AI drama "Yu Tang" female lead accused of resembling creator; creative team announces full redo of Season 3

Wen | Entertainment Capital, Author | Wen Dao Yu Ri Qing

Recently, after the third season of the AI drama "Meeting Tang to Know She Is Involved: Pestered by a Paranoid Tycoon" (hereinafter referred to as "Meeting Tang") launched, some viewers questioned that the image of the female lead Ke Miantang was too similar to the creator Sanqi herself, and even suspected that the creator had blended her own face into the female lead's AI model. The "wrapped" easter egg in the final episode of the series also sparked fan dissatisfaction because it featured a character suspected of bearing the creator's personal traits.

Related hot posts discussing the plot and easter eggs of "Meeting Tang" (Image source: Xiaohongshu)

This kind of controversy, in which the protagonist is suspected of becoming a vehicle for the creator's self-projection, has had similar cases in otome games. If players suspect that the protagonist's personality and image carry the creators' "smuggled private goods," they will complain that "the protagonist is actually the skin suit of someone on the project team."

As the controversy grew, Sanqi published a 2,282-word apology letter, denying any face-blending operation, but admitting that the third season had problems in plot arrangement, easter egg design, and her personal response. She announced that the team would rewrite and remake the third season, and that she herself would withdraw from public online operations.

An AI drama with no live-action actors has nonetheless sparked debate over the relationship between virtual characters and real-world creators. Behind this storm lies the question: when AI-generated characters have their own fans, must creators serve fans completely, and how much creative space is left for personal intent?

"Meeting Tang" is adapted from the Tomato Novel "On the Night of Running Away, I Was Pulled Into the Arms of the Paranoid Male Lead," telling the love story between the female lead Ke Miantang after she transmigrates into a book and the male lead Rong She. With exquisite AI modeling and the emotional interaction between the male and female leads, the work has built up a group of fans among short-drama viewers.

Entertainment Capital checked Juchacha data and found that, as of the statistical point, the "Meeting Tang" series had won 1.94 million Hongguo favorites, with a historical platform peak popularity of 46.53 million.

Related popularity data for the "Meeting Tang" series (Image source: Juchacha)

However, after the third season launched, the female lead's modeling resembling the creator Sanqi herself, and the appearance in the ending "wrapped" easter egg of a new character suspected of being modeled on the creator herself, also led some fans to believe that the real-life creator had intervened in a story that originally belonged to the male and female leads.

In related hot posts on social media, fans' comments on the characters and content (Image source: comments on related hot posts on Xiaohongshu)

Facing the questions, Sanqi clearly denied any face-blending operation in her apology letter. She stated that the female lead's appearance was designed based on the story's aesthetics, and that she did not use her own face for facial blending.

But as for outsiders thinking she resembled the female lead, she admitted at first in the fan group that she felt happy. In her view, Ke Miantang was a character carefully polished by the team, and viewers thinking she resembled the character was more like recognition of her aesthetics.

The author Sanqi herself speaking in the fan group (Image source: Xiaohongshu)

In addition to the character image controversy, Sanqi also admitted that the third season merged content originally belonging to a side story into the main series, causing confusion in the plot structure. Regarding the criticized wrapped easter egg, she said the team had already begun replacing the related content.

As the controversy grew, the team ultimately announced that the entire third season of the main series would be redone, and that adjustments would be made to promotion review, account operations, and other links.

The core of the controversy may not simply be whether the female lead used the creator's face, but whether viewers are willing to see the creator's own shadow in a virtual character.

In traditional film and television works, characters and actors usually have a relatively clear distinction of identity, and viewers clearly separate the male and female leads on screen from the actors' real-life images.

But AI dramas are different. Virtual characters have no corresponding live-action actors; their appearance, clothing, movements, and even expressions all depend on the design and generation of the creator and production team. Creators can therefore participate more directly in the visual shaping of characters. It is worth mentioning that, to reduce infringement disputes, some super-creation teams actually actively choose to upload photos of themselves or relatives and friends to generate the protagonist's face.

