Danmei Diaries

Big fan of cdramas, kdramas and queer media. This blog is a main focus on Danmei but I do talk about other things I swear. Main focus: Fangs of Fortune, The Untamed, Heaven Official's Blessing, The Devil Judge, Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, Justice in the Dark, Guardian, Word of Honor, Thousand Autumns

[danmeidiaries]

Rewatching Hannibal season 1 and the fact that it took this long for it to click for me that Abigail Hobbs’ response to psychopaths in her life is the “FAWN” response. That is such a hilariously dark meta-joke when she’s connected to all the deer and antler imagery.

[queer-cannibalistic-vampire]

[fandomflux33]

I make (incorrect) reasonings for the Lan Clan’s rules based on Lan Wanji’s actions/reactions to breaking them:

-No Alcohol: Every member of the Lan clan is a lightweight. A “get drunk off of half a shot” level lightweight. Last time they all drank together at fourth uncle’s wedding, the Cultivation world woke up to find a mountain missing. No Lan remembers what happened that night. The mountain has yet to be found.

-No Meat: Last time someone killed an animal in the Cloud Recesses, the sect leader cried for four days straight and had to go into seclusion for the next year to save face.

-Always have good posture: It’s the only thing that helps the congenital scoliosis. Back pain from carrying the team is very common for Lans, the good posture helps. And it makes them look taller, useful for scaring away predators such as party conversationalists.

-Never remove the forehead ribbon: It covers up the Lans’ ridiculously large foreheads. Only one’s destined love or a family member with an equally large forehead could accept a forehead the size of the f*cking sky (that’s why there’s clouds embroidered on the ribbon).

-Don’t go in the restricted section of the library: that’s where they keep the forbidden dark magics capable of destroying the cultivation world. And also the p*rn.

-No licentious acts: the last time a licentious act was allowed, a Lan sect leader ended up emptying the entire treasury and covering up a murder for a woman she just met. Lans, They’re like swans, they mate for life and will happily stick their necks in a guillotine if it would make their besotted smile one (1) time. It’s important to lock that partner down before any flirting is allowed. This is for the Lan’s own good.

-No talking while eating: Misophonia. Mealtime is to be tolerated, not prolonged with unnecessary chatting.

-Venturing out past curfew is prohibited: The Lans’ natural habitat is the Cloud recesses. Their startling white coats evolved for camouflaging themselves in the mists. Only strong Lans are permitted to venture out of the nest for night hunting, as their coat color makes them easy-to-spot targets for larger predators.

-Diet preferences: spicy and complex foods usually come with bright colors and sauces. Much easier to avoid staining the white robes when you’re only eating tofu, white rice, and vegetables.

-Causing noise is prohibited: Ever see those little signs at aquariums that say “don’t tap the glass”? You’ll scare the fish.

-Don’t sneer, shout, grieve excessively, anger excessively, or joy excessively: Too many facial expressions would cause wrinkles. They must maintain their smooth, jade-like faces.

-Obey your elders: The Lans have been crafting increasingly more powerful models of Lan with each new generation. If this rule was not programmed into the Youths, there would be nothing to stop them from total dominion.

-Do not neglect young ones: Especially young Juvenile Lans are very small and squishy (see A-Yuan). With their bright white coat colors, they resemble rabbits or dumplings. If neglected, they will be taken by hawks.

-Do not lie: with all the aforementioned emotional restraint practice, it would be VERY easy to lie convincingly. All the Lan’s generational wealth comes from the actions of one Lan, for whom the “no gambling” rule was invented.

[danmeidiaries]

Attention Hannigramers, I think you’ll like this.

[starseekerstar]

Just finished thousand Autumns

[danmeidiaries]

there is a fic for the XL statue - check the comments of the post

ooh???? I'm definitely going to check.

[kitachett]

I headcanon that during He Xuan's time in Tonglu, after several years of being alone, the giant Xie Lian statue basically became Wilson from Castaway for him lmao

[danmeidiaries]

If there’s a fic I need it 😭

[danmeidiaries]

Silent Reading - Justice in the Dark Character Cheat Sheet

Have you watched Justice in the Dark? Are you now reading Silent Reading? Or vise versa? Do all the name changes confuse you?

