No Gain, No Love

Love doesn't count any losses

To begin with, this drama had potential and started off with a great beginning that kept me wanting to see more. The leads had known eachother for a long time before they developed a romantic relationship but one thing that i didnt like is how they fell in love all of a sudden. I feel like enough time was not given to form a proper connection between the leads. The falling in love part happened a bit too quickly. I liked the second lead couple more their story was unique from the start. The main lead couple had too many misunderstandings towards the end and there were to many things to take within such a short period of time.

I did like the fact that 3 couples were portrayed in this show i think that made it even more watchable and enjoyable. If it was the main couple alone then the show would be plain boring. To me this show kind of lost its potential with the way they made the main couple approach into engaging into a serious romantic relationship. I couldn't read either of them and what they wanted.

No gain no love also explores the idea of relationships ( not only romantically), forgiveness, friendship and how you should do some things right now because you never know how much time you have. Towards the end things get messy but better in some ways.

There is a bit of mystery and murder in this show and that added another puzzle of entertainment to all the other elements. I would say overall this show is quite unique from the other 26 kdramas I've seen so far. Its good if you want to watch something new in the kdrama world. Its short so I'd recommend it personally.

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A watch, but not a must see one

Nice story, great cast, but disappointing end.

(This review don’t have many spoilers, but the ones I gave are about the ending, so read at your discretion)

I came to this drama for the cast and the cast honestly didn’t disappoint. The acting was great, the relationships were so satisfying and there was a part of this drama that even brought me to tears (which is not that easy tbh). This was on the highway for a 10/10 rating, but the ending was honestly a big let down.
I can’t really pin point which episode, but at some point, the secondary couple totally outshined the main one and I was watching mostly for them… Well, I was trying to do this without spoilers, but kinda hard to talk about the disappointing parts without spoilers, so here we go:

The mother’s death at the last episode was expected and I wasn’t that surprised by it, the main couples break up was SOOOOO unnecessary, peak miscommunication situation here, seriously. If they had only TALKED to each other and been honest from the start about their feelings would have avoided so much unnecessary drama by the end, and the fact that they breakup at the start of the last episode and get back together just by the end of it, like, the last 5 minutes or so, just made it all worse for me.
The secondary couple on the other hand was just PERFECT, I loved seeing how their romance slowly built up, they slowly falling for each other and by the end they just being happy together.
Overall, it’s a nice drama, just the main couple’s ending that was quite frustrating for me, it is still a pretty good watch, but I wouldn’t say it’s a must see drama.

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Heartwarming

I’m surprised how much I liked this one! The age gap and chemistry between the leads worked surprisingly well, though I did think their story was a bit underdeveloped towards the end. However, I appreciated the more realistic take on relationships and that they take time to manifest.

Shin Min Ah was wonderful as the FL! She was definitely the main cast member with the most experience in acting, and she handled a range of emotions well. I was easily able to understand her character. Hae Yeong’s development in was very well done. Kim Young Dae was fine, but was a bit one note at times. I have seen one other drama of his, and he’s got good facial expressions, but maybe the writing just didn’t give him enough to do. That being said, his character was such a green flag!

As I’m sure many people have already said, the 2nd lead couple stole the show. At first, their storyline was a big red flag, but they turned out to be super cute. I felt for Ja Yeon and all she’d gone through in her life, and I was pleased to see how they developed Gyu Hyun as a character. Lee Sang Yi was such a loser in this drama, and his moments definitely gave me the most laughs! I usually see him play a badass action hero or cop, so it was a nice change, and he did super well! In the end, I think they both grew a lot and I can’t wait to see them in the spin off!

The only plotline I wasn’t particularly crazy about was the Bok family drama. It wasn’t developed in a way that felt necessary to the story and just padded up the run time, and in the end it wasn’t really resolved? Things just turned out okay between Ji Uk and the family, but no real resolution was shown. I guess they let bygones be bygones and nobody stood up to the parents? The storyline should have been focused on more or cut out altogether. The main conflict should have been Ji Uk and Ha Yeong working on their relationship, which I think was sidelined towards the end.

Overall, I appreciated how certain themes were handled and many moments felt very realistic. Again, I wish we had gotten to see more of Hae Yeong and Ji Uk’s relationship, and more backstory between Hae Yeong and her parents. I think it would have made the drama about Ji Uk being one of the foster kids more impactful as Hae Yeong would have to come to terms with it. But it was a cute drama!

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Fast paced, lots of themes, and enjoyable primary and secondary storylines make this a good watch . . .

There's a lot to recommend here. We get two couples with solid romantic chemistry and fun storylines, plus some themes on childhood wounds and how they carry over into adulthood. Interjected throughout is a really funny sense of humour, and a much more modern feeling to the characters. While a bit clumsy, this turned out to be one of my favorite K Dramas of this year.

The brilliance of this show is that realistic childhood traumas get in the way of forming romantic relationships. Unlike may dramas where poor communication is the result of unexplained immaturity, here there are understandable, justifiable reasons for

As with most dramas, as it nears the end the storylines get clumsy and the end is a bit anti-climatic. (So much so that I actually thought for a whole week more episodes were on their way!) Even so, I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

Sometimes having less budget/prestige pressure allows for more enjoyable watching. That was certainly the case for me. This drama was really a present surprise.

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Wasted Potential

The drama was interesting and had a lot of potential. However it wasted its potential. The story was long winded had too many plots happening at the same time. There was mystery, romance and family all happening at the same time. Now that it has completed, I see that it could have had alot more potential if they selected a main plot and not too many sub plot.

