I was initially attracted to watch this drama by the title "It's Okay to Not be Okay." From the title, I expected this drama to be something I would get in my heart, and I wasn't disappointed in this aspect, where it has been a emotional rollercoaster, and there were a lot of areas and scenes where I connected and sobbed my heart out to. Nevertheless, there was this area that was missing, and I spent a lot of time thinking of what exactly was not fulfilling after watching this drama. At this time, I am still not completely sure what I was looking for that is missing, but here are some of my thoughts about the drama.

~ THE STORY AND NARRATIVE ~

The story is tagged as a psychological, comedy, romance, drama, and family. Nevertheless, it ranges slightly into 'horror' and 'detective' theme. Overall, the plot is pretty on-the-edge but predictable at the same time. Ever since the two characters travelled all to Ok psychiatric ward, it was easy to predict the story line and ending. Additionally, the story isn't very romantic in any way; in fact, it deeply involves the mental health theme and recovery. I have seen a lot of people mentioning that this drama was very 'healing,' and I agree, but before watching this, it would be nice to know that there were a lot of dark scenes and heart wrenching themes, not exactly the 'healing' we have in mind. Back to the romance part, the relationships seemed to revolve more around dependence rather than love 'love,' which some people may agree and disagree to.

~ THE CHARACTERS ~

I will be honest; although I am in fact a person that is very involved in the mental health field, I found it very hard to connect with the characters most of the time. There are times where I did not get how exactly they felt, especially with Ko Moon Young's antisocial personality disorder. I actually took some time researching more about this particular personality disorder to try to understand the situation a bit better, but at this point, I'm still questioning how an antisocial personality disorder person is capable of truly 'loving' someone. I suppose the word 'love' is very subjective, and speaking of which, I am not very convinced of the romantic love between the two main characters because I felt that they simply bonding during this traumatic time, but then again, who am I to say? Back to the point, because I had a hard time connecting to the characters, it was slightly difficult to continue the drama.

As for the acting, although I have seen reviews praising about the chemistry between the two main leads, I felt that the chemistry and romance were all a bit forced. Sure, the conversation flowed (based upon the script) and they did have some sort of connection, but both of them just seemed so independent in a way. Either way, I'm not quite sure if it was exactly the acting or if it was the personality of the characters. I have to really say that the actors themselves portrayed the characters super well!

~ THEMES ~

MENTAL HEALTH: Other than the hard-to-understand-themes, there were a lot of common themes with loneliness and happiness that really hit deep for me. This is a drama that covers a lot of common thoughts we have, which drew a lot of emotions and heart breaking moments, where some are happy ones and some are sad ones. The drama really covered a lot about denial, avoidance, and seeking support in terms of each character's development; it was amazing to see how each character progressed, too.

FAIRY-TALES: With the female lead being a fairytale writing, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there are stories and stories and stories with hidden meanings behind each one. The drama itself has 16 episodes, slightly separated into 16 fairy-tale stories that goes along with it. I personally always loved reading twisted fairytales and fairytales that have hidden meanings, and in this drama, they take it to a new level, where the female lead completely take the moral of every fairytale into a darker and 'realistic' perspective.

~ MUSIC AND AESTHETICS ~

The music was honestly amazing! I personally believe the music makes everything a lot better, especially the songs were a bit creepy and deep at the same time. I would take it so far as to say the music was really the best part of the drama.
Here's a playlist some may want to check out: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1ITeTDTz5lIkZ4VkrCS3LG?si=3uH2SxVmT1GKEdMNE3UvOw

The next part is the amazing aesthetics. The costumes were awesome, which is pretty much expected in every k-drama these days. Either way, the power of each costume, and the meaning behind each of them were just wow. I still remember a scene that stuck with me, where the director of the psychiatric ward mentioned that (not directly quoted) "she wears fancy clothes not to show off, but to protect herself, like armor."

~ REWATCH VALUE ~

As I slightly covered before, psychological dramas that range into the 'detective' or 'horror' areas aren't really my thing, so I will not be particularly rewatching this drama any time soon; I love horror movies not dramas because it gets kind of old in a way. In any case, the main reason I may rewatch it is only for certain scenes. On that note, I loved all those small stories and the whole plot of the drama, except the overall plot of Moon Gang Tae's mother's murder case.

~ OVERALL ~

I absolutely loved and agree with Ko Moon Young's perspective on the fairytales and facing reality, and it was amazing to see how she was able to face everything that came her way. The moral of going out of avoidance to facing reality was also very relatable. Most important, it really was those short themes, where some of the characters acted with disregard of the public opinion in order to help certain people really stuck out. It is the feeling of relief to get everything out and getting past traumatic experiences.

The relationship between the main characters are quite different from regular k-drama couples. The upside about this particular relationship was that there were little to no misunderstandings. Nevertheless, I personally thought the relationship wasn't built upon love, but more about dependence and understanding, where these two characters were able to support each other; which made me think about whether it was love or not, and whether having antisocial personality disorder made it possible to love, but who knows? At the end of the drama, I felt that their relationship seemed more about convenience, but I suppose it depends on everyone's perspective on it. On a separate note, the side character relationship also seemed a bit forced and for convenient sake.

Throughout the drama, the main issue I encountered (which is slightly covered in the "Character" section) is that the character's intentions are hard to relate too even if they made sense/were understandable. I am more of a person who likes morally grey characters with relatable 'antagonists,' but this drama is more of a oh-so-he/she/they-did-that unattached-kind of feeling, which made it very hard to continue the drama. I did end up finishing it, but it was more of because I wanted to have a closure.

Another issue I had trouble with was the repetitiveness. Don't get me wrong. I love the fairytales and the horror scenes, but it gets kind of boring, and the plot also gets kind of long, where certain scenes could be simply cut out to make it more interesting. Nevertheless, the drama was an interesting watch!