bokminthe

Very good but not perfect

Please be aware I haven't seen the original series, didn't even know it existed. Didn't know this was adapted from a book either, so I'm reviewing this as if it was the only thing out there.

I think the best of this show are the way it's filmed, the general atmosphere, architecture, the inclusion of naginata (damn finally) and the clothing.
I have to give kudos to the architecture, atmosphere and scenery especially since, as far as I know, it was mostly recorded in Vancouver area, so to pull something like this in such a completely different place it's amazing work. But, I also have to admit that it took me out of the story a couple of times when I did recognise a couple of landscapes as someone that has been in the area as well as the fact that while certain landscapes can pass for areas of Japan, others were a bit of a stretch.
The plot keeps you invested most of the time, but it does suffer from being a bit convoluted at times and slightly dragging at others when it seems it doesn't know what it wants to do next, as well as that general repetition in the execution of leaving most of the action and interesting plot points to the last couple of episodes. The atmospheric shots and general vibe are amazing though and I enjoyed them a lot.

Acting was generally very good although I do have to agree with another review that Anna Sawai is the one for me that gave the most of a contemporary vibe compared with the others, but it wasn't very jarring as to be a constant reminder.
If you're looking for a Japanese production this is not it, and I do think there are things that are done in the way they did because of budget constraints. This could very well change for subsequent seasons considering the international acclaim.

The main reasons why it doesn't make it a 10 for me are:
- Echoing what I said before, the plot can be convoluted at times.
- I know they're going for the serious stern look but I missed a bit more emotion (other than the ones from John being too much the opposite at times).
- I'm never a fan of shows with the token westerner that is supposed to be the main character and that become the centre of the universe even if based on real life. While I think they did a much better job here than in others I'm still not a fan, plus this brings me to:
- The worst character for me was John Blackthorne. I'm going to assume this is a mix between what was asked of the actor and his acting. He gave drunkard vibes in his mannerisms and way of speaking. At points I was not sure what the point of him was, and I'm still not sure I get it. I also don't remember him being a ship engineer/builder so why it's that task put onto him in the end, I just don't know. I read the real life figure that inspired the book version was indeed a ship builder, but in the show I can't remember ever being mentioned.
- The fact that they decided to go with Japanese language for the majority of the show is absolutely great, but it pisses me off that the times when they're supposed to be speaking in Portuguese they're in English. At the beginning it was very confusing at times and at some point even if you're assuming it's Portuguese you really don't know anymore. We are to assume that when John is speaking to someone just because (even though he knows they don't understand him) he's speaking in English because it's his mother tongue and he's alone so to speak, but maybe he's trying in Portuguese? We'll never know.
For a show that decided to go for realism with the Japanese language it's a big disappointment it didn't go all the way. People are already reading subtitles anyway, what are a few more? I want the whole experience, not only half of it just to please Hollywood.

If you like historical fantasy, politics, power struggles, good atmosphere, retro feel and good costuming I would totally recommend. Aesthetics are on point.

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Good visuals and nostalgia trip but cliché till the end

I actually rewatched this because I had zero recollection of the plot or anything else and I didn't have it on my watchlist here to remember. One quarter into the film it came to me why I didn't remember anything of it and the whole plot came to my head.
Cliché can be entertaining and enjoyable, I've watched cliché series and films in the past I enjoyed, even cheesy ones for the guilty pleasure, but this film falls in the frustrating cliché category.

This is one is of mixed feelings for me and clearly quite forgettable. I like the visuals and the nostalgia trip, although I would say it doesn't dwell as much on the nostalgia as other titles (like 25/21 does) and some times I felt the filter or post editing they did was a bit on the heavy side. For me this movie would get a higher score if they hadn't gone that route with the ending but I do understand why they thought it was a good idea to put it there to tie it all up into the theme.
This whole film is a big nostalgia trip of overused plot devices in romantic dramas of the period in any media, the plot device of friend asking MF to get closer to her love interest to learn about him... or the plot device of romantic male interest leaving the country or dying is a classic, but it was equally frustrating and bad at the time than it's now (I'm still salty about how many shoujo mangas and animes used this, seriously). It's one of those things that simply shouldn't come back because mostly it's just sad for sadness sake and lazy at this point (like the amnesia trope). This is not the only title in recent years to follow the nostalgia trip by reusing bad plot devices that were not liked even at the time.
The classic of miscommunication among characters is also something that makes this quite frustrating to watch at times (MF with the best friend). And equally tiring is the girl that is thin, eats a ton and it's also socially clumsy and cute without knowing it... but I can forget this last one this time simply for being the classic in a "nostalgia remake".

Here it does have the tag of melodrama, I'm not sure I would classify this as such since only the ending is. It's nostalgic, dramatic and romantic with a frustrating cliché ending.

Would I recommend? Not sure, I liked the acting, the aesthetics, the cute moments, the colours and the story is generally watchable most of the film even with the clichés, but the ending is very frustrating and annoying so if you decide to watch it take that into consideration and watch it for the trip.

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Pointless

It was such an achievement to somehow make this even worse than the first season, mainly because it's completely pointless. Characters have zero developement personally, you don't learn anything new about them, side characters of the 1st season are not as much in the picture and the only plot device used in the whole series consists on chucking some new characters to the main couple to create drama.
I'm not sure if they actually used anything from the Good Morning Kiss manga (the sequel to Good Morning Call) to make the 2nd season but generally it's just nothing like the manga, at least not the first 4 volumes (the only ones in English), where they are mostly planning to get married and they have already been together for about 5 years.

