Happy Merry Ending (2023)

I'm Happy and Merry That it Ended Quickly

The wedding singing sequence in the first episode captured me. (Side note - the decoration on that venue was absolutely fantastic), I thought it was a strong promising start. Unfortunately things didnt get better after that.

What i dont understand is if this series is meant for streaming or web, why cant they just add few more minutes per episodes. Aside from the obvious intention of patching the episodes together to transform it into a feature length movie - Is there a standard format that requires them to squeeze the playtime like this?

I love short series - when done right. The problem is, Korea has bombarded us with quite a few luckluster short series that are not only under developed but are totally forgetable and that is exactly what we have here. There is nothing in the series that made me want to care about the main leads. Characters keep making questionable choices. There wasnt enough to tell us their backstory, and they didnt develop their love story in a way for me to care about them.

The only thing i liked is the music bcause these two leads can really SING. Jae Hyun's finale song is heartmelting.

The sad truth is Im just glad it ended quickly and i can just put it behind me and forget about it. If these are the caliber of series that GagaOOlala can offer, i think they will have a hard time capturing subscribers.

Rewatcheability - 4 just because Sung Tae is so cute
Story - 5. What story?
Songs - 9
Overall its a 6.5 and thats me being generous. Watch only when youre stuck in a traffic somewhere.

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They got their "Happy Merry Ending," but what about the viewer?

This was just a mess, plain and simple.

First off, this should have been a movie. The pacing would still be absolutely ridiculous, but at least not as noticeable as in drama format. Not to mention, the characters' conflicts and feelings come and go whenever necessary but not in any flowing or sensical way.

Really, only these positives come to mind: The leads' pretty faces, nice singing voices, and good kissing scenes. Nothing else.

Near the end, I felt so detached I would liken it to the experience of an AI robot trying to understand human emotions.

I honestly wonder if they made this just for the OST; otherwise, I can't see a point in its existence.

This is definitely a skip, my friends. I finished it only because I felt obligated to.

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These (basically) 2 hours felt like a summary of the story, not the whole story itself.

From the start I was not exactly amazed. Trauma, depression, and anxiety is a trend in k-bls in 2023 and I’m kind of tired of it. Still, just because it’s used a lot, does not mean it’s written well, so I would not mind a good representation - this ain’t it. It’s not offensive or anything, just painfully superficial. The whole writing lacks details to make it relatable and realistic.

And then they decided to literally put most of the plot and characters progression in the time jump. Not gonna lie, this was an interesting storytelling idea - not really showing the most important developments.

So we end up with Seung Jun who had little to no personality, Jae Hyun who must strongly believe in love at first sight to start liking Seung Jun without any good reason, Joo Won - the truest man-child with toddler tantrums (probably my favorite character, simply because of how entertaining it was to watch him act in such a pathetic manner) and Ho Yeon, a third wheel that is there to fill the space.

Realistically speaking, the best part of the drama was the friendship between Seung Jun and Ho Yeon - caring, supportive, calm and collected, selfless. Because Ho Yeon was such a big part of Seung Jun’s recovery, the relationship between the main couple did not feel as sincere. What about Jae Hyun was so impactful to have any effect on Seung Jun's life - this part of the plot was not really well executed.

The acting was good. Lee Dong Won presented the anxiety in a decent manner and while the writing and directing might have been improved, the performance itself was not an issue. Don’t think Byun Sung Tae had a hard job to do, since Jae Hyun is not exactly the most complex character, but he managed to hold my attention on him during his scenes.

The production was… your typical short low budget k-bl.

Overall, this is sadly a skip.

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Underrated unrefined gem

Okay. I feel the need to defend this short drama bc of all the negative reviews.

Actually, first you have to realise, that it is a short drama. 8 episodes- 15 minutes each. And that might be the reason why some people rate it that low - ''it's not finished''; ''There's too much plot and too little time''. Yes, valid. But. In this drama's defense, the difficult plot was well-adapted and well-paced.

I loved that this drama portrayed traumas that people have and how it affects their daily life and relationships with people. It was not hidden, not vaguely mentioned, it was very realistic in this aspect:
You get the back story of the main lead guy, who's dealing with PTSD and panic disorder bc of his past relationship. He's an ex-trainee with a beautiful voice who is now working as a wedding singer and vocal coach. You get to see how he's interacting with people, and his fear of contact with others, and large crowds.
Also his love interest - he becomes charmed by the main lead's voice and that's how he starts to pursue him- how romantic is that!

