Any new romcoms to recommend? After BP I’ve been wanting a decent romcom but they are hard to find these days. Maybe I’m too picky. It’s fine if it’s jdrama!
I don’t know if you like family dramas but It’s Beautiful Now is super cute. All the couples are funny and adorable, esp the leads, nah, the maknaes, nah, the leads… okay, I love them all.
I’m not into weekenders because of the heavy stereotypes and terrible parents but I liked the premise of this and Yoon Shi Yoon. I’m always curious about him! I’ll have to give it a chance as well. Thanks!
Business Proposal – Ep 1 – I like the marriage contract trope, I know it’s silly but if done right it can also be amusing. This first ep though, it’s souless, generic, formulaic, just because the trope is old doesn’t mean everything else also has to be. The ML is bland but of course he is a geeenius, considered to be handsome and is rude to almost everyone for no reason. The FL is hard working, clumsy, pretty, but everyone acts as if she isn’t, has a debt and her parents are rude and self-involved, but drama pretends this is funny. She has a one side crush on a idiot and he has no interest in women. Sure. Lovely cliches. Her act on the date was too embarrassing to be funny and the idea he would believe that or still want to marry her was absurd. Why not make him hate the grandfather? Then it would at least be a plausible reason.
I didn’t like the first episode, it was all over the place and the two girls looked awkward with eachother. However, the second episode improved on many fronts, including the chemistry between the two friends.
I assure you that the webtoon is different and one of my favourites. If you have the possibility try to read it, I think they added a lot of old tropes and forgot about the true nature of the story.
2521 I’m trying to get on this love train but I’m still in the middle of ep 3. It’s ok but I’m not really interested in anyone. There is something missing in the interactions. HD’s a bit too childish sometimes, YuRim is flat, maybe a better actress could have pulled this, HD’s mom is terrible and narcisistic, HD’s daughter is a boring brat, the coach seem egomaniacal, and poor BYJ is just that, a nice guy in a bad place. Waiting for the time skip.
First Love Again When a kdrama deals with the strange idea that humans might reincarnate with not only different faces but different genders! How is our romantic lead to find his long lost love then? Easy! They always have the same name!
Bulgasal was a mess but one thing about it was genius. After a nice first episode, it spent the next 14 hours pretending it was a dog chasing it’s own tail. Somewhere along the way it gave us a makeshift family, an insane villain, a very grumpy male lead and the candiest Candy. After waiting so long I didn’t really expect the explanation to really explain much but not only it did answer most of the questions but it went further, and that was the brilliant part, it offered a supernatural explanation for the crazy behavior of the leads! If only all the generic romcoms could come up with something like that.
I am wondering what made people like this drama. These first eps were terrible. There was no character development, just a bunch of superficial, expendable characters that never behave in a logical manner. Plot doesn’t help because even if it’s a simple survivor tale, it doesn’t have any rules to give it any plausibility. The mad teacher just decides to test something crazy in his own family, the zombies behavior changes according to each situation, people have insane dialogues, they get bitten and turn in seconds or in several minutes, again it depends on what the plot needs. There were so many unintentionally funny moments in second episode that I started to think it might be on purpose and the whole thing was supposed to be a horror comedy. I detest this genre but I would at least understand what it was trying to do.
I enjoyed the show as a unique coming-of-age story spin on the zombie genre, including the obvious loss of innocence metaphor and how it explored how our systems fail our most vulnerable. Keeping in mind real-life tragedies, not just the pandemic but also things like the Sewol Ferry tragedy, made it really hit different for me, and I really enjoyed the friendships made. 🙂
In the recaps, so many beanies didn’t like this series. It was a surprise to me, since I enjoyed this series. I enjoy it as an action drama. I do not look for logic when it comes to zombie things. I just accept it as it is. It makes it easier.
What I do look for are the actions, characters take when they encounter zombies. I thought the young kids did pretty good as the episodes go further. That is, they worked together, albeit after so many childish arguments. They utilized the things they have at their disposal. There were quite a few good action sequences here as well. I’m very satisfied with that.
I did notice some social issues they wanted to tackle in the series, but it didn’t really bother me much when they didn’t provide some sort of concrete message about it.
Thanks @mindy and @drawde2000. I thought most reviews had been positive about it.
I also try not to care much about logic when there is a supernatural element but sometimes it’s impossible. For example I can imagine an explanation for the difference in time for each person to turn, but I can’t explain why students would not try to secure the doors or talk about flirting when there are zombies banging on the walls, or when one of them suddenly becomes a super hero fighting off half a dozen zombies at the same time. As far as social issues I got nothing from these first eps, the one thing that did bother me was the sexual harassment. It seemed to be used as plot device and it’s already bad when bullying gets used like that but adding sexual harassment is even worse. I doubt this issue was dealt with in the rest of the series so why add scenes like that and make it something exploitative.
Can someone tell me if AOUAD is a complete story? I’m not in the mood for another drama that has an open ending without any reason for it, like Silent Sea or Extracurricular. Extracurricular was still great, SS not so much.
Bulgasal There should be a rule against the overuse of flashbacks in kdramas. I never thought there would be a worst offender than Nice Guy but Bulgasal is really giving it a run for it’s money
I thought that practice was dying along with live shooting. The advantage of pre production is that you are not having to scramble to reuse footage just to make crazy deadlines.
Bulgasal I wish kdramas would bother trying to explain why and how anyone would reincarnate with the exact same face. I don’t mean a nice logical explanation, any crazy theory would do fine.
#2021 Drama Round-up
Day 13. Drama beanies loved but I didn’t / Drama I loved but beanies didn’t
This happens every year. Usually more than once. Some dramas get a lot of love and I’m left puzzled by the fact I detest them. Whether I drop them (DOTS) or make myself get to the last ep (del Luna), they make want to throw the nearest shoe at the screen. This year though. It was just such a non-kdrama year. Even the dramas I liked could not come even close to the stuff from other countries and those I disliked could not really make me hate them, so my traditional unpopular opinions became a mild version of themselves.
