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Lengthened drama episode
I liked seeing Totono again for sure and he's just as endearing as always, but I definitely thought this case would be a little more personal and twisted, since it was being made into a movie. Instead, it feels similar to the case from the drama, just longer, and while it's still an interesting case, it's far from my favorite Totono case.Was this review helpful to you?
Peak isekai romance
Such a fun and romantic show from start to finish! I think this is probably one of the best “person goes into a novel” stories that I’ve seen, from the rules of the world-building to how they extended the leads’ love story in the real world. I would’ve loved a bit more time just to see everyone’s reaction to our leads getting together, but I think the romantic development was impeccable overall.The FL is loud and crazy but never gets too annoying, and while the ML sounds like your typical “cold CEO,” he never came off as rude and heartless. There’s a down-to-earthness in all the dialogue and actions of our leads, despite the plot getting REALLY unserious and outlandish sometimes.
The only thing that actually was kind of frustrating and irritating were the ML’s family and your typical corporate battle plot. Especially in the first half when the romance was so endearing, cutting to the sister character constantly yelling just brought the pacing to a screeching halt. I even reached a point where I felt like she was beyond redemption because none of her scenes were enjoyable. While I understand why we have this subplot, I wonder if the pacing could’ve been faster and she could’ve been portrayed as a more layered character early on.
Still, a fun watch and I loved the way the show played on tropes. A great watch and I wish Taiwan would come out with more shows like this.
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Webtoon come to life
I haven’t read the webtoon, but I can tell you that this drama really captures the essence of action comics — the fight sequences are full of wild moves and crazy camera angles, and the music is so energetic that I always felt myself buzzing with adrenaline afterwards.Even though the show tackles bullying and the educational system, it approaches it in a more satirical way. The antagonists were moustache-twirling type of villains, and I never really doubted that we would have a happy ending, unlike something like Weak Hero Class 1, which tackles similar topics but with a more serious, quiet, and depressing tone that I typically enjoy more, especially to give me the feeling of high stakes.
Despite that, I enjoyed this as a no-brain watch, and it helps that the cast really sells the friendship theme.
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Okay
This was okay, but it was honestly missing the spark for me, especially at the start. I felt like we got a lot of scenes of the characters staring at each other without anything building up their relationship, and some plot points were a little far-fetched. Once the leads got closer, however, I think the drama became a lot better. The conversations between the leads felt very natural.I think the runtime is a little too short for the number of ships we got — there are like 3 couples other than our main leads and I wish we could've delved into just one a little more. Still, I think they all felt very down-to-earth. The last few episodes saw a few time skips that I think we needed more time to delve into too, but ultimately everything is wrapped up nicely.
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Very cute and comforting
This one was pleasantly surprising! I've seen a lot of short BL dramas where it feels difficult to connect to the characters or plot because of the short screen-time, but somehow this show managed to let the pacing breathe. I loved how clearly the personalities of our leads contrasted and then complemented each other, and although we have a few misunderstandings, there's nothing that ever feels overdramatic or frustrating. I wish we got a little more at the end of the leads being together — it feels weirdly like they shied away from physical intimacy at the last minute — but ultimately the emotional beats land well.Was this review helpful to you?
Fell a little flat
This film has a really interesting premise but I don't know if it adequately established a feeling of paranoia for me, which is what it was going for by the second half. I didn't really connect to the characters, though I still enjoyed the direction that the plot went in. The twist happens a little late.Was this review helpful to you?
A heart-warming mystery
I'm always a little nervous about live-actions but this one was actually great! Having seen the anime, I already knew what was coming, but I was still on the edge of my seat, especially in the first few episodes. The acting, especially of the kid actors, was amazing and I really loved the "found family" feeling that I got from their little gang. I wish this drama had more screen-time so we could dive into that a little more, because I did feel like the second half was a little more rushed. In the final arc, the drama takes some liberties and approaches the final confrontation a little differently. I admit I enjoyed the anime version a bit better in terms of the tension it brought. Still, the drama version would probably be enjoyable for new viewers, and it does wrap up the story nicely.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Strong first half, tropey second
This drama had such a strong start; the bickering dynamic between the leads is really fun, and one thing I love about Taiwanese dramas is that the female leads are always a little rougher around the edges. Everything just feels really down-to-earth, despite the outlandish premise of the rich son of a CEO pretending to be an intern and living downstairs from his mini-boss.The first half is strong, but the second half starts to drag a bit, going full-blown drama-land tropes with the evil second female lead, disapproving parent, and family illness. There are so many crazy additions to the plot, but it starts to feel frustrating.
I was also really impressed by the fact that there was no break-up between the leads as they were going through all of these tensions — up until the last episode where the drama pulled the “and one of them left and just left a note and they didn’t communicate at all for the entire time jump” thing and…sigh. I was just disappointed because I thought we’d avoided all that.