Well, say hello to the great JITD/Silent Reading Cheat Sheet.

Where I (inspired by @flamingwell) decided to map out all the name changes for fans to try and make things a bit easier. I’m only on Volume 1 at the moment - which covers the first case in the show - so I’ll update this as I read each volume.

Minor Spoilers for now, but as we get closer to the end of the volumes this will likely be updated.

I also made a timeline post for 'Justice in the Dark' that contains major spoilers for the entire show storyline.

Main Duo

SID

Case 1: Narcissist/Julien/The Red & The Black

Place & Organization Names

[danmeidiaries]

Reading ‘Silent Reading’ volume 1 and having to refer to my own timeline post to try and work out whose names map onto who 😭

[frogonilds]

[alliumms]

TGCF Short Film Chapter 3 (eng subbed)

「A perilous encounter in emerald waters. Such a fleeting meeting—hearts are in turmoil and flutter with unease. Gentle words to soothe the wound, and a tailored crimson robe. Walking side by side on an endless road, two shadows in line, just like in days gone by.」

WEIBO SOURCE | MEGA LINK

It's finally here!!! >w< I love Hualian so much bro the way I screamed when I first watched this HEHEHEHHEH!!! I wanted to be a little bit faster but alas, anyways, hope y'all love this! (Where is season three........)

Note: Because of copyright, most new uploads will be unlisted. So my Tumblr is the only place where you can find all the episode directory, other than the playlists on my Youtube! This video will be unlisted at around a few weeks after the upload date.

☆ Masterlist ✨ ☆ Buy me a coffee 🌟

Taglist: @geektastic84 @sleepyssnail @quetzalpapalotl @thebarofgold @ni-vuni-connu @thepineapplegal86 @jesterauntie @ethiy @sootbat @booksnightowl @k3shh @dontknowwhethertolaughorcry

Let me know if anyone wants to be added 💛

[static-scribblez]

which one of these has NOT happened in any season of the traitors uk ( as of 2026 )

traitor slips up and says something implying theyre a traitor -> wins game

faithful is accused of being a traitor because hes a doctor -> nobody disagrees

somebody is called a sheep and it causes their downfall

recuited traitor swears to avenge his murdered mum -> is asked to leave castle

someone outs their secret relationship for the stupidest reasoning

a sweaty gay man wins

spurba yuuur yuuur yuuur yuur

a recently recuited traitor fakes their own murder by forgeing handwriting

london woman fakes being welsh

somebody gets fucking milked

Voting ended onFeb 2

because im rlly bored

[danmeidiaries]

The fact I remember the contestant behind every single one of these…

[mutantfactor]

Fangs of Fortune

"Maybe one day, you will meet someone you see as an anomaly. At that time, you'll need to make your own judgment. Your eyes lie. But your heart will tell you the answer."

[mxtxfanatic]

As a birthday present to me (and because I don't like too many people on my google drive), here's my translation of the revised tgcf, which currently includes all of vol. 1, the first arc of vol. 2, the newest tgcf extra, the 2022 postscript, a link to the Thai edition postscript (not translated by me), and all the comparison notes between the draft and the final version I've made so far:

Heaven Official’s Blessing (Revised)

Eight hundred years ago, Xie Lian was the Crown Prince of the Xian Le kingdom. He was loved by his citizens and was considered the darling o

[alliumms]

I just discovered this and this is incredible omg, thank you so much OP!!!

They've translated all the author's notes from TGCF on their website, along with the entire translated revised edition :))

[danmeidiaries]

Absolute scenes on The Traitors Season 4 Episode 5 tonight

I’m so glad we don’t have to wait a week!

Poor Stephen lmao! But he’s about to have the best seat in the house to the fireworks and this blowout might save him lmao

Fiona what were you thinking???

I thought it was mad that Rachel revealed it but Fiona’s just nuked both of them 😭

[danmeidiaries]

A new season of Traitors UK has started so I’m sorry I need somewhere to scream.

