Green Flag Enthusiast

I've watched both Korean & Japanese versions of this dramas. Well, I've watched both, kind of. I finished this version and I dropped the Korean version maybe around episode 8 or 9. I honestly can't remember. Moral of the story - it's all based on personal preference. Whatever you prefer in your Asian dramas will determine which of these versions you're going to connect with and enjoy more. There is no right or wrong answer here truly.

Personally, I dropped the Korean version because I couldn't connect with the female lead whereas I know some reviewers preferred the Korean version over this one because they felt that the FL in the Korean version had more of a backbone and more spunk, if you will. Honestly, I disagree with that notion. I feel both leads had the same amount of backbone in the beginning honestly. Neither one of them were particularly assertive after traveling back to the past, if I'm being wholly honest here. I know that's what most people expect from these types of dramas and I've essentially accepted that these dramas will never truly write a FL who immediately shows her own personal growth and anger like we would like. We expect more fire from these leads and we never get that. There's usually two extremes with revenge dramas (which is why I'm generally not too fond of them) - either they're like this drama where there's still a little too much timidity and fear from FL OR the FL goes full-on psychopath and it's dark before the end of the first episode. There's never a true happy medium in these dramas, which there should be but I digress.

So anyway, this drama felt more dark while also having more of a heart. The OG version lacked heart. K-Dramas, generally speaking, are notorious for being melodramatic. K-Dramas have a tendency to read like telenovelas/soap operas sometimes. So while the characters are technically messy on paper and in practice, it comes off as more of a caricature than an honest depiction of human beings. The inherent darkness and rawness often found in J-Dramas worked for this series. The grit we saw made it easier to see these characters as three-dimensional beings. They seemed human in that way and I think that's what I feel was missing from the Korean version.

Also, the ML in the K-Drama was completely lost on the canvas. I barely remember anything about him and he made little to no impression on me. However, the ML in this drama was definitely felt. I've seen this actor in another J-Drama that I love and he essentially played a variation of that character in this drama, as well. The tsundere, stone-faced type. Despite that, I did feel more of an emotional connection with him. I felt his presence; he was very much so represented throughout the narrative. His presence was there even when he wasn't on-screen. The antagonist felt human to me, as well. She was objectively awful but we know how she became that way. We hated Reina but there was some realism to her.

Last but certainly not least, the K-Drama's pacing was SLOWWWWW. The episode count is longer so I guess that's to be expected but that leads to certain arcs being drawn out more than they should and certain arcs being forced into the narrative to fill up the rest of the drama's runtime. This version doesn't have that issue. It's shorter so every episode contributes to the main plot and nothing seems to be filler, to me. Nothing was wasted in that sense, especially your time. They immediately placed us into the meat & potatoes of the story and you didn't have to wait for the show to hit its sweet spot, so to speak. The sweet spot started from episode 1.

Would I recommend this? Yes! It's not too long and it's incredibly enjoyable. Would I rewatch it? Sure, I can definitely see myself rewatching this one if I desired.