Till the End of the Moon (2023)

Till the End: A disappointing story.

Till the End of the Moon had every element on its favor to be a masterpiece. With its main premise, it could have been a fantastic story about the fight against destiny and the complexity of two individuals that oppose each other in the moral scale. It had the potential to be one of the greatest romances about star-crossed lovers ever. It pains me, truly, because it could have been something epic, something really special. In the end, it turned out to be one of the most tedious, fury-inducing experiences I have ever felt watching a chinese drama.

TTEOTM is probably the most disingenuous "love" story I had the displeasure to watch. It actually makes me question if the original source was supposed to be one in the first place. Somehow, this show managed to make all the couples a mess due how terrible they are established and developed. All I could think was "Am I supposed to root for them?" "Is this supposed to be romantic?" "Was I supposed to be sad?". Not only that, but the forced drama and bad writing didn't help at all. How do you write a character and can't decide how they act? It's genuinely sad how the main ones went from clever to stupid and from complex to hollow after the first ten episodes, but to be fair, it's safe to assume that the first (important) arc simply rotted their brains just like it did mine. I should have predicted that, that arc, which had me both bored and absolutely disgusted after certain scene, was just the start of the downfall of something that had potential.

About technical aspects, they are 50/50. The fight/flying scenes are kind of clunky, there are some cuts that needed a SERIOUS second revision and sometimes the CGI doesn't blend well with the actors, but the sceneries are stunning and some songs are really good. "Immortal/Mysterious bird" is simply mesmerizing, just like the art used for the opening. The costumes were pretty and the acting was fine for the most part. The kissing scenes felt so bland though...

Sadly, I didn't enjoy Till the End of the Moon like I wanted to. I wasn't convinced of the "love" it tried to sell to the audience. I couldn't even feel sad when bad things happened, I could only feel deep irritation. Which was a shame, because it's a story that had the tropes I love and genuinely interesting themes and elements. A Devil God that threatens to destroy everything, fallen divinities from ancient times, forbidden love across time and space, how was I supposed to dislike that?

Ultimately, I tend to think about the "If only". If only it had another fmc whose stupidity doesn't ruin any sense of plot progression and actually had a consistent personality. If only the male lead didn't get stuck in a endless, boring obsession, devoiding him of any character for a long time. If only it was an actual intrinsic, complex romance, instead of the ping-pong of nonsense and insincere feelings it had going on till the very end. If only it didn't have an arc that dragged for so long, condemning the course and pacing of the story and altering the perspective the main characters had for each other. If only it bothered to give its other characters a conclusion. If only.

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2 individuals, 3 lives and 10,000 years - link w/ deleted seen at end of review

I only watched this drama because of 白鹿 (Bai Lu) as I watched her in 周生如故 (One and Only) and I loved her acting in there. I waited until the series was done as I only binge watch and hate waiting for eps to come out so I was able to watch this series in 2 weeks. YOUKU really should have broke this drama into 2 seasons like The Blue Whisper. It would have had a much better ending. Be sure to have a tissue box if you're watching this drama.

The drama starts of where 魔神 (Original Devil God) is taking over the world and killing everyone in the way. He's after the 過去鏡（Mirror of the Past/Divine Mirror) to go back in time, but fails to obtain the mirror. 黎蘇蘇 (Li SuSu) blood drips on the mirror and realize that Devil God was mortal that didn't hate/ want to kill. He later on turned into the Devil God. Li Susu's clan tells her that she must be sent back 500 years back to Sheng Kingdom to find 魔神 (Original Devil God) before he turns into a Devil's God. She must do this in order to protect the four continents and three realms. Before she leaves, she see Devil God killing everyone she loves and making an oath that she'll find him and kill him.

黎蘇蘇 (Li SuSu) goes back 500 years and wakes up realizing she's 葉夕霧 (Ye Xiwu), who is the younger daughter of General Ye of the Kingdom of Sheng. She doesn't remember who/what she the real XiWu did before taking over her body nor remember marrying 澹台燼 (Tantai Jin) who is just a mortal at the time and also a prison at Sheng Kingdom as he's original from Jing Kingdom and the youngest prince.

