(Gif from Tumblr)
Love 020 and You Are My Glory are both adapted from web novels written by the same author named Gu Man. Gu Man is a renowned internet novelist in China who also works as a writer for Jinjiang Literature City. Some of her popular works have been adapted into drama series and films.
Love 020 was one of the most popular Chinese dramas of 2016 while You Are My Glory is already one of the most popular Chinese dramas of 2021. Since You Are My Glory cast was announced, it was said it was going to compete with Love 020 because of its main leads, gaming theme, and the same author.
So here are the differences and similarities and also the pros/cons of these two dramas.
This Article Contains Major Spoilers!For the people who are emotionally attached to these two dramas or one of them, please take into consideration these are only my opinions. |
FEMALE LEAD: CHARACTERISTICS AND ACTING |
Bei Wei Wei / Lu Wei Wei WeiBei Wei Wei is a brilliant student and the department beauty of her university. She is a brave and confident girl that has a passion for her major and gamming. Talking about Bei Wei Wei, she sometimes could be a little annoying. And, in my opinion, I didn’t really like Zheng Shuang's acting in this drama. She seemed to have a problem with her facial expressions and gained a bad reputation as a bad kisser. Before watching this drama, I have seen her in Rush to the Dead Summer and River Flows To You. There, her characters were more likable. However, in this drama, the character wasn’t likable at all to me. Overall, her character wasn’t that special. | Qiao Jing Jing / "Cotton"Qiao Jing Jing was an average student, but now she is a top actress. She is also brave and confident and has a passion for her acting career. Qiao Jing Jing was really hard to see. Yes, she was. Because her makeup was not done properly. They just put white paint on her face, which was kind of annoying and distracting (as her character was sometimes). The acting was better than Zheng Shuang's but not the best. |
MALE LEAD: CHARACTERISTICS AND ACTING |
Xiao Nai / Yi Xiao Nai HeXiao Nai is a really intelligent and famous student on the campus. He's ranked as number one in a famous online game and was trying to open his own gaming company in which he succeeded. I know Xiao Nai is handsome, but the girls screaming whenever he appeared was too irritating to me. And agree or not, in my opinion, he seemed proud of it and played hard to get it. Talking about Yang Yang's acting, he was good but could be better. | Yu Tu / "Jade Rabbit God"Yu Tu was a good student with brilliant scores. Since high school, his dream was reaching the Galaxy, which he succeeded by becoming an aerospace engineer. I like Yu Tu's character more than Xiao Nai's. Yang Yang's looks were more handsome in this drama than in Love 020. And more importantly, people around him didn't start to scream at the top of their voices just because of his looks. That was the best part. |
BEST FRIEND OF THE FEMALE LEAD AND WHICH FL WAS BETTER AS A FRIEND |
Zhao Er Xi / Huan Tian Xi DiZhao Er Xi is cheerful, naughty, and loves to gossip. Talking about Bei Wei Wei's friendship with Er Xi, was really strong and powerful to me. And when Er Xi called Bei Wei Wei to make up with her, she was really happy and didn't care about anything else. Not even Xiao Nai. Xiao Ling and Tian Si SiBei Wei Wei helped her other two friends alongside Er Xi to get the internship job by giving them fake Ids. Also, bring water for all of them. So overall, Bei Wei Wei was a great friend. | Pei Pei [Jing Jing's best friend]Pei Pei is also cheerful and loves to gossip. And she is happily married now. About Qiao Jing Jing and Pei Pei's friendship, it felt forced and fake to me. Like Qiao Jing Jing was using her. All the time, she was only thinking about her rejection and used her to get information about Yu Tu. She only cared for her by giving her clothes, other than that she didn't do much for her friends. Chen Xue [Jing Jing's best friend]Chen Xue's appearance was so unnecessary, in my opinion. I don't understand the reason for her being in the show. She is Qiao Jing Jing's best friend from the industry. |
GAMING/ E-SPORTS CONCEPT |
