Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Love O2O
(微微一笑很倾城 / Wei Wei Yi Xiao Hen Qing Cheng / One Smile is Very Alluring)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

Hello hello everyone!

First off I want to wish everyone a very happy New Year! It hasn’t been easy, and it still won’t be easy for a while, but I’d like to think that we’re still going towards something good.
The holidays were a bit mixed for me since I learned that my contract at my work won’t be renewed, which means I have to find new work from March on. I’m really not looking forward to searching for a job in the current crisis, but on the other hand I’m thinking this may be a good opportunity to find out what would really suit me job-wise. Staying positive!
Also, my computer had some errors, I was suddenly not able to log onto my Desktop anymore and I was forced to reset my computer’s system settings (without losing any files, luckily). Since then I have had to re-download some programs and log in again into some sites I frequent, but I see that now for some reason the layout of my WordPress posts is back to how it used to be… WordPress wasn’t working well for a while now, it didn’t automatically save my drafts and I had to try 50 times before it would want to publish a post because it kept saying that I wasn’t authorized to publish anything or something… But now everything seems to work fine, and WordPress is saving my drafts automatically again so I hope the reboot deleted any sort of bugs my PC might have had!

It took me a while to finish this series, and I took some breaks in-between because of stuff that happened at work and during the holidays. Therefore some of the details from the beginning of the series may have gotten a little hazy, but I still hope I can write a proper review 🙂
Overall, I really enjoyed watching this, it was really sweet and fun, but I also have some thoughts and comments that I’d like to share, so here we go!

In short summary, Love O2O is about computer science major university students Bei Wei Wei (played by Zheng Shuang) and Xiao Nai (played by Yang Yang). They are both top students and very popular on campus. Xiao Nai is the heart-throb of the campus because he’s very handsome and rich and Wei Wei is the ‘department beauty’. There is also the ‘campus beauty’ Meng Yi Ran, but I’ll get to her later.
Xiao Nai is Wei Wei’s senior and even though she’s never talked to him in person, she really admires him, just like everyone else. Unknowingly, the two have already met through a popular RPG game called ‘A Chinese Ghost Story’. In this game, the two of them are also top players (Xiao Nai for the male and Wei Wei for the female players). At a certain point, they decide to team up (aka ‘marry’) in the game to perform quests and battle monsters together. They grow quite fond of each other through the game and when eventually the time comes to meet in real life, Wei Wei is completely astonished to find Xiao Nai standing in front of her.
The story is about their romance, how it enfolds as soon as they meet in person, and about the people around them, both friends and foes. It connects a lot of people from the game to their real life players, because most of them happen to live in the same city and have already encountered each other before.

Just to make matters easier, I will first jot down all the characters’ names and their game characters’ names, just so there won’t be too much confusion about whether I’m talking about the real life person or what happens in the game. Some of the game characters’ names are pretty long, so I’ll just abbreviate them.

Wei Wei > Reed
Xiao Nai > Nai He
Er Xi > Joyful Xi
Cao Guang > Wei Guang
Zhen Shao Xiang > Zhen Shui
Yu Yao > Enchantress Yu

The first thing that I have to comment on is how original I thought it was to integrate the theme of the RPG game. From the start, we are introduced to the main characters through their game characters.
When depicting scenes that take place in the game, we see the actors dressed up as their game characters which gives a kind of fantasy movie idea. Of course, in the game they can’t see who’s really on the other side so this is just to clarify to the viewers who is who in the game.
The scenes that take place in the game are very regular in the first part of the series and become less frequent from the moment Wei Wei and Xiao Nai get to know each other in real life. From there on, the scenes in real life become more frequent.

To first introduce a few important side characters: Wei Wei initially lives in a college dorm with three friends, her eccentric bestie Zhao Er Xi (played by Mao Xiao Tong), Xiao Ling (played by Qin Yu) and Tian Si Si (played by Song Yi Xing). Out of the four of them, Wei Wei is the only one addicted to games, but Er Xi eventually also starts to play ‘A Chinese Ghost Story’.
Zhao Er Xi is like a fairy, super bubbly and energetic and seemingly careless. I personally found her so adorable because she was like an animated character.
Then we have Cao Guang (played by Bai Yu), who is a major in Foreign Languages. He’s also interested in recording/photographing and he has already been involved with Wei Wei once before for uploading a picture of her that led to a lot of rumors. While clearing up that misunderstanding, he falls for her.

