Editorials 
This review may contain spoilers
Great potential but becomes repetitive and paternalistic
As a preface, I did enjoy this series overall. It was mostly a fun watch if you ignore the extreme paternalism and the repetitive story line.
I'm an avid online gamer and like romance dramas so I thought this would be the best of both worlds.... unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. While I did find the first 10 episodes interesting, it starts to trail off toward the end. Not that the tone of the story actually changes much, it just becomes much more obvious on how patriarchal the series really is.
Both of the leads, Wei Wei and Nai are supposed to be very intelligent compSci students, yet every episode merely emphasizes their claim to fame as being how beautiful/handsome they are...repeatedly. While later episodes do highlight Nai's intelligence, they barely give Wei Wei any credit other than being a pretty face. When she interns at Nai's company, they spend a couple minutes of screen time having her handle some testing and creating a proposal doc for a gaming subsystem, but for the vast majority of the time, she is relegated to bringing food to the team and other office manager tasks. And in a scene where Nai is working on solving a complex compSci problem, instead of having Wei Wei be interested in the problem, she just sits there and stares doe eyed at Nai.
Wei Wei is also supposedly very skilled within the online game....and she does crush her opponents when those opponents are other females. As soon as she is up against a male opponent, Nai needs to step in to save her.
Wei Wei's friend group is even worse. They mostly talk about boys or other girls. They often talk about studying yet they are never shown actually doing any programming. ErXi may be the worst...while her character is cute, she seems incapable of doing anything herself...despite supposedly being at a top tier university. She is also the target of the 'Mean' girls always berating her looks.... standard issue of a beautiful actress supposedly portraying a plain girl.
The romance part of the story is not much better. No basis is really given for why they like each other originally other than they are both 'beautiful people'. While they do show Nai watching Wei Wei play the game briefly, that isn't really a solid reason for falling in love with someone.
Once they start dating, things actually get a bit worse. While their relationship is generally a good one, it is extremely paternalistic. Wei Wei always defers to Nai and needs to be 'saved' by him. When they are together, many of Nai's gestures toward Wei Wei feel more like a parent to child than as a romantic partner. That is not to say that Nai takes away Wei Wei's agency or otherwise overtly tries to control her. It is more that he is completely confident in his own abilities and Wei Wei voluntarily submits and defers to him.
There is one Red Flag moment when Nai is consoling Wei Wei over her fight with ErXi. He discounts her relationship with Erxi saying “...she's only a small part of your life. I'm your everything.” He also claims they'll never fight and will always be happy. That she should never cry about anyone ever again and that he'll never make her cry.
Their kissing scenes also leave a lot to be desired. She is often wide eyed, unmoving, arms at the side while he actually is trying for a good romantic kiss. This isn't an issue where Nai is 'taking advantage' of Wei Wei – she is a willing partner that is, for some reason, standing like she's not.
Finally, the Mean Girl clique is rather overdone and becomes repetitive.
To end on a positive, the interactions of Nai's friend group (roommates) is fantastic. Their banter and pranks are exactly what a group of friends like that would do.
As I started, I did find the series overall an interesting watch. I am just very disappointed because it could have been so much better.
I'm an avid online gamer and like romance dramas so I thought this would be the best of both worlds.... unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case. While I did find the first 10 episodes interesting, it starts to trail off toward the end. Not that the tone of the story actually changes much, it just becomes much more obvious on how patriarchal the series really is.
Both of the leads, Wei Wei and Nai are supposed to be very intelligent compSci students, yet every episode merely emphasizes their claim to fame as being how beautiful/handsome they are...repeatedly. While later episodes do highlight Nai's intelligence, they barely give Wei Wei any credit other than being a pretty face. When she interns at Nai's company, they spend a couple minutes of screen time having her handle some testing and creating a proposal doc for a gaming subsystem, but for the vast majority of the time, she is relegated to bringing food to the team and other office manager tasks. And in a scene where Nai is working on solving a complex compSci problem, instead of having Wei Wei be interested in the problem, she just sits there and stares doe eyed at Nai.
Wei Wei is also supposedly very skilled within the online game....and she does crush her opponents when those opponents are other females. As soon as she is up against a male opponent, Nai needs to step in to save her.
Wei Wei's friend group is even worse. They mostly talk about boys or other girls. They often talk about studying yet they are never shown actually doing any programming. ErXi may be the worst...while her character is cute, she seems incapable of doing anything herself...despite supposedly being at a top tier university. She is also the target of the 'Mean' girls always berating her looks.... standard issue of a beautiful actress supposedly portraying a plain girl.
The romance part of the story is not much better. No basis is really given for why they like each other originally other than they are both 'beautiful people'. While they do show Nai watching Wei Wei play the game briefly, that isn't really a solid reason for falling in love with someone.
Once they start dating, things actually get a bit worse. While their relationship is generally a good one, it is extremely paternalistic. Wei Wei always defers to Nai and needs to be 'saved' by him. When they are together, many of Nai's gestures toward Wei Wei feel more like a parent to child than as a romantic partner. That is not to say that Nai takes away Wei Wei's agency or otherwise overtly tries to control her. It is more that he is completely confident in his own abilities and Wei Wei voluntarily submits and defers to him.
There is one Red Flag moment when Nai is consoling Wei Wei over her fight with ErXi. He discounts her relationship with Erxi saying “...she's only a small part of your life. I'm your everything.” He also claims they'll never fight and will always be happy. That she should never cry about anyone ever again and that he'll never make her cry.
Their kissing scenes also leave a lot to be desired. She is often wide eyed, unmoving, arms at the side while he actually is trying for a good romantic kiss. This isn't an issue where Nai is 'taking advantage' of Wei Wei – she is a willing partner that is, for some reason, standing like she's not.
Finally, the Mean Girl clique is rather overdone and becomes repetitive.
To end on a positive, the interactions of Nai's friend group (roommates) is fantastic. Their banter and pranks are exactly what a group of friends like that would do.
As I started, I did find the series overall an interesting watch. I am just very disappointed because it could have been so much better.
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