Beatrice

Light Coming of Age

I love Kieta Hatsukoi, it's one of my top favorite shows ever, but it ends really soon into the story of the main couple. My Love Mix Up gets to explore the relationship in full and with differences that makes it stand out on it's own as an adaptation. This is in reference just to the two shows, not to do with the manga at all. Both Atom and Kongthap learn to grow as people through their relationship with each other. Their mile stones of physical intimacy like holding hands and kissing are so sweet. The parts that I dreaded the most, but turned out to be a very memorable subversions was the classmates doing the play and especially the teacher. In the Japanese version it was a homophobic teacher, but in the Thai version, the teacher turned out to be also gay and both he and his boyfriend become mentor figures. It's so moving to see an elder queer mentors help Atom and Kongthap how to navigate being queer in a world that's definitely not always friendly. The mothers being so supportive and loving to their sons is so heartening as well.

I didn't like Mudmee's storyline. It's the same in both the Japanese and Thai versions. I don't think violence is funny or warranted in the context of any of the situations shown. Her strength is a funny gag, but not when it's to physically assault someone who did not do anything to deserve it.

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Boring Cubed

Normally I would be all for all three characters just dating each other, but both Misaki and Yuki are the blandest people and Shuhei is annoying. There's no romantic spark or tension between the three of them. Misaki shows more spark and happiness with her friends and even her frenemy, until that guy she also has no chemistry with hits on her anyways. The show has a short runtime, but the 10 episodes feels like it drags on forever until they FINALLY divorce and cut to black with Yuki still having zero attraction to Misaki even though she's interested in joining what Yuki wants to do with Shuhei.

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Slow burn that abruptly fizzles out

The pacing of the story is that it's a lot of set up that ends right where it's finally going to pay off. Soo Hyuk and Yoon Dae uniquely understand the family baggage and trauma they each have. Soo Hyuk bears so much pain and hurt with his hard earned money just feeding endlessly into his father's vices. Yoon Dae keeps looking for someone to offer him stability and care. Even though the pair are mutually attracted to each other, it's hard to root for them without some meaningful change from Yoon Dae other than a confession. I want to see him step up for Soo Hyuk. There is a little set up that Soo Hyuk's co-worker might potentially be interested in him too, but everything just suddenly ends.

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A bit discordant

The production looks nice, the cast is okay. The blue hair character Do Yoon is the funniest, I had to rewatch when he pushed Tae Yi off to the side to hug Se Heon, the comic timing was great. The edit pace overall is really slow. Since this is from the same screenwriter/director from a previous drama that totally failed in the romance department, the main couple's romance here is an improvement, but there is still room for more. The characters kissing people without consent is not good, but at least they apologized I guess. I've seen complaints, but the light kissing during the high school times are both age appropriate for these characters and kudos to the actors didn't look jpeg. They also showed their grown up kissing three years later after high school, it's fine ya'll lol.

There is a concerning amount of bullying consisting both of beatings and of a sexual assault nature that are forgiven way too easily. Especially concerning when Tae Yi falls into this category. He deserved to be kicked between the legs for what he did to Se Heon. I get what they were going for in the second couple, but that reconciliation, even just as friendship was way rushed. Joo Ha needed to do way more to make amends for being the violent terror that he was toward everyone. Do Yoon deserves so much better. The reveal about Se Heon and Tae Yi's brother was sad and the conclusion to that felt a bit abrupt as well. The storylines weren't spaced out very well. They should have given a bunch of the time dedicated to bullying to develop the interpersonal storylines instead.

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Progressive potential muddled by Orientalism and lack of follow through

The show is definitely making use of the Netflix platform to showcase a kdrama romcom that contain a lot edgier topics and portrayals than it usually can on it's mainstream broadcast and streaming platforms, but it's adherence to the false equivocation of being childish to being cute makes the moments eye rolling rather than it's intended effect. Both the actresses who played young and elder Mi Ju were fantastic. Both were standouts in their own way. Some of the dark physical humor is quite funny, like when Ejlael breaks through the windows to fly away and Irem horrifically cutting her tongue and her other senses in order to not give away information to Iblis since she cannot lie. The drama has a lot going on with portraying psychopathy, utilizing Islamic Arabian mythology, and also featuring a lesbian character.

From what I understand of psychopathy wise, there's actually a lot of people that have it, especially in high level leader positions. The condition can be managed in a positive familial environment like shown with Ka Yeong. The show also shows the typical kdrama murder psychopath with another character that also grew up in the same village. He seemed to be undiagnosed, so never received treatment or care from the village that Ka Yeong got. It feels icky that the show made her unable to mask emotions when the other person was able to do so, just for comedic effect and so that she's "healed" with magic at the end when she is turned into a Jinniya. It seemed like they were were also veering into neurodivergence outside of psycopathy that they never address and she's completely changed. She might as well have been reincarnated as a fifth time rather than turning into a Jinniya out of nowhere.

The better way for the drama to have involved the Islamic Arabian mythology was to have actually featured a Arab actor to play Iblis for the entire story and have Arab consultants. Korea may be an ethnostate, but it's been intentionally exporting it's soft culture and interacting with other cultures for so many decades now, but it seems to fall into the same pitfalls again and again. There needs to be some sense of respect or otherwise it's just cultural appropriation and using another culture to be exotic. It's also frustrating that the show has Ka Yeong's past life say that Joseon also has genies. If that's true, that's what this show should have been about in the first place. There are graphic violent scenes where Arab people who are portrayed as enslaving two Korean children are beheaded and some visceral violence towards Korean characters as well, but they are at the hands of an Arab character that forcibly took over the body of a Korean child. The hero Iblis is only ever shown in Korean form. There's a weird undercurrent of Islamaphobia.

I don't agree with the MDL spoiler tag of the show having an LGBT character. The show doesn't hide it, Min Ji is not closeted. The show is cowardly though for not following through on the meet cute scenes that she has with both Irem and Mi Ju. Her scenes with the women are full kdrama romance tropes and she's seen dramatically locking eyes with her Korean TSA girlfriend. It's all one sided, Mi Ju never shows or expresses any attraction to her and Mi Ju doesn't even get a partner into old age, she's at the sand dune tour alone, watching her best friend being wind with her lover. It would not have cost them more for Mi Ju to have had a woman standing romantically next to her. They show that the reason her girlfriend broke up with her is because she point blank chose Ka Yeong over her. In the end lesbian Mi Ju was just devoted to her straight friend her whole life and even after the friend's death.

The dark humor storyline that worked the most was the little dog that wished for a human form and then wished for money and a human assistant, before tracking down his previous owners who he thinks of as family. He coughs out blood and it's implied that the owners had intentionally abandoned him because he was ill. His last wish was to turn back into a dog so he can reunite with his family as himself. Tragically the last we see is of the little doggy waiting next to the bus stop with the implication that he probably passed away without meeting them again. He had willed all his wish money to his assistant who has no memory of how it happened, but retains a sense of needing to devote himself to caring for stray dogs. It's so sweet and Daniel Henny absolutely went all out to play a dog in a human body and Kim Ji Hoon who I think may have been filming the american show Butterfly at the same time since he had the exact same styling was really funny as well as the stoic ex-military helper trying his best to help his boss.

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