Fun to watch!

This was honestly just a fun show. I've learned that with these short web-dramas, if you don't take them too seriously, you'll end up enjoying them a lot.

Lei Tong is a melodrama writer and gets thrust in to one of her novels as Chu Ji, a character unhappy with her ending. Lei Tong gets the mission to fall in love in three months, but she has other ideas. It's a lot of fun to watch her try to thwart the book's cheesy set-ups, and it was actually very refreshing to see her turn the tropes on their head. Instead of the male lead saving her, she actually saves him most of the time. Instead of the "fall and kiss" trope, she pushes him away to avoid it. It felt like the writers truly were poking fun at these tropes in the best way.

While one could argue there are three other male leads she could end up with, there really is only one obvious option. There's really no big second male lead syndrome, though I do feel for the others a bit, especially as we got towards the end.

However, due to the short episodes, there are some slight problems with the show. First, most, if not all, of the characters are pretty two-dimensional. Even when the show tries to expand on a few of the characters' personalities, it's relatively shallow. Second, there are some plot points that don't fully pan out. The biggest one is Zhong Yi. He starts out trying to prove Chu Ji is two-faced, but we don't see any of his efforts to actually do that. He also pretty quickly switches over to liking her, and again we don't see anything really besides that. Same with Jiang Heng - he shows up when it's convenient, but we don't see much else from there. But again - it makes sense for what the story is.

The one character I would have loved to know more about is Zhong Qing. She was such an interesting character that unfortunately didn't get as much fleshing out as I would have wanted. She also gave me strong GL vibes that towards the end I was cheering for a throuple with Gu Ye Chen, Chu Ji, and her. (I obviously knew it was never going to happen, but hey, a girl can dream).

As for the ending, I feel like it fit with the overall plot of the show. I honestly was wondering throughout how they were going to solve the issue, and I think they did well with what they had. I do think the ending was more rushed than it needed to be - the pacing was fine for most of the show, but towards the end it felt like the writers wanted to fit in a lot more than they had time for, and just sprinted to the finish line.

Like I said at the start though, if you don't take this show too seriously, it's just a fun fantasy romance show that likes to poke holes at the classic drama tropes. It's an entertaining way to spend an afternoon, and if you want to watch something that is pure shallow fun, I do recommend it!

(One thing I will mention is that if you watch this on YT, there will be whole chunks where the sound is off, likely due to music copyright.)

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A drama that doesn't take itself seriously - and neither should you

Okay, if you rate this by "serious 50-episode drama" standards, obviously it's not going to be that high. But from the start, I could tell this was the light-hearted show I needed.

I enjoyed Sheng Xia's personality a lot, especially since she seemed somewhat knowledgeable with drama tropes. You would think that's a given due to her profession, but the amount of shows with leads that are supposed to know what they're doing but actually don't are way too many. Sheng Xia was realistic in the sense that she acted like a normal person and not like a damsel in distress. She had a mission and she was going to complete it one way or another.

Shen Shi Yi's character is one of my favorite types of characters: the "I'm stone cold to everyone except for my beloved" type. Immediately when he showed up I knew I was going to like him. I also liked that he wasn't kept in the dark about everything, and was smart enough to figure stuff out.

The fourth prince was hilarious, and Sheng Lian Hua was so cute while she was fangirling over her OTP. Their romance was far less convincing than our leads', but they're secondary characters in a short-length series, what can you expect?

I enjoyed the plot a lot, especially the conflicts that Sheng Xia's deviation of the plot caused. I also enjoyed the fact that due to the nature of her character, she shared a lot of kisses with the male lead. Most of the time C-Dramas tend to be really shy about skinship, so this was great to see.

The ending was a bit neatly wrapped up, but since this was twenty-two 10-minute episodes (or six 30-minute episodes if you're on Viki), it makes sense that they couldn't expand on it too much. Still, I would have liked a bit more explanation on the ending bit.

Go into this expecting a light-hearted show that doesn't take itself seriously, and you'll enjoy it just like I did.

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Surprisingly good

As someone who doesn't normally like sad endings, I, too, am shocked by my rating. But honestly, I think if it had ended any other way, if Ji Hoon had somehow survived... I don't think I would have liked it as much. Because I feel like most of us, having watched like the first two episodes, knew how it was going to end. We hoped it would be different, but we were able to predict it based on the tone of the show. And honestly, the predictability made me enjoy their sweet moments more, since I suspected what was coming. It's not the destination, it's the journey. (Though I will say, the very last bit confused me, but I'm choosing to just write it off lol)

The acting from both actors, but especially Moon Ji Yong (who played Jae Woo) was good. It wasn't amazing, but honestly they did really well, especially with the emotional scenes. It's hard to get that type of emotion out, and Ji Yong did it very well.

