amaginon

I love the contrasting aesthetic of their merged home that matches their personalities. Her side gives off a warm, cozy & welcoming aura, whilst his gives off a cold, lonely & austere aura (despite the flames everywhere). It is a fantastic way to visually impress upon the audience the difference between their characters.

* FL makes a contract with an anthropomorphic entity (Doom) after she finds out she has 3 months to live.

* Doom gets - The FL will wish for the end/doom of the world which he hopes will also end his own existence.

* Female Lead gets - a 2nd wish (separate from her wish for the end of the world). And the ability to suffer no pain due to her illness.

* If the Female Lead reneges on the contract, the person "she loves most" (currently her brother) will die instead. Thus the female lead has decided to make "Doom" (the male lead) the person "she loves most" so he will die instead.

She gives decent reasons at the start of episode 3, but her real reason is hinted at the end of episode 3. Basically she wants the "one she loves most" to be the ML thus allowing her to break/renege on the contract so he will die instead.

I have read the first 20 chapters of the original manga and it seems they have copied the jealousy from the manga but not the reason for the jealousy so it does not really make sense in the drama. In the manga the jealousy was a small moment when she had a stray thought that Mamiya & the secretary were romantically involved (she though the secretary was much younger than she actually is). The drama has extended this moment to be much more than the momentary thing it was in the manga.

They do not get together at all until basically the last five minutes (the female lead refuse to accept the male lead until the end, even though the male lead is pursuing her)

Yes it has a happy ending (though they really do not get together until the last 5 minutes).

how is it a spoiler? It is the entire premise. Even the synopsis says his girlfriend is dead. What disease she dies of is NOT a spoiler.

I agree. I have not seen "Joy of Life or My Heroic "Husband but my go to comparison are the two Cdramas, "Love in Time (2020)" & "Love is Sweet (2020)". Both CDramas are very similar on the surface but when you look deeper, the ML in Love in Time has always been focused on helping the FL fulfill her dreams, whilst the ML in Love is Sweet has always been focused on controlling her. I feel the ML in Closer to You is much more like the ML in "Love is Sweet" who want to cage the girl for their own interest and "saving" the FL is only a byproduct of their ultimate aim. I can never see these types of characters actually respecting their love interests as people, only as possessions.

On the other hand the Male Lead in "Love in Time" is much closer to the Korean version of Closer to You. Both also wants to "possess" the Female Lead, but both are willing to help the girl regardless of their own wants. They see their female leads more as people with their own dreams than as possessions.

I think a big part of why the korean version worked so much imo was that he had a time limit of 6 days to save her, so he was much more motivated, the chinese version has a time limit of something like 2 or 3 months.

No. She is nothing like a manic pixie dream girl

I am someone who used always believe no-one is responsible for someone else's suicide. BUT over the last 10 years, I have reached the stage that I feel that anyone's suicide that is linked to a high level of cyber-bullying, the most vicious of those cyber-bullies should be charged with man-slaughter.

No-one seems to be safe from cyber-bullies, from celebrities to children, way too many suicides have been linked to cyber-bullying. Very few people can withstand constant, relentless, vicious bullying. At least with old-fashion bullying the bullies would go home and you could also escape, but cyber-bullying is 24/7/365

The original short Korean webdrama that this is based on is incredibly sweet. The korean ML really goes back in time to save a girl who saved him (and who he betrayed and regretted). I definitely recommend watching that version first. But this version (as is often the case with Chinese remakes) just makes the ML incredibly domineering and controlling. He is there to save her, but only in regards to making her his subservient girlfriend at the same time.

The synopsis straight up says she was raised as his sister from age THREE through to age FIFTEEN. This is not a case of children just encountering each other at school. They are treated as siblings. There is something called the Westermarck effect (Reverse Sexual Imprinting amongst most mammals, not just humans) where young children raised together in a sibling bond develop an aversion to seeing their sibling in a sexual manner (even if not biologically related).

The above synopsis is saying that the two leads were brother and sister for 12 years until the FL is 15. Then they suddenly/magically become "not brother & sister" in a romance drama where the two are the leads so the inference is ...........

There is almost a year difference in age so, but that is not my main point. The characters they are playing in this are not the same age (one is a teacher, the other is her student). I do not mind age differences in dramas BUT Gong Yoo looks older, when he is supposed to be playing much younger, which is jarring in regards to the immersion in the drama.

There is a breakup and it for a stupid reason (noble idiocy). It lasts for around 2-3 episodes BUT it does get resolved a couple of episodes before the end so we do get a very good ending (not to mention the Special Bonus Episode which is them getting married). I dislike Noble Idiocy breakups immensely BUT even with that I really like this drama.

One of the major issues I had with the show is they kept "telling" us certain things, whilst "showing" us things that were the total opposite. For example they kept "telling" us the FL was a forceful, strong-willed independent woman. They kept "showing" us that she was passive & weak-willed.

This also was the same with the sister relationships. They kept "telling" us that they had this ultra-close relationship with each other but they kept "showing" us a tepid shallow relation as none of them really talked about anything meaningful with each other because they were all so focused on keeping anything meaningful in their lives a secret from each other. That both of these examples finally became true at the end does not negate the fact that what was "shown" was the opposite of what was "told" for the vast majority of the show.

nope, The special is. https://kisskh.at/60597-the-love-equations-special-episode

Very much so. There is the usual noble idiocy breakup, but that gets resolved two or three episodes before the ending, so it is not them coming back together in the last 5 minutes either. And then there is the bonus episode which is the wedding episode.

Of course it is a generalization. Almost all opinions to do with what you like and dislike are generalizations in some way. In fact anyone who "likes" or "dislikes" Kdramas and/or JDramas and/or CDramas and/or American Action Movies and/or pet dogs and/or pet cats; are doing so from a opinion coloured by generalization. Are you American perhaps? I have notice North Americans have an issue with certain words and use them to police language (an opinion that is also a generalization lol).

But to answer you question, off the top of my head here is some I have seen - the Japanese versions of Meteor Garden; You Are My Destiny; Rich Man; Cinderella Is Online; My Absolute Boyfriend;