Gern

It doesn’t taint the entire series, but a lot of it. Her suggestion he stay as a pet seemed bizarre as did the way she did everything for him and he just sponged off of her.

So much of this show just seemed confused to me. The way Sumire violently rejected Takeshi kissing her but dated, seemed to love, and had sex many times with Hasumi, the second male lead, made it feel like we should be rooting for her to get past her insecurity and get rid of the pet. In fact, it greatly strains credibility that she didn’t get rid of Momo the day she started dating. Nobody who has just been cheated on is so self-unaware as to be emotionally cheating on her boyfriend and not move to correct the situation right away. Then the way she suddenly realized her feeling for Takeshi seemed bizarre given the strength of her feeling for Hasumi. I can’t necessarily fault the concept, but the execution left me scratching my head at far too many points. I can’t really recommend this one.

I don't understand the moral conundrum. For their to be a moral problem it has to be rooted in something. What is it? What makes it morally wrong for a 30 year old to be interested in a 17 year old? Would the same apply if it were a 30 year old woman and a 17 year old man? Is it that the 30 year old might take advantage of the youth and inexperience of the 17 year old? Doesn't that only apply if the 17 year old isn't mature enough to deal with the attention in a mature way? I didn't see the slightest sign of that in this drama.

Putting that aside, she was a 30 year old. Who says maturity is a side effect of experience. It's more likely a side effect of biological changes that temper passions as we grow old.

When it comes down it, the age of maturity is purely arbitrary. It is an age where society has said "most people" are able to make mature, adult decisions. For some it is too young, other's too old. I know 40-year-olds that still live off of their parents. And on a historic basis, 17 would be quite old to get married, thus the Romeo and Juliette comment. Then again, they were forced to be more mature at a younger age.. So I find the whole teenager part a bit arbitrary.

The bottom line, is unless the 30 year old teenager acted immature, or was incapable of making mature 30-year-ol decisions, I don't see the problem. Neither seemed to apply in this drama, thus I can't find any moral issue.

Hated the ending of the Korean one. All that pain and suffering to be together only to wind up not being together.

1. Japan (loved it, especially the over-the-top ending.
2. Taiwan
3. Didn't like the Korean one at all and even lost interest part way through when she developed a stronger bond of affection, support, love and even emotional and physical intimacy with the second male lead. It convinced me her lover for the male lead had no permanence when every single time, her pain was forgotten in a couple hours crying on his shoulder, hugging and hanging out with her "soulmate."

I probably should’ve be so flippant. I get your point that Romeo and Juliet is a bad example. Yet my point stands. The idea that a seventeen year old can’t be mature, responsible and committed enough to be in a relationship is just wrong. By the same logic people, should wait until they are 50:or 60 to marry because a 30 year old isn’t nearly as stable and mature as a 60 year old.

Are you joking? My own personal experience is worse example than a made up stormy. Really?

Oh, I wanted to add that the 2018 version of Meteor Gardens did a much better job of the faults I found in Boys Over Flowers. The second male lead was handled better. The female lead was less frustrating. The back and forth between the main couple being at odds and together was more balanced so you got a better mix of good and bad. It contains many similar scenarios but isn’t really the same story at all. However, I would recommend it over this.

I know this is supposed to be a classic, but I find so many other dramas that have tighter plots and better production. Having said that, there are points in this story that rubbed me the wrong way.

I really hate the “one guy is her soulmate, a different one her love” concept. What wife would want their husband to have a closer and more emotionally intimate relationship with another woman, and what man would want that with his wife? It makes no sense.

Jan Di’s refusal to tell the man she loved that she liked him was truly spectacular to the point of being unbelievable. At one point in the show Joon Pyo brushes her off in a cruel way, yet it was hard to truly feel bad for her given that he didn’t even know she really cared. She did other things too. She avoided him and hung out with other guys rather than admit she was struggling, then was shocked when she looked like she was cheating. Throughout the show, she suffered, but so much of that suffering was caused by her stubbornness, failure to communicate and her awful handled of her own feelings. It was more frustrating than dramatic, and I don’t like stories built on characters that act in frustratingly illogical ways.

It is fatiguing when the two love interests are at odds with each other for many many episodes. Equally as difficult is when they are on screen together for only a few minutes in a several show stretch. Add to that their being on screen together with the second male or female lead far more than with their main love interest and you just start to wonder who exactly you’re supposed to be rooting to end up with whom. Fatigue sets in when all you get episode after episode is bad stuff, with no good moments to balance it out.

I never understood shows that take you through so much pain and suffering for the main characters only to have them part for multiple years. The “four years later” syndrome really starts to get annoying and predictable after a while and it renders everything that came before it pointless. What was the point of going through so much heartache and struggle to be together, only to not be together in the end. It’s frustrating, not entertaining..