I found most of the characters introduced very annoying, especially Saeko and especially when she was having a tantrum. Generally they all acted very childish for being university students, and in fact in the manga there is progression in terms of maturity with the characters at that point, they could have explored that in this series but they just decided to keep it as superficial as the first season, or even worse. I don't get the point of Nanase, totally plot filler. Thing is though, they had the chance of exploring the crush Ota had in Abe in the manga, but instead they just did whatever that was between Nanase and Daichi.
When Natsume started having the feelings for Nao I rooted for him really, he was so much nicer than Uehara with his single emotion face and paired better with Nao. I knew it was not going to happen at all, but I almost wished. Sadly though, they couldn't even do that well and made Natsume super pushy later on. How is it that basically Natsume and Saeko push the main leads to break up and suffer absolutely no consequences for their actions, they're all super dupey friends in the end like nothing happened. It was so weird to watch the whole thing.
This whole second season was a plotless filler of bad writing and main leads are exactly the same than when it started, Nao has evolved zero and Uehara only managed one smile.

I can't recommend, even worse than the first season.

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Good adaptation from the manga but acting and execution are a bit off at times.

I generally recommend this drama, especially to those that have read the manga or watched the anime. If you haven't, I would say it can feel there are some plotholes or rushed parts here and there but it's a good adaptation. If you have read the manga or watched the anime it's a lot easier to fill in the bits missing but also as it tends to happen, this isn't better than the manga because of that same reason.

I came to this drama with low expectations because adaptations tend to be not that good and very rushed, something that clearly happened with the movie version of this same title (because obviously it was impossible to fill the plot of 30 volumes of manga in a 2h film). It was difficult to not make comparisons because despite overall thinking this series is so much better than the movie simply for having most of the plot points of the original work, I also thought that some of the characters were better portrayed in the movie, namely the protagonist. As another review has pointed out, the main character here lacks the uniqueness and creepiness that the manga character is supposed to have. I feel the movie did a better job at this. Sara Minami is pretty by society standards and they didn't try much with the hair or her behaviour and demeanour to look closer to how she's supposed to be, she just comes across as a bit shy.
Also, while I think Rinka Kumada did generally a good job as Yano, I felt she was missing the subtext, in the manga and anime there were always instances where you could tell she knew what was going on, and would work things out before anyone else and she was mature for her age, I don't think this was portrayed very well in this series and I missed those nuances of her character. I also think physically I expected her to look more like a gyaru, more similar to how they did in the movie, that it's how I imagined her in the manga. Also one of the things I precisely liked of the portrayal of Yano was the fact she's fashionable and more adult like but she also has good grades and cares about her studies, what I think it's not a very common portrayal in mangas for someone looking like a gyaru (and smoking!). In this series to me if I wasn't told through the part of the rumours I would think she's just an average high schooler. Maybe they didn't want to portray her as a gyaru to keep up with the times, but they could have done something else to show the contrasts of her character since there is nothing in the way she acts or speaks here that tells me how she is either.
On the other hand, I was happy with the rest of portrayals, and in fact I was very pleasantly surprised by Riho Nakamura as Chizuru, I think they nailed it with her.
(If I'm being picky though I have mixed opinions about the portrayal of Kazehaya's father, it's a difficult one, but I don't think he looks serious and stern, just kind of awkward and forced? I don't know how to feel about him).

While I'm generally pleased with how much they fit in this show of the source material it could have been even better. Some bits felt a bit rushed, while some others, like some of the dialogues seemed a bit too slow. I enjoy slow and I enjoyed the slow pace of this drama in those dialogues, what I'm not so pleased with is this coming as a detriment of other plots or scenes being rushed. I generally would have preferred this drama had been between 15 and 20 episodes long, it would have given the time for everything. Another thing that also was a bit annoying for me it's how they cut out almost every single kiss or show of a more mature relationship that appeared in the manga/anime. I can imagine why, but many people watching this has read the manga or watched the anime, and many others that haven't and liked this will potentially check both or one of them, so why? I could tell even in scenes when that was being cut, and any show of affection between any of the characters was quite awkward in my opinion. The girls dynamics were on point though.
Acting was generally ok, but at times for me it was a bit off, sometimes it felt like they were reading the lines without emotion or like they were doing a theatre play instead of a recorded show. Maybe also like they were trying hard to use the same exaggerated expressions or body movements than in the anime? what could feel forced and cringey sometimes. I think this happens more in the first half of the show than in the second. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.

Music was ok, some songs were cute, some gave me the vibes of the main theme of American Beauty? Overall it was ok, but I did notice a couple of times in the first few episodes a song would play in the background that didn't necessarily match too well with the vibe of the scene (for example, a scene with serious dialogue and a bit too happy song in the background).

I can't see myself rewatching this, it was entertaining, watchable, cute at moments, loved the scenery and atmosphere but I prefer the intensity and the emotional portrayal of the manga/anime so I'll gravitate towards those before this one. But as I mentioned before, as an adaptation I'm pleased and it's probably one of the best manga adaptations of this genre I've seen despite its few flaws.

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It was very nice and then it gets spoiled by meh

This movie is very beautiful.
The scenery and cinematography are great and the type of filter or film they used gives nostalgic vibes.
I think acting is very good, especially by the ML, he was great and I really liked the dynamics between the characters and the banter.
The introspective journey paired with the scenes, the train rides and the beautiful landscapes give you all the feels and I found myself grinning for a big part of the movie because of the little endearing moments here and there like the one with that young traveler in the snow.

Everything was great for me until towards the end when they dropped the EXTREMELY over used troupe that it's also actually very predictable from the start.
That was such a shame and it really spoiled it for me.
There are just so many things that could have been done with the plot, the most plain one being just simply that time passed, that there was a long distance between them. I really wanted a trip for the sake of introspection, self-discovery and peace but we sadly got this once again, and at least I guess he knew and it was not a bomb like they do in other movies/series. I really wish this plot device was left in the 00s where it belongs. I'm so over it at this point.

