Completed in 2025

This just ended up being perfect for me, from start to finish. I liked the entire cast. Just speaking for the leads, I initially wanted to watch this for Gong Myung since it was his comeback project (happy to see him come back to ML roles!) and he was great, but Kim Min Ha was an unexpected bright spot. I feel just a little bit worse now that I'll probably never watch Pachinko, but I will definitely want to see her other future projects; she was so charming here. The pacing was also great, everything unfolded at roughly the time I wanted to know about it, and everything just felt so thought out. There wasn't a single detail that felt wasted, or a moment where I felt 'oh they didn't do enough with this' or 'I still wanted to know more about that'. I cried the whole time (and also laughed! So many times I would start to cry and then find myself laughing because something was genuinely funny even in the midst of how tragic everything was), but I'm just so happy to have watched this.

How I felt watching this is that two sets of footprints poem except here one set is mine and the other set is a kpop boy band that debuted when I was 12. Slightly more seriously, their variety shows are always extremely funny and heartwarming. If only one kpop group could last this long while being active, I'm so glad that it's Super Junior.

For so long these two have just been "the annoying guy in Bad Buddy" and "the annoying guy in The Trainee" to me, but their scene in Sweet Tooth, Good Dentist made me so curious about them that I thought I might as well pick this out from my PTW list. Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised! I liked this a lot minus the plot about the character played by someone is becoming a new "annoying guy" in everything I see him in that I'm just not going to mention by name! Moving on, the leads were great (I'm a fan now, I will be watching Vice Versa and My Magic Prophecy); I was invested in all the family relationships; and the side couples were extremely cute (single mom Porjai and Night's relationship was so, so sweet and I was so happy when I realized we'd get to see their wedding! Also Aon and Pla's wedding (I love weddings in dramas, the more the better)! Aon being played by that absolutely tragic SML from Kiss: The Series so that I could see that guy happy!).  This was also just like...nice, like minus the part that I hated, everyone was so nice or at least not purposefully malicious. I kept waiting for things to break bad or for something to be revealed to be more sinister than it first appeared, but no, just a bunch of generally nice people in a world where good things tend to happen which is something I feel like I need to see at this point in time.

I picked this out for a watch challenge so I was mostly resigned to watching it, and for maybe the first slow half hour, I wasn't even sure that I was enjoying this. However, at a certain point, I found myself tearing up (and also realizing that I was not getting any laundry done). This was a good sad, and also it made me want to go spend some time with my grandma.

Oh, this was good; I regret waiting to watch it for so long. I'm glad I went in not really knowing much, and while I definitely have a preferred interpretation for the ending, I did like how open it was. The perspective change/time skip towards the end was a little jarring (I genuinely think I blinked and missed it), but other than that, I really liked the married couple's relationship; the eerie tone throughout (there were some comedic moments that I also liked); and the way this movie chose to dole out bits of information. I do wish I could have been watching this as just another one of Lee Sun Kyun's roles instead of one of his last ones, but I appreciated seeing him on screen again. He always made it look effortless and had a way of immediately drawing viewers in that is sorely missed.

I watched this just in time for the leads to leave their company :') Anyway, this is the first Thai GL I ever finished and binged. The leads were so good together. I absolutely loved the weaponization of "guy with a guitar". Wa being so level-headed was also a treat, and the reveal for Four was pretty cute. Also the little sister! Drama little siblings tend to be annoying, but that was never an issue here. I loved whenever she would pop up and was genuinely glad to see her again after her brief disappearance.

This (my first makjang) was very fun! Choi Jin Hyuk and Shin Sung Rok are two beloved "tall weird guy" actors so having them both here was excellent. This is also my first finished Jang Na Ra drama and I really liked her here! Watching Sunny go from being duped constantly to becoming savvy enough to run schemes on her own was so satisfying. But I liked pretty much all the cast here, even the ones who were very hateable.

The only odd one out was the younger prince. Next to the rest of the cast (this guy was getting out-acted by the child actress, and I say that with tons of respect for the child actress) he really had no presence, to the extent that when the show made me sadly reflect on how the imperial family had been nearly wiped out, I accidentally counted him among the dead until he showed back up again. Speaking of the dead, I can't believe they didn't leave me even just one of the male leads. I know that characters who commit this many murders or go this hard on revenge don't get to make it out alive but I wanted at least one couple to work out so bad (okay I wanted it to be Lee Hyeok... I would have accepted Wang Sik and Sunny because in a perfect world they would have met first and been normal happy people and they were also very cute, but Lee Hyeok is exactly my favorite kind of terrible weirdo. Alternatively, all three of them have two hands!)

The pacing on this was also perfect. I get worried whenever royalty is involved because the palace intrigue usually kills any plot momentum dead for me, but everything happened so quickly that I didn't have time to get bored. Towards the end I did start to see the seams a bit (this maybe went on a little longer than it should, probably made worse by losing Choi Jin Hyuk four episodes too early) and there was a bit of fatigue, but by the time I was on the last episode, I was definitely reeled back in and felt like I could have watched even more.

This was nice! I did do a I Told Sunset About You rewatch right before but this was lovely coming off of that.

So sorry I let this sit on a shelf for two years! While I've never seen so many people so willfully determined to be unhappy, I sped through this in a week. This reminded me of all the things I liked about Boys Over Flowers (rollercoaster ride pacing, good callbacks, so 2009 it hurts) but by way of The Love You Give Me. I loved the leads even when they were getting on my nerves and also their kid was so cute. I did fast forward through some of the SML's scenes for the Ci Xin plot since that is when he was at peak nuisance (also why didn't he just call the freaking cops?!) but once he and everyone were all focused on making the leads stop misunderstanding each other, he was fine. Oh, also this is maybe the only time I've seen these big family member betrayals work out in a way that them being forgiven felt believable and I actually wanted everyone to be one big  happy family instead of going no contact.

Very nice mermaid story-adjacent horror romance about a rich kid on vacation who meets a girl who may (or may not?...well...okay, she definitely is) be a shark that has been killing people (well, guys who definitely deserved it for being total creeps) in a fishing town for a couple generations. Everyone except the rich kid seems to treat this like the worst thing in the world but much like him, I'm not seeing any downsides to this, personally! Anyway, I really liked this. The lead actress had a really good mysterious vibe that went well with the general Only Good Guy Around vibe of the lead actor. I do think I would have liked a different ending (I mean the one I wanted is hinted at, I think) but that's about the only problem I had with this.