Then we have Xiao Nai’s comical trio of friends: Yu Banshan, (played by Niu Jun Feng), Qiu Yonghou (played by Cui Hang) and Hao Mei (played by Zheng Ye Cheng). They seem quite jovial and silly from the outside, but they are a loyal bunch and also quite smart as they work with Xiao Nai in his business as well. The four of them are the foundation for Xiao Nai’s self-found game/software developing company Zhi Yi Technology. Throughout the series they get a lot of compliments for being such a young but talented business team.

Moving on to the characters outside of Wei Wei & Xiao Nai’s university, there is Zhen Shao Xiang. His character Zhen Shui used to be Reed‘s former partner in the game before he left her to team up with Enchantress Yu. Zhen Shao Xiang and Enchantress Yu’s player Yu Yao have become a couple in real life as well. Zhen Shao Xiang is the son of the director from Zhen Yi Technology, another big game developing company that becomes a rival company to Xiao Nai’s. So you could say that Zhen Shao Xiang and Xiao Nai becomes opponents in real life as well as in the game.

Then we have, as I like to call them, the gossipers.
First of all, I have mentioned her before, Meng Yi Ran (played by Ma Chun Rui). Yi Ran is the ‘campus beauty’ and she has won the most recent college beauty contest (Wei Wei became 2nd). She’s rich and pretty, but also a little clueless. She is in love with Xiao Nai and also happens to be the niece of Zhen Shao Xiang.
Yi Ran does not play the RPG game, but she gets involved in the main characters’ lives in the real world.
At her side, her friend Nana (played by Zhou Chen Jia). I think Nana is in the Journalism major or the Journalism club or something, anyway, it’s in her blood to find juicy information. She is without a doubt the biggest gossip in the series, but mostly so because she takes things she picks up from random people, pulls them completely out of context, and creates her own assumptions and stories which she then spreads around. So yeah, she’s not a very nice character. She’s also the person who keeps bad-mouthing Wei Wei to Yi Ran, almost encouraging her friend to do something to break Wei Wei and Xiao Nai up.
Luckily at the end, Yi Ran discovers for herself how two-faced Nana is and decides to reflect and apologize to Wei Wei in a very mature manner.

And then finally there’s Yu Yao, so Enchantress Yu‘s real life persona and her three followers Qingqing, Mianmian and Feifei. Especially with these last three, it’s like they can only ever talk about other people behind their backs. In the end Zhen Shao Xiang breaks up with Yu Yao because he’s sick of their never ending gossipping and that for some reason the three followers are almost like a package deal – I don’t know why but they kept showing up with Yu Yao everywhere, just like in the game, even when Shao Xiang and Yu Yao went on a date together.

So, now that I’ve described the most important characters, let’s go by the main events of the series one by one.
When the series starts, Reed is teamed up with (or ‘married’ to) Zhen Shui. They fight battles together and go on quests together and all that. Then, out of nowhere, Zhen Shui declares that he wants to switch partners and they split up (‘divorce’). He then joins forces with Enchantress Yu.
Shortly after this happens, Nai He asks Reed to team up with him. Wei Wei gladly accepts, though surprised because she knows Nai He is the top player of their server.
Xiao Nai spots Wei Wei by coincidence one day in an Internet café and is fascinated by the speed and nimbleness of her fingers as she games. He sees her from the back first and is able to spot her game avatar.
So Xiao Nai finds out that Wei Wei is Reed before Wei Wei finds out that he is Nai He.
He spots her a couple of times around campus afterwards, but doesn’t tell her. When they have finished multiple difficult couple quests and made a promotion movie for a special event in the game, they decide to meet up in real life and then of course Wei Wei is completely astonished by the fact that it’s Xiao Nai.

