Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Nevertheless,
(알고있지만, / Algoitjiman, / I Know, But…)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

Hello there, and welcome to my new review! Within my streak of weekly reviews last month, I deliberately decided to take a bit more time to finish this one. If I wanted, I could’ve finished this within one week because let me tell you: I was ADDICTED. I went through the first half SO fast I actually had to stop myself because it would be a pity to rush through it, and I took some more time finishing the second half. This show has been heavily overdue and it’s been on my list for several years already (ever since it came out, probably), and I’ve seen a lot of mixed reactions on it. I was prepared for the worst, but I’m glad to say that I really liked it. I found it very refreshing, original and realistic how the whole story was constructed and how the characters were portrayed. A couple of points that made this show stand out for me in particular were the realism and messiness of relationships of twentysomethings, the chemistry between the main leads and the challenges the characters face while conveying their feelings through visual arts.

Nevertheless, is a 10-episode Netflix K-Drama with episodes each lasting about one hour and ten minutes. The story follows Yoo Na Bi (played by Han So Hee), a sculpture art college student, and her group of friends/study mates as they navigate life in and out of class, and grapple with relationship issues.
From the get-go, we are introduced to Na Bi in a very awkward situation: she witnesses a sculpture made by her former teacher (turned toxic older boyfriend) which he not only named after her, but even shows her in a very suggestive pose – erotic, even.  It doesn’t take long for Na Bi to break up with him, but then she finds herself a bit disappointed in love – she’s stopped believing in things like destiny, but she still finds herself wanting to date and ‘feel something’ with another person. Shortly after breaking up with her ex, Na Bi finds herself sitting at a bar when suddenly a handsome stranger joins her. It initially seems like he’s mistaking her for his blind date, but he decides to spend the evening with her and Na Bi is positively enchanted by his charming nature. She can’t help but feel attracted to him from the start. However, after spending some nice time together, she overhears him talking on the phone to -she assumes- another girl and decides to ditch him at the bar. Not long after that, she finds out that he goes to the same visual arts college as her, and he’s even in her friend group. His name is Park Jae Eon (played by Song Kang). As they keep bumping into each other Na Bi feels drawn to him more and more, even when she hears everyone say that he doesn’t date, he’s only looking for fun. But when he’s with her – and he certainly puts effort into seeing her and contacting her – it really feels as if he’s being serious with her. Na Bi can’t put her finger on it, but on the other hand she enjoys his company too much that she’s worried she’ll scare him away with ‘serious talk’. At some point, she can’t resist his advances any longer and they become what these days would be referred to as a ‘situationship’. They’re not dating, they’re not bound to each other, but they hook up and have sex a lot. They don’t even tell their friends about it, it’s really just something between the two of them, and while Na Bi seems content for a while, it doesn’t take long for her to get a bit torn about Jae Eon’s true feelings, as she feels her own grow steadily by the day. Their relationship becomes even more strained (and draining) when Na Bi starts performing worse in class, she’s facing possible failure when she can’t seem to figure out what to do with her art piece for the final exhibition. She can’t avoid Jae Eon anywhere, and he keeps popping up and when she finally decides to take the ‘healthy’ decision to distance herself from him and the messy thing that exists between them, Jae Eon in turn starts expressing more and more sincerity towards Na Bi. It appears that, while no one thought it possible, he’s finally starting to change and open up to the possibility of staying true to one girl, but at the same time Na Bi has already decided not to trust him anymore. Especially after Yoon Seol Ah (Lee Yeol Eum) shows up, who claims to be Jae Eon’s girlfriend and starts making Na Bi feel even more insecure and confused. Followed by a reunion of her own with her childhood friend/crush Yang Do Hyuk (played by Chae Jong Hyup) aka a chance at (re)connecting with someone who’s been very serious about her from the start, Na Bi struggles with balancing everything that’s on her mind, but no matter how much she tries, she can’t deny that she doesn’t feel attracted to anyone as much as she does to Jae Eon.
In the meantime, the story also follows a couple of other characters from Na Bi’s college friend group and their respective love stories. There’s Oh Bit Na (played by Yang Hye Ji) and Nam Gyu Hyun (played by Kim Min Gwi) who, despite their natural attraction to each other have to face up to their respective perspectives on relationships and dating. There’s Yoon Sol (played by Lee Ho Jung) and Seo Ji Wan (played by Yoon Seo Ah), two female best friends who have to come to terms with the fact that they feel more for each other than mere friendship, and there’s also the two seniors who monitor the students’ workshop space, Ahn Gyung Joon (Jung Jae Kwang) and Jo Min Young (Han Eu Ddeum) who end up living together.
While the main story follows Na Bi in her swaying feelings towards her relationship with Jae Eon, the side stories provide equally engaging and meaningful developments in Na Bi’s surroundings, and I definitely think that besides the undeniable romantic plots, there’s a heavy focus on friendship in general, and on growing as a person through listening to your own heart and (occasionally) making tough decisions.

I will say right off the bat that besides the main storyline between Na Bi and Jae Eon, I really enjoyed all of the side stories as well. Whenever there was a switch to Sol and Ji Wan, the seniors or Bit Na or anything else I never lost my excitement, because every story had something engaging and interesting going on that kept me invested. It’s a common occurrence in drama series that there’s all these side plots created purely to have something going on in the background apart from the main story but it doesn’t always add that much to the story – sometimes they even distract from the main plot. But in this case, I was constantly interested in what was happening with every single character and sometimes it was even a good distraction from the drama of the main story. I can honestly say there wasn’t a single character I disliked in the main cast. I could understand everyone’s point of view and I found it interesting how they made everyone so original, also in their way of thinking. The discussion that Bit Na and Gyu Hyun had was a very realistic one, as they had to figure out how to compromise between what they each envisioned a dating relationship to be like, and it was also really nice to see how the love between Sol and Ji Wan was normalized, not just between them but in their entire friend group. They were cute and meaningful little stories that highlighted all the side characters and made everyone feel purposeful. I really appreciated that.

