Gern

It’s not just too much angst and misunderstandings. I love it when they are well crafted and genuine. But so often they are borne out of idiotic behavior like having dinner alone with another guy when you’re dating. Most people know that might create suspicion and avoid those kinds of situations. In that respect , it’s refreshing and surprising to see a drama where the ML deliberately flirt with the FL in front of a possible female love rival specifically to avoid a stupid misunderstanding.

I’m only half way through and I like it and my wife doesn’t. I think you explained our two views nicely. For me it’s refreshing to watch a mostly drama-free show. To her, it seems pointless. I can understand her viewpoint. Without conflict or suspense it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. However, stories can also be built on surprise and the voice acting and songs are surprisingly good. The way the leads manage to avoid idiotic mistakes or leave room for trumped up misunderstandings is truly surprising when they are the staple of literally every other drama. I’m enjoying it for what it is, but I think I’ll watch it on my own and find something else to watch with my wife.

Meet

I tend to like slice-of-life dramas, and this one has so much going for it that I really wanted to like it. Yet, for me, its own confused message left a bad taste in my mouth and left me feeling uneasy about the future of the primary relationship in the story.

At the center of this drama are tale after tale of how a blind pursuit of a better education, a higher paying job, and a better future can destroy relationships, tear families apart, and impoverish communities. The ML is a warrior in that very struggle. He left behind a lucrative, high-profile career in the big city to develop his small, impoverished home town. He wanted to stop the drain of talented young people leaving thier parents and community behind for better pay in the big city.

He also wanted to save the children who were being torn from their parents to live with relatives in better areas where they could get a better education. The reverse happened too. A parent would leave their child behind with a relative in order to work at a higher paying job in the big city to better support their child’s future. In other words their children’s future careers were more important than whether they grew up without a mother or father. It was awful to see a child having a meltdown as they watched their mom drive off, not to be seen for who knows how long. So much of the story illustrated how destructive things can happen to marriages and families when sacrificed on the alter of a better career or better future.

Yet, at the very heart of the story is a woman who was uncompromising in term of putting her career before her relationships. The show repeatedly established the theme that for women, careers come first. Even in the final minute of the show the FL is revealing to the ML that she has made elaborate plans for her future and it’s clear that he wasn’t even given a passing thought in those plans. In other words, if he wants to be with her, it’s up to him to figure out how he fit into her life because she wouldn’t do the same for him.

The striking thing was how blissfully unaware the show seemed of its own conflicting messages. Which is true? Is it destructive to put your job and higher pay before your relationships or is it to be celebrated and encouraged.

Time and time again the show illustrates how damaging it can be when people put careers, education, and earning more money in front of relationships. It even tells the story of a man who moved to a different city to better provider for his family. As a result he and his wife grew apart and she eventually divorced him. Yet, at the same time, it seemingly celebrates the FL planning on her own to eventually do the same thing.

Other aspects of the story were just as jarring. The FL becomes furious when the ML hides things from her, yet when she is confronted by an angry mob of men she hides it from him. She makes elaborate plans for her future and never even mentions them to him. At the same time he repeatedly gets the cold shoulder for days at a time for not telling her of every detail of his life and work.

It was a great show in so many respects but left me feeling unsettled. I couldn’t shake the feeling the FL’s double standard on communication and her refusal to consider the ML in her plans, would eventually doom their relationship, just as the pursuit of a career over relationships had done for so many others in the show.. As a result it was impossible to feel satisfied at the end.

It’s got to be a bit hard though, regardless., a wife watching a husband kiss another woman or in this case vise versa. .

I think they messages vary a lot. This one was pretty balanced with both the relationships and careers being important. Meet Yourself had a mixd message, showing the damage that can happen when putting ambition before relationships, except it oddly sent the opposite message for women who should put careers first. Hidden Love showed how careers can be reshaped to accommodate love. I think it depends on what shows you watch.