From then on, one of the things I struggled with a little started. Because it really seemed to me that Xiao Nai, when he discovered who Reed was, had already planned everything out for how this was going to go. From the moment they meet in real life, he sort of just ‘assumes’ they are dating now and immediately starts treating her like his girlfriend – or even, his wife.
Wei Wei on the other hand, is still trying to grasp the fact that Xiao Nai and Nai He are the same person and needs to take some time first to figure out what they are to each other.
I just wanted to point this out because throughout the series, even after they become an official couple, the dynamic between them felt a little off to me sometimes. I could feel how dominant Xiao Nai was.
It almost seemed like Wei Wei accepted the fact of their relationship quite easily, and that it was pretty convenient for her to have a boyfriend. However, when it came to being intimate, she completely shut down.
Honestly, there were multiple kisses between the couple in the series, but they were all very passionately initiated by Xiao Nai while Wei Wei was just standing there, letting it happen. For most of the kisses, I didn’t even see her lips move and towards the end, when they were actually starting to talk about marriage and babies already, when he hugged her she barely even touched him back. Her hands were on his back, but still kind of awkwardly clenched and not actually embracing him.
So it really seemed that Xiao Nai had this whole plan in his head, and from the moment he saw her in that café and realized she was Reed, he kind of just decided on their life story from then on and Wei Wei just had to go along with that. And she did, she went along with everything really easily. But there were moments where I was like ‘girl… if you stop and think for a moment, are you sure you’re ready for this? Don’t you think this is a bit fast?’ And several times Xiao Nai just kind of cornered her to kiss her without even waiting for her consent, which gave me occasional chills as well. I mean, if she’s okay with it, okay, but seeing her barely respond to his kisses and frankly just looking quite uncomfortable receiving his kisses, I wondered whether she chose to do this. Or maybe the actress is just really bad at kissing scenes, I don’t know.
As much as I liked Wei Wei and I really think this is one of the more active roles I’ve seen of Zheng Shuang, in my opinion she was still very awkward in their intimacy.

Anyhow, moving on, so Wei Wei and Xiao Nai get together. And then the storyline with Cao Guang starts to enfold more. As I’ve mentioned before, Cao Guang has a crush on Wei Wei. When he finds out she’s with Xiao Nai, he feels betrayed because (for some reason) he automatically thought she liked him too. Let’s make it clear here that Wei Wei has never given him any kind of indication that this was the case – in my opinion his pride was just hurt when he was confronted that his one-sided crush didn’t like him back.
However, he takes it quite personally and starts accusing her of two-timing him. As unfortunate timings go, just as he is venting to his friends over this, Nana walks by and decides to record what he’s saying about Wei Wei to use it in her case to help Yi Ran bring her down.
Cao Guang initially starts playing ‘A Chinese Ghost Story’ to get more familiar with Wei Wei’s interests when he still likes her, he figures that if he approaches her through the game they might find more common grounds. In his mission to find out Wei Wei’s username, his asks his female classmate if she can find this out.
His classmate finds an opportunity to pop into Wei Wei’s dorm and spots her playing under Er Xi’s character, Joyful Xi. Therefore he is led to believe that Wei Wei is Joyful Xi and he approaches her as an apprentice and gets closer to her, but in reality the person he is getting closer to in the game is Er Xi.

During the summer, Er Xi applies for an internship at Zhen Yi Technology. When she learns that she will be asked about her gaming experience during the interview, she goes to Wei Wei for advice since she’s never gamed before. Wei Wei tells her to ‘just say you’re playing on this and this server and that this is your username’ (some random username she once used herself). But during the interview Er Xi gets nervous and accidentally uses Wei Wei’s username Reed.
Zhen Shao Xiang is in the room during her interview and when he hears her say that she is Reed, he’s immediately interested and ushers for her to be hired. Because of her newly acquired internship, Er Xi decides it’s best to get more familiar with gaming and starts playing ‘A Chinese Ghost Story’ herself. Since she is a complete noob and doesn’t know where or how, she regularly asks Wei Wei to help her in completing battles and gaining experience points for her. This was what Wei Wei was doing when Cao Guang’s classmate popped in.

