i'm still halfway through but let me just say the casting for Ye Wenjie is Dark level lmao

also it feels like the show was contracted for 30 episodes so they had to add in a lot of stuff (eg Xu Bingbing, Mu Xing, Sha Rushian, defense council meetings) - while i'd say they were elegantly done (the Doudou moments come to mind) to progress the plot, they're still kind of off-vibes and unnecessary lol

edit

okay now it's done. i feel like i have to bump it up to 4 following some rumors towards the Netflix adaptation

there's plenty to criticize and much to be desired, but this is practically unhateable because of how it chose to be as faithful as it can to the source material. maybe 2-4 eps shorter, but frankly it was near perfection, at least in vision

they also made sure it ends almost exactly the same way it did in the book, which is a great setup for the show's Season 2 same way how Book 1 made an excellent setup for Book 2

apparently Netflix is doing Book 1 in less than 8 like wth 😭 how the fuck is that gonna work i hate my life