Li Susu realizes that Ye Xiwu was cruel and mean person to Tantai Jin and always beats him before bed. She realizes that she's going to better and make sure Tantai Jin doesn't become the Devil God and be good.

You see, Ye XiWu become nicer to Tantai Jin but teaching him what feelings are (caring for him, loving him and teaching him how to love) and how to feel as he didn't have any emotions before or know how to love/care/feel for anyone.

Through some misunderstanding , Tantai Jin starts getting some his demon powers and looks for other demons to be stronger. In Ep 12, Tantai Jin found a Dragon God/Demon and woke him up to steal his powers, but by waking him up, Ye Xiwu, Tantai Jin, Xiao Lin and Ye Bingchang fell into 般若浮生 Bo'Re Life and reliving a life time that happened 10,000 years ago.

In 般若浮生 Bo'Re Life
Tantai Jin becomes 冥夜 (Mingye) who is God of War and leader of the Upper Immortal
Ye Xiwu becomes 桑酒 (Sangjiu) who is a clam princess of Mohe
Xiao Lin becomes 桑佑 (Sangyou) who is Sangjiu's older brother and also a clam prince of Mohe.
Ye Bingchang becomes 天歡 (Tianhuan) who is a daughter of Mingye's predecessor and loves Mingye.

Mingye getting hurt during the war with the Devil God and Tianhuan took the Mohe crystal, which was the life energy of the Mohe people, to keep Mingye alive. Sangjiu uses her divine essence as energy to restart the Mohe crystal. Sangjiu's dad wants Mingye to marry Sangjiu due to this cause and because she doesn't have anymore divine essence, she can become a demon anytime if she doesn't cultivate and have divine essence.

Parts of ep 15 and 16 was my favourite part of the dream as they finally became a happy married couple and didn't have any misunderstandings or anyone bothering them. When Sangjiu treated MingYe's eye and he pretending to not able to see but can just made me smile and laugh.

Ep 18 is where the dreams ends and everyone comes out of Bo'Re Life.

Later on the series, TanTai Jin and Ye Xiwu gets married (again) but then Xiwu breaks his hearts... this is where I got so upset as TanTai Jin was becoming good and not wanting to become bad. But there was just so much misunderstanding between the two and no communication, but that's how drama is. It's does reveal the truth of the misunderstanding down the series, which is good.

When you watch to ep 28, this is where you'll cry and cry. This is where I think they should have stop season 1 here and started a season 2. Would have had a much better ending and not rushing some of the ep or the whole drama overall.

500 years passes and Li Susu wakes up after finishing her mission but it's also 10,000 years since the death of the Devil God. She realizes it's that the last 10 years she was in cultivation and it's a different timeline as everyone is alive.

TanTai Jin tries his best to find Li Susu and wakes up 500 years later and is now 滄九旻 (Cang Jiumin) who is a disciple of Xiaoyao Sect's leader Zhaoyou.
He finds Ye Xiwu and realizes that she's now Li Susu and everything made sense why when they actually met 500 years ago, she was so different than the real Ye Xiwu.

There's a part of Li Susu and Cang Jiumin super happy and talking about them being together forever where I think they could have ended the drama there, but of course they couldn't. Li Susu and Cang Jiumin does get married in this timeline as well before everything ends to what us viewers didn't like.

At the end of the drama, it kinda reminded me of 三生三世十里桃花 (Eternal Love/ Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms) as Li Susu/Ye Xiwu/SangJiu & Tantai Jin//Ming Ye/Cang Jiumin had 3 lives with different timelines too.

At least in all 3 lives they lived in, they got married. Ye Xiwu - Tantai Jin. SangJiu - Ming Ye. Li Susu - Cang Jiumin. My favourite wedding would still probably be SangJiu and Ming Ye cause they were so calm and happy, like not hate.

The OST was really well done for this drama. I've been listing to 只你 (Only you) + 要不然我們就這樣一萬年 (Or Forever) + 黑月光 (The Black Moonlight) on repeat. The rest of the songs were great too, but these 3 stood out the most for me.

