Go Go Squid 2: Dt. Appledog's Time (2021)

sloooooooow e-sports drama

So, I'm under the impression that e-sports drama are "fast" in the sense that there's a lot of things happening. Music is fast, scenes and camera angles change quickly, lots of movement.

This is perhaps one of the slowest dramas I've seen. It is now my current multitasking drama, it's so slow. I'm a third into drama and honestly, the first 13 episodes could have been condensed down to something like 3. There are so many long, staring at each other scenes with thoughts voiced in some dream-like state.

In short, don't take it as a sequel to Go Go Squid. It's almost an alternate universe where time has stopped too. It's a romance drama with an e-sports background.

Perhaps the remaining 2/3 will have more e-sports stuff? I dunno. I've not seen a set up this long before for this genre.

Having said that...

Love the actors and actresses, love the music, and the absolute best character in this drama is Wu Bai's grandfather. It's worth watching just to see him. He's so funny and sweet!

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First season is better

When I started watching this drama I thought that it would be continued with the the first season .
But I never felt by seeing any of the episodes that it was a continued of first season because there they had tournaments related to some coding or a sort of video game and here they played with robot . But in second season they introduced the same company SM OR SN AND K&K . and the breaking up story of apppledog's was same . Now doubt arise
First ,in first season's last episode apppledog's and Wu Bai already met ,she knew he is Han Shang cousin but in this second season she didn't know who is he ? Like this many things confused me a lot that I was not enjoying the drama much .
After watch more episodes I realised that this season was fresh one and it had nothing with first season.
But I like first season more than second season because of Tong Nian's role she was looked cute and adorable all the time and she had so many cute and romantic scenes with Hanshang and my favourite scene was when she got drunk and messing up with Hanshang and thought him as strawaberry and eating his lips and again again saying that she loved him so much and kiss him many times . I never felt bored to watch any scene of the first season .
In this season starting few episodes were bored and sometimes Wu Bai and apppledog's scenes too .
I liked second lead couple story more than first lead .
When Shen Zhe carried Ai Jing on his shoulder and took away from her blind date that was my favourite scene .
One more when Wu Bai drunk and called his father in law's brother that was little funny episode.
One more would be my favourite scene that was their marriage but can't as I am Tong Nian's and Hanshang love stories's fan so I expect atleast they should have 20 minutes scenes that was enough for me but they had I guess 5 minutes role .
One thing I realised by watching this drama Hanshang was forcefully doing this drama because
I didn't see the spark on his face that was I had seen in first season and about Tong Nian's she had the same spark , bubbly girl .
Though Wu Bai and Apppledog was lead but I always expect that Hanshang and Tong Nian should have some scenes in last few episodes of the drama. all backgrounds songs were good .

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I'm dissatisfied and disappointed with the outcome

I was really looking forward to season 2 and I was actually quite disappointed with the outcome. I found it boring (no offense) compared to the first season which I hope would have another season for more Tong Nian and Han Shangyan scenes. I was not totally satisfied with this season and I somehow found it dull and pretty boring. Idk if it was just because of the pandemic that they had to lessen the cast but it did not really seem as lively as the first season. The old K&K was very lively and fun unlike this season's K&K. 97 and One were the only one's left from the original cast from K&K except for Han Shangyan and Wu Bai. I missed the times when they would always put Demo into trouble or put him as a bait because they were all afraid to approach Shangyan. I was also quite disappointed that Han Shangyan had only a few appearances in this season. To think that he's the boss of K&K. I know that this season is revolving in DT & Appledog's love story but he needed more appearances but all there was was his voice through calls and all. Even in the competition, since he was the boss, he had to be there. The other Solo members were there, they got together but he wasn't in the picture which actually made me sad.

Not to be rude but tbh, I just forced myself to finish this one because I was looking forward to Tong Nian and Han Shangyan's appearances plus 97, One and Grunt's crazy antics. Though I was also disappointed with the changing of casts. Honestly, during the first episodes, I was actually lost with who was who because most of the casts from season 1 were already gone and they had different ones in this season. I actually needed the guide first to know who the casts were portraying so that I could cope with the story, plus the plot was somehow different so it was really hard to know who was who. It felt like a guessing game for me.

Also, I don't mean to offend Yi Tian but I was dissatisfied with his performance here. I was actually looking forward to Li Xian's guestings than his parts. I felt like HTY's role here was so boring and awkward. I know that DT's personality was really like that but since season 1 he seems to have been in a very very very awkward position. I felt like he was very stiff and I did not really feel their chemistry all that much compared to the one I felt just by looking at Li Xian and Yang Zi. Even if it was just a glance, I felt butterflies, but with Yi Tian, I did not feel anything at all. I dunno if the butterflies I felt for him in A Love So Beautiful have faded or I just got sick of him?

