Heartwarming coming of age romcom series

I really like that the lead actors for Gun and Tinn are the same age as each other as well as with the characters they play in the series and that the teens get to exist as teens rather than as cyphers for grown ups with adult soap operatics overlayed on them. Their youth allows for them to be silly during humorous ways in a way that's endearing that's also balanced by each actor's innate screen presence. Their individual characters and collective chemistry carries the series well. It's always good when the main characters are the draw.

The writing shows deep familiarity with both teen school campus drama and rom com tropes and gives the characters good definition that can be understood even underneath the green acting skills of their young, but capable actors and doesn't rely on misunderstandings to pad out the story or manufactured angst. The drama unfolds from the flow of the story that takes place throughout the final high school year of teens which shifts gradually shifts in tone as the anxiety of the impending competition and future heightens at the cusp of graduation and adulthood.

It was interesting they did a perspective shift with the 1st ep from Tinn's pov and then 2nd ep from Gun's and then evenly afterward. I LOVE both guys know their own feelings immediately. Gun having had his crush for years and Tinn immediately picking up on it as soon as Gun let slip that he's been flirting with him and they have their eye connection. The healthy communication between Gun and Tinn is so refreshing, they don't let misunderstandings or jealousies fester. They talk it out and are loving and affectionate. We never see Gun's parents together, but from context they were probably loving like Tinn's parent's. The calm, sweet relationship is a lovely base for their coming of age struggles of

Not to say this show escapes from the angry, petulant, emotionally volatile guy archetype which they pour into Win. I really dislike that character and that ship as well. The writing did try to show he had a loving side with how he's caring with Sound, but the acting did not come through in reconciling the two sides, let alone add more. Sound's actor was better able to convey vulnerability beneath his superiority complex and the writing helped to with him making the deal with Tinn to go to get treatment for his hand.

Tiw is the representative that asks the questions from the audience. It would have been more interesting to give his pairing with Por the screen time of the secondary romance. Tiw has the most thankless job of helping Gun, Tinn, and the entire music club. He always steps up and never even got to go swim with his ducky float. So when Por who has a bit of similarity in setting up and cooking for the others getting to spend time with each other being the two that showed up and Por noticing Tiw spending all the time taking photos of others on their last day of school, it's could have been better developed sooner.

It's wonderfully done how the realization of the main characters sexualities to themselves and to their family is understood and comes with the beautiful vocal support and allyship that queer characters and the very real community they represent deserve to see and feel modeled in the media. The reaction shots from the secondary characters are great. The wish redeeming scene was the best use of the product placement. It made sense they were desperate for any drink, and the raw and brutal break down and the apologies was a powerfully moving scene. On the other hand the harmful forced outing by bl shippers was glossed over and could have been handled better. Some plots beats got lost or were rushed like the implied financial issues of Gun's mom and all the pair the spares plots except for Yak.

The cinematography, editing, and directing were all competently done which is such a relief to my eyes. I never felt the pacing was slow, a lot happens every episode starting with the first one to further the story and to further the relationship. The way they reach the points where imagination ends and sweet reality begins is so lovely. All in all this drama is a definite recommend to watch and rewatch as well.

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Nothing mattered at the end.

The show lingers way too long on scenes where nothing is happening or something that should have been over after a few seconds and relies on jarring attempts of surreal behavior for attempted humor that always falls flat among other editing and writing issues.

Within all of that, the series depicted Guy and Jing who has fundamental differences in expectations for their relationship that neither could meet and were unable to resolve yet wouldn't let go of one another. Guy is a dedicated nurse and Jing is a university student who needs more attention than Guy has the time to provide. Jing knows that Guy has responsibilities that keep him, but he just can't handle it. Guy loves Jing so much that he's willing to leave an unconscious woman on the ground when Jing insisted they leave. They are clearly not in a good place to continue dating any longer and should break up. Jing of course breaks up magically with the last candy wish to make it so they never dated. Guy is now a doctor having not spent his school years dating Jing and Jing is happy with his classmates. They are still within each other's circles but no longer holding each other back. But none of that mattered because it was just the plot of Jing's student film project. The real Jing and Guy are still together and will be into their old age. The film is implied to have their be based on their real issues, but we don't see how the key ones were resolved, just that it did and back to the never ending fanservice fluff scenes.

