I know SVSS fans had low expectations for the donghua, including myself, but it has a lot of heart put into it. Sure, the animation isn’t the best but that’s more a budgeting issue. With what they did get, the donghua team did amazing work!

Scumbag System makes up for it’s subpar animation with very good storytelling. It managed to capture the essence of SVSS immediately.

This mocking narration by Shen Yuan of the basic premise with 2D animation so perfectly establishes the story and what kind of a person SY is. His humour, personality and how he sees the novel gets established very quickly and you can’t help but get attached to this dumbass who hate-read 6666 chapters of novel.

The next thing that caught my attention is the relationship between Sy!sqq and Lbh, how they establish where they are now and what they will be to one another in the future. I was happy to see that they didn’t try to imply any romance between Nyy and Lbh to un-homo it all. So far, they’re doing a lot to show how much sy cares for lbh. The observations from afar, they little moments between them in the op, and the BIGGEST, most beautiful fucking symbolism of all;

The Jade pendant and the Leaf

That pendant plays a really important role in their relationship in the novel, but the visual representation of it here exemplifies it. You have to watch the scene to know how beautifully it panned out. Leaves are very explicitly related to Sy!sqq here. Shen Yuan uses them to protect Luo Binghe from the shadows. Yes, Luo Binghe lost his mother and she is irreplaceable but he isn’t alone anymore. Shen Yuan will protect him.

The third thing which I loved was the attention to detail when it came to the MCs. Shen Qingqiu is absolutely, mind-boglingly gorgeous. They put in so much effort to make him beautiful. It’s nothing like the first few trailers.

THIS MAN! LOOK AT HIM!! WHAT’S HE SO GORGEOUS FOR!? (to distract us from the ctrl c+ ctrl v bg characters). He isn’t just pretty though. He’s expressive as heck. My main concern with 3D was expression, but the combination of all the painful effort into facial expressions added to the VA’s amazing work made Shen Yuan come alive!

They didn’t skimp on Luo Binghe. Oh no no no. This baby had me cooing at him in his entrance scene. He has large eyes and the prettiest face, plus he is even shorter than Ning Yingying when 14. They did a lot to make him the “pure white sheep”.

Look at this and tell me your heart didn’t break a little.

The VA also captures the “I’m so baby UwU!” thing perfectly and it just makes me want to protect this kid even more. Watching the episode, Luo Binghe had so many expressions going on when he got beat up by Ming Fan and his dumbass friends, I could feel his panic. The scene where he’s searching for the pendant, his frantic body language + the micro-expressions they tried to fit in. Perfection. I want to weep.

The donghua team is doing their very best to preserve the feel of the novel. It’s fast paced but it doesn’t feel like it and leaves you wanting more. Both episodes ended in such cliffhangers I wish I could just binge through this. They’re preserving the romantic elements between sy!sqq and lbh to whatever extent they can(the ed and op, my god they have me screaming)

Speaking of, the Opening and Ending are so beautiful. The Opening is stuck in my head.

JUST WATCH THE DAMN THING!

Yes the animation is clunky but the dialogue delivery, the comedic timing and the MC character designs+the soundtrack make up for it. Don’t let it go just because it’s a little difficult to get used to because you’ll be missing out. The donghua team did their best and I applaud them for doing so well.