Love O2O (2016)

Where'd the plot go?

I was pretty excited about Love O2O. The idea of merging MMO culture with Asian dramas is exciting. The first few episodes focus heavily on two opposing ingame power couples, famous in their generic Chinese MMO and renowned for their prowess in PvP. It also draws parallels to the real world, wherein the main character Bei Wei Wei attends college and struggles with her renown as a campus beauty. It's a pretty awesome premise.

But like most Asian dramas that have awesome premises, the show-runners just couldn't resist the temptation to gradually turn Love O2O into every run-of-the-mill rom com. Over time the game is featured much less and more focus is given to real-world character relationships and endless inconsequential scenes where side characters act like toddlers.

And the show couldn't even do that right. Once Wei Wei and her emotionless cardboard cutout of a love interest get together in real life (not really a spoiler since the show screams it at you from the beginning), the plot comes to a screeching halt.

I don't mean "comes to a halt" like most dramas do. We're not dealing with an endless barrage of scenes where nearly-identical Asian actors look constipated in slow motion for five minutes while a power ballad plays loudly about "loving you" and/or "missing you."

I mean the show just comes to a halt. I dropped the show at 18 episodes, so I don't know if it picks up or not, but after 5 episodes of absolutely -NOTHING- happening, I had to drop it.

It doesn't help that Wei Wei isn't an interesting main character. I don't know if the actor playing her just sucks, but Wei Wei doesn't emote much. She sounds friendly, emotes very carefully and very precisely, but there's just nothing beyond that. No character to be seen behind the friendly voice and unchanging face. An endless void lies beyond her eyes.

Her love interest is no different. He has no flaws, no personality, nothing. The relationship between Wei Wei and Forgettable Male Drama Lead No. #75831 is so boring. Nothing happens. Nada. Nothing. Nich! I was questioning whether or not Netflix was looping the same five minutes for five hours. What a complete waste of time.

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FM was horrible, at least to me

So I've dropped this one because I couldn't stand the female lead. Her acting was horrible, at least to me, and it just made me cringe too much.

The worst part were the kissing scenes where the ML tried really hard and you can see that he could be a great kisser (acting vise) if only he had another partner, but the female lead kept her mouth shut like a statue. It just felt really weird to watch him try to kiss her, and as hard as he tried the harder she shut her mouth. Omg, I cringed so hard.

I also didn't care much for the main plot either. It didn't really catch my interest. But that could be easily forgiven if only there was a little bit of chemistry between the main leads.

I think that the ML was good and I will definitely watch other dramas with him, but the FL was really bad in my opinion. I am not sure why this drama has such high rating, I can only think that the fans of ML gave it high rating because they love him. Other than that I can't find any good reasons.

I dropped the drama at ep 21 cos I just cringed to much at the FL character.

I wouldn't recommend it because there are other dramas that are way better.

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I don't know how to explain this but I hated that they made her say her lines on set but then made her record her lines and put it over her voice. There was just so much echo. While the others voices were completely normal, the girl just had this extremely annoying voice.

YangYang never had expressions on his face. Even my dead fish had more expressions then him.

The show was extremely cringy. I had to pause it like every 2 minutes just to take a deep breath and calm myself down because of the cringiness.

Absolutely no plot at all. I felt like a 5 year old produced and wrote the lines for this show. This drama, well no, you can't even call it a drama since it literally doesn't have any at all. This show was just so boring, I had to force myself to watch the whole series, because I thought that maybe the plot would be later in the show, but no. I just completely wasted like 1 month of my time watching this. (yes I do take alot of time to watch them because of school)

Definitely DON'T WATCH IT. Don't know how this got such a high review .