This show is a mess to say the least, but Kana and Jing's plotline did stand out as being very competently done. Being childhood friends and Kana is Jing's refuge when he feels down and needs comfort. Kana is clearly in love with Jing, while Jing knows. Earth and Copter's chemistry really shines in their character interactions as Kana and Jing. The ease of their closeness and the palpable tension of the possibility of something more which is sadly unexplored, but the scene where they do finally address the feelings in the room is very well directed, easily the strongest scene in the entire series on all fronts, though the very messy editing with the mismatch expressions and an extra clip that should have been deleted while transitioning to the scene of Guy showing up distracts from the mood sadly. This particular director (and the writers he works with) is so selectively good at either only certain plot lines or a certain series in his entire body of work. I hope to see him nail being consistently good. I feel like he has a knack for complicated friendships type narratives in particular. This series is one of the misses alas.

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A light easy to watch coming of age romance

The core of this show is two young teenage university freshman dealing with their respective struggles that stems from previous trauma and how their actions and words or lack thereof affect other people. I found the conflicts that arose very understandable and true to character and importantly it's dealt with within the narrative for character growth. Daonuea is the art student and extrovert of the two whose cuteness and charm stems from how friendly he is and gets along with everyone. Kluen who plays sports is the introvert and the show progresses, he's shown to genuinely not understand certain kinds of social communication. He reads as socially awkward but is not outwardly noticeable because he's handsome and surrounded by outgoing people, so they just assume he's cool. The story starts off with Daonuea whose primary experience with love is being seemingly rejected by Kluen so he wants to avoid him. I really like that he easily becomes himself around Kluen once it's clear their scholastic activities keep them together for a while. This leads him to not want to hurt others as he himself was hurt so this causes complications when he has to deal with rejecting his own suitors. Kluen does everything he can to spend time with Daonuea coming from the school of thought of actions speak louder than words though he learns that words is also important to speak along with the actions. I quite enjoy the acting of Dunk who plays Daonuea. It's his first role and quite close to his real life personality. He's very natural and effervescent on camera. Joong who plays Kluen does well in communicating with his eyes and little detailed actions. The music is pleasant and the show overall is easy to watch.

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C grade

The adults act so childish while the teenagers get all the emotional heavy stakes and interesting plot developments.

The best parts of the drama were actually the teenagers and their struggle to meet these physically and mentally taxing educational standards and expectations of their parents and society as well as the mother daughter relationship between the aunt and niece. The wildness of the the hagwon institutions like how the parents have to line up everyday to get the best seating for their children was interesting as well. The murder mystery part of the drama was okay, but it was dragged on for like 3 or 4 episodes too long. When it was revealed that the brother is a red herring and assistant guy is the murderer, that's when they should have wrapped it up.

I quite enjoy seeing pairings where both grown consenting adult characters have the female lead as older than the male lead and the corresponding actors, but the casting here is really distractingly off with the actress not looking anywhere near believable as the character age range she is portraying. It didn't really need to be a noticeable issue except for the drama itself making it awkward by throwing lines like "she doesn't look old enough to be a mom to a teenager" and showing that only a decade has elapsed between the past and the present the story takes place in. It's compounded by the fact that the costume department didn't make a single effort to at least style her to look like she's in her 30s or even 40s and always put her in clothes and hair styling that made her look very middle aged.

Her character is also like an emotionally volatile doormat, it would have been nice to see her have some smarts and effectively save or stand up for herself and her loved ones from time to time. Her version of acting cute was really off putting as well with the over the top laughing as she covers her face and violently hits whoever is in front of her. The romance plots of all of the adults were the least interesting parts of the story. None of them had chemistry and it would have been better to keep those as brief as possible. The teenagers were more interesting, I like how the two boys actually developed a friendship despite being love rivals.

For a single mom with younger man romance that also includes a serial killer plot, I recommend watching When the Camellia Blooms instead of this drama.

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Weirdly transphobic

The first episode is the strongest being very atmospheric with nice cinematography and color grading that isn't a lazy gray tone that the other episodes do. The isolation and growing fear is very palpable and the vibes is a mix of psychological and supernatural. It reminds me of a Junji Ito story that also had to do with peeping eyes and being spied on.