Other than that though, this is still a pretty good show, though I think the leads are the best part of it. The actors, particularly the ML, does a great job. The side characters are okay — mostly just there, sometimes a little too cringey and nosy, but sometimes funny. Still, it's a fun watch, and it feels very quintessentially Taiwanese.
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Fabulous second couple
I think the first thing that stood out to me about this one was that all the characters are really well-written and intertwined. It's common to see the SFL and SML be the best friends of the leads, but this wasn't the case — we had the SFL being leads with the FL, the SML being coworkers with the FL, the seconds leads having their own history, etc. It was just really impressive how every character had a backstory and a purpose to service in the plot beyond becoming a couple. It wasn't just throwing two random friends together; the stories felt really cohesive.While I do enjoy the story of the leads, I think it did get a little repetitive, probably because it moved too fast at the start. I would've preferred if the leads spent more time together before diving into the "I love you's," and maybe they could've done mini-cases where we explored Myul-mang (Doom) and what his day-to-day work is usually like. It would've given us more insight into his psyche and history. Instead, I feel like the characters got together really fast, and then their plots became recycled versions of "Person A leaves, Person B is sad, and then either Person A regrets it and runs back or Person B finds them and there's a touching reunion scene." It's a common trope in kdramas but I feel like we saw some version of this every episode, for half the drama.
On the other hand, I actually think the story of the second leads was extremely well-written, and they ended up as my favorite part of the drama, even if they were a lot more grounded and had no fantasy aspect at all. Despite their limited screentime, I think the development was paced well and was really convincing, and I loved the message behind that romance. It helped, like I said, that both of these characters felt like real people who had depth beyond their romantic subplot.
Overall, I enjoyed this one. I'm not sure how memorable it will be for me, but I understand why it is for lovers.
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Chemistry!
Honestly, I didn't expect to enjoy this one but wow, the standout of this drama were the two leads and the chemistry between them. Both lead actors are so good at showing subtle emotion, and the cinematography, the soothing OSTs, and the slow pacing of the show does an amazing job to highlight that.For me, I do think it required a little bit of suppression of disbelief on my part, albeit only at the very start. The romance, while it's soft and comforting, is definitely a "love at first sight" situation. If the actors didn't sell it so well and have such good chemistry, I probably would never buy into it.
Also, although it's technically a sports romance, however, I think the sports/billiards aspect of the show is actually not very important. When you think of a sports drama there's usually a clearer through-line — maybe a character wants to make it to the Olympic team or win nationals. While there's SORT of one here (LYY overcoming his trauma and playing again), the focus is more on the emotional journey and less on the sports itself. Even though YG was also a pool player, she doesn't have a clear arc. The main focus is the romance and the characters just happen to be pool players, and they occasionally play games, but I as the audience was never clear on what the next step of their journey was, or honestly, even on the rules of the game. That's not a deal-breaker for me, but it's just a heads up for anyone who was interested in this drama because of the sports aspect.
Overall, though, this was definitely a comforting watch. I'm glad I watched it during winter because the snowy vibes were perfect.
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Best part: Romance
I'd seen clips of the three couples of this drama before going into it and I knew I'd love it just from that alone. And I was absolutely right — I really enjoyed the dynamic of all the pairings. The main couple in particular felt like such a return to form to classic kdramas, from the very first meet-ugly, to the clashes along the way where they gradually get to know each other. I really liked how they communicated through all their struggles and how we saw bumps in their relationship because of the bigger plot, but it never turned into one of those annoying "break-up" or "noble idiocy" moments. The rom-com was just really fun and cute, with some of the best jealousy and kiss scenes I've seen. The secondary couples have less screen-time but they're really lovable too.In terms of the thriller/"case of the week" portion of the drama, I think they were overall done well. I really liked how we started out with an internal case — how standing up against unfair treatment in police training brought everyone together, and then I liked seeing our main group work together to solve different cases until we gradually made our way to the big one.
I thought the big case was really interesting too, and I actually think the drama did a great job giving it tension and weight in contrast to the more light-hearted scenes of the show. This is the part of the show where you really have to suspend disbelief though; the final plan feels a bit juvenile. Yes, the characters are rookies (it's in the title, after all) but I felt like the main antagonist had been built up to take more precautions that they seemed to really easily get around for plot purposes.
There's also a main character death that I think we needed more time with, giving the other characters more time to grieve and recover. I loved how tight-knit the group was before this, and after the character died, it felt like we were sad for a few minutes and then everyone just moved on and started to focus on the case again. The drama just needed some more quieter scenes of grief and introspection, so that the characters and the viewers could sit with what just happened, because it really should've felt much more earth-shattering.