The plot in general is not new even leaving out that cliché at the end and the execution is not exactly great either. While the flashbacks are carried out in an ok manner the last part showing her side in that way for cliché/shock value was both confusing at times, repetitive and just wallowing in the drama for the sake of it.
Moreover, they knew each other for like a month I think it was, so it's too extreme that he's still hang up on that 18 years later to the level of affecting his career in that way. Also equally unrealistic in my opinion that he only had one 3 months relationship in all that time, what level of workaholic are we talking about?

It's really as described by the tag, bittersweet, although for me because of the lost potential and not what happens in the plot.

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Started out ok-ish and gets worse the more you watch

It started out ok although from the beginning there are a couple of clichés that already made me cringe.
Main Guy character is a classic "nice guy" with stalker behaviour, very frustrating and if pushed can be quite evil even.
Girl has self-esteem issues.
Side characters are side characters, we learnt almost nothing from anyone, it's kept very superficial. I could even say the same for the main characters, the reasons for him to like her are hold by a fine thread until they have more relationship and we're still told absolutely nothing about her, I don't know anything of what she likes or doesn't, what she wants to do or doesn't, she's just pretty.
Writing is mediocre and I feel at points the movie doesn't know what it wants to be or what direction it wants to go, at points it feels like it wants to be a different version of 500 days of Summer, but then it tries to tell me the main characters are meant for each other and there is romance there, even suggested with that ending. Talking about the ending, it's unsatisfactory to the point it leaves me a very bad aftertaste as if everything Guy did was justified and June grew nothing and thought about things 0.01 seconds. There was no growth and no change.

I found some parts a bit funny, but overall not sure I could classify this as romantic comedy, Guy makes this movie go south very early on and I just felt uncomfortable he was so pushy and inactive at the same time.

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Slow, childish, plotholes, poor execution of a story that could have been great.

I had seen so many people mentioning how good this drama was that I decided to give it a go having nothing else to watch. I was disappointed and I didn't even have high hopes as I find hyped shows are usually not my cup of tea.

The first third of this drama was hard to watch and I had to push myself to continue, mostly I found the portrayal of a 19 year old girl very unrealistic, she was very childish. Maybe it's just me, but I've never met (nor was I that way) anyone that age to act like that. Then I kind of got used to it by the middle, but also she seemed to slowly get out of it when she turned 20, what was also unrealistic. To top it over, Goblin was doing the opposite and as the drama goes he becomes more childish. Not going to lie it was funny at times, but overall it was mostly cringy.
The age gap of the characters was problematic (without taking into account the 900 years) and to me it made it worse the fact they blatantly tried to make this look better by making him more childish, also because it felt it tainted his character as this important and powerful Goryeo warrior. I feel there was a problem with trying to keep this balance of wanting to be serious and sad and tragic with the romcom aspect, I couldn't take things as seriously.
I think the story would have been a lot better had they started it when she was 29, it could have been way more mature. I did like the relationship of the 3 as housemates though and I found it the best part of the show.

There are too many plotholes and I could give it a pass if it wasn't because they had plenty of running time to address them. For example, the images of their Goryeo lives were repeated over and over way too much but in the end I didn't feel they fully showed well enough how things happened. Despite those images, I'm being told what happened more than shown, what is a shame. A lot of times the show seemed to go in circles not wanting to commit to a path for the story, at least not until the later episodes as usual (I seriously dislike this common thing of not doing anything until two episodes of the end, make a film instead!!), but by the end I was already kind of tired of the story to the point that I couldn't care enough for the consequences that were about to happen to the characters. Talking about characters, so many side characters with lost potential and so many plotholes in all characters.

The ending is... I don't want to say bad because it could have been worse, but... it's bad. Could have been poetic, could have been satisfactory but it's none and it's solved in the most weird, anticlimatic and pointless way in my opinion. So much potential for epic-ness wasted in there.

I have watched worse dramas than this one, but I still don't think I would be able to recommend this one if simply for the fact it's too long and not much happens to justify its run time. If it's because any or all of the actors, then go ahead, but if you don't care about the actors and are there for the story then I would say look somewhere else because this is not it.

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2nd male lead carries the show and the rest is just about ok

I was not going to write a review because there are already many that share more or less my opinions of this show but I think this is one of the times I've felt the most frustrated and suffered the biggest 2nd male lead syndrome. I need to get it out of my system.

Seo Joon as a character was to me the best of the show, not only he has layers to peel but also he has the edge and nuance. I guess I should clarify that in reality I'm glad he didn't end up with the main character for I got kind of annoyed with her as the drama progressed, but I feel he deserved so much better and I'm left with a big bitter feeling in that respect.
I haven't read the webtoon so no idea how much better it is or anything, but I feel I would feel as frustrated if the plot lacks the same depth this did and if it's very blatantly obvious FL will end up with Su Ho.

Most of my rating goes for him as a character and his banter and scenes because although the drama was entertaining and funny at times until about episode 7 in general, from then on it goes massively downhill and at points quite melodramatic for no reason.

For starters I feel like the premise of the drama is quite unrealistic and cliché, the beauty superman I guess, some glasses and pimples already make the main character unrecognizable.
I found quite bad taste the way they blatantly did the eyebrows in the child and teen FL when she's "ugly", it made no sense, it was someone made them with a sharpie, they couldn't just fill them in naturally so they looked thicker? I feel if they wanted to play with this concept of the two faces of a person they should either have made really transformative makeup or maybe even have different actresses of similar body figure playing the main character, as is it feels mostly cheap and difficult to agree with the "fantasy" element of this (that no one recognises her instantly) when she looks the same with or without makeup and especially given the fact that every other actor/actress in the show is wearing the same amount and at times even more makeup than her, "your bare face is so ugly" - says character with a cake of makeup on.
This is full of rather bad clichés, there are clichés I can enjoy and in here some of them I didn't mind as much, but some others just make you facepalm very hard, like the accident and the amount of time they had to get out of the way, the breakup, her sudden stomach problems at the end of the show that add nothing, them knowing each other since young and other "fated"/"first love" cliché or bullies being bullying for the whole drama just because.