I can’t say I loved Nevertheless but I think it was a misunderstood drama. I thought it was about a young woman playing mind games with this mysterious playboy who might or might not be a manipulative person. As such it was rather interesting for the first 5 eps but later became very slow and meandering, coming back to the theme in the very last ep. However, since the narrator was so unreliable and the original story from the webtoon was so different, it made most people belive it was all about a bad relationship instead of a woman learning to make her own choices and growing up in the process.
I can’t say I hated Happiness but I’ve always been attracted to the premise of people stranded somewhere. I don’t care if it’s an island, a ship, or some boring building so this drama had me at hello. It should be all about character study and kdramas do try to be good at this so how come it got worse with each episode? The thing is I could not care for any of the characters, their actions became more unbelievable with every scene, as the story moved on everyone in the building simply stopped reacting in any way a real person would, doing any crazy action plot required to create even more unrealistic situations.
Monthly Magazine Home I know! The drama was a mess, so many bad decisions. But. I did like the ML for so many eps, probably because his grumpy nature reminded me of my own. That moment when he bumbly asks the FL to give him 3 dates before rejecting him was so like me, telling any dumbfounded person to give me a few more chances before making a choice. It was the only confession this year that got close to the heart.
#2021 Roundup
Day 8: The Drama Beanies Convinced You To Watch and You Can’t Be Grateful Enough
Move to Heaven was just my kind of thing but I had not known anything about it before beanies praised it. It was that kind of story you know exactly what will happen but it’s the how that matters and it worked, delivering something very close to what I guess people usually call heartwarming. If only every healing drama had that kind of purpose.
#2021 Drama Round-up
Day 7 – The OTP you didn’t think you would adore
Enemies to lovers is one of my favorites tropes but it’s not easy to get it right. Mad for Each Other was a great example of how to do it perfectly. The drama itself wasn’t perfect but the main relationship evolved naturally, character’s feelings going from hate to mild dislike to friendship to love. Changing, learning and making each other better in the process.
#2021 Roundup
Day 1: Female Lead You Will Never Forget
Yumi. She was lovely and very much underrated, as was her show. A lot of k actors struggle with introverted characters but sometimes we get people who do it perfectly. Kim Go Eun showed every emotion Yumi was going through, and whether she was hiding them or not, she was always the same woman. The character itself was also one of my favorites because she was sensitive, honest, kind, but also insecure and immature. She was realistic and adorable.
Bonus Choice: Lee Min Kyung from Mad for Each Other.
Her cross dressing is not a comedy element but a matter of life and death. It’s a fusion sageuk, so the political intrigues are more in the background, the FL growth being the main point. Rowoon appears a lot. So I guess you shouldn’t try.
Thanks. I did like Sungkyunkwan Scandal, because it was about the characters, since this seemed to be more about the political aspect I felt it wasn’t my thing, but the comments seem to be more about the relationships.
Can someone who knows the webtoon maybe explain Woong’s behavior? I know the drama can change his motivations but I’d like to know the original explanation. I liked this drama very much, the realistic and sensitive main characters and the metaphorical workings of their minds were a great team. I did not like the decision to forget Woong’s mind though, in the latest eps he was more of a secondary character for no reason. If drama decided that making his motivations a mystery was necessary to make people want a second season it was a silly idea and it did not match the rest of the story.
He was a caring guy and suddenly decided to move out without any explanation? Yumi didn’t behave like she should either, the woman who was mature enough to say the things she said in the Saeyi situation would not be someone who would never ask why her boyfriend left the apartment.
That last ep was rather weak, the awful PPL, the parents added nothing, both main characters behaved weirdly, the card metaphor was very overused and then Woong probably had some simple work explanation to break up but drama decided it needed to be mysterious for no reason.
Woong was very proud. He didn’t even tell her about his money issues. She discovered it by chance. He accepted unwillingly to live with her. and it never was a permanent solution for him. The scene with Bobby made him feeling insecure and it’s why he decided to leave.
I understood why he left but the choice to not tell her why seemed strange and her silence about it was even stranger. If they had been fighting it would be possible but she was considering marriage and he seemed very happy with her, though still worried about his finances.
It was his Pride and Ego. He couldn’t tell Yumi that he is struggling financially and that he was not ready to get married. He always choose himself so he will rather lose Yumi than sacrifice his pride.
That First Priority metaphor was great in the coworker situation. It was nice to show how Yumi needed that in order to grow and have a good relationship with anyone. I would have liked it more if they had chosen to blame Insecurity, Ego or Vanity instead of Priority to justify some of Woong’s decisions because he was making choices that were bad for him instead of that Yumi’s example.
I think Yumi’s disappointment piled up, that is why her Love Cell got weaker and that is probably why she didn’t bother speaking up. First disappointment leading to the breaking was when she asked about getting married and he didn’t answer properly. Second, when she found out that he used to like Saeyi at the wedding. Third, when Woong moved out. Her final straw was when Woong transferred money for the broken chair.
Yes, that was probably better in the webtoon because drama made a big deal of how much she still loved him even after he moved out so her behavior seemed strange. I did like the sudden opening of that Love Balloon because of one small attitude.
Can someone tell me the original webtoon ending of Nevertheless? I didn’t dislike the kdrama ending but I’m curious because I know it was different. The drama was really nice for maybe the first five eps and then it became draggy and lost the plot. If the whole thing was just to say these two people had trouble understanding their feelings, speaking their minds and trusting anyone, it was already done in the first five episodes. The entire character of DK was a silly filler as were all side characters.
I understand why people who know the source get so mad sometimes. I’ve always imagined the writers of kdrama think too little of their audience and like to choose what they consider to be the safe route, which of course leads to something that feels like a cheap copy of the original work. I do think this happened in this drama when they chose what they imagined would be considered a happy ending but I don’t think it was terrible because it really didn’t change the course it took in the second half.
