L13

I see, that makes sense! Let's hope it shows up in a more accessible format soon. Thanks again for your work! I really appreciate your subs and your drama impressions on Twitter.

I agree this plot is overused and stereotypical, but very smart girls can actually get derailed in life for all sorts of reasons, including bad luck, pregnancy, bad taste in men, lack of focus, familial obligations, etc. Being good at studying doesn’t mean you don’t have other things going on in your life.

I find the girlboss FL who is mega successful in some commercial venture and cares for nothing but career advancement until she meets an equally successful man who fits her criteria for a life partner to be way more stereotypical and unrealistic than “talented woman who fell on hard times or had to adjust her life plans for some reason.” Not all women want to work in finance and wear pantsuits (OR to be housewives, doctors, fashion designers or idols—there are many other things you can do in life aside from these five jobs, not that cdramas will tell you that). You don’t have to love your job or make it your entire identity.

Thanks a bunch! I really appreciate your work! The first episode was very enjoyable.

By the way, are you watching Malice? It's hard to find reactions to the first episode in English an I'm very curious as to whether it's good.

The first episode was suspenseful, dark and stylish! I really enjoyed it. Some scenes had an almost cinematic quality.

There were only three little details where typical jdrama maximalism prevailed over good taste (the fountain of blood spurting out of Sara's mouth immediately after she was stabbed in the stomach, her classmate still using a crutch 15 years after breaking her leg to leave no doubt in the viewer that the injury ended her athletic career, and the random snowfall when little Kaori got kicked out of the house to emphasise how sad her life was), which is actually a very low number. I'm only pointing it out because these moments struck me as amusing departures from the episode's overall subtle and restrained style of direction.

Anyway, I can't wait to learn more about everyone in the story. They're all hiding secrets and I have no idea how the secrets all fit together at this stage—for example, how does Mahiro's sister factor into it? What about her boss? I wonder if the final twist will be that Rikito didn't actually kill his sister and was falsely convicted, or if he really did it, but for a reason we can't even imagine yet. (I'm not tagging my comment as a spoiler because you can get everything I just said out of the plot summary above.)

Also Mahiro's cousin is kind of a dick, but he keeps it real. Problematic fave!

The first two episodes were outstanding, just pure entertainment from start to finish, and Park Sunghoon looks really hot. What more could you ask for?

GSJ told GYZ the poison he identified in YWS’s bottle was going to help GZY in the first trial, which is already a violation of confidentiality that gives GYZ an edge in the future, and smirked while chastising GYZ, obviously implying he would say more later on. He broke the rules and then wagged his finger at GYZ for wanting him to break the rules again, but the subtext of the scene was clear; he didn’t really give a shit about keeping the secret of the three trials and only ended the conversation about them because GYZ is unreliable and can’t be trusted to keep his mouth shut at this stage.

But there’s no “toxic romance” here as the person you’re responding to is saying. There’s no vulnerability on her side to convince us she’s conflicted about what she’s doing in any way and on his side we have no idea if he’s actually falling for her, which would be stupid instead of romantic because she’s done nothing to deserve it, or putting on an act, which would be simply one of his schemes.

‘Mentally unstable gay villain in unrequited love with a straight person’ is already a cliche because it’s one of the only roles gay people have been allowed to play in media that isn’t brave enough to show actual homosexual acts.

The one with an agenda is you, the person outraged by the gay agenda who insists that we need more gay villains for equality. Your claim implies we’re already getting too many non-villainous gay people in kdramas, which is obvious nonsense... unless you think gay people often kill straight people who don't like them back and the media is silent about this phenomenon due to some homosexual conspiracy?

Um, but the romance *is* the plot?

I don’t think anyone should go to jail for cheating at sports lmao

the stretch to namedrop such a mid drama 😭

Ah yes, a gay man driven to evil acts by his tragic unrequited love... IT'S 2023, COME ON!

One of the best cdramas I've watched in ages. Very mature and true to life, with clear themes sustained throughout (keeping up appearances for the sake of meeting social expectations vs doing things because they make you happy, finding the right balance between giving and taking in a relationship, deciding on your priorities and living life consciously, etc.) and likeable and realistic characters.

Tang Ying did annoy me at times because she kept learning easy lessons—if you like someone, be honest with yourself about it; don't start something you can't finish with a powerful man in a position of authority over you while you're in love with someone else; there's more to life than work; etc.—the hard way, but the drama made me understand her and sympathise with her even when her tendency toward self-deception frustrated me.

It even made its most loathsome characters sympathetic. I mean Xu Jiabai, Xinzi's boyfriend-cum-stalker, whose desperation to keep Xinzi by his side was (rightly) depicted as scary and violent without dehumanising him, and Tang Ying's first boss, who was introduced as an abusive tyrant but was, again, humanised and sent off on a bittersweet note without dismissing the things she did to Tang Ying. Both characters were shown at their most vulnerable and I did momentarily ache for them and hope they could find peace and fulfilment in their lives without hurting other people.

(The one exception to this rule was Yu Chuanchuan, who turned into a bit of a sexist caricature by the end of the drama. I wish she could have been given a more nuanced and sympathetic treatment because her initial portrayal as Ziquan's cool female friend who liked him but respected his lack of interest in a relationship was promising. The drama could have shown her bewilderment and disappointment when he suddenly got a girlfriend and quit his lifestyle as an unrepentant playboy, and used her character to explore the private pain of realising that the person you like could meet someone else and rearrange their priorities completely in the blink of an eye, but they will never do it for you no matter how long you wait, without having her harass Ziquan and his girlfriend.)

Finally, the drama was the perfect length to wrap up the story without any boring filler. One of the issues I have with many romantic cdramas is that they lose focus and devolve into undigestible fluff and pointless side plots after the main couple get together, but here the small number of episodes ensured that there was only one arc after the main couple started dating and it was something sensible (learning to trust each other with their problems and insecurities and adjusting to each other's lives). I didn't get bored when they got together and neither did I get frustrated; their scenes were still cute and engaging and there were no major misunderstandings or last-minute soapy drama, but at the same time there were still issues to work out that created lingering tension.

Oh, and I did enjoy the side couples too. Tang Ying's boss was really cool and deserved the mature and supportive relationship she got, and Xinzi's final suitor was great. I really enjoyed her scenes with him, actually, and hope they'll stay together for a long time.

I find that annoying too, so I watch on kisskh.co, which has the full subs and always uploads them first. The only issue is that their video player doesn't mesh well with Safari and there are occasional freeze-frame issues, so use a different browser if your default browser is Safari.

Yay for crime/mystery thrillers involving people in their 40s! They're both talented actors and I really enjoyed Diary of a Prosecutor (though I hope/expect this drama will be darker in tone). Looking forward to this!

I knowwwww, this is the longest month in history fr.

I just started ep. 9 and I love how Yun Wei Shan's idea of being helpful is recalling her own assassin training and going, "wow! what if you poisoned yourself so your core would always be cold? you'd be forced to learn very quickly then! hey, I can even make the poison for you!" and Gong Ziyu's reaction to this psycho suggestion is, "OK, let's do it! my wife is so smart and resourceful and perfect and cute! love her!" like maaaaaan, this is obviously not the thought process of a merchant's daughter, get it together!

She obviously has feelings for him as well.

I could have sworn it was about to air this February/March when Deng Lun’s scandal broke, but you’re right that it was last year… Time flies so fast it’s scary.

Well, she did do what might have been the best drama of 2023 and then it got pulled at the last moment…