I finally came around watching Meteor Garden and yes I was on board both the Daoming Si with Shan Cai or the Hazue Lei with Shan Cai story. I honestly had trouble during the first season getting into Meteor Garden because I am used to either listening to the Korean or Japanese language so I believe I was listening to the Chinese(?) language since I recall the F4 making fun of Dao Ming Si's Chinese, I am not all that positive which language it was but getting to the main point it's kinda a little harder to adapt like when I first watched my first drama, it's a different culture. That made it a little harder to adapt to the drama and also the fact that it's older, (believe it or not) the fashion, the definition, and also some parts could have been a bit more exciting during the first season. I am on episode 25 Season 2 of Meteor Garden and I look back at season 1 and can't remember the special parts which I can remember in the Korean or Japanese version (regardless of which I prefer) like when she punches Dao Ming Si, or when they first bully her, or when they dress her up nice. Those parts and the other parts could have definitely been more memorable!
Season 2 was definitely more memorable and I hate to say it; ok no, you'll hate to read it but I prefer Dao Ming Si with Ye Sha, Sorry! They are much more adorable and there's a point where I started getting real annoyed with Shan Cai! I believe I got annoyed with Shan Cai when she had first said something along the lines of "What if my love isn't 1/10th of your love" and that's what it started feeling like! When she supposedly actually loved Dao Ming Si she got annoying I was getting more and more annoyed with the change in Shan Cai's character as she grew more attached to Dao Ming Si! I think it was around ep 19 of Season 1 she was gradually annoying me, don't get me wrong Dao Ming Si was perfect knowing what his heart was capable of! I could care less how some people side with Shan Cai! I started feeling she didn't deserve Dao Ming Si as the story progressed and I kept seeing how perfect this guy was! I can't hate Ye Sha she has a personality that matches well with the charm of Dao Ming Si and made me biased towards her and was more fun than Shan Cai.
I didn't expect for Season 2 to be anymore different or memorable but I was completely wrong I prefer Ye Sha and Dao Ming Si's story of the Dao Ming Si who lost memory of his bad past and is saved by Ye Sha in Spain where she brought him out of his mind's limits and helped him construct a life where they live growing an innocent love for each other even with the obstacles! These two make a really good couple and as Season 2 developed I started leaning all the way towards this couple that I even forgot about Lei! Ye Sha is adorable and has a personality that did nothing to annoy me and Dao Ming Si definitely was perfect for her! It was the little things that made them really cute together specially the innocence, story, and things like the coconuts the Ye Sha star and also the drawings! This could have been another story, I have yet to read the manga but I definitely think this story drifted! I definitely thought at a point, screw the original story line put these two together! I promise if you watch the Second Season before the first you'll know why I say this!
I know a lot of people were not on board the Ye Sha Dao Ming Si story but most of them happen to be the younger audience of girls whom where first charmed by Dao Ming Si when they first saw him act in the first story and waited to see more of him and Shan Cai only to have a loadful of episodes with Ye Sha and Dao Ming Si hahaha!
I read this across an old forum, and the writer of this post has more in depth thoughts than the average Meteor Garden viewer at that time and I pretty much feel the same way she does and I also think some Shan Cai and Dao Ming Si fans are pretty immature you can tell by their comments about Meteor Garden 2; I guess these are the types of viewers who lack thinking or story telling in dramas."A lot of you may not agree with me on this but I feel like Meteor Garden 2 should have ended with Yesha and Ahsi together.
A lot of us agree here that Meteor Garden 2’s latter part wasn’t written that right, whether we’re Yesha or Shancai fans. It’s because the transition of character from Ahxing to Ahsi wasn’t done smoothly.
Meteor Garden 1 and Meteor Garden 2 were a dichotomy of ideas. It’s also a dichotomy of storytelling. While Meteor Garden 1 presented us with a generic, fairy-tale, against-all-odds, hope-springs-eternal type of storytelling, Meteor Garden 2 presented us with a more realistic perspective of dealing with life. The major dichotomy here is on the two concepts, which are “idealism” and “realism”. Idealism was shown in Meteor Garden 1 where Dao Ming Si and Shancai were practically against the entire world when they were fighting for their love. It showed triumph over despair. But then again, that’s a very generic approach of storytelling.
