Title: You Are My Glory (Chinese contemporary drama – 32 episodes x 30 minutes each episode)
Where Can I Find It: WeTV official site, Viki | A fan translation of the source novel into English also available here, and the drama follows the novel very closely so the novel can be used as alternative source to the drama – probably will take less time to consume than the whole drama.
What is it, in summary: This drama is a romance between Qiao Jing Jing, a famous actress (Dilraba Dilmurat) and Yu Tu, an aerospace engineer (Yang Yang). Back when they were in high school, Jing Jing had a crush on Yu Tu, but was rejected by him when she confessed her feelings. The drama opens over ten years later, and they are now both 30. Jing Jing is an extremely famous actress who is enjoying great career success. Yu Tu, who double majored in Finance and Aerospace Engineering in university, had chosen to give up high paying jobs in finance after university to chase a career in aerospace engineering research. Working for a government agency for relatively low pay, he is now facing something of a quarter-life crisis where he wonders if he should continue pursuing this dream job or to switch careers to get a higher paying job.
Jing Jing is currently the endorser of Honor of Kings, a mobile game, however a video of her playing the game very poorly is leaked on the internet, threatening not only her status as the endorser but also her acting career. In an attempt to save her image, she promises to take part in a public game competition in one month’s time and spends a lot of time practicing the game. She accidentally meets Yu Tu on the game. Yu Tu turns out to be a great player and Jing Jing recruits him to coach her in the game. For the next month, they meet each other everyday to play the game and romance ensues.
What do you love about it?: The greatest thing about this drama is that it is, at the core of it, a heart-warming romance featuring two emotionally mature characters without any frustrating love triangle shenanigans. There are a couple of exes who appear, but they serve to show how the two lead characters have grown over the years. The conflicts that place roadblocks between Jing Jing and Yu Tu are mostly internal struggles that they in the end manage to overcome themselves and by eventually communicating and trusting each other.
While she does have to maintain a certain image as a public figure, Jing Jing as a character is down to earth and full of heart. The drama not only shows what goes behind the scene to build a career like hers, but also the real person she is behind the cameras, who is just mostly nice and kind and well-adjusted. Yu Tu is a very relatable male lead in that he has very normal people problems. While he was a bit of a pretentious big shot in high school and university, Yu Tu had had to face the reality of adult life that intelligence and hard work do not necessarily equate to success (or at least, society’s definition of success). This is what fuels his dilemma of whether to continue in a job that makes him happy or trying to switch to a career that clearly would be soul-crushing to him but would give him the financial cushion to take care of his family.
The romance between the leads evolves organically. You can see not only the way Yu Tu opens up and begins to develop feelings for Jing Jing after realising that there is much more to her than his shallow opinions of her in high school, but you also the way Jing Jing’s feelings for him evolve from a schoolgirl crush in high school into a more mature love. They both learn to appreciate each other for the people they have grown to be. Once they get together, the drama becomes almost entirely romantic fluff, showcasing a very loving and supportive relationship where despite the fact that their individual careers put them in a long-distance relationship for years, they still are able to maintain an equal and happy partnership. These are two people who are very devoted to each other, who are just kind to and supportive of each other, helping each other to improve and become better versions of themselves.
There is almost no side plot. The supporting cast mostly serves to push the main couple’s story along and don’t really have much development.
Content warning/Things that might not float your boat: While the first half of the drama does explore both leads’ characters and motivations, it also focuses a lot on the game Honor of Kings. This is very much a product placement drama for the game, however, you can either skip or just let the gaming parts wash over you, as you do not need to understand the game to understand the drama.
While aerospace research is a large part of Yu Tu’s character journey and development, the way the drama showcases the field tends towards propaganda. There is very heavy, obvious promotion of the Chinese space exploration program, to the point where there are long stretches of episodes where it feels like the drama is just info-dumping space exploration Wikipedia on you without the information having much to do with the romance plot. The last couple of episodes do offer rather cathartic rewards to Yu Tu’s career, but it is also fairly screaming nationalistic rhetoric at you. However, as long as you are aware it is doing this, it is possible to overlook this and enjoy the emotional rewards for the characters instead.
Jing Jing and her manager have a rather unhealthy obsession with her weight, but it’s somewhat tempered by the fact that Yu Tu looks kind of uncomfortable every time Jing Jing talks about her completely unnecessary plans to lose weight. It’s clearly a source of pressure of her career that he just completely does not understand and really, audience can relate.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: I’ll probably end up requesting the same thing I did last year for this fandom, mostly Jingjing/Yu Tu. You can find my Dear Yuletide Writer letter last year with prompts here.
