My Girlfriend Is the Man!

Don't over think the series, just enjoy it

This series has so many different stages to it, with lots of different emotions throughout. It's a comedy to a drama to real sadness all blended together.
That being said, I have to give so much credit to Jung Hoo. He was so fantastic being Ji Hun, showing us what a female would look like in a man's body. He had every mannerism down to perfection as a girl (Ji Eun). Just a great job!!
The rest of the cast had its ups & downs. I don't think I've seen a more annoying character is quite some time as Min Ju. Chuu was really good at making herself so irritating in every single scene she was in. It just became so bothersome to watch her character drag Jun Jae around by the nose, it gave me a headache. I think it might have been a bit better to have Jun Jae be a bit more in charge of his life. So many moments I was waiting for him to speak up to his parents, sister, Min Ju, even Ji Hun. You just wanted to to yell at the tv "say something, speak up" ... but it never happened.
The one character that always put laughter in the scene was Min Hyeok. Hyun Jun fit in at just the right moment when you needed a smile. He definitely balanced out the story to keep the comedy strong.
Toward the end of the series, you kind of start to wonder how on earth is this going to work out to a happy ending. They walked a fine line of being a male/female relationship to a BL appearance at times ... but surprisingly, they did a great job at making happy endings all around. I wasn't expecting it to end the way it did, but thumbs up to the writing. They gave a satisfying and enjoyable ending!!

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Interesting

This was really good tbh even tho I didn't really like Yoon Jae at certain times bc he was very annoying and failed backing up his gf every single time. Even after all that, he loved her, even as a man, he's just straight. He can't just turn bi overnight.. Even in the end when he was reading her novel, during the part she talked about how she wanted to seduce him as a man he thought she was rather 'cute' than hot and that's because he knew deep down that's his Ji Eun.. Don't know where people are getting that he's bi, he hasn't shown any type of attraction towards men at all. Whenever she was Ji Hoon they kept it platonic as friends.. Sadly he's just not attracted to men.

It ended well... I saw that a lot of people don't like Min Joo, but for me she wasn't THAT annoying, I feel like she really cared about Jihoon before finding out he's actually Jieun and Yoon Jae's gf. (Started praying at one point for Ji Eun to dump her man and get with her but it was very unlikely😔). Chuu did very well at portraying her.

My theory is that 'true love' is what breaks the curse and turning into a man is to test their partner's love for them. Both Ji Eun and her mom went back to being women (they ended up with the one they love) but Ji Eun's grandma stayed as a man and never returned to her true self because she never found that 'true love'.

I also have seen a lot of people discussing and debating if this is bl... IT'S NOT, and if u think it is u completely missed the point of the series. As a bl and gl expert I know this holds 0% queerness, even Yoon Jae's annoying mom was homophobic.. The whole thing was so unnecessary and Yoon Jae could've fixed it by simply saying that's the person he loves but he never did that. So if u specifically watched this thinking it's gonna end up being a bl while it was even confirmed by the first episodes that she returns to being a woman in the end, well, I feel really bad for you.. Anyways, I hope y'all had a good watch just like I did. And I'd really like to see what everyone else thinks about it and if u agree or disagree with me.

Please more series that Chuu acts in 🙏

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Me enojó, me emocionó y me hizo reír: la serie que no aprovecha todo su potencial, pero conquista

La historia resulta muy entretenida, con la dosis justa de momentos divertidos, emocionales y frustrantes. A mi entender, la trama busca reflejar un proceso de aceptación y crecimiento personal, o al menos esa parece ser la intención. Sin embargo, siento que había un enorme potencial que no se aprovechó por completo.

Los puntos que me hicieron sospechar que algo no estaba funcionando fueron varios:

1. El final. Que Jun Jae regresara simplemente porque quiere estar con Ji Eun, dejando atrás no solo un sueño, sino también sin un plan claro, sin comunicarlo a su familia y sin considerar las consecuencias, me pareció un desenlace demasiado débil y poco trabajado.

2. La relación con la familia. El hecho de que la familia de Jun Jae no conociera a su novia ni supiera quién era no concuerda con la idea de que la relación fuera seria e importante. Esto sería comprensible si Jun Jae fuera alguien distante de su familia, pero no es así como lo muestran.

3. La reacción de la madre. El momento en que la madre cree que su hijo es homosexual me pareció innecesario y mal resuelto. Entiendo que se quiera retratar a una familia conservadora, pero el tema no se desarrolla ni se conecta con el eje principal de la trama: la aceptación y el crecimiento. Habría sido un punto muy enriquecedor de explorar, pero quedó en nada. Además, la escena me generó más enojo que aporte..