Let me go into a bit more detail about the main characters and a couple of the friend group members, as this series lends itself perfectly for character analysis.
Let’s start with our heroine, Yoo Na Bi. Unlike common main characters, we are initially introduced to Na Bi as an individual. She lives by herself and we don’t immediately get to know what her family is like or where she comes from. We just see her by herself, even in class. She has a friend group, but while her friends usually move in groups of at least two, even when she joins a social event, she’s there by herself and often ends up going home alone. It seems like she’s accepted it, she’s quite timid and used to not being the center of attention, in contrast to for example Bit Na. I guess you could see her as the slightly more introverted girl who has some extroverted friends that keep inviting her. She gets along with everyone, though, it’s not like she’s weak at social communication or anything. I just got the feeling she kept her thoughts and feelings mostly to herself. This also appears to be the case when she’s struggling with her art piece, she doesn’t tend to vent to her friends or ask for help that often.
We find out later that she used to live in a town by the sea, and that her mother and aunt still live there. She’s not on good terms with her mom who, as is revealed, has had the consistent tendency of moving from one man to another. On the other hand, Na Bi loves her aunt very much and she even mentions she wishes her aunt was her mother several times. Her aunt is also the one who named her Na Bi (which means ‘butterfly’). Other than her aunt, Na Bi doesn’t have any family she’s close with, no siblings or whatever. She lives by herself and commutes by herself and works by herself and occasionally goes out drinking with her college friends. That’s basically what her life looks like. That is, until she meets Jae Eon. From the moment she meets him, she can’t help but be instinctively attracted to him, and he makes her feel all sorts of ways, from excited to anxious. Even after learning about his reputation, and even after actively trying to stay away from him, she can’t stop feeling an almost gravitational pull towards him. As someone who stopped believing in the romantic and ‘destiny’ aspect of dating and relationships after breaking up with her first love (who was a toxic bastard), her attraction to Jae Eon initially seems to border more on lust than on actual love, and while she’s fine with that for a while, at some point she can’t ignore the fact that she’s developing feelings which, in this case, only complicates the matter. She knows that Jae Eon isn’t interested in dating, and she’s scared to be real with him because she doesn’t want him to leave – although she still decides to take the matter into her own hands at some point and decides she wants to stop seeing him.
All in all, I personally couldn’t help relate to Na Bi. I mean, people can call her weak for constantly giving in to Jae Eon’s advances, but seriously, can you blame her? I think it’s perfectly understandable that she wasn’t able to resist him, especially when you look at how he kept putting in effort to come see her. He made sure they kept meeting, he kept approaching her, he kept checking in on her – I admire the attempts Na Bi made to distance herself because he definitely didn’t make it easy for her. Still, I couldn’t help but get completely invested in their chemistry together. I was waving my red flag around while still being like😳during every single scene they had together. They clearly were so into each other, I couldn’t believe that Jae Eon didn’t feel any kind of real attachment to her, he made way too much effort for that. And Na Bi’s struggle with the whole push-and-pull thing just made sense to me – I honestly think that I would’ve felt equally mixed about the whole situation. I couldn’t blame her for being unable to suppress her attraction to Jae Eon, but I also couldn’t blame her for trying to distance herself from it because it was the healthy thing to do. What I also liked about Na Bi was that, while she definitely struggled, she did try the best she could to fix her own problems by herself. She never got anyone else to solve stuff for her, because she knew no one else could determine what would be the best thing to do better than she herself. She may not have been on top of her own feelings all the time, but she still knew that she needed to sort this out by herself, because despite her own confusion she was still the only person who could figure out what she wanted. The way the series navigates through her struggles in trying to figure out her own feelings compared to what would be the right thing to do was incredibly realistic and relatable, even for someone like me who’s not been in that same situation. I found myself relating to Na Bi and just feeling for her while she had to figure her shit out, all the while trying to cope with all these other things like performing well in class etcetera. I think the depiction of her navigation through everything she went through was very real and human in its complicated messiness. And I also can’t say she made any bad choices, either. She remained very steadfast, also in for example not jumping into a relationship with Do Hyuk just to get a distraction from Jae Eon. I admit I was kind of scared she’d do something like that and then Do Hyuk would get even more hurt when she inevitably would be pulled back to Jae Eon at some point. But I was really proud of her to be like ‘sorry Do Hyuk, this is all really sweet and you’re really sweet but I just don’t feel like I’m in any state to get into another relationship right now, I need to figure my shit out first’. That was such a powerful moment for her, and it just proved that no matter how fragile she seemed at times, she definitely held herself strong. I had a lot of admiration for how she handled her situation and just tried to make sense of it by herself without turning it into too much drama.

I found it very interesting how their relationship posed so many new and original perspectives. For one, I’ve never seen a ‘situationship’ depicted as such in a K-Drama before. I believe ‘situationships’ are kind of a thing these days, because I come across the term everywhere I go on social media. I have to admit I googled it👵🏻because I didn’t know what it entailed, but after seeing this show I was like, ‘I guess this must be one of those’. It’s basically defined as a relationship where you’re not tied to each other, but you’re just hooking up, ‘having fun’ without any strings attached.
The fact that it starts, from the bat, by introducing us to Na Bi through a toxic relationship and then having her move onto a situationship like that, is definitely a very original way of introducing a main character in a K-Drama.    