I love how Luo YunXi 羅雲熙 + Bai Lu 白鹿 sang 黑月光 as a cover as well - https://youtu.be/ndJ-DkvxSZs
As well as Luo YunXi 羅雲熙 singing a cover for 要不然我們就這樣一萬年 (Or Forever) https://youtu.be/k2W6Jn5UKOc

There was a special reunion after episode 40 on the playlist for the drama. I'm not sure if it's posted, but you can see Bai Lu still crying even long after finishing a scene from the last episode. This special reunion did give me closure of the ending drama as at the last 2 minutes of the 40 minutes special, They ask Luo YunXi 羅雲熙,
“If Tantai Jin were to be brought back to life and see Li Susu, what would be the first thing he would say to her?”
Luo Yun Xi 羅雲熙 said, “Your man doesn’t die that easily”

Afterwards they asked Bai Lu 白鹿,
“Would would LiSusu say to Tantai Jin if they were to meet again?”
Bai Lu 白鹿 just smiled and it went to Luo YunXi and Bai Lu talking as Li Susu and Tantai Jin

I do want to post it here, but I'm not sure if it's allowed, if it is. I'll post the video link.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_z6hG0JtFd4BqyLWweTN5FX6sXq7JYRH/view

Since someone asked about it, link is posted above, may need to watch on computer as sometimes the link doesn't work on phones.

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If only

Let me start by saying it pains me so very deeply to rate this drama lower than 10 because I love Bai Lu so much and I like Luo YunXi a lot and their acting here was as incredible as I thought it was going to be.
Bai Lu played her characters something fierce. You could feel Ye XiWu’s inner battle between wanting to kill the chance of the devil lord resurrecting because of the horror she personally witnessed and falling in love with the Tantai Jin who isn’t yet the devil lord. The naivety that was Sang Jiu came through the screens and although Li SuSu was majorly relegated to the background during the final lifetime arc, BaiLu still managed to do her justice at the end part of the series when she finally shared the center stage. Kudos my girl.
But I must confess Luo was indeed that star of this show. He shone so damn brightly. God damn. If you think about it he had easy/hard characters to work with, easy in the sense that you can picture what they are supposed to be and emote it, hard in the sense that you can give either too much or give too little but boy oh boy he gave just the right and perfect amount. I was sold on all the characters. The way he played all the characters is mighty impressive. MingYe indeed felt like the god of war, Tantai Jin in Cheng Kingdom felt like a maltreated hostage and Tantai Jin in the Jing Kingdom felt like an unbeatable king. Cang Jiu Min felt like a sect member, and then what can I say about him playing the mighty and devious devil lord that would do his performance justice, I don’t think I have enough words to describe the performance so I will go with absolute perfection.
Why then isn’t this a perfect score for my rating?. The impressive acting displayed and the wonderful cast were seriously screwed over by their writers and I’m not sure I can convey enough how much the writers royally screwed the actors with this weak, useless and illogical plot. It was sooooooo painful to watch, the only thing that made me not drop the series was the combo of one of my fave actresses in Bai Lu, one of my fave CDrama couple in BaiLu & Luo YunXi, the magnificent setting/CGI, costumes and then the music.
The CGI was top notch, the costumes were so beautiful, elegant and powerful, it was a visually pleasing experience
The music was also so good too. Someone said that some of the outfits worn did not match the scene they were featured in. I kinda of agree with the person. Sometimes they felt overdressed for what the scene called for but I forgave them for that because the costumes were just that spectacular. Since the plot was rubbish anyways I might as well get my satisfaction from seeing beautiful costumes.
But god damn that plot was a total mess. I know with fantasy dramas the possibilities can be endless and the writers have a sort of freedom to go outside the box but that’s not what happened here, I had zero problems with the three lives and all but that’s where any sense in the plot ended. The rest of the plot just felt like the writers just wrote whatever the hell they wanted and to hell with the viewers and just honestly without any regards to the intelligence of the viewers. The writers didn’t feel they had any accountability to the viewers and I for one reached and exceeded my tolerance level for the foolishness that the plot became and I started fast forwarding after the dream arc. Lemme tell you, you cannot make up the incredulous nonsense the writers tried feeding and selling to us and I wasn’t eating or buying their crap. The level of misunderstandings in this drama was just so freaking unrealistic and unbelievable. Most of the decisions and actions taking by the characters did not make any sense. I understand plot device and plot advancement and when it’s done well you can forgive it and suspend your disbelief but when it’s cheaply done, it just ends up playing on the intelligence of the viewers. My friends and family know how much i hate when anyone tries to play with my intelligence or lie to me. I tend to be super unforgiving about any and both of them. It’s really hard to describe how awful the plot was without going into details and I can’t because I doubt the space will be enough and I don’t care to make this review lengthier than it’s already going to be. We have someone who is a known liar and a manipulator (to be honest I could not understand the power that was giving to this character in the first 2 lifetimes, it didn’t make any sense) but when she speaks grown ass people, supposedly smart people at that just take her her word as gospel. The amount of times I posted “so ridic” in the VIKI comments section where I watched can make up a script.
I’m not going to further waste my breath on the character that is Tian Huan and Ye BingChang, she was already giving way too much importance that I’m not willing to give her anymore. Although I do echo someone else who said they were glad that Sang Jiu gave her a solid ass whooping, although it wasn’t nearly enough in my book for what she deserved but alas we got what we got.
The amount of blood they spat in this series was enough to start a drink business lemme tell you. Lol
Gongye JiWu’s arrogance and delusions of grandeur did not evoke whatever the writers thought it would, I just found him super annoying useless. IMO he was basically more weak/useless after every lifetime. It’s unbelievable and he was intolerable to me.
Even though he temporarily betrayed Tantai Jin, one of my fave characters is still Nian Baiyu, the way he was loyal and loved Tantai Jin unconditionally was something for the books.
Another thing that I didn’t necessarily like and was not a fan of at all, was that they went a little too far with the satanic occultist vibes.
Honestly a part of me regrets watching this but I know i would have watched it because of my love for the cast members I stated above. I live by a code, I might not care for something afterwards but if I make a decision to do something, I will stand by that decision. So ultimately I can’t really say I regret it. But I definitely won’t be rewatching it that’s for sure
Rewatch value 2/10
Overall 7.5/10

