I liked that drama for its tackling a lot of serious issues such as PTSD, OCD, harassment, behavioral issues, and ways of healing.
It had some good conversations between the quartet of FL, ML, SFL and SML, that shed light on how young people can be triggered into reacting positively as well as negatively to some traumatizing situations, with some suggestions for coping and healing those traumas.
Many on that sharpshooting team, and other ones, seemed to have serious issues, which made me wonder if the management and recruiting of athletes there could avoid spotting some personal traits potentially negative to be included in a team. Even if the bullets were not deadly, it was shown that they could hurt, and the requirement of a necessary stable psychological conditions to allow these young people to wield arms was tackled. First through the routines to disregard sudden noise or taunts, later in the coach having doubts about the champion, because of his lingering amnesia and the moments when he isolated himself. But I had the feeling that this stability requirement was put on the same level as their just following rules (such as forbidding athletes to leave the training camp).
Could being (apparently) a high functioning Asperger's slightly sociopathic loner and a mild obsessive (like the weird sleeping under beds) be tolerated and diregarded if the athlete kept peforming to an impressive points result?
Could the almost manic smile of the hyperactive livestreamer be viewed as an asset for her profession? Her coping mechanism of singing/rapping to overcome stuttering is not as outlandish as it could seem: singing has indeed been included in some recognized ways of calming stressed people. Running is another one.
Some of these attempts were funny, but the humor was not frequent in this drama. One of the more funny moments was when SML cross dressed in skirts to seek forgiveness from his love interest.
The psychologist herself was not very credible to me, with her own set of problems that dragged on through the drama.
I suppose the co-cure she advocated was more for the dramatic effect of having the two leads get closer on screen (with some of the more humorous effects), instead of an actual realistic way of healing. So o this was a stretch that may annoy those who work in the field of clinical psychology. But it was interesting to see that psychological support was highlighted together with the athletic skills, as necessary to prepare a competition. The importance of courteous, rational and calm communication was also something that was emphasized, which is not so frequent in romance dramas I' have watched.
Using a pet for emotional focus has indeed been advocated from what I read and saw about autism or PTSD sufferers. That they chose a hedgehog was cute. Was it the same one as in Lie to Love? C dramas seem to like to repeat some scenes from other ones, like carrying the female on the back of the taller lead: such cross references or tropes becomes almost expected. The physical touching scenes were limited. The point seemed to be that some behavior that is usually common in older dramas, like grabbing females to forcibly kiss them "romantically" is, in fact, questionable. Such resraint in the script certainly left the actors with less leeway to express a tender budding romance.
Nevertheless, my opinion is that they performed quite well to handle both romance, healing and healthy reaction to new potential traumas encountered by their characters.
Not knowing anything about this sport, I found the technical details woven in quite interesting. It was a bonus point for novelty for me and I was pleased to be introduced to it this way. There was a moment when the livestreamer was assigned to try shooting in a friendly pairing, which puzzled me, but maybe it was only exceptional, to give some variety to the shooting sessions and make the sport look less removed from audience. Does it happen realistically in this sport is another question.
But watching dramas is an exercise in suspension of disbelief to find entertainment or food for thought. This was done thanks to the good to excellent quartet of actors (Xing Fei, Hu Yitian, Kido Ma and Wenfy Luo) who carried the drama. Therefore, despite the objections raised before, I still decided not to rate this one as harshly as some did.
I also liked the songs from the OST some of which had tunes that I found different from run of the mill romance dramas.