inmyrare

a realistic cinderella story with a bit of fairytale

honestly this drama is so up my alley i will eat it up every time. i always like it when the male lead is a bit more clingier than the female lead. and they did it so well here. moon sang-min is made for roles like this.
they made the rich guy poor girl trope as realistic as possible, with a unique twist of the girl actually taking the money. it was refreshing to see something different. there isn't much plot after that, just fluff.
the female lead was a good character with a great backstory. her journey with her struggles from her childhood and how it shaped her to be the logical and caring adult she is. the plot line with her brother was also done well.
i did not like the mother but they truly did give her a good character arc with it being as realistic as possible while also having a fairytale ending.
i did not like the brother and his wife's relationship. it felt a bit forced for me. the brother was supposed to the comedic relief so that affected the romance for me. still they were cute.
THE OSTS OF THE DRAMA???? so good!! it fit the vibes so well and are generally good songs, they are on repeat in my playlists.
definitely enjoyed this one, so if u are someone who wants a quick series to swoon over, this is it.

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a show so badly made

A big rant. You have been warned

I have not seen any other versions of this show but this version makes the story look bad from all sides. People say that straight shows don't get viewers but how can het show gain viewers if they are made so badly?
From the beginning, we can see that there was a low budget for this show. The writers have done a very bad job. The story seems like something u get after a storywriting competition in high school.
The characters were so under-developed. It seems as if they heard a one line summary of the other versions and made a story based off that one line within 15 mins. Som and Chadjen are very one-dimensional characters. Chadjen was not even a big presence in the first half of the show. I never felt that Som was romantically interested in Chad, it felt like a younger sister annoying her brother. Chad was just a quiet guy with daddy/mommy issues. Since he is so absent in the first half, everything related to him in the latter just felt fake. Why do Som and Chad like each other? We never know.
The team was also weak in keeping the story consistent. Som was never shown to be an artist or even draw for fun but suddenly after failing her medical interest she suddenly finds out that she is passionate about art?? They don't even show her doing much art or even being passionate about it. Chadjen being a swimmer too is a weird plot point. Like wdym he is a good swimmer, so good he beats Tao but we never hear of it again???? New's dream being a video game developer too, like he never mentioned it any time during the highschool or college days but suddenly after he gets a job his life long passion is developing a game? They didn't even imply he had a passion for any subject let alone this. Also, we hear nothing about this after the proposal
The romantic aspect was weak. Chadjen was shown as uninterested in everything. His only goal is to be a doctor and its made very clear. But then Som and Chad start dating after one conversation? That too one where they don't really say anything about their feeling? Their dating era too felt weak. They dated for a year but what did they do during that time? How do they hand out? The show just made them move in together-wrote after one year- suddenly they are having issues????????does the team not know how to portray a story? Som being so surprised that Chad is so busy also seems weak to me cause he studying to be a doctor, everyone knows how time consuming it is. Plus Chadjen wasn't that active in her life before, what difference does it make now?
The parents especially the dad was annoying. Many people were touched by the dad's anger in that one episode but i didn't like him at all. They didn't show the parents much and every time they showed the dad he was so overprotective and so obsessed with som's dating life and sex life. If they had shown times when they spend time doing something other than eating it would have worked.
New and Khao's story wasn't anything to be praised. Their proposal was cute though.
Tao seems be the only developed character here. He has a genuine interest in som and tries to be a part of her life and has passions and pains of his own.
The set, THAT WIG, story, outfit........everything was so low effort.

now about the acting..........
i first saw dew and prim in f4 and they both have a good performance there. Since then i have seen many of their other shows and i think dew is getting progressively worse. It does not help that most of his works has one dimensional characters. If i were to rank his performance it would be f4>homeschool>faceless love>this. He was so good in f4, but then there Ren was such a deep character with multiple sides and was surrounded by other deep characters. Here he is alone with a plain character. I hope he tires to get better shows and work better. Prim was good in enigma, her som is a plain character who is annoying so there isn't much to redeem the character.
Anyway this was a torture to watch, glad its over

