Too Episodical and Not Enough Backstory

TLDR: Started off strong, too many episodical episodes, not enough Worldbuilding for the Reapers and their rules, not enough Character Backstories/Development for our 4-5 main characters, too many messages (e.g. suicide is a sin) I disagreed with.

As the title suggests, I felt this drama was too episodical when all I really wanted was backstories and worldbuilding for our Grim Reapers and the Grim Reaper world. The episodes were fine a 1 to 2 capsulated stories until about episode 8, and then I was getting bored of the format and just wanted to know all about our 3 main reapers (Koo, Lim, and Park), plus the boss of them. I wanted so much more worldbuilding of the Reaper world, the rules, their day to day life, what they did in their free time etc. by that point.

So the last 8 or so episodes were a bit of a drag. I absolute loved the two episodes spent on Lim and his backstory but I feel like we super super rushed through Park and Koo's -- also I was expecting there to be a twist such as he's actually her son or something, rather than the predictable story we did get.

I wish we had gotten like the first 8 episodes as is, and then the last 8 episodes were actual worldbuilding and backstories of the Reapers and the Reaper World -- it fell very lacklustre at towards the end.

Also, you can see the Christian values and the influence it has on Korean culture within this drama such as "reap your sins before death", "purgatory before you can go to heaven or reincarnation", and "suicide is murder and a sin" which are things I personally disagree with.
I AM happy that towards the end we do see Park change in his thoughts of "suicide is sin and people who kill themselves should suffer in hell" somewhat, but I wanted something more explicit from him.

Another thing is you can see the heavy handiedness of the Pro-South-Korea messages throughout the show where it makes the Reaper world very unequal/unfair. I'll post the full explanation at the very end because I get very detailed and could make people uncomfortable and angry but TLDR: there are some Pro-Korea episodes, and one is basically "look how amazing South Koreans are and we're so amazing that after death, even if we killed people in war, we aren't going to hell for these sins because we were the winners." Which, I thought the Reapers were supposed to be fair? So surely, they should be going to hell because they did sin?!

If we had been given more details and explainations in the show for things like this rather than have 13+ episodicals. Even just a simple "if you're killing people in self-defense or without malicious intent (such as defending your country from invaders) then it's not seen as a sin in the Reaper world." would've been good enough for me, but even this isn't explained.


Conclusion: Started off strong, too many episodical episodes, not enough Worldbuilding for the Reapers and their rules, not enough Character Backstories/Development for our 4-5 main characters, too many messages (e.g. suicide is a sin) I disagreed with.


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Here's the long version of my Pro-Korea part:

We see two episodes of two different wars (WW2 and the Korean War).

First episode: it's never said or confirmed that the South Korean soldiers will be sent to hell for killing people (when killing is very obviously a sin). This show very much felt like it was implying: so long as you're defending your country and you're on the side that wins, killing people is absolutely fine according to the Korean Reapers. But neither the rules nor explanation is in the show.

Secondly, we have a heavy Pro-Korea and Anti-Japan episode which to me felt very intentional (therefore harmful) which is what I disliked about it.

If you don't know Korea-Japan relations and history this is a very important, eye-opening, horrific, and informative episode. Everyone should know about this history, absolutely!

But, I personally felt the message of this episode is intentionally very harmful: "hey, young Koreans, Japanese imperialism did this to us and they still haven't apologised for what they did. So, we're making this episode because we want Koreans furious at Japan for another year and we wanna increase the anti-Japan views in Korea even more than they still are".

But as someone who has studied it:

Actually, Japan HAS apologised (since 2007) and has done for many times.
Korea DEMANDS apologies every single year and has done for many years (more so from great-grandchildren now rather than the people who actually suffered because most have passed away, rest their souls - which you could probably now call 'generational-trauma').
Japan HAS compensated the families and victims (apparently 1 billion yen -- although I know that it won't ever be enough for the victims).
Korean newspapers and politicians still post and encourage anti-Japan views - they literally blamed Japan for the 2022 Itaewon Halloween incident in a few newspapers - while Japan is embracing Korean culture at an alarming speed (thanks to KPop and Korean food).
This history is still not in Japanese history books (especially in school ones where they rarely learn modern history anyway).

So, as you can see, both sides are bad!

I can't help but think this episode wanted to strain Korea-Japan relations even more than it already is. It feels like the episode was created on purpose to make Koreans continue the rage and the pain, rather than "this was absolutely horrific but it's time to heal; educate ourselves and others while trying to build a better future and relationship with each other both inside and outside Korea." and I personally find that in very bad taste.

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