1
Sweet and mellow slice of life
One reason I started watching verticals is because it's such a new form and I'm curious about how people might start to develop new ways of telling stories. Mostly at this point it's a capitalist slop of hot garbage, but I felt like this show is a move in the direction of "hey, we've got a unique new way of presenting a story, what can we do to make use of a vertical's particular features."
It's not really that this show breaks new ground in the kind of story told, but they put a level of effort into creating unique characters with recognizable roles in the story rather than using the same old trope-laden archetypes and dialog, and then they present the characters' journeys in a way particularly well suited to short form episodes. So often verticals give us these info dumps and compressed scenes where events happen in quick succession in order to move the story faster, but it gives a very "story outline" sort of feel to the show. This show uses the short form to do what I think of as "extreme close ups" of character moments.
As a result, the pace is slow, especially at first, but in a way that makes me want to say "mellow" rather than "boring.," and really fits the slice-of-life genre. The character development and plot movement is achieved by showing us up-close moments in which a character realizes something, changes, makes a decision, or experiences a growing connection with other characters.
For example, at the very beginning of this sort of "flash marriage" set up (they met on an arranged date through a service rather than had parents arrange it), they are polite but akward with each other. One of the first plot sequences is the ML having a conversation with a friend who tells him that intimacy (in the sense of feelings) doesn't come from politeness. It triggers a change in his approach to the FL which shows both that he wants a closer relationship and is the start of the romantic developement (the inciting incident, if you will). The show avoids straight-up exposition and instead lets us *see* the change in a conversation that feels real, an expression on ML's face, and the in the related decisions he makes in the next two-three episodes. We know that the friend's comment landed, we learn the ML's goal, and it happens quickly, but also it feels very grounded and real.
The characters are recognizably linked to a lot of (especially vertical romance) character tropes, but they are dialed down about a million and given specific details and motivations so the characters feel real. For example we have a "abusive mother/kind mother in law" set up, but the abuse feels realistic and rooted in mistaken beliefs about parenting and specific difficulties. Over time, we come to see the mother as loving her children but also deeply misguided and bound by her own struggles rather than as a characiture of pointless malice. The mother-in-law's kindness is not overstated ("here are 25 villas and a private island! You are my only possible daughter-in-law that I recognize and the saviour of our family!!!")--instead there is a sequence of a few episodes in which the mother-in-law's supportive reactions and statements show that she values and respects her in-law as a person and wants to support a healthy marriage between the two.
The sibling relationship is also notably different from so many verticals in that it includes both love and pain (as a sibling, this gets my stamp of approval, and so refreshing over the absolute loyalty/absolute malice dichotomy most seem to go for).
In short, while the characters fill familiar roles and you can sort of guess what kinds of things might happen between them, the execution feels very satisfying because the characters feel more fully formed. We can understand why they take these actions, they change and grow. All presented as a series of important interpersonal moments, which allows the writers to mostly avoid creating stupid scenarios that telegraph what's happening.
It gets decidedly more tropey towards the end and they shove in an early early connection that I don't love, but the show stands as a decent entry into the romance category even outside the vertical subcategory. Definitely worth a watch if you like watching well-crafted characters fall in love.
It's not really that this show breaks new ground in the kind of story told, but they put a level of effort into creating unique characters with recognizable roles in the story rather than using the same old trope-laden archetypes and dialog, and then they present the characters' journeys in a way particularly well suited to short form episodes. So often verticals give us these info dumps and compressed scenes where events happen in quick succession in order to move the story faster, but it gives a very "story outline" sort of feel to the show. This show uses the short form to do what I think of as "extreme close ups" of character moments.
As a result, the pace is slow, especially at first, but in a way that makes me want to say "mellow" rather than "boring.," and really fits the slice-of-life genre. The character development and plot movement is achieved by showing us up-close moments in which a character realizes something, changes, makes a decision, or experiences a growing connection with other characters.
For example, at the very beginning of this sort of "flash marriage" set up (they met on an arranged date through a service rather than had parents arrange it), they are polite but akward with each other. One of the first plot sequences is the ML having a conversation with a friend who tells him that intimacy (in the sense of feelings) doesn't come from politeness. It triggers a change in his approach to the FL which shows both that he wants a closer relationship and is the start of the romantic developement (the inciting incident, if you will). The show avoids straight-up exposition and instead lets us *see* the change in a conversation that feels real, an expression on ML's face, and the in the related decisions he makes in the next two-three episodes. We know that the friend's comment landed, we learn the ML's goal, and it happens quickly, but also it feels very grounded and real.
The characters are recognizably linked to a lot of (especially vertical romance) character tropes, but they are dialed down about a million and given specific details and motivations so the characters feel real. For example we have a "abusive mother/kind mother in law" set up, but the abuse feels realistic and rooted in mistaken beliefs about parenting and specific difficulties. Over time, we come to see the mother as loving her children but also deeply misguided and bound by her own struggles rather than as a characiture of pointless malice. The mother-in-law's kindness is not overstated ("here are 25 villas and a private island! You are my only possible daughter-in-law that I recognize and the saviour of our family!!!")--instead there is a sequence of a few episodes in which the mother-in-law's supportive reactions and statements show that she values and respects her in-law as a person and wants to support a healthy marriage between the two.
The sibling relationship is also notably different from so many verticals in that it includes both love and pain (as a sibling, this gets my stamp of approval, and so refreshing over the absolute loyalty/absolute malice dichotomy most seem to go for).
In short, while the characters fill familiar roles and you can sort of guess what kinds of things might happen between them, the execution feels very satisfying because the characters feel more fully formed. We can understand why they take these actions, they change and grow. All presented as a series of important interpersonal moments, which allows the writers to mostly avoid creating stupid scenarios that telegraph what's happening.
It gets decidedly more tropey towards the end and they shove in an early early connection that I don't love, but the show stands as a decent entry into the romance category even outside the vertical subcategory. Definitely worth a watch if you like watching well-crafted characters fall in love.
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