Gala Ramirez

The funny thing is that the writer took a masterpiece (a really good story) as Cyrano and tried to add a kdrama twist. There's a reason people will support the underdog in the story (Cyrano) and want him to win. Creativity is cool and all, but if you're trying to make us love Christian, do your homework and show us why.

I'm tired of the american series/movies because they are over sexual, but kdrama are becoming boring. Boring stories, same character.

It's been a while since I liked a character as much as I liked HJP. He was flawed, didn't like him at first but grew on me. A charming character. The only smart one around immature people. I didn't like the ending because I liked the potencial more.

The missing piece of Startup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAvn7CNpdB8&t=271s

Maybe they should have got one of these for the script lol

Nice :) I'm supporting you. I feel something is off about the drama so Imma keep your comment in mind when I'm sobbing for the lost potential. (I'm almost done with the grieving process)

In another context wouldn't sound that bad. But in this case it wasn't convincing because:
(Timeline time)
1. SDM realizes SDS is not the one from the letters.
2. SDS goes to the USA a few days later.
3. SDS comes back.
At this point she didn't have time to emotionally separate one from the other.
Because it's you is believable when, you know, it's you.. not another person.
Also SDS saying he likes the old NDS better and that the new one is odd sometimes, didn't help.

Possible answers: "Because you're always there for me. Because you make me smile and aim for the sky. You believe in me like no one else do. I admire how smart you are and how hard you work. I think you have the cutest personality ever." There's lot of things to say, SDS has good qualities too.

Your thoughts are beautiful but, as I said before, is the interpretation you gave to the missing pieces. Most of us saw it differently, and what I wanted the most to say, maybe there's a reason lot of people did't see it this way.

I can forgive DS beating HJP as in that moment he was emotional and they both kinda needed to let out their emotions. But what I can't forgive from a character is not finding his own dream&self and regressing to being someone's pride. What was the point of all the suffering SDS went through? Where did the resolution after the conversation with his father went?

I expected growth from him, and the writer didn't give us that. With all the psychologic promise in the use of terms as "imposter syndrome" we didn't get a resolution, a moment of "he finally did it". I liked DS when he told SDM that what they had wasn't real and when he said he didn't want to see her again. It was growth. But then he went backwards with "I want to be your pride etc".

(for example Yongsan accused HJP of killing his brother but he apologized later. He grew. DS didn't.)

Although I like HJP/DM better for my own reasons, I would have been okay with Dodal endgame if the writing was better.

I think the answer is in your words: "Although I got what writer wanted, its because im familiar with all her works." The writing lacked in so many ways, it needed our own interpretation to make sense. Because I could also say that HJP is similar in character to the ML of Pinocchio (same writer): he denies having feelings, is rude and is an orphan. Many of the PHR'MLs are orphans.

That said I don't think we will come to a joint conclusion as we gave a different interpretation to the missing pieces. The only thing I could recommend to a NDS fan is to ask themselves how could it happen that so many people got SLS (I would go for a fair 60%). To try to understand how come that many people thought HJP was the main lead till episode 9-10 (people that haven't paid attention to the posters). These are some good questions to reflect on and it could lead to a better understanding on why so many people disliked the drama instead of fighting to prove the other side's thinking is wrong.

I will leave out the posters and the OST and the symbolism for what I'm about to say.

Leaving all those things out, the only thing that made sense to me is PHR wrote some character growth for SDS and with the dodal endgame in mind, but she felt insecure about it with HJP's popularity and she wanted to reinforce SDS's character and story with all the winning and flexing from the last 2 episodes. Which looked fake and people didn't buy despite her good intentions.

I agree with most of your comment. The symbolism was there (not all the symbolism, we kinda lost our minds midway hahaha) as I remember someone mentioning that SDS didn't have a sandbox card in the poster so he might leave sandbox in the future and it did happen. (also the broken gold spoon)

The setting for the jidal endgame is the Cyrano story, which startup "supposedly" is based on. We all know HJP is Cyrano and he is supposed to be liked by the girl in the end.

But ofc the writer told her own story, she didn't owe us Cyrano. I also anticipated Dosan as ML as I saw the posters, but somehow between episodes 13-14 expected a different ending. Like I said before, I call it clickbait.

And if you watched previous work of PHR as WYWS, she loves symbolism. And the OST too pointed to HJP.

I'm not saying it changed, but I do sense something off with the drama. Or it's just poor writing, who knows

I read your comment and it's pretty thoughtful. The writer might have wanted to teach something but even if you're a NDS fan you should also recognize his character didn't grew. HJP became warmer so he completed his arc. NDS is still a dreamer without sense of reality in the end so he didn't complete his character arc.

I want to believe that somewhere in the rewriting of the last episodes, NDS's character growth was lost. If you are a dreamer (I am) you need to learn some reality as you mentioned in your comment. The fact that NDS went from an enjoyable dorky nerd who was tired to be his parent's pride (understandable) to wanting to be someone's else pride was proof he regressed.

I would like to know what lessons you took out of this drama, because I couldn't find any. The first episodes I did feel the excitement of following your dream, but when they lost the sense of reality, they lost me.

HJP apologized for his rudeness. NDS didn't for his violent actions. I'm not criticizing, I'm mentioning some facts.

The only thing we can agree on is that the writing lacked in the end. The first episodes I found inspiring and I also felt like having my own startup.