Season 4 Episode 1 spoilers.

SECRET TRAITOR???? THIS IS AMAZING

HAVENT A CLUE BUT SIX NAMES ARE OBVIOUSLY OFF THE LIST NOW: Rachel, Hugo and Sam (because they’re the regulars), and then Netty, Maz and James because they’re the shortlist.

IM GOING FULL DETECTIVE BABY.

It’s quite fun seeing the traitors scramble because now they really are committed to hunting down a traitor like the faithfuls. And then of course the secret traitor has to be careful not to give themselves away with the shortlists because the traitors will hunt them down.

My current theory is: Amanda or Ross.

I think Ross would want to get Netty out asap because of the thing of them knowing each other.

And Amanda seems like she could be a really good secret traitor.

Edit: just realised some ways this could all go crazy;

- There’s a murder in plain sight and the the regular traitors unintentionally try and murder the secret traitor exposing their identity

- we as the audience now don’t know who are faithfuls making bad calls, who is right on the money and who is sowing seeds

- If the regular traitors get control of things like ‘the dungeon’ or ‘deadly game’, the secret traitor having to avoid falling into those games because if they’re stuck there then they might get exposed

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 光·渊/Justice in the Dark

Justice in the Dark is a shockingly faithful-until-it-isn't adaptation of a novel by priest (Word of Honor, Guardian, Legend of Fei) about a jock cop and a spoiled little rich boy who fight crime while listening to audiobook versions of classic Western literature.

The original novel is set in pretty much Normal China. The show is set in Weird Almost-Earth World Unspecified Number Of Years In The Future, which was a choice made to get around very specific Chinese media censorship rules about portraying crime. Now it's left with a weird setup where the criminals are criminals because of genetic markers that give you Crime Brain -- except maybe not all criminals have Crime Brain, and maybe not everyone with Crime Brain turns out to be a criminal? Makes You Think.

Oh, and the original novel is textually a gay love story, while the show is left to bear the tag of Censored Adaptation of Same-Sex Work. Also, the show renders most of the main cast's names slightly off what they are in the book. I'm going to stick to show names here, though I want the record to show it hurts me occasionally.

This show had some real problems getting released into the world. Episodes 1-8 aired in early 2023, but as soon as those were out, the network pulled the plug. We had to wait until a Japanese station picked the drama up in 2025 for the rest of it to see the light (pun mildly intended) of day. But finally, it's here, it's queer, and I've got five reasons why you should watch it.

1. A Boy Named Su

Come on, what was I going to do, not make that joke? Anyway, Zhang Xincheng absolutely knocks it out of the park as goth weirdo Pei Su.

Beautiful, sad, and crazy, Pei Su is half of the love story. Due to a dead mom and a comatose dad, he's been quite successfully running his family's business for a while now, despite being only 21 when the story starts. He lives alone in a huge spooky house that could double as a mausoleum. He's got a fidget toy that would be incredibly annoying if he didn't have such sexy hands. He's the kind of mega-traumatized rich boy who treats therapy like a contact sport. He may or may not have Crime Brain, which he may or may not have inherited from his dad, who really wanted him to have Crime Brain.

The show also delights in occasionally making him eat shit. Remember, this is priest, who loves her sad baddies and loves taking the piss out of them in equal measure. Sometimes he gets to go full beautiful tragic emo with his business, and sometimes his cop boyfriend gets in there and whaps him upside the head.

It's a lovely show (see point #3), but a not-small part of that loveliness is made by just focusing on the camera on Pei Su's tormented, crazy face and leaving it there. I know his floppy hairstyle looks incredibly stupid in all these shots, but you have to believe that he sells it as a character choice. This is one of the few times I've seen a live-action adaptation put anime hair on a real person and actually have it look better than it does drawn.

Pei Su could easily have been insufferable. If he'd been a little whinier, or a little smarmier, I would have wanted to pitch him -- and the rest of the show -- out the window. Instead, all his smug jackassery comes across (correctly) as bluster covering intense vulnerability, which is much more endearing. Some truly, spectacularly ridiculous things happen to him, and you wind up totally willing to go with those things, because you care about what happens to him.