Cute!

This definitely felt like a webtoon with many subplots shaved off to fit into a two hour movie (things that felt like this: intern guy, FL's mom, FL's friend/that guy, the way the ex-girlfriend just kind of walked out of the movie), but overall I really liked it. The missing parts mostly felt like extras and not like I was getting half a story like most webtoon adaptations. The cute moments were surprisingly cute, and the other moments were also surprisingly good at being those too. I also just really liked these leads? I've never seen them in main roles (and I'm only passingly familiar with them from their idol days, their groups and I are like ships passing in the night) so I was expecting some growing pains but no, liked them right away, could have watched them even just working in an office for hours. Anyway, another one I'm sorry I let sit on the shelf for so long.

These leads! A secret kid (well, kids) plot! Only a couple episodes spent wondering if this ML tried to kill the FL's dad instead of it being the whole show like it usually is! Also the Maid's Revenge music popping back up again! Anyway, this was good. A little draggy once we transitioned into the 'okay now that we've solved most of the present day problems, it's time to dig up old problems' section of shows like this but again, thankfully it was pretty short.

There's just something about these webtoon adaptations, like it's the only kind of adaptation where I feel like I can always see 'oh this is where this probably had more time in the webtoon'.  Anyway, getting that complaint that I have about every webtoon adaptation out of the way, I liked this. The main three were all really solid and the pacing was pretty good (kind of wish we had spent less time on the beginning plot if pretty much none of those characters except Yeongi were going to matter later but like...whatever!).  I will say this is maybe the only time I've watched one of these and am interested in the webtoon, even though this story went the way I knew it had to from the beginning.

I don't think I've ever seen Jung Kyung Ho this young or with hair this short. Also, Haru's mom! I knew that she is an actress, but I've only heard about her in stories, truly a mythical figure. Anyway, this was cute, funny, and very sad at times. I also just felt really good about the romance, not sure how else to phrase it? There is a Very Popular Show that everyone except me really liked that did not do its romance plot even a third as well as this. I do wish we could see the reunion (Of course they get back together! I know that dramaland cops are extremely jobless but like...get real, he was there at the end because he's still a part of her now more matured life!) but since that's not really what this is about I will forgive this for not going on a little longer.

Another absolutely crushing installment in this series.

I love watching these two characters fall in love so much. This is the closest I've gotten to the OG source material so far, but it's my fourth adaptation (after the 2009 South Korean series, the 2018 Chinese series, and the 1995 Japanese movie). Some parts were a little less interesting than others (going to assume these parts just felt longer since they were not familiar on account of getting left out of other adaptations) but the cast was all great and always managed to pull me back in when I started drifting off. Also, really enjoyed the Arashi song for the opening! I've heard it a million times but never knew it was used for this show. 

I watched the first six episodes not knowing this was a Hong sisters drama but thinking 'man, this reminds me so much of A Korean Odyssey'.  That's not entirely a bad thing; I really liked the first half-ish of A Korean Odyssey, and I really liked even more of this, I would say up to about the 13th episode? But with every Hong sisters drama, there comes a point where the sinking feeling of 'oh...um...that's where this was going' starts creeping in and all you can do is just keep pressing next episode, watching the characters you like so much participate in the endgame of a plot that you have barely any interest in. I will say that I was pretty interested in the kidnapping accomplice plot up until the first reveal (and by the second reveal I was just like um...whatever? I think the actor and actress playing the younger ML/first love girl were really lacking so that wasn't helping) and I absolutely loved the relationship between the leads up until they were still not together post-amnesia. Since you know they're not going to stay apart, the prolonged separation feels like a big waste of time. I did like almost all of the side characters, especially the super devoted SML (a surprising Seo In Guk! I didn't care for him in Death's Game but I can now see what my friend was telling me) and Secretary Kim (it was so sad to start this, excitedly recognize this guy as a fixture of my drama watching, and then see the news about his passing within a short span of time). I really didn't like the SFL, this bratty type that lives her entire life with a complex about the FL is my least favorite kind of SFL, and these runner up romances never feel worth rooting for. I like shows with multiple couples, but I prefer the various love lines to be entirely parallel to each other or if they must intersect, they need to separate way sooner than happened here.

I see this writer, I know that I am in for good watch. Will the plot be entirely structurally sound? That's more of a maybe (this is one of those ones where it was iffy, most of it didn't bother me but I didn't completely get what the mood was supposed to be between Ze Rui and Zhang Teng) but I always like her characters so much that I don't care. The setup being a bit lacking or rushed is easily forgotten when the payoff is avoiding things that would be annoyingly drawn out otherwise. The newcomers (people I haven't seen before, so really just three fourths of the main couples) were great, would be happy to see them again. I also loved all the cameos (the assorted HIStory guys, the Be Loved in House guys, one of the guys from Red Balloon, and another one from See Your Love for all the ones I recognized).

I liked this, though I am glad that I decided to start with Last Twilight for these two. This was just a little weaker in certain aspects (most of these aspects are literally what was the deal with Tess, the guy makes no sense, and the others just boil down to 'I know this is more dramatic but where is the explanation for why this character wouldn't just do the easiest thing here').  Anyway JimmySea good,  liked AouBoom here about a million times more than in Perfect 10 Liners, always good to see Neo, and each of the "things are different here" jokes/cameos were very fun. The wrap up at the end did go a long way to making me feel better about the pretty silly detour of 'oh no will they still date even if one of them is a celebrity?' because I spent that time worried, not about that non-problem, but Aou, Up, and Dol so it was good to get that closure.

SOTUS was my first Thai BL series. It holds a special place in my heart and I've long wished the cast would get back together for another project for me. I had resigned myself to 'well Krist does a lot of OSTs', but dreams can come true, and I we got Krist and Singto (bickering and flirting, even! everyone take some notes!) in 2025. Is this show good? A very large part of me wants to say it doesn't matter, because what matters is that I watched this and had a good time, and later I'll rewatch SOTUS etc. and have an even better time, and then I'll listen to the OST and daydream about the Our Skyy-esque continued adventures of their married life, which will be the best time.

