This is pure romance. The kind of love story that is so pure and wholesome, its saccharine taste makes you pull a face while your heart berates you for not making better relational choices.
Bei Weiwei (Zheng Shuang) is a 2nd-year Computer Science major who manages to catch the eye of the campus hottie and fellow graduating CompSci student Xiao Nai (Yang Yang). He is wowed by how she plays his favorite game “A Chinese Ghost Story” and seeks to court her, in-game and then in real life.
We, obviously, know all this from the beginning and just have to sit back and watch as Nai makes his advances on an unbeknownst Weiwei. It’s not predatorial and at no point is there the usual miscommunication, lack of trust, or intervening parties (though other romantic interests are introduced and attempt to derail Love Plot A with their subplot tentacles) which would make for a boring, rather straightforward, story, but the real pull is how the main couple dances around each other.
They are so awkward. So painfully cringey and completely unable to express their feelings that the real drama comes from them interacting, or not. I will say, I felt very represented by this awkwardness.
But in spite of their stilted on-screen romance, you grow to love it and understand it and absolutely root for it. The usual dramatic instances stemming from character flaws and outside forces are almost nonexistent so it feels way too perfect and impossible.
It actually does get rather boring at times.
But just like Marry Me, this is a feels-good series.
Did I really spend 30 hours of my life watching the entire series from start to finish? Even though I was disappointed and wanted more out of these very good-looking characters? Even though I begged for an interesting subplot to be added? EVEN THOUGH I felt like I could be doing something better with my time?
Somehow, yes, I absolutely did. And right before I noticed it, Love O2O had got its claws into my heart and even though I knew what the ending was going to be by episode 11, I wanted to know how it ended.
And mama ain’t raised no quitter.
