This review may contain spoilers
l didn't hate it and might even rewatch it occasionally, skipping a few parts
I've been curious about this one for some time now, although I was a bit uncertain because of the romance genre (not my thing at all). It does touch on themes that are close to my heart. I love the youth and life genre. It supposedly had friendships as a main topic. And after seeing Park Ji Hoon's stellar acting in Weak Hero, I was on top of that curious to see him in other roles. Therefore after some thinking I was finally convinced to watch this show. I haven't read the webtoon nor am I planning to, so this review is solely based on the drama.
The premise, the themes, the main characters and the finale, as well as the acting, are what made me watch it until the end and not think that this was a total waste of time. There are some memorable and very emotional scenes. Other than that, I can't say it was spectacular. The plot is wonky, it relies a lot on plot conveniences, clichés, nothing is really subtle at all, the pacing is a bit weird, it's a bit boring sometimes (it's a slice-of-life, sure but still) and I can't say I was very entertained all along. I was tempted to skip ahead more than once (and I did end up skipping some seconds and minutes here and there, particularly episode 7 and onward). I also didn't like the OST. To be more precise, I do not like having a piece, or worse : a song with lyrics, in almost every scene. It's too overstimulating for me. I prefer minimalistic OSTs and silence. Here it was way too present, it seemed to me there was barely any silence ever.
So what is good ?
The overarching themes and lessons are. I also liked that there was a redemption for some of the characters that wronged Joon and So Bin.
Yeo Joon is one of the best things in this story in terms of psychological complexity. He's the kind of characters I love in general. He looks weak and fragile and he does cry easily for a guy but he's actually pretty tough. What he went through makes his behaviour understandable, that's a great point as it's not an easy thing to write. Ji Hoon's acting obviously brings a lot. But his character 'grows' too easily, too fast in my opinion. I was happy seeing him happy - but maybe it was too hopeful for me ? I prefer realism. He's endured so much and I think his character flaws needed to take more precedence than that, create more inner and outer conflicts. Also, the plot convenience of him having forgotten/mixed up his memories and suddenly remembering correctly and everything just resolved like this... I think it was disappointing, underwhelming and badly written. His backstory is what was most intriguing to me and this was very quickly dealt with.
Kim So Bin, as much as I love Kang Min Ah and think she did a beautiful job here with what she was given, is pretty much the typical lost, shy, kindhearted and cute damsel in emotional distress without much more to it. While she seemed to be so important in the beginning, and the romance took a lot of the available space for a few episodes, she then kind of blends into the background at some point and just becomes Joon's girlfriend with no life of her own. Her trauma, her mother, her story, her own interests and other non-romantic relationships do not really matter any longer. She does have some nice moments with her roommates but their bond primarily resolves around crying about their individual love pains and it just doesn't interest me that much. I admit I was hoping for some cool girls friendship when I saw she was going to live at a dorm with 2 other girls but got almost nothing. I do not dislike her character but she's simply too linear. Her only flaw is having some abandonment trauma and anxiety and being too nice, but that's not how good character flaws work. To add to that, I think the way her trauma was dealt with was also fairly unoriginal. And when she met with her mother and simply decided never to see her again and after some explaining this was over - it seemed lazy to be honest.
Nam Soo Hyun is the character that made me cry the most, seeing him struggle so hard to survive, and I think he was a very interesting and flawed guy with a great development. I actually like that he was the most reticent to change and I like the fact that, even though he had two potential love interests and he was apparently interested in one of the girls, he chose not to conclude with any of them as he was still too unconfident in himself until the end. I think it was realistic, interesting and relatively well done. People don't change just like that, as he said rightly. His slowly growing brotherhood with Joon was also very moving and not something that is often done well and to this extent in fiction (most of the time it's either superficial or ends up looking weird and unnatural or bl-like). Here I think it was pretty nicely done considering their unusual personalities and they do end up looking like close brothers, which was pleasant. Joon really looked like this annoying and clingy but cute little brother that just desperately needed the help and support Soo Hyun could provide, while Joon was his door to learning to be more laid-back and emotionally honest with himself and others.
