Cute as heck

Unicorn Girl was the Chinese drama that woke up my inner love for slice of life, comedy-romance Chinese dramas that I didn’t know I had. Now, to be perfectly frank, this drama isn’t actually what I would classify as a good drama by any means, however the emotional attachment that I have to the tropes that were in this drama, as well as the time in my life during which I started watching Unicorn Girl, both led me to develop an unusually high emotional attachment to its characters and its messy but oh-so-sweet plot. Before we go any further, let’s just acknowledge the fact that Unicorn Girl had a few hundred too many accidental kisses slash “female falls over and male catches her *cue slo mo montage with romantic music*” scenes. It was quite ridiculous, but I grew to appreciate the cheesiness after it happened about 10-15 times. Just goes to show that some things can be so bad that they become good. The whole storyline of this drama isn’t what I would classify as original by any means, but it’s not trying to be so it’s totally okay. Both actors had incredible chemistry and the pacing of the drama was very well done. I’m honestly complete trash for cross-dressing dramas, and if there is any drama that involves one of the leads pretending to be the opposite gender, I will EAT IT UP. Frankly, that’s probably the main reason why this drama ended up being rated so high on my list. Now, one last thing: the soundtrack in this cdrama is one of the best I have ever heard. Though it is short, all of the songs sound absolutely amazing and made me super emotional. Now, with all that said, if you ever find yourself in a stressful time of your life with no desire to invest time into a heavy drama, My Unicorn Girl is the perfect stress relief for you!

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The tears I shed could fill up 10 bathtubs

My high rating for this drama might be a result of me watching it over 2 months rather than the usual 3 days that it takes me to finish a kdrama. Because of this, I may have forgotten some things that originally may have displeased me. This drama seems to get many bad reviews, and while I can sort of see why, I invested myself so emotionally in the plot and the characters for the past 2 months that I just don’t have the heart to give this drama the low rating that many think it deserves. While the directing was rather confusing (at some points I had to double check to make sure I didn’t skip like 20 minutes of the drama) and I didn’t care about the 2nd leads all that much, I loved the leads to pieces and just wanted them to be happy. I cried during almost every episode in the second half of the drama, and the days that I would watch Doom At Your Service I felt very melancholy and a little hopeless. The emotional impact of the drama rubbed off on me quite a bit, but I’m not even mad about it. I’d have to argue that the ending for this drama was personally the best ending that I could have wished for them, and I was very glad to see the drama slow down on the doom and gloom and give us the most slice-of-life type ending ever. My last hour watching this drama I just sat in bed curled up with my giant pug body pillow and smiled the whole time. It was perfect. The OST was incredible, and the main leads were perfectly picked out. I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to watch this drama again because I am so afraid to ruin its magic, but I can very confidently say that this drama is one of my favorite dramas of all time nonetheless, flaws and all.

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Screaming, crying, throwing up

I’m not okay, I will not be okay for a long time. This was the most beautiful thing that I have ever watched and to be honest I don’t think I have enough of a way with words to describe just how amazing Twinkling Watermelon is. I was a long-time stan of Thirty but Seventeen and never thought I would find a Kdrama that could even hold a candle to my favorite drama of all time, but somehow Twinkling Watermelon completely dethroned Thirty but Seventeen in a short, short amount of time. In a way, I’m a little annoyed that my #1 Kdrama is, like, everyone and their mother’s favorite kdrama, since as I’m writing this review, it’s the top rated Kdrama on MDL with a whopping 9.2 rating (oh my god). Genuinely though, it’s 10000000% worth the hype and I honestly cannot even begin to explain how wonderfully entertaining, heartwarming, and marvelously written this drama is.
For a drama with such a young cast, I was first and foremost completely taken aback by the quality of acting, since I don’t often see this type of skill in similar youth kdramas. Granted, there was a bit of overacting on the ML’s part but it’s very rare and honestly just adds to the comedy so I can let it slide. The storyline itself very much reminds me of that iceberg meme where what you see on the surface is quite simplified and shallow but as you continue watching, the storyline just unravels before you and you end up making connections you hadn’t even imagined you’d be making. This was genuinely such a fun ride and I will definitely be coming back to this one as soon as I can recover from the first watch ahaha.
I could honestly write paragraphs and paragraphs about this but I’m kind of put into this weird paralysis state where I have so many things to say that I just don’t know what to say at all, so I will just leave this here: Literally whatever you’re thinking this drama is going to be, or whatever expectations you have, leave them behind and just watch the drama for what it is, because while it will likely be so different from what you were expecting, it will probably be far better as well.