I expected a very different tale from the webtoon, the best thing about the kdrama was the mind games both NB and JU played with each other and it felt refreshing to have this kind of thing in a kdrama. Na-Bi wasn’t the pure innocent heroine and JU wasn’t a bad boy either. Even if the kdrama had ended with that moment when NB rejects JU at her doorsteps in the rain, the message sent would still be completely different because the kdrama told a different story from the start. I would not say it was about “a toxic relationship where the girl plays into the boy’s game, and maybe the boy isn’t so terrible after all”. What makes something toxic is being bad and I think drama did a good job showing that NB needed to face those demons, she learned to communicate her feelings and be more honest with herself and future partners. She was always playing a game herself and we are never sure if JU was good or bad because no character in this drama was a hero or a villain or a victim. I can’t explain the purpose of those scenes on the street though, why drop his hand? Why can’t he have a cat? Don’t ask. kkk
I like that you pointed out how there was no real villain in this drama. Just a bunch of broken people who needed to learn to love themselves and others.
lol I was confused about the hand part too. I saw something on IG where someone saw it as Nabi being too conscious of what others would think of her for dating him or being judged by others or something along those lines, but then she decides it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks and decides to take his hand confidently again. As for the cat…..I have no idea. LOL.
Yes, exactly. I didn’t get it when I posted above but then when I wrote on the recap about the reason NB said to DH that JU would not make her happy I felt dumb for not understanding it before. She was always embarrassed about liking him, afraid it would not last and she would just be seen by others as a fool, and DH is the symbol of that judgement by a “nice person”. The cat might be a joke about JU taking his pet metaphors way too intensely.
Oh do not worry! You don’t have to feel dumb. I definitely missed things during my first watch because I was SO focused on when the scenes from the preview would show up and when they’d finally reunite lol. And not to mention that this director REALLY likes to include these small details and symbolic moments that can easily be overlooked. We should have had a drinking game for every time there was a metaphor (I’m looking at you, slanted shelf). Hahah. Yes, DH definitely represented that and also it makes me think of what she said before — that she didn’t want to disappoint him. And maybe even she didn’t want to hurt him more in case he happened to look over and saw them.
After reading some of other peoples’ thoughts, it made me think back about the meaning behind Nabi’s name that she shared with Jae Eon at the bar (when chased, it’ll fly away, but if you wait patiently, it might alight on your shoulder…something along those lines). In the beginning, I thought that Nabi was the butterfly, but halfway through, I felt that perhaps it was Jae Eon because of what Bitna said about him fluttering from flower to flower…but now that the drama has ended, it is pretty evident that Nabi was the butterfly all along,right? She was was the one to “alight” on (choose) Jae Eon and also when he let his butterflies free…that was symbolic of him letting Nabi go.
As much as I disliked the first seven eps of DYLB I get why people love it. I don’t get School Nurse Files. I mean, I liked first ep and thought it would be easy to join this bandwagon and then it’s like I boarded a different train. Is it the possible hidden messages? Is it all about the love for metaphors being delivered in a quirky way? Is it about the likable leads?
Thank you @leetennant! I’m curious about your next post about it, this already gave me a better idea about it.
I’ve found the recap part 2 and the comments there also helped to explain it, the reason why others liked it so much and I didn’t.
I guess it’s mostly because, unlike you and many others, I never felt the editing was deliberate. There are so many scenes that should have been there while so many that seemed useless. It just felt like someone had 10 hours of footage, had to turn this into a 6 eps show and was too unexperienced to know what to keep and what to let go. One moment the ML was afraid of the hero and the very next they were Batman and Robin. Secondary characters became important just to vanish the next ep, big plotlines were never really explained. That whole thing about the hair knots and cushions was an example, the mite eater quitting his mission to apparently steal a human girl’s body was another. There is only so much confusion I can take before it all becomes just that. A string of moments put together, hoping to become something whole. I did like the realism of the cast appearance, the acting style, the leads personality and struggles, the jellies as human emotions and the non-conformity theme.
It’s okay, each to their own. The story was overly compressed, I would have liked an episode or two more to fill in some of the gaps. But overall, despite the bits where things were rushed, I personally loved it. It’s one of my favourite things ever.
I do have one question though
“the mite eater quitting his mission to apparently steal a human girl’s body was another”
Yes, that mite eater wasn’t about that, was it? kkkk
I’ll be honest, I didn’t get who or what that was. The first thing the creature said was something like “Hye Min will return later”. That made me believe the entity took control of a human body when its presence was needed but the girl who owned the body would come back when the job was complete. Otherwise how would the creature have a name, family, money? Besides she was with someone when she replied that. Suddenly heroine decided the entity should become human and that it’s fine to take away its role to eat those mites. How would she know it was fine to transform the creature into a human? How could she know the consequences? How could they know that crazy thing would turn her into a human? Maybe there was an explanation and it never was a human girl? But if she becomes human who deals with those things if they appear there again?
ha ha. me too.. watching nurse files.. and while i get the theme, pace is way too slow
At the crux of it, it is another teacher-student drama and gives you a glimpse of various problems in society from a school ground.
Some of the themes they have touched on –
1. Schools crushing students freedom of choices and dreams since centuries // schools harbour negative energies of all the kids who have come and studied there since ages
2. (slightly sarci and funny take) – kids and how the biggest problem in their lives are their crushes
3. bullying,
4. girls/side commentary on how society treats them.. yada yada .. BUT still too slow
5. bad company and how it can become disastrous ( umbical cord thing) – and NMJ’s question on that, if teachers really have the right to overrule kids’ choices aka – is the answer always in asking good students to dissociate from bad kids.. or are their better ways of helping kids
or shall i say, how in every teacher-student drama, you have a group of kids who “believe” in the outcast teacher and support them in setting things to order in schools 🙂
that’s what the little clique is doing there
and yumi is your Dearest Teacher – the outcast, fighting for the right.. but clearly in everyone’s eyes she is weird and doing weird stuff with weird gate and weird tools 🙂
This is why thriller kdramas can never be trusted. Flower was one of those rare examples in which the characters were not boring and the chemistry between them was nice, the story, however far fetched, wasn’t absurd, and the plot holes existed but were not so large you could not ignore them, the mysteries remaining seemed to have a logical explanation. It wasn’t a great drama but it was still decent with some good moments, episode 12 was excellent and probably the best of the show. It’s a kdrama though, so just like most of them, the writers could not just trust the audience to care more about logic and reasonable character development than some stupid plot twist. It’s like a mad checkbox list, they have to explore all exciting possibilities for that story and being rational is only a small detail. After lying for no reason to his wife about the accomplice’s identity and having a fight with her about this, HyunSoo would never not tell her that they were being threateaned and not knowing would only make her less capable of defending herself and less suspicious of others. If he took her to the home of the guy he thought was the accomplice there was no motive not to take her to that public phone which was so easy to imagine was a trap. He wasn’t dumb for 12 episodes and then plot demanded him to become an idiot. Compared to that, kidnapping her wasn’t even a big deal, because show can always say he did it to make it seem like she was always unaware of his real personality and save her reputation.
