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Gamer Love

I was interested to see one of the most-watched Chinese dramas that is often mentioned by reviewers as one of the best, so I looked for and found Love O2O on Netflix. This is a thirty-episode romance drama set at a college with students who are avid gamers making up most of the cast. I was surprised to see Yang Yang playing the male lead Xiao Nai; he's a very popular romance actor. Maybe this series is how he got that way.

The story is fairly Cinderellaish; young and beautiful student gamer Bei WeiWei (Zheng Shuang) is divorced by her in-game husband, as he wants someone prettier and more popular. This causes her to lose face and become the subject of gossip among the other gamers. Out of the blue the number one player in the game asks her to marry him. They go on various adventures in the game, and WeiWei has no idea her new game husband is actually the most handsome, popular and reclusive boy on campus, who then begins to romance her in real life. Naturally every other character decides to break them up.

There was a lot not to love about this series, so much so that I had a hard time watching all 30 episodes. The female lead looks so thin I expected her to keel over or snap like a twig when her boyfriend hugged her. She also has a roommate/BFF who may be the most annoying secondary character in any drama from any series I've ever seen. The love triangles (there are multiples) are definitely contrived and not especially convincing.

From my POV almost every female character besides the lead (and sometimes the lead, too) are 2D cardboard who act like caricatures of young women, and nearly all of them are interchangeable mean girls, so I kept losing track of who was who, never a good thing. The world itself is so squeaky-clean and beautiful I wondered if it was China in a parallel universe, but that seems to be the norm for their dramas.

Love O2O is somewhat redeemed by Yang Yang, who seems almost exasperated as he does what he can to save the series from becoming a complete disaster. He's not only the best visual of any male Chinese actor on the planet, he plays his character with charm, intensity and most of all subtlety, which this series so desperate needs. He's also very romantic in a boyfriend role. Although she's constantly referred to as a stunner, the lead female actor really is so underweight it upset me to watch her.

If you want to be exasperated, annoyed or just depressed in between moments of admiration for a very handsome male lead, Love O2O is the perfect series for you. Otherwise, I'd recommend giving it a pass.

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