Nice comment btw

"Please save your theories on how the writer changed the endgame because she didn’t. You can shade other aspects of her writing all you want, like how it was draggy or underdeveloped characters instead of this change endgame bs."

Look, I really don't see how it's affecting you personally if people talk about theories. If you don't like them, don't read them. That simple. That's why people call them theories, because they are not proven. People know that.

Instead of this kind of comments, you could have just given your opinion under the comment and we would all have the opportunity to learn something.

But the way you said it... not nice my friend, not nice.

Also, have you watched "You drive me crazy"? Since KSH said it was one of his favorite I watched and the story/characters is so damn good

I said it in a comment somewhere below that the target audience is a mess. Instead of startup they should have used a highschool theme where they do some highschool project, and I will be at home happy not watching it. I love the startup world so I'm crying in lost potential.

Not a fan of NJH either but I can recognize 2 things:
1. The actor is super pretty and did a good job
2. The character had lot of potential to grow and it was cute and dorky the first episodes

Sadly we know how it went

I believe too that's something odd about the plot. But can't get a handle on what happened so I'm letting it go. The OST, the KSH interview, they all pointed to something else. Around episode 5-6 HJP got searched the double on Google trends (compared to NDS) and they still had time to change again the ending (if they changed it the first time). Dramas sometimes take a week off to improve the quality of the show (look at Tale of the nine tails) but in this case they didn't, that's why even if something is off, I'm not sure that's it.

We'll never find out the truth and even NJH fans should recognize that the writer did wrong to his character too. The writer is experienced, (she also did the second lead gets the girl in Dream high,) and I doubt (it is possible tho) she didn't know how storytelling/scriptwriting works.

Yeah, they should have make a different setup for the drama, with both leads meeting somewhere else.

The whole drama is a mess and the kids vs adults theme it reminds me of a spanish show called Rebelde (rebel). I loved it when I was young, but now that I look back all I see is brats (hope I don't offend any RBD fans here)

I want to give her some credit. She looking the same way at both leads might be a direction thing. I liked her in WYWS and there, she didn't give me the impression she liked both leads. What I did observe is she had more micro expressions in her scenes with HJP which could be the result of KSH's great acting. I think KSH is an amazing actor, and with his acting he influenced hers and she automatically responded.

I don't really know where the directing was heading with all the DM looking at HJP, but you can see in first episodes, these scenes were given priority cinematography wise (close ups etc.). I thought she was being curious about HJP being so similar to the guy from the letters, but we all know how that went.

I will go now with the click bait thing, because even if I don't think she's the best actress out there, the looking stuff from this drama it does seem like coming from the direction of the show. (episode 14, the car scene, she looked at him and it was given scene time and close up).

I ship them so hard irl. KSH said in an interview he likes girls who understand his humor, and kang hanna is exactly this (she was in running man, ksh isn in 2d1n). dimple couple till the end (she seems so nice irl, i love her competitive side) *crying in missing ship*

Have you seen the few seconds IJ/HJP shared in episode 16? It was fire. They way they looked at each other... man, the main couple who dis? new number.

Nice put. I learnt a lot from your comments. Now I'm at the point where I could accept any ship with a better writing. I might have even forgiven the fact that the OST has songs like "love letter" and more.

You're right, DS had more room to grow and it was such an interesting character. And yes, what did they do to the poor baby?

I'm glad we can talk about this things in a mature way. I would have wanted Cyrano but to be fair, I kinda filled the plot holes with my imagination, and that's why we came up so such different conclusions. Hope the kdrama writing gets better and hope I find you in a different comment section in the same ship someday. Or maybe different ships again, so I can learn about the thought process of the other side.

Like you mention in your review, the main problem is the kids vs adults theme.

And also I know that people have different personalities and there are people that think a harsh language is the worst ever as they are used to truth presented in a super nice way (some countries of Europe are this way, for example. Here the parents yell to the professors instead of the professors yelling at the kids). There's also a lot of rambling around and sugarcoating things (which it's not a bad thing, we should learn to treat with people different than us). But there should be balance between how much people is going to change the way they talk in order to make others feel comfortable (be a little more careful yes, change the entire personality no).

The problem with people disliking HJP so much is that those (usually young) people would never accept any harsh word. But they should learn to be more resilient as, when they grow up, they will see the adult world is way different. Your boss won't be as nice as your parents. Being incompetent at your job leads to you being fired. A startup that sails without a map usually ends up in failure. That's why the adults, attracted to the startup theme, are "wt*?" Because we know that behind HJP's harsh words there's constructive criticism, and in today's world very few people take the time to do this for you (in business having someone tell you all this stuff is gold as it will keep you from failure). Learning how to receive feedback is a skill you must acquire. (take the good, leave out the bad)

Young people are usually a lot more emotional, that's why they feel mor empathetic towards DS. I was young too so I remember relating more the emotional side/follow your dream.

I don't know what lessons you can take from this drama, but as a lesson from this comment section: people speak from experience, and very few are open to dialogue and learn, so I let them be.

The target audience was a mess. That's a big marketing mistake. I would have never watch Startup if instead a startup they were doing some highschool project. Then everyone would have been happy and this comment section would have been full of nice supporting comments.

The girl be over there doing her thing and working her way to the top. I call this grinding. She knows what she be doing. That's having a business mind.