[...] that works well with comedy. She was cute in Golden Age of the Daughter-in-Law, and I loved her in Soulmate — which, if we’re nitpicking, probably already stole the title of “first American-style [...]

**Spoilers ahead, so skip this comment if you haven’t seen the show and don’t want to be spoiled**

First, I freakin’ LOVE the music! Downloaded the OST this morning and been listening to my four favorites on repeat ever since.

I can definitely understand all the rave reviews for the drama. It was different, the characters were vivid and I felt very invested in them, even the ones I didn’t care so much about. Had there been a season 2, I would absolutely watch it. And this is also one I’ll be burning to disk and keeping.

However, there were some aspects that I didn’t care for. After a while, Yu-jin really started getting on my nerves. I know next to nothing of the Korean language, but even without javabeans telling us I could tell her manner of speaking was waaaaay different than everyone else’s. It became grating after a while. You would think that living and working around people who speak modern Korean, she would pick up slang and such, but no such luck.

I can appreciate the way the show portrayed Dong-wook going from using his player moves to manipulate her, to genuinely caring for her. I’ll admit it was a struggle to understand what he saw in her, to become truly attracted and attached. But then I’ve never understood a guy’s attraction to airheads. Yu-jin wasn’t stupid by any means, but she was definitely dumb about a lot of things. And I’ve seen far too many girls play that part just to get a guy’s attention, so I guess it just turns me off. Especially when Yu-jin starts manipulating Dong-wook with the gps tracking and so forth. Call me double-standard-minded, but Dong-wook went from manipulative to truly trying to make it work, while she did the opposite.

One thing I didn’t understand about Dong-wook, though. You would think he had experienced enough in relationships to realize that when the thought of meeting up with a girl makes you cringe, there’s something not right. I don’t mean having times when you don’t want to go out, I mean you literally dread the thought of seeing them. Red flag, anyone? How could he not have realized early on that Yu-jin was not the right person for him? I don’t mean a “soulmate” right person, or a “fated” right person, but even those who don’t believe in soulmates and fate look for people they connect with. If he had paid attention to the signals right away, he never would’ve let the relationship progress like he did. At least that’s my opinion, and maybe I’m biased

Okay, that rant’s out of my system. The only other thing that disappointed me about the drama was how late in the game the two destined soulmates finally got together. Come on! The freakin’ END of Episode ELEVEN?!?!?! (Maybe I should say HOUR 11 to avoid confusion.) We get 3/4 of an episode of Dong-wook and Soo-kyung together, most of that mired in angst because of Yu-jin (and the one scene with Wus Phillip). And then there’s not even an ending scene where they meet up again in Japan. I understand the need for the separation period. I understand why Soo-kyung didn’t go to the US with Dong-wook. I DON’T understand why the hell the writers couldn’t have let the couple get together like 2-3 episodes ago so that we could have more mushy moments!!! More kisses!!! We saw more kisses between Dong-wook and Yu-jin, and every time I wanted to throw a brick at his head!

I guess there’s something to be said about a drama that can push my buttons like this one did I thought I was out of my fan-fiction writing phase, but the ending left me feeling so unfulfilled that it’s made me want to rewrite the ending!

And so, regardless of my ranting, I still think the drama was really good overall. I just had all this bottled up inside and I needed to vent

I found it strange how the actors have the same names in the drama as they do in real life!

Javabeans, if you ever decide to recap this series, or do a ‘first episode’ or whatever, it will be awesome. Sigh…

I almost didn’t realize how awesome it was until it was over, I wish I could unwatch it and then rewatch it again.

Sigh…