However, viewers do not necessarily want to see the creator's own projection and insertion in a character.

Especially in a female-oriented love story like "Meeting Tang," the emotional relationship between the male and female leads is itself an important attraction of the work. Entertainment Capital observed under related discussion posts about the series that, for some fans, Rong She and Ke Miantang have long ceased to be merely AI-generated figures, but objects they continue to watch and emotionally identify with. When viewers have already regarded virtual characters as story characters with independent personalities and emotional relationships, they may no longer be willing to see the characters as an extension of the creator's personal will. In the view of some viewers, the female lead should exist independently within the story, and should not become a stand-in for the real-life creator.

Under related hot posts, fans admitted that their emotional identification with the male lead in the drama surpassed that with the female lead. (Image source: Xiaohongshu)

Of course, not all viewers oppose the creator's personal expression. Some netizens believe that the character image was designed by the production team in the first place, and that facial similarity alone cannot establish that face-blending occurred. Others question whether fans are excessively interfering with creation.

Behind the debate between the two sides is the different understanding of the characters by creators and viewers.

Creators have the right to shape characters, but as a work attracts enough viewers, the characters also begin to carry emotional expectations that creators cannot fully control. How a character develops and what image should be presented are no longer merely creative decisions within the production team, and may also affect fans' acceptance of the work.

When AI characters become IP, can creators still do whatever they want?

Judging from the apology letter published by Sanqi, the impact of this controversy has already gone beyond the character modeling itself. Some comments speculate that the production team intentionally detached the characters in the drama from the plot to build them into an otome-style virtual idol IP. Entertainment Capital had previously noted that female-oriented AI dramas are already competing with traditional otome game IPs for the audience market. For film and television works, regardless of whether they are made with AI tools, building an IP and selling idol-style fantasy is undoubtedly an efficient business strategy for solidifying fans and generating revenue.

The main creative team of "Yu Tang" placed a support advertisement for the male lead in a shopping mall. Such outdoor support advertisements are mostly placed by fans of real-life idols, anime and game characters, and otome game character IPs. (Image source: Xiaohongshu video posted by the author Sanqi)

The team not only promised to rewrite and produce the third season, but also plans to completely separate the main story from the side stories, optimize the review process for promotional materials, and hire professionals to take over account operations.

These adjustments point to issues such as plot quality, content positioning, promotional management, and fan communication.

In the past, AI dramas attracted attention largely because of the production efficiency gains brought by generative technology. Compared with traditional animation production, AI tools provide creators with new ways of character design and image generation, and also give more teams the opportunity to participate in content production.

The controversy over "Yu Tang" is not entirely about whether the female lead's modeling incorporated the creator's real face, but about the fact that some viewers who projected emotions onto the character cannot accept too close a connection between the creator and the virtual character. For viewers who want to immerse themselves in the female lead, the female lead's perspective is the way they experience the story and feel the thrill of the emotional relationships in the plot. When a character shows clearly directed features of a real person, the viewer's emotional immersion is cut off.

For some fans, the show's "flop" is not only because the virtual image created was based on a real person's face, but also because the main creator's act of projecting a personality onto the character blurred the boundary between creator and virtual figure.

Of course, this does not mean fans can decide everything about a character. Creators still have room to express their own aesthetics and artistic judgment, and viewers also have the right to choose whether to accept such creation.

What has truly changed is the relationship between the two. AI makes the production and modification of characters more flexible, but it cannot guarantee that viewers will be willing to accept every change made by creators. The controversy over "Yu Tang" is not an entirely new problem that emerged only in the AI era. The traditional film and television, animation, and gaming industries also need to handle disagreements between creators and fans. It is just that AI technology has changed the production of virtual figures and the way fans participate in fan communities, and has also brought the relationship between creators and characters into public discussion in a new form.