ALSO
Actually... this was a pretty unique story, not overused, not overdone. The main lead couple makes smart, realistic, not always positive decisions, gets hurt, try to fix problems ... There are no overly sweet or cringe moments, awkward lines, or non-realistic plot. So if you're looking for only fluff - this one's not for you. From one side it's dealing with very serious topics, but also it tries to focus on the healing journey of the main character and on moving on.

ROMANCE? UMMMMM,.... YES!
Yes, there were a feww cute moments. And taken into consideration that this is a very very short drama - there was a lot of them, so if you're thinking - ''Are they only gonna hold hands'' YES AND A LOT MORE.
Chemistry for me was 10/10. I found the main lead couple very charming and cute. let's just say they had their cute moments and nice montages.

MUSIC!
OH BABY how amazing and sweet it was. Finally, a drama where a soundtrack is not forgotten and is well used. Loved loved all the songs.

Room for improvement:
Definitely wanted a bit more explained about what happened to the 'evil person'. Bc of the length of this drama, you kind of get vague hints, but it ends just there.

IF YOU'RE THINKING - SHOULD I WATCH THIS? BC THERE ARE MANY BAD REVIEWS THAT SAY I WILL WASTE MY TIME...
YES, YOU SHOULD!
YES. This drama will warm your heart, make u angry, make u feel all the right emotions, and feel happy in the end. Yes, it's worth it.

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Sweet story that covers how trauma can affect not only your life but relationships as well.

Overall this show was a great story! I can agree with others that this drama was a little short, but so are all kbls honestly. It would’ve been great if we had a little more explanation on seungjun’s background, but I ended up satisfied and could understand easily through what tidbits we did get, and that didn’t really affect my overall rating of this show.

Dongwon played Seungjun wonderfully and I personally believed he captured all the tidbits of seungjun’s personality perfectly from the anxiety, the coldness towards jaehyun at first, and even down to his interactions with joowon. The character hisself had wonderful development even if it wasn’t shown as well as it could’ve been due to time constraints.

Jaehyun captured my heart from the moment he showed up. His character didn’t change much, but seongtae did great with the role!

Overall the interactions between jaehyun and seungjun were super cute and kept my attention on them the entire time, even with the coldness of seongjun’s past. It’s a quick watch so even if it’s not your normal cup of tea, you should give it a chance! Another wonderful bl drama from our knk boys!

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Surprise Little Gem in the K-BL Sea

Immediately, I thought that I wasn't going to like this. Looking at the MDL overall rating (which I don't pay much attention to, but still, it was pretty low), browsing through the comments briefly, and seeing some of my fave MDL accounts rating it pretty low -- like, I knew what was coming. But out of the blue, I find myself enjoying every little bit of this short series, beginning to end, which is definitely not like me.

Let's Dive In.

For a fat minute, I thought this was some kind of sequel to "Happy Ending Romance" but it's not, just coincidentally they have very similar title names. but anyways, the first episode swept me off my feet, and it's very rare that a series does that for me. It's alike many series I've seen before, but at the same time is something different entirely. I love that they first met and fell in love at a wedding venue, I love that this series dips into mental health struggles, I loved a lot of things about this series.

I think I can make the same argument that I always do with K-BLs which is that this series is severely too short to have played everything out perfectly. We still have a lot of things unanswered, and the romance is slightly abrupt, but I don't mind only because I loved these two. Their chemistry was off the charts. And the kissing?! Being more than decent?! Them kissing each other back?! I nearly fell out of my chair.

Again, I wanted more on Seungjun's mental health and how he's working towards helping himself. We obviously know that his best friend ended up having some sort of feelings for him, so I would've loved to see more of that too. If this series was longer and added maybe 4-5 more episodes, it would've been perfect.

Rating:

Story; 8/10 - Fun! Well, not all parts, but everything was good! It kept my interest and I'm happy with how everything turned out. Again, things are just rushed due to timing.