I also think it's important that Pei Su is so likeable pretty quick out of the gate, because Luo Weizhao, the other half of the romance, is such a fucking cop -- and more than that, he's not really given anything to do for the first part of the show other than be such a fucking cop. Pei Su gives you something to hang onto and something for Luo Weizhao to bounce off of until the dynamic between the two of them actually becomes something worth sticking around for.

2. These boys gay, though

I love a relationship where the dynamic is a mutual "you vex me".

The relationship between source and adaptation can often be contentious -- however, so much of this show is a beat-for-beat, sometimes even line-for-line adaptation of the original novel, right up until the point where it has to cut out the gay shit and underage sexual assault. Therefore, because the show is so close to the book, I consider the book authoritative information about the show. And the authoritative information here is that Pei Su is an opportunistic bisexual and Luo Weizhao is a big ol' homo.

The fact that the show is so close to the book, to the point of taking entire exchanges of dialogue directly from priest's original text, means nobody on the production side -- the two lead actors very much included -- could ever have pretended that what they were making wasn't a gay love story.

...Except it's not a gay love story. It is a police procedural laid over a sinister corruption story with murder mystery elements, and underneath all of it there's a gay love story. I'd say it's kind of frustrating how little of their relationship development makes it into the adaptation, except that there's not actually much textual relationship development in the book either. By the time you meet them, Luo Weizhao and Pei Su are already like 85% of the way toward annoying one another into bed. The rest is sort of inevitable.

(Confession: I actually started reading the novel twice before this, and I bounced off it both times because it's so very, very police procedural, complete with tons of names and conspiracies in a genre I don't care for anyway, and that's even before the issues of translation. Annoying name changes aside, reading it alongside watching the show was the perfect solution.)

I love that Luo Weizhao is just ... gay. He's gay. He knows he's gay. His friends know he's gay. His coworkers know he's gay. His parents know he's gay. He's been queer the whole time. His exasperated attitude about straight people is intensely relatable. He is a homosexual cat dad styled like a gym bro who thinks Dean Winchester is gender goals. I'm grateful that the show doesn't even bother trying to straighten him up, either, because there is not a straight bone in this man's man's body.

If you're a Guardian fan, then yeah, the comparisons to Zhao Yunlan are inevitable -- but beyond superficial similarities, they're actually pretty different. Zhao Yunlan is a bisexual disaster, while Luo Weizhao is actually competent enough to successfully cook, clean, and perform his job on a regular basis. You think Zhao Yunlan could manage taking care of a cat who couldn't text him reminders? Please.

The objection that you're going to get is that they're 15 and 22(?) when they meet. The show further complicates this by casting a very young-looking teen to play young Pei Su, to the point where I was shocked when I looked up the actor's bio and realized he was in fact like fourteen when it was filmed. So yeah, if you blow your rape whistle every time people in a pairing are more than five minutes apart in age, you're not going to like this one. So sorry. Keep stepping.

Despite what I said about most of the groundwork to their attraction to one another having been laid pre-show, you really do get why they like one another. It's not just the mutual annoyance, though that's absolutely part of it. They make one another smile. They give and receive care, no matter how bad they can be at both of those things. They each refuse to take the other's bullshit seriously. They're both incredibly difficult people in their own ways, but they've also decided that what they are when they're together is worth it.

They hook up about halfway through the story, and honestly, I love that. It means the will-they-won't-they isn't about waiting for them to fall into bed, but about watching them go from lovers to in love -- without ever forgetting to continue vexing one another. May a love like this never find me, but it makes for great television.

3. Beautifully directed! (about half the time, anyway)

Partway through, I was like, does this thing have two directors? Because sometimes the show has these gorgeous, stage-quality long shots with lots of moving parts, where the director trusts the actors to carry the scene -- and then other times it's plagued by goofy zooms and weird back-and-forth shots that go on so much longer than they need to, and it's like, what?