I really liked this show. There was nothing deep, dramatic, or complex about it. It was fun, cute funny and touching. It was balanced in that for the first half, she had a huge crush on the guy, but in the second, he grew to love her enough to reinvent his whole life to be with her. In an era where careers are all to often worshiped over relationships, it’s refreshing to see a love story that celebrates love above all and shows people willing to change their life and their ambitions to be with the one they love.

I loved her in Love Is All. She was so off the wall. It was great.

You have a point. They do get a bit wordy. IMHO, synopsis are too breif to capture the real spirit of a show anyway, so in most cases less is better. Condense it to the stuff that will grab people’s attention. Your synopsis is pretty good in that respect. It sets the stage, doesn’t give away too much you don’t learn right away, and l look wages in the intriguing serious fit the show.

You partly made my point. He already knows she didn’t come back only for him because she left in the first place. Given that, I’ don’t think it’s ever mature to send the message to your partner that they aren’t they important to you at the start of a relationship. Maybe it’s just the way men think, but if you’re going to start a serious relationship you have to take some responsibility for the feelings of the other person. You can’t just bail on them when it becomes advantageous to your career. Part of being mature is recognizing that getting into a relationship involves commitment.

I've been enjoying the show so far, but I just watched episode 31 and there was a conversation in it that was bizarre to the point of being annoying. First, prior to this episode, the ML had feelings for the FL, but she was leaving. So he told her in pretty clear terms that he had feeling for her, but he didn't asked her to stay, It was perfect. It was exactly what he should have done. Let her know where he stands, then the rest is up to her.

But when she comes back, she accuses him of being "scheming" for his confession because he was trying to leave her with "lingering feelings of attachment." First, how was this "scheme" supposed to work when he had no idea how she felt because she never told him? And second, she's trying to blame him for her lingering feelings of attachment. I mean, come on. They are your lingering feelings of attachment. Grow up and own your own feelings, don't blame them on someone else.

Then she goes on to tell him she didn't come back only for him, she came back for herself, which is just weird, mostly because it's obvious. Nobody goes out of their way to return to someone they don't care about simply because the other person wants it. The only reasonable interpretation I can come up with is that she wanted to make it clear that he wasn't important enough to her for her to change her future plans to get a 9-5 job in the training department of some random hotel. She was basically saying she had zero commitment to the relationship. The whole conversation was just mystifying.

I think you’re underestimating the power of anticipation. The overwhelming majority of shows pack all the real romance into the last third or so of the show. Sure, the leads are together from the start and they they have lots of screen time together, but there’s no meaningful interactions between them. They’re no real romance. It’s actually a lot more interesting when theres an immediate and powerful connection but each has their reasons for resisting it. In a way it’s more romantic because there a romance right from the start.

We seem to forget these days that sleeping together came with a non-trivial chance of pregnancy, and pregnancy came with a non-trivial chance of death, So my vote would be probably not because women tended to be a lot more careful.

Strong is relative. The lead in New Life Begins is a bit ditzy at times, but extremely strong willed, and it’s a recent release.

Technically, her betrothal lasted one episode. In just a few episodes we find out she should never have been engaged to someone so weak willed.

Agreed. The leads are amazing at portraying such a strong attraction with just the way they treat each other, even when the dialog is about something unrelated and mundane.

This is such a different kind of drama. The attraction is so quick it’s surprising, yet they are on such totally separate paths in life that they don’t really share much screen time for over a dozen episodes.

I just started this one and have to say I’m enjoying it a lot. The chemistry between the leads is fast and strong even though they spend relatively little time together, they have no reason to be attracted to one another, and their separate story lines don’t interest that much. The attraction is subtle yet obvious, despite it being completely non verbal. It’s not in what they say but the way they behave toward one another. It’s pretty unique so far.

Can this be found anywhere with English subtitles?

I was saying I think many liked the ending because it wasn’t open ended. It wrapped things up nicely and had some cool surprises.

The first four or five episodes are much more niche and hard to watch than the rest. They quickly drop the heavy RPG references and go more slapstick.