This review may contain spoilers
Leaps without thinking
It would have been great if there was equal care in the writing of the story as there were in the crafting of the various death scenes that range from heart breaking to cool looking. It feels like the show was more of vehicle to serve showing off the effects than the effects serving the story. That works for an attractive trailer, but not a satisfying story. A majority of the plot progression relied on the characters making the most frustratingly unintelligent decisions or things that just make no sense at all.
Dream's actress whose overacting when it comes to portraying peppiness was easier to be overlooked in her previous role in the romcom My Love Mix Up, but is particularly off putting in this story that needs a more grounded performance. Dew who plays Night has potential, but he has yet to find that breakthrough in the limits of his emotional range. The romance between Night and Dream has no inherent chemistry, though it does make internal story sense that the extremely isolated and lonely Night would fall for someone who cares about him and constantly around him. Aside from that, there isn't any kind of bond that develop between them aside from proximity that makes them worth rooting for.
Night knows Dream doesn't care about boundaries for good or ill, always forcing her way into his life and has already has penchant stumbling into traffic on a regular day, but instead of telling her to just give him space for one day or that he's leaving town for that time or something, he does it in the worse way possible, especially when she's already shown up at his house. He himself shouts for her to leave and then realizes she's exposed to being run over by cars and decides to driver her home himself instead of going back to his house where it's closer to ride out the final destination curse that is also affecting Day and Ozone. This is the only accident where it's not her fault, but Ozone running into the path of the car. All the other times is either her dropping glass on the kitchen floor then slipping from rushing, her slipping from rushing down the emergency stairs with no particular reason to run, and then her rushing into traffic towards Ozone. She is a danger to herself.
Ozone at least has an excuse for running into traffic as he's already sensitive from his autism, but also even more so with the disorientation of fear and the universe signals. He knows from his vision dreams later to not rush forward, just calling out to Night from a safe distance of the on coming traffic. His familial bond and relationship with Day is the heart of the story. Ozone's actor Gun is a fantastic actor and while the GMMTV shows are extremely hit or miss, especially ones that are contractually ship pairing based, his performances are always the best. Pond who plays Day is serviceable. Day is the one who utilizes the most sense comparatively in the entire show. He remains kind and amiable despite living through all the familial losses that Day has. It was really lovely how he models patiently interacting and communicating with Ozone instead of being angry or forceful to get Ozone to do what he wants.
I like the scene where his co-worker shop clerk calls his cousin a dimwit, so he counters by quizzing the clerk which planet the sticker from the blind box that Ozone definitely knows is, which the clerk can't answer. He's a film major who has an open mind and kind heart, but not necessarily the skills or scientific mind needed to break the curse on his own. Night is the one studying medical science to prevent deaths, but he's very closed minded and defeatist. Even when change literally hits him like a car crash in the form of Day and Ozone that results in zero deaths for the first time in his life, he refuses to work together with Day for way too long. When he finally does, he's able to decipher Ozone's drawings that contain messages from the universe that's trying to be helpful. Also as an aspiring doctor, Night immediately agrees that passing the curse on to two innocent women who will immediately die, followed by all the loved ones of the surviving children every 4 years sounds great even though he has 4 years to figure out if there is an alternative or not. He only chickens out when he's facing experimenting on an actual woman without her consent.
Props to Dream for immediately breaking up with Night and for Professor/Dr. Wiwat's wife and daughter for immediately leaving after learning about his essentially knowing serial killing via curse on their unwitting behalf. Dr. Kit goes about trying to communicate with Day and Ozone in the most traumatizing, criminal way possible made all the worse with the reveal that he is a doctor who should know better than to treat a neurotypical person, let alone an autistic person like that. He didn't even try the regular way of just straight up talking like regular person. He knows that a Leap Day curse sufferer would want to know some more information already. Just approach Day when he's not around Night or if it really must be Ozone, talk to him nicely whenever he's waiting for Day to get out of class and Dream isn't there either.