However, a small part of me would say that this show was just fine. The show expertly pushes the nostalgia button, I like these two leads a lot, and everything else was okay, nothing worth praising specifically. But this show has a problem I'm noticing a lot lately. A show will have a main premise, like ex-lovers meet again to work together amidst some opposition, and like three episodes in, the show decides that it's about something else, or sidelines that plot for subplots, some entertaining and some not, some which will resolve and some which will unsatisfyingly stop. The show then hastily returns to/resolves the main premise too early but keeps going with a betrayal from a character, usually an ex of one of the leads, that isn't poorly set up as much as it is not set up at all (it's a betrayal for the character because they dated this person and they weren't evil back then, but for me this is just the guy from Until We Meet Again). I'm excited for My Romance Scammer too, but Paul didn’t need to exist for anything besides making Tam jealous. The same plot beats could have been achieved by using Te and Suwit more effectively, and it would have worked better (would have explained why they got wedding invites, seriously why would they have been invited).

Very nice to see one of the guys from Grey Shelter again (and also a Hotshot member!) This was just really cute, mostly fun and more than a bit sad at times. The cat and dog actors were probably my favorites. Both of them do a good job with "well you are a person now, but in your heart of hearts, you are a cat/dog". Everybody in this tiny cast pulls their weight here though. The ending is...well, it does make you question a couple things but  I'm fine with just accepting this gift horse since the alternative would have been too sad. Season 2 does seem pretty explicitly stated at the end and I keep seeing it listed but also like...I kind of don't believe it? I would definitely watch it though.

For the first five episodes, this felt almost too short, and then for the last three episodes, I found myself fast forwarding (not by much! just 30 seconds at a time whenever I was like well I know how this fight is going, let's move things along, or yes I get it they're running, let's hurry up) so...pacing. Again, I have this feeling this is great as a webtoon and just poorly adapted. Also I feel like this maybe gets a bit more believable as a webtoon? I spent all of the first season wondering this, and the same thing happened here which is like where are any adults? Where are the teachers? Where are the other people in this town? How is any of this easier/better than just going to class and going home everyday? I'm not counting this against the show because this feels like me just not understanding a genre but...still have to mention it. None of the characters/actors have this "seems like they didn't translate well" problem (just talking about the newcomers, Ryeoun's Hu Min really stood out, liked him as soon as he showed up, Lee Jun Young wasn't in this nearly enough but when he was, also very good, big fan of the kind of guy that Seong Je is) except for, unfortunately, Baek Jin. I didn't feel anything about this guy, like not even a character I liked having history with him could convince me to care about him. Again, I get the sense that there's way more to this. I was surprised by the ending (not the Baek Jin ending, the word for that feeling would be uninterested) since this seems like a show where mostly bad things happen, but like, gift horses, mouths, etc, I'll take it.

Cute, but a little slow, which was how I felt about the manga too.

This is probably more truthfully a 7.5 but Mark finally had a main character amount of screentime in something so there's the .5 increase. As for the leads together...I didn't see the vision at first (I think I'd have to watch Last Twilight to see where this pairing came from? I feel like I was really being sold on it here and if so, it worked, I'm curious) but I get it now, I'm on board.  I hope I can one day complain about how many times I have to watch Mark and Ohm.  Okay ignore all of that, I just finished Last Twilight and 1) I can now admit that this was me trying to cope, I don't get it at all and 2) there's no basis for this! Why is this what the people wanted? I don't adjust scores after watching on here but my new rating would probably be like a 6.5 rounded up to a 7, still entirely to do with Mark having a main character amount of screentime.  Anyway, back to the rest of what I wrote before:

The show overall is a little inconsistent, but this is just something I have come to accept about these writers. They definitely have their weaknesses, but for every two times I roll my eyes, I get something like the episodes focused on Jay's family. I'll eventually only remember the latter instead of the former. The supporting characters mostly are just kind of there with a few memorable moments for each, but at least there's nothing to complain about.

It was torture watching this because my interest in these shows almost immediately takes a nose dive a few episodes in due to my inability to latch onto contestants who don't get voted off, but I did manage to finish it since I didn't want to start another, possibly even longer show for the watch challenge I was doing.  I don't know if I could ever actually finish another season but I would at least attempt it! I liked the judges and the majority of the contestants all seemed so polite and competent. Even if I could do with shorter episodes, it is really a joy to watch people with these skills (I'm envious of a lot but the knife skills! especially the knife skills!) cook in such interesting ways.

Nice to see the guy from Isa Pa With Feelings again! I always get a little worried about this premise (because I am worried it will end sadly, and I cry easily) but this was pretty cute for most of the time. The reveal was a bit ruined by my recognizing the male lead too soon; I thought one thing was going on when I should have just waited so I wouldn't be disappointed by what was actually going on, but that's on me. The ending was a little unsatisfying for me, but I can imagine how someone would really like how open (and more than a little sad) it is.

I knew this was going to be watching a couple I really like have a terrible time (and it was!), but I think I liked it as much as I could. Not as much as the first part but I was still invested. I think my problem with this one is that the world felt a little empty? Maybe that's just city life vs. rural life but it was about the time the old friends all got back together that I realized I could barely remember the names of most of Teh or Oh-aew's new friends, let alone what they were like. Maybe I'll really appreciate this on a rewatch someday.

I really liked the look and sound of this, and the leads were great. It's probably by design given how one thread of this movie is how unreliable your perspective of a situation can be, but whenever I got glimpses of other characters (or well...just the dissertation professor), I found myself wanting a bit more of that.

Very nice to see the Maid's Revenge leads together again! These little mini melodramas are not masterpieces, but they are pretty fun.

Very fun! This is definitely not a live action adaptation where nobody is trying. Everyone here wants to be as over the top and crazy as the characters they're portraying and it really helps sell all of the various games and monologues.