Acting: 9/10 - Amazing! Especially our main character who plays a very bottled-up person who has so much to deal with from his past. Sungtae (Jaehyun) is such a cutie and plays a perfect boyfriend.

Music - 8.5/10 - Good! Surprisingly I loved it!

Recommendation Value: 9/10 - It's short and an easy watch, along with being pretty good with the allotted time they had. Chemistry is great, skinship is even better. Give this one a watch for sure!

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too many side characters/plot

Overall: this fell into the trap of several KBLs before it, too many characters/plot in a very short runtime. Aired two 14 minute episodes per week on GagaOOLala and Viki.

Content Warnings: anxiety struggles/mental health struggles, manipulation, grooming?, under 18/age gap relationship?, stalking, punch

What I Liked
- the wedding venue was gorgeous
- showing anxiety medication being used
- a few cute parts
- there was a little mouth movement in the kisses, liked that they held hands
- that roommate/friend was sweet

Room For Improvement
- the tried to do too much and it came across as confusing, jumpy/choppy, in episode 4 there is a random scene in the daytime and then suddenly the next scene with two different characters is at night with no transition scene, I'm not 100% sure what happened in the past/what their relationship was, I was not invested in the main characters' relationship
- ignoring boundaries repeatedly is not attractive to me
- cliche ghosting/poor communication combined with a time jump
- ep 1 why was the pianist not dressed up, I know it said he was a substitute but it looked like he had time to practice/could have grabbed a suit/dress shoes (he was wearing white sneakers), or they should have added a scene where the wedding coordinator said he had to play in 30 minutes, he said he just had what he was wearing and she said that's fine

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she might not be EVERYTHING, but she's cute :p

look- imma say it right out the gate, it's a drama that VERY OBVIOUSLY suffers from what i like to call the typical 'KBL Conundrum' which is: 'too much plot, too little airtime' so don't be expecting too much going in, but it's a really cute show, & it barely takes like 2 hours from your life if you wanna watch it (which i'd recommend you do, since it's pretty cute :p)
also, the fact that we get TWO actual kisses (none of that awful fish lips business here), is a WIN idc 😆😆
so, yeah! she might not be everything you want or hope for it to be, but she's cute! & maybe that's enough. not everything has to, or is gonna- be an absolute masterpiece teeheet

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Lackluster, Generic

General spoilers only. The story moved too fast in eight 15min episodes for the main relationship to build any real connection or emotional depth. We get one montage of them happily dating and yet the characters are invested in each other like it's been months.

You might enjoy this if you want something quick and simple while you're sick or to have going on in the background. It's not bad, it's just not very meaningful.

I felt that Ho Yeon, the 2nd male lead, aka the the third wheel with unrequited love, had more depth to his feelings for Seung Jun than Jae Hyun. Jae Hyun has a simple love-at-first-sight obsession. There's no reason behind it. Whereas Ho Yeon has been steadfastly by Seung Jun's side through thick and thin and is so caring and supportive. I would have been much more invested if the story had focused on him and Seung Jun.

I thought the actors did well with what they were given. Lee Dong Won (Seung Jun) and Shin Myung Sung (Ho Yeon) kept my attention the most.

Otherwise, the storyline in generic, there's nothing new or insightful in the script, the cinematography is decent but unremarkable, and the music is sung well but not interesting enough that I would want to play it on it's own.

It wasn't necessarily a waste of time since it's so short, but I won't re-watch it.

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Needed more time

As was mentioned in a few other reviews, this show packed a lot into a short amount of time. They could have done so much more with the storyline and adaptation to give this story so much more breathing room.

First and foremost, what we know is the ML, Seung Jun can't seem to open up and suffers from PTSD, but we don't know exactly why yet. To be honest, we never *truly* find out. We get a hint of it when Seung Jun gets drunk and we learn it had something to do with a past relationship of some sort. Since this is a BL, we can make the assumption it was with a past relationship with a man, which we further learn when Joo Won shows back up in Seung Jun's life. Even then we don't truly know the depth, only know that he betrayed him and seemed to be using him. The pushiness of the second ML, Jae Hyun, makes it difficult for Seung Jun to open up and it's obvious there are moments where he seems to be comparing Jae Hyun to Joo Won.