PS this is coming from someone who has watched her fair share of kdramas and has become immensely picky with what she watches and enjoys (sadly lol)

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There’s not much to say about this drama except for the fact that I’ve never felt so enraged about the main female character in my entire life. The show tried to play her bad qualities off as something that ultimately benefits everyone, but let’s be real, she just brings everyone down over and over and over again without ever learning her lesson. Besides the main character, this drama lacks in story by making every liar game repetitive and rather predictable. While the situations were resolved in creative ways, which I appreciated, Liar Game’s biggest issue was that there were just not many ways they could add variation to a game about stealing money, and they ended up creating a story that went in circles and rehashed the same issues again and again. Thankfully, the fast pace of the drama made it rather addicting and very easy to binge-watch, so I can’t deny that the entertainment value is definitely there. As long as you keep your expectations low (which I failed to do), you can enjoy this drama without taking any of it too seriously. On that note, I probably won’t be watching the sequels but I’d still recommend the first season since I definitely had fun watching it.

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Strong start, awful middle, and strong finish

I won’t lie and say I’m not disappointed with how this drama turned out, because I was initially extremely interested in this drama and couldn’t wait for next week to come faster. While the drama has a strong start with an amazing cast, music, and special effects, the storyline starts dragging and repeating itself midway through. This loss in momentum is the main reason why I and so many other people ended up rating this drama a lot lower than it should have been rated. Additionally, the romance fell extremely flat for me, and while there wasn’t much character development and interaction, the leads seemed to have fallen in love almost instantly due to the one day they spent together as kids and a few strange encounters when they were 20 years older. This led to a lot of unclear character motivations since all laws of logic were pointing to the fact that they shouldn’t be this attached to one another after having met just a handful of times. Ignoring all that, I did think that the drama had a very strong finish. The last episode, while extremely cheesy at the end, was intense, heartwarming, and quite satisfying. I was not expecting much at that point and was actually pleasantly surprised. All in all, I’d only recommend this drama for those who can’t get enough of Kim Yoo Jung and Ahn Hyo Seop (like me!) or otherwise enjoy strangely paced historical fantasy with a million plot holes. Everything about this drama screamed perfect, and it’s a shame that the repetitive and dragged out writing had to let the drama down like that.

