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Felt like they dropped the ball on this one
Was super interested in this when it was first announced because the gist of ai-generated boyfriends on the fly sounded kinda fun, and the early episodes lean into that fun part pretty well. The virtual worlds look great and make it too good to be true like it should be, the scenarios were cliche obviously but because it was supposed to be unrealistically fun (sometimes cringy in a fun way), and the production and costume work in those settings are especially well done.
The fun concept it built though starts to lose its momentum around the midpoint. The story felt like it kept circling back to the idea that each boyfriend is perfect but not real which is a good concept to build off of but they didn’t really explore how those experiences changed Mi Rae’s view on real relationships very well. The virtual boyfriend part was pretty much Lee Soo Hyuk, mostly Seo Kang Jun, and Seo In Guk's Yeong Il character with other minor appearances that were way to short so she pretty much just experienced two boyfriends in reality when i thought it was going to be something like a boyfriend per episode, that typa thing until the last few episodes. Because of that, they rely a lot on the virtual dates to carry the first half of the story while the real-world story feels underdeveloped and rushed to clean up when they gotta limit the BOD and mostly shift the real world in the 2nd half.
Mi Rae's character was kinda a mixed bag for me. Felt like she was too indecisive which made her frustrating at times and her not really understanding why the perfect boyfriends not only made her happy but sad reflecting on her relationship with Se Jun and how wanting to be perfect leads to imperfection. Her character gets a bit repetitive with the plot revolves around her journeying through her virtual boyfriends but again she didn’t really develop much out of it. I think Jisoo fits the role visually and the styling for her character is great (big credit to the costume team again), but her acting still feels like it’s developing and isn’t ready for a full lead role just yet. She’s not terrible like some others like to say just because she's an idol, but in scenes where her emotions need to show to she sometimes lacked the depth, which makes it hard to take a scene seriously. In my opinion she still has things to improve on which is normal and expected for someone with limited acting roles. I personally think a secondary lead would fit her better while she builds up her repertoire and refines the little things that she has shown she can improve but it’s pretty obvious because of her name that wouldn’t happen even if i think it would really benefit her.
The main romance doesn’t help much either in picking up the flat parts either. The chemistry between Mi Rae and Gyeong Nam feels pretty meh and just like you expect them to get together because they are the leads and not that they actually mesh together well which was a bummer. Could be that they pretty much just gave them just about 2 episodes to be together and not really letting them establish anything until around the second half. Could be also that Gyeon Nam's character remains very robotic even when he gets together with Mi Rae, which adds to romance feeling more forced than natural. One hated the other and one was more of a robot then the actualy AI-generated boyfriends somehow. I get he is not an expert at being social but even then still like they overdid his character being too monotonous.
Overall, it’s not bad, but the concept never feels as fully explored as it could have been and instead relied a bit to much on parts that didn't amount to much. It’s visually appealing and has some fun moments, but it ends up feeling a bit underwhelming by the end. The cameo appearances ended up being a highlight for me and where BOD showed its best colors. Seo Kang Jun really came out swinging in this and he definitely brought the most fun outta this.
The fun concept it built though starts to lose its momentum around the midpoint. The story felt like it kept circling back to the idea that each boyfriend is perfect but not real which is a good concept to build off of but they didn’t really explore how those experiences changed Mi Rae’s view on real relationships very well. The virtual boyfriend part was pretty much Lee Soo Hyuk, mostly Seo Kang Jun, and Seo In Guk's Yeong Il character with other minor appearances that were way to short so she pretty much just experienced two boyfriends in reality when i thought it was going to be something like a boyfriend per episode, that typa thing until the last few episodes. Because of that, they rely a lot on the virtual dates to carry the first half of the story while the real-world story feels underdeveloped and rushed to clean up when they gotta limit the BOD and mostly shift the real world in the 2nd half.
Mi Rae's character was kinda a mixed bag for me. Felt like she was too indecisive which made her frustrating at times and her not really understanding why the perfect boyfriends not only made her happy but sad reflecting on her relationship with Se Jun and how wanting to be perfect leads to imperfection. Her character gets a bit repetitive with the plot revolves around her journeying through her virtual boyfriends but again she didn’t really develop much out of it. I think Jisoo fits the role visually and the styling for her character is great (big credit to the costume team again), but her acting still feels like it’s developing and isn’t ready for a full lead role just yet. She’s not terrible like some others like to say just because she's an idol, but in scenes where her emotions need to show to she sometimes lacked the depth, which makes it hard to take a scene seriously. In my opinion she still has things to improve on which is normal and expected for someone with limited acting roles. I personally think a secondary lead would fit her better while she builds up her repertoire and refines the little things that she has shown she can improve but it’s pretty obvious because of her name that wouldn’t happen even if i think it would really benefit her.
The main romance doesn’t help much either in picking up the flat parts either. The chemistry between Mi Rae and Gyeong Nam feels pretty meh and just like you expect them to get together because they are the leads and not that they actually mesh together well which was a bummer. Could be that they pretty much just gave them just about 2 episodes to be together and not really letting them establish anything until around the second half. Could be also that Gyeon Nam's character remains very robotic even when he gets together with Mi Rae, which adds to romance feeling more forced than natural. One hated the other and one was more of a robot then the actualy AI-generated boyfriends somehow. I get he is not an expert at being social but even then still like they overdid his character being too monotonous.
Overall, it’s not bad, but the concept never feels as fully explored as it could have been and instead relied a bit to much on parts that didn't amount to much. It’s visually appealing and has some fun moments, but it ends up feeling a bit underwhelming by the end. The cameo appearances ended up being a highlight for me and where BOD showed its best colors. Seo Kang Jun really came out swinging in this and he definitely brought the most fun outta this.
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