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This show started with a good concept and mostly did it well. An ex-mobster and a children's content creator falling in love is a good idea. It was enjoyable. The rom-com was rom-com-ing. The only issue i had was it had a bit too much of comedy instead of romance but i think it's common in korean rom coms. After the couple gets together they either stick with more comedy into them or completely remove the comedy. Here, they continued with the comedy for a while and didn't build the romance until the last few episodes (at least for me). They really dragged the childhood friend plot and the ex-gang plot for too long that their reveals/endings were boring. The last few episodes were kind of boring. With all that said this was still nice.
I really liked the Prosecutor too. He was a good addition to the story and made it more wholesome. Minho and ll-young were also a great side couple. I would watch a whole mini-series of just them. The actor who played ll-young kinda stole the spotlight every time he was on the screen.
I also love that they tried something new with Eunha being a youtuber. It gave her a uniqueness. I liked the little 'like, share and subscribe' they did every episode with the cast.
This was a drama with a great starting which kind of fizzled out in the end

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Predictable

It was very predictable.
Seola was kind of a shallow character. They made her look almost cartoonishly evil in the first few episodes and then showed us her traumatic backstory only to end episodes in cliffhangers where she looks evil again (this got boring real quick). It does not feel like she has anything to her other than her trauma. They didn't give her past relationships a solid story too, did she love her last fiancé? Why was he this cheater if he was concerned for her?
The investigation part of this could have been interesting but the police were incompetent and biased for no reason. Why is an outsider giving you all the evidence you need? It was like they had an hatred for Seola way before they met her.
Guessing the killer was so easy. Make our victim a person who has like 3 people close to her and make 2 of them the bad guys in her life, are we surprised?
Kind of expected more but meh

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just a typical office romance but so well made it could be one of the best in its category.

I enjoyed every second of this. Joo Ina was such a fun boss. She was strict yet animated, it was intriguing. She was in a position of power but wasn't cold or closed off like how most shows portray these kind of characters. Ki-jun matched her energy well. He was upset at his change in role but never undermined her abilities.
Each episodes focusing on different cases were also so fun. Team 3 was also developed well, I cared about all of them.
Their romance was so good too. Ki-jun was very open about his feelings and wanted to pursue them. The conversations about marriage and life were also a good addition, I love how they ended the show.
The role reversal from the usual dramas was a nice feature of this show. Joo Ina being kind of reserved with her feelings and very intense while Kijun was open and bubbly, her being the one to take care of any professional (and emotional) problems that arises for him etc was so fun to watch.

My only problem with this show is the whole VP drama. We already have a built in conflict for this show i.e Joo Ina dating Kijun, there was no need for the VP to be the ex with feelings AND have him be in a competition with his brother. These plots were done badly, they just went to the cliched trope of a jealous second female lead. I liked A Jeong for the most part, she seemed fun and her interactions with Kijun were nice but then she decides to hurt everyone because her boss still loves Ina. Like literally wtf, what would she gain by exposing their past? She won't get any of the men, Joo Ina is a strong woman she will recover from it, A Jeong will lose her job so none of it will ever work in her favour. She just turned into an angry woman and that was it. Completely unnecessary. This would have been a 10/10 show without that plot. They could have used that time to show us their dating era before the office turned into shambles. Their hidden dating era was so fun.

All the details of this show were so cute. The intro, the episodes being named after kpop songs, them using magazines called 'filing for love', doyoung singing the ost

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gave nothing

such a waste of time and a star studded cast.
i was interested in this because of 12 zodiac/animal thing, i thought that characters will have skills/powers/habits similar to that habit but turns out they only have those powers for 1 episode. and the rest don't match the characteristics except for having a chubby guy play the pig.
almost nothing happens in all the episodes. all their backstory and present could have been done in one episode but very unnecessary things are added. i would even go far to say that the first few episodes are purely for the ads.
even the final battle doesn't even make sense. they left something for a s2 even then its nothing

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could have been mind-blowing but

a series with all my fave girls, ofc i would watch it.
i had high expectations for this and they did deliver for the first few episodes. there was the element of the unreliable narrator and all the 3 sisters being suspicious was good. but then some things started to get repetitive. i feel like a good 40% of this series was 'don't trust your family-family is all u have-everybody else are liars-everyone is selfish'. i get that we are trying to give a message but at some point it gets too much.
i guessed the killers cause they were portrayed as very innocent ppl. the characters were kind of inconsistent. chatfah was shown to not care abt her sisters but suddenly at her deathbed she loves them so much? and picha being another affair baby, whose child is she and why did the mother hate her so much while she was the father's fave. they gave too much details abt bua and chom's characters, it didn't keep the mystery of the series. they were rich ppl but didn't have basic security or any power over the police (which rich ppl usually do). ending with the all ' we are sisters, we love and hate each other' concept was so boring.
all the male characters were useless we could have avoided almost all of them.
at least the girls had great outfits throughout the series. now it's time to wait for 10000 years until gmmtv gives us another female centric show.

