This review may contain spoilers
DEEPLY flawed but this show is iconic. to me
Wow, there's a lot to say about this one, so I'm going to start with the negatives/things I think people should be warned about before diving into this.
1. When Jieun transforms into a man for the first time, her sister, Jihye, initially freaks out at seeing a man in their home (understandable), but then the second she sees "Jihun's" face, she's trying to smash???? Which is already insane behavior before we add in the fact that that would be incest. And unfortunately the incest jokes do not stop there. Jihye still flirts with Jieun after realizing it's her sister, there's a scene where she takes a photo of Jieun while sleeping which unfortunately ends up being plot relevant because when she gets pestered by friends about her dating life she shows that photo of Jieun claiming it's her boyfriend… And then when Jieun is trying to hide her transformation from their parents there's this whole situation where she "meets" her parents while pretending to be Jihye's boyfriend. And just when you think the show has finally stopped with this weirdness because Jihye has reconnected with Youngseok, even in the finale there's a scene of Jihye ogling "Jihun"... It's all really gross and really uncomfortable and the show finds it hilarious and just. Ew! Save me and Jieun from this mess!
2. Yunjae's mom has quite the temper and there are at least three scenes where she reacts by hitting someone — one scene where she smashes a vase on her husband's head, thinking she's about to smash the vase on Yunjae's head; another scene where she aggressively hits Yunjae with a pillow and her hands multiple times while he's heavily intoxicated; and then another scene where she's holding some kind of wooden(?) stick and she's trying to use it to hit her daughter, Yuna, but Yunjae and his father are trying to calm her down and she ends up hitting the father on the head with it. There's even another scene where she learns exciting news and starts screaming and congratulating Yunjae and he fully freezes in terror. Like, she is just fully abusive and it's despicable that these scenes are played for humor.
3. The writers try to give Minju more depth in the second half of the show, but basically she's a misogynistic caricature of the homewrecker. Yunjae politely sets boundaries with her multiple times, but she just does not respect him and completely bulldozes those boundaries, including even assaulting him and then attempting to assault him a second time. This is made even more frustrating by the fact that Minju has her own stalker who refuses to accept her rejections, and she somehow can't see that she is behaving in the same manner (AND SHE EVEN SAYS IN DIALOGUE AT ONE POINT "PARK YUNJAE REJECTS ME EVERY TIME WE TALK" SO SHE IS AWARE THAT SHE'S BULLDOZING HIS BOUNDARIES????? AND YET SHE DOESN'T SEE HOW SHE'S EXACTLY LIKE HER STALKER??????? HELLO???????????????) And, like the above two points, Minju's harassing Yunjae is mostly played for humor. (Also don't read the comments on here, people hate abuse survivors and love to victim blame. Of course Yunjae is going to have a hard time setting boundaries when his mother behaves the way she does and he has to constantly placate her and honestly a lot of his behavior towards Minju reads as him being in older brother mode to me. As someone who grew up in an emotionally abusive household, of course he is taking the path of least resistance and doesn't get more forceful towards her!)
And yet despite these very big gripes I have with the show, any of which probably should have been a turn-off, I was still incredibly charmed by it, and new episodes could never come fast enough — waiting from Thursday until the next Wednesday for the new episode always felt like torture. This show literally consumed my every waking moment after I hit play on episode 2. Excluding Minju and Yunjae's mother, I pretty much adored everyone. Yunjae and Jieun were so sweet and cute and silly, and even with how much Yunjae initially struggled with Jieun's transformation, you could still feel how deeply he loves her as he got used to this new reality. The love triangle between Jihye, Jeongja, and Youngseok was really interesting and surprising, and while I always did have a bit of a preference towards Jihye as I love childhood loves reuniting as adults, both dynamics work in different ways and you don't want to see anyone in the situation be heartbroken. I never would have expected the Yuri and Minhyuk relationship before Yuri's book signing event, but they ended up being so delightful. Yuna and Yunjae's sibling dynamic made me laugh a lot and I adored how supportive Yuna was and her attempts to help Yunjae and Jieun spend more time together. Yuri and Jieun's friendship was also easily one of the highlights.
Yoo Junghoo is incredible in this. This show is absolutely worth a watch for him, even if nothing else about the concept interests you. Every emotion that Jieun experiences is palpable in his performance. Like, it is up there with Shin Haesun's performance in Mr. Queen for me. Yoon Sanha is also really really good as Yunjae.