Agreed. Slinking off in the middle of the night to the payphone was stupid. I also don’t like the ending bit though. Sure, the show can say he did it to protect her, but this is just pushes the show beyond my understanding. The other thing is that Ji-won doesn’t know he’s doing this all for her sake, so this is probably disorienting and potentially scary for her. When you add this on to everything else he’s put her through, how on earth are we as an audience supposed to accept that she’ll just turn around and eventually accept him again, living happily thereafter? It just doesn’t make sense.
He’ll probably do some time in jail, that was a given from the start because even if he didn’t murder anyone he was using false identity. Now he has also added kidnapping to that, though maybe she will later say it was staged to help him avoid this charge. When all the psycho’s scheme become public he will be portrayed as a victim, besides I bet there will be some kind of sacrifice on his part and some saving her or the sister or both, included.
Yeah, I’ve expected jail time for the false identity and then Hyun Soo reuniting with Ji Won and Eun Ha, maybe in the country side like Ji Won talked about. If I was Ji Won I’d want Hyun Soo to get therapy plus couple’s therapy but this is Korea so time apart will suffice.
Agreed, I was yelling at the TV because this would mess the whole show up. I am holding out hope, though, that this YET ANOTHER case in this show where in the next episode we’ll see a whole conversation that got cut out of the scene. They’ve done that so many times before. I’m hoping this is our OTP working together to fool the accomplice into thinking he’s winning. *fingers crossed* Or else there will be yelling, screaming and hurling of laptop!
Yup, that’s what made me suspect that they may be faking it. I mean, the made a big deal about going over to unplug the recorder, looked right at the camera, but didn’t make the effort to erase the film of him grabbing her and holding a knife to her neck?? Seems unlikely.
I meant to say it will be fine if he used the cameras to stage her kidnapping, it is an afterthought to help her, but I won’t believe their conversation to be fake because I think they have no sound and there were real emotions from both of them for it all to be some elaborate act previously arranged.
Lixie
April 30, 2022 at 8:52 AM
Hey Beanies!
Any new romcoms to recommend? After BP I’ve been wanting a decent romcom but they are hard to find these days. Maybe I’m too picky. It’s fine if it’s jdrama!
Ally
April 30, 2022 at 9:08 AM
I’m liking Shooting stars right now and Play All love. That are the butterflies-in-stomach rom-coms with the old tropes. Familiar and comfortable.
Lixie
April 30, 2022 at 12:08 PM
Thanks I will try those!
wapz
April 30, 2022 at 10:30 AM
Ymi’s cells season 2 is coming this June. It’s still a month away but I’m counting on that.
Lixie
April 30, 2022 at 12:09 PM
I loved Yumi!
tabong has two different tears🍉
April 30, 2022 at 10:48 AM
I don’t know if you like family dramas but It’s Beautiful Now is super cute. All the couples are funny and adorable, esp the leads, nah, the maknaes, nah, the leads… okay, I love them all.
Lixie
April 30, 2022 at 12:12 PM
I’m not into weekenders because of the heavy stereotypes and terrible parents but I liked the premise of this and Yoon Shi Yoon. I’m always curious about him! I’ll have to give it a chance as well. Thanks!
tabong has two different tears🍉
April 30, 2022 at 2:12 PM
Oh, don’t worry. This show is all about cute people and cute relationships.
I hope you enjoy it ^^
Lixie
March 3, 2022 at 6:45 AM
Business Proposal – Ep 1 – I like the marriage contract trope, I know it’s silly but if done right it can also be amusing. This first ep though, it’s souless, generic, formulaic, just because the trope is old doesn’t mean everything else also has to be. The ML is bland but of course he is a geeenius, considered to be handsome and is rude to almost everyone for no reason. The FL is hard working, clumsy, pretty, but everyone acts as if she isn’t, has a debt and her parents are rude and self-involved, but drama pretends this is funny. She has a one side crush on a idiot and he has no interest in women. Sure. Lovely cliches. Her act on the date was too embarrassing to be funny and the idea he would believe that or still want to marry her was absurd. Why not make him hate the grandfather? Then it would at least be a plausible reason.
wapz
March 3, 2022 at 7:57 AM
I didn’t like the first episode, it was all over the place and the two girls looked awkward with eachother. However, the second episode improved on many fronts, including the chemistry between the two friends.
Cindy Mahri
March 3, 2022 at 9:43 AM
It gets better on the 2nd ep.
Lixie
March 5, 2022 at 5:37 AM
True. Second episode did get better.
Loren
March 3, 2022 at 11:46 AM
I assure you that the webtoon is different and one of my favourites. If you have the possibility try to read it, I think they added a lot of old tropes and forgot about the true nature of the story.
Lixie
March 1, 2022 at 5:56 AM
2521 I’m trying to get on this love train but I’m still in the middle of ep 3. It’s ok but I’m not really interested in anyone. There is something missing in the interactions. HD’s a bit too childish sometimes, YuRim is flat, maybe a better actress could have pulled this, HD’s mom is terrible and narcisistic, HD’s daughter is a boring brat, the coach seem egomaniacal, and poor BYJ is just that, a nice guy in a bad place. Waiting for the time skip.
