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Why Inuyasha fans should watch hit Chinese fantasy drama Love Game in Eastern Fantasy.
This wonderful art was created by Sparky! You can find her twt account here, and if you're interested in commissioning something yourself, her vgen account here.
I promised I'd make this post, and I also promised I'd commission some chibis of the lead pairs from both shows swapping outfits as to entice you, so here we go. If the adorable art isn't enough to convince you, read this way!
Love Game in Eastern Fantasy is a 2024 Chinese fantasy drama starring Esther Yu and Ding Yuxi. It's thirty-two episodes long. The show has been a big hit in China due to its charming storyline, hilarious meta-humor, strong performances, beautiful costumes and sets, and well crafted characters. Let me get this out of the way first; yes, that is the English title of the series, and yes it's a pretty bad and unappealing sounding title. It's not uncommon for English titles of Chinese dramas to be kind of terrible. I promise it does not reflect the quality of the series itself. The original Chinese title is 永夜星河 (Yong Ye Xing He: Eternal Night of Starry River). This, although pretty, doesn't have much to do with the series either. For the rest of the post, I will be abbreviating the title to LGIEF.
Let's start with an introduction of our lead characters, then we'll go into why I think Inuyasha fans specifically will enjoy this series, although it should become quite obvious along the way.
Ling Miaomiao
Funny, compassionate, and clever, Ling Miaomiao is a young woman from the twenty-first century who is transmigrated out of her boring every day work life and into the novel Catching Demons. Once inside, she retains her memories of the real world and is given two main tasks by 'the system', the mysterious force that governs her stay in this parallel world; the first one is to stop the catastrophe of heaven, a potentially world ending event, and the second... is to make the second male lead of the original novel, a standoffish, suspicious young man named Mu Sheng, fall in love with her.
The problem is that she hasn't been transmigrated as Ling Miaomiao, but is instead in the body of the character of Lin Yu, the second female lead of the original novel, as well as an antagonist. Well, Ling Miaomiao doesn't have it in her to be a villain, and besides how can she capture the affection of Mu Sheng that way? It turns out that the best way to do so is by being herself. But of course, as goes in these stories, she didn't expect to fall in love along the way.
Miaomiao is, in addition to having one of the best wardrobes I've ever seen, so charming, so cute, so amusing, and such a sunshine of a character. She's not pliant. She sticks to her guns and doesn't take shit, but she's also kind, tolerant, accepting, and borderline fearless at times. Esther Yu has wonderful comic timing. She is a delight.
Mu Sheng
Courtesy name 'Ziqi', and what I'll be referring to him as in this post. Ziqi is the second male lead in the novel Catching Demons and the adopted younger brother of the novel's protagonist, Mu Yao. He's very close to his sister, and his self esteem is debilitatingly low, to the point he sees protecting her as the only reason for his existence. In the original novel, he becomes an antagonist at a later point.
Ziqi and his sister, Mu Yao, are demon catchers. They're both powerful cultivators (magic users) and warriors. Her family (and his adopted family--- sort of) were all killed by a powerful demon called the Resentful Woman about a decade before, and Mu Yao is on a quest to find her and defeat her, with Ziqi tagging along. But Ziqi has a secret, and it's one that he is terrified of his sister, who abhors demons, finding out. He is half demon himself. A gold ribbon he wears in his hair at all times protects him, keeping his true identity hidden unless it's removed.
He loathes his heritage and sees it as shameful-- until Ling Miaomiao comes along. Ziqi is brusque, angry, and bitter. He has a front of bravado, but is DEEPLY insecure. He starts out very rude. He's love starved but shirks away from love. He's jaded, but extremely innocent. He's a tsundere (even described as such in official material, which I found funny). His actor pulls off the best sad kitten eyes any man ever has, and your heart will break for him.
To clarify, although in the original novel Catching Demons, Ziqi and Miaomiao are not the leads, in the drama Love Game in Eastern Fantasy, they 300% are! This is a story about what happens when the second leads... become the leads.
Other Major Characters
Mu Yao- Ziqi's adopted older sister. He is extremely close to and protective of her, but her hatred of demons due to her past makes it so revealing his secret seems impossible. Mu Yao is a demon catcher from the famous Mu clan, which has been the most prominent demon catching clan for nine hundred years. She is friendly and no-nonsense, and as the story continues, she grows and matures in her views. She is very close to Ling Miaomiao, and she is in love with the original male lead of the novel, Liu Fuyi.
Liu Fuyi- The original male lead of the novel. He starts out quite 'wooden', which I think is deliberate because Ling Miaomiao even commented on him being a badly written character as she read the original novel. However, as the story goes on and he becomes more of a real person, he fills out and ends up likable. Stalwart, calm, and noble, he is in love with Mu Yao but dares not say it. He has a more nuanced, less prejudiced view of demons than Mu Yao does.