What did the FL learn here really? It's what I wonder first and foremost. We didn't have at any point a thought from the FL about beauty as it is, mostly what she does at the end happens because she's cornered and then a light bulb flickers for two seconds and decides to do something different. Also, I get it's trying to be comedic but I found quite bad taste her mother taking her to see a plastic surgeon. Sure, her mother's words make a point to say she's beautiful but honestly when she said she was taking her somewhere I thought she was taking her to a dermatologist, that it's where she should have gone like her friend Soo Ah told her, as well as to therapy for her confidence, her trauma and self-esteem issues.
I'm tired of seeing female lead characters that lack certain level of temper, I feel writers need to understand you can still have self-esteem issues, be shy and also at the same time take no BS from anyone. FL here is total damsel in distress, but at times she shows certain level of temper and can be quite selfish as well when comfortable with the people around her, what just ends up being kind of frustrating to watch for me and made me not like her too much, like at points I found her kind of rude to Su Ho once she was comfortable with him for example.
Don't get me started on the unrealistic portrayal of class dynamics where everyone, every-single-one-of-them, agrees she's ugly and no one sides with her or defends her (both in her previous school or current one).
And don't get me started either on Soo Jin, what a waste of potential character, I liked her way more than the main one until she went psycho.

Su Ho... pffff, what a stick... I think he was the constipated one for most of the drama and I felt mostly nothing for their relationship. Sure, they were cute at some points but it didn't move me much. But the two most problematic things for me are him using her at the beginning in that manner, and the other one is his behaviour after breaking up. Obviously the breakup was pointless as usual and meaningless, but the way he just came back and immediately tried to pick up like if nothing happened was actually kind of disgusting, as was his stalker behaviour and overall pushiness, even certain level of cockiness?
Meanwhile Seo Joon had been there all the time and being there for FL and whatnot while she's presented as just an NPC placeholder during those 2 years that is still stuck on the same guy that broke up with her. I'm changing canon and I'll always believe she knew deep down Seo Joon liked her but she used him to not feel so lonely, the alternative is honestly worse. How are these people passing their studies with that level of brain cells? I don't find any logic, and I say this as someone that needs it very obviously shown to know someone is interested in me because I also suffer from self-esteem issues but Seo Joon was so obvious it could be seen from space, the aliens were facepalming too.

There are many ways the plot could have unfolded that would have made this refreshing and way more out of the basic formula but I guess that's all they wanted to do with this so they achieved it.

Either way, the love triangle was pointless as always and I would have liked and preferred more side stories of other characters, except perhaps less of the one of the sister with the teacher if only because it could have been cute and interesting but it was used only as comedic relief, what at the same time feels like mocking a relationship where the power roles are different than those that fall into the gender stereotypes. They overacted the comedy too much, pushing it to let the audience know very blatantly "this is comedy, laugh".

Overall I feel there are other shows out there with similar concepts that didn't drag as much as this one and that had more depth. If you want very superficial story with love triangle and school setting you might enjoy this. If you want fanservice you might enjoy this too but take it for what it is, a collection of pretty pictures at times with veeeeery basic cliché plot.
Rewatch value none for me.

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A waste of time.

I can't recommend, it's a total waste of time.
I'm not sure what it was trying to be but manages to do nothing right or interesting enough, and acting is generally quite forced and over the top. Only FL was better and her character was probably the most interesting of the bunch but they don't dwell much in the characters themselves. ML wanted to be a butler because he likes to serve? what? haha I'm sorry, it was lame, it would have been more believable that he said something about wanting to travel, see other places in the world or even learn other languages.

The movie is boring, slow (for what is the plot) and the writing is bad. It's difficult to make a movie in a single location and for it to be engaging and entertaining enough, they didn't succeed at all in this movie.
Sub-plots are brought to the front and back depending on what is convenient to the point they feel forgotten (like the murder "mystery"). The "mystery" is one of those that seems obvious but then it's revealed to not be what you thought just for shock value and where they didn't take you along the journey at all, completely pointless. It wasn't even shocking as a reveal though, because they didn't make me care at all about anything in this movie. The crime here it's calling this thing a suspense, romantic, mystery or amateur detective movie. It's just a mush of nothingness in my opinion.

There obviously are also unresolved questions at the end of the movie, like what happened to the mother of the kid, what happened with the will in the end, what happened to the son and wife of the man that died, they might not have ultimately killed him but they were accomplices of murder in a way and of trying to falsify a will. Why are the two kids dancing happy in the end? There is just no answers.
Also, I'm sorry but that's not kissing. If they're going to make the actors "kiss" like that might as well just not have any kissing scenes, it was weird and cringy to watch.
FL arrives in the cruise with absolutely nothing, yet she manages to have a different outfit daily.

If it had been fun and entertaining I could tolerate some of the other negative aspects of this but it really wasn't, it was a chore to finish.

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Very dragged and uninteresting. This could have easily been a movie.

I think the drama had an ok concept that was made so much worse by the execution/writing of that concept. The original idea was probably two pages long and basically the rest is a massive uninteresting filler.
I've just finished watching it and if you asked me to explain what happened in X or Y episode I wouldn't be able to, because there is so much nothingness that it automatically got erased from my mind as soon as I watched it.