Well, no, it only has one director. (It's the guy who did the Untamed side movie about the Nie brothers, so make of that what you will.) Your guess is as good as mine. Just be aware that this has a lot of the c-drama cinematography jank to it, but also has many lovely moments that elevate it, and I'm focusing on the latter here.

I'm going to make a guess, and I bet I'm right: My guess is that the director wanted to do way more of those weirdly theatrical sequences, perhaps even to the point of making the whole show like that, then got told, no, be normal. Unfortunately, this director is not that good at being normal. This director is blessed with the gift of being surreal and intentionally artificial. The truly memorable sequences -- the kabedon in the park, the reveal of the basement device, the production of Wuthering Heights -- all float and spin in that dreamlike, otherworldly cadence. They feel like stolen moments. You can almost hear in the distance the director cackling an I-got-away-with-it laugh.

A lot of the environments evoke a real visceral, negative reaction, especially all the ones at Pei Su's nightmare of a house, which is a monument to people who have way more money than taste. (Though, uh, the less said about the goof-ass sinister-tryhard setting of the final showdown, the better.) They're places shot in a way that makes you feel the misery of the people trapped inside them.

...Ugh, this section is frustrating me, because I want to show you beautiful crisp screenshots of more of the lovely visuals in the show, and those beautiful crisp screenshots just do not exist. Because the release of this show was such a mess, it never got the media blitz other shows get. (A similar fate befell the Spirealm.) I have the files and could screenshot things myself, but 75% of the show is overlaid with hard-coded subtitles, both Japanese and English. So yeah, if you're wondering why most of the images in this rec post are of the two main boys, even past the point where they two of them are the selling points, that would be why.

Big ups to the action sequences! There are just a handful of them, but they're all way better than they had any need to be. (RIP to all the Audis that died in the making of this show.) If you are a person who has trouble following what happens in a fistfight or a car chase, do not despair! Justice in the Dark's versions of both are clean and comprehensible. Sure, Luo Weizhao is a little overpowered and plot-armored, but that's just one of the conventions of the genre; you can't hold that against him. Take it up with Die Hard or something.

All in all, it's a much prettier thing to watch than its modern setting might suggest. The awkward parts are no more awkward than your standard c-drama fare, and the artsy parts are memorable enough that I think they're worth watching for.

4. The absolutely batshit earth-next-door setting

While the book is set in fictionalized locations in real-life China, censorship demands forced the adaptation to make the aforementioned changes. So, uh, welcome to the bizarre maybe-future island-city-state of Babelia.

It kind of puts me to mind of my favorite television aesthetic of all time: Guardian's Dragon City, where the city might as well be the world. The set designers have all embraced maximalist aesthetics. The setting is exactly like modern-day China except for all the places it's not. Real products and brands exist and get product-placemented at every opportunity. All the dates have been given a letter-number substitution cipher, so you've got people whose official papers say they were born in the years AIGB and BOOE. Huge television screens hang on the sides of office buildings, looming over the city and advertising SMOOTHIE. It's wild.

Similarly, necessary intricacies of the structures of law enforcement are not really of interest to this show. Pretty much the entire main cast works for SID, the Special Investigation Division, which just seems to be the part of the police force where you don't have to wear a uniform (even though there is a snazzy windbreaker). Sometimes you work late. Sometimes there are interns. Frequently there are transparent whiteboards. Basically, it's a TV-ass division that lets our hero cops take whatever actions they need to advance the plot.

And yes, as with basically anything where the main characters are cops (except Beyond Evil), Justice in the Dark is copaganda. It doesn't think law enforcement is perfect, but it blames all those imperfections on A Few Bad Cops, implying that once they are purged from the system, The Good Cops will be able to keep the citizens safe. And who knows! Maybe in a completely fictional setting, that's possible!