Cuicui- The last member of our group of demon catching travelers. Cuicui is a young bamboo demon who quickly bonds with Ling Miaomiao, sneaking along by turning himself into a bamboo hair pin she wears. He is very Shippou in that he adores LMM and bickers with Ziqi, but I actually do like him a lot better than his Inuyasha counterpart. He's quite useful, and he forms a pretty sweet bond with Ziqi over time. I have read that Cuicui is not ever gendered in the original dialogue, but as I'm unsure of this, I defaulted to the gender of his actor (who is a total cutiepie btw).
You can very much see even from here how the main cast really fills those Inuyasha roles! Together, they are the Four Bamboo Masters.
(Actual art of the Four Bamboo Masters+Cuicui by artist extraordinaire Ling Miaomiao)
The World
The universe of Catching Demons is a fantasy ancient China filled with yao which is the Mandarin Chinese word for demons of the variety featured in the series. If you understand youkai, you somewhat understand yao.
Japanese "yokai" is the Japanese transliteration or pronunciation of the Chinese term "yaoguai" and involves similarly strange creatures, with both languages using the same Chinese characters to describe them. ( x )
Yao in this world are for the most part, morally neutral, but are generally viewed as evil by humans. Those that are evil often ended up going that direction because of humanity's actions toward them. They can form from aspects of nature; bamboo, foxes, water, cats, birds, etc. There are also object based yao based on mirrors, paintbrushes, etc. Inuyasha fans will definitely see some similarities in the folklore between the series.
As with many high budget Chinese dramas, the settings are beautiful and atmospheric, capturing both the gorgeous architecture, clothing, etc. of a fantasy ancient China, as well as the nature and magic of this specific world. The effects are quality for a tv production, and the costumes, makeup, and wigs are next level. There's so much rich detail in them. Ling Miaomiao's hair ornaments alone deserve an entire post praising them.
Since this is also a transmigration story, the mechanics of 'the system' often come into play. This results in some of the best humor in the series. Ling Miaomiao's battle with the system is hilarious and clever. It's rendered as if it is a video game, with LMM in the early episodes 'dying' and having to respawn... many, many times. In order to clear her mission, Ling Miaomiao must get Mu Sheng to 100% favorability toward her, which is calculated adorably by little mushroom shaped demons.
One of the biggest appeals of the series is Miaomiao's modern mind set in this ancient world, and the fact that since she believes this to be just a novel at first, she is hysterically meta, often commenting on the quality of the story and well...
The Love Story
This love story is like crack to Inuyasha/Kagome fans (aka me). You should have gotten the vibe of the obvious character similarities from above, but their romance plays with so many of the tropes that made InuKag great and pulls them off so well. It doesn't feel like a rehash, it just happens to use similar tropes to great impact.
Look, this scene is spoiler-y for episode eleven, but I just think that if anything is going to sell you on this show, it's probably going to be this scene, so watch it.
In it, Ziqi has been forced to remove his hair ribbon to battle a demon, because he's not near strong enough without doing so. The rest is self explanatory from the video.
This is a really gentle love story. It has a lot of what I love about InuKag, which is a casual intimacy, a soft, sometimes unspoken affection, and a chemistry between the characters that speaks of a deep connection that goes far beyond just their romantic attraction. These are two people that click, and it's beautiful to watch the way they impact each other. It's about support, belief, trust, and acceptance. They start off very much on the wrong foot, as our intrepid lovers in IY do, but when they come together, it's all of that and more, plus a level of playful bickering.
I, Mu Ziqi, swear to the heavens that if I lose you somehow, I'll come back to find you. No matter how far it is, no matter how hard it is, I will bring you back.
And I am not the only one who has noticed the similarities to Inuyasha:
Plus all the likes and reblogs on this post.
What else does the show have to offer?
I don't really want to go further into spoilers, but I love the themes of this story. It's about learning to love yourself, trust, and compassion of course, but it also ends up being a super uplifting commentary on the power of storytelling, memory, the impact fiction can have on us, the way love is laced into everything we create, and the power simple acts of kindness can have. The value of this series goes far beyond just being similar to Inuyasha, although that's definitely a plus.
Famous last words from early series Ling Miaomiao. Girl, you have no idea.
Does it have a happy ending?
Yes. I will leave it at that.
But I've never watched a Chinese drama...
This is a great place to start. There's little to nothing that should confuse you as a first time watcher. It's a perfect introduction.
Where can I watch it?
Luckily, unlike a lot of Cdramas, LGIEF is extremely accessible and available on several streaming sites. It's on Netflix, Viki, Youtube (up to ep twenty-three), and WeTV. If you have a Netflix account, it's there right now!! Audio is Mandarin Chinese of course, but subtitles are available in several languages.
If you do watch it, let me know! And make sure to share this post of course.
I watched LGIEF and I loved it (of course). What should I watch next?
Here's a few Chinese dramas that are readily available streaming, that I think LGIEF fans would enjoy:
