This review may contain spoilers
A promising yet unfulfilled journey
Prior to touching on any unfavorable points in the adaptation, I would be remiss not to honor the quiet revolution unfolding on screen: Ahn Ji Ho and Lee Sang Jun, rising stars in Korean cinema, have chosen paths less traveled. They performed resistance, stepping into characters whose very existence defies the heterosexist orthodoxy and setting an example for other mainstream performers to follow in their footstepsThe interplay between Ji Ho (Hee Su) and Sang Jun (Seung Won) is, without a shadow of a doubt, endearing. Sang Jun (Seung Won) is a reticent and emotionally guarded suitor, yearning to draw closer to Ji Ho (Hee Su). True to the source material, the glances that linger just beyond propriety, the verbal exchanges, and the physical proximities that tremble with implication accumulate with intentionality and culminate in a long-withheld romantic confession
Seung Won: "I don't like Ji Yu"
Hee Su: "Why did you lie?"
Seung Won: "Because I wanted to keep hanging out with you" (chapters 42-43)
A screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/7ElUfSX
Drama Seung Won, too, nudges drama Hee Su to acknowledge his true feelings and discover the solace and happiness that await him in drama Seung Won's arms
Complementing Ji Ho (Hee Su) and Sang Jun (Seung Won)'s chemistry, the adaptation gains narrative sophistication through drama Hee Su's empathetic disposition. This is exemplified in the first episode (5:10-7:04), where he lends an impartial ear to a woman's self-exploration of same-sex desire/introspective reckoning with her attraction toward another woman. He invites us into a space of uncoerced emotional authenticity
Now, it's conceivable that my observation might provoke debate; however, I'm disengaged by a dissonance between the performers' mature appearances and the adolescent characters they're tasked with embodying. Their mature appearances suggest individuals well into their late twenties, if not beyond
The cognitive dissonance elicited by witnessing adults enacting the affective and behavioral tropes of high school adolescence proves jarring. A more coherent and plausible alternative might've been to transpose the setting into a university or workplace
I can be lenient with these matters. What troubles me is the pacing and the straightwashing of the source material to cater to the squeamishness of homophobic audiences wary of encountering too many rainbows on their screens. The central gay relationship spends the bulk of its runtime vying for visibility and relevance against the privileged "straight" script that overshadows it in both duration and execution. "Straightness" centers the stage by force, reasserting its dominance and softening the gayness for broader consumption. It has no rightful place here
The source material refrains from constructing a non-platonic Chan Yeong x Ji Yu storyline. To fabricate one where none exists, and to do so by excising the secondary gay pairing of Sun Woo and Yoo Dahm, is a move I find dishonest and regressive. A screenshot of Sun Woo and Yoo Dahm from chapter 56: https://imgur.com/a/OInfwbQ
How mind-boggling it is that our same-sex ships/pairings are condemned as corrosive to friendships, while society destroys opposite-sex friendships by defaulting to non-platonic arcs with nary a consequence
Some might rationalize the excision of the secondary gay couple by appealing to their placement in the second season. It's a dubious, flimsy excuse at best. Being classmates and friends, Hee Su's acquainted with the secondary gay couple. Their early introduction could've contributed to the exploration of identity, intimacy, or social belonging and accelerated Hee Su's journey toward self-acceptance. Sun Woo and Yoo Dahm need not have been "useless" or "irrelevant"
Timelines are malleable. The screenwriters were afforded the opportunity to recalibrate the timeline of the source material/fine-tune the sequence of events in order to optimize the seamless integration of two seasons into a compact drama format. Nevertheless, their creativity wasn't exercised in service of non-straight visibility. They delegitimized non-straight modes of subjectivity and relegated them to an inferior, irrelevant, or disruptive status
Those reading might pose the question, "are you a hater?" To which I'll respond in the negative. Neither animosity nor resentment informs my evaluation. That'd be incompatible with my 8/10 rating
My contention is that preserving one of the two gay pairings is not a sufficient or ambitious act of fidelity. It is, in fact, justified for audiences to experience discomfort when confronted with deviations from the source material. The phenomenon is not unprecedented; public discourse surrounding the cinematic reimaginings of "The Little Mermaid" (2023) and "Snow White" (2025) demonstrated how even superficial modifications precipitate public disapproval. By parallel reasoning, it follows that modifications to gay source materials would precipitate scrutiny and disapproval
Questioning the producers' call to accommodate societal prejudices against gay-centered narratives doesn't amount to prejudice or -phobia. The public dissemination of a creative or intellectual work instigates a dynamic feedback mechanism, wherein audience reception, positive or negative, re-enters the production process and compels producers to adapt to the cultural climate and evolve or risk obsolescence
I do appreciate the effort invested in the part-BL/part-gay adaptation. Moving forward, I'd love to see BLs exclusive in focus that center and honor gay love without compromise or dilution
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1The correct title: Heesu In the Background Of Class 2.