This had an okay start, an iffy middle, and then an ending that was somewhere in between. Some quick rankings:

Lead Couples: Faifa/Wine > Arc/Arm > Yotha/Gun

Couple OSTs: "Love Suspect" >>>> "No One Else" > "Trial Love"

Side Characters (by each set of eight episodes): Part 1 >>>>>> Part 2 > Part 3

I didn't dislike any of the lead couples, but Yotha's, and to a much lesser extent Arm's "is it really love, how can I know when I was broken up with before" thing was tiresome. I was so happy once I realized that Faifa hadn't ever dated anyone and Wine wasn't the one who was broken up with, since it meant everyone could finally talk about something else. Also it was nice to watch two people date without one of them sabotaging themselves, purposefully (Yotha, there were times where I literally had no idea what he was even trying to do) or not (Arm).

The side characters and focus/connection between them and the leads is where this show fell flat for me. The first eight episodes had a huge cast between the Perfect 10 Liners, Arm's friends, and Arc's friends, and I felt like I got to know all of them. They go to school together and interact. Gun's friends were around for his eight episodes, but had little to do with the people Yotha knows. By the time we got to the last eight episodes, Yotha's acquaintances are still hanging around even though most of them have even less to do with Faifa, and Wine's friends were like wallpaper. Every time the show stopped to check in at the bar or see what Klao and Wa were doing during the last eight episodes, it felt disconnected from the story. I did like how often I could play "where do I know this person from" but why are all these people here if it's not in service of telling a story about the people whose group name is the title of the show? 

Dai Gao Zheng is why I picked this up. He still looks and acts like he was created in a lab to be in these, no notes. I did miss his co-star from Forever Love and Maid's Revenge, but this actress wasn't bad, just different. This, of course, had a big family murder mystery plot but I just couldn't care about it. Much less of that, much more of the plot with the villain, who was a delight to watch. I did feel really bad for him instead of him just being an evil crazy guy like what seems to be the norm with these. His revenge was very misdirected, but it's against the law to just talk with people so I get it. Still, ML had two hands and always seemed on board with having his wife and boyfriend sworn brother side-by-side, so even though it couldn't have ended that way, I still kind of wish it did. The ending was also a little abrupt? Maybe a side effect of there being so many characters popping in and out of a plot with very little time for all of them, but I would have liked a little bit more time between the villain's death, the little scene with his sidekick, and then babies ever after for the leads and the two people who were just around to make the leads jealous for a bit.

Fun, but missing something. I've seen the leads in other shows (Exo Next Door, Racket Boys) and liked them here too. I might have even liked the second couple a bit more but I'm biased because I've had eyes for Kwak Si Yang since his quiet guy with a crush role in Oh My Ghostess. I did think that this felt...maybe shortened is the word? I'm sure there's someone out there who is glad this was only 12 episodes in a world where everything is longer with a sequel for $$$, but I'd have liked more time for side character interactions and pre-accident flashbacks. The grandmother was always going to be a hard sell for me because I knew that her redemption scene was just going to be "I'm sorry for being terrible for so long, there's no way to fix this. Anyway I'm your grandma" but maybe I'd have been more willing to buy into it if I had any idea about the dynamics between her and ML's dad/mom, or even her and ML, before the accident. Like was she ever even remotely nice or even normal to ML? To her husband? To her son?  If so, I'd have liked to have seen it so that I could imagine why ML would even want to work this hard.

I would say "are vampires back" but I think I've never really gotten good vampires out of any dramas. Maybe 2025 can be the year, starting with this? This was great and also had a nice surprise story-wise.

I almost dropped this because it took a while for the story to really start (which was by design) but I'm glad I stayed with it. This was good but also very sad.

Oh hey, one of the guys from Egoist was here. Weird. Anyway, is it possible that Kiwatari acting like a total lunatic is what keeps this series on the rails? The reveal of his "look at the pretty flower" thing being a bit he was doing was so funny, and very welcome after season 2 which, like him after joining The Village, was kind of boring.  I'm sure whatever it is The Village is doing is super gripping and compelling in the manga but I can't even begin to imagine caring about it. Also they have Inuhachi who is somehow the only person in this entire series who manages to be annoying. Overall, this movie went back to what was good about this to begin with: people being crazy about gambling (special mention to Inuhachi's kidnapper, who turned out to be the craziest of all), Yumeko and Suzui teaming up (well, as much as Suzui can, anywhere else he'd be the whiny main character guy, but this series puts him in his rightful place as sidekick), and Mary having things to do.

Watching this felt like someone showing me the abbreviated version of a longer drama. This is not always bad; I think I got everything out of this that I was going to get out of it at its current length. Leads were fine (the one with the personality disorder reminds me of someone...just can't place it though it was Shin Sung Rok! very similar expressions), side characters all did their part, the ending song is going on my playlists... It can be that simple sometimes.

Cute! It's short so the pacing is pretty quick (maybe even too quick, I kind of wish the dates had been a bit less montage-y but this was expected). You get a good sense of each of the three characters (there's technically more but like, the three that are on screen) and the story wraps  up nicely.

Short, simple, and sweet are what come to mind to describe this. I was a little confused at first with the past and present timelines being sort of on top of each other, but by the last episode, it was really satisfying (and made sense, since like...that is life). The younger leads had the most screentime, but the older leads did pretty well with their limited amount of time. There was a very good picking up where they left off vibe to them. I also appreciated the side character who was going through his own thing in the past timeline, and also how it added some depth to what is normally just "Disapproving Parent" in this kind of story.

For me, this needed to be sillier; it was a rough watch of something I've already seen. First time watching TayNew acting instead of playing around on a variety show so that was fun. I did like the additions to the story for Rock and Pai. Nice to see where Junior and Mark came from, though I don't think this plot worked for them. It's an age gap couple, but Junior is a whopping one year older than Mark, even if he's wearing big glasses.

Man, I miss f(x). Anyway, I liked this well enough. Krystal is fun, and I haven't seen Kim Jae Wook play a guy who didn't belong in prison since Coffee Prince. The villains were all pretty dumb, but that didn't hurt my watching experience too much.

I think my watching experience of this suffered by 1) me waiting too long to watch it so that I already had songs I was waiting to hear instead of just being able to enjoy them organically and 2) it being hyped up by the worst people in the world (relative to their direct impact on my daily life), my coworkers. I didn't dislike this, but I think the parts I liked (the romance (too slight! also too sad!), the way too brief bit about past Honmoon protectors at the very beginning, the non-Jinu Saja Boys, the sense that I missed a way more interesting movie that took place about one Rumi ago that also would have had the romance I wanted) were not enough in focus and the parts that were in focus weren't really anything new and so were not keeping my attention. I did like both the singing/speaking casts and the characters, just not crazy about the plot.

