2026-07-26

July 26 Short Drama Top 10 Watch: Tiger Mom Edges the Board as Series IPs Multiply

A dated July 25 Hongguo snapshot puts Tiger Mom first by 19 points, while sequel-heavy AI/manhua franchises and four actor-led dramas compete across the rest of the board.

Short Drama Daily Top 10 @gritty

The quick read

The July 25 Hongguo board is a photo finish at the top: Tiger Mom Arrives, Everyone in the Family Stands to Attention leads with a source heat score of 7,828, just 19 points ahead of Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2 at 7,809. The larger story is structural: a six-row AI/manhua-or-serial lane is pressing from above and below, but four actor-led dramas still occupy the board, led by a family-ethics title and a near-summit workplace romance.

This is a dated Hongguo snapshot, not a live cross-platform dashboard. The ranking below comes from a Sina repost published at 12:06 China time on July 25, 2026. The source displays the heat figures as four-digit values; they are reported here as source heat scores, not as play counts.

July 25 Hongguo Top 10

Rank	Title	Heat score	Format / genre	Platform shown
1	虎妈驾到，全家反骨仔乖乖立正
Huma Jia Dao, Quan Jia Fan Gu Zi Guai Guai Li Zheng
Tiger Mom Arrives, Everyone in the Family Stands to Attention	7,828	Live-action; family ethics	Hongguo chart; wider distribution not confirmed	Not confirmed
2	咱家剑宗团宠小师妹第二季
Zan Jia Jianzong Tuanchong Xiaoshimei, Season 2
Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2	7,809	Manhua / AI-led; child-centered fantasy	Hongguo chart; wider distribution not confirmed	62
3	万妖图录传第九季
Wanyao Tulu Zhuan, Season 9
The Ten Thousand Demons Codex, Season 9	6,943	AI/manhua; long-running xuanhuan fantasy	Hongguo	Not confirmed
4	渐染
Jian Ran
Creeping Love	6,907	Live-action; reunion romance / age-gap romance	Hongguo	71
5	苏忆穿书之第二季
Suyi Chuanshu, Season 2
Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 2	6,468	Transmigration / fantasy; format not independently confirmed	Hongguo	Not confirmed
6	苏忆穿书第一季
Suyi Chuanshu, Season 1
Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 1	6,219	Transmigration / family-farming; AI-live-action label reported for earlier charting	Hongguo	Not confirmed
7	都重生了，谁还装富二代啊第三季
Dou Chongsheng Le, Shui Hai Zhuang Fu Er Dai A, Season 3
Reborn Again, Who Still Pretends to Be a Rich Second-Generation Heir?, Season 3	6,149	AI short drama; rebirth / campus-to-business	Hongguo	73
8	沈小姐她不干了
Shen Xiaojie Ta Bu Gan Le
Miss Shen Is Done With It	6,120	Live-action; workplace comeback	Hongguo	60 reported; not independently confirmed here
9	咱家剑宗团宠小师妹
Zan Jia Jianzong Tuanchong Xiaoshimei
Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister	6,062	Manhua / AI-led; child-centered fantasy	Hongguo	First-season count not confirmed
10	钢铁小棉袄，为父斩风霜
Gangtie Xiaomianao, Weifu Zhan Fengshuang
Steel Little Cotton Jacket, Taking on the Storm for Dad	6,029	Live-action; family drama	Hongguo	72

What is driving each title

1. Tiger Mom Arrives: the narrowest possible win

At 7,828, the board leader beats the runner-up by only 19 points. A DataENT daily-chart report identifies the drama as a family-ethics title starring Hu Chunyuan and Liu Qingxin, so its opening advantage is coming from a recognizably actor-led domestic lane rather than a fantasy franchise alone. (DataENT's July 20 short-drama chart)

2. Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2: the sequel nearly takes it

The sequel is only a breath behind the leader, and its original season is still present at No. 9. Baidu's profile confirms 62 episodes and a child-centered cultivation premise built around a demon princess joining the underfunded Heavenly Sword Sect; that mix of a small, instantly readable protagonist and a long-running IP gives the title a strong repeat-viewing engine. (Baidu Baike profile)

3. The Ten Thousand Demons Codex, Season 9: launch attention becomes franchise gravity

Season 9 premiered on Hongguo on July 19, and Baidu's profile records more than 3.8 million reservations by July 16. The current No. 3 position shows why serial fantasy can stay powerful after launch: the audience is not only sampling a new title, but returning to an established world and its next escalation. (Baidu Baike profile)