I think one of the main problems is that they decided to make FL and her younger self complete opposites and under a very specific set of circumstances with the accident so it's not something many people will relate to. I could feel connected to the lost present time FL but not to her younger self nor the dynamic they had going on later. If there had been more introspection into the first part of FL's character I would have found it more interesting. I also still don't understand how having her past self there helped her to get anything she managed to get. Her younger self is selfish, spoiled and kind of annoying. The dynamic they have later of mother-daughter also I think made it quite a lot worse because by their actions and words they pretty much worked as such and made you even believe it at times and personally it's not how I would treat my younger self... but then again, my younger self was not that childish nor it was that different to how I'm now so I think the relationship would probably be more like we're sisters or something in those lines, what I think kinda makes more sense and probably would be more true to most people, especially considering her younger self was 17, not a 6 year old.

To this we add an overabundant amount of scenes of side characters that add nothing to the main story nor are they that interesting. FL's sister appears multiple times yet I don't know much about her, also she was quite bad in the beginning yet later is just sweeped under the rug. Anthony's scenes bored me sooooo much, I don't understand what the point of him being there was. It was just a filler since his story was not even that related to hers, not even in the end. I kept thinking there was going to be some connection that justified him there but there wasn't. I don't think his story was bad per se, it's just that it's not worth 16 episodes of a few scenes per each one. He's main character but why???? He really adds nothing to the story. His arc could have been done in like one episode and done.

I always find it unrealistic when a main character starts working in a place and turns out they knew someone in there from the past, like how small is your city? Here it's not only the best friend, but also Anthony and Han Yoo Hyun. Too many coincidences and, at least when it comes to Han Yoo Hyun specifically, very sloppy reasoning.

I enjoyed the character of Han Yoo Hyun but it was very forced how his father kept him out of the business because "he's not interested" but wouldn't even give him a chance when he was the one showing an interest, it was just pushed again just to drag the story more until the last episodes. It also got tiring he kept calling FL "old woman" even when they were closer.

There is no romance here and it's only in episode 14 that Ban Ha Ni mentions having butterflies when interacting with Han Yoo Hyun... so you're just told because scenes we had none and maybe we got a few looks from him that let me know he likes her and him saying it to Anthony, but her to him? zero! She looks like a rock in that sense the whole series, even at the end when they say they're together, the chemistry is zero and I'm again being told and not shown (that kiss was appalling, especially for people in their 30s, what was that!!!!??? hahahaha). This show shouldn't be classified as a romance, it's not.
This brings me to the fact that had they focused a lot more in the romance throughout the series they would have had enough extra content to not have to have so many fillers of people walking here and there, or talking very slowly about uninteresting things and so on.
The main plot is, well, very sloppy. It was ok and interesting in the beginning but it's kind of forgotten for most of the series till the later episodes that it's brought back. Once they know what the mobile phone message with the days meant and they were doing nothing I started rolling my eyes, especially considering I was already fed up with the show at that point. They look at the phone and see D-7, they panic for 5 minutes and then they have some nice meal and go somewhere and then they show D-6, and then panic again and two seconds later they're eating beef. It was so difficult to take this seriously. Also the father gives that criptic message through the old phone "quickly quickly, you're running out of time", but considering where she had to go in the end to go back that it's nowhere related to anything she would have been able to know on her own and "quickly quickly" but the dream message was only received one day before the expire date. Bad writing, that's all.
I'm going to nitpick here as well because I was also rolling my eyes at the whole dream/past sequence, you're in a field of dead grass and you find a lily of the valley there eventhough they mostly grow in woodland, humid shaded areas? I was laughing, even more when in the tunnel sequence they find one and they're holding it with the hands (it's very toxic and can produce rashes) until I realised it was a plastic one, what fair enough, but I mean, there was no reason whatsoever really that it couldn't have been another flower the one picked for the whole idea instead of a lily of the valley...
This also brings me to how utterly useless that phychic was, I get they wanted to make the quirk of him being a modern one what was fine, but he would give half messages even when he knew what was happening. You can't tell people something is very serious and life and death and urgent and at the same time withhold information... he only appears twice in the show eventhough at one point he says to FL that he'll be looking for a way to make her past self back, next scene he appears that matter is not discussed.
Not sure why this is also labelled as a comedy, I only laughed once, and that is when Sung Woo is giving some food to past Ban Ha Ni and his mother, FL's sister, has a go at him. It did make me chuckle, but other than that I didn't find anything funny.

The whole drama in the company was ok but kind of cliché and I don't like how they dealt with ML's aunt in the end, she's kind of forgiven and it's not only what she has done with the company but the fact that her son never addresses the way she treats Oh Ji Eun. She had been said horrible things multiple times and yet nothing happens. In fact I don't even know the point in terms of plot of Oh Ji Eun getting pregnant since we didn't even know until that second that she had been trying nor she has a change of character at any time that makes her stronger or more confident or stopping taking that kind of treatment from her mother-in-law.

Points go for FL having freckles and having scenes when later on she has started using makeup for work but she's still shown with the freckles at times when she's supposed to not be wearing makeup, I thought it was a realistic touch I appreciated.

Overall is just boring and dragging and writing is not great. The message is there but you don't need that many episodes to tell it.
Considering as well that there isn't really a progression in terms of work, romance or much else of anything, this could have prefectly worked as a movie and it still would have given the same message.

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Repetitive, dragged and not funny

I feel the need to write this review to offer a bit of an alternative opinion to what seems to be the general consensus that this is a great drama.

I'm not sure what this was trying to be or what message is trying to convey. I didn't find it very entertaining either.
It started with an interesting premise but it went downhill very quickly.

One of my main problems with this drama are the plotholes. There is really no explanation on how things work, the main character is the one deciding what things are to be left or changed and we have to take it at face value. Who knows, maybe her friend Fuku-chan was actually not supposed to have a child, we'll never know. But that's the main problem, who decides what has to happen and what not, who decides what is good and what is bad. Maybe she saved her annoying teacher from being wrongly accused in the train situation but maybe later he killed his wife. We don't know, we just have to accept FL is somehow omnipotent and her choices are the best course of action. Somehow she also knows what to do or not to get shiny points for her next life.