Er Xi and Cao Guang have met before in an elective movie analysis class and are initially like cats and dogs, but as they find themselves in several situations together (Er Xi ends up breaking his camera and agrees to pay him back, partly by taking care of his cat), they start to grow a little closer.
When Cao Guang’s purpose for getting close to whom he thinks is Wei Wei in the game leads him to stab her avatar with a sword that Er Xi spend a lot of time making for him, Er Xi is completely shocked by this betrayal. She was really starting to like Wei Guang and she couldn’t believe it when she found out that 1. he’s Cao Guang and 2. he thinks she’s Wei Wei.
Besides this there was another case in which a group of snooty girls (Yu Yao and her 3 followers) came to mess with her at Zhen Yi because they thought she was Wei Wei. When she finds out she went through 2 separate harsh situations because she got mistaken for Wei Wei, Er Xi distances herself from her best friend for a while and there comes a strain on their friendship.
Luckily, the whole thing is cleared up in the end and she’s even able to forgive Cao Guang. Even when Yi Ran and Nana, still convinced about the whole ‘Wei Wei is a two-timing bitch’ story, even try to manipulate Er Xi into badmouthing Wei Wei to them, Er Xi proves her loyalty to her best friend.

One thing I appreciated so so much in this series was the bond of trust between the main characters.
Between Wei Wei and Er Xi and between Wei Wei and Xiao Nai. They talked to each other about everything.
When Yi Ran approached him to show him the video Nana took and tell him Wei Wei was two-timing him, Xiao Nai went straight to Wei Wei to tell her about the rumors. As a matter of fact, he didn’t believe any of it.
Also when Nana found it necessary to show up at Er Xi’s work and tell her about ‘all the things she found out about Wei Wei’s true character’, Er Xi didn’t immediately respond in words but in her inner monologue we immediately learn that she doesn’t believe any of it either and that she’s just worried about Wei Wei having to face all these false rumors by herself – heck, it even drives her to make up with her right that moment.
It’s so great to not have any misunderstandings between the main character and I loved how much clarity and transparency there was between them.

The gossipping was the most annoying thing ever. I found myself saying ‘GET A LIFE’ so many times to Nana and the three gossip girls. It’s like their lives literally existed of talking about other people behind their backs. Without even knowing the people they were talking about.
When there was this meetup for all the people from Beijing in the game and Xiao Nai came to pick Wei Wei up and one of the 3 girls literally yelled at him as they were walking away ‘Your girlfriend is deceiving you! She has so many lovers in the game!’ I was just astonished by it. What the hell? Mind your own freaking business?
I was so relieved to see Zhen Shao Xiang’s one moment of sanity when he broke up with Yu Yao like ‘y’all are gossipping bitches, I don’t want to be a part of this anymore’.
And even when Cao Guang went to ‘settle the score’ with Nana for the video she took of him, when he left I was like ‘sorry dude but this is not going to stop her from going after Wei Wei again’.
At least Yi Ran had the ability to reflect and properly apologize to Wei Wei in the end. In hindsight I actually don’t think she was that bad of a person. She was immature and foolish in the beginning when she couldn’t get Xiao Nai to like her back, but she just had the wrong influence with Nana whispering negative stuff in her ear. In the end, after leaving Nana somewhere because she’s upset, she actually goes back to pick her up after all and then she hears Nana talk to herself (out loud, in the middle of the street because hey you’re in a drama), badmouthing Yi Ran for being so stupid and that’s when she realizes Nana never was a true friend to her either. She was just making use of Yi Ran’s popularity.
She even admitted to her own initial immaturity to Wei Wei, which I think was very mature of her.