The final episode is straight up Backrooms: Korea with the newbie security guard getting lost in ASync and everything. That other security guy working there didn't try very hard to warn her, though she most definitely wouldn't have believed him anyways. Poor newbie. Kdramas don't do backdoor pilots, but this certainly looks like a backdoor pilot of a kdrama if such a thing existed lol.

The home shopping story and the convenience store stories were about not taking weird jobs no matter how much money is offered. Besides that as a common theme, multiple times the episode monster is a guy wearing women's clothes and make up. That transphobia is really outdated and really telling of the prejudice from the production.

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Boring Cubed

Normally I would be all for all three characters just dating each other, but both Misaki and Yuki are the blandest people and Shuhei is annoying. There's no romantic spark or tension between the three of them. Misaki shows more spark and happiness with her friends and even her frenemy, until that guy she also has no chemistry with hits on her anyways. The show has a short runtime, but the 10 episodes feels like it drags on forever until they FINALLY divorce and cut to black with Yuki still having zero attraction to Misaki even though she's interested in joining what Yuki wants to do with Shuhei.

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Heartwarming Couple and Community

It's so lovely that Suzu and Issei's friends/coworkers learned sign to communicate with him and I really love how the main couple match each other in both maturity, kindness, and sense of fun regardless of one being in their mid twenties and the other in their mid thirties. It's so beautiful they both become close friends with the other guy who was also interested in her. He's also really nice, as is their whole community. They are going through their respective hardships, but they all help each other out. They showcase some different aspects and attitudes regarding pregnancy with the setting being a gynecologist office. It might not be the message the show is sending directly, but it really is always potentially life threatening for women to give birth even up to today. The stalker storyline felt very abruptly finished. It was missing that transition point where Ban realized he was projecting all his grief and anger onto Suzu. I understand the show wants to portray compassion for someone who is in continual mental distress from grief, but he was clearly a danger to himself or others. It would have been good to see a better way to handle the situation other than let him physically assault the entire clinic staff. The ending of him finally letting go and properly paying attention to raising his daughter is nice though. There are random little moments of sudden humor throughout the show that is fun. The balance of the couple being with each other and their respective jobs, friendships, and family and themselves and some of the other characters getting their own storylines are pretty good. The ending of Suzu and Issei living together at a beautiful seaside home is so sweet.

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Interesting spots but lackis romantic chemistry

Thiu the mafia guy and Guy the college students have interesting storylines separately, but the romance as written just doesn't click and the acting is not strong enough to override the lack of romantic chemistry either. It's more fun to see them with the gaming squad than it is just the two of them, which being the core of the story is pretty detrimental.

Thiu's story going from an happy go-lucky engineering major gamer living in a loving household with his sickly father who straight up shoots a guy who shot him and joins the mafia after his dad dies and is good at it, is very intriguing. As soon as he starts being into Guy though, he no longer thinks with his big brain and making really dumb decisions including not coming up with a plausible reason to placate his boss who he JUST told that he bought the restaurant for to claim more mafia territory and now is saying he wants to quit the mafia to run. The actor who plays the mafia boss has good gravitas to be believably menacing and the 5 bullet Russian roulette is also plausible exit as is the beatdown, even though the beatdown was way too light, but I'll take it as he was a pretty good guy to them so they took it easier on him. I also really enjoyed Thiu's friendship with his underling Tul, who is really his only friend. Thiu talking about his relationship woes with Tul was so funny and cute and it was a badass moment when Tul showed up injured to the restaurant. He went through the roulette and beatdown to quit and run the restaurant with Thiu. I think he probably had just one bullet, but that's still pretty horrific to experience. Thiu should have let Tul nap behind the register, especially if his comfy napping chair is still there instead of cleaning the graffitied and trashed store. Kinda silly they didn't destroy those giant glass doors, but I guess the production didn't want to spend on that lol. It would have been nice to see at least one more scene of their friendship at the end.

Guy's toxic friendship with his best friend Wal and guy who he was obsessed with for years was frustrating but interesting to see where it led. Wal want Guy's full attention all to himself even while he has a whole girlfriend and gets jealous when Guy branches out to pursue his own interests and friends of his own, which good for Guy. It's revealed that Wal had been attracted to Guy from the beginning but never made a move, taking Guy for granted to be mooning after him forever. He still doesn't make a move toward the end of the story when he had TWO chances to kiss Guy and Guy was ready for it, only trying to kiss Guy when they've both drank and Guy is not into it. He failed hard at every step of the way. Guy was already learning to distance himself from this bad situation. His game friends are pretty fun, equal game and shabuholics. It's too bad they didn't get more development individually with Guy and basically just used to move certain plot points along.

