If The Voice Has Memory (2021)

Rom-com 101 with an extra spoonful of aspartame

If there is a cheat sheet for a DIY rom-com script writing then it might look like this;

FL is young but ambitious. She just started her dream job as a baker/banker/brain surgeon but she faced a lot of challenges and prejudice. ML is the chef/CEO/civil engineer who took the FL under his wings and guided her to her destiny. OBTW, they fell madly in love and have X kids (kids optional, check current trend). Add extra CP to pad out screen time. Add antagonist just because. 

Without too much deviation, that's just about summed up this show. Dial up the artificial sweetener dosage, downgrade the antagonist to mostly harmless and add a couple of extra CP from central casting and voila, it is done! 

To be fair, using dubbing as a backdrop was interesting. It worked for half the show but it pretty much faded away and the usual business/relationship shenanigans took over. Thank goodness the dubbing here is for anime and not dramas. Don't get me started about the overuse and patchy quality of c-drama dubbing!

All the leads are good looking. There were some skinship and one CP was hot and sexy from the get-go while another CP had the worse case of the fishy kiss this year. The chemistry goes from ok to weak amongst the CP's. You know they are pre-ordained anyway. Ditto with swoon worthy moments. They are there but your mileage will differ. I do like the ML in several of his other shows but this time round he just felt too scripted.

It was interesting to see the show pushed tentatively at a few tropey boundaries but pull back timidly. Age gap love, toxic fandom, etc all had an airing but nothing much came of them. Evil schemes had little teeth. Antagonists were grey blobs. Relationship problems were passing storms, a "heartfelt" apology and it is back to kisses and cuddles, stat. The flip side to this angst aversion is that most of the typical angsty tropes have been banished and I am not too sad about that.

A few societal issues did make an appearance but all beat a hasty retreat as the Goddess of romantic comedy does not allow such impurities to pollute her temple. I'm not even sure what to make of their version of dementia. It was definitely used to milk the soppy angle to good effect. Dementia is a serious medical condition but it was given a very off-handed treatment here.
This show is actually not bad. Manufactured fluff this was but it is a perfect filler with a decent cast and mildly interesting story. If you are new to c-dramas or wanted the extra sugar hit then add an extra point to the score. If you are suffering from diabetes and groan every time you see that plot summary then subtract one point. 

This is one of the most subjective score I have given in a long time. This is due in part to a sense of frustration/disappointment of the state of Chinese rom-com's. To reward mediocrity is to hasten the heat death of the genre.

Maybe this is why so many similar shows are being churned out by the mighty c-drama machine lately because it fill the gaps in programming schedules, relatively cheap and quick to produce and will sail past censors.

One time watch, one time listen and peace out.

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