I loved Hee Su and Seung Won, but if we actually gathered all their scenes it would be the length of a fan made youtube video. They were both sidelined getting supporting characters treatment in their own story.And no, I do not only mean romance wise. Which characters got more elaborated individual stories presenting them outside of their love lines? Chan Yeong with his Tennis arc and Ji Yu with her music. What about Hee Su and Seung Won? Nothing. I’m sorry, but if you describe the plot of the drama to someone, Hee Su perfectly matches the typical second male lead - in love with the male lead, trying to win him over just to give up when the female lead shows up. Ending up with the female lead’s best friend.
No amount of pretty poetic narration done by Hee Su will convince me he got the proper treatment as the main lead of the story. For me, these lines sounded great, like out of context motivational quotes since the episodes often did not focus on his perspective enough to validate their existence. I mean… even the last episode could not have been all about the mains, we also needed a montage of the love story of the second leads.
If I was to rate just Hee Su and Seung Won, it would be a good 8. They were sweet and fun to watch. The misunderstandings actually seemed realistic for their age. The low key pinning was great. Seung Won was just calm perfection - so many of his simple few words amazed me - the simplicity with the greater message behind them was just right.
But then we have Chan Yeong and Ji Yu. I would not even be that mad if they were not just so painfully boring both as a couple and as individual characters. But to take away from the gay couple, to focus on this mediocrity is just a crime.
Maybe because their characters did not have much to offer, the acting also felt mid. Ahn Ji Ho though - amazing. The hesitation around his crush, the glances he kept stealing, the anger and the frustration when certain things came out to light.
The production value was obviously a lot better than many other k-bls - the bigger budget was clear. Can better production quality save uneven writing? Probably not.
Overall, disappointment. I was one of the people who was not initially angry about the straight couple, but I was still naive thinking they will stay in the sidelines complimenting Hee Su’s and Seung Won’s story. I did not expect them to come to the forefront and stay there till the end.
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When the ML plays the supporting role in his own story...
Honestly I won't waste my time writing long paragraphs explaining why I didn't like this point by point, because it is pretty much obvious why.It was a much awaited KBL project because we absolutely adored and loved the manhwa and the dorky character of Heesu. But at the end, it was such a let down. I want to sue the directors for deceiving me. I'm so damn angry!
Why did Heesu and Seung Won was given less time than they deserve? After all THEY ARE THE MAIN LEADS! They wasted time and time-passed on silly things, misunderstandings and concentrated on everything other than Heesu and Seung Won's relationship.
What's the point of highlighting Chan young and Jiyu's relationship for 8 damn episodes when they were not even the main leads? I guess I'll never know, you know what I don't want to know.
Just so you know I liked the story, their acting, the characters, their feelings, hesitations, navigating through troubling thoughts... everything except Chan Young's prolonged tennis and JiYu's guitar talks which eventually side tracked Heesu's storyline and kind of stretched it till the last minute for no reason. It was boring and I felt that it was absolutely unnecessary. Clearly Heesu has been wronged! We only got 10 minutes of their relationship and then end. Hah! What a shit show!
