In the past three years, the current puppet drama observation: "There is wind" has set off a new wind of creation, and "Glory" has driven the character renovation

The rapidly changing audience aesthetic has accelerated the "inner roll" of various theme tracks, and the current puppet drama is of course no exception. Taking stock of current puppet dramas in the past three years, we find that the current head puppet dramas are no longer satisfied with "creating love fairy tales for female audiences", but after accessing the realist gene, they expand their influence beyond the circle. At the content level, almost every work that is acclaimed and acclaimed, from the tone of the story to the protagonist's character, has a great innovation.

Heat analysis: The IP dependence of the head drama is high, and the "balance of wealth" is tilted towards the heroine

The figure below shows the top 30 online broadcast index of puppet dramas in the past three years, from the perspective of overall popularity performance, there are 15 works with an online broadcast index above 80, and 2 have exceeded 90, namely "You Are My Glory" and "The Rest of Your Life, Please Advise". From the perspective of the commonality of the works, these two works have achieved a delicate balance in terms of integrity and innovation.

On the one hand, these two dramas have achieved the characteristics of traditional puppet dramas to the extreme, such as bringing "eye-catching" visual effects with high-value starring actors and exquisite costumes, as well as romantic love stories that make the audience addicted to it, and so on. On the other hand, these two dramas are also trying to make innovations, such as trying to graft fairytale-like untrue love stories into the context of real life, enhance the texture of the story, and make the male protagonist more "civilian" in terms of character to increase the credibility of the story.

Among these 15 80+ works, 80% of the dramas are adapted by IP, and there are many cases of scripts written by the original authors, such as Gu Man's "You Are My Glory", Mo Bao Feibao's "The Way Home" and "One Life to Live", etc., while the original dramas only have 3 works with realistic themes such as "Go to a Windy Place", "Love Only" and "The Twenty-Eight Laws of Love". It can be seen that the current head puppet drama still has a strong dependence on IP novels.

From the perspective of emotional relationships, 6 of the top 30 couples are "sister and brother love", which are "Love Only", "The Twenty-Eight Laws of Love", "Good Times and Beautiful Times", "The Way Love Should Be", "We Who Will Not Fall in Love", and "Sito". The heroines of these works are more "tough" and more independent and sober than the "love brain" heroines in traditional puppet dramas.

The main fan of the traditional puppet drama circle is often the "male protagonist", the female protagonist is the carrier brought in by countless female audiences, the more ordinary the female protagonist, the more it can evoke the resonance of the female audience. And the heroines in "Sister and Brother Love" are either "strong men and women" or "female A and male O".

Under such a setting, the male protagonist's aura is weakened, and the female protagonists need to take on more functions. Some of them replace the male protagonist and become the main force of circle fans, such as Si Ten; Some use more delicate workplace growth curves to evoke the realistic resonance of female audiences, such as Liang Youan in "Love Only"; Some use the glamorous aura of the big heroine to bring intuitive refreshment to female audiences, such as Qin Shi in "The Twenty-Eight Laws of Love".

It is not only the female protagonists who have ushered in "evolution" in the personality, but also the settings of the male protagonists are undergoing subversive changes. In these popular puppet dramas, the male protagonist is no longer the cookie-cutter financial elites in traditional idol dramas, some of them are professional soldiers or policemen, some are scientists or botanists, as well as doctors and athletes, and so on. From the golden overlord to the leader of various professional tracks, the charm of the male protagonists is no longer simply based on prominent origins, but acquired professional skills.

With the rise of women's self-awareness, the requirements of female audiences for the opposite sex are also changing, and for today's women, instead of looking up to the golden rich children, they want to achieve financial freedom and obtain "emotional value" from the opposite sex who is beautiful and talented and has strong emotional energy.

Therefore, idol dramas created for female audiences are also actively moving closer to this aesthetic. The male protagonists of "You Are My Glory", "Homecoming" and "Three Points" are ordinary salaried people, and the female protagonists are rich. The attraction of these "civilian male protagonists" to the female protagonists does not come from material conditions, but as a beautiful emotional experience of "white moonlight's first love".

The core of the story of the current puppet drama is "love", the innovation of character and emotional relationship, and its purpose is to bring touching love stories. In addition to changing the family background and professional attributes of the male and female protagonists, there are also some puppet dramas that try to put the male and female protagonists in a surreal environment, and create fresh opportunities or resistance for the promotion of the love story of the male and female protagonists from the objective conditions.

For example, "The Day It Became You", which focuses on the exchange of male and female protagonists' identities, "Twinkle and Twinkle Star" and "Please Love Under the Full Moon" that break the time limit, and the fantasy drama "Sito" and so on. Under the extreme scenario setting, the love line of these works is fuller and the story saturation is higher, avoiding the creative shackles of traditional puppet dramas "heavy emotions and light stories".

Word of mouth flow: from the pursuit of emotional logic to the bearing of multiple propositions

High popularity and low reputation were once the status quo of domestic puppet dramas, but now more and more puppet dramas have achieved excellent results at the word-of-mouth level. The figure below shows the top 30 Douban scores of current puppet dramas in the past three years, of which there are 4 works with a Douban score of more than 8 points, all of which are new works last year and this year.

From the commonalities and differences of these high-reputation works, we can clearly see the trajectory of the attempt of puppet dramas on the word-of-mouth route.