But overall, I was really disappointed with the outcome though I'm still rating it with 7.5 for a job well done and for the effort. I just wish there will be a season 3 that may focus on K&K and their married lives and I wish that they could relive the old lively spirit felt in K&K during season 1.

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This series considered as alternative reality which focus on different lead

For me this series is considered a alternative reality with the same ending as first GGS, but it's focus is on Wu Bai/DT, Han Shang Yan's cousin and his lovestory to Ai Qing/Appledog.

It's alternative reality for some reasons:
*The season one game competition is all about hackers game while season 2 is all about robotic game
*In some episodes we will see some scenes which doesn't exist in season 1..The storyline happens before and during the events of season 1,with some different scenes but with the same ending;to be exact an extended ending on what happen to season 1, like double wedding celebration of main characters of season 1 and 2..
*The female lead of season 1 is more like a noona personality, while season 2 is more like acting the same age as Wubai

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A Love Story of a Skilled and Ambitious Couple

The second season of Go Go Squid! is neither a sequel nor a prequel. It follows an alternative storyline with only some similarities. Some people find it disappointing because they hoped for a continuation of the original story, but I think this way it's more interesting.

DT and Appledog are a very different couple from Gun God and Squid. They are more mature, private, and quiet, they share a different kind of energy than the couple in season one. Yet the story is also interesting and I liked both couples equally.

The competition of robots helped to better visualise the duels, whereas in the first season most of the competitions were skipped because it's difficult to explain a chain of events just by showing a screen full of code. On the other hand, the robot fights seemed more childish than the coding that could hack or secure a system which is a useful thing in real life. It wasn't more childish than other e-sports though and as we know they are now a competition at the Olympic games.

I liked Hu Yi Tian's portrayal of the male lead. It was different from the usual overbearing CEO in other Chinese dramas. DT spoke little and was restrained, sensitive and romantic, and yet really witty and capable, and his eyes and smile could convey an array of emotions.

The female lead portrayed by Li Yi Tong was skilled and ambitious. She didn't behave like a little girl, which was refreshing in a Chinese drama. There were moments when I thought she was too selfish, and I really hoped for an ending where she would join K&K and they both would become a couple of Kings. I didn't understand why she pursued career in the competition. Still, I'm glad that they could do it in an amiable manner.

I liked the grandpa, but I thought the girls' father was too much. I don't find it funny when adult people's life is being controlled by their parents. I liked the relationship between the sisters, and the overall fair play attitude of the sports teams.

I appreciated that there weren't as many retrospections as in the first season. I would like to see a bit more intimacy but the many kisses were a nice touch.

All in all a nice drama without much angst that I might rewatch sometime in the future.

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A sequel that goes through the motions

I didn't realize until I started watching that this isn't REALLY a direct sequel — it sort of takes place in an alternate universe where a lot of things are similar but not exactly the same, including the game that they played.

With that being said, I felt like the drama found itself in a really confusing position between being a standalone and a sequel. You can't really watch this one without watching the first season because you'd miss out on a lot of fun references and be way more confused about what exactly the backstory is, but if you HAD watched the first one already, this drama felt very repetitive and watered down.

I don't really care much about the switch from e-sports to robotics and I think it definitely did get more interesting, but I don't feel the stakes much, mostly because S1 focused more on the story element and S2 focuses more on the romantic element.

Still, the plot did grow on me over time; the first 10 or so episodes were really hard to get through because I didn't care for the characters (who all felt different) or the romance.

I really didn't like the romance in the beginning of the drama. While I always enjoy a little bit of one-sided pining from my male leads, it felt very random to start the story with him idolizing her to that extent without having interacted with her directly. It made a lot of the so-called romantic scenes feel unearned. At the start, feel similarly with the second lead couple — their beginning felt very out-of-the-blue and it was like they didn't know each other at all and the relationships somehow got serious.

The drama gets a little better after we get through those and the leads start interacting more, and I really do like how there were not many misunderstandings or annoying side characters.

There is, however, one scene that I just have to talk about. After the leads are already together, there's one moment where the ML becomes rough and drags the FL into a car out of insecurity and jealousy. It's played off like a misunderstanding because she didn't know what was happening, but NOTHING excuses how much force he used. It was a little out-of-character but regardless of that, it was terrifying and was probably the worst part of the show.