First time watching one of these where I don't know either of the leads! These two were good together, and the main-est of the side characters (FL's step-brother, the nephew, and FL's friend) were so funny. I was actually really appreciating how plot-light this was (and also how neither of the leads was being accused of murdering the other's parent/s) until like three episodes from the end where it turns out that was where they were hiding all the plot.  I guess it had to happen eventually but it really felt like someone suddenly holding up a "NO FUN ALLOWED" sign. The only thing I really didn't care for is that as annoying and evil as this one character was, I don't think that her fate was deserved (also not quite sure why it needed to happen? Other than just to force the father's hand but like...just don't write it that way then).

This started strong and then got kind of confusingly edited/paced after episode 6. I think this was because this show does have a reveal so they couldn't just put those events in chronological order, but wow did it make it difficult to follow. The leads were good though, and I did like the premise. These never really get to be longer but that probably would have helped. Still happy I watched it, a little sad I let it sit on my PTW list for so long.

This was a mostly fun watch, a bit dragged down by a point in the last half where Mico inexplicably chooses multiple times to sabotage his not-yet relationship and then be really upset about it, as if it was something someone else did to him. Truly baffling and I think if I had liked the characters/this format less (or if this had been more of a time commitment, it is pretty short), I might have dropped this. That said, I did really like the characters (also liked the side couple's plot) and I am a sucker for this format (and some of the non-webcam shots are just kind of pretty? Not sure how to describe this). Anyway, this had the same director as 2 Cool 2 Be 4Gotten which was...interesting to know! There was a neat little reference to that film at one point that I thought was cute.

I think I've seen "high school almost relationship but one backs out, meeting again as adults" as many times as I've seen "parent visits and finds out about a secret partner". This one is fine, all of these are always fine. This is one of the few times where I'm content to sort of fill in the blanks for anything that's not explicitly shown or is left a little vague for one reason or another.

Not much to this one, but sometimes simple is refreshing. I did like the music choices and the actresses.

"I have not seen Bed Friend so I didn't have any idea about anybody else, those guys seemed alright I suppose." -- me when writing my thoughts on The Middleman's Love

Okay now having watched those guys for about ten hours, I think I would have been okay not knowing more. I don't think there's anything wrong with the leads (they look good separately/together), but the pacing/handling of the non-FWB plots was just weird. Obviously we couldn't leave any of the make out sessions out (only partially a joke), but the remaining time was not used wisely. It felt like we were speeding along just fine, and then nothing was happening in any of the plots for like five episodes, only for King to basically press a button that made all the bad people go away (Uea's mom, step-father, uh..the boss they had? I've watched two series about this company and I couldn't tell you anything about the structure) or decide they just changed their minds about what they wanted (King's mom). Granted by the last episodes, I wasn't complaining about things not being drawn out, but I also wouldn't have complained if these developments had just taken place over the course of all the episodes relatively equally (or well, over the course of all but the last episode, and then last episode is a victory lap/proposal episode). The only other character that really stood out to me is Jade and....man did I not remember how much of an acquired taste that guy is. I know I watched a whole series just about him and it was fine but I think whatever immunity I gained from that has worn off, and I did find myself fondly remembering how quiet Yim's character was in Cutie Pie. Still, the Tutor cameo moment at the end was cute.

Another absolutely tragic case of 'this actually isn't a romance' that seems to follow me around whenever I find a jdrama to watch. Anyway, I liked this! The mysteries were interesting, and also I felt very smart when I could figure out what happened before ML did. This would probably be a 7.5 if I didn't watch it with the looming specter of knowing the FL isn't in the sequels.

This was a fun and quick watch with some actresses that I really like seeing. The ending is right on the cusp for me since I do love commitment to a bit (I did find it pretty funny) but I also would have liked things to be wrapped up. It's definitely not that kind of show though. 

I would like to see everyone here in something else with a little bit more going on. I think this would be a great starter BL though.

Not as fun as the first season. I really do like watching these characters talk but it just felt like there was not a lot going on, and characters just kept showing up with no time to really go into them. It did feel a bit like my fault for not watching the anime or reading the manga but...I don't want to watch the anime or read the manga, I want to watch the live action.

I think I had a copy of this lying around because I was just saving anything that was tagged with Takarazuka. Anyway, not a bad watch; this felt like something I might have caught part of on TV and been too hypnotized by how pretty it looks to change the channel. I might go find one of the many translations out there because I kept getting confused with the back and forth between the Genji story and the Murasaki story, and after two hours I am interested in how this story is supposed to go. Could have done without these odd musical interludes that kept popping up.

Not as well told as the first season or the special. I preferred Emi's story over Runa's since it just felt like there was more to it. Ths is my first time seeing a cult in any drama, but putting that alongside the sex industry felt right. Runa's story felt a little empty in comparison, made worse by her half having the cameos in it, so that I spent some time wishing I was still watching their stories instead. It also suffered from having Hayato played by a guy with no presence whatsoever, to where even though I was interested in seeing the idol industry through this story's lens, I didn't even want it at the cost of him being around more. Unlike every other instance in this show where I am fooled by a romantic set up that I know will not work out, I was just waiting for this guy to quit making her life worse and go away.

I really liked both of the leads, with Hyeri really carrying this (very surprisingly, I've only seen her in Two Cops and a bit of Schoolgirl Detectives, this role was not like those roles), and overall the show was great until maybe episode 9 or 10? After that, I had no idea what was going on. With so many "no, but you see this was actually part of a plan that we agreed to earlier"/"but actually, they already knew this because of a hidden camera" reveals, it was hard to care about what was going on in the main plot, since every ten minutes it was all fake or half fake or someone knew something the whole time or whatever. I finished this since I wanted to see where everyone ended up (I was way more interested in the side plots than the main one).

Creepy, but I also don't think I really got it. There is probably a fairly scary manga out there that people probably like a lot more than this adaptation.

