#or 'i hate x he shouldn't end up with y bc xyz!!'

[tonyglowheart]

Okay I finished s1 of the donghua, and... the storytelling in the latter half, where it starts deviating from the novel and like starts condensing the story down, doesn't feel as tight as the first part, but is still decent enough. The animation is sooo good in the fight scenes. They do kind of overuse that, like... idk how to describe it, the like Into the Spider-Verse Prowler sound, I think, but whatever

Yan Wushi... the way they redid his deal to fit within the limits of donghua episode counts (presumably) is interesting in comparison to the novel. I don't hate it lol, but I do think it kinda softens YWS in a way that he is Not in the novel. Bl

But so far they are kinda threading the needle in that he is concealing his burgeoning softer side from SQ so SQ still thinks he's heartless and all that. But the softening of YWS for the donghua is interesting and tbh, I think not a bad choice.

With the novel, SQ is the POV character so it's fine to get more in that sort of limited POV writing/character development with non-POV characters. But with donghua where the perspective is set on a third person omniscient, you do kind of have to tweak characters who may be more unsympathetic to the audience esp if they are lead characters to make them more so. It's like what they did in the Princess Bride.

So yeah, very interested to see where they take this in s2. and sad they maybe possibly can't go more explicit with the relationship lmao, cuz actually the story/character changes in the donghua as compared to the novel better set up yanshen for a relationship that is more acceptable slash comprehensible to a greater base I think lol.