It's interesting that there were Americans that were researching the Leap Day curse, implying that it's a worldwide phenomena. There wasn't much information on how far that research went before they let Wiwat know that passing on the curse that will cause a whole other two groups of people to die works. Did they try going to shamans? Did they try passing the curse to pregnant lab rats? Did Night's mom die at midnight and the Leap Day curse is only completed by force when Wiwat induced Day's mom's labour at noon and that's why people only noticed his suspicious misconduct for Day's birth? Also despite the first episode suggesting the curse works in a final destination kind of way, most of the time it's just an act of god style randomness. The heart attack and even the kdrama car of doom is fine. But the razor blade materializing in Ozone's noodles that Day personally made himself is nonsensical, especially when there was the broken fan blades from earlier that would have at least made some kind of sense. And as I mentioned before Dream just hurts herself by her near deadly clumsiness.
There is an uncomfortable trope of neuero atypical people having magical abilities that Ozone falls into, but the show supposes that him being a direct target and his mind is just different enough to be able to hear a force that opposes the destructive energy of the curse. The force seems to seek to protect Ozone in particular, pretty much telling Day that he needs to die for Ozone to be okay. It was set up by a social worker at the beginning that Day's aunt and uncle didn't leave much money behind for Ozone and that Day would need to get a job to provide for them both. Though never said by the show, Day probably thought sacrificing himself would be better because Night who had pretty much become family at that point after living together for 4 years at Night's house would be able to take care of Ozone. Dream's family is also in a dire economical circumstance as explained by a phone call that Night overhears, explaining why they never travelled to visit her even though she's been hospitalized for very extreme accidents more than once. Day had suspected it's what the universe was asking of him, but rather than discussing with anyone else, he kept it to himself and decided to be the noble idiot trope.
Was it not great that he just made the decision himself? Yes. Is it worse that the show chickens out and cheapens his sacrifice with a coma reveal? Yes. It opens more questions, like is the solution then to arrest the heart, resuscitate, and induce a coma? Did the force lie or did the interpret it wrong, that all four of them could have just left together all along if resuscitating worked all along? It would have been better if the show stuck to it's guns, having the purgatory wearing shirt Day be dead, but his spirit stuck in the weird in between place until the souls of his friends and family join him after living full lives and they move on together. But no good grade for the wishy washy concept that we get instead.
Dream's actress whose overacting when it comes to portraying peppiness was easier to be overlooked in her previous role in the romcom My Love Mix Up, but is particularly off putting in this story that needs a more grounded performance. Dew who plays Night has potential, but he has yet to find that breakthrough in the limits of his emotional range. The romance between Night and Dream has no inherent chemistry, though it does make internal story sense that the extremely isolated and lonely Night would fall for someone who cares about him and constantly around him. Aside from that, there isn't any kind of bond that develop between them aside from proximity that makes them worth rooting for.
Night knows Dream doesn't care about boundaries for good or ill, always forcing her way into his life and has already has penchant stumbling into traffic on a regular day, but instead of telling her to just give him space for one day or that he's leaving town for that time or something, he does it in the worse way possible, especially when she's already shown up at his house. He himself shouts for her to leave and then realizes she's exposed to being run over by cars and decides to driver her home himself instead of going back to his house where it's closer to ride out the final destination curse that is also affecting Day and Ozone. This is the only accident where it's not her fault, but Ozone running into the path of the car. All the other times is either her dropping glass on the kitchen floor then slipping from rushing, her slipping from rushing down the emergency stairs with no particular reason to run, and then her rushing into traffic towards Ozone. She is a danger to herself.
Ozone at least has an excuse for running into traffic as he's already sensitive from his autism, but also even more so with the disorientation of fear and the universe signals. He knows from his vision dreams later to not rush forward, just calling out to Night from a safe distance of the on coming traffic. His familial bond and relationship with Day is the heart of the story. Ozone's actor Gun is a fantastic actor and while the GMMTV shows are extremely hit or miss, especially ones that are contractually ship pairing based, his performances are always the best. Pond who plays Day is serviceable. Day is the one who utilizes the most sense comparatively in the entire show. He remains kind and amiable despite living through all the familial losses that Day has. It was really lovely how he models patiently interacting and communicating with Ozone instead of being angry or forceful to get Ozone to do what he wants.