4. La “amiga enamorada” de Jun Jae. Su falta de respeto hacia los demás y hacia sí misma no sería tan grave si no estuviera acompañada de la ausencia total de límites por parte de Jun Jae, lo que me resultó frustrante y poco realista considerando cuanto ama Jun Jae a Ji Eun.

5. La “maldición” familiar. Este elemento tenía un gran potencial, pero quedó reducido a un tabú sin un verdadero desarrollo. Una exploración más profunda habría aportado riqueza a la trama y mostrado un crecimiento más sólido en los personajes.

Ahora bien, también quiero destacar lo positivo:

Los temas que se abordan, aunque no con la profundidad que me gustaría, son hermosos: la aceptación y el perdón, especialmente el proceso de Ji Eun para reconciliarse consigo misma.

El amor incondicional y a veces irracional de Jun Jae hacia Ji Eun, que, aunque problemático, también es conmovedor.

El apoyo constante de Yoon Ah, la hermana de Jun Jae, que logra transmitir complicidad y ternura sin perder la típica chispa de los hermanos que parecen “perros y gatos”.

Min Hyeok, que considero uno de los personajes más auténticos de la serie, seguido de Jong Ja, la jefa de Jun Jae, quien contrasta perfectamente con Min Ju: una representa la madurez y el juego limpio, mientras que la otra encarna el capricho y la manipulación.

En definitiva, aunque hay varios aspectos que me parecieron desaprovechados, la serie logró atraparme y hacerme disfrutar de principio a fin. Entre risas, enojos y momentos emotivos, me dejó una experiencia agradable que recomendaría a quienes buscan una historia ligera pero con toques de reflexión.

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PROBABLY THE WORST SHOW WITH THE BEST CAST!!!

I'm really sorry Sanha, Chuu, Junghoo and Arin... But this show was probably one of the worst shows I've watched and honestly it felt like a ragebait. Forget about comfort show, I'd watch this to curse at others. But first let me just start with the good thing I have to say about this show.

For a matter of fact, I loved the acting. and some of it's comedy made me laugh too. This was Sanha's first time as the main ml because he had been ml before but as a side ml and he did a fantastic job being Yunjae and making me angry even though I love him and Chuu too... My girly is an angel irl but portrayed Minju perfectly. Junghoo was my comic relief and made me sad too with his acting and Arin was really good at acting even if she might've cringed at her own acting because she had to play "a girly girl" where the girl has to do aegyo and shake her shoulders to feel like she's a girl in the scriptwriter's eyes but, apart from the bad one-dimensional writing of her character, Jieun, Arin did a pretty good job bringing the character to life.

But this show overall was both homophobic and mysogynistic as well as misandrist. Yunjae didn't even like Jieun for herself, he just liked the fact that she was a woman. He was a real red flag who had no boundaries and in my opinion, his poorly written character was an insult to real men. I already talked about Jieun just being a character who is like how a man would fantasize women to be like coz she was submissive, did not have a backbone and would cry all the time-- exactly how a mysogynist would like to decribe a woman of his dreams. Minju too was no different, portraying women as man-stealer and jealous as well as a seductress who's evil but wasn't it Yunjae who let everything happen one after the other just because he can't say no, has no boundaries and even lets his own girlfriend get insulted by Minju? The only chill character was Jihun but that's just Jieun if she were a man in the director/ scriptwriter's eyes. He's no different.

It's like the scriptwriter or the director was a misanthropist. They hated people in general. I'm really sorry if it sounds like a hate comment but I can't defend it in any way...

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Starts Out Great, Ends With a Meh

A cute, yet boring take on a transformational curse storyline. She periodically turns into a man. The problem is she is in a committed, loving relationship with her devoted boyfriend. The entire series was how they work out being in a relationship together when they never know when she will turn into a guy, and when she'll turn back.

That's it. That's all it was. It was "oh hey you're a man now...let's act awkward and sad...then we'll get used to it and gaze lovingly at each other as we begin to accept this...then an antagonist will come and turn everything into chaos...Oh hey you're a woman now...let's cuddle and hug............oooops, you're a man again......lather, rinse, repeat, on and on.

Episode after episode has some version of this. So, it got really boring after episode 4 to the very end.

There were a couple other storylines thrown in...the triad between the sister, her first love, and the woman who loved him. There was also the best friend and the guy who had a crush on her. Neither of these went very deep. The characters did strange things and were awkward around each other. These were mostly awkward and boring.

In the end, everything and everyone came together to give us a happy ending, but as the viewer, it felt very sanitized and fake. Nothing overly wrong with this drama, but nothing really great about it either. It was just meh.