It was a new troupe and i enjoyed it. However, there were more things that could have been done. The acting by the actor and actress were great but it did not give me the feeling of enjoying waiting fir the next episode. I even missed a couple of episodes for weeks as it wasn’t a drama that was at the top of my head.

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A masterpiece that has the worst ending in drama history.

So i gave this a 7.5, because exactly 9 episodes were good, very good, then came the last 3 episodes..
Maybe the writer had a stroke and left her dog to write them.
1. Ml2 was ruined and hated so the entire 2nd leads' story felt like nothing
2. The actual bad guy wins and gets all the credit after cheating and plagiarizing.
3. Fl loses everything then comes crawling back to the same place that wronged her and made her lose everything.
4. A pathetic excuse for the leads' breakup so much so that i wished ml was actually marrying someone else.
I recommend watching the 9 episodes then spoiling the rest or something because watching the ending would seriously leave a worse impression than the entire drama deserves overall.

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This show was hilarious at first...

I loved the initial premises and could feel the chemistry building between the two leads. Then we got to episode 7 and it all went to hell. Right after they kissed, they had that petty fight and the reveal with the "divorce" talk happened. I was wondering what the hell happened because I could have sworn everything up to that point was hinting that we were finally due for the moment they officially got together. After that, I slowly checked out and started to fast-forward, and I couldn't "feel" that chemistry I swore was between our CP anymore.

I love Shin Min Ah, and Kim Young Dae is decent (although he was a bit dry in this), but they were not believable as a couple - to me. It's not entirely for lack of trying but the script was so convoluted at some point that I think it destroyed all the engagement that had been built from the beginning of the show.

A show that started off not taking itself too seriously forgot all about that halfway through and flopped sadly.

The 2nd ML won my heart all the way. There was a part when he discovered ML's identity that I thought was off-putting in how he dealt with it. Other than that, this is the couple that earned this drama a 6 in my book.

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Good watch

It's really difficult to find a good fun drama that doesn't drag nor get boring in the middle, and despite being generally good and very enjoyable, it still lacks one thing or two to be the perfect drama.

What I really liked was the cast, they were great and the second couple were amazing, tbh I continued with this despite the slow beginning just for them, and sadly they appeared after a while so you gotta stick with it till it gets better.
I liked the relationship between the 3 girls but sadly I couldn't feel much sismance between them, there is hardly any strong bond to be shown specially with Huiseong and the 2 FLs.
It was full of funny moments, GyuHyun family and secretary were scene stealers, even his creepy mother.

What I didn't like was parts the story, I don't know why they can't skip the stereotypes found in every single rom-com, also the cast the just appear to serve a purpose or just show something then Poof! disappear.
The end was vague and the whole Book family problem just wasn't solved, also I couldn't understand some characters behaviour in some scenes, specially the FL with the ML and also Huiseong character was completely removable, I don't even think her story was needed, it added nothing but very questionable moments.

Overall it's watchable and enjoyable even, but forgettable and I don't think I'd rewatch it, yet! I'm too excited to watch the spinoff with the 2Leads because they are the best thing about this drama.

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nice fun to watch rom-com

a k-drama that listed all the major K-dramas tropes and tried to apply them all to a T, contract marriage;check, birth secrets;check, chaebol and commoner love; check, fake relationship and cohabitation shenanigans;check, OTP with constantly crossing paths;check, last minute needless separation; check. It practically covered all the main romcom and angst cards out there but it still somehow managed to do it in a very refreshing and fun and endearing way. maybe because this show boasts some of the most easy to cheer on strong gutsy characters, and maybe cause most characters were honest to each other and honest toward themselves when it came to how they felt. we don't get much frustration of an OTP both in denial or oblivious of their feelings, no much useless bickering and missed signals, instead we have a couple of adults that are mature and to the point when they express themselves. another thing I appreciate about Kdramas, is that they somehow sell you chemistry even in the most unexpected of couples, the main leads have quite an age gap, and initially I was worried that they didn't both exude much chemistry and that the romance might be forced, but thank God later the story progresses and the interactions, dialogues and romantic moments were so good they definitely pulled the trick. this drama could've gotten a better rating especially the story, but alas the finale pulled a card that I totally hate "noble idiocy seperation". last episode separations and reunifications are sometimes done well where the story calls for it, it happens because there was a necessity, but other times it is done in such a forced and out of the blue and it just doesn't serve any purpose other than creating a grand reunion scene etc, and it only dampens the story imo especially when in order to pull it off the writers have to abandon the character arc. in this drama the same thing happened but thank God it was kept brief so no much harm was done thank God.

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I found the ML okayish, not great, not terrible.

FL was excellent, her hairstyle was meh.

Secondary couples were good, no love triangle, thank God.

Secondary couple member 'Han Ji Hyun' was the best. Top notch acting, the traumatic/haunting scenes especially. "We will watch your career with great interest."

OST was meh, once again, not great, not terrible.

The jokes/comedy was hilarious. The writer is a man - or woman? - after my own heart. The 'lightsaber' fight was just...in that setting that was the last thing I had expected, but it was ridiculously funny. Alchemy of Souls/Vincenzo level of sound effects, like cat meow and 'tarzan-scream?'.

The ending was poop, but almost every k-drama ending is bad.

Overall and excellent show. Definitely not on the top, but an 8.0/8.5? I think it deserves that.

P.S. Please more jokes and sexual related content like this. Not every k-drama watcher is a 14 years old girl.

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