I like the scene where his co-worker shop clerk calls his cousin a dimwit, so he counters by quizzing the clerk which planet the sticker from the blind box that Ozone definitely knows is, which the clerk can't answer. He's a film major who has an open mind and kind heart, but not necessarily the skills or scientific mind needed to break the curse on his own. Night is the one studying medical science to prevent deaths, but he's very closed minded and defeatist. Even when change literally hits him like a car crash in the form of Day and Ozone that results in zero deaths for the first time in his life, he refuses to work together with Day for way too long. When he finally does, he's able to decipher Ozone's drawings that contain messages from the universe that's trying to be helpful. Also as an aspiring doctor, Night immediately agrees that passing the curse on to two innocent women who will immediately die, followed by all the loved ones of the surviving children every 4 years sounds great even though he has 4 years to figure out if there is an alternative or not. He only chickens out when he's facing experimenting on an actual woman without her consent.
Props to Dream for immediately breaking up with Night and for Professor/Dr. Wiwat's wife and daughter for immediately leaving after learning about his essentially knowing serial killing via curse on their unwitting behalf. Dr. Kit goes about trying to communicate with Day and Ozone in the most traumatizing, criminal way possible made all the worse with the reveal that he is a doctor who should know better than to treat a neurotypical person, let alone an autistic person like that. He didn't even try the regular way of just straight up talking like regular person. He knows that a Leap Day curse sufferer would want to know some more information already. Just approach Day when he's not around Night or if it really must be Ozone, talk to him nicely whenever he's waiting for Day to get out of class and Dream isn't there either.
It's interesting that there were Americans that were researching the Leap Day curse, implying that it's a worldwide phenomena. There wasn't much information on how far that research went before they let Wiwat know that passing on the curse that will cause a whole other two groups of people to die works. Did they try going to shamans? Did they try passing the curse to pregnant lab rats? Did Night's mom die at midnight and the Leap Day curse is only completed by force when Wiwat induced Day's mom's labour at noon and that's why people only noticed his suspicious misconduct for Day's birth? Also despite the first episode suggesting the curse works in a final destination kind of way, most of the time it's just an act of god style randomness. The heart attack and even the kdrama car of doom is fine. But the razor blade materializing in Ozone's noodles that Day personally made himself is nonsensical, especially when there was the broken fan blades from earlier that would have at least made some kind of sense. And as I mentioned before Dream just hurts herself by her near deadly clumsiness.
There is an uncomfortable trope of neuero atypical people having magical abilities that Ozone falls into, but the show supposes that him being a direct target and his mind is just different enough to be able to hear a force that opposes the destructive energy of the curse. The force seems to seek to protect Ozone in particular, pretty much telling Day that he needs to die for Ozone to be okay. It was set up by a social worker at the beginning that Day's aunt and uncle didn't leave much money behind for Ozone and that Day would need to get a job to provide for them both. Though never said by the show, Day probably thought sacrificing himself would be better because Night who had pretty much become family at that point after living together for 4 years at Night's house would be able to take care of Ozone. Dream's family is also in a dire economical circumstance as explained by a phone call that Night overhears, explaining why they never travelled to visit her even though she's been hospitalized for very extreme accidents more than once. Day had suspected it's what the universe was asking of him, but rather than discussing with anyone else, he kept it to himself and decided to be the noble idiot trope.
Was it not great that he just made the decision himself? Yes. Is it worse that the show chickens out and cheapens his sacrifice with a coma reveal? Yes. It opens more questions, like is the solution then to arrest the heart, resuscitate, and induce a coma? Did the force lie or did the interpret it wrong, that all four of them could have just left together all along if resuscitating worked all along? It would have been better if the show stuck to it's guns, having the purgatory wearing shirt Day be dead, but his spirit stuck in the weird in between place until the souls of his friends and family join him after living full lives and they move on together. But no good grade for the wishy washy concept that we get instead.
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