你是我的荣耀 | You Are My Glory (TV)
Title: You Are My Glory (Chinese contemporary drama – 32 episodes x 30 minutes each episode)
Where Can I Find It: WeTV official site, Viki | A fan translation of the source novel into English also available here, and the drama follows the novel very closely so the novel can be used as alternative source to the drama – probably will take less time to consume than the whole drama.
What is it, in summary: This drama is a romance between Qiao Jing Jing, a famous actress (Dilraba Dilmurat) and Yu Tu, an aerospace engineer (Yang Yang). Back when they were in high school, Jing Jing had a crush on Yu Tu, but was rejected by him when she confessed her feelings. The drama opens over ten years later, and they are now both 30. Jing Jing is an extremely famous actress who is enjoying great career success. Yu Tu, who double majored in Finance and Aerospace Engineering in university, had chosen to give up high paying jobs in finance after university to chase a career in aerospace engineering research. Working for a government agency for relatively low pay, he is now facing something of a quarter-life crisis where he wonders if he should continue pursuing this dream job or to switch careers to get a higher paying job.
Jing Jing is currently the endorser of Honor of Kings, a mobile game, however a video of her playing the game very poorly is leaked on the internet, threatening not only her status as the endorser but also her acting career. In an attempt to save her image, she promises to take part in a public game competition in one month’s time and spends a lot of time practicing the game. She accidentally meets Yu Tu on the game. Yu Tu turns out to be a great player and Jing Jing recruits him to coach her in the game. For the next month, they meet each other everyday to play the game and romance ensues.
What do you love about it?: The greatest thing about this drama is that it is, at the core of it, a heart-warming romance featuring two emotionally mature characters without any frustrating love triangle shenanigans. There are a couple of exes who appear, but they serve to show how the two lead characters have grown over the years. The conflicts that place roadblocks between Jing Jing and Yu Tu are mostly internal struggles that they in the end manage to overcome themselves and by eventually communicating and trusting each other.
While she does have to maintain a certain image as a public figure, Jing Jing as a character is down to earth and full of heart. The drama not only shows what goes behind the scene to build a career like hers, but also the real person she is behind the cameras, who is just mostly nice and kind and well-adjusted. Yu Tu is a very relatable male lead in that he has very normal people problems. While he was a bit of a pretentious big shot in high school and university, Yu Tu had had to face the reality of adult life that intelligence and hard work do not necessarily equate to success (or at least, society’s definition of success). This is what fuels his dilemma of whether to continue in a job that makes him happy or trying to switch to a career that clearly would be soul-crushing to him but would give him the financial cushion to take care of his family.
The romance between the leads evolves organically. You can see not only the way Yu Tu opens up and begins to develop feelings for Jing Jing after realising that there is much more to her than his shallow opinions of her in high school, but you also the way Jing Jing’s feelings for him evolve from a schoolgirl crush in high school into a more mature love. They both learn to appreciate each other for the people they have grown to be. Once they get together, the drama becomes almost entirely romantic fluff, showcasing a very loving and supportive relationship where despite the fact that their individual careers put them in a long-distance relationship for years, they still are able to maintain an equal and happy partnership. These are two people who are very devoted to each other, who are just kind to and supportive of each other, helping each other to improve and become better versions of themselves.
There is almost no side plot. The supporting cast mostly serves to push the main couple’s story along and don’t really have much development.
Content warning/Things that might not float your boat: While the first half of the drama does explore both leads’ characters and motivations, it also focuses a lot on the game Honor of Kings. This is very much a product placement drama for the game, however, you can either skip or just let the gaming parts wash over you, as you do not need to understand the game to understand the drama.
While aerospace research is a large part of Yu Tu’s character journey and development, the way the drama showcases the field tends towards propaganda. There is very heavy, obvious promotion of the Chinese space exploration program, to the point where there are long stretches of episodes where it feels like the drama is just info-dumping space exploration Wikipedia on you without the information having much to do with the romance plot. The last couple of episodes do offer rather cathartic rewards to Yu Tu’s career, but it is also fairly screaming nationalistic rhetoric at you. However, as long as you are aware it is doing this, it is possible to overlook this and enjoy the emotional rewards for the characters instead.
Jing Jing and her manager have a rather unhealthy obsession with her weight, but it’s somewhat tempered by the fact that Yu Tu looks kind of uncomfortable every time Jing Jing talks about her completely unnecessary plans to lose weight. It’s clearly a source of pressure of her career that he just completely does not understand and really, audience can relate.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: I’ll probably end up requesting the same thing I did last year for this fandom, mostly Jingjing/Yu Tu. You can find my Dear Yuletide Writer letter last year with prompts here.