I appreciate a fluffy, drama-free romance show as much as the next person, but I just didn't really feel any spark between the main leads, despite the way they actually meet being quite promising.

They are cute at certain moments, but the biggest issue for me is just that they're always so POLITE, and it never got better. Even in the penultimate episode, their conversations felt very robotic ("Would you like some [food]?" "Yes, thank you. Wow, that is spicy!" "Here, have some water.") I know this type of relationship probably does exist and works for some people, but as someone who likes a bit of casualness and banter in their everyday dialogue, their conversations just felt like ones I'd have with a coworker who I'd just met at a networking event. Ultimately it made their relationship feel pretty flat and repetitive; they do something cute, everyone teases them about it, repeat.

The second couple were also cute at times, but ultimately very similar to the first. It seems like there's some light-hearted banter when each character is with their friends, but they completely shut down when they're with each other. It would've been interesting to see this dynamic open up over time, but sadly we barely got any of it and we jumped to them just being together in the ending. I think some of the writing just feels very generic and not quite tailored to the actual character arcs. Zhou Zheng and Geng Xiao Xing are given the iconic line: "If we break up, then we can't even be friends" — but their storyline was never friends-to-lovers anyways and I didn't feel like the "friendship" had become that vital because the progress was very minimal.

Instead, that line should've been reserved for the third couple, which turned out to be my favorite despite having the least screentime of them all; that's Dou Dou and Feng Ya Song, a couple that you could tell really felt comfortable around each other, with a really good "we like each other but can't say anything" dynamic. I wish they'd gotten more scenes paced throughout the show instead of having all of it in one episode near the end.

I'm also just not sure about the mix of themes: dubbing industry and cooking. Part of it is personal preference (I don't care much for cooking or for the dubbing industry), but I think individually it's also just...fine. The cooking doesn't really add any character depth and it feels kind of random the way it flits in and out. The dubbing industry part had some interesting moments; the songs are great and the voice acting is actually really satisfying with all the historical drama scenes, but there's actually no clear through-plot for it. There are events and projects here and there but you don't really get to follow the characters towards a specific goal, and it's definitely not one of those "follow your dreams" dramas because the tone stays pretty monotonous throughout. I think the part I liked least about the dubbing industry plot were all the fangirls fawning over the main boys — I know this is a common drama trope, but it was way too reminiscent of the idolization we saw in old dramas like Meteor Garden that it made me cringe a little. Plus, one can only take so much of the side characters comparing themselves to the male leads and calling themselves "little nobodies."

Overall, I can understand why so many people enjoyed this drama, and I do love how unproblematic it is. It's heart-warming for me too, but was really missing the spark for me, especially as the show went on.