catherine
The chemistry between the main leads was great. I liked that it was more balanced, and they teased each other but were also extremely supportive. Choi Ae Ra was an AMAZING female lead; I'd been craving a strong female lead (who wasn't bratty and selfish) and she was exactly that. It was refreshing, and you could see how much Go Dong Man loved her for it. I also thought that the big issue they had between them after they got together was very understandable and realistic, but it did get a little repetitive.
The pacing of the relationship was great, but the sub-plot could've been faster. Many of the earlier episodes felt like pure slice-of-life, but then the later episodes starting dealing with more dramatic family histories, which threw me for a loop.
I also ended up enjoying Baek Seol Hee and Joo Man's plot, even though I didn't think I would because I lose interest a lot after couples get together. But the issues they faced were surprisingly realistic, and my heart hurt for them. I definitely got annoyed and picked a side (Seol Hee!) but her character development was probably the strongest out of all the characters, and I loved her for it.
There actually weren't as many friendship scenes as I thought there would be, which is why I appreciated the scenes where Ae Ra was standing up for Seol Hee so much.
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Cinderella and the Four Knights
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The plot of the "missions" to bring the cousins closer together completely disappeared, and we were hit with a bunch of old k-drama tropes: disapproving guardian, secret relationship, hospital and health issues, fighting over a corporation...etc. etc. etc.
A lot of the characters lost their personalities. Even the female lead, who was my only reason for watching, started descending into a stupid girl who cried A LOT and refused to communicate about anything. Truth be told, I was rooting for Hyun-Min because he was such a fun character(and I'm tired to death of the cold/rude male trope), but he definitely lost his charm somewhere, and at the same time, Ji-Woon's cold personality did a 180, as if the writers were actively trying to get the viewers to like him. For me, it was too little, too late. Overall, some of the things the characters did just lacked common sense, as if it was to move the story along. Hye-Ji was also honestly such a problematic character who had no personality (other than being obsessed with Hyun-Min), and the fact that she was such a huge part of the plot development annoyed me, though I liked that she wasn't as conniving as other k-drama second female leads.
I will say, though, that the OST was good.
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Shut Up: Flower Boy Band
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Shut Up Flower Boy Band is surprisingly realistic, and one thing i really liked was that there wasn't one evil antagonist they were all going up against—most of the conflicts were internal struggles or tensions with friendship, and the show handled it all really well. Even the characters who didn't really get along with the main characters were very three-dimensional.
Even though there were some noble idiocy plot points, which I usually hate, I liked them in this show and I understood, mainly because even though the characters were fighting, it never felt like they were no longer friends. The bromance was one of the strongest parts of the entire show and I loved the way they handled conflicts with one another.
Su-Ah and Ji-Hyuk were super cute together as well—after I finished watching the drama, I went back and rewatched all their scenes together. I also liked how there weren't a lot of needless misunderstandings between them; even though they found it hard to talk about their feelings sometimes, when it came to it, they really understood each other's choices. Ji-Hyuk was kind of a bad boy but also lowkey always soft for Su-Ah, which was adorable. Su-Ah was a surprisingly strong female character who spoke her mind a lot and stood up to others, even though she is quiet—but I do wish they had given her even more regarding her art. While the guys had their music thing going on, it felt like her artistic talent was hinted at but it never moved forwards. I wish we saw more of Ji Hyuk's family background too, as it was pretty much only hinted at throughout the drama and I think could've played a bigger part.
Hyun-Soo (L from Infinite) was also one of my favorite characters, who was given a deeper personality than the others. I wish we got to see more of his interactions with his sister. His romantic plotline, though, was something I had mixed feelings about—and I'm not sure I'm fully on board with the ship.
Overall, though, I don't think I was ever really annoyed with ANY of the characters, which is a rare occurrence for me.
I did get spoiled for The Catalyst Event at the end of episode 2, so honestly I didn't find that as heart-wrenching as all the struggles that the characters had to go through afterwards.
I love the OST too—especially Jaywalking and Wake Up, of course—but I'm not sure I love the soundtrack as much as I loved Heartstrings'.
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Firstly, I cannot get past the acting of the main female lead. It always felt like she didn't know what to do with her hands, and whether she was pointing, shrugging, or crossing her arms, it always looked SO unnatural. The same could be said for her "shocked" and "sad" facial expressions. Honestly, the personality of the main female lead was really boring as well. This drama did what fanfiction often does, which is make the main lead chosen for all the important roles and win the competitions when realistically that would never happen. The FL had no good comebacks to being teased or insulted, ever—her response is always to huff and pout. After the college years, I hated the main lead even more than I did already because she became the most annoying and moody person ever, for no good reason.