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garbage

It never fails to amaze me how utterly imbecile xianxias can be, but this one certainly is unbeatable on all categories.

Half the episodes are unnecessary fighting scenes that had more FX budget than a DC movie. I am not exaggerating. The other half has every annoying thing under the sun. It doesn't, however, have a coherent storyline.

Watching this is like suffering from an aneurysm and not knowing up from down, only confusion and anger. Be warned that the first ten or so episodes are nothing but a hook to lure you in an enemies to lovers story only... It's not really this. The heroine doesn't really love the ML and the ML is supposedly to be a villain but he is just a loser that got bullied so much he started to accept that his wife could bully him even more and shatter all his expectations (which is only one, no betrayal).

Do not watch this, its plot is ridiculously convoluted and nothing makes sense. Every cliche on the bingo card is included in the most anger indulcing fashion. The writers were truly outstanding -- they did misunderstanding elevated to new heights with this one.

I have never ever watched something so annoying in all my life. I was almost spitting blood like all the characters on all the episodes I had the unfortunate luck to watch. We need a tag for stupid storylines like this one so I could just exclude them from my searches.

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Endless Melodrama

I'm trying to recall the positives of this overlong, very forgettable drama.

Bai Lu is a great actress, despite taking on very crappy roles. I can't really fault her except to say her talent is wasted on these mediocre costume dramas she gets cast in. I see so much potential in her to be a character actress, not just the beautiful FL.

The ML, despite having a horse-face (something the British are famous for), can really act! He has the exact look of a male ballet dancer. Again, like Bai Lu, he deserves better roles. He perfectly demonstrates that just because you have a rather androgynous build and a horse-face, doesn't mean you can't create a character that is the opposite of this. That's the mark of a good actor. I don't even find this actor attractive, yet he convinced me that his character was.

The family of the FL is really nice. A good family in a Chinese drama is hard to come by. They weren't nice to the ML though, so maybe they aren't good after all. I don't remember the details of this story well enough to be able to say for sure.

The plot gets more and more dull the more episodes you watch, so I had to drop this, as I could see real melodrama getting painfully out of control in the coming episodes and I wanted to save myself the trouble of waiting till it really took off.