Positives first, more Sing and Jan! Actually all of the side characters and their little plots were really fun. I would have been fine if this was just "hey look at the people you recognize goofing around" for twelve episodes. Special mention to Drake because it'll probably be the last time I'll see him for a while :( Uh...rapid fire for the other highlights, Off/Drake scene, Tay's character's reveal, New cameo, and the theme song that will definitely be in my Spotify thing at the end of the year. So fly catchy. Moving on to what truly dragged this show down was the leads' romance. It seemed to just be progressing really slowly at first so I thought I would be more interested in it later but then we were on the last episode (Why was there a love triangle that kept these two apart for like an extra two episodes? This was dumb. They should have gotten together earlier and the plot of the last episode should have been multiple episodes, truly felt so silly that they were acting like this about a break up that for the audience took place over like, half an hour) and I still wasn't really interested. I don't think it's a chemistry thing but more like a 'time was not used wisely' thing. I guess it kind of works out that the romance is so sidelined for most of the show since it's done so poorly, but like, this is clearly supposed to be a romantic comedy, they just seemed to have forgotten the first part for quite a long time.

I needed much, much, much less of the side characters. Still a good watch for the leads and also if you like watching people cook.

This maybe should not have had romance in the title; it was a little lacking in that aspect. The relationship between the leads was kind of odd. Now, MC was kind of like looking into a mirror for me, so I can understand how it turns out that the guy he's liked since college doesn't seem that special to me, because that's just kind of how that is. The person you've secretly liked since college is special to you, and explaining what's so great about them to anyone who doesn't have the same unique blend of experiences is kind of impossible and besides the point. But that aside, that guy was just kind of strange? I think the thing about him suddenly offering life insurance (?) to MC was such a weird moment that it soured me on him early on, and then even them talking it out was weird too. Their relationship just seemed like "I love you" (romantic)/"Same bro" (platonic), and never seemed to go beyond that (possibly because we're so stuck in MC's head but like...you have to give the audience something we can notice even if MC can't, I think), and then the lockdown really limited how much characters could actually do, so after about an hour, it just felt like the movie was spinning its wheels until it ended. Having seen a few of these found footage-y rom coms that came out of this era, the ending was kind of disappointing. I'm assuming they just weren't able to film a meeting, but like...the leads have to meet up, it seems crazy that they had the weakest "oh I always knew" conversation (still felt like "I love you, bro" to me) and then the movie just ended. I did like the conversations between MC and the friend, and I am a sucker for this concept, even if it wasn't a vehicle for anything that great.

I don't know, I didn't even like The Sixth Sense,  and maybe that's what this was going for? I think I would have liked just a more straightforward horror movie; (what I could see of) the scarier scenes were pretty well set up. I did want to know what was going on the entire time, but then it ended and I still feel like I'm just waiting to find out what was going on. The leads were fine, no one else really stood out mainly because I feel like I could never get a good glimpse of any of them (one of them died (maybe?) and when their body was found I wasn't shocked because I had no idea who it was). I almost want to say maybe this would better if it was shorter/tighter but I think that version exists and people aren't crazy about that either so who knows.

Getting fooled by a GMMTV thriller honestly feels like losing a game of peekaboo to a baby, not sure I ever want to feel like this again. (not talking about the end reveal, I want to clarify, knew it as soon as we appeared to skip entirely over a funeral scene! I just hoped thought that the main character I liked less would be the one to sacrifice himself) Anyway, the premise at the start was interesting even as I thought 'this makes no sense if you think about it for too long' but as expected it started to unravel and by the end I found myself thinking less 'I wonder how they're going to solve this Leap Day curse' and more 'so when is Burnout Syndrome airing exactly'. I definitely had my favorites in the cast (sorry to Dew and Pahn, people I've never seen before, but when I was especially not interested in the plot, this was the Gun and Pond Show) but everyone was generally fine. Honestly I was enjoying the show way more when it was not so heavily plot-focused and I could have used a bit more 'here's just the cast hanging out in various configurations' moments so that things like 'oh one of them is kind of evil now' could have had more impact.

Movies like this are so strange that I can't help but watch them. I have no explanation other than that, well, someone though this was worth making and that's enough for me to want to see it. This was pretty unexpectedly funny at times. Even a little sweet (????) at a couple moments before the movie went back to business as usual.

I think I just didn't like the structure of this one? I'm still thinking about how to thread this particular needle but I think it would have been possible to spread some of the things about episodes 11 and 12 throughout the series. It would have needed a slightly different premise, but honestly I think the premise they used is what made some people feel a bit cheated (also some of the side characters were just not interesting. I did a lot of skipping since I just wanted the highlights but if I had watched these episodes in their entirety and/or while they aired, I definitely would have gotten annoyed after the reveal even with episodes 11 and 12 being really good). Besides the "parents" who are actors I always like in everything, I think I liked the main cast most in the past scenes; another reason why I wish the drama had spent more time there throughout.

Nice to see the guy from AI Love You/Pee Mak and one of the leads from The Secret of Us again! Anyway, this had a very cute lead couple with a plot that was paced pretty good for the first couple of episodes, and then stalled until the last half. The show kind of tried to do episodic (various events at this foundation that helps victims of abuse) and one big story (overarching plot tied to multiple generations of abuse and social connections between abusers and victims) without having the time to do both/transition smoothly from one to the other. I can't say I wanted this to be longer, but that might have helped.

I had high hopes for this one since it's one of those classics that I've never seen, but a lot of fast forwarding happened here. I couldn't care about the arranged marriage plot or any of the ML's rich family problems at all. I also don't think I liked the leads that much? Once they were properly together it was a bit more bearable (granted I was crying non-stop at that point so that might have helped), but I wasn't invested in the process of them getting together. I did enjoy when the focus was on pretty much anyone else: the mom and her second chance love story; the younger cancer patient with her crush; the tango club; even the leads just with other people like FL with her best friend and the eventual friendship between ML and  SML. And speaking of him, the doctor was the main character who kept me from dropping this. I know FL wanted the kind of whirlwind romance she got with ML, but I just wasn't buying it, whereas I was immediately sold on "we met as classmates, she was my first love, 25 years later we're meeting again as doctor and patient". I also would rather watch a doctor doing doctor things than a business guy doing business things.