I loved her friend, Zheng Lei's personality ten times better, and I wish she was the main lead instead. Mo Xiao Lin was a pretty good character as well. I couldn't stand Pan Qi either, and I know that in real life I'd also be annoyed to death by someone who was as boy-crazy as her that every other sentence out of her mouth was about dating. Every time she did something wrong, she never apologized either, just threw a tantrum until everyone else came to her instead.
The visual cinematography in this was kind of bad. The gaming graphics were worse than Love O2O, and at the start it just looked like the actors were running around in front of a green screen. During actual scenes, the camera would move around and tremble, making me feel like I was getting motion sickness. During the last few episodes, what we got was basically 80% flashbacks, 15% characters talking to one another about the flashbacks, and 5% actual things happening; I honestly just skimmed through it because I had watched it all before. Speaking of that, there were SO many voiceover narrations, and they happened at the weirdest parts that needed the most detail, basically cutting the most important plot points down to a few minutes of brief explanation.
The plot was okay, but there was never really an overarching plot or direction. The drama felt like sub-plot after sub-plot, and it was painfully obvious when another sub-plot was being introduced because the main character would be like "Oh! I spy an issue! Let me think of a solution!" Having one plot after another meant that characters would come in and out of the story randomly. There finally seemed to be a more comprehensive plot at the end, but it was all stuffed into two episodes and by that point it seemed rushed, messy, and out of the blue.
Overall, I still liked some parts—mainly near the start, during college, and when the game actually played a big role. The last ten-ish episodes were definitely messy and not worth watching.
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So I love the "fake dating" cliche, and I was really excited for this one. But so many of the characters were annoying and downright toxic. First of all, the female lead starts off as one of the worst leads I've ever seen—unbelievably naive, nosy, and always drunk. Even though it was kind of explained by the backstory, she was still unbearable. It took me a REALLY long time to become okay with her because even when her character grew a little, I hated the way she handled situations—silent during misunderstandings that could have otherwise been avoided with one line, and loud/obnoxious during the worst times. The other characters were not the best either; many of them were manipulative and toxic, but seemed to be intended as a "positive" character, which was just confusing. There wasn't one character I purely liked, and even Jang Mi's mother I couldn't stand.The plot I really liked, though. It was a different take on the "rich evil mother" cliche and Gi Tae's mother actually had dimension to her (though she still irritated me). I felt like some of the plot near the end, especially with that breast cancer plot twist was kind of just out of the blue and random.
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The Legend of the Blue Sea
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The only thing that truly gets a 10/10 for this is the OST, which was just so calming and emotional for me. It really added to the "fairy tale" feeling of the drama, and with the cinematography, it just made the aesthetic of the drama that much more immersive.I definitely didn't really treat this as a contemporary romance while I was watching it, because of how unrealistic it really is—I thought of it more as a fairy tale retelling, and suspending your disbelief is a skill that will definitely come in useful when watching this. As a retelling, though, I really liked seeing how the historical scenes translated into the modern ones. I was definitely not as interested in the historical plot as I was in the modern one, so it helped that there were less historical scenes as the drama went on.
I was honestly disappointed with the last episode. It felt like it was a little unnecessary to add another bout of amnesia and memory erasure so late in the drama, and I didn't like how it meant that the only person who remembered Sim Cheong was Heo Joon Jae. Once again—that goes along with the unrealistic parts of this story.
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Surprisingly, I found myself more emotionally invested in the murder plot than the ship. I'm not saying the ship wasn't cute, which it was—but it was also some back and forth wishy-washiness that kind of annoying after a while. I didn't really like how they kept keeping secrets from each other—this is always the most frustrating thing in dramas because you just know that realistically being honest would have made everything so much easier.The actor for the murderer is honestly SO GOOD. That courthouse scene is one scene that I will definitely keep rewatching because of the small gestures and facial expressions, and just the raw emotion that comes across in that scene. Amazing. That guy deserves to be a main lead. Though I don't think I could ever see him as anything other than a murderer now because of this drama, haha.
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2. I love the fact that there are no DUMB misunderstandings, and that the leads trust each other in their relationship. There are some moments where I felt like the leads were both a little TOO perfect, but ultimately it was refreshing.
