This review may contain spoilers
Nice e sports drama but could've been better!
This drama was pretty good as I expected. I took an interest in this drama because of how similar it was to the 2019's esports Chinese drama Gank Your Heart (which I find still better). The storyline was similar to Gank Your Heart but had few differences.
I liked how they added something new of having a girl (Tong Yao) actually being added as a player, which caught many fan's attention since it is VERY rare to see a girl be in an esports team. This is not usual to see because esports as the stereotype would call it are mainly for boys and not girls. Throughout the drama, Tong Yao received criticisms left and right about her being a flirt, rude, and etc. from netizens bc of situations she got into. However, despite being a girl, she showed tremendous gaming skills and proved to everyone that she, as a girl, is as best at gaming as other guys are. It was a great message shown in this drama to break those gender stereotypes. Also, this drama showed the sad reality of how parents are towards computer gaming as a career since they do not see it as anything but a hobby or fun pleasure. Parents cannot accept their child doing gaming as a career because of the fear of not becoming successful in life. Therefore, they in most cases disown them which was shown clearly in this drama when Ai Jia's mother disowned him. However, this drama showed a great message of how computer gaming CAN be a career and people can become successful.
I also love how they added the visual effects of the anime characters they play in the drama. It's quite more realistic to see and understand more than just keep watching through just a computer screen. It's better just visually showing the characters fight themselves and the cool effects.
The romance between Tong Yao and Si Cheng was very cute. There wasn't anything different or special about their romance storyline since it seemed quite cliche, BUT they do have good chemistry. The romance was a very slow development, but it is understandable considering how they are leader/teammate kind of relationship and it wouldn't be that easy to just get into a romantic relationship. You don't see a lot of teammate/leader type of relationships in dramas so it was quite new for me. Despite Tong Yao's hesitance, I love how Si Cheng was very affectionate towards her and did not care what others thought about their relationship and would most likely sacrifice a lot for it. At some points, Si Cheng freaked me out on how pervy he acted towards her during their relationship but it's funny seeing this side of him at the same time.
One flaw I found in this drama is how there's very little conflict between the couple. The whole entire drama was basically all cute, romance, cliche and very little conflict is shown in the drama which made at one point their romance storyline boring. Also, I sorta wished they dragged on the "love triangle" between Tong Yao, Si Cheng, and Jian Yang longer than ending it halfway. It probably would've made the romance storyline a bit interesting, less repetitive, and even affect how they perform on their matches.
I felt quite bad for Si Cheng's brother because he literally only played like once or twice out of all the championship matches in the drama. Like I guess it's understandable since he is only like a backup in case Tong Yao can't. But I felt as if his character wasn't as significant as the drama was trying to show he was. If they had given him some spotlight at times then maybe his character would have something. I found the back story behind Si Cheng's brother's scandal quite sad and interesting to hear about which cleared up a lot of misunderstandings about him.
As for other flaws, this may be my opinion bc of how I'm comparing this drama to Gank You Heart. Usually, dramas like this show how people or teams go through this journey and face obstacles in reaching the top of winning the championship. Like you'd be able to see character developments and maybe even sympathize with some characters because of how hard they r working to get there and the obstacles they have to overcome. For this drama... I didn't feel that. Although it is an esports drama, I felt as if the drama focused too much on the romance storylines of Tong Yao/Si Cheng and Jin Yang/Ai Jia. Like yeah they did show some parts of obstacles such as controversies the teams got themselves into but I didn't see any character development nor anything interest about their esports storyline bc of how it seems quite predictable how they're winning like almost every single match. Like there's no sort of twist of conflict that could make viewers find the esports aspect of the drama interesting or emotional towards characters. I would rather watch an esports drama that had the romance and a slice of life type of feeling where it takes you down the road on the team's struggles in reaching the top and their character development as the story progresses than just keep watching predictable scenes over and over again and a load of cliche romance.