Lixie
February 12, 2022 at 5:30 AM
First Love Again When a kdrama deals with the strange idea that humans might reincarnate with not only different faces but different genders! How is our romantic lead to find his long lost love then? Easy! They always have the same name!
Lixie
February 10, 2022 at 7:03 AM
Bulgasal was a mess but one thing about it was genius. After a nice first episode, it spent the next 14 hours pretending it was a dog chasing it’s own tail. Somewhere along the way it gave us a makeshift family, an insane villain, a very grumpy male lead and the candiest Candy. After waiting so long I didn’t really expect the explanation to really explain much but not only it did answer most of the questions but it went further, and that was the brilliant part, it offered a supernatural explanation for the crazy behavior of the leads! If only all the generic romcoms could come up with something like that.
Lixie
February 4, 2022 at 7:57 AM
AOUAD Ep 1-2
I am wondering what made people like this drama. These first eps were terrible. There was no character development, just a bunch of superficial, expendable characters that never behave in a logical manner. Plot doesn’t help because even if it’s a simple survivor tale, it doesn’t have any rules to give it any plausibility. The mad teacher just decides to test something crazy in his own family, the zombies behavior changes according to each situation, people have insane dialogues, they get bitten and turn in seconds or in several minutes, again it depends on what the plot needs. There were so many unintentionally funny moments in second episode that I started to think it might be on purpose and the whole thing was supposed to be a horror comedy. I detest this genre but I would at least understand what it was trying to do.
mindy
February 4, 2022 at 10:41 AM
I enjoyed the show as a unique coming-of-age story spin on the zombie genre, including the obvious loss of innocence metaphor and how it explored how our systems fail our most vulnerable. Keeping in mind real-life tragedies, not just the pandemic but also things like the Sewol Ferry tragedy, made it really hit different for me, and I really enjoyed the friendships made. 🙂
It was too long though.
mindy
February 4, 2022 at 10:42 AM
And there actually are many (intentionally) comedic moments!
drawde2000
February 4, 2022 at 1:06 PM
In the recaps, so many beanies didn’t like this series. It was a surprise to me, since I enjoyed this series. I enjoy it as an action drama. I do not look for logic when it comes to zombie things. I just accept it as it is. It makes it easier.
What I do look for are the actions, characters take when they encounter zombies. I thought the young kids did pretty good as the episodes go further. That is, they worked together, albeit after so many childish arguments. They utilized the things they have at their disposal. There were quite a few good action sequences here as well. I’m very satisfied with that.
I did notice some social issues they wanted to tackle in the series, but it didn’t really bother me much when they didn’t provide some sort of concrete message about it.
Lixie
February 4, 2022 at 2:12 PM
Thanks @mindy and @drawde2000. I thought most reviews had been positive about it.
I also try not to care much about logic when there is a supernatural element but sometimes it’s impossible. For example I can imagine an explanation for the difference in time for each person to turn, but I can’t explain why students would not try to secure the doors or talk about flirting when there are zombies banging on the walls, or when one of them suddenly becomes a super hero fighting off half a dozen zombies at the same time. As far as social issues I got nothing from these first eps, the one thing that did bother me was the sexual harassment. It seemed to be used as plot device and it’s already bad when bullying gets used like that but adding sexual harassment is even worse. I doubt this issue was dealt with in the rest of the series so why add scenes like that and make it something exploitative.
Lixie
January 30, 2022 at 8:35 AM
Can someone tell me if AOUAD is a complete story? I’m not in the mood for another drama that has an open ending without any reason for it, like Silent Sea or Extracurricular. Extracurricular was still great, SS not so much.
mindy
January 30, 2022 at 9:31 AM
It is. They end a way that leaves some room for exploration if they do want a second season, but all in all it’s a complete story.
alasecond
January 30, 2022 at 12:34 PM
is it another zombie stuff.. or something new/interesting/genuinely beyond usual stuff
Lixie
January 30, 2022 at 12:56 PM
Thanks! 🙂
Lixie
December 31, 2021 at 5:22 AM
Bulgasal There should be a rule against the overuse of flashbacks in kdramas. I never thought there would be a worst offender than Nice Guy but Bulgasal is really giving it a run for it’s money
am1993
December 31, 2021 at 9:11 AM
I thought that practice was dying along with live shooting. The advantage of pre production is that you are not having to scramble to reuse footage just to make crazy deadlines.
Lixie
December 29, 2021 at 4:55 AM
Bulgasal I wish kdramas would bother trying to explain why and how anyone would reincarnate with the exact same face. I don’t mean a nice logical explanation, any crazy theory would do fine.
Lixie
December 13, 2021 at 8:23 AM
#2021 Drama Round-up
Day 13. Drama beanies loved but I didn’t / Drama I loved but beanies didn’t
This happens every year. Usually more than once. Some dramas get a lot of love and I’m left puzzled by the fact I detest them. Whether I drop them (DOTS) or make myself get to the last ep (del Luna), they make want to throw the nearest shoe at the screen. This year though. It was just such a non-kdrama year. Even the dramas I liked could not come even close to the stuff from other countries and those I disliked could not really make me hate them, so my traditional unpopular opinions became a mild version of themselves.
I can’t say I loved Nevertheless but I think it was a misunderstood drama. I thought it was about a young woman playing mind games with this mysterious playboy who might or might not be a manipulative person. As such it was rather interesting for the first 5 eps but later became very slow and meandering, coming back to the theme in the very last ep. However, since the narrator was so unreliable and the original story from the webtoon was so different, it made most people belive it was all about a bad relationship instead of a woman learning to make her own choices and growing up in the process.
I can’t say I hated Happiness but I’ve always been attracted to the premise of people stranded somewhere. I don’t care if it’s an island, a ship, or some boring building so this drama had me at hello. It should be all about character study and kdramas do try to be good at this so how come it got worse with each episode? The thing is I could not care for any of the characters, their actions became more unbelievable with every scene, as the story moved on everyone in the building simply stopped reacting in any way a real person would, doing any crazy action plot required to create even more unrealistic situations.