I'm  not sure I ever had any idea what was going on but it was good at creating an atmosphere. I saw that someone recommended The Blue Hour if you liked this and...yes, I would agree, these feel similar.

This isn't a bad movie but the lead is a guy who is too dumb to know his own birthday without pulling out his ID card. It's not the first thing that happens (it's in fact much closer to the end of the movie) but it did feel very character defining. Nothing really stood out about this one, it was just okay.

Oh, the things I've watched for Johnny Huang. This needed to be about 10-15 episodes shorter. Highlights were Johnny Huang still looking like Johnny Huang, and the bad guy absolutely losing his mind for the last six or so episodes.

I still can't make up my mind about these two. I thought maybe I would like them removed from the trappings of Cutie Pie, but this movie didn't do much for them with its romance plot which felt kind of empty and rushed. I was worried at first because the dynamic seemed exactly the same as Cutie Pie's start, but then somebody lost a few script pages and all of a sudden they were 100% agreeable soulmates because they met as kids once. Also why did they have to meet as kids if they also have a shared generational fate related to the ghost? Seems redundant. Anyway, I at least wanted to like them more than I usually do though, so that's progress? Maybe I'll watch their next project with a more receptive mind. Moving on, the horror plot isn't really anything new (or scary). The situation was resolved pretty easily though so it's hard to be that annoyed since at least it went by quickly. I think the only parts of this I really appreciated was the scenery (wherever they shot this is so pretty) and the guy who played the cute doctor from A Tale of Thousand Stars made an appearance, with a little romance subplot.

This movie felt like it was trying to lull me to sleep in the last thirty minutes. I was pretty interested in each of the short stories up until the last one, where I couldn't stand the main character (technically I couldn't stand her starting with the second to last story, was not jazzed to realize that the creep's gaming partner was going to be around more). It was a little more tolerable in the last few minutes when it was at least scary again (but I just kept wondering 'um where exactly did she think that guy went that she's fine being here at night in this isolated area after seeing some strange man?'), but for an ending it wasn't very satisfying. The only through line that I was interested in was the serial murders plot. The other connections between the stories (which basically just seemed to be well some of the characters have kind of met before) was pretty weak.

This feels like a television version of what those AI chat bots read like to me. I only barely have an idea of what is going on,  but I also cannot stop watching even after finishing what I set out to for a watch challenge. I think if I were watching a version without the music edited out (and also like...the sound of anything? this can't be normal so I'm guessing this is a side effect of where I'm watching it) I would be completely swept up in this even with the really bad translations. The parts that I do understand (reincarnated sister bickering, the leads being in a "just for business until oops not really" marriage) are enjoyable. There is still like the whole rest of it (any relationship or most conversations the leads have with another person) that is completely incomprehensible though.

Another one where I think like I read the manga and liked it more in that medium than I do here. I didn't mind the private investigator guy (if anything I mostly felt bad that he liked such a terrible guy), but there was not that much to be interested in for the main character. At one point he was described as a rat who follows the Pied Piper and like...yes, that is what's wrong with him and why I don't really like watching a movie about him.

I finished this only because it's a (the?) classic "what if one of them was a robot" and there's not too many other things I can watch for Hayami Mokomichi. He was fine (great even, I never have problems with the robot in one of these), but hard to appreciate when he was constantly opposite people who got on my nerves. The few exceptions were any of the extremely thirsty older women (me too, honestly) and Namakiri, who was definitely in a way more interesting and funny show than the one centered around the FL. This FL was extremely annoying, even with the knowledge that she couldn't really help it on account of originally being a high schooler (ugh) in a manga from 2006. The business guy? Guy that needed a comb very badly? No idea why all the reviews for this show call attention to him especially. When I realized this was going to be one of the sad robot stories where the robot dies because it loves too much, I thought 'well I do hate those, but usually these work very hard to make you feel okay with who the lead ends up with'. I kept waiting but this never happened. I disliked this guy on sight and it never got better from there. It's possible all the parts that would have made me like him were in the scenes I skipped starting about halfway through, but I really doubt it.

Anyway I'm glad there's no special out there so that I'd have to watch more of this!

If this was just a rating for the last five or so episodes, this would be maybe a 6.5. The low rating is for the first eight or so episodes, where way too much time was spent on the older sister, a pretty boring internship at a fashion magazine, and her cartoonishly evil boyfriend. The only bright spot of that plot was  occasionally seeing Gun, who similarly kept me from fast forwarding during 2gether whenever he was around. Once more things were happening in the Sandee and Thada-focused plot, the show kept going at an enjoyable pace. I can see why this ended and people actually wanted more of it at that point. I also appreciate how even though I was definitely too late to be surprised by the Pete/Kao reveal, this show still was able to surprise me with a different reveal.

Anyway, Kiss Me Again, let's go (if I get around to it this year)! Also hope they fired whoever edited this series before Kiss Me Again was made!

Most of watching this felt like watching Supernatural but if you started it in season 7, and also the parts before the opening credits where they establish what the thing of the week plot is going to be about? That's like half an hour for some reason, and only sometimes the main characters will show up but in a "cleaning up the bodies" way rather than a "prevent anything from happening" way, at least until the show switches gears for the "what was going on all along" plot.  As for that bigger plot...honestly I'm not even sure I really get what happened. I think the story is not that difficult, but the delivery method (poorly told in bits and pieces, sometimes sidelined for random stuff that nobody could possibly care about) was so bad that I gave up before the payoff. I did like the first couple of episodes, but it just started to unravel into 'oh I recognize them...no idea what they're doing though' and by episode 5 I was fast forwarding through most things, though I did slow back down for the last three. The brief things that I didn't fast forward through (power struggle within the cult between uh...piano girl and...Evil Tay's granddaughter(?); sad Junior/Mark time/dimension travel-ish story; sad memory loss side character; Gun reminding me that I would probably have a better time just rewatching Not Me; a couple moments between Tor/Gun that weren't buried under bad storytelling) did keep me from dropping but like... I don't know. I can see the vision, and I get why people probably have this top of mind for 'shows that deserved better/more' but like, I also get why this got an open ending and not even a hint of a follow up.

