香蜜沉沉烬如霜

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So uh, friend got me to watch this since my finger's been cut and I can't do much. We were expecting a lot of melodrama, silly costumes, hilariously bad special effects, etc., but really were caught off guard by the jokes. The biologists in us appreciated the existence of a succulent spirit, grape washing water turning into wine, and the entire "cook the phoenix" sequence because the grape spirit thinks it's/he's a crow. Best part is when she tries to upgrade it/him to a magpie (because they're both corvids, geddit?!). 🤣 Also the grape spirit mistaking the phoenix's gonads for the magical pills (丹 - which the English subs left untranslated as Dan wtf; the concept is that after training gods & spirits can condense their power into a little ball/marble of magic stored usually in the stomach or mouth, which my friend and I have taken to calling materia) was the best bit. It's silly word play on "eat" being a euphemism for "sex" but sometimes "eat" just means eating when it comes to gods and spirits. We're just really easily amused by immature biology jokes.

Definitely some genuine laughs from me and I'm usually rolling my eyes at these kinds of shows. Both friend and I were impressed at the actors delivering objectively absurd lines with a straight face and clapped the actors' efforts, because man, some the lines are baaaaaaad. Friend mentioned we're turning into our parents, making fun of the show when we would've swallowed this dreck as kids without question.

But now it's computer generated 4K HD dreck, with a better funded costume department. 😂 And random juvenile biology jokes. It's kind of a shame the show's going to start taking things seriously soon, because it's kind of at its best making silly jokes and doing word plays and leaning into the immaturity.

Edit: BTW, 周深 sang the ending song during his birthday stream and I'm dying at how he has to keep shifting around so his voice doesn't break the mic. Get a better mic dude!