I'm giving it 5 bloody tears out of 10.

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Going on in circles

I feel like we are going in circles at this point. The same issues, same miscommunication, same over reaction and same angst. There has been very little growth in characters and it keeps going to pretty much square one every couple of episodes. Great acting by the ML and he actually looked food deprived for the large part of episodes that I have seen. I watched SOKP and this is such a disappointment. I started getting annoyed by 12th episode and continued to hate watch it. I cannot see why it is highly rated and it had so much potential which sadly was wasted.Someone wrote it their reviews that it has xianxia logic and they tie up every loop - This was very true.

The second leads have a much better arc. I don't think I will be coming back to this.

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spoooiler

The fact that Tai Tai Jin really loves Ye Shi Woo is very clear and of course he is also dependent on him, but many people blame Ye Shi Woo, but I personally think of the life of Lee Susu or Ye Shi Woo, I really give him the right in some places. First, someone comes and kills your whole family and loved ones, and of course a lot of people, or all of them in a way, and a person usually hates the murderer of his family, but after that, he didn't want another whipping. He is innocent, even though he is trying to hurt his family in the future, on the one hand, he is tormented by his family's conscience, and then he falls in love with the murderer of his family, and then he is tormented by the conscience that he wants to kill Tai Tai Jin, and in the meantime, there is a lot of mistrust between them. , which for Ye Shi Woo was because he had seen Tai Tai Jin's future and sometimes Tai Tai Jin could do something about it, and with the behavior of those around him, Ye Shi Woo made it possible that the future would become a reality, Tai Tai Jin's distrust It was also because in the past, before Lee Susu came, Ye Shi Wu had been bothering her and she thought that Ye Shi Wu was deceiving her, even though Ye Shi Wu had really fallen in love with her, of course, the story itself has some problems. For example, whenever Tai Taijin thinks of Ye Shiwoo, he remembers memories from after Lee Susu came, while his distrust goes back to before he came, or for example, when Tai Taijin found out about Sam, he quickly distrusts Ye Shiwoo. and controlled him and made him a killer and he didn't even realize that if Ye Shi Wu wanted to kill him, he wouldn't have talked about his return to Tai Tai Jin in the conversation, or even never said how his eye got better and that ancient orb disappeared. Or he never said that if Ye Shi Wu hates me, then why is he killing me? Even though Ye Shi Wu finally showed him his memories, he didn't believe me and he kept saying that I'm not that kind of person, but he didn't really think what Ye Shi Wu did. For a long time, from our point of view, Ye Shiwu's work was a naughty one, while from his point of view, even if it wasn't about his family, thousands of people were connected to him, that's why he was willing to make sacrifices for the people and compensate for Tai Tai Jin with immortal essence. If we think about their first life in Bure ten thousand years ago, this happened the other way around, Tai Tai Jin prevented Ye Shi Wu from turning into a devil and stopped Ye Shi Wu in the end, and Tai Tai Jin himself died later, and now this It happened the other way around for both of them, Tae Tae Jin really loves Ye Shi Woo very much, who makes him cry because of his love, but I think that if it wasn't for people's lives, Ye Shi Woo would have shown his love just as much, I really have my heart for these two. It hurts, and I don't think either of them is to blame, and both of them have become the toys of fate and the evil god ?????❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

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Why, Just why?

To start, I am a big fan of the actors and i genuinely have no qualms with them but this drama made me question myself.
So to clarify it has some great music and sets as well as the cinematics are all super beautiful but in terms of story it ranks abnormally low for me. It actually felt like I saw the same thing happening three times and that too the result in every situation was the same. Only LYX's character felt like it had depth everyone else just kept on making the same mistakes and at a certain point the story becomes so predictable that it takes away the emotional effect it should have on you. I won't lie the first two phases of the drama were absolutely class but the last one just threw everything off.

If you have to ask me for a recommendation, I would say that watch it if you are a fan of any of the leads otherwise if you just have too much time and want to see something beautiful, go ahead! But don't expect it to be extremely surprising in terms of story and the writing!

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Melodrama, stock characters and not even mediocre writing

Beautiful visuals are probably the only positive aspect of this show.

