spoilery ranting:
There is one character who is unrequitedly in love with the heroine. And when she shoots him down (very well, btw!), he actually tells her that it's his right to keep pursuing her until she changes her mind. WTF no, asshole! Sadly, that is Bai Yu's character, who then proceeds to stalk her online, while at the same time falling in love with her friend. You really don't want to root for him, it's like watching a train wreck waiting to happen. They actually manage to resolve that triangle in a logical way for everyone involved a few eps before the end. I could have lived with that. But then they get a pastede on happy ending in the very last episode. Again: WTF no!
The bad characters all turn good in the end. The mean girl thanks the heroine for being such an upright character and role model, and her other love interest proclaims that he'll now put all his efforts into his work instead of pining for her.
The in-game shenanigans are really fun in the beginning, because you can tell the writers knew what they were writing about. There are weird things in the game like getting married and having pets, but also the usual like going on quests and spending tedious hours leveling up. I also very much loved how the people who were sitting next to each other were still chatting through the game. Does that sound like anyone you know? :)
They are fighting a ridiculous bamboo monster! The bad CGI omg lol.
She's gifting him with a rare sword she made herself! The costumes omg lol.
Unfortunately, they either ran out of budget or out of ideas and there are barely any in-game sequences anymore towards the end. The famous "couple quest" consists of her sitting in a trap for 13 hours and him rescuing her. WTF, people?! That was the point where I started doubting the show, and with good reason, because the writing never got better again after that.
The heroine works as an intern with her partner ( = future husband), but apart from the first task, she is never given any work except ordering food and preparing the work place. She's a CompSci student, for fuck's sake! Let her program! Yes, you're all seniors and she's a junior, but aaaarrrrgh.
Er Xi also works as an intern in another company, and she also isn't given any interesting work to do at all. Partly due to machinations of the evil boss/girlfriend, but even when there is work for her, it's all secretary work and not CompSci work. Arrrrgh again.
Of course, the tropes are all very tropey. Wei Wei is not only the smartest but also the beauty queen of her school, both Wei Wei and Er Xi are said to be eating a lot all the time and there are many jokes about their appetite (but of course they still look like stick insects), Xiao Nai is the top player in the game, also a hacker prodigy and founder of his own successful company. Yeeeaaaaah right.
The product placement is especially nauseating: they all have one phone, one car, one drink, one weird type of beauty products, and one brand of snacks. Sigh.
And then, last but not least: the romance plot. The main characters are both fine, and I can deal with her being submissive and hesitant (and not a very good actress), because she is otherwise shown as competent (in the beginning). But the longer it drags on, the less you believe in the relationship. Yes, they get together about halfway through, but every single kiss scene looks like this:
She looks like a mannequin and like she'd rather be anywhere else
He's doing a good job (great, even), but she ruins every single kiss scene. That is not romantic, people. In that case, it really doesn't help anymore that they're so in love that the relationship is never threatened at all.
Omg, and the last episode. They really should have ended the show one ep earlier, which is where all the arcs ended. The pacing would have been okay if it had ended there. But no. Then we have to sit through a whole episode of them meeting the parents. (And the undeserved beta pairing happy ending.) I don't know why I was even still watching at that point. /o\
In that sense, it is a pretty typical Chinese production. *sigh*
Too late, buddy, too late.
Verdict: if you want to see Bai Yu be cute in curls and glasses, by all means watch at your own risk. Otherwise this is not worth your trouble.
Love O2O
Youtube: 30 episodes with good English subtitles
Mydramalist: https://mydramalist.com/15031-love-o2o
Characters:
MAIN Bei Wei Wei (Zheng Shuang)
MAIN Xiao Nai (Yang Yang)
BETA Er Xi (Mao Xiao Tong)
BETA Cao Guang (Bai Yu)
NOT A REC
Love O2O - the main lead Xiao Nai is on the left, playing the game with his group of friends
I only started watching it because Bai Yu is in it, even though he's part of a beta pairing and thus looks like this:
There is no resisting Bai Yu's laugh, who cares about the hair and glasses
It starts out very promising: Wei Wei, a CompSci student girl is very good at gaming, fellow gamer Xiao Nai notices her in an Internet cafe and befriends her within the game. It has everything! Smart geek girls! Fun in-game interactions! Cheesy costumes! Getting fake-married and falling in love later! Mistaken identities! An unthreatened main pairing! A gay side pairing!