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SUPER OVERRATED. This drama should not have been as popular/well reviewed as it is

Probably like many of you, I found this drama when I was new to C-Dramas and wanted to find recommendations. Thankfully I watched a couple other dramas before this one, or this would've turned me away from C-Dramas completely. I felt like this drama is older (probs male) producers trying to pander to teenage girls by incorporating the not-mainstream/stereotypically male component which is RPG gaming and IT. Basically, it's the producers using the 'I'm not like other girls' and 'rich cool smart guy falls in love with ordinary but smart girl' tropes until they drive it off a damn cliff or something.

First some positives:
1. I think the secondary characters were super interesting when they weren't used as devices to uplift and showcase the main characters' competence. I didn't mind the roommates' interactions and
2. The gaming and tech elements are unique. It had potential to become super interesting had it been fleshed out or been about the differences we interact in-game and in real life; how in-game romances transcend into a real, meaningful relationship.
3. Music was okay. It didn't stand out, but it wasn't bad either.

What I didn't like:
1. As much as the drama wanted to tell us 'girls can do gaming too!' and 'girls can do computer science and IT too!' what it showed was a whole other story. Throughout gaming events, Wei Wei was constantly sidelined or delegated to fight mostly the weak females. The game/competition elements made her rely so much on Xiao Nai. Putting the low-key sexism aside, wouldn't that make the event super boring for one half of the players? Why on earth would I want to watch my partner complete the event meant for two people to work together? I'd wanna play too dammit. And Wei Wei is praised more as this beautiful-looking person rather than a highly intelligent one. I felt that the show is telling me Wei Wei is the only female with brains and intellect that can live up to her appearance, which is the exception. All the other females were lacking either intelligence or beauty. Xiao Nai too. He's a rich, genius, handsome, and stoic guy from the get-go and remains that way throughout the whole series; while his roommates are portrayed as inferior to him (they even said they'll just blindly follow Xiao Nai. tf?) this aint it man.

2. There was no plot. First of all, online romance does not immediately equal real life romance (I feel like the producers were so out of touch with this one). This led me to not being able to buy into their romance. The series didn't really progress or develop their relationship much once they got together shortly after meeting irl for the first time, which is why I dropped this drama.

3. This resulted in acting that was so flat, lacked any chemistry, and dragging & repetitive scenes.

All in all, I think this drama backed themselves into a corner when they decided that their main leads were going to be perfect unrealistic human beings and that they were to be constantly portrayed as such. There was no room for them to grow, and no room to show how they love each other other than PDA. This drama prioritised superficiality above all else and I am kinda disappointed in humanity bcs we all just fell for it.

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This drama seriously gave me a run for my time. I became so obsessed with this drama that it basically took over my life. I would want to rush home from work to watch it. I would rave about it to everyone that would listen. I couldn't pin point why this drama was so good at first, but then I realized its because it is different from everything out there. There is no plot twist, huge conflict, an annoyingly useless lead, or a character that is hateful due to pitiful reasons.

This drama is very chill compared to everything that is out there. It is a pure love story with little bits of dramatics mixed in. The OTP is meant to be shipped and it shows (there is no one else to be rooting for). The story rolled nicely and there was no terrible cliff hangers. You just wanted to watch the next episode because of the warm feeling every episode gave you. There was a good amount of laughter, romance, and small issues in each episode. It is a must watch if you're tired of characters possibly dying or going crazy at every turn.

PLUS, it just made you giddy inside EVERY SINGLE TIME the OTP appeared on screen. Give it a try if you're looking to relax and feel warmness brewing inside of you.

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The story is smooth going… sweet and cute kind of love story. Some kind real life experience with not much typical kind of plpts. And I expected that like in other dramas the rival of main female lead will be same kind with tauntings and hatred nd playing tricks against her but there was nothing like that. It was a nuetral sweet story. And adding game effects in the drama… I totally loved it. But I expected that till the end but they stopped in the midway. That game effects in middle to middle were totally lovable(for me).

And songs and music was good too.

OSTs are good too. And ending song by Yang Yang awwww... That was unexpected. Loved that ending song.

Definitly worth watching (not for those who cant stand nuetral stories with much twists).
I would definitlty recommend to watch this show.