I loved the study dorm's manager, though I forgot her name. I really enjoy those characters who know more than they let on and help push the main characters. And the friend, Hyung Jin, was super sweet. I need a friend like him!

And lastly, I actually really enjoyed the premise. I do think it would have been better to have more episodes to flesh out the characters, give them more time to get to know each other, etc., but the team did really well with what they had. Time travel is hard to navigate through (no pun intended) and they did it pretty well.

I'm actually excited to see Korean BLs start to explore other topics and plots. Hopefully this will give us bigger and better shows!

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Do yourself a favor and don't

Oh, man.

I started watching this mostly because of OhmFluke. I loved their acting in Until We Meet Again, and was excited to see them together in another BL. But unfortunately it just so happened to be this one.

First, I just want to be clear I'll be calling Dew from the Blue world (aka the first Dew we meet) as Blue!Dew and Mum from the Orange world (aka the first Mum we meet) as Orange!Dew. Any respective people from their worlds will also be called Orange or Blue, such as Orange!Mint and Blue!Mint. The last Mum we meet, the one who's been traveling universes, I'll call Rainbow!Mum. (Thanks to Aprillen for labeling them this, it saves time!)

What started off as a solid idea and interesting writing slowly dissolved into a plot mess and characters acting out of character when it suited the plot. The idea of a reversing/contrasting timeline is really hard to pull off -- I can only think of Doctor Who as a show that successfully pulled it off -- and if the writing isn't solid, it gets incredibly messy and confounding. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to this story. They laid out the universe rules pretty well for us, but then once the loop was close to completing, I feel like the writers didn't know where to go from there and then just gave us a bunch of random things (such as Rainbow!Mum or Blue!Dew remembering things he shouldn't have been able to since it happened after that time in his timeline).

Giving us two endings was an interesting choice, and I see why they did it. Wake Up, aka the happy ending, was so incredibly out of character from everything we'd gotten before it almost felt like a completely different show. It didn't go back to the multiverse plot and Orange!Mint seemed to be way more well-adjusted than previous scenes of her and her alternate self, Blue!Mint. It was a breath of fresh air in a sense, but it also clashed completely from the previous ten episodes. I have a theory they wrote this to appease the masses, but it wasn't exactly where they had planned the plot to go towards. Dream On, aka the sad/open ending, fits a lot more neatly with the previous episodes, but it does end in a really messy and devastating way, and still doesn't resolve half of the other questions we have from the show.

Unfortunately for this show, either ending wasn't really satisfying and left us with enough plot holes and questions that made it seem like the writers were making the show up as they went along. While the multiverse and contrasting timelines were interesting, the writers often went back on what they had previously said were the rules of the show. And where did Rainbow!Mum even come from? What is his purpose? (Well that one is clear: to bring Orange!Dew into the whole multiverse experience and bring more drama). His presence just makes things far more complicated than the show could handle. We also never really know what happens to Blue!Dew and the people of his world once that timeline closes, which is an interesting choice because they showed us a lot of what happened in his world throughout the show.

As for the side characters, especially Vee and Game, they feel very much like side characters. Since they don't have anything to do with the multiverse plotline, they feel out of place in a lot of ways. I would have liked to see more of them, but I don't think they fit well with this show. Blue!An was a creep that needed to be stopped every time he tried to go after Dew, but the show talked about it as if it's fine since he's just "in love" with Mint. We didn't really get much of Orange!An or other characters so I don't have much to say about them.

Honestly, at this point, I'm happy this show ended so I don't have to put in more thought into the mess it is. As much as I loved OhmFluke in UWMA, I am saddened they got this mess of a story. Don't bother watching, friends. It'll just confuse and frustrate you, and you'll be left wondering where the time you spent on this show has gone. (It's gone into the five million plot holes this show has.)

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No character growth

Honestly I was really disappointed by this show. It seemed like there was a new conflict every episode, and the "main" one was the basketball game at the end (which was not entertaining at all). We got some backstory to Fiat's childhood (his mom was super mentally/emotionally abusive) but honestly I felt no character growth from either Fiat or Leo. Sometimes it felt like we were going to get some, but then they reverted back. Poor Leo never really gets to talk about him or his feelings (he obviously feels super insecure in the relationship, as does Fiat), and Fiat is always depending on Leo for honestly everything (emotional support being the biggest). A lot of the obstacles could have been easily resolved with communication, but I feel like this show doesn't know what that means. They're cute together, but I feel like they could have done so much more.