The first thing to mention about Jae Eon is that initially, we never see his point of view. As in, we never hear his internal monologue, we don’t get to know what he’s thinking, and that only adds to the relatable feelings we get towards Na Bi. We just see him the way Na Bi sees him whenever he appears in front of her, and we get to wonder along with her about what his true intentions might be. What’s interesting is that we do get a couple of internal thoughts from him during the second half of the story, especially when he starts changing his mind about his usual ways. We still don’t get a lot of concluding facts, but at least we see that he is trying to change for Na Bi, and that she is special to him. We even find out that there is, in fact, an element of ‘destiny’ in it for him, as he saw her for the first time standing in front of that sculpture at that exhibition from the first episode. As someone who doesn’t believe in destiny either, Jae Eon chooses not to put too much weight on it, but as his character develops throughout the story, he still chooses to tell her, and the realization of his words is what ultimately drives Na Bi to go back to him.
Despite the fact that we don’t exactly know what Jae Eon is thinking, or what his exact intentions or feelings towards Na Bi are in the beginning, I never thought for a second that he wasn’t sincere about what he did with her. I mean, he put in so much effort to come see her at college, he would come to her house, he would text her… If she was only a plaything for him, wouldn’t he have just pretended to be super into her whenever they met but not put in any effort when they didn’t see each other? I don’t know, it just felt like he was very sincere towards her, even when they weren’t doing it, he was always looking at her in that particular way, always smiling at her expressions and actions, he’d always touch her, even if it was just on the shoulder. He made way too much effort for someone who wasn’t sincere, in my opinion. And this is only confirmed even more when Na Bi’s other friends, who know about Jae Eon’s reputation, also start telling her that ‘hm, he usually doesn’t do that, this is special, he must consider you to be different, he never does that with girls he hooks up with’. He was never toxic to her, in my opinion. He may have had his own perspective on dating, but he never got with people without their full consent. I think the way he always waited for Na Bi to give him the green light was very characteristic of his chivalry. We never see him fight or get mad or violent, only this one time when Na Bi is in danger of getting hurt. He doesn’t seem like a bad person, per se. He just keeps a distance from complicated feelings and prefers things to be simple and fun. That’s the vibe I got from him, anyway.
The only thing we find out about Jae Eon is that his mother is (or used to be) a famous dancer, and we only meet her one time when Jae Eon visits her in the hotel suite she’s staying at. Even though we don’t learn a lot about their mother-son dynamic, it’s still an interesting scene in which we get a more insightful look into Jae Eon’s personal life. Before, when Na Bi asks about his mother one time, he doesn’t really say anything and it just makes Na Bi feel like she’s overstepping as they’re not supposed to get to know each other like that in their situationship. To the end, we still don’t really know much about Jae Eon, or even about how he turned out the way he did. This mystery around him only intensifies with the appearance of Yoon Seol Ah. Honestly, I still don’t fully understand what their relationship was, because I never felt any romantic tension between them, even though Seol Ah claimed to be Jae Eon’s girlfriend. It seems like Jae Eon feels a kind of responsibility towards her, as he keeps meeting up with her as soon as she calls him and he also accompanies her frequently to hospital appointments for her anemia. But I don’t really understand why, and what it meant. He was still being his player self and hooking up with Na Bi while she was in town, so it’s not like he changed his ways for her. Even if she was his original girlfriend and they had an ‘open relationship’ or something, that wasn’t really clear to me. Again, ‘undefined’ relationships are kind of the main focus of this series, so I can’t blame them – I guess it just shows how much I suck with this kind of ambiguity, I just want to know people’s intentions all the time. Seol Ah immediately realizes that there’s something about Na Bi (except for her name) that keeps pulling Jae Eon to her, but she doesn’t get jealous in a petty way, per se. The only thing she does is show up at their college and tell Na Bi that she’s Jae Eon’s girlfriend (while pretending not to know who Na Bi is so she can’t call her out for anything). After Na Bi then responds with the most 🔥🔥response EVER (seriously, I threw my hands in the air when she went, ‘I wouldn’t cut my hair if I were you, you know Jae Eon likes to do it with your hair in a ponytail’🫣🫣), Seol Ah even admits to approving of Na Bi, and she leaves shortly after, even throwing away her matching butterfly lighter. So yeah, she wasn’t a love rival per se, and that definitely saved us all some extra drama, but I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of her either. There didn’t seem to be much lingering attachment between Jae Eon and Seol Ah when she left, they just said goodbye with a friendly hug and that was it. I personally would’ve liked to at least know what exactly their relationship was or used to be.