In terms of the characters, they also feel watered down compared to the original, especially because there were a lot of actor swaps. Some grew on me, like Wang Hao and Mi Shao Fei, but I really couldn't reconcile the Appledog in this with the one in the first season. She was mature and intimidating there, and with the new actress being shorter and more bubbly and smiley, Appledog felt like a completely different character. It really felt like the casting director and the writers didn't know how to write a romance drama with the original dynamic and instead reverted to the easy formula of quiet ML/bright FL.

In conclusion, I really think this drama got better and was a light-hearted low-stakes watch, though it's far longer than it has to be. It ends on a high note, and I personally enjoyed how the FL was shown as capable (and compared to the first one, very non-cringy) but I feel like most people who loved the first one would be disappointed.

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Expected the unexpected and i loved it!

i never thought that i would be squealing at 7 in the morning just because of HuYiTian and LiYiTong! it felt like i was shrieking forever! i watched ep17 at least 3x and was screaming until my son started hammering the cellphone against the wall.

when i was still halfway through GGS2DTADT, i already told myself that i'm starting to like this better than GGS1 (i still love YangZi and LiXian, don't worry). i read some reviews prior to watching the second season as i'm always wary of series having more than one. i know that these are based from a manhua trilogy ("Fish Playing While Trapped in a Secret Room” by MoBaoFeiBao) but apparently, S1 was based on the 3rd book wherein the writer was involved in the series creation as the screenwriter, while S2 was based on the 2nd book but the series' storyline was not the manhua writer. if you are planning to watch GGS1 and GGS2, feel free to watch it in any order as each of these can be watched as standalone, but make sure to clear your mind off of whatever you see first prior to watching the next one to avoid getting confused and disappointed like the majority.
lastly, i loved the fact that they changed the sports competition to robotics instead of CTF because battle bot is very hard to illustrate to those who are not that knowledgeable about it. these are some specificities that i also look into but who am i kidding? we are all for the giddy love story, right?! ?

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Bit Boring and Huge Letdown to Go Go Squid S1 fans

This was a difficult watch. I've just finished Go Go Squid and this pales in comparison to the first one.

Acting
- Li Yitong is good. Hu Yitian is ok but their chemistry is lacking compared to Yang Zi and Li Xian.

Plot
- Aside from the comparisons to S1, the story on its own is quite flat. Feels very dragged out . It's ok if you just wanna watch for the sweet scenes and watch Hu Yitian swooning over Li Yitong.
- This was a major issue for me because they retconned so many things from S1 in order to fit this version i.e.

- 1. the biggest issue being that Han Shangyan never reconciled with Solo
2. the second issue, the removal of key supporting characters such as Niannian's best friend and Mi Shaofei's love interest, Demo etc
3. the third issue, the change from CTF to robotics. CTF felt more like an unknown industry and having such a big club/house/training center for such a small team in DT Appledog's Time seriously felt weird and full of loneliness.
4. the fourth issue, having Wu Bai be the main leader of K&K ... which is weird because Han Shangyan is the boss but he's barely seen in the club.. I understand that the story's focus would be on Wu Bai but and having Li Xian and Yang Zi being in the show so much might overshadow the focus on Wu Bai and Ai Qing. There are also budget concerns and scheduling and stuff to think about but it could have been done..
5. They should have just continued with S1 and recast Li Yitong as Ai Qing.
6. Even One's personality seemed different.
7. Go Go Squid wasn't just about Tong Nian and Han Shangyan's story.. It was also because they explored the family and friendship issues so well.. Like with Solo's daughter and every supporting character had their moment to shine. I kinda felt like this was lacking in Go Go Squid 2


Casting
- Recasting Ai Qing is fine because the original actress for Ai Qing has zero romantic chemistry with Hu Yitian but the rest of the cast should have been retained
- None of the actors recast for the new version had the same level of energy and charisma as the original actors for Solo, Mi Shaofei, Ou Qiang. Disappointing because the supporting cast is always a huge factor in a drama's quality.
- Would have been better to pull in the original actors for Tong Nian's parents at the end for the double wedding. This felt really weird having all Ai Qing and Wu Bai's relatives there but none of Niannian's parents there

OST
- This was nice and fitting for the story

Scene stealers
- Wang Anyu (I like him but I preferred the way the original Grunt was written and portrayed)
- 97
- The grandpa
- Lastly, Li Xian and Yang Zi

