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labcat
This review may contain spoilers
Typical BL that is quite nicely produced
I actually like the series but I find it hard to pinpoint what I like about it.
WBL No. 1 for You and WBL Fighting Mr 2nd seem to work better as a single series than divided into 2 parts. Breaking the story up into two (or more?) parts has resulted in some unevenness.
In No. 1 for You, the ending is a little rushed and some things feel unaccounted for. The basic trajectory of the story is also not altogether original, though it probably belongs to the sort of storyline that will always have a place in love stories: someone with one-sided love pinning for another person. How good the story is, then, depends on the characters and how movingly the story is told.
In this case, Gao Shi De's one-sided love is quite moving as we look at the little things he does for Zhou Shu Yi and the back story of how he falls in love with Shu Yi.
WBL: No. 1 for You falls very much in the safe terrain of BLs: the characters are young university students, the love is innocent, there is a lot of cuteness even as we feel bad for Shi De because of his one-sided longing for someone who regards him as a competitor. Perhaps it is sufficiently light-hearted because we are likely familiar with the genre: the one-sided love will be reciprocated at some point. Yet, it is also after the couple become boyfriends that the story becomes a little weaker. It seems to be leading somewhere but it doesn't get anywhere by Episode 6, the last episode. It does get somewhere in Fighting Mr 2nd, but that's also why it's hard to take No. 1 for You as a standalone series.
While the of No. 1 for You isn't very adventurous and doesn't stretch the limits of the BL genre, the telling of the story and the acting are quite good, making it quite a good BL to watch. At first, I found the way the actor for Zhou Shu Yi speaks a little odd. However, his acting is quite on point and I realize that he's half Japanese, so Mandarin may not be his best language. (The character has a similar background, so I guess it all works in the end.)
WBL No. 1 for You and WBL Fighting Mr 2nd seem to work better as a single series than divided into 2 parts. Breaking the story up into two (or more?) parts has resulted in some unevenness.
In No. 1 for You, the ending is a little rushed and some things feel unaccounted for. The basic trajectory of the story is also not altogether original, though it probably belongs to the sort of storyline that will always have a place in love stories: someone with one-sided love pinning for another person. How good the story is, then, depends on the characters and how movingly the story is told.
In this case, Gao Shi De's one-sided love is quite moving as we look at the little things he does for Zhou Shu Yi and the back story of how he falls in love with Shu Yi.
WBL: No. 1 for You falls very much in the safe terrain of BLs: the characters are young university students, the love is innocent, there is a lot of cuteness even as we feel bad for Shi De because of his one-sided longing for someone who regards him as a competitor. Perhaps it is sufficiently light-hearted because we are likely familiar with the genre: the one-sided love will be reciprocated at some point. Yet, it is also after the couple become boyfriends that the story becomes a little weaker. It seems to be leading somewhere but it doesn't get anywhere by Episode 6, the last episode. It does get somewhere in Fighting Mr 2nd, but that's also why it's hard to take No. 1 for You as a standalone series.
While the of No. 1 for You isn't very adventurous and doesn't stretch the limits of the BL genre, the telling of the story and the acting are quite good, making it quite a good BL to watch. At first, I found the way the actor for Zhou Shu Yi speaks a little odd. However, his acting is quite on point and I realize that he's half Japanese, so Mandarin may not be his best language. (The character has a similar background, so I guess it all works in the end.)
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