Despite being a huge fan of both Ryan and Esther, and especially the screenwriter Bai Jin Jin I will still be objective with my review of this drama as I read the manhua as well and can compare both.

The drama starts amazing. The female lead is trapped in a fantasy world and has to seduce a villain to be able to survive, a very exciting concept that many enjoy and rarely anyone dislikes. For some time the drama achieves exactly that, it is funny, warm and definitely worth the hype but as the drama goes on it slowly strays away further from the introduced theme that we were sold and gets replaced by countless characters and their lore where two main leads suddenly feel like support characters in their own drama.

As much as I like that the show went a different path from manhua that turned quite toxic and dirty, the drama failed at finding a perfect balance and decided to go to the extreme making the leads romance seem like two kids in love. At the start there's tension between the leads and we are showered with many romantic and funny moments between them but at some point in the story, it falls off and we no longer feel that yearning between them despite the short amount of them being together.

However it wasn't about the lack of kisses but the lack of romantic moments after the couple got together. The two other main leads and the lore of countless other characters is shoved down our throat giving us only a minute of the two main leads bonding not allowing us to take it all in. Many of the other characters were quite underwhelming yet the need to highlight them just drained my energy as I saw no reason support nor like their lack of communication. I would've liked more seeing the lore of the tree people than a second couple who could not communicate for 20+ episodes.

After the couple finally realize they love each other, we start to get less and less of their moments together causing me to lose the connection between them because their love for each other wasn't believable to me anymore. As I was taking in the lore and desperately waiting for the couple to yearn for each other as they did in the manhua, I was quickly met with the disappointment that two two people who had their first love, which is supposed to be exciting, other now act like two really close friends or a couple that has been together for 40 years. The show continues to drift, focusing on giving us all the lore, wrapping things up losing the core of story in the process.

Now the ending of the show is amazing and the story is very beautiful however it failed to show us that these two people love each other unconditionally. Because of that, I could not cry nor feel the sadness of them losing each other. I will compare this to lbfad's ending where it was physically painful to see the two separated because we knew how much they loved and needed each other which I was really excited to see due to the both shows having the same screenwriter. The characters death did not bother me and I was fine with them dying as I saw at least some potential in a tragic plot but something in me wanted to care but I could not. I have already detached myself from the two main leads the moment we saw less and less of their love and within that died my need for them to be together.

Overall, the story is beautiful and the lesson with it as well but it lost it's most important topic of love and empathy for the purpose of lore forgetting that it is about a man who has never been properly loved and just yearned to be in peace, to be accepted and loved. Yet whoever worked on it cared more for him to beat the boss and meet 10 other characters than they cared about making us sympathize and feel their love.

I definitely thought this could top many of my favourite dramas but I don't think I can say that more. However it is still worth watching due to it's beautiful message at the end which is why I thought this drama had more potential due to its interesting story but what can you do. You can't tell us it's a love story and barely give us love.

I love this pairing and I hope to see them again in a drama that's going to give them justice like Moonlight did.