The female main character even gets to dress down some people for misbehaving, and people listen to her. She also gets one technically challenging task when she starts out as an intern.
Guys, the first ten episodes of this were SO much fun to watch. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. There are 30 episodes in total. It's like midway through, the writers forgot that their female characters used to be smart and had agency. I just wanted to strangle them all.
quick cut with THE cdrama question: does it have a happy ending?
Yes. For everyone. (Even those who really didn't deserve it.)
Here starts my spoilery ranting:
There is one character who is unrequitedly in love with the heroine. And when she shoots him down (very well, btw!), he actually tells her that it's his right to keep pursuing her until she changes her mind. WTF no, asshole! Sadly, that is Bai Yu's character, who then proceeds to stalk her online, while at the same time falling in love with her friend. You really don't want to root for him, it's like watching a train wreck waiting to happen. They actually manage to resolve that triangle in a logical way for everyone involved a few eps before the end. I could have lived with that. But then they get a pastede on happy ending in the very last episode. Again: WTF no!
The bad characters all turn good in the end. The mean girl thanks the heroine for being such an upright character and role model, and her other love interest proclaims that he'll now put all his efforts into his work instead of pining for her.
The in-game shenanigans are really fun in the beginning, because you can tell the writers knew what they were writing about. There are weird things in the game like getting married and having pets, but also the usual like going on quests and spending tedious hours leveling up. I also very much loved how the people who were sitting next to each other were still chatting through the game. Does that sound like anyone you know? :)
They are fighting a ridiculous bamboo monster! The bad CGI omg lol.
She's gifting him with a rare sword she made herself! The costumes omg lol.
Unfortunately, they either ran out of budget or out of ideas and there are barely any in-game sequences anymore towards the end. The famous "couple quest" consists of her sitting in a trap for 13 hours and him rescuing her. WTF, people?! That was the point where I started doubting the show, and with good reason, because the writing never got better again after that.
The heroine works as an intern with her partner ( = future husband), but apart from the first task, she is never given any work except ordering food and preparing the work place. She's a CompSci student, for fuck's sake! Let her program! Yes, you're all seniors and she's a junior, but aaaarrrrgh.
Er Xi also works as an intern in another company, and she also isn't given any interesting work to do at all. Partly due to machinations of the evil boss/girlfriend, but even when there is work for her, it's all secretary work and not CompSci work. Arrrrgh again.
Of course, the tropes are all very tropey. Wei Wei is not only the smartest but also the beauty queen of her school, both Wei Wei and Er Xi are said to be eating a lot all the time and there are many jokes about their appetite (but of course they still look like stick insects), Xiao Nai is the top player in the game, also a hacker prodigy and founder of his own successful company. Yeeeaaaaah right.
The product placement is especially nauseating: they all have one phone, one car, one drink, one weird type of beauty products, and one brand of snacks. Sigh.
And then, last but not least: the romance plot. The main characters are both fine, and I can deal with her being submissive and hesitant (and not a very good actress), because she is otherwise shown as competent (in the beginning). But the longer it drags on, the less you believe in the relationship. Yes, they get together about halfway through, but every single kiss scene looks like this:
She looks like a mannequin and like she'd rather be anywhere else
He's doing a good job (great, even), but she ruins every single kiss scene. That is not romantic, people. In that case, it really doesn't help anymore that they're so in love that the relationship is never threatened at all.
Omg, and the last episode. They really should have ended the show one ep earlier, which is where all the arcs ended. The pacing would have been okay if it had ended there. But no. Then we have to sit through a whole episode of them meeting the parents. (And the undeserved beta pairing happy ending.) I don't know why I was even still watching at that point. /o\
In that sense, it is a pretty typical Chinese production. *sigh*
Too late, buddy, too late.
Verdict: if you want to see Bai Yu be cute in curls and glasses, by all means watch at your own risk. Otherwise this is not worth your trouble.
