Hime

Yeah, the romance between both the main leads and the second female lead and her husband were not explored properly, to the point I thought the best romance was probably the third female lead with the actor. It’s like the writers did not know exactly what to do. And the way the main leads got back together after breaking up was so anti-climatic. He still wants to get married and she still does not want to marry. So sooner or later their relationship will be shaky again. What they needed to understand is that in a relationship both have to concede, so I was expecting something like he saying he does not need to get married as long as he is with her or her saying she loves him so much that she is ok with marriage if its him. But no, they missed each other and got back together but nothing was solved, the conflict of interests still exists.

So yeah, this drama had quite a few issues that I could not ignore.

I never understood why the male lead liked her so much. He was so in love with her that I thought there was a deep past, like her being his first love or them meeting when they were younger or something, but that was never explored. I still don’t understand why, how and when did he fall for her. Did I miss something?

To be honest I liked the first half but the second half was just not that interesting. The ending seemed more like something you would see in a music video and I am not sure why they thought it was good idea to finish like that.

Maybe if I had watched it while it was airing I would have liked it more. I liked some episodes but others felt like I was forcing myself to watch. Around episode 20 or so I started getting tired and did not pick this up for months, and that says a lot about how much I liked it. It is not a bad drama, but it is just not the type of drama you can binge watch. I personally thought that as usual from chinese dramas, this was just too long so I got bored midway and kind of gave up on it because there were other dramas I was watching that I found more interesting.

If you can, watch it as if it was airing, a few episodes at a time.

I am sure this is a really good movie but I have watched way too many tragedies, a lot of them with terminal illnesses so I don’t think I will be able to watch another one. I would probably start crying the moment they meet because I already know how it is going to end. T T

Yeah, I though so too but when I clicked it the subs were showing. There is in fact 1 episode that was not subbed for some reason - ep 26. But I just watched it like that because the subbers probably wont bother to go back to that episode to sub it when they have already finished the last episode. I would probably be waiting for nothing so I just watched it raw. The others were all subbed tho.

Anyone who complained about fat shaming or anything similar clearly did not watch more than the 1st episode. This was very realistic in the portrayal of how most fat people see themselves and how society sees them, especially when it comes to South Korea where what is considered the average weight and desirable body type is what most countries consider thin and even underweight. So imagine how it is to live in South Korea when you’re overweight, 40 years old and have a jerk of a husband, so no, the first episode was not the writers being harsh or fat shaming, it was actually realistic ("the perfume" being an exception).

I had fun, my heart ached and I definitely saw a few lessons being presented to the viewers. I was expecting more from the ending but I liked something about it that dramas with similar concepts have failed to do. The message of this drama is NOT that you have to be young, thin and beautiful to be happy. What this drama shows is that it is never too late to follow your dreams, that you should accept and love yourself the way you are and that even if some were not able to see your worth, others might have seen it from the beginning and like you just the way you are.

So yeah, I would say this was a pretty good drama and I will possibly re-watch it in the future.

This was not bad, I quite liked it BUT do take the title of the drama seriously. The story is hugely focused on the debate competitions and how they prepare for them. There are of course other themes like romance, but it is more of a side thing although the first few episodes made it seem like it would be more present. It is also a slow-paced romance so don’t expect the main leads to get together anytime soon. Can’t say more or it would be a spoiler.

So if you like school dramas with competitions and similar things this is for you, but if you are mainly looking for romance this is probably not the best choice.

It is subbed. I just finished watching it.