I’ve already mentioned it in my intro and after that, but the first couple of episodes, especially when Na Bi and Jae Eon first get involved, had me hooked as heck. Despite knowing that there were some problematic aspects and potential red flags, I found myself actually kind of addicted in watching their situationship unfold. It mostly had to do with the chemistry between the main leads, which was like pure turpentine poured on fire. Their scenes together were so addictive to watch. I have a weak spot for passionate expressions of love in K-Dramas, which are usually so conservative. Whenever they break through that conservativeness with adding some extra spice in the make-out scenes, I always cheer. What sets this series apart and makes it special is that rather than build up to finally holding hands after ten episodes, it establishes the sexual tension on Level 100 from the first episode on, then has it explode at the end of the second episode, and it never stops from there. Even after the two stop having sex at some point, they still find themselves making out several times even when Na Bi is trying to distance herself from Jae Eon. They just can’t keep their eyes or hands off each other even when they try. And let me tell you, I didn’t even mind. I know that everyone is like TOXIC! RED FLAG! PROBLEMATIC!, and while I initially agreed, I did find myself wondering if it really was actually that problematic, in hindsight. I mean, Na Bi could’ve seen Jae Eon as a red flag because she knew the effect he had on her, and she found herself addicted to him to the point where she couldn’t seem to run away from it even when she did everything in her power to try. But I don’t think that Jae Eon’s ways were that toxic, per se. He never lied to her about his intentions, he was genuinely interested in her from the start, which is revealed when he tells her she caught his attention from the first moment he saw her at that exhibition. He also never went against her consent; even when he tried kissing her a couple of times, he always held back when he saw she wasn’t ready. He always let her come to him first before responding. I noticed that in the beginning, Na Bi was always the one who kissed him first in order to let him know she was okay before he kissed her back. He kept coming onto her and hooking up with her because he believed she was okay with things the way they were, and Na Bi even admits to bringing that upon herself, she never even blames him because she blames herself more for letting it happen. The minute she starts pushing him away and lets him know she isn’t 100% okay with things, he starts taking that into consideration, he tells her she can define their relationship and he even ends up asking her to date him because that’s what she wants to hear.
To be clear, I did not stand by the things he said in the rain in the second-to-last episode. What he said there was definitely not okay and it lacked so much sincerity that even though I was rooting for him to win Na Bi back at that point, he just made me go, ‘bro, this is not it’. The fact that he admitted to giving Do Hyuk the wrong impression in order to make him jealous and that the reason he asked her to date him was purely because ‘that’s what you wanted to hear, right?’, that was really uncool. Especially since him asking her that made her even more confused, because why was he suddenly going against his nature of never wanting to date? It gave her even more complicated feelings and then he basically said he wasn’t even serious about it. He just wanted to make her feel that so she’d choose him over Do Hyuk. So yeah, that was the only moment I went 👎🏻 👎🏻on Jae Eon. I felt like he was just being mean and not even honest with himself, and that’s not what he owed Na Bi at that point – this only made it easier for her to resent him and push him away even more. He really wasn’t thinking straight at that moment.
Other than that, I didn’t really see a problem with his attitude towards dating, it was his own business and it didn’t seem like he was betraying people. He made sure to only get involved with people who were equally non-serious about hooking up, and so no one got hurt. The whole deal with Jae Eon was that, while everyone knew about his reputation, they all still liked him because it wasn’t like he was a jerk to people or treated people badly. He was a genuinely good friend, he never bothered anyone and he was charming to a fault. All he did was use his charms, and no one could blame him for that. So yeah, I actually don’t think their relationship was that problematic, as they both gave full consent and they both knew what they were getting into. As soon as their feelings changed, so did their relationship and in the end they still got together because they genuinely liked each other. It was summed up by Na Bi in the final episode; she knew Jae Eon probably wasn’t going to make her happy and that she might regret taking him back, but she still wanted to go for it because she couldn’t deny her feelings and consistent attraction to him. Jae Eon clearly made a change for the better, he was even crying in front of her openly now. I don’t see how two consenting adults engaging in a relationship despite knowing that it might not last forever is a red flag. The way in which they chose to give it a chance, following the feelings they were feeling in the present moment instead of worrying about the future, just made it all the more realistic to me.

Before moving on, I want to comment on the recurring theme of butterflies in this series, because it definitely feels like another destiny element that binds Na Bi and Jae Eon together. First of all, Na Bi herself, as her name literally means butterfly. As it happens, Jae Eon has an affinity with butterflies. He has a butterfly tattoo in his neck, he has a lighter with a butterfly on it, and he even has a whole-ass greenhouse section in his apartment where he keeps butterflies. He ends up making a butterfly decoration and a butterfly bracelet for Na Bi as well. After he gets involved with Na Bi, there’s this scene where he’s talking with Seol Ah about whether or not to free his butterflies, as he keeps changing his mind about that. I couldn’t help but feel that this reference to his butterflies and whether he should free them or not became kind of a metaphor towards his involvement with Na Bi as well. When they first meet, he draws a butterfly on her wrist, as a fake tattoo, and the way she doesn’t wash it off but how it gradually fades away also comes back in the development of their relationship. When Jae Eon ultimately does free his butterflies, he lets them fly away through the window, right at the moment where he’s starting to accept that he needs to give up on Na Bi. I feel like he also refers to Na Bi as ‘a new butterfly’ at some point. Anyways, it all just seemed so perfect. A guy with an affinity for butterflies meets a girl named ‘Butterfly’. I also liked when they talked about different interpretations of the butterfly concept on the night they first meet at the bar. Jae Eon asks Na Bi why she was named after a butterfly and she tells him that, despite there being this standard meaning of ‘hoping she’ll live a life sweet as honey’, her aunt chose her name because of a poem by her favorite author that goes: “Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but if you sit down quietly, it may alight upon you”. She later finds out from her aunt that this was just a made-up story, and the reason behind her name was actually inspired by the ‘life sweet as honey’ thing. The fact that the theme and concept of butterflies kept coming back, both in conversations and in artistic and creative forms, was a very nice consistency. A butterfly may be a very simple symbol, but I feel like they were able to give it many different meanings in this series, which was interesting.