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sigh

Here’s the thing. I really hate to be writing a review this negative because I genuinely loved the crap out of this drama all the way until the last quarter. At that point, the pace of the drama heavily slowed down, and I began to grow more annoyed with the leads. Mostly it was the FL that kept making everything into a weird metaphor or just deeper than it really was. A drama that is also guilty of this is Run Onn, and I gave that drama three stars… Originally I could appreciate how poetic the drama was, but the longer the FL went on about “the meaning of marriage” or “what IS real love” or, my favorite, “collecting your memories in a star pocket and using that star pocket when things get tough.” She just lost me there at the end. I loved how the drama focused on three different couples, it’s three romances for the price of one drama! It’s great, right? Except the pace of the romances was completely different for each couple, which really threw me off there at the end, because one second I would watch CEO Ma and Soo Ji sucking each other’s faces off, then the camera would suddenly flip to Se Hee and Ji Ho awkwardly holding hands as if they were 10 and not 30 and 38. This weirdness made the chemistry between the leads feel a little off, because watching the other two couples makes you strangely aware of how slow the main romance is progressing. There was just too much distraction from the main plot, really. I don’t know how to explain this any other way, I’m sorry. As I said in the beginning, the entire drama just took a nosedive, and I was honestly just generally confused by the actions of all the characters. The female lead suddenly began to ponder the entire reason for her existence and got into this weird depressive funk and up and left her husband for god knows how long. Then, she shows up without explanation at NIGHT, sleeps with him in the same bed, then wakes up and makes him breakfast like NOTHING HAPPENED. God, I just wanted to punch her at that point. Excuse me ma’am, you literally confessed your love to this person in your voice-over several times, then you LEFT him for NO REASON, then you have the audacity to show up and just expect him to forgive you after you broke his heart and made him cry for you. Not. Cool. While I’m criticising the female lead, I’d like to just add that I would have liked more closure with her writing career, and I was, once again, pretty frustrated when she was being indecisive as hell about the job offer. Just overall, the main couple could have been done so, so much better, and this is why I really appreciated the second couples, which were, sigh, not without their faults by a long shot. I feel like Soo Ji was initially a little dramatic about her life situation and her reason for pushing people away, otherwise I thought her story arc was probably the best out of all the characters. Loved how strong she was and how she refused to wear a bra half the time, because I felt that on such a deep level haha. Overall, she and CEO Ma were my favorite couple in this whole drama. Rang and Won-Seok…. yikes. First of all, Rang has some serious issues she needs to fix, because even at the end of the drama I felt that she was toxic and manipulative as hell and just a poor excuse of a girlfriend to Won Seok. I supported their breakup wholeheartedly and thought that this drama could have shown how they recovered from their breakup and maybe found some love at the end with people they were truly compatible with. The whole, “oh we dated for 7 years and i know you inside and out. I cannot live without you after all wah wah wah” storyline that happened instead was just disappointing and didn’t solve their initial problem: She wanted to conform and get married (nothing wrong with that) and he couldn’t marry her because he was insecure about his financial situation and was just not really all that jazzed about getting married in general, which is FINE but this is also why they should have just broken up and found better people that could complement their interests better. My Bo Mi and Won Seok ship sank rather quickly though… Now that I’ve got all my grievances out of the way, I’d like to say that I really liked the cat. Thank you for reading this long-ass ramble and good night. Watch something better please. Your time is more valuable than this.

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Comedy and angst all around

I'm not kidding, I was sobbing for nearly the entirety of the last episode, it was so good. This drama was so not what I expected, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, since what I got was a more wholesome plot that didn't purely rely on the romance to keep it afloat. The comedy was really REALLY well done (I made a couple of collages with screenshots of my favorite moments. That's how good it was) and the romance was paced just perfectly (I would say even slower than your average drama) to instead add more substance to the leading storyline. Dong Joo was a bit of a brat for parts of the drama, but she made up for it with her badass bow skills in the end, so ain't even that mad. I'm not gonna lie, I was at first really confused about where the storyline was going cause EVERYONE LOOKED THE SAME, but once I got used to the characters' faces, I began to understand the plot and was totally on board with everything by the time the ending rolled around. THE ENDING. OH MY GOD THAT ENDING WAS SO DIFFERENT. The authors really took a risk with the ending that they wrote cause it deviates so much from what you would think would happen. But honestly, the bittersweetness of it just made the ending SO much better and so much more memorable than if they had stuck with the predictable storyline. And can we for a second just TALK ABOUT THAT OST? The OST is freaking gorgeous, the music alone probably contributed to half the tears I shed during this drama. Definitely would recommend it to anyone who appreciates a refreshing storyline, cute romance, and a plot with actual substance.

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Not quite my cup of tea

There’s nothing inherently bad with this drama that I can point out to be quite honest, I think somewhere along the way it just stopped being my cup of tea. I never enjoyed office/corporate politics and it was rare that I ever got into them, and Dr. Romantic 2 was full of office politics. Naturally, I ended up watching this drama at 2 times speed for the second half and I have to say the season finale was quite heartwarming and I do love all the characters. I think there’s just something about the pacing or directing or the office politics storyline that didn’t quite click with me and that is a-o-kay. I can absolutely see how this can be someone’s favorite, it’s just not mine!

