What's wrong with characters' ages.
Something I still don't fully understand.
We remember that the characters are about 21-22 years old.
Since the series literally starts almost on Cheng Xiaoshi's birthday, I'm not entirely sure is he still 21, or already 22. Lu Guang is a separate problem, we won’t talk about that now.
We've known since season 1 that Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi met during they high school days. From the storyboards we know that Lu Guang was 16 years old (十六嵗) at that time.
Considering 12 years of education, they must have been around 17-18 by the time they graduated from high school and went to university.
They all entered the same university together for a bachelor's degree. Again, the undergraduate/bachelor degree lasts 4 years. Technically, they should be arout 21-22 years old. But!
They must have been 21-22 years old when they graduated from university, when the trio decided to run a photo studio while their friends, Xu Shanshan and Dong Yi, continued their education. And the s1 itself is the time when they graduated with master's degree. I hope it's obvious where I'm going with this.
So? It was said literally in the series itself. Another two years should have passed since Lu Guang, Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi graduated from the university - and in fact they should be older, like already about 24-25 years old, which does not correspond to the character concepts/intros at all. This still raises questions for me.
I know that there are errors in the ages of the supporting characters, given that the art book was recently released and the information on the concepts is different. But about this case - Xu Shanshan's age matches that of the trio, she is 22 years old, while Dong Yi is... Actually 25 🤔
I'm still not sure if this is a mistake, or if the age of their intros/concepts are actually misleading and refers to either a different period or different versions of the characters.
Which might be the case, since their intros (even before s1) don't quite match how we see the characters in actual donghua.
Qiao Ling's gloomy expression
Lu Guang's smile (very out of character in my opinion)
Completely different design for Cheng Xiaoshi', not like in s1 (don't forget about the ring he only got in s2). And he looks so depressing that something is definitely wrong with it.
Usually character intros give a basic and literal idea of them, while the image that the intros create is somewhat at odds with how we see them in s1 - considering that moments in s1 are depicted using photographic film, this is done on purpose, in my opinion.
No conclusions, just thoughts, thanks for reading.