Here are only some of the annoying clichés from the second half that completely ruined any chance of this being good:

- annoying second female lead that thinks she can always get her way and does not give up even if the male lead makes it very clear he has 0 interest in her;

- misunderstanding that lasted decades and was nothing after all, just a conversation would have solved it;

- mother of the male lead reaches her own conclusions about the female lead without getting to know her, and sees the second female lead as an angel when she is actually the villain;

- possibility of the main leads being half siblings causes the main lead to act like a jerk and break up with the female lead and pretend he is dating the other girl without ever checking if they are actually siblings or not with his father (because ofc, his mother begged him not to for the sake of family peace);

- when the whole sibling misunderstanding is cleared he thinks he can just go back to the female lead like nothing happened, glad that at least she did not accept him back right away;

- small situations and misunderstandings keep happening to make them stay apart....typical

-and if you think it could not get worse....a fake kidnapping, the male lead being beaten up until he is in a coma and guess what, when he wakes up he has amnesia and doesn’t remember the female lead at all and acts like a jerk saying he would never fall for someone like her (whatever that means) even if EVERYONE around him tells him they are dating;

- a few minutes before the last episode ends he finally gets his memory back, there is a small concert at school with some of the supporting characters and it just ends like that. (wow, that was probably the best ending I have seen....said no one ever)

And that’s it. If you still think it’s worth watching then go ahead, but at least you already know not to expect much from it, specially if you have been watching dramas for many years.

Good casting but awful script. The first half was ok but the second half just went downhill and became a mix of all kinds of annoying clichés and as predictable as it can get. I had to force myself to finish it, put off watching it for some time and still had to skip a lot of scenes to be able to get to the ending, which by the way was not only cliché but also rushed, did not feel like an ending at all and was so average that it was disappointing, even if I had already given up any expectations for this.

I have watched it over half a year ago. But thanks anyway. It might be useful for someone else.

Oh ok, I missed that for some reason.

Yeah, but it’s rare for the male lead to get a lot less screen time as a couple, or even as a romantic interest than everyone else. Cause you can tell he likes her but she only seems to notice him almost at the end and we are shown a few scenes and then they marry and that’s it. I wanted to see them dating, at least for 1 episode because to be honest I could not care less about her dates with the other guys and they took over several episodes. So I was disappointed when they rushed the ending like that, mostly because they decided to use the super annoying cliché of the ex-girlfriend showing up again and pretending she is pregnant. That precious time could have been used to show us the main leads finally together as a couple.

I know that. But when you have been in the drama world for quite some time, plots like these are far from interesting. And no one enjoys going through so many episodes of a drama knowing from the beginning who she is going to end up with and how long it is going to take them to figure things out and like I said in the spoiler, I wanted to see more of them together as a couple, not a rushed ending.

I was watching it on a facebook group I belong to but only half was subbed and then the subbed stopped because she knew viki would be uploading it. I remember there were subs on youtube but the channel had stopped subbing for months, I guess it‘s a different channel. Thank you for telling me.

Really? Since it’s a jdrama and they have the same last name, plus his weird actions, I just assumed the worst. I can imagine the female lead misunderstanding things just like me. XD

She is not married, but it seems he IS. The first episode he gets a call from someone with the name Akari and when you look here for the names of the characters you can see there is someone with this name that has HIS last name. So I am guessing she is his wife. Unless there is a really good explanation in the next episodes, I will be dropping this because I cannot stand cheating.

Aside from the main leads strong love for each other and how they outsmarted their enemies almost every time, there was not much more I liked about this. I liked the character of the Empress after a while, as another character that at first seemed like a disgusting person. I also liked the Empress Dowager and the little prince was cute. I don’t think there were many other characters I liked, maybe some supporting characters that did not show up as much.

The emperor was a disappointment, not that it is the first time I watch a useless emperor. He seemed to have some brains at first but then I started to feel more and more that he was actually brain dead. He did not always know his priorities and was unable to tell who was loyal to him, who was a traitor and who just wanted benefits. As long as people’s words and actions were pleasant to him, he would completely forget his supposed love for the female lead, the sacrifices of those who put their lives on the line for him, and even his people.

It’s not a bad drama, but it can be frustrating to watch, especially for people like me who love romantic stories and this one does not come easy, not for us and not for the main leads.

Ikr. There is this chinese drama called Unexpected that has been shown on Viki as a coming soon drama for like a year and only started airing this week, and the first 2 episodes are not even fully subbed, one is at 90 and the other at 85. Maybe next year. Lol