For the second part, they took out all of the parts that were fun and just replaced them with like...assault. I guess that element was present in the first half too but it was not the focus, whereas here I feel like that was the only thing that was happening, and sometimes they would break to mention past lives again. I still liked the leads but I feel like they were barely together in this half. Oh well. I'll probably give vertical dramas another try someday if I can figure out how best to watch them, but until then I have those 10 minute episode Chinese mini dramas.

This was, for very brief moments, cute, but I was mostly just annoyed while watching this. This is another type of show that it feels mean to be mad at it for not being good (it is extremely rough knowing that we're in the early BL era for South Korea and that I can't just skip ahead to a future where these are like consistently good and watchable), but for a pretty basic story (or well...I guess two basic stories? Why was one half of this about money borrowing problems, these shows are not long enough for multiple plots/too many characters) it was told in such a boring, strange way. The only reasons I didn't drop this is that it's really short and it always feels a bit silly to drop a show this short, and the actor playing Sangha is really cute, in a "I want to put him in my pocket"-type way.

Whoever decided to style the three main guys extremely similarly for the start, like down to them all pretty much having the same hair color, should be beaten with hammers. That made the first half so difficult to watch,  not helped by this whole thing feeling like scenes were missing. This was edited by someone who has never heard of transitions and who has a sink or swim approach for letting the audience figure out how much time has passed. Being annoyed at this for not being very good feels kind of mean because like...it's a Chinese BL from 2016, it can't really help it, but this somehow manages to be both boring and rushed. There's no time to feel anything about the leads, and I'm not even interested in finding out what happens in the second part.

Second verse, same as the first except this was completely charmless. I didn't buy a bit of the relationship between the leads. This movie was so long but the set up for these two felt totally rushed. They met up a couple of times as kids, she left, and that was supposed to mean something to me as a viewer when she came back, but it definitely didn't.  I also didn't really care about the hunting/healing the monster plot so I did a lot of fast forwarding through this. I thought the main point of making ML able to heal people was that he could  heal her?  We tried all these medicines but this guy/love was the real cure? But no, we just did the first movie all over again, or well, ML definitely died, anyway.

I wanted to like this so much but I think you can't do "nothing happens but for laughs" in Japanese GL considering nothing happens in these already. I liked the lesbian bar regulars and the office gang, but didn't care for the leads.

This isn't the worst live action that I've ever seen but it's maybe one of the more disappointing ones. I love both the anime and the manga, and honestly most live actions turn out kind of silly so I thought this would be something okay if not great. But this was just kind of slow and boring. I like the cultural festival plot normally (or well, uh, the normal cultural festival plot, and not this weird mashup of the cultural festival plot and kind of four other events plus some new stuff for the movie)  but I wish that hadn't been where the movie spent most of its time. None of the characters really seemed that connected to each other which to me is just as important as all of the jokes. Speaking of the characters, most of the performances also fell pretty flat. Saiki was probably the least terrible (this feels like such a whiny fan nitpick but why was Saiki talking out loud so much?), and the rest were middling to terrible, with each actor/actress picking one note and sticking to it. The only positives I can think of are that most of the characters looked like the characters, and the background characters and Saiki's opening monologue mostly felt like the source material.

I think a lot of my problems with this could be summed up by just saying that I hate 456. I thought his plan was stupid, and if anybody got those people killed, it was him for having the idea in the first place. Dae Ho was 100% right; even if he hadn’t gotten too scared to bring the ammo back, that was only ever going to end the one way. I also didn’t appreciate his pick and choose approach to morality. It’s okay to hunt down and kill the guy you blame for your stupid plan not working, but when you see a guy pushing people to their deaths in front of you there’s simply nothing you can do, at least not until after several people have needlessly died due to your inaction. We can’t possibly let any of the guys who want to kill a baby turn on each other so that we can safely leave with the baby! The right thing to do is start a big fight so that even more people die, obviously.

Rapid fire other things that I hated: so many scenes of the VIPs; crypto scam boyfriend (I knew it! He sucked last season too!) and Jun Ho continuing to earn that self-demotion to traffic cop by not doing anything of use all season except calling the coast guard. All the deaths were also pretty nothing-y to me, except for when I swore for a full minute after crypto scam boyfriend killed Park Sung Hoon’s character because it meant being stuck in the game even longer.

Things I liked: The guard/sad dad subplot, nice to see someone actually achieve a goal this season; Wi Ha Joon and Kang Ha Neul, still hot (and no I don’t care that Dae Ho pretended to be a Marine, literally there’s people who are dying); Thanos, my terrible beloved; Nam Gyu’s Thanos impressions; “boat captain guy and evil Gong Yoo fishing together" picture; and Se Mi and Sae Byeok for a little bit while their respective guys who let them get killed were going crazy. OH, ALSO Woo Seok didn’t die! And maybe he should be a detective? He’s like the only guy who managed to detect something in the whole show.

Oh wow, vampires are not back! This takes place in a world entirely populated by people whose brains are turned off. So many times I would think a character knew something extremely obvious only for it to be a big reveal for them, or watch one of them take something totally insane at face value. I remember being excited based on the teaser. I've seen the leads before in Not Me and uh...the other one was good-looking in an episode of Off Gun Fun Night, and like...they do look great together! I would love seeing them in something better than this. I just couldn't get past how much I hated the characters Mark and Tong. In addition to being dumb like everyone else in the show (tied for dumbest, common sense always escaped these two), they were just so boring. I liked when they were just being a fun/happy/cute couple but as they became Mark and Tong Facing Whatever Dumb Problem They Have, that's when the fast forwarding started. A couple episodes in, I started to dread moments where side characters would go away and I was stuck with just the leads. It was especially rough towards the end, when we're down a Neo and left with Mond playing the only guy with a personality (even if he does undergo a personality switch about three fourths of the way through, would give anything to know more about this guy who was a comic book villain-level weirdo completely against his own interests for most of the show only to just go 'actually...nvm’ and be normal for the end). The world building was also garbage. At the end of this I understand less than I ever did about how vampire powers work: why a vampire can tell the future but get tricked multiple times, or how a healing vampire can't heal someone, or why you'd want to kill the golden blood people instead of locking them away to drink from, or why no vampire who was trying to actually protect a golden blood person wouldn't just turn them into a vampire to render the whole thing moot and...just...god. Just the absolute worst.