Let’s talk a bit about Do Hyuk. Yang Do Hyuk is Na Bi’s childhood friend/crush who grew up in the same sea town as her. Due to a misunderstanding, he didn’t show up when Na Bi left to move to Seoul when they were kids, but then they suddenly meet on a bus and it’s like nothing has changed between them. Do Hyuk is clearly still – or again – smitten with Na Bi the second he sees her. Do Hyuk is basically the typical second male lead character who is the most caring and sweet considerate person the female lead could wish for – except we all know from the start that he’s not going to win her heart. Honestly, by the time he was introduced, I was already so invested in Na Bi and Jae Eon that I didn’t even want to give Do Hyuk a chance, lol. Compared to the🔥that existed between the main couple, Do Hyuk just fell flat and I even found him a bit boring, to be honest. He’s sweet, he cares about Na Bi a lot, and while in many dramas his character is the one people end up rooting for because he’s less forceful and more considerate of the female lead’s space, the sad truth for Do Hyuk was that Na Bi was already head over heels for Jae Eon by the time they reunited. Even when she came back to the sea town for a break while not being involved with Jae Eon at the time and Do Hyuk sees his chance to woo her, her mind and heart all still occupied fully with Jae Eon, even when she herself wished that wasn’t the case.
Although I found him a bit boring, I still liked Do Hyuk for his kindness and maturity. He basically tells Na Bi that he’ll only stop trying to win her heart when she gives him a clear answer about her feelings for Jae Eon. That’s all he wanted to know, and that was more than fair. As long as he thought he still had a chance, he kept going for it, but I also feel like he knew very well that it was a lost cause the second Jae Eon arrived at that townhouse, because the way Na Bi looked at him said more than anything. I felt a bit bad for him, even, because he just didn’t stand a chance from the start. As I mentioned before, I was a bit scared that Na Bi might take him up on the dating thing purely because she might’ve thought it would distract her from Jae Eon if she focused on being with someone who showed her undivided attention. But I’m glad she was real with him, because it wouldn’t have been right if she’d accepted his confession. It took her a lot of time, in the end, but then she still had to admit to him that she had feelings for Jae Eon, even though she’d tried so hard to deny it. I’m just glad that Do Hyuk didn’t become pathetic in his insecurity. Initially, when he saw her with Jae Eon or when she even mentioned something which he knew was about Jae Eon, his face went ‘☹️’ and that was just sad. I felt like he deserved a clear answer from the start, that would’ve spared him so much pain and idle hope. The answer was already there and everyone knew he didn’t stand a chance, so it was a bit unfair to him. All I can say is that I’m glad he didn’t witness Na Bi and Jae Eon making out in the townhouse after staying behind while the others joined the fireworks party at the beach, because that would’ve been incredibly painful for him and it would’ve only made things even messier.
Besides his failed ambition to become Na Bi’s significant other, he was a really loyal friend to her, and I can understand that Jae Eon was a big red flag to him, as well. He must’ve immediately sensed that this guy was ‘bad news’ and that he had to protect Na Bi from him. Except she didn’t actually need to be protected, she had to deal with it herself, and he gave her the space to do that. Na Bi never bothered him with her issues regarding Jae Eon, she made it clear that she needed to sort things out by herself. I really feel like Na Bi wanted to give Do Hyuk a chance, she saw all his good qualities and knew that he’d be good to her, but she just couldn’t admit she felt a spark with him the way she did with Jae Eon, she couldn’t find it in her heart to use him in any way, because she knew she’d only end up hurting him more in not being as sincere towards him as he was to her. I liked their friendship, but I also feel like it was mostly based on Do Hyuk’s romantic feelings for her, so it kept feeling a bit strained in some way.

Let’s move on to our lovely bunch of side characters, aka Na Bi and Jae Eon’s study mates and friend group members. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but there were actually some defined sunbae–hubae relations within the group, even between Na Bi and Jae Eon, because she was actually his sunbae, and therefore older than him. The characters I’m going to write about are mostly from Na Bi’s class, so they appear in the same workshop studio where she works on her final piece.
One of the first friends we meet is Oh Bit Na. She’s young, she’s outgoing, she’s free-spirited and she has an edgy style of fashion. She has basically taken on the command and leadership of the group, in that she often summons everyone and proposes events and workshops and afterparties. She’s the extroverted friend that keeps trying to get Na Bi to participate in social events. However, as she’s one of the people who’s most familiar with Jae Eon’s reputation, when she notices something going on between him and Na Bi, she stands by Na Bi in giving her advice and notifying her about things she knows about Jae Eon. She keeps an eye on them, so to say, to make sure Na Bi doesn’t get hurt, and that’s a strong sign of friendship between them. With others, she may not seem so serious, and she also has quite a casual attitude towards relationships – she sees ‘dating’ as consisting mostly of physical intimacy (kissing and sex), rather than something serious where you, for example, talk about your feelings or actually feel like you owe some sort of responsibility towards the other person. One drunk night, she ends up making out and hooking up with her sunbae Nam Gyu Hyun, who we’ve seen already expressing careful interest in her but never acting on it before. The next morning, Gyu Hyun immediately makes it clear that it wasn’t a drunken mistake for him and while Bit Na initially feels like he’s making way too big of a deal of it, she finds herself suddenly more attracted to him than before. They decide to go out, but then their different views on what a relationship should entail still clash and Bit Na ultimately has to prove to Gyu Hyun that she is serious about him and that she’s willing to engage in serious dating with him.
What I found so interesting about their relationship was that we see these two completely differently wired people who find themselves attracted to each other, despite their moral differences. Bit Na is not only younger in age, but also in mind, compared to Gyu Hyun. She doesn’t want to make a fuss of things, she wants to have fun while she can, and she initially dismisses Gyu Hyun’s opinions because she finds them tiring and too serious. On the other hand we have Gyu Hyun, who is this really laid-back and not very talkative ‘cool’ guy, who lets Bit Na throw her tantrums and purposely distances himself from her until she comes crawling back to him. I thought their dynamic was really cute, especially because Bit Na was initially that ‘OMG I must be going crazy, why am I suddenly having feelings for this guy??’ but she gradually came around to accepting what she felt and despite her slightly immature, pouting tendencies when she wouldn’t get her way, she still managed to convince him that she was able to be serious with him, and after that they didn’t let each other go. I thought they were sweet and they also weren’t a very stereotypical couple, so that made their dynamic interesting to watch.

