bloomingtide

Fr, i have watched over a hundred fifty kdrama by now and if i had stopped after not liking the first episode i would have watched/finished maybe... ten. Since the first episode is either introductory and slow or throws too many details at you at once. It is never the singular best thing ever in kdramaland, but for some reason people always expect it to be lmao.

Hence why i will never understand people who judge a kdrama with 12 or 16 episodes after one single episode like many have done this week with Kokdu. It is just.... can't compute. It makes no sense, lol.

Rating is pretty volatile on MDL, especially during the first two or so episodes of a new drama airing it goes very often down down down and then up and down and up. Rinse and repeat. Yall can influence it quite easily for the better when rating the individual episodes in the episode guide tab btw. Especially if you enjoy the drama thus far this would be a good thing to do:

https://kisskh.at/728279-the-season-of-kokdoo/episodes

I gave the drama a 10 in general for now, not because i think it is the best thing ever but to counteract how some people have already drunken way too much haterade for no reason whatsoever after only two episodes of sixteen. (Exhibit A: The nonsense reviews)

It is on viki by now yeah. Also on your usual non-legal streaming site i guess xD

look at my second (third?) post under the spoiler tag, it is there, inclusive link/credit. i needed to format the comment for MDL first, so posting it took a while, whoops.

I don't blame him for being a quick-moving, impatient god after having waited a couple of hundred years already, haha. i doubt however it will be this easy for them 🤭

Sageuk Timeline

-- the usual star-crossed lovers set up between Oh Hyun (ML) and Seol Hui (FL)
-- They had decided to run off but their plans were found out so Oh Hyun was killed while Seol Hui watched.
-- Oh Hyun's final 'regret' is never having had the chance to tell Seol Hui that loving her was his life (Ep 2). This is represented in part by his desire to return the ring to her.
-- Later Seol Hui committed suicide to escape her fate after first killing the person she was forced to marry.
-- (According to story told by grandma patient in ep. 1) Seol Hui was punished by experiencing the same pain (losing someone close to her and committing suicide) each time she is reincarnated. Oh Hyun is (eventually) punished by being turned into Kokdu.

Afterlife Scenes

-- After dying, Oh Hyun refuses to go into the cycle of reincarnation and instead insists on waiting in the afterlife to see Seol Hui. The Creator initially tries to convince Oh Hyun to 'move on' saying that Seol Hui and his fate from this lifetime is an ill fate (fiery one of destruction). Instead if Oh Hyun would enter the cycle of reincarnation, he can me Seol Hui in a future reincarnation that would be a good fate. Oh Hyun refuses and stays in his spot.
-- Oh Hyun stays in his spot for so long he forgets who he was waiting for and angers the Creator into punishing him by turning him into Kokdu.
-- As Kokdu his job is to watch over the deceased in the afterlife as they go on their way to reincarnation.
-- At the same time, Kokdu returns to the mortal realm once every 99 years for 99 days where every night he has to listen to the agony/regrets of humans and kill off some trash-like human, aka the source of the agony.

Current Day

--Do Jin Woo the doctor has died during that fall. The two sidekick deities bowed to send off his soul and Kokdu himself talked of Do Jin Woo as having died in his conversation with Han Gye Jeol.
-- Kokdu in this visit to the mortal realm has possessed Do Jin Woo's body.
-- Do Jin Woo is not a reincarnation of Oh Hyun as Oh Hyun never entered into the cycle of reincarnation and instead became Kokdu. So Do Jin Woo looking like Oh Hyun is likely a (narratively necessary) coincidence.
-- Presumably Han Gye Jeol is a reincarnation of Seol Hui because the ring and Kokdu are reacting to her.
--Sidekick deities mentioned that Kokdu's punishment has been going on for 500 years -- Oh Hyun may have been dead for longer than that depending on whether the time counter was started upon Oh Hyun's death or upon Oh Hyun being made into Kokdu.


As a general note -- looks like we're going with the type of 'reincarnation' that refers to the soul being reincarnated into one life after another where physical looks can differ for each lifetime. Tied to that, it's possible for different souls to be reincarnated with the same physical look in different times.

