This is it, this is the drama that was haunting me throughout this year. It was appearing in various lists and countdowns, it showed on My Drama List more that I can count and it was constantly in my recommended section on Netflix. So I’ve finally decided to watch it. And honestly guys, I’m not impressed.
Don’t get me wrong, this is beautifully filmed drama with an amazing cast. But this is just so not enough for me to call it the greatest drama of this year.
Let’s start from the goodies.

Cinematic
Not gonna lie, that was one of the most beautifully filmed drama that I’ve watched. Both live action and animations were just stunning. Add to this beautiful sets and costumes and you have true eye candy of a series.

Acting
I’m gonna quickly brush past two leads and leave them for later. Because the true star here is Oh Jung Se playing Moon Sang Tae. I’ve seen him before in Touch Your Heart, but here in It’s Okay to Not Be Okay he shown his acting skills to the fullest. And the role he was given was very difficult and it was very easy to overdo it. That’s why I think that his win of this years Baeksang Award for the best supporting actor was fully deserved,

Music
Nothing to add here. Music was very fitting and memorable. I’m sure I have some songs on my playlist. Overall I can say that this drama is very ecstatically pleasing.
But now we get to the more problematic part.

The baddies

Acting
I said some good things about acting of Oh Jung Se and now let’s talk about main actors.
I’ve already seen Kim Soo Hyun and Se Ye Ji in other dramas and I really don’t have anything against their acting. It’s just that they haven’t shown anything new here. I felt in some moments that Kim Soo Hyun is just playing again his character from My Love From the Stars. The spoke with the same monotonous voice with close to non facial expression. It may be the similarity of both roles but it still bothered me from the very beginning. It wasn’t too bothersome but in drama so praised and for drama with actors so well known, I guess it shouldn’t happen. I know that both actors didn’t have easy characters to play, but it just didn’t worked for me. Especially taking under consideration fact that I had so much problems with characters themselves.
With Se Ye Ji, I found her character so uninteresting that I can’t really say a lot about her acting.

Characters
Talking about it. I’ve read many opinions defending Ko Moon Young for her behaviour. But for me that was just a show of toxic relationship and the way it ended it totally not understandable for me especially that their relationship for the most part was simply abusive. Amongst other things Ko Moon Young was blackmailing Moon Gang Tae using his brother but also threatening him to drive off the pier if he will not agree to spend the night with her. And at this point in my opinion her behaviour cannot be just simply justified by her sad past. And what really annoyed my at some point is that we were slowly being convinced that your past can be an excuse for the bad behaviour. Ko Moon Young was mistreated by her mother so not she can mistreat Gang Tae who should feel bad for her and support her all the way. This is straight up toxic relationship and shouldn’t be romanticised.

Plot
Or really lack thereof. I understand that really the relationship of the two main characters should be the plot but I think it’s just not enough. Of course there was some additional events, but they somehow just came and went away without really much impact on the action. And the pace was incredibly slow, and I think this was what really killed my interest in this series. I swear it felt as if some of the episodes consisted only with main characters staring themselves in the eyes in slow motion.

At the end I’ve figured out that I just don’t care about the main characters. There was nothing about them to see them as sympathetic of even interesting. So I just simply didn’t care what happens to them. This series in my eyes was saved by great production and some background characters. Not enough for me to call it great drama.