Eleison

Sorry, I'm a bit confused by your question...

Yes! People have been comparing them and equating them but the mood and tone is completely different from this drama. Couldn't agree more!

I mean, even characters in the drama made fun of it multiple times (meaning that what you noticed was intentional). She IS unusual for a queen. But she's smart, compassionate and no one can beat her at the court politics game. 😏 So... she gets a pass.

Nah, this stands out among the sageuks. I hear Six Flying Dragons is amazing, but it's not available where I live so I have yet to see it. Scarlet Heart Ryeo everyone raves about, too, but I think it's a very different kind of sageuk. I won't watch it because I know the ending...

I'm just starting Cdramas, too. Nirvana In Fire and it's second season are light wuxia, but more costume/pseudo historical and I adored those. The first season takes time to get going, but the last half is SWEET and it's beautifully written. Guardians of Dafeng (also has Dylan Wang) I think is more wuxia than xianxia but it had xianxia elements (I think? I'm still new to all this, haha) and was lots of fun but ended on kind of a cliffhanger (purportedly a season 2 is almost certainly going to happen... 🤔), Joy of Life seasons 1 and 2 were great (though this also is supposed to have at least another season to wrap it up) and so was Love Like The Galaxy. All these are more costume/historical dramas that lean more into wuxia than xianxia (I think the main difference is xianxia is more fantastical with Chinese mythology elements and the supernatural throughout, while wuxia is more about cultivation and martial arts and the mortal rather than the immortal realm 😅 (and so, more down to earth)).

I stopped TTEOTM at the same spot! 😅 I also don't think toxic/dark = more mature. I found the ML a mixed bag. I kind of felt bad for him at times, but when he had chances to choose the good, and clearly weighed the pros and cons, he still chose to be selfish and do evil (as far as I had watched). Also, his life being that many bad things one after the next was insanely unrealistic. I couldn't sympathize with him because it didn't even seem possible for someone to experience. The suffering felt almost gross on the screenwriter's part. I don't know what the fixation is with xianxia and people suffering torment constantly, but it doesn't sit entirely right with me. It feels almost sadistic sometimes, even voyeuristic.

I'm finding wuxia is more my thing. 😅

I started TTEOTM and got to the dream sequence and bailed (for now). Xianxia is really an acquired taste (and I don't have a taste for it yet). I've seen some YouTube edits of LBFAD and I think I'll like it more (but I get so annoyed with those endings where they show up after being "dead" and then it just ends 😅).
But yeah, xianxia is like nothing I've ever seen before... it's highly stylized and A LOT to take in for someone wholly new to the genre.

I've been seeing mixed things in people's posts. Does it end well for the main couple? Or no?

I'm so confused by this back and forth--how is it not obvious how it ends? 😅 It sounds like an ambiguous ending since there's clearly debate which I feel is only possible if it's not clearly happy or sad.

And this is good to know since I tend to not like dramas that end with a 'happy ending' in the last 5 minutes of a 20 hr drama... it feels too tacked on.

A lot of people (like me) wait to rate it until it's over.

Very different shows, doing very different things... 🤔

I think it's mostly fictional and overly caricatured. At least for the school to be in the same area as that posh, preppy school (literally across the street!); that seems super unrealistic.

I find that high school is never portrayed accurately anywhere by anyone. 😅 TV/Films might have glimpses or fragments of realism but they never portray it as it really is.

The last 5 episodes get way darker and it's much less goofy and lighthearted at that point. I was taken aback by the shift in tone!

Reset was excellent, but a modern drama. It has a time loop component (so a slight sci-fi element) and is also mystery/thriller/crime action. It was fantastic and kept me on the edge of my seat from Episode 2 on.

It's definitely still up in my top half dozen favorites. It was my gateway drama. 😅

Descendents Of The Sun, probably?

The main leads in that drama (Song Joong Ki and Song Hye Kyo) got married in real life after filming their drama together then divorced two months later. 😬 The main leads in this, CLOY (Hyun Bin and Son Ye Jin), also got married after filming this together and now have a son. They've been married for a few years.

It helps that none of the people he's punching look like high schoolers either. 😋 Something about the uniform with the guys' hair not styled but hanging loose over their foreheads just screams "high school." 🤷‍♀️

That's the styling they always use to try and pull it off, at least. Whether they fully succeed is very much up for debate, haha. If SK's labor laws are anything like the U.S., it's way more expensive and a hassle to have child actors since they're not allowed to work as much as adults. Maybe that's why they never use teenagers fir teenage roles? They could at least try for actors in their early 20's, though. 😋

I found it super refreshing that the ML's mom not only realizes that the school is awful (she's not a an oblivious adult like so many adults in these types of shows!), but she also cares most about her son being a good person rather than obsessing over his grades. What a breath of fresh air!

She may not do everything perfectly, but it's clear she's raised him to care about the right things. What parents care about (often) = what their children care about.

(e.g. Parents: "Learning isn't important for anything beyond getting a career." Their children: "All school is dumb and I hate it. All that matters is getting an A." Huh, I wonder why they think that? 🤔🙄).

It's so interesting that that they won't show his face, though, isn't? Are they just building the hype for no reason? 😅

And does his dad ever show up in the story?

I noticed the director has only done movies (according to MDL). They seem like a very different genre from this, but still, this has the tight pacing, editing, and feel of a movie. It also feels pre-produced and maybe that gave them more time to polish it and get the snappy editing and the pace that moves this right along.