Eleison

I definitely see what you mean; those dramas WERE confusing (maybe even misleading?) ML/SML-wise and she was playing with the formula a little more than I liked. I hope she goes more the route of While You Were Sleeping or I Hear Your Voice. She didn't pull our heartstrings as much in those as far as who to root for in terms of the romantic leads.

This writer does usually have love triangles but they aren't always the blood bath Start-Up created in the viewership. Some of her others have very mild love triangles (WYWS, IHYV). I see this screenwriter as the queen of the Kdrama genre; she embraces all the tropes, plot holes, and cliches we've come to know, love and hate, but just does them more artfully than everyone else in the industry and genre.

Aren't most dramas predictable, though? I find them formulaic, and that's personally why I like them. I tune in to see the next variation on the theme; the best dramas bring fresh takes on their variation of the formula. Just my opinion, though!

I'm happy to be wrong! The voice in the drama is very lovely, and it's refreshing to discover it really is hers. :)

And in addition to being beautiful, he's still single!

💯

Me too!

Agreed! Her dramas are always my favorites! Start-Up was really well done but the hardest of her dramas to get through (While You Were Sleeping and I Hear Your Voice are still my top two by her). It wasn't so much the second lead syndrome but the lying that made it difficult for me to watch. Glad that's not the lesson being learned here! 😅

Hopefully they'll have the "previously on..." montage every week an episode airs so people don't forget the plot! 🤣

Still very cute and fluffy, and all the characters are so endearing! I find the teacher/student interactions quite unrealistic (lots of stuff that could get you fired, honestly; like Yul shutting the blind in the room they're alone in (schools advise teachers to never be alone with a student in a room without a window or an open door), not to mention all the other off-campus interactions between Yul and Hae Na). Despite the lack of realism, I like the parts with them interacting while at school the best!

I loved Cha Hak Yeon in Bad and Crazy! He was fantastic in that drama and kind of stole the show for me. :) I also really liked Chae Jong Hyeop in Unlock My Boss, too.

I noticed that, too! He's quite endearing, but I'm still glad/hopeful Bo Geol is endgame. Woo Hak is totally channeling the adorable younger sibling you can't help but like, but after the perceptive thoughtfulness displayed by Ki Ho even as a teenager, I have higher hopes and expectations from our leading man!

So far it has had a really strong start! A lot of mystery and unanswered questions, though, as of the end of Episode 2. :)

I think that's the big mystery. At least it is for me! If Bo Geol's Ki Ho, he's definitely waited for this to happen for a long time and hoped for it, so his nonchalance is so puzzling. So I'm thoroughly intrigued and can't wait to see what we're missing.

I am not completely convinced it's Eun Bin who sang... I looked up what I could find of her voice and it sounds less strident than the voice you hear in this drama. Or maybe it sounds better in the drama because she got some help from technology? I've noticed that some actors and idols "can" sing they just are often helped out to sound better than they would if they sang acapella or live (for instance, I've noticed you can rarely find good videos or recordings of idols/singers in Korea singing live without backtracks, and when some don't have that help they're not always fully on pitch 😬 Hopefully I don't get murdered for saying this 😂). I think live singing (without backtrack) or acapella performances show what a person can really do, so I feel like in shows like this it's really hard to say since the singing is pre-recorded.

Yes, if you like fantasy and sageuks, then you'll probably like this. It's not perfect but very enjoyable! I describe it as Harry Potter meets Lord of the Rings meets Avatar the Last Airbender meets fantasy historical Korean drama (it might have some Chinese Wuxia or Xianxia elements but I know nothing about them so can't tell you if it's much like those genres, I just feel like I remember people dropping those terms when describing this drama when it was airing). First part is more action heavy/coming of age with a brighter tone and second part is more subdued, romance-focused and heavier in tone and slower paced; though the ending of the first part IS quite intense and sad. I personally think they were both great (not perfect!), but very different from each other. Just don't have expectations going into the second part beyond the main leads surviving and ending up together. 😅

Interesting!

Also, the subdued air of the ML feels very similar to the child actor for Ki Ho. Just like Eun Bin and her child actress obviously worked on creating a seamless transition between their demeanors, I see a resemblance in the acting of the ML and Ki Ho. Does your personality change when you have amnesia? Most likely not? (BUT, in dramaland, again, anything is possible (except the SML ending up with the FL, of course; that rule cannot be broken 🤣)).

I hadn't considered this option of Bo Geol being this way to protect the real Ki Ho (aka Woo Hak), and it's definitely not impossible in dramaland (though even the first shot of Woo Hak passed out on the bed in the messy room... a sharp contrast to Ki Ho's spotless bedroom as a child). I just think it would be too many levels of red herrings and that in that case the screenwriter tried way too hard to mislead us; I love her stuff so I want to think better of her than that but she did make things tough in Start-Up, though I think that was in large part due to Seon Ho's acting and less her writing (i.e. that everyone preferred him to the ML). I hope she's not THAT set on a big twist in this drama that she'd subvert everyone's expectations quite this much when she obviously gave strong hints to the contrary. 😭

I think it's MA due to the child abuse and scenes with smoking? I'm not sure if it's Korea that sets the rating or the U.S., but it makes more sense if it's Korea's rating since they rarely show smoking in non-MA dramas, even though there's more smoking in Korea in general than here in the U.S. (when I visited SK I was shocked by how much smoking there was).