Other than that, though, I really enjoyed this drama overall, and the main OST (Because of You) is SO catchy.
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Beautiful
Oh boy, this was an absolute tear-jerker, especially in the last few episodes. The relationship between Geu-ru and his dad was heart-warming already, but it’s given such a perfect arc as we see Geu-ru coming to terms with his grief while he and Sang-gu get closer.There are parts of this show that really surprised me with how deep it got, and even plot developments that weren’t necessarily new still managed to hit the right emotional beats.
I did enjoy the “case of the week” style and I enjoyed pretty much every single story, but I definitely don’t think any of them were extremely hard-hitting emotionally. Still, the parallels between them and the A-plot was really strong, and if I’m being honest I’d totally watch a sitcom type of show where they just do this every week for the rest of my life. The dynamic of the main trio — Sang-gu/Geu-ru/Na-mu is just THAT good.
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Adorable
The leads in this show were so adorable and I love them SO much. Yukiko is strong and independent, bright and insightful, and just such an interesting character to follow. And Kurokawa is such a golden retriever character — the "looks like they can kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll" is probably my favorite archetype and he absolutely embodies this. I love how earnestly he approaches things he doesn't understand, and the dynamic between him and Yukiko is so heart-warming because of it. Most of the side characters also lovable and I love that we get to see each of their family/friend groups.Overall, I think the drama portrays visual impairment really well. I definitely learned a lot about amblyopia, which I had no idea about before. The show goes into different accessibility tools and their importance, and I really enjoyed the explainer cameos by comedian Hamada Yutaro. There are a few hiccups here are there; there's a frustrating second female lead type of character who treats the FL really horribly and while the FL is shown as someone who is kind-hearted and patient enough to sit down and explain...it's kind of frustrating that she had to and I wish we'd gone more into the ableism here. The other part that was kind of iffy to me was her work at the restaurant. Once again, it seems like the drama goes for the route that hypes up the female lead and shows her resilience, but I think there could've been more discussion about making workplaces accessible. Showing scenes of Yukiko burning herself and carrying on didn't really make me think "Wow, she is so strong" as much as "Damn, they really did not make this workplace safe for her."
I think the most frustrating thing about this drama was the very typical "break up for their own good" trope in the penultimate episode. I'd been so impressed with how well they communicated prior to this and I really think it would've been much more in line with their personalities to talk it out rather than going the noble idiocy route. I very rarely like time jumps and this was no different.
Ultimately, I still found this drama really light-hearted and fun. It's a really comforting watch and Kurokawa is probably one of my favorite male leads.
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A typical short BL
This was quite a cute and quick watch, but I don't think it stood out to me or will end up being too memorable. It's very similar to other dramas with this length — About Youth, Blueming — where we see the main characters gradually get to know each other as they heal from trauma or familial pressure. I really like how we got insight into why the main character is so bubbly, but as always, I felt like the shortness of the show really hampered how deeply we could go into their stories.Was this review helpful to you?
Carried by chemistry
Every other review is right: the cast is the best part of the show. I loved First and Khao's chemistry and the romance is just so goddamn adorable. The trope of the troublemaker x goody two-shoes is so fun to watch.While I like the idea of a "school curse" hurting students and a school that has overly stringent and overbearing rules to stop students from speaking up, it just all stays so abstract that it feels like the writers didn't actually think through their themes.
Let's start with the protests. We see the kids who are protesting the rules, but it's really unclear what the rules even are and why it's such a problem. Some things that are briefly mentioned are school uniforms and phone use, but we never actually see how these rules negatively affect the students, and it makes the rules seem so mile it doesn't necessitate all the drama. I think the idea of "protesting for the right to protest" is very valid and interesting, but the setting needs to escalate it in a way that makes sense. It's likely that the protests started out from something small and then grew when the school tried to suppress it, but the show drops us right in the middle of the latter and never explains the history.
In terms of the curse, it's also unclear what it actually is. The students gossip about "the curse" and the teachers tell them to stop talking about it, but we don't know what it actually means other than "something bad happens to certain people." Random things happen and it's attributed to the curse, but I needed more characters to ask questions that people would ask in real life. Where did the curse come from? Is it supernatural or is it a person doing everything? Who does it target and why? This ties back into my issue with the protest concepts — none of the history is explained.
Throughout all this, there are moments where the show addresses homophobia, both internal and external. I actually enjoyed how the drama tackled these themes a lot, but once again it was kept quite abstract most of the time. It could've leaned into it much more and tied it into the curse and the school rules, and it would've solved both issues, by putting a clearer spotlight on the homophobia theme and adding more explanations to its other concepts.
Overall, the script just needed to be tightened and the ideas needed to be fleshed out. The romance is so good, but you really have to believe in stakes that aren't quite there.
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