As for the side couple, they were cute until the end, where they decided to break up for no reason that made sense to me (Leon could have definitely followed Pob). I really liked their relationship overall but the ending just left me feeling empty (and the Special more so).

Watch it if you have nothing to watch, but don't expect much.

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Don't bother

At first I was intrigued by the premise. A woman gets trapped inside of her own game, that sounded like a fun premise. But the more I watched, the more I grew disappointed.

First things first, the pacing. Pacing in all of these short web dramas are always a problem, but here it was hard to ignore. The female lead falls for the video game main lead so quickly that it felt incredibly unbelievable. I understand the male lead falling for her - she was doing and saying all the right things - but she knew it was a game, she knew it was code she developed, and she still fell even faster than he did? Where's the internal battle of "he's not real but he is to me"? Also, the male lead didn't really do anything to truly make them emotionally and romantically closer. It felt like they fell in love within a week and were ready to risk anything and everything for their love. Bizarre.

Second, the real world. What I had originally liked about this is that Fang Xi Mu wasn't fully disconnected from the real world as is the norm in many of these types of dramas. Her shi-xiong, Yi An, was constantly in touch trying to figure a way out for her, as well as helping her succeed in the game. But once she made it back to the real world, things got even more bizarre. It makes not one lick of sense why the company didn't sue the team for breach of contract and stealing corporate secrets. I get they decided to let it go so that they could still create a game and benefit them, but they could do that with any game designer? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't keep working with people who tried to steal from my company.

And what a huge case of second-lead syndrome! But our female lead did not care one bit about Yi An. Even when she turned up ready to take the risk, it wasn't because of Yi An, it was because of Hao Tian. He deserved so much better.

Just when I was about to praise them for having the semi-believable ending of parting ways because they're from two different worlds, the last few minutes of the drama twisted that on its head (though it is a bit of an open ending). It's not that I didn't want a happy ending, don't get me wrong. It's that this show tried to convince me that there were severe and intense consequences to certain parts of the game, but in the end there weren't. And I think therein lies my biggest issue with this show: it's one thing when a show doesn't take itself seriously and is just shallow enjoyment. I can appreciate and enjoy that. But this show tried to take itself too seriously and then delivered on nothing but air.

I wonder if a longer runtime could have saved this, or if the writers and/or directors don't know how to write a well-balanced story. But honestly, if you're thinking of giving this a try, don't bother.

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Sweet & fluffy

What this drama lacks in depth, it makes up in its tender moments.

This drama is just one of those sweet stories of two people falling in love and wanting to become better for the other. Kim JongChan is a bit of a standoff-ish, work-a-holic team manager who everybody acknowledges is great at what he does but isn't great at the interpersonal stuff. Woo SeungHyun is an enthusiastic intern ready to learn and grow on the job. I enjoyed watching their romance and their characters shine.

Most times I say that these types of shows needed more episodes to flesh out their characters, and while the characters were a bit two-dimensional, I didn't feel the need to know more about them. I liked that we didn't have multiple couples and that the show focused on the main couple - it allowed them to breathe and grow in a way that would have felt rushed otherwise.

While there was a bit of drama, it wasn't really super high-stakes. There was a bit of jealousy and insecurity on Woo SeungHyun's part - especially this being his first relationship - but I think it was written well and that Kim JongChan handled it pretty well.

This wasn't a super in-depth story with incredibly emotional plot lines - it was just a simple, happy, getting-to-know-each-other romance. And that's what I liked about it. A lot of stories now try to over-complicate things when they don't need to be and luckily this story didn't do that. It had realistic stressors in the relationship (adjusting to the other's needs, dealing with jealousy and insecurity, etc) and the couple's tender moments just had me smiling from ear to ear.

Don't expect this drama to be intense, dramatic and/or passionate. Just focus on the sweet stuff and I think you'll end up enjoying it just like I did.

P.S. I do wish we'd had a jump forward in time showing the company's success, but it's okay without it :)

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It pulls you in, but doesn't always keep you there

This is my review of part 1 and 2 in its entirety, not the individual parts.

While I enjoyed the beginning and the show kept me hooked til the end, I do think it missed on a few points.

First, the things I liked: I loved that Yun He was smart and powerful. Many of these shows make the female lead a person that gets herself into trouble but needs help getting out of it, normally by the male lead. Her intelligence, wisdom, and strength made her a fascinating and interesting character.