If anything, I'm sad about how little they did with the setting. This is supposedly an Earth where everyone lives on different islands -- you can see a shot of the map in the opening credits -- but that hasn't always been true, maybe? Sure hope you weren't wanting to learn more about that. People can travel and even immigrate between these islands, but we barely ever see other ones. There's signs around in multiple languages, but aside from a few words in English, everybody's speaking the same thing. Even the fact that they live on an island basically never factors in, because the island is so big that it might as well be mainland. I really wanted it to knuckle down and explore the weirdnesses that an Earth-next-door world could allow. Alas that it never did.

Which means, of course, that if you're one of those people who loves to take a grain of something and run with it, this could be a perfect sandbox for you. There are 847 works (129 in English) on AO3 tagged for the show, and 1095 works (244 in English) tagged for the book. That's nothing. Follow your bliss.

5. A weirdly good take on trauma?

On the one hand, no, this is not the most sensitive portrayal of mental illnesses and personality disorders. But on the other hand, it's almost not a portrayal of mental illnesses and personality disorders at all? The thing I keep calling Crime Brain is actually referred to in the show as Apath Syndrome, which is a genetic trait identifiable (maybe?) by scientific testing, one that makes a person incapable of empathy -- though what that means in practice is pretty inconsistent. You may be over here shouting that's not how it works! And you know what? You're right! But for the sci-fi purposes of this setting, it is, so if that makes you a little cooler with how fast and loose it plays with brain chemistry, run with it.

All that said, Justice in the Dark still manages to create a story that walks a good, interesting line about trauma. It is not a story where falling in love heals all your brain problems. Instead, it is a story about how trauma can trap you in vicious self-punishing routines, and love can provide you exciting opportunities to create new habits and discover new ways of interpreting past experiences.

If you're being somewhat serious about it, one big takeaway of the story can be summarized as "hurt people hurt people"; if you're being flippant, it's a little more...

But either way, this isn't just about individual people doing awful things for shits and giggles. If you can parse out all the complicated threads of the story (see my upcoming caveat), it becomes a tale of a handful of people failed by the systems that were supposed to protect them, who in turn decide to become part of those same systems so they can keep from being hurt again.

However, it's not necessarily true that hurt people always hurt people. Pei Su takes advantage of his money and his ability to see the damage around him to give some of those hurt people a chance to help people. Because the takeaway is actually, hurt people want a chance to do something about the hurt. If they are given the support they need and guided toward more positive applications of their time and effort, they can make things better for other people and, ultimately, themselves.

Which is nice! I'm always more than a little wary of stories that give villains legitimately tragic backstories, because there's always the side implication of, trauma makes you a monster. Justice in the Dark rejects that correlation. Maybe you don't feel empathy! Maybe you do have Crime Brain! It doesn't automatically make you do bad things, and it doesn't automatically make you a bad person. You are not defined by your diagnosis. Anatomy is not destiny.

The show is also very good about what constitutes trauma. Not all abuse is physical! People can traumatize you very badly without ever laying a finger on you! Just because someone got hurt way worse than you did doesn't negate your pain! If you look your boyfriend in the eye and say I don't have trauma after he has had a front-row seat to some major parts of your trauma, he has every right to laugh in your face!

Watching this show made me think of how many young people I've talked to over the last several years who are like, yeah, I'm struggling with [mental health issue], but I've never been to a doctor about it because my Asian parents don't really believe in that stuff... So it's nice that Justice in the Dark absolutely believes in that stuff. It's a little flippant about talk therapy at the start, but that's more Pei Su's problem than anything. Could the show have been more positive and proactive about treatments and interventions? Oh, heavens, yes. But when the bar is in Hell, I'll take this as a nice start.

caveat: You may not know what's going on.

The mystery that holds the story together is complex, detailed, and comprehensible. I also do not think it gets told that well.

I am fully, 100% willing to accept that this is a me problem, and that I'm just not well-practiced at following stories like this. Except I don't think that it's just me, because @danmeidiaries has created a post called The Unbelievably Intricate Timeline of ‘Justice in the Dark’ that helpfully maps out what exactly happened with that plot to help the many, many other people left scratching their heads.