One more thing I have to write about because I loved it so much: Hao Mei and KO.
Hao Mei, one of Xiao Nai’s dorm mates/friends/work partners, is easily said the most clueless of the three. He has a girly name because his mother had already decided on it, thinking he would be a girl. His nickname becomes ‘Mr. Beauty’ and he is teased the most by his friends.
KO (played by Zhang Bin Bin) is a stoic guy who works at a restaurant Xiao Nai and his friends (and later Wei Wei) frequent. He is a really good cook, although he doesn’t say much. Later he turns out to be this super famous hacker and starts working for Xiao Nai’s company after losing a bet with him – he hacked Hao Mei’s computer for some reason. In general he just seems to be really taken with Hao Mei.
I SHIPPED THEM SO MUCH. Because honestly, even looking at it objectively, it wasn’t just friendship between them. Hao Mei may not have noticed it because he’s so all-over-the-place, but the way KO looked at him??
Those were definitely heart eyes, man. You can’t convince me otherwise. At a certain moment I was thinking, man I’ve never seen such blatant bromance in a Chinese drama, they better do something with this.
In the end, KO moves in with Hao Mai to ‘cook and do all the household chores for him’….
I’ll just be here, filling in the blanks by myself.

Another part I really liked (although it was quite dramatic) was in the beginning of the series, when Xiao Nai and Ban Shan got into a car accident. I really appreciated how emotional they made Ban Shan there, especially since in Asian dramas the emotional gap between men and women is always emphasized so much. When Ban Shan thought Xiao Nai was going to die because he hadn’t been paying attention behind the wheel his acting while he was waiting outside the OR was so powerful. And even after Xiao Nai turned out fine, there was this scene where he talked to Yong Hou and Hao Mei about how he felt and thought about Xiao Nai, and he started crying so much – I’m really glad he got to show that side. MEN ARE ALLOWED TO CRY.
This made the scene so much more powerful to me, because yes, he just went through hell and it scared the shit out of him and he needed a moment and he had all the right in the world to cry. Good stuff.

As I am now describing individual scenes and parts that made a certain impression on me, I’d like to say a little more about Zhen Shao Xiang, because I had mixed feelings about him. There were some aspects of him that I could respect, such as him breaking up with Yu Yao and the fact that his will to compete with Xiao Nai in real life never extended to actually sabotaging him.
As the final confrontation of the series, both Zhen Yi and Zhi Yi Techonologies have a presentation about their newly developed version of ‘A Chinese Ghost Story’. Some people from Zhen Yi (Shao Xiang’s father, by name) have planned to sabotage Zhi Yi’s presentation by causing a server malfunction just as they need to present.
Shao Xiang was not aware of this plan, and in his anger towards his company when he finds out they were responsible for that error, it was clear that no matter how irrational his intention to take revenge on Xiao Nai was, he himself would’ve never resorted to this kind of childish behavior. And those guys were adults, for god’s sake.
However, there were also a few moments where I sincerely disliked him. When he broke up with Yu Yao, while that was fine in itself, it was clear that it also had to do with the fact that he had just seen Wei Wei in person for the first time (the real Wei Wei, not Er Xi as he first thought to be her) he is clearly impressed by her beauty. He suddenly seemed to lose all interest in Yu Yao and it just looked like their gossipping was the final drop. And then there was this super uncomfortable part where he tricks Er Xi into giving her address (after learning she and Wei Wei live together). He drives in that direction and sees Wei Wei walking with her suitcase as she’s just about to move into Xiao Nai’s place for a while (when she and Er Xi are on bad terms due to the misunderstandings, she offers to move out so Er Xi can have some peace). And there he was just this typical ‘can’t accept no’ kind of guy. He kept driving next to her, kept asking her to get into his car, kept saying that he already knew who she was (even though this was a bluff and thank god for Wei Wei to be smart enough to see through this). She said ‘no thank you’ like 5 times and he KEPT insisting. This was really inappropriate and I loved when she was like ‘I’m moving in with my boyfriend, I’m fine’ and just pulled over a taxi. Wei Wei was a lot of things, but I loved her ability to stand up for herself most of all.