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This show really didn't know what it wanted to be

In the beginning it was some magical show where our characters tried to find missing artifacts, then it was about a cult then some past story/life, multiverse, some horsemen and eventually just descended to madness.

The first half of the show with all the guest stars and finding the artifact that they stole was fun. But after that it went downhill. Its like the team ran out of actors to hire so they added some backstories in the last minute.

Literally who is Dome? He came into someone's body and then Kantha tried to keep him around cause he is an incarnation of Chan but then how does he have all this power? Who tf is 'the one'???
So much God and devil convo in the last few episodes and sometimes they will thrown in some christian reference and then say something unrelated. Just some vague lines in the end about choices and what not. They even tried to make the whole museum gang appear like a family but we barely knew shit about them so I couldn't care less about them.

I will the one to say it but it feels like Gun is always playing the same type of character in all his series. He is the damsel in distress, never aware of anything and doesn't know anything and has to follow someone around. Its getting boring atp. His acting is fine but its just the same material over and over.

The vague ass ending seems to be speciality of gmmtv. So far all the non-romance shows I have seen from them has this out of character ending which seems to be a setup for season 2 but they never make one.

The one star is for all the cameos and the half star is for my girl tu

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A great way to start this anthology series

The earth being the story of Din and Rose falling in love, both of them being farm owners, their love being one full of protectiveness. I really liked how everything was setup.

We started the story well, giving good backstories and setting up conflicts well. Din and Rose reuniting after all those years was sweet. The way Din didn't force Rose to stay with her even though Rose's father gave Din the responsibility and Rose chose Din by seeing how loyal she was....all of this was perfect. Their fake marriage setup was also good. It lost me after that point onwards.

We see them play a bit of a jealousy game and then finally confessing their feelings but it didn't hit for me. I can understand why Rose would fall for Din, she was so protective and attentive to her every need and did everything to make her comfortable, but why does Din like Rose?? We never get to see them have a more deeper convo or bond. Most of their convos were 'Sorry u stuck protecting me, thank u for saving me'-'Ofc i will protect u, tell me anything u need'. They kind of suddenly shift personalities after their confessions. The Din who made sure she had consent for every single thing just kisses Rose when she drunk out of her mind? Din who was so shy is suddenly very confident everywhere?? I wish Rose was a bit more developed as a character.

Their breakup/break in the last ep didn't make any sense either. Rose didn't show any discomfort in the fact that her father gave Din the responsibility to look after her but she wants to break up cause that responsibility is not there anymore? Din never made it look like it was a burden but the way Rose talked gave a different vibe. I don't understand why they couldn't stay together and talk on the phone like long distance couples do in 2026. They didn't even use the break to get to know each other more, they just got married the instant they saw each other again.

The tone shift of the series was a bit drastic too. All the scenes with Din-Rose were romantic, cute, playful and very sweet and then suddenly we have Wasu with their dark, sinister evil plans and sex trafficking. I felt like I was more tensed about having such evil ppl walk free than these ppl who lived next to him. I couldn't even enjoy the cute moments that much cause deep down i was scared that Wasu and his gang will pop up any moment to assault them. Maybe they could have toned down them a bit and made it a purely land conflict/legal thing.

My fave part was the cousins. I love how they were all integrated into the story and we get to see their personalities shine. All of their interactions added so much to the story. I'm surprised that Water is the next one to air, given that we don't see Nam too much here.