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Leave alone if you're a feminist

Much of this series is a reinforcement of traditional roles. At times it feels like psychological warfare by China's ministry of culture or an American after school special, aimed at forming teens in 1950's roles. The commanding male, worshipped by pining females, including his obedient girlfriend. Money, power and good looks are taught as measurements of success and if you don't have them, you should know your place in life.

I honestly do not get the praise this drama has got - the integration with the game is the only thing that I can give points for. Most of the tech added up, which is hardly seen in series. But the bulk of the drama is a bunch of cliche plots and plot devices, such as the much overused "staring at the moon at the same time at night, while being away from each other" scene, backed by the romantic theme song for the lead couple.

The female lead can hold her own, she has her own skills and wit and yet the story is such that the male "allows her from time to time" take care of things herself without his help. Music, lighting, sound effects all support this "magnanimous" gesture. It's really cringing for someone with opposite moral values, especially since not just her character has skills of her own, she is by far his better at acting. The male lead is basically a bland pretty face that has been typecast to walk straight, smile and be arrogant. The story carefully manoeuvres around plots that would require the ML to show some real emotion, which also gives him no depth, no base in reality. His three buddies were much more amusing and needed to provide some comic relief.

A character that is also "seemingly perfect" is Lee Young Joon in "What's wrong with Secretary Kim", but it was done much better. When he was perfect, it was in such an over-the-top way that you just have to laugh at it. Secondly, he had a really good back story and acting to match that showed us the cracks in the armour and characters around him that made fun of him. But none of that here and maybe it's for the better, cause I doubt the actor could've pulled it off.

All in all It was really hard to get through 30 episodes and I only did because I wanted to see if anything changed at the end. That maybe it was all a bad dream and we really are in this century.

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The brutal truth behind O2O’s success?

Both the actors were HOT, and they looked ethereal as a couple. When I finally got out of the mind fog that captivated my attention with their good looks, I realised there was nothing in the plot itself that stood out to me.

What exactly IS Love O2O about?

A campus romance as they slowly enter the adult world.

Ive seen way better plots tbh- 20 your life on , Forever love. You could feel their apprehension, excitement, romance.
Jeana's review said it all! Though there were ups and downs, I just couldn't get involved.

Someone asked me why/ what I liked about this drama. I watched this drama twice, yet the first (& only) thing I said was, “the couple is HOT”. And then stopped. I realised I just didnt have anything more to add. Their chemistry was bland, though Im shameless to say, their looks kept me fan-girling their status as a couple. Even the purpose of the game was created to promote their 'prettiness'. I honestly don't know how Wei Wei was one of the top players.

The premise/ setup was very intriguing, there was a lot of potential but I think it instead followed the format of - slice-of-life romance of elegant hotties.

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Beautiful but poor screenplay

Nice actors, poor screenplay. Absolutely no chemistry between the main characters. I've got the feeling that she is a robot and not a girl. How can you kiss a boy like Yang Yang and be so indifferent? ;) The boy characters were very cute and sincere but there was no story around them. The girl characters were just present, also no story around them. Nothing happened with the rival male character, no development at all. No intrigue, no tension, no big achievements except in the game.

I evaluated the acting with 8 points but the main female character was an acting desaster.

However, although I'm not a fan of games, this drama managed to make it interesting for me.

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Story: The story was a bit cliche, but despite that, the drama pulled off that cliche quite well and had it's own uniqueness that separates itself from the other typical dramas. Not only is it centered around gaming, but when I started watching this, I expected a bit more drama. So I was taken by surprise when about 90% of the scenes was just pure sweetness and comedy.