Then there is the best friend/neighbor who is *obviously* in love with Seung Jun, but quietly takes a backseat because he knows of the trauma from his past and is there to support him. It's implied that the two are FWB, though you can also argue that they are simply cuddle buddies with Ho Yeon wanting it to be more than that.

To be honest, I had little to no interest in the romance of the two leads. Perhaps it is because I am biased toward Kim Kyu Jong, who played Joo Won so deliciously narcissistic, creepy, and downright nasty. But I was far more interested in his character and the history with Seung Jun. I've seen Kyu Jong in other things and he has such range that I see so many hating on Joo Won (rightfully so) and yet knowing more of him, it makes me proud to follow him because he is one of the sweetest people. I hope people hate just the character and look for other things he has done, plus his music as both a solo artist and with SS501/Double S 301, because his talent is phenomenal.

I think this show could have done so much better if they had done it as either a longer web series or a full series. I am fine with the episodes being short in time, but there needed to be more than 8 episodes. We never really got any history of Jae Hyun, we never got to know or see the struggles of Ho Yeon being in his position as someone who obviously loved Seung Jun but was relegated to only the bestie.

I feel that this show could have been fleshed out so much more for us to see much more of Seung Jun's past with Joo Won, including understanding why Joo Won suddenly came back into his life and wanted to be with him. Was it a case of Joo Won only using him as a plaything? Did he see Seung Jun as his "property" and when Jae Hyun arrived on the scene and he saw he could potentially move on, he couldn't handle it? Just what exactly DID Joo Won do to Seung Jun, other than obviously being manipulative and a cheater to cause him to have the level of PTSD that he did that he needed medication? As it "reads" right now, Seung Jun comes off as extremely weak IMO. I wanted to see those scenes more than I wanted to see the two male leads "falling in love".

I had no real investment in Jae Hyun because we knew nothing about him. Except for apparently owning a cafe, we had no backstory for him. While I am all for a love-at-first-sight type of story (I'm a romantic), this one fell short because of how little time the show had to tell its story.

Ultimately, I will probably watch the episodes that Kyu Jong was in again, because I watched this series for him, but otherwise, I would probably not rewatch this often. I hope in the future, when it comes to web series like this, that production companies/writers consider expanding the episodes to have more of them if they want to keep them short to keep people's attention. Complex stories like this need more time to grow and breathe so so much story isn't squished into so little time. It does a disservice to the story and the characters because this could have been such a compelling drama otherwise.

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A drama to forget.

I wasn't going to write a review because there's nothing to say but since I dislike one of the main leads and only write reviews in that case, here I am. Spoilers because I will most likely rant about him.

The story follows Seungjun who has severe anxiety and a trauma caused by his first love, which results in him pushing people away. His best friend, Hoyeon, is the only person he's close to. Enters Jaehyun who is interested in Seungjun and starts to pursue him, Quite literally. He shows up at his work place whenever he doesn't reply to his texts. Shows up at his house... Surprised he didn't put a tracker on his phone and kidnapped him. Oh wait, he did kidnap him once :)

Anyway, I don't like Jaehyun, he's really just a stalker who constantly ignores the fact that he makes Seungjun uncomfortable, so I just couldn't get into the romance side of the plot. I just can't root for someone who doesn't respect the boundaries of someone he's supposed to love.

I was interested to see how SJ would deal with his "first love" and overcome his anxiety but I guess I'll have to keep wondering since all that happens off screen. That actually makes me mad more than the love interest being a creep because it's just disrespectful to the viewers. Whatever happens after the time skip (...) doesn't feel earned since we don't actually see SJ deal with his issues.

I liked the best friend though. I do wonder why this wasn't explored more since he was the only one who actually respected SJ. He's also the one who is by his side while he works through his issues (off screen) so that was definitely a more interesting relationship.

The acting was a bit flat but not bad, just lacking in my opinion. The actor who plays Hoyeon was better but also didn't have much to do, unfortunately.

The music was alright, which is good since this was made obviously to promote the ML's singing... Not really my kind of music but he has a beautiful voice.

Overall, I don't think much happened, and what could have been interesting (the ML's anxiety, the idol being threatened by creep number 2, the relationship between SJ and HY) was barely explored in the end. We also don't know anything about JH, he's kind of just there to be the love interest and him being a creep definitely made it impossible to enjoy for me. 4/10.

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