An honest review on the drama and its fandom

I watched this drama almost three months back. I re-watched it a couple of times too. At the end of the day, my rating would be:
# Unbiased rating: 10
# Biased rating based on personal preference: 6 (9.5 for the last episode though) - cause few elements were triggering for me and hence it is not my cup of tea.
# My overall rating above is an average of both my unbiased and biased ratings.

I will not get into the story. But what I would like to point out based on the silent observation I did on all the fans and non-fans for this drama is that, the fans are way more toxic than the ones who didn't like this drama. I have seen that those people who didn't like this drama don't go around bashing the people who love this drama. But the other way around is extremely prevalent. The fans claim to "Understand that people have different opinions", but at the same time bashfully reply to those people who don't like this drama and try to force them into liking it. Hypocrisy at it's best huh.
They claim that if you don't like a drama, you should just drop it and not give a low rating. But I see the same people going around giving low ratings to the dramas they didn't like. Hypocrisy at its best once again huh.
I am pretty sure that keeping aside those people who dropped this drama without finishing it, there are others like me who watched this show properly and understood the story and the characters and still didn't like it for our own reasons.
One more thing I would like to point out is that, if something is toxic, or if something is a bad habit or a negative trait, we classify that trait as negative. This doesn't mean that the person is bad, but it means he has negative traits. So accordingly, Hira and Kiyoi have toxic traits which in no way falls under the healthy category. And that is a fact! It doesn't mean that the characters are bad. I haven't read the novels, but people have said that part 2 has character development where both the leads have to work on themselves because of these toxic traits. But the show ended with only the clearance of miscommunications between them and no proper character development whatsoever. So obviously people who didn't like this show and who haven't read the novels, will consider this relationship to be unhealthy and toxic, which it is, if the characters don't heal themselves. On a side note, I would never call this drama as abusive as there were no abusive elements whatsoever. A little bit of bullying in one of the episodes but that's it. (Hira was the one following Kiyoi around, so if he was pushed then it is all his fault and not exactly Kiyoi's)
To the people who say "Everyone loves differently, if it doesn't fit your perspective, doesn't mean that it isn't love". Love has various forms. Absolutely! But if something falls in the unhealthy category, then it is toxic. Period! Which if not healed and worked upon, the relationship will not work long term. No one said people are ideal or perfect. We all have good and bad traits. But we have to call a trait for what it is. If it is negative or toxic then call it that. What is the point of saying "There was nothing toxic in this show. It was a beautiful love story with flawed characters." Exactly! Flawed characters who have 'toxic traits' because of what they both went through in their lives! Call it that. Why are these people trying to pretend like everything is rosy here. Damn, this means they are the ones viewing things through a rosy glass and not the people who like fluff stuff instead. And once again, these same people go around bashing other dramas because it wasn't their cup of tea or because there was too much fluff. Hypocrisy alert!
To the people saying "Don't compare fiction with real life, watch the story for what it is. Don't expect an ideal relationship in this drama and then say you didn't like it". Wait a min. I think I saw the same people comment something along the lines of "These are flawed characters which makes them beautiful unlike the fluff you like. Cause in real life, everyone has flaws and not everything is rosy.", "Everyone loves differently, just because it doesn't match your definition of love doesn't mean its wrong", "Not everyone has a healthy relationship." This means, these people are comparing the drama to real people in real life. That is, they are comparing fiction to real life. I smell hypocrisy in the air.
To the people saying "If you don't like the drama, leave. It is dangerous to prevent other people from watching this show because of your opinion." I would like to ask one thing. What are you doing? Aren't you forcing people to like this show because of your opinion?

I usually don't read reviews and comments, but this time I had this urge to see the reviews and what people's opinions were. And all that I saw was the hypocrisy exhibited by the people who like this show. With statements like "People who don't like this show are illiterate, butt-hurt cracks", "Only the overseas people have problems with this drama", "Only blind people will not like this show' etc. etc., the fans are exhibiting the same traits that they accuse the non-fans of. Maybe the haters of this show say a lot of mean stuff. But I guarantee you, the fans of this show are not better. In fact, they are way more rude and that too in a indirect way. They pretend like they respect your opinion but indirectly attack you. Such beautiful manipulation I say.
Hence, I decided to write this huge essay. And I am going back to not reading comments again. Else I will lose my faith in the goodness of people.

Coming to my review, I will give full marks to this drama for what it was trying to portray. It shows one aspect of complexity of human nature. Some people in real life are like these characters and that is what this show is trying to portray - one unique kind of story. The cinematography is beautiful. The actors were amazing. The storyline was awesome and the highlight of this show is the switchover in the narration between both the leads. Now in a biased way, I wouldn't watch this show again except for the last episode. I guess the last episode was the only part where I felt like both these people were emerging to be more than their unhealthy traits. It was a beautiful conversation between them. I know that the previous episodes are leading up to this beautiful ending, but they weren't my cup of tea especially because of Hira's obsessive traits.
This show isn't exactly dark like a lot of other shows. But it can affect your mind, especially someone like me who is in a depressed phase of her life. Cause after watching this show I fell into a lower state of mind (I mean sad), cause there were a few elements like Hira's obsessive tactics which kind of triggered me.
This is one of the reasons why I loved Kiyoi's character more. Though it would look like he was jerk in the beginning episodes, after seeing his perspective, everything made perfect sense. And his character was way more healthier for me to watch than Hira's.
I am someone who likes a balance. I don't like too much fluff or too much serious stuff. That is why my favorite shows would be bad buddy and I told sunset about you.

Anyways, EVERYBODY SHOULD GIVE THIS DRAMA A TRY. YOU WILL NEED A COUPLE OF REWATCHES TO UNDERSTAND SOME HIDDEN DETAILS. AND IN CASE, YOU DON'T LIKE THIS SHOW, IT'S OKAY. DON'T READ THE COMMENTS BELOW AND TRY TO FIGHT WITH THEM OR FORCE YOURSELF TO LIKE THE SHOW. ONLY THING IS, DON'T GIVE A RATING WITHOUT WATCHING THE SHOW COMPLETELY. BECAUSE THE LAST FEW EPISODES BRING A CLEAR IDEA AS TO WHAT IS HAPPENING.
THE HIGHLIGHT OF THIS SHOW IS ALWAYS THE LAST EPISODE (MY FAVOURITE!).

At the end of the day all that I would say is, as much as people have a right to like this show, people also have a right to dislike it and express their views. You cannot obsessively go around bashing others up and defending the show. I have seen so many accounts on MDL, replying to every person who didn't like this show and trying to refute their opinion. They think that the drama deserves a higher rating, which obviously it does, because this drama has a strong storyline with depth and details compared to many high-rated shows. But you have to remember that the rating option is there for a reason. It is there to see what the general public's rating is and not just for one specific group. You claim that the rating dropped because haters made so many fake accounts to bring this 'masterpiece drama' down cause they are ignorant. What if I say, the current rating is where it is because the fans made so many fake accounts to bring this show up? Think about it...
Now you might ask me why am I wasting time with all this. I guess as an unbiased watcher of this show, I just ended up reading the reviews and comments and felt the need to point out the indirect contradiction and hypocrisy in the statements of the people who are obsessively trying to support this show.

Signing off
~A Human Being

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