It was generally passable until the friend Mari is also introduced as being in a repetition of her life, at that point I started to question if most people going by that logic are repeating lives or what are the rules on who is allowed and who isn't. Everything was already hold by a very fine thread but when the story line with the plane is introduced it was made so much worse. For starters why did they have to save all that people? They just decided so. Again, there is never an explanation on fate, morality or anything. One could argue that by them focusing all their energy and time to be pilots they missed making so many memories with the friends and enjoying life to the fullest, or that that plane crashing was meant to happen, or, and here it comes the biggest of them all, if the friends died in the plane, shouldn't they also be in their lives repetition or maybe they would have crossed the other door and reincarnated into something else in which case their deaths in the "repetition" timeline of the FL and Mari would be set to die no matter what since they wouldn't exist as humans or as themselves anymore. It's just never explained and it makes no sense.
The writers basically decided some people where allowed to be main characters, meaning people that could repeat their lives and the rest are just the puppets that follow a specific pattern.

If you have watched Groundhog Day (1993) and you enjoyed it you might like this, if you don't like a plot that pretty much repeats over and over I would say avoid this, it gets annoying, especially since the only repeated events in the life of the FL are the same ones EVERY single life with minor differences in general and a different career. It's a chore and the story is not so worth it. There are so many details in her career progression in each of her lives and what is the point? Especially the one where she's a producer.

I found it kind of stupid to go for the capitalistic stereotype of what is considered success when the FL only changes her career in each repetition and that somehow gives her different outcomes of what animal the guy in the desk tells her she's going to be in the next life. I guess we all should be doctors apparently. Equally stupid that something as silly as that guy disrupting the coming of age ceremony was full of comments about how he was going to be a microorganism in his next life. And it's not even the disrupting, is the fact of his aesthetics as well, it was very on the face of "if you don't dress society approved and behave how japanese society dictates you'll loose points at reincarnation", same kind of sentiment was shown when Mari says in her first life she was a gyaru for a while. Excuse me? If it had been done in a very funny way I could have taken this afterlife based on capitalistic success and japanese morals entertaining enough, but it falls way short of that.

It was also convenient that the four of them lived single their whole lives, I guess because the writers knew they wouldn't be able to handle the story if there were partners and children involved, so only the background characters were allowed that kind of progression.

I'm assuming part of the comedy in this show is supposed to be the way they accentuate the roundabouts of Japanese communication, I get it really, but I just simply didn't find it funny, I found it as frustrating as it is in real life.
This also brings me to the fact the FL was not really a very likeable person and there is not much of a change in her all throughout. Sure, she says at one point she started doing the things to be nice not for the points but it doesn't change the fact she's doing exactly the same things and we're not really being shown anything new.

Overall I can't recommend this drama, watching too much repetition already felt such a waste of time, it's only a comedy in the sense it's not a melodrama and the story isn't that engaging. Some might say it's ultimately a story of friendship and while yes partially it is, it's questionable when in most of the FL's repeated lives she didn't spent that much time with the friends (she even complains to them in one of them because they visit her too much) and it's not shown like she misses them that much in the timelines she chose to not have a relationship with them. For this reason as well, I really didn't care much for that ending and it didn't make sense either how they managed all to be reincarnated into the same thing considering they were only given one option every time? Works for cute effect I guess.

Music is fine, they clearly played with the nostalgia trip in that aspect a lot. But it felt like they wanted to precisely get some easy points for doing that. I recognised many of the songs and brought me back in time, but sorry, it's not enough to make this show good, I'll rather just go and listen to the music without watching this.

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Entertaining and easy watch but comedy can be a bit too juvenile at times

I recommend this show, it's an easy watch, quite fast since the episodes are not too long and the series only has 12. It's entertaining, funny at times and the characters are fairly diverse and even given its short run time you do learn a bit about most of the characters what I feel even long dramas sometimes don't achieve.

I think the character of Aziz stole the show though, he was very funny and one of the most sane persons in the show. I also liked the chaebol related comedy, and Baek Ma Tan was the second funniest to me in this show.
The show made me laugh and chuckle many times, but I do have to admit it made me cringe at others for having too much of a juvenile humour for my taste that had me looking like Sung Hyung Mi. If you do like that type of humour then you'll enjoy all of it though.

The pacing was generally ok but for some reason certain parts of some episodes were a bit more boring. The first two episodes are an example of this, especially the first one, mainly because I didn't find it funny when they tied Lee Sang Shik and left him in a room. Generally the bullying in that first episode was not very good taste and kind of problematic to pass it as comedy to me.

The main couple here is all right and overall enjoyable but I think the shortness of this show makes that relationship suffer. Things go from one side to the other quickly and it makes you question their feelings (especially his). I liked more the developement of the second couple, it was more interesting and entertaining to me.

Other than that the show was enjoyable and it had also cute and even good cheesy moments. So if you're looking for a light romance and comedy this is for you.

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Strong leads, social and political issues but suffers from pacing

I generally recommend this drama, it has good leads, an interesting story and some funny bits (Seol Ji Hwan's soap on tv was so funny!! as well as Scarlett's reactions to it).

