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An Office Drama First, Food is Complementary.
First and foremost, I think you should know that this is not a food drama. It's an office drama, with the main protagonist being a big foodie and alcohol lover. Drinking is a massive part of Korean culture, especially office culture. So it's no wonder that in some episodes, the alcohol tends to take the stage during meal scenes (while in others, the food does). The alcohol is purely to go with and accentuate the meal though, as we rarely see her ordering more. And I think she only got tipsy/drunk a couple of times. What makes out FL stand out though, is that she often prefers to enjoy her meals (and thus, her alcohol) alone.But this is pretty in-character for her. She doesn't understand what everyone's fixation is with social events and gossip. In fact, she probably knows the most about everyone, simply from observing, but never gets involved unless asked to or necessary. It's very refreshing.
Because of this, inter-character drama is a minimum. And there is no romance. Instead, this is a story about career success and how there is more to life than career success - through the revelations and experiences of our 30-year-old successful career woman main protagonist.
I will say though that sometimes the office scenarios kicked me out of the story. Some events seem to act as if the editors are the writers of the stories they are publishing. Or will otherwise conflate the different positions within the publishing industry. Nonetheless, it was a rare find to have a drama focus the editors, rather than the writers.
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The actors were familiar, most of the leads I already know of as I have seen them in other dramas. Their acting were just fine, they did deliver. The one thing that did not really convinced me is that I was not really into the food presented though it was a food drama. I was not tempted with it so I guess it was not effectively conveyed to me as a watcher.
I felt 50-50 with the drama, it's not bad but it's not good either.
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This review may contain spoilers
Commercialized Remake Replaces Peaceful Solitude with “Masala”: Forced Romance and Office Drama
Cheers to Me! takes the serene, self-contained charm of Wakako-zake and completely undermines everything that made the original Japanese series special. Where the original offered a quiet sanctuary celebrating mindful solitude, this adaptation falls into the same predictable traps that pollute so much of commercial television.In Wakako-zake, the whole point is that Wakako is entirely whole on her own. She finishes her workday, steps into a quiet eatery, pairs her food with a drink, and enjoys her own company without needing office drama, gossip, or a dramatic arc to validate her existence. It is a peaceful, grounded meditation on solitude and simple presence. It has a totally different serene vibe with subtlety and sweetness as the protagonist goes out into the world, but self contained within herself. As she observes different interactions around her, she often remembers that she is not here to meet with anyone, just enjoying her own presence and the food. The food looked divine and I could actually taste it with her while listening to her inner dialogue of how she experiences the food. A therapeutic experience. Even the background office scenes are framed in a way that support Wakako’s serene experience of food in the evenings, rather than taking center stage as office drama. No unnecessary backstories or flashback drama, just resting and enjoying the purity of the present moment.
Cheers to Me! throws all of that out the window and destroys the central pure premise of the Japanese original. The Ma in J dramas creates an atmosphere where characters do not need to constantly explain themselves, react dramatically, or pursue horizontal goals. The narrative trusts the viewer to sit in the stillness without needing constant sensory stimulation or loud emotional hooks. However, in this remake, instead of trusting the power of a quiet purity of a self-sufficient protagonist, the show forces a tired office plot or romantic storyline onto the narrative. It operates under the lazy assumption that a person eating alone is inherently lonely, incomplete, and just waiting for someone to come along and fix their life with drama and high school style noise. It is immature commercial formula over the purity and wisdom of solitude. Juxtaposed with office drama and food montages of her childhood eating with her mother, the food scenes at the restaurant seems like an afterthought or coping mechanism for the woman’s office drama stress and missing her family. That is a totally different plot with lots of additional noise. It lacks simplicity. It makes the food look more like a binge eating addiction for emotional stress rather than pure mindful enjoyment. I couldn’t even finish 2 episodes of this nonsense.
The original Wakako-zake works precisely because of its unpretentious, low-budget, quirky feel. It doesn't need slick sets or manufactured drama because the entire focus is on the simple, present-moment experience. When the adaptation floods the screen with high budget, glossy visuals, and unnecessary subplots, it suffocates the quiet space, the Ma that made the story meaningful in the first place. Adding backstory like childhood memories of eating with her mother or using food as an "escape" from office drama is the remake’s egoic attempt to make the character "deeper." But it actually does the opposite. It reduces a simple, mindful act of presence into a psychological coping mechanism. It assumes that nobody can just enjoy a quiet moment without a tragic or emotional reason behind it. The "Masala": Adding relational friction, workplace politics, and artificial tension is just commercial filler. It assumes the audience is too restless and immature to sit with pure stillness, so it constantly feeds the viewer sensory noise to keep them hooked.
By injecting forced workplace angst, primal screaming, and relational drama, this remake strips away the meditative pace and replaces it with artificial friction. It transforms a peaceful slice-of-life experience into a noisy commercial product designed to hook viewers on romantic tension. Unfortunately I have not seen any Kdramas that can handle the topic of the self sufficient, peaceful, meditative solitude of a female protagonist. But there was an interesting surprise in the first episode of the kdrama as the first episode shows Wakako from the original show sitting next to the lady as she goes to an eatery alone.
The acting is also really bad- the office lady that’s always taking selfies and photos overacts so much that it’s so cringe to watch.
When a network acquires the rights to a quiet, episodic Japanese series like Wakako-zake, which operates more like a slow, peaceful slice-of-life meditation, the commercial writers often do not know how to handle pure solitude. They fear that a protagonist who is simply content, quiet, and eating alone for 20 minutes will lose the casual viewer. So, they default to their standard playbook: injecting gossip, romance, and career competition to create artificial tension and keep the audience hooked on the next episode's cliffhanger.
On a deeper level, the ego system behind mainstream media is terrified of true, undisturbed solitude. To the ego, a character who is complete in themselves, who walks into a quiet restaurant, enjoys a simple meal, and asks for nothing more from the world, she is a direct threat to the commercial ego world. The ego’s entire existence depends on the belief that you are incomplete on your own and that you must seek validation, romance, or a partner outside yourself to be whole.
When a story like Cheers to Me! rewrites Wakako's peaceful solitude into "loneliness waiting to be solved by drama or romance," it is the ego attempting to re-impose its favorite script: You are not enough as you are; you need a character to complete you.
Cheers to Me! fails because it cannot comprehend a woman who is simply content in her own space. Instead of honoring the beauty of being complete in oneself, it reverts right back to the ego's favorite lie: that solitude is a problem to be solved with drama rather than a sanctuary to be enjoyed.
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Very little to say.....
...both from me and from this drama.I reached the end of Ep4 of this drama and completely lost any kind of enthusiasm to continue. Ep1 was slow and quiet with lots of food and some alcohol but little happening in the story. Ep2 was the same. Ep3, same again. It's almost like a food programme with a fake half-hearted attempt at an office story to fill in between meals. I watched to the end of Ep4 because I am very aware that the start of a drama does not always indicate its overall quality. From the start of Ep1 to the end of Ep4 I think I saw four very short and semi-meaningful but boring conversations and six or seven detailed cooking/looking/eating of meals. They looked nice. By Ep4 though....the Nothing had continued relentlessly at the speed of a dying snail...and heck...If you really need to fall asleep, this is just the thing for you.
It's a shame because both the ML and FL have far more talent to them than this flaccid story allowed them to show.
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