Rus7y

If you need to "Just skip" the majority of the show, it is not a good show

Let's start from the beginning. It is not a BL. Youth story, story about highschoolers, anything but BL. You know why is it disappointing? It's adapted from a pure BL. But, regardless.

Positives:
- Music. You can hardly go wrong with music, but it happened in some shows, so I'm still giving a point for that.
- Visuals. Beautiful. You can tell that they poured a lot of money into this one.
- Acting. If some of the characters are annoying to you, it means that the actor played them well. Well....if it was meant to be that way? Otherwise, oops. Still, acting is the highlight of the show.
- The astronomy methaphors. Every single one of them is beautiful, and every single one captures the summary of the each episode beautifully. I wished there were less tennis and more of Astronomy, but oh well. Some people wish that pigs could fly.
- Heesu and Seungwon. Separated, together. They gave a lot of depth to them specifically...not always knowing what to do with it though. You can remove everyone else from the story, and story becomes better. Not amazing, but good. Still, i said everything about that in the headline.
- As a youth story it's okay. If you do not take it as anything else but a youth story, if not, well....

Negatives:

- Let's start from the elephant in the room. The straight pair, that got together almost at the very beginning, and for the quite a big chunk of the show we saw them dating, while the main pair fubled around each other. You could've shown the begining of their crush. How they briefly dated, sure. But showing them in our faces every time when the mains are barely friends is straight up disrespectful, considering that it's adapted. From the bl. Where they didn't even exist. And it's not the only one straight pair, nooo. Sisters and their boyfriends, Ho Shik and his girlfriend. Everyone got to shine. Expect for, well.
- Pacing. Too fast, too slow. Some crucial and important moments happen in the blink of an eye, but the unimportant stuff drags so badly you wonder what's the show even about.
- Character development. Oh no, the mains are okay. Could be better though. But literally everyone else? I couldn't tell if I'm supposed to see them as comic reliefs or serious characters. Cause why, pray tell, did you give so much screen time to Chan Yeong and his tennis and then just....not done anything meaningful with it?
- This being an adaptation. In short....it is not. It's a completely different show, that has characters under the same names. Why would you even adapt this one, if you hated it that much? I have no idea.
- This being a supposed "slow burn". Where's the persistent tension between the main leads? Where's the lots and lots of meaningful scenes and deep conversations? Slow burning show, sure. Not slow burning relationship, though.

Overall, if you're not a fan of the original work, and not a fan of queer centric stories, but a fan of simple youth stories, this is for you. For everyone else....i am deeply sorry, really. But as a queer story, as an adaptation, this is a disappointment.

If someone wants to crop everyone from the show and just keep Heesu and Seungwon separate and together, you can get a decent show. Otherwise, well, i do not see why would you rewatch it.

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Joo-won, your husband misses you.

For a show with a great potential like this, i was kinda dissapointed. It started out pretty good, the suspense, distrust between main characters, finding out who's the killer.
The middle half though, after identifying one of the killers....dragged out pretty badly.
If only they've given more screentime to Joo-won and Dong-sik, instead of trying to share it equally between other, secondary characters, it wouldn't been so bad. But instead, what i got was boring characters i didn't care about chewing the same sentences over and over again. Those politicians, wannabe puppeteer manipulators, felt as bland as a piece of paper compared to the main serial killer. Watching them waste precious air over and over again almost made me snooze in the middle of every episode starting from the eight one.
But regardless, the final two to three episodes were pretty good. The focus shifted onto the main characters once again, as if they tried to fit all of the plot holes and the rest of the plot into the last three hours. Honestly, i wish there were less episodes, maybe then plot wouldn't feel so draggy. The chemistry between main characters and their charismatic allies is the only thing that saved this show.
And really, there's a lot of negative things that i can say about....pretty much everything, but there's two phenomenal points that i can't criticise: 1) Music 2) Acting
Even when i didn't care about the characters, or found them boring, i could tell that every actress and actor put their whole souls into their roles. The slow build between Shin Ha-kyun and Yeo Jin-goo's characters is mwah, chef's kiss. THE slow burn that ever slow burned, as my loml would put it. You can feel the loving touch of a woman in this show.
Music is just....no notes. You can feel the atmosphere without anyone saying a word, and it WILL touch your soul.
Did i enjoy watching it? Even with all the negatives, yeah, i did. Is it rewatchable? If you can put yourself through the torture of repeatable situations and scenes, then yes, but i can't. Maybe later. Maybe in a year or so, two, even. Maybe i will watch the first eight episodes and the two last ones, then.

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A promising sequel turned into a plot race

Clarification: I did not read the webtoon. I saw snippets from it, but not too much to be an expert. Still, i would compare it to the show nevertheless.

Let's start from the positives.
- In the short span of 8 episodes, they managed to make almost every new appearing character interesting, or at least not boring. I would say that for the most part, it's thanks to their actors, but i would expand on it more in the negatives part.
- Scenery, color grading, you get it, the visuals. It's not as breathtaking just as first season was, but still beautiful in it's own way, portraying Sieun's melancholy with blue hues and warm tones when he's happier.
- The plot is complete. It really is. Everything they could've done, they did. You can tell that it's a finished story, without loose ends. However, only regarding major parts. In minors, well.....
- Acting. Not only Park Jihoon delivered amazing performance as always, but everyone else, too. Especially antagonists.
- Music. Primary did an excellent job, but for me, there were never any doubt about the music part. Energetic and catchy when it needs to be, melancholic, hopeful, you get it.

Negatives. Well, buckle up.
- As much as they tried to expand as much on each charater as they could, it still feels too little. I came to watch already knowing who everyone else is, but what about drama only watchers? They tried to make new relationships seem as meaningful as possible, but it still progressed too fast with minimal amount of scenes that's needed to say yeah, i guess they're friends.
- Which leads to my next point. Pacing. It feels as rushed as it could be. As everyone already said thousands of times, it's action packed. Not plot packed. It felt like race to an unknown destination. A destination wich at first seemed promising, but turned out to be disappointing.
- Hinting that Seongje is a main antagonist in possible season three. First of all, you put actual ending of a webtoon in the second season, and THEN you say wait, actually, i have more to say. Really?
- I really disliked how they tried to make the whole season about Humin and Baekjin, and then expanded on their relationship as little as possible. You just know that SOMETHING happened. What, exactly? Nevermind, decide for yourself! Not that it matters now.
- Showing off Seongje a whole lot in the promoting material just for him to disappear halfway. Nice move.

Overall, I can't say that it's bad, exactly. But who's this made for? Not for Webtoon fans, that's for sure. For them, this is a complete disappointment. Drama only fans? It's rushed and confusing. It's more of an action tale about...people, friendship? It doesn't portray societal problems as well as first season did. It's entertaining, don't get me wrong. But it falls short in front of both the webtoon and the first season. You cannot try to fit loads of chapters into eight episodes 40 mins each, and expect to come out successful. Should you watch it? If you are interested in Sieun's story, sure. But for every other character it feels too lacking.

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