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Fun, but Coffee Prince Was Braver Than This

(copied from my Viki Account)

[addition at the bottom for finale postmortem]

Giving this a nine, though it's not finished, for overall excellent storytelling and humor.

That being said, I think it's worthwhile to just talk about the core theme of this series and the ambivalence I have toward it. Without it being finished, I can't say what the intention is or how well it was executed. What I can say, is that this series, whether intentional or not, elucidates the whole issue of compulsory heterosexuality. This issue is, what I think, is the main reason why this series seems to be drawing some controversial opinions.

If you don't know what compulsory heterosexuality that means, it's basically a queer theory argument that describes how men and women are socially and politically ingrained to perform heterosexuality; it defines the relationships between men and women, how we can interact with each other, and what is considered socially acceptable behavior between same gender people in order to de-legitamize and stigmatize relationships that are not heteronormative (i.e. queer relationships).

This idea runs at the center of the premise. If you can understand that, you can understand that every conflict between the characters stems from this. It's not just a question of Yoonjae accepting JiEun No Matter What (that's a little simplistic); it's asking YoonJae's character, and all of us really, to confront the very idea of what is normative gender and sexuality.

Both of their characters are initially presented to us as the ideal heterosexual couple; one that is rooted in stereotypical ideas of masculinity and femininity as being oppositional; e.g. she is small and cute, he is tall, handsome, and strong. Their relationship is getting increasingly physically affectionate, following a prescribed, heteronormative path of development (meet-cute, dating, meeting family, kissing, going on a trip, etc.) It's the very idea of what is considered Normal.

But when confronted with this sudden gender change, "JiHun" is stronger, more handsome, and taller than Yoonjae. This is a gender identity crisis for them both. Because now, his girlfriend is everything he is and MORE. Add to that is the sexuality crisis; because of compulsory heterosexuality, they can no longer be physically affectionate—that is presented as a given and almost never challenged so far. For a character that has defined himself, his masculinity, and his sexuality within a heteronormative picture of his relationship to JiEun, this gender change is like a spear shattering that 2-d view.

Suddenly, their lives and personalities are more fleshed out. Yoonjae learns things about JiEun he never knew. They hang out as friends, discovering new aspects of each other. But there's always this tension at the center: when will JiEun turn back into a woman, so they can get back on their Normal progression? And, if Yoonjae can't love "JiHun" the same way, does that mean their love is only contingent on being "heterosexual"?

This is exactly where the ambivalence lies. If JiEun remains a woman at the end, is that not just dismissing this entire crisis and the uncomfortable questions it raised? Is that sweeping the issue under the rug and just reinforcing the compulsory heterosexuality?

But then, would the series *allow* JiEun to remain a man? In which case there are only two outcomes: they break up because Yoonjae is Straight, or they stay together because YoonJae decides he can love "JiHun" the same way. But what about the gender dysphoria and the real questions about gender identity THAT raises?

These are the main questions I am left with at this juncture. I have a feeling I am going to be disappointed about something despite the overall great level of storytelling this series has had so I'll probably leave this at a 9 for not giving me a lot of confidence after 10 episodes.

Bracing myself for the finale!

[finale postmortem]

After the ending, I can add a more conclusive evaluation. Though the series brings up all the issues I've written about above, it does not necessarily answer or incorporate those issues textually. In other words, the gender/sexuality crisis we are all, inevitably, thinking about gets side-stepped entirely.

Instead, the series concludes with a happy ending by deciding that their main issue was just that they weren't communicating well enough with each other, ultimately over-generalizing the central conflict to become entirely non-political. (I'm using the term political in the context of social politics, not specific state politics.) And, in retrospect, I think it was always going to side-step the issue. The narrative's focus on the other side couples and Minju were its way of avoiding the real questions by creating extraneous plot for the characters to work through instead.

So, yeah. I pretty much stand by my original remarks.

TL;DR: Fun, but Coffee Prince was braver than this.

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Supernatural

You will like this Drama if you like fantasy sci-fi dramas. Also if you like dramas that have a higher level of life lessons. There is a way out there message of love lessons.
What would you do if?
Why would you do it?
Can love hide a multitude of faults?
Does it matter what those faults are?

I find this Drama to be highly intelligent and not for the light at heart it's ESPECIALLY not for everyone. There are light moments, funny moments and adult life situations.
I will leave it up to you whether you want to watch or not, because like I said before it's a genre that some people just can't stand.
Anywho
For the DRAMAHOLICS like me it's a godsend. I loved it and I will watch it again and again. No matter what the ending is happy or not. Of course I would love for them to find their way to each other BUT there's a twist and as we all know as humans there's ALWAYS someone out there waiting for a new beginning.

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