The story and the social issues mentioned in the drama might be more interesting to you if you have a bit of background info about certain things in Korea. I liked the gender swap roles and commentary, as well as the fact they tackled the thing of korean women changing their views on marriage in more recent times. Even in the western countries it's still frown upon not wanting to marry out of convictions and morals. As the FL said, she didn't believe in the institution of marriage, and I applaud this drama for tackling this. I don't know exactly how it's in Korea in terms of civil partnerships but I can imagine is not great, it's not even perfect in the western countries eventhough generally accepted. I would have liked more social commentary on the aspect of other women not wanting to marry because of the societal pressure of quitting their careers, as well as the family pressures (although I guess it can be seen a bit through Song Ga Kyung's character but I would have liked for it to be more clear). But overall I'm very happy this drama tackled the marriage thing, I've never seen any other drama do it.
Corruption and politics on the internet was also interesting. As usual, I would have liked more in-depth commentary but I'm still satisfied.
The sismance in this show is strong and I loved it, it was so cute and so much fun. Scarlett was great as a character and sometimes I wished she was the main one, but at the same time I think I got enough of her to not be annoyed she wasn't the main FL. Some of her fashionable outfits were so cute! and me saying that is a lot because I'm not usually into the trendy styles they wear in dramas. Her romantic story with Seol Ji Hwan was fun as well.
Talking about Seol Ji Hwan, I loved that he had a flip phone!!!
I'm usually not a lot into the OST of kdramas either, but I have to say this is one of the few ones where not only it was tolerable but there were certain songs I liked, especially the game one that Park Morgan makes and it's used at different points throughout the series.

Now, for the things that didn't make it a 10 for me.
Main thing is the pace, it dragged at times and it was a bit boring, mostly I think they spent too much time in certain scenes. That actually brings me to the second problem it had since I think that the scenes that dragged the most were the ones with the main couple. I totally get why the story is there as I mentioned before (and very glad it's there) BUT they dragged it way too much and the ending for the couple is not satisfactory to me. Their romance should have lasted half the show max, and they shouldn't be together by the end, the excuses given to continue together are unrealistic, no one is going to commit to a serious relationship "for now" well knowing it will inevitably end because they want different things. Their back and forth became tiresome quite quickly despite the cute scenes here and there. It would have been a lot more satisfactory that in the end the FL had met someone that matched her views, I would have been happy even with a tease at a new relationship.
The product placement in this drama is very on the face, and it broke the immersion for me every single time.
The adopted trope was also annoying and way too overused at this point. I can't care anymore because usually it's copy paste from one drama to another, especially in more modern times. The adoptive parents are great but the kid still mostly favours the biological ones because being adopted in Korea is a curse. In this case it made less sense considering he had foreign adoptive parents and lived in Australia, I think naturally and more realistically he wouldn't have had those views as ingrained in his mind. Either way, the bio mother passing away was an uninteresting dramatic filler as well.

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Messy writing, started good and gets worse the more you watch

What happened here????? I'm so baffled by this drama, how it managed to destroy or not develop properly anything that it started, everything is introduced and dropped. This drama was either a writing exercise using a dart board with random words and they hit some random ones and had to connect them in the story somehow or a "pass the story" game the writer had with their family one Saturday evening after a couple of drinks where each person was trying to add any absurdity to the plot they could.
If you read the premise of this show above please just completely ignore it because that's just about the beginning of it and it's dropped very quickly.

At the start I thought it was interesting as a concept, not necessarily new but I welcomed to see what they would do with it. Clearly they didn't know what to do with it. After a couple of episodes with more comedy (although some quite juvenile for my liking), they completely dropped it and moved to the couple dating show. At this point I already started wondering what was the point of it. ML's issue is put to the background so quickly and at times even forgotten. At points there were some better moments but many others I started feeling I was watching paint dry.
What was the point of the time jump after the dating show? I really don't know. I don't like when I'm invested in a story, or trying to be like in this case, and there is an unjustifiable time jump, doesn't matter how small. It felt very "ok that's done now, let's do something else". But the "something else" they do it's just going in circles achieving nothing. The romance falls short, the friendship between ML and SML falls short and it's never explored in depth other than showing some past disagreement. Everything is pretty much left half baked and you keep watching hoping something comes that makes you change your mind, but then it slowly creeps into melodrama territory with the adopted trope and the bio mother appearing (what was the point again? it doesn't add anything to the story or personality of FL) and then proceeds to do what happens at the end of episode 9, what was the cherry on top and by that point I was simply done with it. Then somehow not only they managed to introduce even more melodrama with the father getting scammed and then having an out of the blue action bit at the end with him and the three sons but also somehow they tried to evolve a bit the story of FL's mother last minute mentioning the engagement but actually nothing happens? And then to top it all off we have 15 minutes at the end with a children's play with a similar plot to the original premise of this show with flashbacks I don't need to see because I've already seen them.