I’m very glad that Meteor Garden 2 tried to deviate from the approach used in Meteor Garden 1. It now has a more serious, and realistic plot. I really like the dichotomy of concepts, and personally, this dichotomy should have been maintained.
The problem with a lot of Meteor Garden fans is that they’re judging the weight of Mateor Garden 2 based on how it conforms to Meteor Garden 1. Why don’t we judge Meteor Garden 2 instead based on its own merits, and not on how it compares or conforms to something? By the way, this is a good debate issue. How do we judge a story? Do we judge it based on how it compares to others or do we judge it on its own merits? I sometimes do the former, but I do feel that the latter is the right approach since it doesn’t have biases. Although I have to admit to myself that some of the good things I found on Meteor Garden 2 are also based on how they have compared to Meteor Garden 1. But since we’re doing a comparison of the 2 TV series here, we do need to compare. It’s inevitable. But I would also try to treat Meteor Garden 2 as something that is mutually exclusive to Meteor Garden 1.
Ah Si and Ye Sha’s relationship was the only relationship I ever felt that attained true development. Some may say that Ahsi and Shan Cai are meant for each other. My God, I could hardly call their relationship as an actual relationship since all they did in Meteor Garden 1 was to quarrel all day, not to mention that their relationship are always in a constant threat from third parties, Ah Si’s mom, etc.
Looking at the relationships in Meteor Garden 1, a lot of male-female relationships didn’t attain something substantial. In Meteor Garden 1, we know that Ahsi and Shan Cai’s relationship is going somewhere, but it’s not there yet. Lei had always been a loser when it comes to love, and Ximen and Xiao Yun’s (did I spell her name right) relationship was put into waste but that non-so-impressive Meteor Rain series (It could have been one of the better relationships in the series, though).
Ahsi and Yesha was the only true relationship that the series ever produced. It achieved what other relationships in the series failed to achieve. Ahsi and Shancai achieved something, but not to anything impressive. Ahsi and Xiao Si (is my spelling correct?) were doomed right from the start because Ahsi never loved her in the first place. Ah Si and Yesha however, both love each other. Add to that the fact that they don’t deal with a truckload of obstacles, unlike Shancai and Ahsi.
The worst plot direction that Meteor Garden 2 went thru was its re-attempt to bring back Ahsi and Shancai, when the series only have 5 to 7 episodes left. There’s absolutely no way that thing can be done smoothly when you have two thirds of the series allocated to Ahsi and Yesha’s relationship. So what we saw in the latter part was an unrealistic (to which both Shancai and Yesha fans agree on), transition from Ahxing to Ahsi (e.g., Ahsi being apathetic after finding out that there’s a marrow donor for Yesha. Logically, he should, still be very much happy (even if he’s losing his love for Yesha), after finding out that she has a chance to survive. After all, he’s essentially the same guy who confessed his love to Yesha in episode 10, and still essentially the same guy who rejected Shancai in episode 16 or something. His transition back to the old Ahsi was so rugged, it’s like he had another amnesia." -Forum Source
I don't know if I will ever finish the last couple episodes because I am at the point where I believe I already know what is going to happen and I don't want to be upset with Ye Sha and Dao Ming Si story going down the drain! I feel a little mad since I read on Crunchyroll that Ye Sha and Dao Ming Si were going to end up together as well as Lei would have been the first second lead to end up with Shan Cai (even if she doesn't deserve any of them). I rather have Ye Sha and Dao Ming Si happy and also have Lei happy even if it means being with Shan Cai! Actually I am surprised that Dao Ming Si and Shan Cai did not get on my nerves as a pair I usally get annoyed with the main pair after a while! It was more annoyed with Shan Cai although Dao Ming Si's amazing charm was what made me like Shan Cai and Dao Ming Si at the beginning but later see that he's better off with Ye Sha! In the end my favorite where these two characters Ye Sha and Dao Ming Si alone and as a pair.
I think the character that best played the main girl was Makino Tsukushi! She's great and played her role the best and has her own charm and did not annoy me! The acting here was great but I think sometimes when they change the storyline a bit and make a character out of the usual it's frustrating and that's how I felt; frustrated with Shan Cai. It's like having rain pouring on your party.
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