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Here we have another great Chinese romance+esport drama, China is really killing it lately in this genre. I had a great time from beginning to end, despite it being a very long series, sporting a whopping 38 episodes. Compared to Go Go Squid 1, they've fixed most of the problems. CTF might be a super interesting competition format, but in GGS1 the CTF fights were somewhat boring and out of place, also GGS1 had an incredible amount of flashback filler. GGS2 on the other hand addressed both of these problems. There were very few flashbacks in comparison & they changed CTF to robot combat. Naturally human controlled robots fights, at least as portrayed here don't make any sense. The laws of physics etc were not followed, but I gotta give it to them, at least it was entertaining & exciting to watch. (Kind of like Beyblade..)
Just like GGS1, GGS2 also has a 50/50 split between romance and esports, but It's hugely better in the sense that the fastforward button does not need to be used for full enjoyment. I already mentioned that there were much fewer flashback scenes, but they also dialed down on cringy interactions with foreigners. Perhaps even the Chinese patriotism/peptalk scenes were fewer in number, I felt those were overall more bearable. With that said they used a lot more China labels on clothing & the K&K uniform looked absolutely ridiculous, especially how the forearm part of those white long sleeves were often filled up with some ehm material to symbolize China's might more. Yi Tian is not Popeye, not even close, but it sure as hell looked like it in all those forearm closeup scenes featuring that huge red China logo.

The romance is very well written in this drama. The pacing is nice, the love triangle barely exists and the OTP's relationship is really wholesome overall. There weren't many missed opportunities. Maybe they could've revealed the K&K name's origins to the world, but there were more than enough gratifying reveals in this drama, really. Also it's nice how they officially get together at around episode 17 and then all the misunderstandings and problems that occur later get resolved quickly in a satisfying manner. The ending is really great too..

The reason why it's only a 9 is due to two reasons. Firstly just like GGS1 this one too has a really stupid scene, where XB forces AQ into the car in front of Wang Hao's house. I'm sure many western viewers agree with me about that scene being a huge black mark, however I know for a fact that Chinese romance webnovels have similar scenes all the time and the audience seems to love them, so it's not at all surprising that GGS2 would have something like that. (The scene that I similarly hated in GGS1 is how HSY promised TN's mom to forever leave TN)
The second reason is actor Hu Yi Tian and his lack of chemistry with Li Yi Tong. I'm not saying that they had no chemistry at all, but I've seen much better. The big problem with Hu Yi Tian is that more he talked the less convincing his acting felt to me. The OTP in GGS1 is just a hugely better fit. To me it feels like typecasting him to the exact same role what he held in "A Love So Beautiful" is a better choice for him..

As for making sense of the story continuity between GGS1 & GGS2, it's best not to think about it too much. Multiverse theory is the easiest explanation. Things are similar, but different. The story is the same & yet not the same. The chronology is kind of the same, but full of immersion breaking plot holes.

Despite GGS1 & GGS2 continuity being all over the place, I recommend everyone to watch GGS1 first(feel free to skip half of the flashbacks), it's gratifying to see Tong Nian & HSY appearing in GGS2 afterwards..

So yeah, GGS2 was a great show, I'm sure I'll eventually do a rewatch. In fact I'm ready for GGS3, I'm okay with the creators changing the featured Esport again too. They can put 97's sweet noona romance in focus, for all I care.. :-)

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I actually was really looking forward to this, because I really thought it would be a good Sequel from Go Go Squid.

I think what confused me the most, was that all the characters that played in Go Go Squid, are all different in this show, and that maybe one or two people were the same. I think it really was more a story of Wu Bai & Ai Qing. But because I watched Go Go Squid, I think I prefered the other actors, and then when I saw it was different actors, I started to get confused who was who then. And they also played a different game in this drama. I enjoyed the drama although though, despite being confused who was who at the start but near the end I got it! I do wish they had the actors from before though, because it did completely change the characters personality in some parts.

But, I would say! I think from Wu Bai's prospective being his own story, it was a cute story of how he got AiQing, and she was supposed to be a lot older, but she looks younger! LOL I mean he also was a completely different person in this drama. His personality was different. But I still enjoyed the love story of the two.. Yeah I enjoyed this story but just not the overall since it was to be a sequel of Go Go Squid.

But the one thing I didn't like was when they all got married together. Tong Nian, Han Shangyan, Wu Bai & Ai Qing. I think for me, I prefered if they didn't get married together, because all the characters were different in Go Go Squid. So half of the cast weren't even there for their wedding.

Yeah, no I just didn't like it, because of all the different actors! I mean, if the characters were the same, and maybe since Ai Qing was a different actor it would still have been okay! But I think they shouldn't have combined Go Go Squid, and just made another story, kept the actors the same and then this story then yeah!

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