I also really liked Chang Yi. I felt that his character was very realistically portrayed and he, too, was a powerful, intelligent being. It's rare to find a show that is willing to make the male lead naive and sweet, and it was nice to watch.

Many reviews state the lack of chemistry between the main leads, but I would disagree. I actually felt it to be pretty solid. Not mind-blowing, but good.

As for Hao Qing, it was interesting to see him basically similar to his father (minus the manipulation) towards the end. He was also in a wheelchair, and his attendant was also in love with him. Not sure if I liked his somewhat bittersweet ending, but it wasn't too bad.

The world-building was well done, and while the CGI wasn't always great, I've seen worse!

Our main leads' ending was left open ended, but I felt satisfied.

Now onto the things I didn't like as much.

I honestly disliked how this show treated Shunde. I'm not saying what Shunde was good, in fact I very much hated her, but compared to the other bad guys she felt more two-dimensional. While the other big bad guys got redemption arcs (Lin Cang Lan not being truly evil, he just so happened to be forced into the situation; Ning Qing ultimately sacrificing himself to atone for his sins), she did not. And yes, while we did get some other powerful, good women in this show, the fact that the only evil woman was treated differently than the two other (significant) male antagonists was a bit questionable.

I also really disliked Luo Luo. A lot. I am not a fan of the ditzy, silly best friend who means well but because she can't read the room ends up causing the main leads more trouble. Shows always want to portray this type of character as cute but I just find it immensely annoying. Not to mention the really frustrating "pretty-fication". At the start, she was supposed to be not very attractive (she has freckles and slightly darker skin; apparently this is considered unattractive) but then she finds love and magically loses her freckles and gets lighter skin. Not only am I so tired of the casual racism this trope implies, but also the message that you can't be average-looking to find love.

Overall, a fun watch, but I did occasionally have to use the fast forward button to get past drawn-out parts (or parts featuring Luo Luo).

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So cute! Too short! Want more!

I know (well, I hope) everyone's going to rave about this but if I don't write this review I'm going to explode with glee.

This was such a good show!! It's been so long since I watched a show (especially a KBL) where the actors had such good chemistry. I wish this show was longer, so I'm still holding out hope for a second season. (Though getting 20-30-minute episodes was really nice!!)

It's a classic enemies to lovers trope, and that's one of my favorite tropes. But something I really enjoyed was that they flipped roles around in this show. (A mostly spoiler-free example: most times the needy and demanding one is SangWoo, but sometimes he also caves in to JaeYoung). They have such a wonderful dynamic, and the actors really bring it to life.

I want to say so much more, but can't without giving away spoilers, so I'll just let you experience the story yourself.

I really, really loved this show.

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Interesting, but not deep

To be honest, I have no idea how to rate this show. I didn't hate the ending at all, but I'm more confused by the show than anything.

The plot itself is interesting. I never really knew what was coming, and normally I pride myself on being able to predict the plot. But this time, I truly didn't know what to expect. It's not that there are plot twists, it's more like I just didn't know what the drama wanted to do. At first, I thought that the new/fake/replacement husband was going to just be a better partner to her and she would want to be with him instead of her original husband. Then, as things progressed, we saw that that wasn't so much the case. But then I truly didn't know what the drama wanted to prove.

I wasn't emotionally invested in the drama, but I was curious about it. The reason I kept watching was mostly because I wanted to know how it ended. There reached a point where I thought the drama ended - everything had pretty much resolved - and then I saw we still had 20 minutes left and was wondering what they were going to do with that time. The following 20 minutes actually worked well with the drama, it was interesting to see the consequences of a certain character's actions. Never did I feel like there were unnecessarily drawn out plots, which I guess is a good thing.

There were a few things that were slightly unbelievable - the therapist readily believing her, for one. But for the most part, it was an interesting show where I just kind of shut off my brain and watched.

It's not a bad drama, but I don't think I'd call it good either. Like another reviewer said, if you have time to kill, I'd give it a shot. Just don't expect any romance.

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A bit rushed and left unresolved

Unfortunately, this drama suffered from its limited amount of episodes. Only having eight 25-minute episodes ended up not only rushing the plot, but leaving a lot of things unresolved.

I'll start with the positives. First, the leads are sweet and I love their romance. I love how their beginning wasn't actually their beginning, but ties back to an incident a year before they actually started talking. Their chemistry was good enough and I loved the OST - it definitely added to the show.