Why are there so many characters? Somehow there are so many but they make me care about none. FL at times felt like background character because she was so plain I just didn't see the point. Her whole personality was just trying to write the next show and not much else. As I already said introducing the bio mother was cliché and boring, but also very annoying that once again they're trying to excuse or forgive abandonment. I have seen only a few dramas where this is tackled in a more realistic and correct way. Most times it's just forgiven because "blood" and it's a trope I highly despise. In this case while there wasn't complete forgiveness it wasn't really tackled in any engaging way, it's not even discussed why. It was very pointless.
ML had personality and there is more in-depth to his character but his issue as mentioned previously was massively underutilized and we're only told about his thought process as an afterthought, like for example when at the end he decides he doesn't want to do news anymore. We were not taken for the ride of his development, we're just told later. At this point I do have to mention Go Kyung Pyo's acting because I've seen him in other stuff and I liked him but here I just don't know what they were going for. I say "they" because I can imagine that's what the director wanted but the moments when he couldn't lie were bad, and he would just become an expressionless statue. Only when he would have an outburst he would be more human. So he spent most of the drama being a robot and it wasn't engaging, nor funny or entertaining, it was just awkward. The "issue" shouldn't even have been there anyway as mentioned previously because it was only used in the beginning.
About the SML, who cares? I just couldn't care about his character. He was introduced as the second love interest to make the cliché love triangle but after, why follow his story further? Sure, they do tackle some issues with his character but it all felt very superficial and the outcome is not fireworks worthy to spend that much screen time on him.
Secondary characters on the FL side are a big what's the point? and on ML side are plain annoying. FL's friend with the kid only there in the beginning to make you think the kid is FL's and then after she's just there so she can be the love interest of ML's brother. The kid is only there for the same reason, and I still don't understand the point of his "power", not explored, you don't even know if real and overall added nothing to the mess.
ML's parents had an interesting background and story with their struggles but even at the end I didn't feel like there was much consideration to the fact ML had been used for a long time and their parents took it for granted and they spoiled the two younger ones big time. They're trying to sell me at the end because of the pity party that was the accident that they're great parents but they're not? And it has everything to do with their attitude and nothing else.
ML's brothers were pretty awful spoiled people and again, they try make them better by the end but I felt nothing, nor did the "romance" of the middle one with FL's friend. No chemistry and I feel bad for her since he gives the vibes of man-baby.
Talking about chemistry, the one of the main leads is not quite there either. At some points I thought they were cute together but most of the time I felt nothing. I did like at points their romance was a bit more mature and straightforward but overall even though it's one of the supposed main plot points of the show it felt background many times.

Personally I can't recommend. I know already when I start skipping scenes that this is not going to be a pass for me and in this case I used it so much especially in the last two episodes. It's a complete mess writing wise and I can't think of any element that would justify wasting the time since everything else like music, characters... are either just passable or mediocre.

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Interesting premise but too many plotholes in the world-building

This show was interesting at times and it dragged at others. It's only 6 episodes but somehow they managed to drag it at times and at others it felt rushed.
As other people have mentioned in their reviews there is a flaw in the world-building of the show. There are too many questions left unanswered in terms of how society works and what things are different, especially when it comes to reproduction and what kind of things they were doing to solve the problem of the decline in male population. It gave me the impression that nothing was being done science wise to try and understand why it was happening or how to solve it. I think at one point it's mentioned how they created artificial sperm or something of the sorts? It's just mentioned in passing but it's never explained. In a society like that you would think the few males would be exploited to no end as sperm donors, and would create issues of everyone eventually being related if the pool of men is that small. The artificial sperm would obviously solve this to a certain extent but then if they're capable of making artificial one, shouldn't they also be able to overcome the decline in born males? It brings the question if the problem then it's the mother carrying the child, in which case, and considering they can make artificial sperm, maybe make an artificial uterus? Anyway, I'm getting too much into this, the show just simply didn't care in explaining anything. Even if it had been complete fantasy and surreal, some kind of explanation would have been welcomed.
The premise in terms of the world and the plot itself is interesting but it lacks enough exploration. The lack of it would have been passable if all that had been a background element and the plot had revolved exclusively about the show and the FL's character participation in it, but it does involve the bigger issues into the plot and as such it's not satisfactory as it is.
The show part of it it's also quite a big plothole in itself. It's never really explained why it exists in the first place. It's not like it's giving anyone hopes or anything if also the women usually chosen to marry those men are from rich families. Why are they pushing the marriage thing onto those men? They should be forever donors lol it wouldn't really matter much who they marry as long as they contribute to the whole population lol It's said it's the 7th time the show happens, by this time the whole population already knows it's fixed if all women chosen are from rich families and it would have lost all spectators. Sure, the men themselves would be equally popular like celebrities, but no one would care to follow a show to see who they marry, it wouldn't be them so who cares?

Someone in the reviews said this was a trying to be somewhat of a mix between Squid Game and Hunger Games, and I totally agree. I haven't even watched Squid Game although I know more or less what is about and certainly this shares the looks. The music in the last episode when the female contestants are presented was very close to the Hunger Games one, it was blatantly similar.

Acting is generally ok, some of them are better than others. Characters wise, I feel a lot of them were quite superficial and we don't learn anything from many of them, or we learn one thing and that's just their whole vibe. Almond was an interesting character in his more grey area, but it was unsatisfactory how his motivations and decision at the end is not explored more. FL's character was ok in the very beginning, then it's too silly and cliché (girl that doesn't care much about her looks, it's a black hole eating and is clumsy and can't read the room) to then being a more mature towards the end. It was inconsistent and they could have avoided that cliché phase altogether. I'm generally not a fan of the troupe of childhood acquaintances to adult lovers, here it was worse that in other shows because it was pretty much instant as soon as they recognise each other, and their childhood experience together was very brief, or at least it's only shown in a very summarised way, what doesn't help their case either way. As it happens often I was more invested in the side love story and progression of Chanel and Max than the main characters, they were more unique and they had obstacles to overcome. Sure, it's not really explored enough, but for what it is, it was better in my opinion.

Things are kind of left there and then there is an "epilogue" 4 years later. It brings many questions, especially of those that were left behind. Then we have the classic evil laugh, almost, because the evil queen has found their location HOHOHO I mean, it's not like they were super secretive in their location, they're not even covered by woods or anything. I don't know... haha Either way, I don't know if they're doing a 2nd season of this or not, and if not, what a silly way to end it.

Despite all of this and other flaws it was surprisingly passable and entertaining in a general way????!!! How is this possible really??? Maybe it's because my expectations were quite low but I thought it would be worse. I think it being 6 episodes also helped it a lot in that respect. It didn't overstay its welcome much.
My rating goes for interesting idea and for the general entertainment it provided, surprisingly.
It's generally watchable but keep expectations quite low and don't question much of anything, otherwise your brain cells will combust, mine are certainly fried at the edges and I'll move on to something else immediately before I dwell too much into the details of this and I see the back of my head and steam out from my ears lol

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