Lixie
December 11, 2021 at 5:41 AM
#2021 Roundup
Day 10: Best Confession
Monthly Magazine Home I know! The drama was a mess, so many bad decisions. But. I did like the ML for so many eps, probably because his grumpy nature reminded me of my own. That moment when he bumbly asks the FL to give him 3 dates before rejecting him was so like me, telling any dumbfounded person to give me a few more chances before making a choice. It was the only confession this year that got close to the heart.
Lixie
December 9, 2021 at 5:58 AM
#2021 Roundup
Day 8: The Drama Beanies Convinced You To Watch and You Can’t Be Grateful Enough
Move to Heaven was just my kind of thing but I had not known anything about it before beanies praised it. It was that kind of story you know exactly what will happen but it’s the how that matters and it worked, delivering something very close to what I guess people usually call heartwarming. If only every healing drama had that kind of purpose.
Lixie
December 7, 2021 at 7:02 AM
#2021 Drama Round-up
Day 7 – The OTP you didn’t think you would adore
Enemies to lovers is one of my favorites tropes but it’s not easy to get it right. Mad for Each Other was a great example of how to do it perfectly. The drama itself wasn’t perfect but the main relationship evolved naturally, character’s feelings going from hate to mild dislike to friendship to love. Changing, learning and making each other better in the process.
Lixie
December 7, 2021 at 6:40 AM
#2021Roundup
Day 6 – the OST you are obsessed with.
Nevertheless. Perfect choices for that kind of story.
Bonus Choice: Yumi and Monthly Magazine.
Lixie
December 1, 2021 at 6:32 PM
#2021 Roundup
Day 1: Female Lead You Will Never Forget
Yumi. She was lovely and very much underrated, as was her show. A lot of k actors struggle with introverted characters but sometimes we get people who do it perfectly. Kim Go Eun showed every emotion Yumi was going through, and whether she was hiding them or not, she was always the same woman. The character itself was also one of my favorites because she was sensitive, honest, kind, but also insecure and immature. She was realistic and adorable.
Bonus Choice: Lee Min Kyung from Mad for Each Other.
Lixie
November 11, 2021 at 8:43 AM
Is King’s Affection a gender bender? I don’t like sageuks or a lot of political intrigue or Rowoon so I’m wondering if I should give it a chance?
Kurama
November 11, 2021 at 12:10 PM
Her cross dressing is not a comedy element but a matter of life and death. It’s a fusion sageuk, so the political intrigues are more in the background, the FL growth being the main point. Rowoon appears a lot. So I guess you shouldn’t try.
Lixie
November 11, 2021 at 12:39 PM
Thanks. I did like Sungkyunkwan Scandal, because it was about the characters, since this seemed to be more about the political aspect I felt it wasn’t my thing, but the comments seem to be more about the relationships.
Lixie
November 4, 2021 at 6:39 AM
Yumi’s – Ep 14
Can someone who knows the webtoon maybe explain Woong’s behavior? I know the drama can change his motivations but I’d like to know the original explanation. I liked this drama very much, the realistic and sensitive main characters and the metaphorical workings of their minds were a great team. I did not like the decision to forget Woong’s mind though, in the latest eps he was more of a secondary character for no reason. If drama decided that making his motivations a mystery was necessary to make people want a second season it was a silly idea and it did not match the rest of the story.
He was a caring guy and suddenly decided to move out without any explanation? Yumi didn’t behave like she should either, the woman who was mature enough to say the things she said in the Saeyi situation would not be someone who would never ask why her boyfriend left the apartment.
That last ep was rather weak, the awful PPL, the parents added nothing, both main characters behaved weirdly, the card metaphor was very overused and then Woong probably had some simple work explanation to break up but drama decided it needed to be mysterious for no reason.
alasecond
November 4, 2021 at 7:22 AM
he didn’t want marriage/ wasn;t ready for marriage .. he wanted to focus on his career
bbstl 🧹
November 4, 2021 at 8:11 AM
And his Pride cell took a front seat
Lixie
November 4, 2021 at 8:50 AM
Thanks alasecond and bbstl
Kurama
November 4, 2021 at 8:39 AM
Woong was very proud. He didn’t even tell her about his money issues. She discovered it by chance. He accepted unwillingly to live with her. and it never was a permanent solution for him. The scene with Bobby made him feeling insecure and it’s why he decided to leave.
Lixie
November 4, 2021 at 8:53 AM
I understood why he left but the choice to not tell her why seemed strange and her silence about it was even stranger. If they had been fighting it would be possible but she was considering marriage and he seemed very happy with her, though still worried about his finances.
bbstl 🧹
November 4, 2021 at 11:41 AM
Also, her Pride Cell stood up and got in the way to a degree.
Zora
November 4, 2021 at 8:53 AM
It was his Pride and Ego. He couldn’t tell Yumi that he is struggling financially and that he was not ready to get married. He always choose himself so he will rather lose Yumi than sacrifice his pride.
Lixie
November 4, 2021 at 10:20 AM
That First Priority metaphor was great in the coworker situation. It was nice to show how Yumi needed that in order to grow and have a good relationship with anyone. I would have liked it more if they had chosen to blame Insecurity, Ego or Vanity instead of Priority to justify some of Woong’s decisions because he was making choices that were bad for him instead of that Yumi’s example.
Zora
November 4, 2021 at 9:21 AM
I think Yumi’s disappointment piled up, that is why her Love Cell got weaker and that is probably why she didn’t bother speaking up. First disappointment leading to the breaking was when she asked about getting married and he didn’t answer properly. Second, when she found out that he used to like Saeyi at the wedding. Third, when Woong moved out. Her final straw was when Woong transferred money for the broken chair.
Lixie
November 4, 2021 at 10:25 AM
Yes, that was probably better in the webtoon because drama made a big deal of how much she still loved him even after he moved out so her behavior seemed strange. I did like the sudden opening of that Love Balloon because of one small attitude.
