The first few episodes were so interesting, and hooked me right away. I have a guilty soft spot for Hana Kimi-type stories, and this seemed like a perfect one to curl up against after a busy day. The music is lovely, the animal sound effects are hilarious, the lead actress is adorable and well-cast, the lead actors are all very handsome, the production quality is very high. It really started off so well and I was immediately invested. But then...

This show could have been leaps and bounds better had the three MLs discovered her gender within the first 10-15 eps. There could have been so many more interesting conflicts and better comedy if they knew and she didn't know. Instead, nobody knows anything, potential scene set ups go nowhere, and on ep 24 I still can't really tell you what's going on because nothing is going on. They completely dropped the dialogue novel subplot a third way through, which was disappointing because it was such a good side story. If I were the writer, I'd have used it to parallel/reflect the evolution of the romance between the characters in real life throughout the drama. I really, really want to go in there and wrangle with the script myself. Also, ML feels more like a 3ML because of how little romance there is until near the end of the show. She has wayyy more chemistry with Ao Lei and Le Xuan. Extreme second lead syndrome. This could have been fixed or overlooked had the reveal been done earlier, as I mentioned before.

There is such a perfect mix of ingredients and characters here for a very good rom com, but it's like the writers couldn't decide which genre this story is supposed to be. They should have focused on the rom com aspects, because it's too lighthearted for the whole political conspiracy they tried to revolve the story around, neutering the parts of the show that are actually interesting.

I'm still finishing it because it's a pretty show, and I like the characters a lot, but the whole drama can be summed up as: lost potential. :(