sasharama

Plot: Xiao le and yi lan are childhood best friends. They share every aspect of their lives:issues, achievement, familiar problems.
Xiao le is trying to find his way in life without giving in with his father's expectations; yi lan instead knows what she wants to do. Her first love is playing cello just like her mother did. Unfortunately his father is not on her side.
We follow them as they navigate their problems through highschool and adult life.

Observations:
I liked the initial episodes of the drama. There is nothing groundbreaking here to watch but the atmosphere was nice and the characters were cute. I particularly liked the town/ school setting. It was a bit darker than usual school settings. It looked like they went to highschool in forks (twilight's)🤣.

I think the main issue in this drama is that everything is surface level.

We never get into anything too deeply.
Music is a main focus of the drama or at least this should be the case.

I'm still not sure about what kind of school they attended because they were involved all in music on some level, but it looked like a regular highschool instead of a conservatory.

Music is never discussed or shown except for the reoccurring "sorry, I gotta go play cello".
The fact that everytime someone is singing or playing an instrument another track is playing in the background takes you out of the moment.
I get that the actor may not be able to play, but you can cut the camera away from their faces and let a real musician play.

Maybe it was a budget issue, but it didn't help with setting the right tone in certain scenes.

Building momentum was also a big issue. The drama cuts short important or emotional scenes. They cut right in the middle of a scene, they never linger too much to actually make you feel the tension and that has an impact on the romance as well.

I found their love cute but how they got together was frankly a mess.

They jump from being distant, to being cold, to being together, to feel at ease with each other in the blink of an eye.

The whole "senpai" moment was "meh". Yi Lang starts liking him over nothing, confesses her love, than changes her mind. Right after she rejects Xiao le but wants to keep him a friend. She then sees him for a millisecond with a girl and gets jealous and right after starts to look at Xiao le under a different light.
They kiss accidentally and basically get together.

It was a mess and I didn't enjoy it at all.
If she was so adamant in rejecting him first just show me how she comes to terms with seeing him as more than a friend. Let the jealousy build up a bit.

The moment they get caught kissing by their respective parents was weird.

The whole drama we are shown that Xiao le parents are absent from his life , but suddenly they are everywhere and play the role of "comic relief" with yi Lang parents? Totally out of character.

Aside the main couple, the drama focuses also on the love story between the sad ning Ning and Xiao le's best friend.
this love story makes no sense from the very beginning.
Ning Ning was mean for no reason.
Her life revolved around cell even before she dated that guy. She never had time even in highschool but she uses this as an excuse to be a bitch towards her boyfriend.
He did absolutely nothing wrong. Always by her side, secretly helping her , never being a burden and always showing a positive attitude.
She on the other hand kept everything inside, never talked to him about nothing, never found time for him. He was the one always making plans for their couple and she saw it as a nuisance.
To add insult to injury she is the one breaking up with him asking "what is your plan? You need a plan". Girl, he was the only one being pro active in this relationship. He deserved way better.

The third female friend is on and off on our radars. Poor girl she is a third wheel in this drama.

This drama is not bad but it is not super interesting either.

My favourite part was the male lead character and the overall friendship of the main couple.
Everything else is just there for the sake of it.