If you're watching this for BL reasons, you're going to be disappointed. Maybe I watch too much censored media and I'm being too charitable as I can't read the minds of the writers, but imo it really does feel like the writers wanted this to be more gay and were forced to tone it down. Especially since Yunjae was starting to initiate physical contact with "Jihun" and smiling to himself when Minju was complaining about Yunjae's relationship with "Jihun" and that "Jieun would hate knowing how close you two are" in episode 9 and then Jieun returns to being a woman in episode 10. Like... definitely giving the vibe of "Oh shit!!! It's getting too gay, we gotta remind the audience this is a straight relationship!!!!" I definitely wish it would have gone further, but I understand why it didn't and I appreciate the small moments we did get. And if you're going into this with the mindset of it being censored queer media, I think you will be pleasantly surprised with how far it does go.
I also wish the show played with gender more, but as I've already mentioned Mr. Queen, I like how My Girlfriend is the Man approached the body swap a lot more. As much as I love Mr. Queen, it was soooooooo exhausting how Bonghwan's main crisis about being in a woman's body meant he no longer had a dick and how his lack of a dick was so distressing because he wanted to seduce women and "how can I be with a woman w/o a dick" and just. GOD. My Girlfriend is the Man is way more concerned about the outside perception than Jieun's body change, which makes sense given how most societies are very fixated on gender roles and people falling in line with gendered expectations. Also, Jieun has a very stable sense of self and I just really love that she has no discomfort with performing in ways that would be deemed feminine and we frequently see her wearing a hair clip while presenting as a cis man. (Also Jieun's grandmother 🥹)
Did some of the writing decisions frustrate me? Yes, but that is also true for probably 85% of the media I watch. The last 3 episodes were really eager to throw as many curveballs at the audience as they could manage and I think some of it was to the detriment of the intended message. Not that it "ruins" the message like some of the comments argue, but that things got muddier than they needed to be and there were moments that felt like Yunjae would take one step forward and then immediately take two steps back, which... I know progress isn't linear but this is a narrative and we shouldn't still be feeling this back and forth in the penultimate episode.
Also, very minor sidenote, but I just feel compelled to include it in this review: I cannot tell you how many times a sound effect made me lose the ENTIRETY of my shit (the angry meows and the witch cackle remain my faves — whoever was responsible for editing in these sounds, you are UNHINGED and I love you for it.) It's all so out of pocket and perfectly cartoonish, which is fitting since this is based on a webtoon.
TL;DR: this show is a MESS but it is also one of my favorite things ever and I definitely encourage you to give it a chance ✨
1. When Jieun transforms into a man for the first time, her sister, Jihye, initially freaks out at seeing a man in their home (understandable), but then the second she sees "Jihun's" face, she's trying to smash???? Which is already insane behavior before we add in the fact that that would be incest. And unfortunately the incest jokes do not stop there. Jihye still flirts with Jieun after realizing it's her sister, there's a scene where she takes a photo of Jieun while sleeping which unfortunately ends up being plot relevant because when she gets pestered by friends about her dating life she shows that photo of Jieun claiming it's her boyfriend… And then when Jieun is trying to hide her transformation from their parents there's this whole situation where she "meets" her parents while pretending to be Jihye's boyfriend. And just when you think the show has finally stopped with this weirdness because Jihye has reconnected with Youngseok, even in the finale there's a scene of Jihye ogling "Jihun"... It's all really gross and really uncomfortable and the show finds it hilarious and just. Ew! Save me and Jieun from this mess!
2. Yunjae's mom has quite the temper and there are at least three scenes where she reacts by hitting someone — one scene where she smashes a vase on her husband's head, thinking she's about to smash the vase on Yunjae's head; another scene where she aggressively hits Yunjae with a pillow and her hands multiple times while he's heavily intoxicated; and then another scene where she's holding some kind of wooden(?) stick and she's trying to use it to hit her daughter, Yuna, but Yunjae and his father are trying to calm her down and she ends up hitting the father on the head with it. There's even another scene where she learns exciting news and starts screaming and congratulating Yunjae and he fully freezes in terror. Like, she is just fully abusive and it's despicable that these scenes are played for humor.