3. I don't believe in love at first sight which this is based on, but everything is so cute that I'll honestly let it slide JUST THIS ONCE.
4. I am not on the ship for that second pairing. ER XI DESERVES BETTER.
5. I've honestly never been any sort of a gamer, and I also am not too interested in any historical aspects, but I surprisingly enjoyed the video game parts.
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Obviously, I ended up enjoying this a lot more than I expected. It was super cute and I loved all the little things that the ML did for the FL without her knowing — but there was still a lot of lack of communication that bothered me. I know the second lead did a lot of stuff too—and that a lot of people had second lead syndrome but I actually did not, whew!
I was also hesitant about this drama because of the time jumps that I knew happened throughout the later episodes. These are so easily ruined, but the drama actually did a good job of dealing with the relationship growths during the time we didn't see. Still though, I'm not a fan of time jumps and I felt like their reasoning was very weak.
Overall, this was a really great story about romance and friendship, and I am so happy both the ships in this sailed :')
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This was honestly so much more heart-wrenching than I expected, especially since the problems faced by the character were so relatable and harsh, and I felt frustrated seeing the antagonists win again and again—but that just made it more realistic. I honestly really appreciated the way this drama handled mental illness and family issues. Even so, I felt like the antagonist had gone so far it was hard for me to empathize with her, and how the classmates acted at the end (as if they just accepted all of her and never asked her to take responsibility for anything ) was kind of unbelievable.From the very first episode, I knew I'd love it. I loved the FL so much and it was so refreshing to see a female lead that was loud, badass, but vulnerable at the same time. I loved it up until around the 11th episode, when the characters started to do some really stupid things. Going off of that, I don't see the purpose of having Kim Yeol's dad and Yeon Doo's mom dating as a plot point at all. It was just unnecessary drama and wasn't really resolved in the end anyways.
Although I wouldn't go as far to say that I had second lead syndrome because I shipped the FL and ML, my heart still BROKE for the second lead and to be honest if he had ended up with the FL, I wouldn't have complained.
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Fun & heart-fluttering
This show seriously shot its way up my list of favorite web dramas so fast. It's a travesty this couldn't go on for longer because I'm such a huge fan of this enemies-to-lovers (or more specifically annoyer & annoyee relationship) trope and I feel like this drama did it absolutely flawlessly.The plot was straightforward and it had its cliches, but the drama didn't feel recycled at all — it was so refreshing, the leads absolutely killed their roles, and I just really loved how the story and relationship developed between the characters, who were simultaneously polar opposites and like two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together.
The cinematography was also really good; it's not high production by any means but I really loved the symbolism of different colors as well as how the show edited SW and JY's scenes to parallel or contrast them.
It's also rare we get to see side characters get their due in these short shows, but Semantic Error really did an amazing job on the minor characters revolving around the leads; they not only had their own personalities and lives either, but I also just felt like their scenes were just as interesting and fun.
Overall, such a good drama with the perfect balance of fluff and tension. Definitely one I would return to watch.
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Heartwrenching at certain points
I honestly have to say that Jang Ki Yong totally stole the show for me. From his first scene, I knew that he and Ji-an would have some sort of history, and indeed he turned out to be the most layered and gray character. He had one of the best development arcs I'd ever seen, and the acting was top-notch.Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the development between the leads as well, but it just didn't captivate me the same way, save for a few scenes that were actually really touching.
I wish I could rate this higher but it actually took me so long to get through this drama, and even mid-way it was hard to find the motivation to keep going. I think part of this was the amount of time dedicated to the side characters — while some did grow on me, especially when they interacted with Ji-an in later episodes, for most of it I didn't care much for many of their scenes and it just very disjointed from the main storyline.
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Potential
My 5.5 is not to say that I didn't enjoy this — it was a light-hearted watch and the aesthetics of it are so beautiful. I was even okay with the weird documentary format that worked in some places but didn't work in others because somehow they got "footage" from before and in weird, personal places, and somehow they were indirectly talking to each other as interviews bounced back and forth.The part that turned me off the most was the plot and character development, which needs a lot of work. It was like they had 4 pairs of characters but only thought about 1 of them, and even the story for that main pairing was dragged out and very thin. I was more invested in all of the other ships and they either didn't get a storyline across multiple episodes or just didn't play a role in the story at all.
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