Lixie
August 22, 2021 at 2:05 PM
Can someone tell me the original webtoon ending of Nevertheless? I didn’t dislike the kdrama ending but I’m curious because I know it was different. The drama was really nice for maybe the first five eps and then it became draggy and lost the plot. If the whole thing was just to say these two people had trouble understanding their feelings, speaking their minds and trusting anyone, it was already done in the first five episodes. The entire character of DK was a silly filler as were all side characters.
mindy
August 22, 2021 at 2:06 PM
Not to promote myself, but…
https://sunsetdramaland.wordpress.com/2021/08/21/drama-vs-webtoon-nevertheless/
Lixie
August 22, 2021 at 3:28 PM
Thanks mindy!
I understand why people who know the source get so mad sometimes. I’ve always imagined the writers of kdrama think too little of their audience and like to choose what they consider to be the safe route, which of course leads to something that feels like a cheap copy of the original work. I do think this happened in this drama when they chose what they imagined would be considered a happy ending but I don’t think it was terrible because it really didn’t change the course it took in the second half.
I expected a very different tale from the webtoon, the best thing about the kdrama was the mind games both NB and JU played with each other and it felt refreshing to have this kind of thing in a kdrama. Na-Bi wasn’t the pure innocent heroine and JU wasn’t a bad boy either. Even if the kdrama had ended with that moment when NB rejects JU at her doorsteps in the rain, the message sent would still be completely different because the kdrama told a different story from the start. I would not say it was about “a toxic relationship where the girl plays into the boy’s game, and maybe the boy isn’t so terrible after all”. What makes something toxic is being bad and I think drama did a good job showing that NB needed to face those demons, she learned to communicate her feelings and be more honest with herself and future partners. She was always playing a game herself and we are never sure if JU was good or bad because no character in this drama was a hero or a villain or a victim. I can’t explain the purpose of those scenes on the street though, why drop his hand? Why can’t he have a cat? Don’t ask. kkk
Anna
August 23, 2021 at 3:34 PM
I like that you pointed out how there was no real villain in this drama. Just a bunch of broken people who needed to learn to love themselves and others.
lol I was confused about the hand part too. I saw something on IG where someone saw it as Nabi being too conscious of what others would think of her for dating him or being judged by others or something along those lines, but then she decides it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks and decides to take his hand confidently again. As for the cat…..I have no idea. LOL.
Lixie
August 23, 2021 at 3:48 PM
Yes, exactly. I didn’t get it when I posted above but then when I wrote on the recap about the reason NB said to DH that JU would not make her happy I felt dumb for not understanding it before. She was always embarrassed about liking him, afraid it would not last and she would just be seen by others as a fool, and DH is the symbol of that judgement by a “nice person”. The cat might be a joke about JU taking his pet metaphors way too intensely.
Anna
August 23, 2021 at 4:39 PM
Oh do not worry! You don’t have to feel dumb. I definitely missed things during my first watch because I was SO focused on when the scenes from the preview would show up and when they’d finally reunite lol. And not to mention that this director REALLY likes to include these small details and symbolic moments that can easily be overlooked. We should have had a drinking game for every time there was a metaphor (I’m looking at you, slanted shelf). Hahah. Yes, DH definitely represented that and also it makes me think of what she said before — that she didn’t want to disappoint him. And maybe even she didn’t want to hurt him more in case he happened to look over and saw them.
After reading some of other peoples’ thoughts, it made me think back about the meaning behind Nabi’s name that she shared with Jae Eon at the bar (when chased, it’ll fly away, but if you wait patiently, it might alight on your shoulder…something along those lines). In the beginning, I thought that Nabi was the butterfly, but halfway through, I felt that perhaps it was Jae Eon because of what Bitna said about him fluttering from flower to flower…but now that the drama has ended, it is pretty evident that Nabi was the butterfly all along,right? She was was the one to “alight” on (choose) Jae Eon and also when he let his butterflies free…that was symbolic of him letting Nabi go.
dramalover4ever
August 24, 2021 at 3:50 AM
Excellent review 👏 👌 Your summary of the webtoon added a whole other world of meaning. It does not correspond to what we got In any way at all.
Lixie
October 3, 2020 at 1:08 PM
As much as I disliked the first seven eps of DYLB I get why people love it. I don’t get School Nurse Files. I mean, I liked first ep and thought it would be easy to join this bandwagon and then it’s like I boarded a different train. Is it the possible hidden messages? Is it all about the love for metaphors being delivered in a quirky way? Is it about the likable leads?
LT is Irresistibly Indifferent, Dame Judi
October 3, 2020 at 1:29 PM
I’m planning a larger post on it, but this is my spoiler-free review
I completely loved it.
http://invisibledragon.home.blog/2020/09/27/school-nurse-files-a-celebration-of-weird/
Eazal
October 3, 2020 at 2:49 PM
Thanks for sharing!
Lixie
October 3, 2020 at 5:05 PM
Thank you @leetennant! I’m curious about your next post about it, this already gave me a better idea about it.
I’ve found the recap part 2 and the comments there also helped to explain it, the reason why others liked it so much and I didn’t.
I guess it’s mostly because, unlike you and many others, I never felt the editing was deliberate. There are so many scenes that should have been there while so many that seemed useless. It just felt like someone had 10 hours of footage, had to turn this into a 6 eps show and was too unexperienced to know what to keep and what to let go. One moment the ML was afraid of the hero and the very next they were Batman and Robin. Secondary characters became important just to vanish the next ep, big plotlines were never really explained. That whole thing about the hair knots and cushions was an example, the mite eater quitting his mission to apparently steal a human girl’s body was another. There is only so much confusion I can take before it all becomes just that. A string of moments put together, hoping to become something whole. I did like the realism of the cast appearance, the acting style, the leads personality and struggles, the jellies as human emotions and the non-conformity theme.
LT is Irresistibly Indifferent, Dame Judi
October 3, 2020 at 5:52 PM
It’s okay, each to their own. The story was overly compressed, I would have liked an episode or two more to fill in some of the gaps. But overall, despite the bits where things were rushed, I personally loved it. It’s one of my favourite things ever.
I do have one question though
“the mite eater quitting his mission to apparently steal a human girl’s body was another”
????