Sol is one of Na Bi’s closest friends who’s also working on her own sculpture piece for the final exhibition at the same time as Na Bi. I guess you could say that she’s a bit ‘boyish’ in the way she presents herself, she doesn’t dress very ‘girly’ and she’s more stoic in her expressions and actions as well. I initially found it very funny to see how she was so close with Ji Wan, because Ji Wan is the exact opposite of Sol. She’s the cute girl who always dresses up in frilly dresses and skirts with her hair in braids, and she’s continuously going on blind dates. At one point, Sol meets this guy in a café who immediately shows interest in her, and when Ji Wan finds out about this, she suddenly finds herself pissed at Sol, and she starts acting really petty and immature towards her friend when this guy accompanies her to the campus festival.
Unlike the case of the main leads, the build-up in the relationship between Sol and Ji Wan takes roughly the entire series, even though it’s clear from the start that at least Sol is already romantically interested in Ji Wan. Ji Wan’s feelings seem to come into realization as soon as she sees Sol with that guy, and then it takes her another while to fully accept how she truly feels about her best friend. Subconsciously, she must’ve already known, because we see her get very touchy with Sol as soon as she gets drunk. When they’re playing spin-the-bottle at some point while drinking at Na Bi’s house, when the bottle points at Ji Wan, she immediately goes 😚😚at Sol, and when they’re at the workshop in the sea town, she also basically drunk-confesses her feelings to her. She tells her that Sol means the most to her, out of everyone else in her life, even her parents, and that she doesn’t want to be apart from her. Sol is initially a bit pissed at her for this, because she feels like Ji Wan is giving her false hope and playing with her feelings. She ultimately confesses that she has feelings for Ji Wan quite frankly, and Ji Wan isn’t immediately able to answer her – but that’s not because she’s shocked by her friend’s sudden love confession, but because she’s already thinking ahead of what will become of their friendship after they’d break up. She’s eventually able to share this concern with Sol, and when she hears this, she just laughs and tells her not to worry about anything because her feelings will never change.
This is probably the most typical kind of feedback I can give, but I was really happy to see such a normalized lesbian relationship in a K-Drama. The only thing I want to note is that I still think there was a certain stereotypical element in making them a ‘boyish girl & girly girl’ couple, and the fact that they didn’t include a kissing scene for them. I would’ve been even more impressed if they’d actually put in some physical intimacy for them besides just hugs and hand holding, because that would’ve made it feel even more normalized, at least as much as the other depicted relationships were. They let Bit Na and Gyu Hyun kiss, why not every other couple? So yeah, that was the only thing I found a bit of a pity, but otherwise I found Sol and Ji Wan a really cute couple. I loved how neither of them thought it was weird and they’d already both accepted that this might be the case, and how no one in the friend group either made a weird comment about it. Na Bi already knew from the start, apparently, she always knew Sol was talking about Ji Wan when she asked her for advice, and it was just really nice to see how openly affectionate they walked around after they’d confirmed their feelings for each other.

Then there were a couple of other friends who always joined in on the fun of social events even though they didn’t actually get their own elaborate storylines. There was Jang Se Young and Seong Yoon, who were a lovey-dovey couple, and Yoo Se Hoon, who was kind of a third wheel between all the couples, but who initially had a bit of a crush on Sol, and then there was Hwang Jin Soo, who had a crush on Na Bi and became one of the assistants to help her with her art project together with Jae Eon.
These were basically the people who were all on the main leads’ side, they were all good people, but they didn’t actually know about what really was going on, and they were more kind of spreaders of gossip (about Jae Eon, for example). They were a bit more distanced from the actual action, they weren’t as aware of Na Bi’s situation with Jae Eon as Bit Na and Sol were, for example. But they were still a fun bunch, and always loyal to the right people.

And then I’d like to mention one of my favorite (unexpected) potential couples, Ahn Gyung Joon and Jo Min Young. I still don’t exactly know for sure what their function within the campus exactly was, but I got the impression that they worked part-time at the administration office that monitored the workshop of the visual arts students. So when people wanted to work on their projects a little longer, they had to register their names on a form there, and when they needed some more materials, they could apply for them there. They also helped mediate between students and scholarships and internships, if I understood correctly. In any case, there’s this administration office where the characters often pass through and sometimes have lunch at, and the two people working there are their sunbae, Gyung Joon and Min Young. At first there isn’t really anything going on between them, they just work together there and get along fine. But then Min Young suddenly faces this situation where she has to find a new place to live and Gyung Joon offers to let her stay at his place until she finds something else. As they start living together, they clearly become closer and there’s even a couple of tense moments between them. They don’t actually officially end up together as in ‘dating’ at the end of the show, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s going to happen as Gyung Joon was basically acting like a caring husband towards Min Young and she asked him if she can stay at his place. They even already got a kitten to take care of together, so that’s a start. In any case, I thought their little budding love story in-between the messiness of Na Bi and Jae Eon’s situationship was very sweet and a welcome palette cleanser. Not that any of the main story events ever became too heavy for me, but I generally just liked it whenever the story switched over to one of the other side stories, and this was one in particular that I enjoyed. I liked how, even though Min Young seemed to be a bit of a tsundere, she didn’t become annoying or actively tried to push Gyung Joon away when it seemed like he was getting too close. She really just accepted how comfortable she became while staying at his place. I liked the scene where she had to fart on his couch and first made sure he was out of hearing reach, and where she accidentally put on his glasses instead of her own, lol. It was nice seeing her let loose, watching TV in her jersey and just getting comfortable while he was in the same room with her. They just made a natural couple together, even when they weren’t official yet. I liked them.