Acting/Cast: Wei Wei and Xiao Nai fit their roles well and had not only an adorable, but a realistic love story. There were no major ups and downs in their time together, just pure fondness and relationship growth. There was one misunderstanding that could have brought them apart, but they sorted it out in just one scene. That's what I loved about these two, their relationship was built from mutual affection to genuine love and trust that never faltered even for a second. I loved Xiao Nai, even if his character may as well have been pulled out from a manga. His character was just pulled off so well that it didn't seem exaggerated. I also really liked Wei Wei and how she was equal to Xiao Nai. It wasn't a rich guy falls in love with a poor girl love story; both were popular, desirable, and all around what you'd call perfect. My only issue with Wei Wei was in the kiss scenes. The kiss scenes were incredibly cute, but Wei Wei though barely even puckered up. I forgave her in their first kiss together, but she never gives as much as she receives which frustrated me.
I liked Xiao Nai's 3 friends as well as Hao Mei's relationship with Ko, I sensed a bit of bromance. I also expected to dislike Yi Ran, but she wasn't as bad as most female love rivals in dramas. She just had a crush on a guy misunderstood the situation. She didn't go too far and knew her limits.

Music: I thought the OST was cute and fit well with the vibe of the drama.

Re-watch Value: I'm not considering re-watching it at the moment, but it is definitely worthy of it. You can even skip through all the dramatic scenes since there aren't much of them and go right for the cute scenes.

Overall: Definitely worth the watch if you don't mind cliche's and an overdose of cuteness. If you don't like it by episode 9 or 10, I'd suggest dropping it. I considered dropping this a few episodes in, but I eventually started to like it and by those episodes I just wanted to see their relationship develop.

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Very Bland

The drama is very plain with zero character development and honestly a non-existent plot. The show just feels dead, it doesn't help that they remove all the background noise so it just feels like voice-overs. While I was watching the first couple of episodes, I compared their lip-movement to the audio because I was so convinced they were just lip-syncing. They'll be sitting in the cafeteria you can see the people in the back talking butt there's zero background noise, like hello? Ever stepped foot to a cafeteria it's LOUD. The audio just makes watching the show feel very eerie.

The plot, does not exist. Don't get me wrong, I love my slice-of-life dramas where there is no villain or huge conflict, but this drama did not do the genre justice. I thought it was interesting that there was a game plot, but I got bored of it real quick. There were so many scenes which I was just like, what is the point? So many scenes which don't add to the plot, though it doesn't exist. If they cut out all of those unnecessary scenes, the drama would be 12 episodes shorter and it would've been a much better drama. The script is alright, could've been so much better if the actors would just do their job properly.

The cast: They're all extremely attractive but they don't really get the job done. The main couple have no chemistry at all. The point of being in a couple is to learn from each other and grow together but that didn't happen at all.

The Male lead was very hard to watch, his voice is so dull. Whether he was happy or sad, he sounded the same. If I was just listening to the audio, I won't be able to differ his emotions at all. He's very, how do I say this... dead. Also very terrible at advice, she FL had an argument with her friend and he's basically like, I'm you're world and you're not allowed to cry for anyone but me. Is that meant to be romantic? That's creepy. At least he's a great kisser, too bad it always looked like he was kissing a wall due to the fact that the FL was always frozen. You'd think she'd get used to it by the 30th episode but nope.

The female lead, I really liked her at first. She's amazing at playing games and is an incredibly smart student. Yet once she joins the company it's like all of it is thrown out the window. She's reduced to nothing in the job, I thought we moved on from the useless female lead trope. So much for girl power. I found her acting endearing at first, but she kept on recycling the same face or set reaction and it got boring of it real fast.,

I was very happy to see that there was a group of female friends who stuck together, but it wasn't good in this drama. They, like the main couple, have ZERO chemistry together, so I wasn't really convinced that they're really friends. Come on, even I can fake a friendship better than you. Usually, when you're in a friend group, you talk to each other about your problems and the friends comfort you and come up with solutions to help you, but that didn't happen which was really disappointing. Both the female and male friend group were meant to be the comedic relief, but the comedy was so childish and I couldn't even smile.

Obviously no rewatch value, I don't want to go through that again and I don't think anyone should either.

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