Except for some awkward extras (the foreign couple on the swing lmao) and the blatant product placement of the same nuts from Rush to the Dead Summer (which is actually from one year later than this drama), I still had a good time watching this drama. It had a nice energy, nice pace and I liked the balance between the game and real world events. I found it really nice how, despite their love for the virtual reality of RPG games, Wei Wei and Xiao Nai were the most realistic people ever. They were grounded deeply into the real world and were perfectly capable of separating the two (which is hard for some people, I know). They never used the game as an escape from the real world, but they just gained experience and this enabled them to actually build a career in game development. Wei Wei starts interning at Xiao Nai’s company and never leaves, and after developing his ‘A New Chinese Ghost Story’, Xiao Nai’s status grows gradually as well.

To go on with some additional cast comments before I wrap it up.
I’ve seen Zheng Shuang in two other dramas, her debut role in Meteor Shower and in Rush to the Dead Summer. I really liked her in Meteor Shower, she was a really spunky Makino, and in the other drama I was slightly freaked out by how skinny she was. In this drama too. I just read to my dread on DramaWiki that she was 35kg when filming this drama. THAT’S NOT OKAY. How was she still standing up?! I don’t know if this is the industry, or that it really was her failing at getting into shape and losing tons of weight instead, but this is not okay. She’s already such a doll, she’s a literal Disney princess, she could use some more flesh on her bones.
Anyways, I’m still wavering what I think about her acting style, because it’s quite consistent, the dreamy stares, the frugal smiles and giggles. But I have to admit I did like her a lot in this drama. It was really nice to see her be more active rather than just a passive female lead who let the guys handle everything for her.
Even though Xiao Nai definitely was more dominant than Wei Wei, in other parts (as I’ve mentioned above) she really stood her ground and showed her loyalty to her friends and also her ability to mind her own business. Even when she found out about the rumors that others had spread about her, she was like ‘Why would they do that?’ but it didn’t keep her awake at night because she knew they were wrong and she had enough people around her who would never think of her like that and that was enough. She was confident and smart and I liked her.
Also, I’m still waiting on her drama with Lee Jong Suk, Jade Lovers, which was supposed to come out like 5 years ago but is still being banned by Chinese television -__-

I didn’t know Yang Yang, this was the first drama I’ve seen of him. Although I found him a little stiff most of the time, I liked how he changed when the relationship between Wei Wei and Xiao Nai deepened. He started smiling more, also showing his teeth which immediately gives more expression to his face.
And I had to admit, even though they weren’t equally reciprocated, from his side the kissing scenes were really credible and passionate (I just missed some of that same passion from Wei Wei’s side, lol).

Mao Xiao Tong has the most animated babyface I’ve ever seen. I found her so adorable. And the character seemed to come so naturally to her, she just WAS Er Xi. Not that I knew beforehand how Er Xi was supposed to be, but I just think she was casted really well for the part.
The girl who played Xiao Ling, Qin Yu, really reminded of Japanese actress Honda Tsubasa for some reason. I liked her and Si Si a lot as the two roommates who were always there for Wei Wei and Er Xi even though they weren’t into gaming or anything. The dynamic between the four girls was really natural and nice.

Actually, I didn’t know any of the actors besides Zheng Shuang and I think I’ve already mentioned what I thought of the characters sufficiently (plus it’s past midnight ^^”), so I think I’ll wrap it up with this! If I think of anything else I’ll add it later 🙂

As I said, I liked it, my friend recommended it to me and I’m glad I watched it. I liked how it showed insight in the game developing industry and although I couldn’t always 100% follow what they were talking about (there was a lot of software/programming jargon in there), it was never boring to watch.
The characters were fun and had a lot of individuality and it was nice to see women choose their own path instead of being led by a guy as is usually the case in Asian dramas. I’ve never seen a drama incorporate this fantasy element like this, it looked really cool and I’m assuming it took some serious budget for the in-game sequences. It really showed the fun of gaming, but also how it can reflect the people playing.
It’s important to stay aware that the game is just a game and it’s not directly connected to real life. I liked how they showed multiple cases of friendships being formed through the game and people also deciding to meet in real life. It was nice 🙂

I can’t promise when I’ll be back with my next review, but you’ll know when I do ^^

Until then!