I want to make two final mentions of characters that I liked, starting with Na Bi’s aunt (played by Yoon Sa Bong). She was such a lovely lady. I could immediately understand why Na Bi would’ve wanted her to be her mom instead of her actual mom, because she basically was her mom already. She cared about Na Bi as if she were her own daughter. I liked that we got to know her a bit better when the whole gang came over to the sea town for that workshop/field trip thing. She just wanted what was best for Na Bi and I feel like she also had a good instinct for people. I don’t think she would’ve let Jae Eon in on learning how to make pottery if she felt in any way that he had malicious intent. I think she must have sensed that he cared about Na Bi a lot, and that’s why she let him in. Even after seeing Na Bi react like that and realizing something must be going on between them, she never poked her nose into Na Bi’s business or tried to get her to talk about her love life or anything. She showed so much love for Na Bi and she made her feel like an adult who was able to take care of her own stuff. I really wanted to hug her, haha.

Lastly, there’s the professor/mentor of the visual arts students from Na Bi’s year (played by Seo Jae Hee). I liked her character as well, mostly because you could see how concerned she was about her students, and mostly about Na Bi. She may have been strict and told Na Bi off for not progressing sufficiently multiple times, expressing her concern regarding Na Bi’s future if she didn’t get her act together, but in the end she was rooting for her as much as everyone. When that terrible thing happened in the final episode where Na Bi’s work is smashed to pieces, she immediately worried about how Na Bi might not be able to repair it in time for the exhibition. I kind of feared that she would get angry at Na Bi for some reason, and make her take responsibility for neglecting her own work or something, but it was a relief to see her come into the administration office all worried about Na Bi. When she expressed how proud she was of how Na Bi ultimately managed to repair her piece in time (with the help of her assistants) and how she could finally feel the emotions emitting from her piece and how she recommended her to go to Paris, that felt like the biggest accomplishment. I really liked that, despite her occasional strictness, the professor was still such a good person and a supportive character towards Na Bi and the others.

To continue on this point, I want to say something about the visual arts theme used in this series. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I always find it really interesting when a drama series covers a specific line or field of work that I’m not familiar with, or that generally isn’t covered much in movies or series. I found it delightful to get an insight into this visual arts college setting and how different it is from a general college. Students walking around in overalls, sneaking out for a smoke –seriously, I’ve never seen the depiction of young people smoking so frequently appear in a K-Drama before–,checking in on each other’s projects, etc. I liked that the work bench Jae Eon usually worked at was outside, as he worked with metal and welding a lot. It was such a breath of fresh air from how colleges are usually portrayed in series. As far as I remember, I’ve never seen artistic schools depicted like this before, so it was very interesting to see.
What I also liked, apart from the external appearance of the setting, was that Na Bi’s rocky journey through her semester is as much a part of her character development as her relationship with Jae Eon is. Seeing her go through all these highs and lows, scoldings and praises when it comes to her art works, it only made me empathize with her more. I was positively LIVID when that happened to her art piece in the final episode, not just because it sucked in general, but because we saw how much Na Bi struggled while working on it through the entire story. She’s been working on it the entire time, giving up on it time and time again before deciding to go for it again, and just when she was getting her confidence back about finishing it in time for the exhibition with the help of Jae Eon and Jin Soo, this happens. It was just too cruel, I was actually angry at the unfairness of it. Especially since it first seemed like someone had done it. It was never specified, but how else was only her piece smashed to bits? If it had just toppled over, it would’ve maybe broken into a couple of large pieces, but it was actually smashed to the last piece, so it felt like some sort of cowardly action. I felt myself crumbling down together with Na Bi when they showed it, it was really awful that this would happen to her, of all people, after everything she was already going through. Anyways, in the end the final piece she put back together with Jae Eon and Jin Soo’s help was even better than the original, so despite the initial setback, it may have been for the better, and it became a literal metaphor of her and Jae Eon fixing their relationship as well.
All in all, I just want to say that I really liked the backdrop of art students majoring in sculpturing, it’s a field of visual arts that doesn’t get depicted much – they usually just show someone being good at painting or something. Also to see the students work with their hands so much, not afraid of getting dirty, and also using welding tools and stuff like that, it was really cool. I liked how they showed how Jae Eon made those butterfly accessories for Na Bi during his classes as well. It was just a nice change of scenery from regular series, and I liked that a lot. Also, Na Bi’s final art piece (using metal wings made by Jae Eon) turned out to be incredible and I’m sharing a picture because it deserves recognition.

One last thing I want to discuss before moving on to my cast comments is the cinematography of this series, as they occasionally made some interesting choices in that. Overall I think the cinematography looked really good and clean. There were a lot of beautiful shots and deliberate choices in positioning as well. I remember one episode starting off with a scene of Na Bi and Jae Eon sitting at the bar where they first met, and the entire time they’re sitting with their backs to the camera. We only see parts of their faces when they choose to glance sideways at each other, but other than that we just see their backs body language from the back. I thought it was quite a powerful shot, and they used more unique cinematic angles that made the whole thing stand out a little more than a regular show. There are also a lot of extreme close-up shots of Na Bi and Jae Eon’s eyes and lips as they trace each other’s features, in order to emphasize the building tension between them, and that worked very well.
One thing that stood out to me in particular was that specific people’s faces were kept out of the shot. For example, Na Bi’s toxic ex-boyfriend. We don’t initially see his face, we only ever see Na Bi. He is revealed in full eventually, but I just found it interesting that they deliberately kept his face out of the frame in some cases. I remember the same went for this ex-hook-up of Jae Eon’s – the one who’s brother came out to punch him and ended up pushing Na Bi to the ground. Jae Eon is seen meeting up with her one last time and she apologizes for her brother’s behavior, but her face is deliberately kept out of the frame as well. I wondered what the concrete idea behind this was – in the case of these two people, they were both an ‘ex’ in a way, so would it have to do with the fact that they were literally ‘out of the picture’ by then? I’m not sure, but I noticed it and I assume it was deliberate so I wonder what the thought behind that must’ve been.