Overall, I've wasted my time so you don't have to. If you still want to torture yourself with frustration and anger, if you don't mind second leads taking 90% of the screen time then go ahead and watch it but I won't be recommending this to anyone. Watch it at your own risk.
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Watching this drama was like chasing a mirage, the closer I got, the more it faded into nothing!
If I had to retitle this story, it would be "ChanYoung and his love story in Class 2...featuring Heesu" because that's honestly what it felt like most of the time. The supposed main characters were treated like glorified side characters, popping in and out of the plot as if the writers themselves forgot they existed.Speaking of the writers, they seemed just as confused as Heesu about what direction the story should take!
It was as if they started with a vague idea of the story but halfway through completely forgot what they were trying to say. Every episode felt like a shot in the dark with no clear progression, no deep character development, just a lot of floating from scene to scene without any real progress.
The biggest flaw for me without a doubt, was the pacing. It was almost painful to watch at times. The story kept stumbling between focusing on the main couple ( Heesu and Seung Won) and pushing them into the background. Although I haven't read the original source material, which is a BL, it was still clear that Heesu and Seung Won were meant to be the heart of the story. Yet their relationship felt so underdeveloped and sidelined that it almost seemed like a subplot.
Every time there was a heart-fluttering moment or a genuinely sweet interaction between them, the drama in the next episode would abruptly cut away to the other couple. It often felt like the show was too hesitant to fully commit to its main romance, offering just a few crumbs of real connection before quickly retreating into safer territory.
That said, when Heesu and Seung won did finally grace the screen together, they were adorable. Their chemistry was natural, their little interactions genuinely sweet and both actors gave performances that deserved a much stronger script. You could tell they poured sincerity into their roles even when the writing gave them little to work with. It’s almost tragic how much potential was wasted.
Coming to the second couple Ju Chan Yeong and Choi Ji Yu, they were your average couple with their own meet cute moments here and there. I wish they were just friends with the main characters and not a couple because I wasn't sold on their chemistry till the very end!
While the love stories here didn't work for me, the small little details did. Like I really liked how they incorporated astronomy into the story. The references to the Big Bang, asteroids and the star gazing scenes were all elements I truly enjoyed. It added almost a poetic layer to the narrative, especially in the way they tied cosmic events to the Heesu' s emotions.
Also, I also found Heesu’s bond with his sister fun to watch, even though it wasn’t explored as much as it could have been.
The OSTs were beautiful and complimented the drama well. Props to the team for intro too. I loved the animation!
Overall this was like a beautifully wrapped gift, the one that promised so much but left me standing there with nothing but disappointment. The pacing dragged, the main relationship was sidelined and the emotional payoff I waited for never truly arrived.
Was it disappointing? Without question.
Was it occasionally endearing enough to make you hope for more? Frustratingly, yes.
In the end, it was a hot mess desperately trying to sparkle, but only managing to flicker and fade away.
I would not recommend this!
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zero communication in class 2
Overall: up until the finale I was going to say this was a decent coming of age story with four protagonists who all have poor communication at times; however, I am so angry at that crappy finale I took a whole point off my review. I read most of the webtoon https://www.lezhinus.com/en/comic/heesu_en awhile ago. I tried my best to review the live action series on its own merits; however, I can see why fans of the webtoon (including myself) are very disappointed per the last section of my review. 10 episodes about 40 minutes each. Aired on Viki https://www.viki.com/tv/40995c-heesu-in-class-2What I Liked
- sibling relationships (though I started to get the three of them/their relationship struggles confused and they took up too much screentime)
- supportive mom
- acting
- the dash of GL
- subverted accidental fall (though we got a regular one in episode 2)
- production value (music, some nice cinematography)
Room For Improvement
- I dislike being misled, the series title is "Heesu in Class 2" so I thought he'd be the protagonist with his romance taking front and center but it wasn't like that at all. In episode 9 taking out the 3 minute recap at the beginning him and Seung Won didn't have a scene until 13 minutes in and had 6 minutes of 43 minutes or only 15% of the screentime. In episode 10 there's 1min15 seconds of unhappy convo, a one sided confession for 3 minutes and then 7 minutes at the end or only 23%.