This was a sweet, touching story that could have been great except that it suffered from an ending that was utterly predictable. She worked as a cleaner in a cleaning company, which meant in the eyes of the makers of dramas she was not a valuable and worthwhile person. So, it was a forgone conclusion from episode one, that the couple would have,to suffer a protracted separation at the end of the story where she “fixed” her defective self so she would be worthy of the man.

Apparently, being a sweet, lovable, caring person who helps the man she loves heal his disease wasn’t good enough. As happens with predictable regularity in all too many shows, she had to suffer a period apart from him while she repaired her broken self as a menial worker and became an “impressive” cog in the corporate machinery, thereby becaming “good enough” for the man. That message devalues and demeans the love and caring the woman brought to relationship.

The message on the man’s side was equally as messed up. With patience and caring, she helped him overcome his disease. Yet it is never good enough for people in a relationship to help, support, love, and heal one another’s faults. No. All the care she put into healing him had to be utterly undone, she had to make him even worse and separate from him so he could heal himself without her help. Why?

Don’t get me wrong. Overall it was an otherwise good story, but I grow tired of this message that you can’t have a relationship where his support helps her become “impressive” and her caring helps him heal and become whole. Instead we get these contrived periods apart at the end of the story where we learn that women aren’t valuable as people simply by being who you are, they must be exemplary employees or have impressive academic credentials before they can be valued in a relationship.

Changing one event in the past never changes just one thing, it changes everything. His parents treated him different because his entire past was different, making him an entirely different person. It made perfect sense to me.

I don’t know why I liked this so much. Perhaps it was the way it took a simple idea and turned it in surprising directions. It was fun, which made it easy to overlook many of the flaws, so long as you were able to laugh at it and go along with the idea. Perhaps best of all is that in the end the main character didn’t heroically (and predictably) solve everything on his own. It took the couple working together to overcome the obstacles and reach a satisfying ending. It was good, light-hearted fun. If that’s what you like, give this one a try.

I have a soft spot for paranormal romance stories and this one hit that spot perfectly. It is stunningly well done for a Taiwanese drama. Not that there’s anything wrong with Taiwanese dramas, it’s just this was equal to the best Koreans dramas on every level. The plot is intricate and subtle, surprising at many a turn. It was extremely well acted and had many great moments. The production was first rate and the ending while a bit quick was very satisfying. There is really no way in which this didn’t please.

So much fun. Hackers, Super spies, intrigue, comedy, and romance, blended into a wild ride that never ceases to entertain. And the ending was very satisfying.

I loved the way this drama bucked the tendency for historic dramas to be one tragedy after another. Sure, bad things happened, but on the whole, it was very upbeat, positive and uplifting.

Huh? I married at 18, my wife at 17. It’s been 43 years we’ve been married. Romeo and Juliette were that age. I don’t understand the problem.

For me, this was about as near perfect as you get. Great, quirky characters whose lives were shattered by a tragic accident. Brought together by fate in a story full of twists and surprises, they help each other heal and find happiness again. The surprise ending was as touching And perfect as it gets, and shows how masterful Korean drama can be. I saw this a year ago and the story still stays with me.

I really wanted to like this drama, and in some ways it was quite good. What was hard to get past was the way it seemed to Create drama out of nothing. The male lead had some huge, world shattering events hit him which he was heroic in his efforts to apologize to the female lead for it all.

Rather than his psychologist girlfriend making allowances she becomes disenchanted . What followed was a string of terribly supported reasons why she can’t be with him: they’re from different worlds, she’s been stuck in the same place for the last year, his apology was overboard and didn’t value her work, the ups and downs were too extreme, they aren’t in step with one another, she’s unlucky in love.

On their own the reasons might be valid if backed up by something significant and troubling. In the end it seemed like the writer was flailing, trying to make up some plausible reason why the psychologist girlfriend was adamant in running away from her problems rather than talking it through with her near-perfect boyfriend. To make things worse, she never got past it on her own and had to be badgered into admitting her mistake by her male friend.

Had it been short, it might have been forgivable, but we were treated to five episodes of trumped up angst, followed by a long distance relationship caused by the woman’s stupidity, but allowed the woman to spend her days with the second male lead while she video chatted with her boyfriend in the evenings. So disappointing.

Watching recent dramas, the societal norm seems to be for women to always put career above relationships and family. You see it over and over and over in recent dramas. For women, jobs make them happy, for men people are more important. That is the new world order, that is what women should aspire to be, that is the new norm.

I know. It’s just one of those things dramas sometimes do that leaves me scratching my head. “Let’s take it slow.” “Let’s jut date.” “No we’re not thinking of marriage.” “No, no we’re just dating.” Episode after episode. Then, bam, oh look we’re pregnant, and it isn’t a surprise. It leaves me thinking: huh? When did their relationship get to that level? I must have missed it. And how ready are they for a baby if they weren’t ready to remarry?