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labcat
This review may contain spoilers
A big pity things are left hanging
When I first started watching this after watching The Lost Tomb (2015), I could not get used to the cast. The lack of continuity from what I had watched also made me lose interest. After enough time had passed for me to forget much of The Lost Tomb (2015), I started on Ultimate Note again with a bit more patience and was pleasantly surprised.
Although the references to other events may be confusing at the start, there is no need to have watched other DaoMuBiJi-based series. Apparently they don't join up very well anyway, and the cast, direction and even characterization tend to differ.
What I had hoped for after watching a few episodes was that Ultimate Note would be a nice series on its own. In some ways, it is. Although there are allusions to adventures that are not shown in the series, we can watch Ultimate Note without having to know the details. Ultimate Note is very much focused on Wu Xie and company's attempt to investigate the truth after receiving some mysterious VHS tapes, one of which featured someone who looks identical to the adult Wu Xie even though the tape was made when he was just a kid. One thing leads to another in the series, and we can follow the characters' adventures with relative ease.
Unfortunately, Ultimate Note suffers from the problem that all DMBJ series seem doomed to suffer from: things that do not get fully explained and ending in the middle of nowhere. Too many things that are important to the story in Ultimate Note end up not being explained, e.g. the apparent replicas of various characters, the identity of the man with the sloped shoulders, etc etc etc. This is the equivalent of watching a series about a locked-room murder and then the series just ends without explaining how the murderer has killed the victim and without the murderer being caught.
Despite the sense of incompleteness, the characters really grew on me in Ultimate Note. This was unexpected given how I was not used to the different cast after watching Li Yi Feng and Yang Yang's Wu Xie and Zhang Qi Ling. Whether it is the interactions amongst Wu Xie/Zhang Qi Ling/ Fatty or the growing friendship between Hua Er and Black Glasses or the understated strong bonds between Wu Xie and Hua Er, there is a lot to make them characters viewers actually like and care about.
At least a segment of viewers will like the bond between Wu Xie and Qi Ling, which is practically a romantic one. It's often portrayed through the characters talking about or teasing them about how they would die for each other. Fatty joking that he wants to complain about Qi Ling to Wu Xie or saying that he doesn't know how to account to Wu Xie if Qi Ling dies are just a couple of examples that make the relationship seem more than just strong friendship. The three of them are close friends, but Wu Xie and Qi Ling are definitely biased towards each other as they are extra protective of each other. However one interprets their relationship, it is a good thing that the characters come to life with the different ways one character would behave towards different people.
There is also nice development in Wu Xie's character. The general impression people seem to have of Wu Xie (from watching one DMBJ-based series or another) is that he is always needing to be saved by Qi Ling, like a damsel in distress. But in Ultimate Note, we see that he may not be very physically powerful, but he has the determination to fight for his friends and save them too. Whether it is the way he carries an unconscious Fatty to save him or the way he single-handedly fights off a snake and a monster to keep Hua Er safe, his character is admirable. Joseph Zeng does a good job portraying Wu Xie, managing to bring out both the kind, righteous side of him and the tougher, more jaded side of him when he has to deal with shadier people or challenging situations.
But why must the story end just as it seems to be getting somewhere near a climax? Even if there is no way to solve all the mysteries set up, there may be more appropriate moments to end Ultimate Note, e.g. at the moment he characters set off for the final adventure in the series. Some effort to provide a credible theory of the phenomenon of character replication-- even if it turns out to be wrong or inaccurate in a subsequent series or as compared to the novels--would also give a better sense of closure than what we have in Ultimate Note.
Although the references to other events may be confusing at the start, there is no need to have watched other DaoMuBiJi-based series. Apparently they don't join up very well anyway, and the cast, direction and even characterization tend to differ.
What I had hoped for after watching a few episodes was that Ultimate Note would be a nice series on its own. In some ways, it is. Although there are allusions to adventures that are not shown in the series, we can watch Ultimate Note without having to know the details. Ultimate Note is very much focused on Wu Xie and company's attempt to investigate the truth after receiving some mysterious VHS tapes, one of which featured someone who looks identical to the adult Wu Xie even though the tape was made when he was just a kid. One thing leads to another in the series, and we can follow the characters' adventures with relative ease.
Unfortunately, Ultimate Note suffers from the problem that all DMBJ series seem doomed to suffer from: things that do not get fully explained and ending in the middle of nowhere. Too many things that are important to the story in Ultimate Note end up not being explained, e.g. the apparent replicas of various characters, the identity of the man with the sloped shoulders, etc etc etc. This is the equivalent of watching a series about a locked-room murder and then the series just ends without explaining how the murderer has killed the victim and without the murderer being caught.
Despite the sense of incompleteness, the characters really grew on me in Ultimate Note. This was unexpected given how I was not used to the different cast after watching Li Yi Feng and Yang Yang's Wu Xie and Zhang Qi Ling. Whether it is the interactions amongst Wu Xie/Zhang Qi Ling/ Fatty or the growing friendship between Hua Er and Black Glasses or the understated strong bonds between Wu Xie and Hua Er, there is a lot to make them characters viewers actually like and care about.
At least a segment of viewers will like the bond between Wu Xie and Qi Ling, which is practically a romantic one. It's often portrayed through the characters talking about or teasing them about how they would die for each other. Fatty joking that he wants to complain about Qi Ling to Wu Xie or saying that he doesn't know how to account to Wu Xie if Qi Ling dies are just a couple of examples that make the relationship seem more than just strong friendship. The three of them are close friends, but Wu Xie and Qi Ling are definitely biased towards each other as they are extra protective of each other. However one interprets their relationship, it is a good thing that the characters come to life with the different ways one character would behave towards different people.
There is also nice development in Wu Xie's character. The general impression people seem to have of Wu Xie (from watching one DMBJ-based series or another) is that he is always needing to be saved by Qi Ling, like a damsel in distress. But in Ultimate Note, we see that he may not be very physically powerful, but he has the determination to fight for his friends and save them too. Whether it is the way he carries an unconscious Fatty to save him or the way he single-handedly fights off a snake and a monster to keep Hua Er safe, his character is admirable. Joseph Zeng does a good job portraying Wu Xie, managing to bring out both the kind, righteous side of him and the tougher, more jaded side of him when he has to deal with shadier people or challenging situations.
But why must the story end just as it seems to be getting somewhere near a climax? Even if there is no way to solve all the mysteries set up, there may be more appropriate moments to end Ultimate Note, e.g. at the moment he characters set off for the final adventure in the series. Some effort to provide a credible theory of the phenomenon of character replication-- even if it turns out to be wrong or inaccurate in a subsequent series or as compared to the novels--would also give a better sense of closure than what we have in Ultimate Note.
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