- Chan Yeong is an unlikable protagonist. He yells publicly at Heesu to tell him what's wrong and then when Heesu tells him, Chan Yeong purposefully tries to hit Heesu with tennis balls and makes Heesu apologize for confessing or not preparing enough when Heesu actually prepared a ton (also did it privately, gave him an easy/fast way to leave the room etc).
- in the finale wth was with Seung Won being totally silent and then avoiding Heesu, I'd be way more pissed than Heesu was
- the pacing was terrible, had way too many sideplots thrown in
- started with a flash forward and then a voice over exposition dump
- the jokes/comments disparaging a character's looks (and also that the sister said it was the most important thing in terms of attractiveness)
- the lack of good communication and lack of spines made the series extremely frustrating to watch at times
- series had very little heart fluttering moments, there was finally some progression middle of episode 8 for one couple only for a love triangle cliche to get thrown in, I was annoyed at the star gazing with how far apart they were but at least there was hand-holding at the very end
Differences from the webtoon aka why webtoon fans (such as myself) are angry/sad (note: I need to re-read the webtoon and will update this if things are different from what I remember), I'd give this as an adaptation somewhere between 1-3, any points are for the actors and not the plot/characterization
1. per the title, Heesu is the protagonist in the webtoon vs in the series there are four protagonists
2. Heesu's romantic life is the center of the webtoon vs in the series we have several side plots (family drama, music drama, love rival) that take up a lot of the runtime
3. the webtoon was filled with sweet moments related to Heesu vs in the series there are barely any heart fluttering moments and the relationship development is very slow
4. I don't remember being frustrated by the lack of communication in the webtoon vs I want to shake all four protagonists, their lack of direct communication while perhaps realistic is infuriating to watch
5. the webtoon has a m/m main couple and a m/m side couple vs in the series there is both a main m/m couple and a m/f couple, the m/f couple's relationship develops faster than the m/m's relationship, there are accusations of straightwashing and it does feel like an odd change to the source material
6. Chan Yeong was not an asshole in the webtoon vs he is one in the series
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"Watered down" BL, which is disappointing...
While the manwha was about four boys, this was "heterofied" for unknown reasons. They changed a lot and cut a lot which did not do the manwha justice. Because there are not four boys anymore they also changed the dynamic between the characters drastically.While I get the teenager angst to confess, this was sometimes frustrating to watch.
Please, for god's sake just say it and be over it. But no, it dragged on for 9 episodes.
The rest of the show was not bad, the actors good and the cinematography top notch. But overall they invested too much into the hetero pairing imho. After the confessions, we did not even get a kiss 😭. So this is a bitter pill to swallow and kills the BL imho.
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One of the worst cases of cultural embezzlement I've seen in this genre. The producers took a popular BL webtoon and cynically manipulated it for commercial purposes into a one-size-fits-all tale of boys and girls falling in love. The BL storyline was reduced to just one of many and in some ways felt like a sideline to display the producer's cultural diversity.We are meant to be seduced by the familiar high quality of the Kdrama team that worked on this contrivance of a series, but that was upended by the series conclusion, which just confirmed the scam that most people, I believe, suspected was being foisted on them all along.
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This review may contain spoilers
so much potential just to fall flat
I will start by saying that I never read that manwha so I’m speaking from having just watched the show and will be reviewing it as strictly a show not an adaptation. when I saw that a new kbl was coming out I was super excited as I’ve enjoyed all the ones I’ve watched before. and I did enjoy this up until the production team decided to focus more on Chanyoung and Jiyu’s story. to me it felt like Heesu and Suengwon took a back seat in their own story. definitely won’t be a rewatch which is sad cause it was well done.Was this review helpful to you?