4. Creeping Love: the live-action challenger at the summit

At 6,907, Creeping Love sits just 36 points below Season 9 and is the clearest stand-alone live-action threat in this snapshot. The verified profile lists 71 episodes, a Hongguo release beginning July 18, and a second-chance romance between a finance director and the younger former lover who becomes her company's chairman; it also records a sharply divided response, which makes the title's persistence especially notable. (Baidu-author article with the title's production and plot details)

5. Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 2: sequel traffic in the middle of the board

Season 2 lands fifth at 6,468, giving the Su Yi property a second consecutive row to work with. Its exact episode count and production format were not independently confirmed for this issue, so the useful signal is the ranking itself: a sequel can convert recognition into a top-five position even without displacing the most established fantasy IP.

6. Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 1: the back-catalogue still has heat

The first season remains at 6,219, only 249 points behind its sequel. A July 22 Sina recommendation describes the first season's hook as a rich heiress returning to rural life, using cooking and small-business ingenuity to rebuild her family; an earlier DataENT chart classified the title as AI-live-action. (Sina recommendation post) (DataENT chart context)

7. Reborn Again, Who Still Pretends to Be a Rich Second-Generation Heir?, Season 3: an AI sequel with a clean premise

The third season is listed as a 73-episode AI short drama that launched on Hongguo on July 21. Its verified premise follows Lu Chuan, who returns to his university years determined to stop performing wealth, only to be mistaken for a powerful heir because of his foresight and composure; that reversal is an efficient short-drama hook, and it keeps the franchise at No. 7 despite arriving after several titles above it.

8. Miss Shen Is Done With It: workplace anger has a lane of its own

This title is the board's most legible worker-revenge entry: the available synopsis centers on a translator who quits after six years of extra work and a cancelled allowance, leaving the company exposed when a major overseas project needs her skills. Its reported 60-episode count should be treated cautiously, but the 6,120 heat score is clear; the appeal is less about fantasy lore than the immediate satisfaction of refusing unpaid labor. (Context article on the workplace premise)

9. Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister: the original is still discoverable

The original season gives the franchise two positions in the same top 10, even with the sequel sitting near No. 1. Earlier public chart coverage identifies the property as an AI-live-action/manhua-style hit and reports a very large first-season run; because episode-count reporting varies across public listings, this issue leaves the count unconfirmed rather than treating a fan-post figure as official.

10. Steel Little Cotton Jacket: a quiet live-action floor

The No. 10 entry is a 72-episode short drama starring Li Yize and Liu Junyang, according to its Baidu profile. The profile does not provide a full synopsis or platform release record, so the safe takeaway is narrower: an actor-led, family-facing title has held the cutoff while the board is crowded with sequels and AI-associated fantasy. (Baidu Baike profile)

Three structural patterns in today's board

1. The summit is tight, but the board is not homogeneous

The top two are separated by 19 points, while Creeping Love is only 36 points below the No. 3 title. The result is not a total AI lockout: Tiger Mom, Creeping Love, Miss Shen, and Steel Little Cotton Jacket occupy four slots, and the first two show that recognizable domestic or romantic conflict can still compete with a serial fantasy machine.

2. IP depth is doing as much work as launch heat

The chart contains both seasons of Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister and both seasons of Su Yi Enters a Book, while The Ten Thousand Demons Codex and the rich-second-generation title arrive with established season logic. A sequel does not need to win outright to matter; it can lift the whole property by keeping older episodes discoverable beside the new drop.

3. AI/manhua is still the majority lane, but the exact label needs care

Public cross-checks directly classify the Jianzong seasons, The Ten Thousand Demons Codex, Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 1, and the rich-second-generation series within AI-live-action or AI/manhua reporting. Season 2 of Su Yi is treated here as part of that serial lane, but its format was not independently confirmed in this pass. That distinction matters: the market signal is clear, while the metadata is still less standardized than the ranking itself.

Data note

This issue uses one dated Hongguo heat snapshot reposted by Sina, not a synthetic cross-platform ranking. No comparable July 25 Douyin play-count snapshot or Kuaishou ranking was available in this pass, so the table does not pretend to measure those platforms; titles, genres, platform availability, and episode counts are marked as unconfirmed where the available source did not support a clean claim.

The source repost was published at 12:06 on July 25, 2026, China time: read the full Hongguo Top 10 snapshot on Sina.

Sources

Heat scores above are the values displayed in the dated source repost. They are not claimed as platform-wide play counts.