Source/Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/KDRAMA/comments/10md194/comment/j6anxgo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Here is a very well-structured write up of the events and timelines from reddit i take absolutely no credit for. But should help to defuse any lingering confusion yall may have with the story (spoilers obviously):

Reminds me a lot of FNOS with its quirky humor, fated love, supernatural bits, redemption/punishment, second chances etc Totally my jam. (Also with how criticized/downrated FNOS was at first on MDL, ngl *war flashbacks*) Tonally it was obvious from all the teasers that it is very much comedy with just some serious moments sprinkled in and tragedy of characters depicted (also reminiscent of FNOS here) so i don't get people's surprise about it. Generally, you all need to chill a little, it ain't really that deep a show in general, but it is really fun to watch imo.

Episode 2 was much better, building on where we left off in episode 1 and with Kokdu now fully in the driving seat. Loved the bits of backstory and worldbuilding we got and waiting for further development here. The mr.queen trio of gods never failed to crack me up xD and are my faves right now. In general KJH's quirky, a bit jaded interpretation of his character has quite a bit of his character in Welcome To Waikiki. It is just such a joy to see him acting "off the leash" and he seems to have such fun with that role in general, which shows in his very lively performance. ISH is fine too, and way too over-criticized here. Like her acting won't move mountains or something but it is by far not as bad as people make it to be. And i say this as someone who has definitely not been a fan of that actor/performances so far. I have seen her way worse in her prior works. So chill yall, maybe? Lol.

Haha yeeees. I love KJH since Mr. Queen and caught up with his other works ever since. He is soooo good in general, and here he is really off any leash acting-wise and it shows. It feels like he had so much fun with that role and his quirky interpretation of Kokdu reminds me of his character in Welcome to Waikiki, haha.

ISH's acting is way overhated here in the comments. She does fine, not extraordinary and more like a sounding board for KJH, but it is by far not as bad as people make it out to be. They all need to chill a little tbh.

THANK YOU. I could not said it any better. People are too critical way too quickly, just jumping on a bandwagon of picking everything apart, bc not liking things is cool to them or something.

same. I could watch it elsewhere earlier perhaps but i actually want my stream watch to "count" on viki since it is the comeback drama of KJH, after all.

EDIT: It is out now :D

I see. Well so far she is not bothering too much and is kinda keeping up with KJH, but yeah i am generally not a fan of her acting. I do take the wait and see approach here, tho. (One advantage of mr. queen compared to this drama was that you had never any concerns if the leads would perform well, haha)

Yeah. It is much more like a sudden crush, a fantasy and attraction than anything resembling love bc you know next to nothing about that person. So it happens yeah but also as you have seen it was quite easy to snap out of it if that particular illusion is "destroyed." My guess that she still "liked" him after that but reeeeally dialed it back a lot hahaha

Nah this was about the brother/sister-relationship tag, but the assumption they made that it is about the leads was completely false. FL has a brother, so that is what the tag is about haha. I mean this is kdrama, not alabama 😂

IKR? probably bc people have the attention span of goldfish these days and lack any patience to let a story unfold any further than past episode 1. Thus if episode 1 is not perfect from the get go all of the long rest of the story will be garbage too. Which makes no sense at all, nor is how storytelling works, but whatever.

Bit early to judge it with just one/two episodes out yet. Simply try it for yourself. It is not reinventing the wheel in regards of fantasy/comedy/romance mix but it is neither trying to. Imo it is fun to watch if you like these genres. Plus KJH is a great, versatile actor who lives his roles. And in the first episode he played like three different characters alone 😏

it has aired now and viki will release it in a few hours. Cannot say when exactly bc it is Viki and they do it whenever lol. Airing clock is on its mdl page here, this is good to know when the drama actually airs.

In before the "Everything fantasy is always like Goblin" crowd. With just two episodes aired and one released it is really way to early to judge it honestly. I like it tho, thus far. Scratches my fantasy romance comedy genre mix itch after loving FNOS, and AoS failed to do so.

"Everything fantasy is always a copy of Goblin because it is the only kdrama fantasy show that ever existed." Cool story, mate. Especially after just one single episode aired. If you already hate it so much, drop and move on. Not that hard. Because you are not are the cool dude you believe you are to watch in spite, especially when using it to ridicule other people here in the comments with how more "enlightened" you are with your taste. That is just being obnoxious.

I was mostly joking and tongue in cheek here dw I know that they had packed a lot of things in one episode but if you have ever seen a fantasy kdrama it is really not as complicated or complex as it seemed.