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A wonderful remake of one of my favorite dramas of all time

I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that I don’t prefer the Taiwanese version still. I have no clue how much of it is the fact that I watched it first vs some subtle difference in storytelling that just makes me bawl like a baby and get a headache every time I watch the old version… Nevertheless, A Time Called You is an incredibly strong remake with a wonderful cast. I was most of all pleasantly surprised at Jeon Yeo Been’s acting skills because of how many different emotions and characters she had to portray (a schoolgirl who is deeply depressed pretending to be the 36 year old version of her who took over her body and yet she is a terrible actress so her own personality slips through no matter how hard she tries - yeesh! That’s not easy). Something about this drama is still nagging at me and I do not think I will truly find out until I rewatch the original version, but for now I’m going to leave it by saying the following: The korean remake is incredibly faithful to the original drama. Superb cinematography and cast, wonderful music selection. Worth a watch, especially if you weren’t ruined by the original! I truly think this drama has the potential to be preferred by someone over the original, that person is just not me.

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Cute and refreshing!

The writer must really hate the characters, because whenever something bad happens, it gets worse. And when you think it can’t get worse, it gets EVEN WORSE and I love every minute of it

This was really cute! The 20 episodes just flew by, it’s crazy how quickly this drama ended, considering I usually find it a tad hard to finish extended kdramas. I really liked this overall, the show was absolutely hilarious, especially in the first half, and had some really cute romances in the second half. I still can’t decide whether or not I like that Welcome to Waikiki has a more realistic take on relationships than most kdramas, but it was definitely refreshing at the very least and really fit the overall theme of the drama. I’d definitely recommend this as a light pick-me-up kdrama where you don’t have to think too much or worry about too much conflict. All of the ships were super adorable, and one of them I definitely did not expect but ended up being my favorite one surprisingly! The only things I’d say were negatives in this drama are the fact that some jokes were feeling reused a bit (there’s only so many times a character can fart in their sleep before it becomes gross and not funny) and the fact that the “main” couple of this drama had a weird uneven development to their romance which kind of made it a bit awkward to follow. Otherwise, this drama was a blast and one of the funniest dramas I’ve ever watched!

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Absolutely Incredible, what a freaking ride

Hands down one of the best dramas I have ever watched. I do truly understand why there is so much hate for season 2, and it took a lot of reflection for me to not only come to terms with the way the Hong Sisters decided to execute this season, but also to learn to appreciate the beauty of the choices they made in Jang Uk’s and Naksu’s love story. No joke, 10 minutes into the last episode, I was sprawled on the floor crying my little heart out because this show has tugged on my heartstrings so so much. One of the most beautiful conclusions in Dramaland and the best conclusion I could’ve hoped for with their story. Sure, it had flaws, but I’m willing to overlook them and instead focus on all of the things that were executed so beautifully, especially the “1 year later” epilogue. My little hopeless romantic heart was so happy with those last 10 minutes of the show haha. I genuinely cannot recommend this whole series enough, and all I want to say is for everyone to go into this season especially with an open mind despite the negative opinions.

PS: I challenge you to find a more rewatchable drama than this one

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LISTEN

I am someone who rarely starts historical dramas because I generally can't stand the whole palace politics crap since it's very similar all the time and generally just bores me. I'm also someone who rarely enjoys fantasy since it usually takes the focus away from characters and makes storylines unnecessarily complicated. So if you're like me and prefer to turn off your brain and kick back and relax while watching a stupid romcom or cry during an overdramatic melodrama, TRUST ME and watch this anyway. Alchemy of Souls is such a gem and I'm so incredibly glad I gave it a chance despite how many freaking episodes it has. The reviews don't lie and I don't believe it is overhyped at all. Everything about this drama is incredible, and you will enjoy it no matter what your genre of preference is. This is my first 10/10 drama in almost two years so I don't give these out easy at all.

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I don’t know how to go about rating this drama because it took me WEEKS to finish (thanks to my kdrama slump) and I was enjoying it but at the same time kind of bored with it as well. Overall, this was a great drama. Love the actors (except for Shin Min Ah but that’s just my personal preference. Sorry :/). Storyline was pretty decent and I really liked how they were slowly unfolding everything and the viewers were kept in the dark about a lot of the story until the end. However, I did also have several problems with the storyline. It was never really clear to me when So Joon stopped acting and actually fell in love with Ma Rin, and that kind of felt weird and unsatisfying to me because I definitely need clarity in my romances. Also I felt like there were a lot of plot holes, such as (spoilers) why did Ma Rin’s dad leave her family? Why couldn’t So Joon return to the past? Why were all the characters acting so dang stupid all the time? Why did it take him 2 years to wake up from a stab wound? As well as some other weird time travely things I wasn’t satisfied with. I additionally felt that the ending was wrapped up way too quickly compared to the pace of the entire drama. The drama completely glazed over “you-know-whose” death and the whole issue of the “big death day” as if it wasn’t the entire reason So Joon married Ma Rin in the first place. Besides all that, I genuinely did love this drama, although it took me forever to finish it, and I think I have developed a new crush on Lee Je Hoon :)