3. The writers try to give Minju more depth in the second half of the show, but basically she's a misogynistic caricature of the homewrecker. Yunjae politely sets boundaries with her multiple times, but she just does not respect him and completely bulldozes those boundaries, including even assaulting him and then attempting to assault him a second time. This is made even more frustrating by the fact that Minju has her own stalker who refuses to accept her rejections, and she somehow can't see that she is behaving in the same manner (AND SHE EVEN SAYS IN DIALOGUE AT ONE POINT "PARK YUNJAE REJECTS ME EVERY TIME WE TALK" SO SHE IS AWARE THAT SHE'S BULLDOZING HIS BOUNDARIES????? AND YET SHE DOESN'T SEE HOW SHE'S EXACTLY LIKE HER STALKER??????? HELLO???????????????) And, like the above two points, Minju's harassing Yunjae is mostly played for humor. (Also don't read the comments on here, people hate abuse survivors and love to victim blame. Of course Yunjae is going to have a hard time setting boundaries when his mother behaves the way she does and he has to constantly placate her and honestly a lot of his behavior towards Minju reads as him being in older brother mode to me. As someone who grew up in an emotionally abusive household, of course he is taking the path of least resistance and doesn't get more forceful towards her!)
And yet despite these very big gripes I have with the show, any of which probably should have been a turn-off, I was still incredibly charmed by it, and new episodes could never come fast enough — waiting from Thursday until the next Wednesday for the new episode always felt like torture. This show literally consumed my every waking moment after I hit play on episode 2. Excluding Minju and Yunjae's mother, I pretty much adored everyone. Yunjae and Jieun were so sweet and cute and silly, and even with how much Yunjae initially struggled with Jieun's transformation, you could still feel how deeply he loves her as he got used to this new reality. The love triangle between Jihye, Jeongja, and Youngseok was really interesting and surprising, and while I always did have a bit of a preference towards Jihye as I love childhood loves reuniting as adults, both dynamics work in different ways and you don't want to see anyone in the situation be heartbroken. I never would have expected the Yuri and Minhyuk relationship before Yuri's book signing event, but they ended up being so delightful. Yuna and Yunjae's sibling dynamic made me laugh a lot and I adored how supportive Yuna was and her attempts to help Yunjae and Jieun spend more time together. Yuri and Jieun's friendship was also easily one of the highlights.
Yoo Junghoo is incredible in this. This show is absolutely worth a watch for him, even if nothing else about the concept interests you. Every emotion that Jieun experiences is palpable in his performance. Like, it is up there with Shin Haesun's performance in Mr. Queen for me. Yoon Sanha is also really really good as Yunjae.
If you're watching this for BL reasons, you're going to be disappointed. Maybe I watch too much censored media and I'm being too charitable as I can't read the minds of the writers, but imo it really does feel like the writers wanted this to be more gay and were forced to tone it down. Especially since Yunjae was starting to initiate physical contact with "Jihun" and smiling to himself when Minju was complaining about Yunjae's relationship with "Jihun" and that "Jieun would hate knowing how close you two are" in episode 9 and then Jieun returns to being a woman in episode 10. Like... definitely giving the vibe of "Oh shit!!! It's getting too gay, we gotta remind the audience this is a straight relationship!!!!" I definitely wish it would have gone further, but I understand why it didn't and I appreciate the small moments we did get. And if you're going into this with the mindset of it being censored queer media, I think you will be pleasantly surprised with how far it does go.
I also wish the show played with gender more, but as I've already mentioned Mr. Queen, I like how My Girlfriend is the Man approached the body swap a lot more. As much as I love Mr. Queen, it was soooooooo exhausting how Bonghwan's main crisis about being in a woman's body meant he no longer had a dick and how his lack of a dick was so distressing because he wanted to seduce women and "how can I be with a woman w/o a dick" and just. GOD. My Girlfriend is the Man is way more concerned about the outside perception than Jieun's body change, which makes sense given how most societies are very fixated on gender roles and people falling in line with gendered expectations. Also, Jieun has a very stable sense of self and I just really love that she has no discomfort with performing in ways that would be deemed feminine and we frequently see her wearing a hair clip while presenting as a cis man. (Also Jieun's grandmother 🥹)
Did some of the writing decisions frustrate me? Yes, but that is also true for probably 85% of the media I watch. The last 3 episodes were really eager to throw as many curveballs at the audience as they could manage and I think some of it was to the detriment of the intended message. Not that it "ruins" the message like some of the comments argue, but that things got muddier than they needed to be and there were moments that felt like Yunjae would take one step forward and then immediately take two steps back, which... I know progress isn't linear but this is a narrative and we shouldn't still be feeling this back and forth in the penultimate episode.
Also, very minor sidenote, but I just feel compelled to include it in this review: I cannot tell you how many times a sound effect made me lose the ENTIRETY of my shit (the angry meows and the witch cackle remain my faves — whoever was responsible for editing in these sounds, you are UNHINGED and I love you for it.) It's all so out of pocket and perfectly cartoonish, which is fitting since this is based on a webtoon.
TL;DR: this show is a MESS but it is also one of my favorite things ever and I definitely encourage you to give it a chance ✨
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