While the second couple was also sweet and also had good chemistry, they had a few issues that were left unresolved. There was a misunderstanding between them, and instead of actually talking it out and clearing the air, they just skipped past it by saying "Well, it's all in the past now." I felt this could only lead to problems in the future of their relationship. But again, I think this is just a time restraint issue.

Lastly, and most disappointingly, the issue with Ye Guang's parents was left very much unresolved. As a queer person with controlling parents (who also had unrealistic expectations of me), I really related to Ye Guang's struggle. I had hoped I would be able to see some more resolution, whether it's Ye Guang standing his ground and the parents realizing that they value their son more than their reputation (or their 臉面), or the parents having an actual talk with their son. The parental issue was just glossed over at the end, and we could still see that it wasn't resolved.

Overall, the show really was hurt by the time restraint that it had. The writers, knowing how many episodes they had, could have chosen to have a more simple plot, allowing both sets of couples to flesh out their relationships. Or they could have started the resolution between Ye Guang and the parents sooner. Either way, I'm left feeling unsatisfied.

I did like the show, don't get me wrong, and I'm always happy to watch a Taiwanese BL, but I did feel like apart from Ye Guang and Xu Qi Zhang's relationship, nothing else was solved.

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Fine except for the blackface & fatphobia

The plot was... fine. It was not bad, and I enjoyed a few parts of it. The ending, as everyone else has said, sucked. But there are a few things I haven't seen anybody comment on.

First, the blackface. In the beginning of the show, the female lead (FL) disguises herself by making herself look "ugly," which just means making her skin darker and giving herself freckles. Everyone else keeps talking about how she's so ugly and frankly the fact that it was just because she's darker pissed me off.

Second, the fatphobia. The FL's best friend was cursed to never be able to eat her fill (as in, she can never feel full). Because of this, she became fat. This news is met with disgust and pity. Because, as this show would like to tell us, the worst thing you can ever be is fat. The FL goes so far as to put herself in danger to go through an extremely risky trial just to be able to cure her. Yes, never being able to eat your fill is a curse and it does suck. But being fat is not. And the way this show treated the only fat character in this show was cruel and upsetting. The character only gets to begin her life again (romance, improving her spiritual core, etc) once she's been "cured" and is magically skinny again. (Which... the fact that she got fat was because she kept eating since she never felt full. Her not being cursed should not have magically made her skinny.) I honestly cannot imagine how the poor actress must have felt that her size was constantly made fun of, and that she essentially was the "before picture" of this character.

There were some other issues, such as how all the women that sought to have power and to be respected ended up being evil (of course) but those two above were my biggest gripes and I could not simply forget about them.

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Pacing issues but a fun binge

I think if I had watched this as it came out one by one, I would have dropped it much earlier. But since there's the full version on YT, I decided to give this 2 1/2 hour show a shot.

It's not amazing, I wouldn't even say it's good. But it was an interesting watch, and I liked that the female lead wasn't a pushover.

My biggest issue was that there were some pacing issues. The female lead finds the male lead annoying and starts to warm up to him a bit, but then all of a sudden she loves him in a I-will-sacrifice-myself-for-love kind of way. It's a little too sudden to be believable. The second female lead also has a similar, sudden change of heart that is not so believable.

The concept was good, but I do wish it had gotten fleshed out more. There were quite a few plot holes that left me a bit puzzled (what happened to the original Su Li? how did we figure out what the heart of stallone thing was? what does the ending mean?) but for a short web drama, it wasn't too bad.

(Also, if you're watching it on YT, please note the english subs are not the greatest. I'm lucky enough to understand enough Mandarin to not be confused, but the translation is quite confusing.)

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Plot holes... plot holes everywhere.

Many reviews have already said this but... so much happened and at the same time nothing did. I feel like the idea behind this story was great, and it could have benefitted a lot from more screentime and money.

There was no understanding of the timeline whatsoever. At one point someone asked one of the main leads "how long?" (had he liked the other main lead) and I too, wanted the answer to that question. How long has it been since they met? One week? One month? Several months? It was very confusing.

The plot... I think the conception and idea of it was good. I really wish it could've been executed properly. Either they didn't film enough or how it was edited was bad but it was very confusing. I wish there had been more time to flesh out the characters and backstory. I did hear the movie version will have extra scenes so maybe that will help?

The acting wasn't bad! It wasn't great, but I think with a little more experience they'd do well.

The ending, like the entire show, was very abrupt. I should have been used to it, but when it ended I definitely was like, "That's it?!"

I'd watch this if you have nothing else to watch. It's cute, albeit very confounding.

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