The main issue is the subpar writing - basically just haphazardly stitched together tropes with abundance of melodrama. The intention, i think, was some sort of star-crossed lovers & with bad-boy-saved-by-love story, the result makes cheap day-time telenovelas seem like quality tv.
Honestly, the only criteria for the plot seemed to be over-the-top angst and the absence of logic. The emperor? The scared brother with parental issues? The amount of torment dished out to ML? And what about the clothing - if you make a storyline about ML not having warm clothing in winter, can´t you let everybody wear warm clothes? How am I to take it seriously when half the cast is in chiffon?? And for godsake, can´t you let them sleep without the ridiculous headpieces? (I know this one is truly silly, but given the overall problems, it irked me so much).
The FL in the first few episodes is painfully stupid, her decisions driven by nothing else but topping up the already exaggerated situation (example: XY explains what has to happen and how she needs to go and do this and that, FL says ok and stops and watches bad things happen so you can have here cry and shout uselessly - otherwise we would not get that this is a severe problem, oh no, just world ending, without the crying heroine, how would i know?!). And then suddenly she turns into the perfect actress - and competent fighter and responsible member of society without any issue despite the fact till that point she was a spoiled idiotic villainess.

All (main couple included) the characters are paper-thin stick figurines, driven by the magical plot-said-so-shut-up without any personality, stable traits or logical motivation. A scene to scene their behaviour changes for no good reason aside from what sort of trope the scene had to convey.
The show tried to cover up the lack of care for the characters by the tragedy and melodrama and... a sense of forbidden fruit, i guess (psychopathic male lead, the steamy scenes - ah, another plus, the kissing scenes are realistic not the usual barbie dolls), but it´s not enough - definitely not for this type of show. Instead of taking time to develop them, to make me as a viewer care about the story and its inhabitants, they just rushed to epic fights and emotionally hightened moments (where the stakes are so high, it´s almost laughable) for a momentary entertainement but without any substance. (I think i would enjoy it more, if the ML stayed evil and just went around murdering anybody).

The subpar writing is probably a reason why the acting seemed... less than idea (ML switching from besotted to trademark evil to constipated to blank model face randomly; a character talking suddenly in deep voice and being all powerful and suave just because she turned evil). But i will admit the choice for the ML was great - the actor looks like tragical heroine suffering from consumption with just the right amount of decadence, so at least they had that going for them.
As for the main couple - yes, their chemistry is nice to watch, as long as you forgot the ridiculous plot (the weriters surely seemed to - early happy frolling in the snow and then hurray, our main guy is emotionless psychopath again) and take them as generic FL and ML in tropey situations.

Can be used as background show for the pretty visuals and brainless nonsense.

Or even better - if you enjoy xianxia and are deseprate for something good, go watch Love between fairy and the devil, this one is really waste of time. (Did they make LBFD as an angry response to this drivel? It does sound like that.)

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Best fantasy drama of 2023

First episode got me literally so hooked to the drama i love the chemistry between all the characters the ending made me shed many tears it was truly a masterpiece and it was the first time i ever spent money on drama pass just to watch the episodes early. I looked forward to ever episode when it was streaming and when the last 2 episodes were streaming in the morning i just shed so many tears truly one of the best fantasy dramas I’ve watched rewatched about 3 times now and still cry over tantai jin and ye xiwu. The ost are literally the best ost I’ve ever heard literally listening to immortal bird rn and thinking about tantai jin and ye xiw. This drama holds a special place in my heart now its my roman empire.

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Not sure if I watched the same show

I'm trying to decide if I should give TLEOTM a rewatch and see if there is something I missed in the first watch that made everyone love this and rate it as one of the best Xanxia/Wuxia ever. I still can't understand how the relationship between FL & ML ever passed over from disgust to undying love. I loved Bai Lu and Luo Yun Xi in Love is Sweet, so it'ts not the actors, just the plot. I could not for the life of me figure out how the ML ended up being such a simpering fool who just kept getting himself in line for more smacks in the face from the FL, and kept coming back for more. He went from the most horrific being in all the universes to such a sucker... Like I said, maybe I need to watch again because as much as I had been looking forward to it and wanted to love it, I just couldn't,

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