[Chinese Drama] Lin Yi's flustered performance in "Everyone Loves Me" is a sight to behold

The Chinese drama "Everyone Loves Me" (English title: Everyone Loves Me), which is being released one episode a day on the video platform Youku, has become my nightly entertainment.

The male lead is Lin Yi, who has the proportions of someone who just stepped out of a shojo manga, and I started watching it because it's by the same director as "Hidden Love," which I was hooked on last year.

[Everyone Loves Me (Only episodes 1-2 are currently available on YouTube)]

For the first few episodes, I couldn't really relate to the premise of jumping back and forth between an online game and the real world, so I watched it casually.

However, my expectations were exceeded in the best way possible!

This drama's entertainment value jumps up starting from the "development" (shō) phase of the story (around episode 7)!

In the early part of the story, the male lead likes the personality of his anonymous online gaming partner (he doesn't know her face) and the female lead likes the face of the male lead in the real world (she doesn't know his personality). They are acquaintances in the real world, but they don't know each other's online identities.

The female lead tries one shojo manga-style "flirting technique" after another to get the real-world male lead to like her, but he keeps pushing her away coldly with a dismissive attitude, and finally, the female lead gets "frog-ified" (disillusioned with the male lead).

Immediately after, the male lead realizes that the female lead and his online crush are the same person, and the tables are turned.

The male lead, who was being pursued, becomes the one doing the pursuing... that is the synopsis up to about episodes 7-8 out of the 24 total episodes.
If I summarize it like this, it might sound like a "typical" drama.

However, the actors' performances and the direction are wonderful, setting it apart from the "typical" romantic comedy.

Lin Yi, who played the cold male lead, is funny as he gets flustered and reveals his status as a romantic novice, pulling off one little gag after another. He is a master of the "dual-wielding" technique of making viewers laugh with his flustered acting while simultaneously making them swoon.

Lin Yi is so beautiful that I'm captivated when he's zoomed in and captivated when he's zoomed out, and the synergistic effect when the two leads are together makes them ten times more dazzling—it's just too bright.

There is a scene where the female lead is wearing pajamas from the Japanese brand Gelato Pique, and they are super cute. Too cute.

Lin Yi often plays "gloomy and cold" roles, such as science-oriented characters, game lovers, or characters with trauma and few smiles, but he currently has another drama being released on Tencent.

I also saw posts saying it's a remake of the drama "The Hours of My Life" that Haruma Miura starred in.

Furthermore, a while ago, Lin Yi's collaboration dance with NewJeans became a hot topic. He has such charisma...

If there were a fan meeting, I'd want to make a fan and cheer from afar, so I hope he comes to Japan someday.

The drama I introduced this time, "Everyone Loves Me", limits the online gaming scenes to the first few episodes and is structured with a focus on the real world, so I think it's easy to watch as a story themed around the online and real worlds.

The middle part is also interesting, with plenty of depictions of working together with workplace colleagues to create things.

It is currently being released on the video platform "YOUKU" at a pace of one episode per day. (As of 3/12, 15 episodes have been released. Episode 16 is scheduled to be released tonight.)