The best puppet drama in 2021 is "The Day It Becomes You" with 7.5 points, the highlight of the content that won the reputation of this drama is not the novel setting of "men and women swapping identities", but in the surreal setting, the emotional logic of the male and female protagonists is always online, and in the current puppet dramas that only pursue sugar and ignore whether emotions are reasonable, such logical and self-consistent works are very eye-catching.

The best puppet dramas in 2022 are "My Calorie Boy" and "I May Meet a Savior" with a Douban score of 8.0. "My Calorie Boy" is a youth campus drama, and the development of domestic youth dramas has successfully embarked on a high-reputation route as early as "The Best of Us", and this small and fresh youth idol drama continues this style again.

The high reputation of "I May Meet a Savior" lies in the fact that the work tells a traditional overlord idol drama that is neither bloody nor suspended. The president here is not only not domineering, but has a stable psychological quality, has a normal person's double business and outlook on life, and although the heroine is Cinderella, she has professional skills. Both parties have their own strengths, love and know each other in mutual help, and the love line is natural and comfortable.

From "The Day It Became You" to "I May Meet a Savior", these two puppet dramas have avoided the existing suspension and deliberate of this type of theme in the telling of love stories. More reasonable plot advancement and more natural love advancement process, as well as the smooth expression of the actors, let the audience see the sincerity of the main creators of the current puppet drama in the creation of this type of theme, which is also the reason why the work can be recognized in the pendant audience.

This year, puppet dramas are no longer satisfied with telling simple love stories. "Go to a Windy Place" with a score of 8.6 integrates social hot trends such as rural revitalization and emotional healing into the story, telling beautiful love while bringing the audience healing energy. In addition to the love story, the 8.2-point "Love Only" depicts the career, life and emotional views of young people today, and the strong reality gene gives the work a deeper core and makes the love line more landed.

From telling love stories well to adding diverse themes, every self-breakthrough in the creation of these high-reputation puppet dramas brings excellent creative samples for the self-change of the theme. What is even more rare is that these two works not only lead in word of mouth, but also have excellent popularity, and in the applause and applause, the influence of puppet dramas is extended beyond the circle, so that more audiences can change their views of puppet dramas.

Actor aesthetics: personality changes increase acting involvement, Tan Songyun and Zhang Binbin are the most "prolific"

The great changes in the aesthetic direction and story content of current puppet dramas in the past three years have also led to changes in the market's preference for idol drama actors. The following figure shows the inventory of actors with more than 2 works in the leading actors of the Top50 puppet drama webcast index in the past three years.

Zhang Binbin, the most prolific actor, has produced three dramas in the past three years: "Si Ten", "Two People's Little Forest" and "Three Divided Wild", and the popularity of all three works is good. Especially "Sito" and "Sanfenye", the webcast index is 80+.

With the change of male protagonists, the market's aesthetics of current puppet drama actors are also changing. The exaggerated facial paralytic overlord withdrew from the market under the label of "greasy", and acting skills have become a must-have for the male protagonist, such as Jing Boran, who played the special police officer in "Home", the role is far from his temperament, but the acting skills are superb enough and are still loved by the audience. There is also actor Zhang Xincheng, who also controls various roles freely because of his acting skills.

And the temperament of the actor himself is also a plus for them to successfully shape the male protagonist of the current puppet drama. For example, actors with a sense of youth such as Bai Jingting and Wu Lei, and actors with a sense of Su such as Zhang Binbin, Li Xian, Ren Jialun, etc., collided with suitable roles and gave birth to one classic "male god" image after another.

In terms of actresses, Tan Songyun, Song Qian and Xing Fei have the largest number of popular puppet works. Tan Songyun's three works "Homecoming", "Please Call Me Director" and "Walking to the Wind" are all more than 80+, and the circle is full of fans. The unique pure temperament and good acting skills are also the reasons why the actress is loved by the market.

Song Qian has become a mature actress loved by the market after "The Next Stop is Happiness", and has performed well in 3 works such as "Strange Lovers", "Heartbeat Source Project" and "Everyone Knows I Love You" in the past three years. Xing Fei has also been very prolific in the current puppet drama track in the past three years, including "Hello, Sharpshooter", "Miss Crow and Mr. Lizard" and "My Little Sure Luck" to meet the audience.

Among the prolific actresses, the best reputation is actress Liang Jie, her "The Day It Becomes You" is the highest-rated work of the current puppet drama Douban in 2021, and "I May Have Met a Savior" is the best puppet drama in 2022. Liang Jie, who performs smoothly and naturally, has the temperament of a girl next door, which can bring a unique sense of simplicity and realism to the characters.

In the current puppet drama that seems to have little requirements for acting skills, the charm of the heroine largely depends on the personal characteristics of the actors, such as actors such as Yu Shuxin and Zhao Lusi with a strong personal style, in a relatively fixed role type, they can be highly compatible with the role, and the performance can also be doubled with half the effort, and achieve amazing results.

But if the actor himself has acting skills, the types of roles he can control will not be limited, such as Tan Songyun and Wu Qian, the girlish temperament can not only allow them to play youthful roles, urban mature female characters can also present with ease.

It can be seen that the current puppet actors have also begun to roll in, and "one trick to eat all over the sky" can certainly make the actors in the comfort zone to circle fans. However, the accelerating aesthetic changes of the characters of puppet dramas are forcing actors to improve their acting skills and show more fresh performance aspects. Only by keeping pace with the times can TAs not be marginalized under the fierce competition.