Kenji really brought the soap opera energy to drama and unfortunately not in a fun way. Thiu never taking him out properly when he had the chance over and over and over again was ridiculous when Thiu has gunned down a guy before and probably taken a lot of people out in his years as a higher up in the mafia. Kenji not so surprisingly keeps going after Guy over and over again. It was so dumb when in the final battle Guy just walks up into the enemy's clutches without even a weapon. He didn't even have a plan as to how he was going to help Thiu except get in Thiu's way and distract him from survival. He called Phai over, but she didn't show up with the rest of the cops until everything was long over. It was so unnecessarily useless. He ends up being a whiny child when he's with Thiu, their maturity/serious levels never matches up at any point to match what is necessary to make their pairing cohesive.

I think Meen was the better actor of the two leads in this drama, but even he's missing a lot of pathos as a mafia guy. This drama is another in the billionth examples of how I wish Thai bl dramas were cast based on who fits and can actually act the roles rather than ship pairings. Just because they had chemistry and ability to portray certain characters in one production does not mean it will come across for every character and productions.

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La Meh

It's not a good sign when the best acting and storyline comes just from the parent characters when the majority of it is about the main characters. Neither of the main couples where very interesting despite the supernatural conceit of a mystical rain powered connection.

I find the psychic hearing/loss portrayed interesting in that there is more choice in it than the characters realize. It's appears to be a strong connection of some kind between two people that doesn't require mutual love and can be broken unilaterally as well. The maturity of the parents was amazing, from their break up to supporting the mom's new path in life. From the focus on showing how psychic rain hearing doesn't mean a magic unbreakable love bond and can be platonic soul mates, it's so nonsensical to push the main characters Tai and Patts back together. Their only connections are the psychic rain hearing that they are both man children and the doctor being the biggest one between the two. It would have been better if they just broke up permanently and Tai just learns to be a stronger person on his own than get back with a emotionally volatile and physically violent guy who has a ton of issues of his own to work through.

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Less than Middling

I really do like Yim and Tutor as actors and their commitment to their parts, but the direction of the show and the characters leaves much to be desired. Jade's over the top cartoonish over reactions to everything needs to be taken down at least 5 notches. It's grating more than cute, which is disappointing since Yim has the natural cute look. Everything just drags and drags until the only development nearly towards the end where Jade rejects Mai because of his insecurity from being dumped by his first boyfriend. Mai rightfully puts some distance between the two, but the show doesn't do anything with it. The only result is Jade finally sorts out his feelings for Mai without showing any change in any significant way. Mai's family is very lovely though and models loving supportive family behavior. While Jade is a whole cartoon caricature, Mai is really flat as a character as well, just moony eyes and willing to enable Jade's every whim without anything else to his personality. The supporting couples have their petty misunderstanding plots. The intimate scenes are somehow both try hard and directionless secondhand cringe, but a step less cringey than Bed Friends with the lowest bar. This director is capable of filming competent intimate scenes, I don't know why he massively fluctuates in his direction of both those particular scenes and the overall series in every project. There is no consistency.

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Romance of the extrovert cool nerd and introvert neural divergent coded nerd

This review is after a rewatch and my consensus is still the same from the first watch at the time of airing. It starts off slow with JaeYoung's petty revenge antics honestly pretty grating to both SangWoo and as a viewer, but once he finally stands up for SangWoo and the status quo shifts, their developing closeness and romance is a compelling watch all the way to the end.

I like how JaeYoung goes from making SangWoo uncomfortable in daily school life to trying his best to respect and broach SangWoo's boundaries in a way that SangWoo would be comfortable with, which allows SangWoo to feel comfortable enough to be the one making the first move to be physically intimate.

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Shaky start but blossoms sweetly

I enjoy how HaeBom grew and changed as a characters, starting with a doormat personality, but grew to stand up for himself and take the initiative to do things that will make himself happy rather than defer to other people's will. I really like how the costume department very subtly changed up his styling and wardrobe as he matured and got more confident.