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I haven’t laughed this hard watching a drama in a while, and I’m very happy with the way everything was executed. The editing was sometimes a bit confusing and jumpy but not too bad. I know most of the cast in the drama except Doo Joon so overall it was fun seeing all these familiar faces in one drama. I’ve only seen Kim Seul Gi in two very short dramas, but I absolutely love her playfulness and cute acting. The storyline was overall incredible, but I can’t help but be quite unsatisfied with the way the drama ended. It was probably the best the writers could have done, but the ending doesn’t feel too happy since she ultimately left her lover and only met up with what I assume to be his reincarnated version. It’s quite sad and gives me Goblin vibes but it seems like they all recognized each other? Even then, I can’t imagine Sejong living another 30 years of his life without her by his side. Totally unrelated, but what is up with the queen’s reincarnation telling Danbi that sejong had 20 children and seduced a bunch of women? Was that real (in drama version) or a rumor? I don’t even know anymore. Anyhow, I loved this short little drama and I’m glad I watched. It just kind of hits home because the previous drama I watched had an incredibly sad ending and I wasn’t ready for that sadness in the end.

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Pardon my French but (major major spoilers btw)

Oh shit oh fuck what even was that? I’m pacing my room bc I don’t even know how to contain all these emotions. I totally spoiled myself and knew the ending was sad but holy God it was so much worse than I ever could have imagined. But it was so good at the same time. Like it was better than I pictured it but also way fucking worse. THEY HAD A KID??!! From the way the drama was going I was like ok, they’re gonna have a romance, they’re gonna be “in love” for a few months, she’s gonna die, he’s gonna be sad, but he’ll probably move on in the future and she will accomplish her little bucket list and go to heaven. That’s kinda sad but could be worse. I jinxed it. I totally jinxed it. I was kind of spacing out during the rooftop scene so I didn’t pick up on the fact that she was planning on staying for 7 more years. I thought she was just saying random nonsense to make the grim reaper save her little idol. But she stayed for seven years to save her love and then she took the spot of the grim reaper’s daughter? Omg this is like that Chinese drama (which I won’t name but if you know you know) where her husband died from poison like 5 years down the line. Why they gotta do this to me!? The only way to make a sad ending more sad is by making them live happy lives together only to take that happiness away a few years later. I’m literally tearing up just thinking about her smiling and hugging her kid being like, “it’s my time now” and him just looking at her with tears in his eyes, knowing he can’t do anything and their time together is over. Ugghhhh that cuts deep. I gotta rewatch that, that was so good. On a more negative note, this is what I wrote down before I watched the ending (I write reviews as I go sometimes): “I usually don’t mind nonsensical romances but this one was just too much for me. Their attraction for each other came out of nowhere, and in general, the entire reason why they initially started hanging out makes no sense. If I was a star, the last thing I’d want to do is take the girl that stalked me, stole my dog, broke into my house, and tackled me on stage on a date. That wasn’t enough, however, because she behaved in the creepiest way the entire time she was around him. She openly idolized him, and while that’s understandable, I can’t imagine how you can have a romantic relationship with that type of person. I don’t really understand die-hard fans, so to me the whole fangirl culture is almost like legalized and socially acceptable stalking. I can’t imagine falling in love with someone like that.” Um yeah, and this is the reason why I can’t in good faith give this drama a higher rating, although that ending will always be a 10/10 and if their romance was done better, you bet this drama would’ve been at LEAST a 9. Yeah, overall their romance doesn’t make a lot of sense, and worldbuilding was rather confusing (there’s a LOT of corruption in the underworld, who knew?) but I think I’d still recommend this to others because I love crying and this is a 10/10 tearjerker. If anything, watch for the ending. Happy (sad) watching! :)

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