Demon Girl 2 (2016)

A more interesting season but suffers from lack of main couple's scenes and strange ending

Note: Because there is no available English subs, I had to watch this via the Portuguese subs and just do Portuguese-to-English translations OR when there was no Portuguese subs, I had to just do Chinese-to-English translations and make educated guesses on what's happening. I believe I understood about 80-90% of what was happening in an episode, but I did have to skim some parts because of lack of good translations. (I endured all of this for Zhang Zhehan and Li Yitong!!)

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Season 1 was like an origin story for Nie Qing Cheng and for the world-building/myth-building of Demons. It was also more focused on the love between Qing Cheng and Ming Xia (and the love triangle including You Tong), so overall, season 1 was more romantic soap opera with some context building. Though touted as only the first half and not the complete story, season 1 can almost pretty much stand by itself. It really feels like it's a whole season on its own VS just being the first half of a long season.

That's because season 2 has a bit of "Arsenal Military Academy" vibe and takes on a bit of a different tone, pacing, and has a whole variety of characters that were a lot more interesting. Most of the characters from season 1 are not in season 2. Besides what the summary of this drama says, season 2's main plot conflict is a rival demon group that wants to take out Nie Qing Cheng's group and Nie Qing Cheng having to find out who is this bad demon group's leaders and taking them out as they are harming a lot of innocents. Ming Xia is searching for the girl in his dream. He also joins the demon hunters because of a tragic accident that happens.

Season 2 tones down the romance between Nie Qing Cheng and Ming Xia and focuses on secondary characters--which is good and bad. I adore them and wanted more of them, but I also liked the supporting characters who added more interesting dynamic and logical conflicts. Because Ming Xia become a demon hunter, I enjoyed the bittersweet angst of Nie Qing Cheng and Ming Xia reuniting and Qing Cheng having the burden of keeping all the secrets while trying not to allow them to fall into the same fate as season 1.
Nie Qing Cheng becomes more capable by being able to fight and is more cunning. Ming Xia is still the righteous and true-hearted person he is from the first season, but as I mentioned in my review of the first season too, the writing for Ming Xia is always kind of stuck in the same place. Although he's the main character, half of the time, he's not doing the action but is responding to others. He gets manipulated and lied to and, frankly, suffers so much in a variety of ways. He is the most pitiful character for me. I love him dearly and feel bad for all the things he's gone through.

The supporting characters for season 2 are a lot more interesting. We have Yong Ye, demon boy who does espionage, and Duan Shao Qian, instructor of Demon-Hunting Academy. These two's relationship quickly became one of my favorite things about this show (and it gave off some serious BL vibes too). They are pretty fleshed out as characters, especially Duan Shao Qian who we see his backstory and why he becomes attached to Yong Ye.
There's Yao Bi Tao, who I didn't like very much because of her pushiness and her lies, but the actress did a great job of portraying this character and making her sympathetic.
Fu Xing Bang, who is a pretty good and complex antagonist. I loved to hate him because he was pretty cunning. Unlike the doctor antagonist from season 1 (who started out well but ended up being just really repetitive and annoying), Fu Xing Bang was pretty interesting throughout.

The directing is pretty fun this season, especially for the fight scenes that felt very cool and exciting.

The biggest fault of this show is the writing. Acting and soundtracks and all of that are pretty fine. It's just that the writing of this show can be lazy and mediocre even though it has so much potential.
There are some unnecessary angst/drama, random character introduction toward the middle half or later half of the drama, and then random important plot points added at the end. Truly, the writing slips a lot toward the end--similar to how it was in season 1. So, it was unsurprising and even made me laugh out because I'm just like "WTF."

Ultimately, I enjoyed it for Zhang Zhehan and Li Yitong who are both great actors and can make any scene emotional. I enjoyed the supporting characters' relationships and watching the truths unfold. I was more invested in this season too since it was more than what season 1 was (which was just a love triangle and a repetitive tiresome antagonist doing the same thing to our protagonists who keep falling for it).
The occasional bad writing did make me laugh. I wouldn't think too hard about this drama and any plot holes it presents. Just have fun with this drama. Although, I think I should warn folks now: the ending is ambiguous. So, keep that in mind before you start.

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