I feel the worst for HaeBom who lost his family and was so thoroughly rejected and given a cold shoulder by his only friend for 12 years while living in the same house. TaeSung is partly to blame for HaeBom becoming like this although he rejected HaeBom becoming his brother because he already knew he loved him in a different way even as a child, 12 years of not being friends with him left HaeBom isolated.

Even though HaeBom is the one with the most changes, kudos to TaeSung's steadfast love and support once he snaps out of his 12 years of frosty coldness when he realizes he may forever separate from HaeBom once they go into university. He really is the one that loves HaeBom the most in this world. He did learn that he enjoy baking too, good for him.

EunSun is a single mom who works hard and loves both her kids and even though she had a hard time accepting them as a couple immediately, it came from fearing that they will have a hard time in society rather from hatred within herself. TaeSung's besties are great, it's nice to see his guy friend YoungHee so accepting and encouraging.

I was happy to see HaeBom be the one proposing even though TaeSung was the first to say he would later, there is no binary separation of roles for them. It's also sweet that this couple gets that far whereas most k bl/lgbt dramas are loves pretty much end the story of when the couple has just gotten together.

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Gay characters from the gay community

It's so refreshing to see queer characters that already know their sexuality, SeungHyun being in the Rainbow Rice cake club during university and Jong Chang having had several relationships already, and SeungHyun's university friend Jiyeon is the implied lesbian rep. It's nice to see veteran actress Ye Ji Won play the CEO in this drama, she always brings a fun quirky vibe to her characters. It's nice that there aren't any spoiler filled previews at the end of the episodes and has a manwha type illustration of the ending shot instead.

Jong Chang moves fast to confess and to apologize, which is good because the episodes runtime and number are short. SeungHyun may be a late bloomer in life, but he catches up quick once he gets a boyfriend. Good for Jong Chang for not moving up in position in the company when he doesn't feel like it, quitting that company where the workplace bully can get their way, for have a funny cat that sends nonsensical texts, finding a boyfriend that loves creating ads as much as he does, and establishing a queer owned ad firm with the excellent interns and employees he poached. The little internship summary video that SeungHyun and KangHae makes is cute.

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Indecisive male lead causing strife to himself and others the series

There is angst and pining and then there is prolonged misery, the later of which the meat of the drama falls into. One person that is the cause of so many nice people's pain. Night is selfish and only concerned with himself and doesn't consider the pain of his best friends.

It was terrible enough that Night dragged things on for YEARS with Namwan who also has her weakness with hiding the necklace and knows Dream's feelings towards Night but still asks him for help with Night, but she finally makes things clear for herself and for her friends too. The flashback reveal that he and Dream already kissed before during high school and he still kept his ambiguous relationship with Namwan made the whole situation even worse, it's understandable that Dream who is already in so much pain from losing both his parents cut off communication and left. This also explains why Dream is so nonchalant about Night drunk making out with and feeling him up, it ultimately doesn't mean anything. The show needed to show where and when Dream met Day within those five years, it was so random for him to show up as Dream's close friend and also Night's brother, but none of the three knew the three of them have been in a love tangle the whole time.

I really enjoyed seeing Dream stand up to the former high school and current adult homophobic bully all on his own and as terrible as Night is, I did like his confrontation speech with his father, finally doing something that he's unable to for so many years, which was saying exactly how he feels, the reasoning he's too dumb for engineering and can't help his father business so he chose a major he himself likes, he loves a guy but won't be with him because his dad won't approve and now that guy has left him just like his mom. I also liked how Night's bad behavior led to his confession to Dream not working out with Dream thinking that Night is just using Dream's feelings for him to beat Day. Good on Dream for not agreeing to be with Night until Night pulled his own messy self together.

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Jun's harem

It's funny that Lee Jun of all people has multiple guys gaga for him, including his main love interest/estranged childhood friend who is maxed out character powers personified: handsome, tall, generational wealth, business savvy, young and accomplished, great kisser, etc, that only has eyes for him. Lee Jun himself doesn't have anything outstanding in his personality outside of the first episode where he boldly asks a stranger for a lift to work, the reveal he tried being an idol, and the childhood flashback . The show forgets to actually to establish a interesting personality for him and he was mostly just the object of the three guy's affections. The drama spent a bit too much time on the three guys pining for Lee Jun and not enough Lee Jun actually dating Choi Jun, but when they finally at last do, I like that Lee Jun goes from 0 to 1000000 with his extremely attractive boyfriend, as he should.

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