I'm excited for the rest of the stories and to see Din in the future

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Fixed pairings will be the end of good stories

The dark/toxic/burnout vibes of this show was perfect. The art, the music (not the osts) all were perfect. The sensual vibes with every character, even Ing was great (they really were whoring out everyone for this show). The story was also interesting.
I did not like the ending at all. I know this is gmmtv and their fixed pairs HAVE to end up together but they are losing the greatness of their work by sticking to this format. Khol is toxic, a greedy person who takes and takes and does not see anything beyond his needs. Making Jira and him end up together without any proper explanation kinda ruined the story. They had to increase the number of episodes or do something else to tell this story properly.
Another complaint I might have is the lack of Khol's side of his emotions for Jira, we never really get the feel to when he falls for Jira, we don't see him in his thoughts much. Compared to this we see Pheem's feelings and his battles with it which gave more depth to his relationship with Jira.
The acting was great, this would be Dew's best performance and the only decent one he had after homeschool. Off and Gun are great but Off was slightly weak here. The side characters also did their jobs well
I'm excited to see more shows like this but with proper length to develop the story and a readiness to step out of fixed pair setting.

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good angst at the cost of butchering the female lead

i started this show sometime in may.......it took me 7 months to finish this?!?!

i would have given this show 4/5 stars but they completely ruined it with the last few episodes.
they had good angsty enemies to lovers/doomed love moments but that all came at the expense of butchering the female lead.

we have a good setup and backstory for our lead's journey, him being the devil lord who killed the whole world and her being the pure spirit sent back in time to save the world. we had a good opportunity to see a complex and conflicted journey of falling in love and deciding to choose your own path.
i felt like there were too many filler scenes/storylines which could have been avoided to give space for our lead's to develop a bit more strongly.
like yes we get it tantai jin has had a bad life, his life is epitome of miserable and this pain is what activates the devil lord, so yes we can see his reservations about love and everything. but li susu is supposed to have way more reservations and feel more complicated. she has to see the face which killed everyone she loved and try to prevent the ruin of the whole world, that too alone. we should have seen more of her being conflicted about what she feels towards him, her wondering if she is making the wrong decision by loving him etc. instead we spent a lot of time seeing tantai jin's pain, which yes is needed but i felt like it went on for too long.
tantai jin's character is consistent and his changes makes sense according to his journey. but li susu changed drastically at random points just to get the plot moving. this is very evident in the last few episodes i.e the part after she exchanges her divine essence with the evil bone and reawakens. she was so serious at first, ignoring tantai jin and separating from him for world peace and then she is suddenly very playful with him and then gets drunk and misses out on an important mission. she was conveniently missing from the episodes at the end where major stuff happens, i think we have an episode where she is only present for 10 mins. her life as ye xiuw with tantai jin was also confusing cause we never get a clear idea on what her plan is and every time she is around tantai jin she acts 'cute' (almost baby-ish). we never get a true sense of what she feels about him or whether she is thinking about her duty. her trying to save xiao lin (which then leads to hell) was sooooo confusing to me. even if u want the story to revolve around tantai jin only, li susu needs to be a strong and consistent character cause she is the main reason for his change. also i kinda hated the way the devil lord was so easily re-activated....like wdym li susu time travelled and did all that with no help for it to not matter that much

the angsty parts were good, especially ye xiuw's death. the lore is pretty good and well developed.
them not being able to stay together in every iteration of their soul is insane. matter of fact NO COUPLE got to stay together. everyone died at some point. my least fave might be ye bingchang and xiao lin, they did add much to the story and bringing them back didn't do anything. they should have brought my girl pianran back though

the cgi was not that good to me and at certain times and many of those battle scenes were not needed imo. the ending is good for such a complicated story

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did not live up to its potential

it had an aspect of play a game to live which is similar to squid game and those types of dramas but i would have loved it if they had truly leaned into the games side.
instead we have 8 episodes with so many characters that we don't know much abt a weak setup for s2. we see samut solving many of the puzzles but we don't see how or why, like is he super smart or has life experience for him to get the answers so quickly? we just see him quickly solve it with no thought process or explanation. we get to know the backstory of some characters like mamay and kaen but the rest are just placeholders. we don't know anything abt pie and she does not have any characteristic beyond mark being the center of her world.
imo aom was too much of a perfect angel, i would have burned the school down if i was left in a game and lost 30 years of my life, that too because of my best friend.
the ending was extremely weak. its like the writers realized that they have not developed all of the characters equally so they will throw something ambiguous and set up for a s2 that will never happen.
this show needed more episodes, less main characters, more depth and more focus on the games for it to be great

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