I have used before the metaphor of shows where the mysteries are just the celery to get the cute boy peanut butter to your mouth (White Cat Legend, Mysterious Lotus Casebook), but what I usually mean by that is that the mysteries are poorly constructed. In the case of Justice in the Dark, I mean that the mystery is incredibly well-constructed, but poorly explained. And it's not an adaptation problem; I don't think it's well-explained in the book either.

Here's my problem: There's about five billion characters (some with incredibly similar names in ways that are significant, and some with incredibly similar names in ways that are not significant), and they're not always introduced or signposted well. Part of that's the censorship, as there's a lot of awfulness to the story that has to be toned down. But part of it is really just that this is not a story written in a way that sustains this kind of complicated business.

For example, there's one very intense reveal where it's all leading up to a name, a name is about to be uncovered, it's a very important name, we're finally going to get to know the name! ...And when the name is actually revealed, I was full-on Lex Luthor learning the Flash's secret identity. I thought I had just catastrophically missed something, so I went to the text and searched this person's name -- and in the first 4/5 of the novel, that name is mentioned twice.

I like priest a lot, I like her work, I think she writes romances that are so hot they'll melt your glasses off your face. I also think she sometimes isn't the greatest about portraying the glue that holds these romances together.

This is a part where I think the show should have taken greater liberties with its adaptation. The book was written as a webnovel and published serially, which means the final chapters were (likely) not written when the first were released. I'm sure that priest had the novel plotted within an inch of its life, but as anyone who's ever written anything long knows, stories have a habit of not ending up quite where you thought they'd go. The show has the benefit of hindsight ... but didn't take it.

In my rec post for the live-action Hikaru no Go (my very first rec post! so long ago!), my buddy @jianghootinandhollerin pointed out that while the manga did not know where it was going when it started, the drama absolutely did, and that gave the drama the ability to build things better. Justice in the Dark could have made critical clarifying adjustments based on endgame knowledge. It chose instead to stick almost nonsensically close to the book at nearly every turn, and I think that was a missed opportunity.

So if you're going to go in for this one, you need to be prepared to do one of two things: spent a lot of time reading extra material and fan commentary to understand what exactly happened, or not care. And it is entirely possible to not care! You can just roll with it, show up for the characters you like, and trust that whatever the creepy old guys in suits are doing, it makes sense to them. That is a lot of what I did, and I clearly enjoyed myself. Just don't be disappointed when a couple things clearly intended as important beats fall flat. Maybe it'll even improve the comedy of the experience for you? I don't judge.

So you like to watch?

Okay. This one's a toughie.

I usually hesitate to recommend something that's hard to stream, because I know it's stupidly frustrating to get excited about a whole rec post, only to find a giant barrier to entry. I'm doing this anyway, though, because I think the show is worth it.

There are thirty total episodes. 1-8 are moderately easy to find, since they aired on regular Chinese television. Youku has them (1-2 are free, 3-8 are VIP-only), and kiss.kh has them -- and appears to have the whole show, I know. Here's the problem, though: the subtitles crash and burn around episode 12, rendering the show basically gibberish. I asked kind @lunarriviera what to do, and they pointed me toward two solutions: one, this MEGA download folder, and two, this incredibly locked-down sub group's versions. I went with the former, mostly because I didn't feel like fucking around with Twitter, and those subs were perfectly solid -- so shout out to @abysssub for getting it done! Heroic contribution to the fan community, right there.

If the show really hooks you, I do recommend doing the read-along as you're able -- though that's almost as difficult as streaming the show! The title of the book is Mo Du (默读), "Silent Reading". There's an official Seven Seas translation in progress, but it seems to be making some curious censorship choices? Your other option is an older, completed fan translation out there, but it's a bear to parse at times, and that's if you can even find it in the first place.

So I guess, you know ... good luck with that? I hope you like a project!

Ultimately, I think the show is worth the effort it takes to watch it, and I think the show-book combo is especially worth the effort it takes to get both parts together. Honestly, the fact that the show exists at all makes it worth checking out, if only to appreciate how many odds it overcame to make it in front of your face. Turn on your Crime Brain and let those homosexuals work.

The Trenchcoat Mafia meets the Lavender Menace.