2026-07-27

July 27 Short Drama Watch: The Board Is Still July 25, but Two New Tests Are Waiting

The latest complete public Hongguo board remains dated July 25: Tiger Mom leads by 19 points, while a July 27 live-action launch and a 2 billion-play AI drama create the next test.

Short Drama Daily Top 10 @gritty

The quick read

The latest complete public Hongguo board is still the July 25 snapshot. Tiger Mom Arrives, Everyone in the Family Stands to Attention leads by only 19 heat points over Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2, while AI/manhua and serial properties occupy six of the ten rows. The new information for July 27 is outside that table: a live-action historical launch is arriving on Rednote and Douyin, and a separate AI drama has turned its virtual leads into social-media characters.

This is therefore a July 25 Hongguo benchmark with a July 27 watchlist, not a same-day cross-platform ranking. The Sina repost shows four-digit source heat scores. They are reproduced as source heat scores, not as play counts.

The July 25 Hongguo benchmark

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

What is driving each title

1. Tiger Mom Arrives: a real-action photo finish

At 7,828, the leader is only 19 points ahead of the Jianzong sequel. A July 25 Tencent News feature describes the hook as a rough-edged woman from a pig-slaughtering family taking over a wealthy household with three badly behaved children, and reports more than 2 billion total plays, more than 1.5 billion on Hongguo, and a 3.1 billion single-day Douyin peak. Those reach figures come from the feature's own account, while the 7,828 heat score comes from the dated board. 2

2. Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister, Season 2: the sequel almost wins

The sequel is close enough to make the summit a franchise contest, and the original remains at No. 9. Its 62-episode profile and child-centered cultivation premise give the property two discovery points in the same board, a useful advantage for a serial AI/manhua title. 3

3. The Ten Thousand Demons Codex, Season 9: serial gravity

Season 9 entered the Hongguo cycle on July 19, and its public profile recorded more than 3.8 million reservations by July 16. The No. 3 position is less about a one-day launch spike than about a known fantasy world pulling viewers into its next season. 4

4. Creeping Love: the live-action counterweight

At 6,907, Creeping Love is only 36 points below the No. 3 title and is the clearest stand-alone live-action challenger near the top. Its 71 episodes and second-chance romance give the board a conventional relationship engine alongside the fantasy sequels. 5

5. Su Yi Enters a Book, Season 2: recognition in the middle

Season 2 reaches No. 5 at 6,468, then the first season follows at No. 6. The current public evidence does not cleanly confirm the sequel's episode count or production format, so the strongest signal here is the paired ranking: viewers are finding the property as a catalogue, not only as a fresh release.

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

The first season is 249 points below its sequel, close enough to make the pair one of the board's clearest catalogue effects. Earlier recommendation coverage describes a rich heiress returning to rural life and rebuilding her family through cooking and small-business work; earlier chart coverage labeled the title AI-live-action. 6

7. Reborn Again, Who Still Pretends to Be a Rich Heir?, Season 3: a clean AI hook

The 73-episode AI title sits at No. 7 after a July 21 Hongguo launch. Its premise turns the usual rich-heir fantasy inside out: a reborn lead tries to stop performing wealth, but his knowledge and composure make other people assume he is powerful. That reversal is compact enough to explain in a clip and broad enough to support a sequel. 1

8. Miss Shen Is Done With It: workplace refusal

This is the board's most direct worker-revenge entry. The available synopsis centers on a translator who quits after years of extra work and a cancelled allowance, leaving the company exposed when an overseas project needs her skills; the 6,120 heat score is the part directly fixed by the Hongguo board. 7

9. Our Sect's Spoiled Little Sister: one IP, two rows

The original season is still visible at No. 9 even with Season 2 nearly taking the crown. That makes the Jianzong property the clearest same-day example of sequel traffic lifting older episodes into the discovery path, while the missing first-season episode count remains unconfirmed.

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

The No. 10 entry is a 72-episode actor-led family drama, according to its public profile. It holds the cutoff while the board is crowded with serial fantasy and rebirth titles, giving live action four positions even without a top-three finish. 8

The two July 27 tests outside the ranking

A historical brand story arrives on both Rednote and Douyin

Love in the Wind at Yanwu (Ai Zai Feng Qi Yan Wu Shi) is scheduled to premiere on July 27 on Rednote and Douyin, with later distribution on CCTV Video and Jiangsu broadcasting platforms. Its 1980s story follows a returned student and a factory technology executive trying to rescue the Yanwu recorder business while investigating the disappearance of her father. The July 26 report says Hongguo reservations had passed 1.85 million and the Douyin topic had approached 25 million plays; it also says pre-launch discussion had reached both Douyin and Kuaishou entertainment charts. 9

Those are launch signals, not a comparable heat score. The title is therefore a watchlist challenger for the next complete board rather than an invented No. 11.

An AI drama is building a cast outside the episode feed

The Girl Who Was Laid Off (Bei Cai Diao De Nü Hai) is a Douyin AI short drama with 11 episodes. A July 26 Sina report says the first season had crossed 2 billion plays, the creator had announced a second season for this summer, and the virtual leads Fang Taozi and Zhou Yiheng had 380,000 and 126,000 followers on their own social accounts. The unusual signal is not simply scale: the characters continue through first-person cooking, room-organizing, and other daily vlogs after the drama itself. 10

That model matters for the chart because the next breakout may be measured through a character community as well as through episode heat. It is still outside the Hongguo Top 10 evidence used here.

Three patterns to carry into the next board

1. The live-action win is narrow, not a takeover

Tiger Mom leads by 19 points, but six rows belong to AI/manhua or serial properties and the next live-action title is 36 points below No. 3. The July 25 board shows a competitive summit, not a change in the underlying mix.

2. Franchises are filling the board through catalogue depth

The Jianzong seasons take two rows, and the two Su Yi seasons take two more. A sequel can add a new spike while older episodes retain enough heat to stay visible; that is a different advantage from a one-off launch.

3. The format boundary is moving toward realistic AI characters

A July 26 summary of the China Network Audio-Visual Association's Q2 guidance says realistic-person AI dramas made up 89.8% of hot AI titles in the quarter, while realistic subject matter accounted for 60.5% of those stories. It also says live-action short dramas of three minutes or less typically run 60–80 episodes, while AI dramas remain concentrated below 60 episodes. The implication is straightforward: AI is moving closer to live-action subject matter, while live-action still has a length and performance advantage to defend. 11

Data note

The ranked table uses the complete public Hongguo snapshot dated July 25 and published at 12:06 China time. A complete July 26 Hongguo Top 10, a comparable July 26 Douyin play-count table, and a Kuaishou daily ranking were not publicly verifiable for this run. New launch and social figures are kept outside the ranking, and episode counts are marked as unconfirmed where the available source did not support a clean number.

The next meaningful update is whether Love in the Wind at Yanwu converts its pre-launch reservations and cross-platform attention into a measurable Hongguo heat score, and whether The Girl Who Was Laid Off's virtual cast creates a durable second-season audience.