Chanyoung in class 2
Let me start by saying this is my first review ever on mydramalist. I've never felt the need to write one. Infact I've never even had an account but today i created an account and here i am writing a review , this is because of how annoyed i am by this showNow this is not to stop anyone from watching because its actually a cute watch. Its to prepare your mind not to expect anything great.
As someone who read the manhwa, im extremely annoyed by this series not because it did not meet my expectations but because this was made as a straight drama with queer baiting which i hate the most out of bls. I dont know why i even had expectations when this was being made by korea and i know how homophobic they are. They straight-washed this drama and made it about the side couple instead of the main couple. We had 10 episodes and instead of spending time developing the story of Heesu and Seunwong. They fed us with chanyoung and the girl(sorry i forgot her name) and we were left with crumbs for our actual main couple. I sincerely hope theres a season 2 to this where the main couple is actually explored so that i can understand why season 1 was made this way. I really liked it and enjoyed the slowburn but by ep6 it was beginning to be clear that we had just been qeer-baited to watch another straight drama and its very sad because Heesu and Seungwon have great chemistry. Seungwon's pinning for heesu is one for the books and when it becomes reciprocal you can see also just how much Heesu likes Seungwon too. The show was also quite realistic with the problems it gave high school students. This show in general had so much potential to be more than the producers allowed it to be and thats quite sad. If i was the writer of the actual manhwa i dont think i would have given permission for my book to become a series if they were only going to make such a terrible remake out of it but thats what the bl world means to these producers. Just a quick cash grab. I guess I'm done ranting now and feel better. Anyways if you decide to watch this and see my comment, i hope it atleast prepared you enough for what you're about to watch because the only way to fix this mess is a SEASON 2 and if there's a petition to sign for it, best believe I'll be on the list
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1This review may contain spoilers
this is not a BL
I feel bad giving this series such a low rating but as a supposed BL show this fails to deliver. the 3 stars are for heesu suengwon and them together. they should remove the lgbt and BL tags from this series. no amount of ranting is enough to express my disappointment in the execution of this story. coming to the acting there is no doubt that the cast has done a wonderful job. the pacing is very sloooowwww. music is good. for people who want to watch a hetero drama with a side BL story and super slow burn u can go and watch this.Was this review helpful to you?
WHAT A WASTE
If they had followed the manhwa, this would have been an amazing show. There were sooooo many unnecessary scenes that literally had nothing to do with what was supposed to be the main couple and center of the show, but ended up being 'that couple in the background'. Hell they didn't even get to be a couple, nothing. They should have called this Chanyoung of class 2. It's like the creators just 'clickbaited' the BL lovers community and honestly I'm so pissed. I waited so long for a load of bs. The cast is amazing, the actors are great. . .but the creators messed this up so bad. Gosh I'm so pissed. That's time wasted I'll never get back. . .Was this review helpful to you?
Didn't follow the original Manhua
Initially, I was extremely happy and excited that they were gonna make a live adaptation of my all time fave manhua.It started of good, like they kinda followed the storyline in the manhua. But gradually, I think the director had no intention of making it into a BL based drama. He just wanted to focus only on unrequited love, straight relationships, high school cliches, blah, blah.
God, I was so frustrated at the end of ep9.
Believe me, guys. I was extremely hooked and patient with this drama, for a whole lot of 8 episodes. I thought that maybe, they would focus entirely on Heesu and Seung Won's relationship for the next two episodes.
But, I was extremely mistaken.
Well, in the end, I really wanna say that, they have fully and utterly, disrespted the original manhua.
Guys, believe me, the manhua is so good.
If you guys have some time, checkout the manhua and if you're really a fan of highschool crushes and cliches and frustration, you may enjoy this series.
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