This review may contain spoilers
I've Played These Games Before
This drama is fine if you're looking for a light watch and it's probably foolish to expect anything deeper out of it, but it's just soooooooo unoriginal. It tricks you into thinking it's changing things up by making the FL the promiscuous one and the ML the pure and innocent one, but besides the gender swap, the story beats are exactly the same as any generic teen romance - and yes, teen and not adult because besides them saying the word "sex" and the FL having a FWB, the romance is extremely PG, with all the typical shoujo manga tropes - Sharing a room/bed (more than once)! Caring for you when you're sick! Random free tickets to go on an aquarium date!What really irks me is the FL lead being set up as an empowered, sex-positive girlboss, but in the end, the drama suggests that the only way for her to be truly happy is to "respect" herself by casting aside her casual relationships and settling down with the young virgin who accepts her despite her history. And of course, no age-gap romance is complete without the characters having known each other as kids, like PLEASE can romance mangakas diversify already?? The amount of dramas I've seen that use that exact set-up is getting excessive.
The two leads are cute and their acting is fine, but they don't really have that much chemistry. I honestly wanted Karen to get with Yuto and Teito to get with his kouhai lol. At the very least, I will say this drama doesn't really drag and went by surprisingly fast.
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