However, I think the writer didn't rightly balance romance/friendship over the course of the story and the ending was a bit weird in this regard (their finale group project was basically all about the MLs friendship even though the romance and romantic love in general was so important in like 60% of the show). The romance between So Bin and Joon, while cute and all that, didn't seem very logical to me the way it was done. I don't really understand why she suddenly was in love with Joon. He manipulated her and used her emotional fragility to make her rely on him. She shouldn't have just accepted that so easily. I'm also uncertain about the need for a romance altogether. It made sense that Joon would need both friendship and romance in his life to grow as he was desperate for any kind of love he could find but - and I'm really trying to see it without my preference for friendships bias - I think the romance aspect should have been a minor/side thing instead of trying to take the main spot only to be relegated to the backseat in the end. The friendship part of it all between the 3 should have been the foundation and the meat (and it does go back to this in the finale anyway), while the romance should have been something that would have slowly developed along the way to blossom towards the ending, less flamboyantly. So yeah, I'm not sure if I'm the best person to judge a romance but I'll just say I wasn't really convinced.
It's also too bad the secondary girls weren't much more as characters than love interests for Soo Hyun. Young Ran was probably the most well-developed of the two though and I loved her a lot. It's a shame Mi Joo just disappeared. Professor Park is another secondary character that I really liked, he was so funny with his obsession for his students to love him and eat with him and his pure joy whenever any of them would talk to him and ask for his help... Professor Song on the other hand was inconsistently written and dislikeable all along. I constantly wondered if I had missed something because I never understood why she acted the way she did.
And - a thing I REALLY appreciated, is the total absence of love triangle between the 3 leads. Very nice and refreshing.
I think this drama contains good ideas and is quite a fun watch. It does drag and has its flaws and is definitely not entirely to my tastes. But I'm very picky and have weird preferences. If you love romantic dramas, do not care too much about plot or writing quality, and also like friendship/bromance and coming of age stories in general, and don't mind themes of domestic and child abuse, there's no real reason you wouldn't enjoy this one.
The premise, the themes, the main characters and the finale, as well as the acting, are what made me watch it until the end and not think that this was a total waste of time. There are some memorable and very emotional scenes. Other than that, I can't say it was spectacular. The plot is wonky, it relies a lot on plot conveniences, clichés, nothing is really subtle at all, the pacing is a bit weird, it's a bit boring sometimes (it's a slice-of-life, sure but still) and I can't say I was very entertained all along. I was tempted to skip ahead more than once (and I did end up skipping some seconds and minutes here and there, particularly episode 7 and onward). I also didn't like the OST. To be more precise, I do not like having a piece, or worse : a song with lyrics, in almost every scene. It's too overstimulating for me. I prefer minimalistic OSTs and silence. Here it was way too present, it seemed to me there was barely any silence ever.
So what is good ?
The overarching themes and lessons are. I also liked that there was a redemption for some of the characters that wronged Joon and So Bin.
Yeo Joon is one of the best things in this story in terms of psychological complexity. He's the kind of characters I love in general. He looks weak and fragile and he does cry easily for a guy but he's actually pretty tough. What he went through makes his behaviour understandable, that's a great point as it's not an easy thing to write. Ji Hoon's acting obviously brings a lot. But his character 'grows' too easily, too fast in my opinion. I was happy seeing him happy - but maybe it was too hopeful for me ? I prefer realism. He's endured so much and I think his character flaws needed to take more precedence than that, create more inner and outer conflicts. Also, the plot convenience of him having forgotten/mixed up his memories and suddenly remembering correctly and everything just resolved like this... I think it was disappointing, underwhelming and badly written. His backstory is what was most intriguing to me and this was very quickly dealt with.