Despite some of the flaws, I still enjoyed this drama. It is personally not as best as Gank Your Heart but it's still worth and an enjoyable drama to watch about esports and romance
I liked how they added something new of having a girl (Tong Yao) actually being added as a player, which caught many fan's attention since it is VERY rare to see a girl be in an esports team. This is not usual to see because esports as the stereotype would call it are mainly for boys and not girls. Throughout the drama, Tong Yao received criticisms left and right about her being a flirt, rude, and etc. from netizens bc of situations she got into. However, despite being a girl, she showed tremendous gaming skills and proved to everyone that she, as a girl, is as best at gaming as other guys are. It was a great message shown in this drama to break those gender stereotypes. Also, this drama showed the sad reality of how parents are towards computer gaming as a career since they do not see it as anything but a hobby or fun pleasure. Parents cannot accept their child doing gaming as a career because of the fear of not becoming successful in life. Therefore, they in most cases disown them which was shown clearly in this drama when Ai Jia's mother disowned him. However, this drama showed a great message of how computer gaming CAN be a career and people can become successful.
I also love how they added the visual effects of the anime characters they play in the drama. It's quite more realistic to see and understand more than just keep watching through just a computer screen. It's better just visually showing the characters fight themselves and the cool effects.
The romance between Tong Yao and Si Cheng was very cute. There wasn't anything different or special about their romance storyline since it seemed quite cliche, BUT they do have good chemistry. The romance was a very slow development, but it is understandable considering how they are leader/teammate kind of relationship and it wouldn't be that easy to just get into a romantic relationship. You don't see a lot of teammate/leader type of relationships in dramas so it was quite new for me. Despite Tong Yao's hesitance, I love how Si Cheng was very affectionate towards her and did not care what others thought about their relationship and would most likely sacrifice a lot for it. At some points, Si Cheng freaked me out on how pervy he acted towards her during their relationship but it's funny seeing this side of him at the same time.
One flaw I found in this drama is how there's very little conflict between the couple. The whole entire drama was basically all cute, romance, cliche and very little conflict is shown in the drama which made at one point their romance storyline boring. Also, I sorta wished they dragged on the "love triangle" between Tong Yao, Si Cheng, and Jian Yang longer than ending it halfway. It probably would've made the romance storyline a bit interesting, less repetitive, and even affect how they perform on their matches.
I felt quite bad for Si Cheng's brother because he literally only played like once or twice out of all the championship matches in the drama. Like I guess it's understandable since he is only like a backup in case Tong Yao can't. But I felt as if his character wasn't as significant as the drama was trying to show he was. If they had given him some spotlight at times then maybe his character would have something. I found the back story behind Si Cheng's brother's scandal quite sad and interesting to hear about which cleared up a lot of misunderstandings about him.
As for other flaws, this may be my opinion bc of how I'm comparing this drama to Gank You Heart. Usually, dramas like this show how people or teams go through this journey and face obstacles in reaching the top of winning the championship. Like you'd be able to see character developments and maybe even sympathize with some characters because of how hard they r working to get there and the obstacles they have to overcome. For this drama... I didn't feel that. Although it is an esports drama, I felt as if the drama focused too much on the romance storylines of Tong Yao/Si Cheng and Jin Yang/Ai Jia. Like yeah they did show some parts of obstacles such as controversies the teams got themselves into but I didn't see any character development nor anything interest about their esports storyline bc of how it seems quite predictable how they're winning like almost every single match. Like there's no sort of twist of conflict that could make viewers find the esports aspect of the drama interesting or emotional towards characters. I would rather watch an esports drama that had the romance and a slice of life type of feeling where it takes you down the road on the team's struggles in reaching the top and their character development as the story progresses than just keep watching predictable scenes over and over again and a load of cliche romance.
Despite some of the flaws, I still enjoyed this drama. It is personally not as best as Gank Your Heart but it's still worth and an enjoyable drama to watch about esports and romance
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