Lee Anha

You spill the truth, this is no way 8.8 is organically made. Also you can watch the drama to know how it ends even when you are not enjoying most of the episode.

I agree with you that when they were together, it doesn't work, that's when I felt like they have lost the spark. His character and acting looks in different drama than her character and her acting.

The problem with your argument is that in this drama, she didn't grow up around him. His schoolmate actually spend more time growing up around her than him.

"When that person becomes a lover, it becomes a form of grooming even if there wasn’t any intention while doing it."
seriously? there is innuendo and literal translation. There is no unintentional grooming, the problem with the word grooming is that It Is Intentional, that's why there is adult 20s+ years old who can fall into this too. Everyone in life changes and adapted to each other and environment, there is no actual individuality as human is a social animal. Telling someone that being influenced by adult will make them lose individuality is diminishing their own growth and every young person grows up around adult. Their cousin, their teacher, their tutor, the shopkeeper near their house, the bus driver and when a lover influence each other, it's not grooming. Relationship is two sided, you want something out of each other and being able to communicate what you want out of relationship is not grooming.

This really put things into perspective since they may want to do it but the drama really have a hard start

Idk where you found the psychological conditioning stuff. She has buried her feeling for 2 years unbeknownst to him and when they reunited accidentally, that's when she start thinking about her feeling again.
This drama actually has character development of 14 years old crush, 17 years old girl with heartbreak and 19 years old that seriously questioning her own feeling. The dialogue itself is really good at exploring the character inner thought.

My criteria is the dialogue itself and the adult interaction, unless you want to talk about 18th life Ju won fall for 8 years old Seoha.
When they are an adult, they always talk to reference something we have not seen and then goes to flashback about how it had happened. The problem is , when we first in the conversation, we also have no reference, there is no foreshadowing to build up the tension.
The Female lead is knowing it all and all the male lead do is asking, he has not given any input on the conversation and it's like one way interaction.

As I wrote in comment above, the character are stuck in their child characterization, including JE, they all just their younger self with adult actors so it doesn't feel like they have character development. JE is this happy go lucky girl who fall for seoha and has some self reflecting moment about life here and there, chowon is also another happy go lucky girl who likes her sister and care about seoha, do yoon is side character with tragic backstory and seoha is still a timid young boy who keep wanting to fix his past and tormented by the lost of juwon and still likes juwon. There is nothing else about this present life that makes the couple as jieum and seoha, as example how Jieum and seoha actually clicked without having juwon involved, things they developed as they interact as each other in this present life, things that connected them as they work.

Then you add bad editing that ruins most of the moment. I didn't watch it with earphone and it seriously hard to listen to their dialogue. The couple lack conversation and moment, they have one sided conversation most of the time, no back and forth or banter beside "I like you and you will like me"

Add : the actors sounds like they are talking in different mood/atmosphere like they don't belong in the same setting and their expression is good on their own but unmatched when they are together.

They deserve all the success and especially ZLS, her outfit and her clothes with all the jewelry and accessories is really good.
She is good at this and I was wondering why they sing the OST, it's not usually happen and this makes sense now.
I feel bad for Victor Ma, I did look up his filmography and he didn't shoot a lot of drama and it kind of baffled me how good he in the drama.
I read the manhua lately and I get the complain but this kind of behind the scenes should be shared more so there is context on change and I think they did well, it flows great as the drama on its own.
I am going to order their dvd if they ever release this on bluray. I am renewing my netflix because of this drama and I was planning to leave netflix for good.

You nailed it with the way the drama is trying to show us the relationship in the previous birth but also not showing us in the same time. The character are stuck in their child characterization, including JE, they all just their younger self with adult actors so it doesn't feel like they have character development.

I think the backstory is well done but then they do nothing after that. The present plot in the drama didn't give more scenes into the characterization for the male character beside they are the poor unfortunate souls with trauma and the class issue with SML. I know they were hurt but I need more and ML is indeed becomes less desirable as you said, what they did is ineffective for the story.

Her take is nonsensical and DJX doesn't like SZ in the beginning, that's the whole point of the show. The fault is always on the older partner perspective and we've seen very clearly how DJX likes SZ as his friend's younger sister and when DJX likes her a women.
He himself makes it clear and we've seen how this changes happen in the drama.

yes, the point is HIM not liking her. That's how you differentiate if it weird or not. Teenage has likes older men since ages ago and older men does interact with younger woman innocently too.
It's like the reviewer want it so badly to creepy. The drama also explain this perspective in their later episode which I appreciate

yes, the point is HIM not liking her. That's how you differentiate if it weird or not. Teenage has likes older men since ages ago and older men does interact with younger woman.

A couple episode later, 16 years old SZ said that she met an older guy from an online dating app and told DJX. It makes DJX lecture her about not getting closer to older guy, be careful and she needs to be wary of people with bad intention, he also said that she needs to let other people see them meeting each other and he also told her parents about this "unknown older guy".
He didn't even have feeling when she is 16, it only start after they get reunited as an adult

It start with the hospital then it sealed the deal with she throws the water to Jiang Ying.
I think he start realizing that spending time with her is something that he enjoys too.

I like that you specified it so I can put my alarm on time,lol

I like SHS and ABH respectfully but they are miscast for the couple, I am not sure which one cause sometimes I like DW (the sister) and SH chemistry and I think SHS does it good. Other times, ABH does sell the image of lost soul because of trauma but both of them together is not working even for 1 life time couple. They don't feel like in the same drama, they felt like Music Video Couple, only good at scenes when they don't talk.

I think the dancer girls in SH's mother which is way better story line than JE imo. I want to speculate but I am with you, the inconsistency feels like they just want to make it mysterious without actual thought behind it and I just want to know what happen. The flashback is still annoying, the show seems like lacking footage because it just looks boring as a drama.
It's sad that I don't care of the characters, I do care about SH, his life is miserable and I felt like he should've been the perspective and not JE. They could've make this story about SH letting go on his feeling and actually move on from JW and JE altogether, make it melodramatic to the bone.

I 100% agree, it's so badly edited, disjointed and I am not sure why they add some of the background music, sometimes it's so loud and you can't hear the dialogue, other times is sounds so jittery while the scenes is about something sad or dangerous, pick a line.
It's like they lost footage and scrapping what they have. I remember feeling taken out by how the sister crying with squatting in ep 5, her acting is good, the music is good but the way it shot just looks off, I think it's the squatting position,
I got the same feels when I saw JE dancing with the hallucination. Sometimes they will have a good shot but the entire sequence makes it looks silly.
What do you think about the dialogue?
cause I can't take the dialogue seriously, they aren't really talking or having conversation with each other in a lot of the scenes, they just say what's on their mind and there's no back and forth.

I also think it's getting slower, things happened but also not happening at the same time because it's same scenes with added flashback and the character didn't do anything related to the plot. They just making new narrative so the old plot become slow.

I don't think they even give us reason why she likes him beside how the boy makes her 18 life felt interesting and it still feel creepy when I write it.
She is fix on SH and SH isn't even that interesting.
I watch half of ep6 but it's really obvious that the pairing is forced by the narrative rather than actual chemistry from the actors.