Lixie
October 3, 2020 at 6:47 PM
Yes, that mite eater wasn’t about that, was it? kkkk
I’ll be honest, I didn’t get who or what that was. The first thing the creature said was something like “Hye Min will return later”. That made me believe the entity took control of a human body when its presence was needed but the girl who owned the body would come back when the job was complete. Otherwise how would the creature have a name, family, money? Besides she was with someone when she replied that. Suddenly heroine decided the entity should become human and that it’s fine to take away its role to eat those mites. How would she know it was fine to transform the creature into a human? How could she know the consequences? How could they know that crazy thing would turn her into a human? Maybe there was an explanation and it never was a human girl? But if she becomes human who deals with those things if they appear there again?
alasecond
October 3, 2020 at 2:19 PM
ha ha. me too.. watching nurse files.. and while i get the theme, pace is way too slow
At the crux of it, it is another teacher-student drama and gives you a glimpse of various problems in society from a school ground.
Some of the themes they have touched on –
1. Schools crushing students freedom of choices and dreams since centuries // schools harbour negative energies of all the kids who have come and studied there since ages
2. (slightly sarci and funny take) – kids and how the biggest problem in their lives are their crushes
3. bullying,
4. girls/side commentary on how society treats them.. yada yada .. BUT still too slow
5. bad company and how it can become disastrous ( umbical cord thing) – and NMJ’s question on that, if teachers really have the right to overrule kids’ choices aka – is the answer always in asking good students to dissociate from bad kids.. or are their better ways of helping kids
Pretty much standard teacher-student drama motifs
alasecond
October 3, 2020 at 2:21 PM
revenge and turning to bad people/tactics
popular girl is helping here instead of being a bully 🙂
alasecond
October 3, 2020 at 2:23 PM
or shall i say, how in every teacher-student drama, you have a group of kids who “believe” in the outcast teacher and support them in setting things to order in schools 🙂
that’s what the little clique is doing there
and yumi is your Dearest Teacher – the outcast, fighting for the right.. but clearly in everyone’s eyes she is weird and doing weird stuff with weird gate and weird tools 🙂
Script wise this drama is smart
Lixie
September 11, 2020 at 7:56 AM
Flower of Evil – ep 13
This is why thriller kdramas can never be trusted. Flower was one of those rare examples in which the characters were not boring and the chemistry between them was nice, the story, however far fetched, wasn’t absurd, and the plot holes existed but were not so large you could not ignore them, the mysteries remaining seemed to have a logical explanation. It wasn’t a great drama but it was still decent with some good moments, episode 12 was excellent and probably the best of the show. It’s a kdrama though, so just like most of them, the writers could not just trust the audience to care more about logic and reasonable character development than some stupid plot twist. It’s like a mad checkbox list, they have to explore all exciting possibilities for that story and being rational is only a small detail. After lying for no reason to his wife about the accomplice’s identity and having a fight with her about this, HyunSoo would never not tell her that they were being threateaned and not knowing would only make her less capable of defending herself and less suspicious of others. If he took her to the home of the guy he thought was the accomplice there was no motive not to take her to that public phone which was so easy to imagine was a trap. He wasn’t dumb for 12 episodes and then plot demanded him to become an idiot. Compared to that, kidnapping her wasn’t even a big deal, because show can always say he did it to make it seem like she was always unaware of his real personality and save her reputation.
Maq
September 11, 2020 at 8:31 AM
Agreed. Slinking off in the middle of the night to the payphone was stupid. I also don’t like the ending bit though. Sure, the show can say he did it to protect her, but this is just pushes the show beyond my understanding. The other thing is that Ji-won doesn’t know he’s doing this all for her sake, so this is probably disorienting and potentially scary for her. When you add this on to everything else he’s put her through, how on earth are we as an audience supposed to accept that she’ll just turn around and eventually accept him again, living happily thereafter? It just doesn’t make sense.
Lixie
September 11, 2020 at 8:45 AM
He’ll probably do some time in jail, that was a given from the start because even if he didn’t murder anyone he was using false identity. Now he has also added kidnapping to that, though maybe she will later say it was staged to help him avoid this charge. When all the psycho’s scheme become public he will be portrayed as a victim, besides I bet there will be some kind of sacrifice on his part and some saving her or the sister or both, included.
miss h
September 11, 2020 at 9:52 AM
Yeah, I’ve expected jail time for the false identity and then Hyun Soo reuniting with Ji Won and Eun Ha, maybe in the country side like Ji Won talked about. If I was Ji Won I’d want Hyun Soo to get therapy plus couple’s therapy but this is Korea so time apart will suffice.
Lixie
September 11, 2020 at 9:59 AM
Yes, kdramas usually ignore the existence or need of any kind of therapy.
CS
September 11, 2020 at 10:27 AM
Agreed, I was yelling at the TV because this would mess the whole show up. I am holding out hope, though, that this YET ANOTHER case in this show where in the next episode we’ll see a whole conversation that got cut out of the scene. They’ve done that so many times before. I’m hoping this is our OTP working together to fool the accomplice into thinking he’s winning. *fingers crossed* Or else there will be yelling, screaming and hurling of laptop!
Maq
September 11, 2020 at 10:47 AM
I think I’ll still yell and curse if there’s an omitted conversation — I just won’t be as enraged LOL.
Lixie
September 11, 2020 at 10:57 AM
I’ll say even worse things if that whole thing was fake because there was no one there for them to fool.
Maq
September 11, 2020 at 1:28 PM
Apparently there are cameras in his workshop?
CS
September 11, 2020 at 1:53 PM
Yup, that’s what made me suspect that they may be faking it. I mean, the made a big deal about going over to unplug the recorder, looked right at the camera, but didn’t make the effort to erase the film of him grabbing her and holding a knife to her neck?? Seems unlikely.
Lixie
September 11, 2020 at 2:23 PM
I meant to say it will be fine if he used the cameras to stage her kidnapping, it is an afterthought to help her, but I won’t believe their conversation to be fake because I think they have no sound and there were real emotions from both of them for it all to be some elaborate act previously arranged.