Love O2OAnother main reason because Love 020 is so popular was definitely the E-Sports concept. It was one of the first Chinese gaming dramas. And its editing is also very good. Now I'm not a person who is interested in gaming, but most of the audience actually wanted to play the game that the leads played in the drama. | You Are My GloryNow You Are My Glory's main concept wasn't E-Sports. Maybe after Love 020's popularity, the author thought if she added also the same gaming concept in her new project, it would become popular too. And it did! So the leads were just playing games together in the first half of the drama. The gaming concept felt forceable just to bring the leads together. And the funniest thing, even though Yu Tu wasn't a pro gamer, he taught Qiao Jing Jing how to game and made her a pro gamer in just one month. Together they won the game because you know the ML always has to be too perfect. |
FIRST FACE TO FACE MEETING |
Love O2OWhen Yi Xiao Nai He and Lu Wei Wei Wei first meet each other, it was a little dramatic. But it is a very famous cliché scene of modern Cdrama. I just didn't like that Bei Wei Wei went to talk with Xiao Nai when he passed through her without saying anything. It was just embarrassing. I don't understand why he had to do that! He could have answered her standing at that place. | You Are My GloryYou Are My Glory also have the same situation. I mean Yu Tu didn't know that Cotton was Qiao Jing Jing. So when they first meet, he was a little surprised. But their conversation was really better than Love 020 one. They being comfortable with each other on the first meeting did make sense. |
ROMANCE/CHEMISTRY |
Love O20We all know Love 020's CP is still one of the most popular in Asian dramas. I honestly feel that the romance between them was good. Regarding the chemistry, it didn't feel right to me. And their acting kind of screwed it. It just wasn't sweet and comfortable chemistry between them to me. | You Are My GloryYou Are My Glory's CP is most people's dream pairing in the Chinese industry. Their romance was slow-burn kind of. Which some people liked but I didn't. It felt unnecessary. |
WEDDING OF THE LEAD’S |
Love O2OIn Love 020, Xiao Nai and Bei Wei Wei decide to do the traditional Chinese wedding. This scene is also really famous. I remember when I started following Chinese dramas on my Instagram, this scene was recommended for a long time. And I like Bei Wei Wei's dress a lot. | You Are My GloryUnlike Love 020, Yu Tu and Qiao Jing Jing got married the Western way. With a twist, they participate in a group wedding. In Love 020, the wedding scene wasn't shown, but in You Are My Glory, they showed us the whole process of their wedding. |
OST |
Love 020: Love 020's opening OST was good. It felt cheerful to me. In general, all songs were good. You Are My Glory: You Are My Glory's all OST was much better than Love 020 one. Specially Fireworks and Stars 煙火星辰 sung by Liu Yu Ning. Usually, I don't listen to songs in a language I don't understand. But I just kept listening to this song cause it felt really beautiful to me. |
WHICH ONE? |
Both dramas are over-hyped and overrated, in my opinion, just because the leads are popular. I wouldn't recommend any of these dramas to you. But I can give you guys some positive aspects about these two dramas and also sharing some frustrating things about them.
About the female lead characters, both are somehow annoying. But Qiao Jing Jing was unbearable. She was literally behaving like a silly girl. So both female leads are a NO for me. | The male lead was better in You Are My Glory than Love 020. Yu Tu's emotional expressions and overall character were comfortable to me. Xiao Nai's character was way too unrealistic. |
Both dramas have different perspectives. So I think if you haven't watched any of these dramas, then you could start by watching Love 020 first. The reason I watched Love 020 was it's the most popular modern Cdrama, so I wanted to know why people liked it so much. Other than that, you may like the story and also the chemistry between the leads. After all, we all have different tastes. Honestly speaking, I liked You Are My Glory Until episode 20. After that, it was way too draggy for me. They should have wrapped the drama with 24 episodes, not 32. There were many unnecessary plots, in my opinion.
Lastly, I recommend you to watch Love 020, so you will be able to connect with more drama watchers as it's still the most famous Chinese drama internationally. But if you are a YangDi CP fan, then You Are My Glory is a must-watch for you. Cause we all can agree that if the leads are our favorite actors, no matter how bad the drama script is, we still enjoy it.
Acknowledgment and credits: Thank you to the editors who edited this article. I do not own any of the images; credits go to their respective owners. The images are from Internet searches and screenshots. GIF source: Tumblr, But You Are My Glory's friend section GIFs are self-made from drama scenes.
Edited by: Cookie (1st editor), BrightestStar (2nd editor)