Kim So Bin, as much as I love Kang Min Ah and think she did a beautiful job here with what she was given, is pretty much the typical lost, shy, kindhearted and cute damsel in emotional distress without much more to it. While she seemed to be so important in the beginning, and the romance took a lot of the available space for a few episodes, she then kind of blends into the background at some point and just becomes Joon's girlfriend with no life of her own. Her trauma, her mother, her story, her own interests and other non-romantic relationships do not really matter any longer. She does have some nice moments with her roommates but their bond primarily resolves around crying about their individual love pains and it just doesn't interest me that much. I admit I was hoping for some cool girls friendship when I saw she was going to live at a dorm with 2 other girls but got almost nothing. I do not dislike her character but she's simply too linear. Her only flaw is having some abandonment trauma and anxiety and being too nice, but that's not how good character flaws work. To add to that, I think the way her trauma was dealt with was also fairly unoriginal. And when she met with her mother and simply decided never to see her again and after some explaining this was over - it seemed lazy to be honest.
Nam Soo Hyun is the character that made me cry the most, seeing him struggle so hard to survive, and I think he was a very interesting and flawed guy with a great development. I actually like that he was the most reticent to change and I like the fact that, even though he had two potential love interests and he was apparently interested in one of the girls, he chose not to conclude with any of them as he was still too unconfident in himself until the end. I think it was realistic, interesting and relatively well done. People don't change just like that, as he said rightly. His slowly growing brotherhood with Joon was also very moving and not something that is often done well and to this extent in fiction (most of the time it's either superficial or ends up looking weird and unnatural or bl-like). Here I think it was pretty nicely done considering their unusual personalities and they do end up looking like close brothers, which was pleasant. Joon really looked like this annoying and clingy but cute little brother that just desperately needed the help and support Soo Hyun could provide, while Joon was his door to learning to be more laid-back and emotionally honest with himself and others.
However, I think the writer didn't rightly balance romance/friendship over the course of the story and the ending was a bit weird in this regard (their finale group project was basically all about the MLs friendship even though the romance and romantic love in general was so important in like 60% of the show). The romance between So Bin and Joon, while cute and all that, didn't seem very logical to me the way it was done. I don't really understand why she suddenly was in love with Joon. He manipulated her and used her emotional fragility to make her rely on him. She shouldn't have just accepted that so easily. I'm also uncertain about the need for a romance altogether. It made sense that Joon would need both friendship and romance in his life to grow as he was desperate for any kind of love he could find but - and I'm really trying to see it without my preference for friendships bias - I think the romance aspect should have been a minor/side thing instead of trying to take the main spot only to be relegated to the backseat in the end. The friendship part of it all between the 3 should have been the foundation and the meat (and it does go back to this in the finale anyway), while the romance should have been something that would have slowly developed along the way to blossom towards the ending, less flamboyantly. So yeah, I'm not sure if I'm the best person to judge a romance but I'll just say I wasn't really convinced.
It's also too bad the secondary girls weren't much more as characters than love interests for Soo Hyun. Young Ran was probably the most well-developed of the two though and I loved her a lot. It's a shame Mi Joo just disappeared. Professor Park is another secondary character that I really liked, he was so funny with his obsession for his students to love him and eat with him and his pure joy whenever any of them would talk to him and ask for his help... Professor Song on the other hand was inconsistently written and dislikeable all along. I constantly wondered if I had missed something because I never understood why she acted the way she did.
And - a thing I REALLY appreciated, is the total absence of love triangle between the 3 leads. Very nice and refreshing.
I think this drama contains good ideas and is quite a fun watch. It does drag and has its flaws and is definitely not entirely to my tastes. But I'm very picky and have weird preferences. If you love romantic dramas, do not care too much about plot or writing quality, and also like friendship/bromance and coming of age stories in general, and don't mind themes of domestic and child abuse, there's no real reason you wouldn't enjoy this one.
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