Let’s move on the cast comments!

While I know Han So Hee by face, the only other thing I’ve seen her appear in so far has been Abyss, so it was nice to see her in a lead role for the first time. Scratch that, she was actually also in Reunited Worlds and 100 Day Husband, but this was still the first lead role I’ve seen her in. Since Na Bi was so timid by nature, I was kind of scared that she’d become this typical apathic female lead who couldn’t make up her mind or stand up for herself in an unhealthy relationship, but I was pleasantly surprised by how real her performance was. As I mentioned before, I understood every single feeling that Na Bi had, I understood where she was coming from and why she chose to do what she did. I could relate to her feeling like she needed to get away from this situationship for her own good, but it was also relatable how she just couldn’t stop her instinctive attraction towards Jae Eon. I am glad that she eventually chose to be with him after properly thinking it through; it proved that she was brave enough to take a chance on a relationship that she knew didn’t 100% guarantee a happy future. She chose to focus on her present feelings rather than worry about whether it’d hold in the long run, and that was pretty strong of her. She really took her own issues into her own hands, she dealt with her own shit without involving anyone who didn’t have to be involved. She never became pathetic, is what I mean to say. Even though she was timid, she never became weak, even in the moments where everything just came crashing down. I admired her character, even in how she tried so desperately to get away from Jae Eon. She really tried everything she could, and it was only after attempting so many times that she realized she couldn’t let it go. Combining this with her journey through her semester in which she also struggled to keep performing in her art pieces, occasionally losing the joy of it altogether, she definitely had a lot on her plate but she still proved that she could handle it all on her own. I think Han So Hee did a really good job portraying that inner strength that Na Bi had, especially through her facial expressions. She did really well in expressing all the mixed and confused feelings that Na Bi had towards Jae Eon, and she was also very convincing in how she tried to resist him but then still found herself letting go of that restraint. So far her role here has made the biggest impression on me of everything I’ve seen her in so far. I hope I can see more of her as I’d like to see more variety in her acting as well.

I’ve only seen Song Kang before in Love Alarm (and The Liar and His Lover, which I won’t talk about), and his performance here kind of reminded me of that. Honestly, Love Alarm gave me a similar watching experience as Nevertheless,, in a good way. When Jae Eon first appeared, my initial reaction was ‘does this guy just always get cast for red flag male lead roles or what?’, lol. But I have to admit, he was very convincing. Honestly, I would’ve probably fallen for him too, haha. There’s just something about the way he holds a gaze, and the way his lips curl when he smiles that just made me go 🫢🫣😳 throughout the show, lol. I was kind of impressed by how he could hold himself so well without becoming cheesy, he really excelled at exuding that tension that just made you hold your breath. The intimate scenes between the main leads were so satisfying to watch. If it weren’t for their ‘situationship’ it would’ve been like any other cute main couple romantic scene, but at those moments I didn’t even think about their relationship being unconventional or something. In those scenes it really seemed as if they were both equally fond of each other and chose to spend time together because they both craved it. The chemistry between Han So Hee and Song Kang was, I repeat, amazing. It’s been a while since I’ve been this excited about a main couple’s chemistry in a K-Drama. It was less problematic and toxic than I’d anticipated from the reviews I saw before watching it, and as I explained I’m actually not 100% on board with calling Jae Eon a red flag. Still, I’d like to see more of him in which he’s cast as a different type of character for a change. We know now that he pulls off the seductive and confident straightforward type very well, now I want to see other sides of him too. Forecasting Love and Weather is still on my list, and I’m also still debating whether to watch Navillera or not. We’ll see what I’ll watch of him next!

I didn’t know Chae Jong Hyup before this, I haven’t seen anything he’s appeared in so far. I see he’s in See You In My 19^th Life, which is definitely on my list. I found him a very interesting casting choice for the second male lead character. Dong Hyuk just seemed so ‘ordinary’ next to Jae Eon, and I found myself wondering from the start if they were even really trying to make it seem like he stood a chance. If they’d pulled a Love Alarm and suddenly made Na Bi decide to go for him instead of Jae Eon, that would’ve been the plot twist of the century, and I don’t think I would’ve liked the ending as much as I do now. As I said, while I can’t deny Do Hyuk’s sweet, kind, caring and considerate nature, that’s pretty much all there was to him, and he lacked that edge and passion that Jae Eon brought to the table. Still, he did his best, and the actor performed well enough. I would’ve maybe liked to see him show some more adventurous sides in his attempts to woo Na Bi, but on the other hand it just would’ve dragged on the ‘love rivalry’ longer than necessary, so I’m actually not complaining about how things went down. I just found him an interesting casting choice for the second male lead and I wish his character would’ve been a bit less ‘flat’, I guess. But it has nothing to do with his acting, he did really well and I would’ve wanted to be friends with him if he’d been real. Not just for his cooking, I swear. 😇

I kept wondering what I recognized Lee Yeol Eum from, but now I see she’s the annoying girl from High Schooler King of Life! I’m not entirely sure why Seol Ah is credited as part of the main cast together with the three main leads, because she definitely wasn’t as big of a character as the others. She felt more like a side character to me, to be honest, because we also don’t really get to know who she is exactly and what she is to Jae Eon. She only tells Na Bi at some point that she’s Jae Eon’s girlfriend, but it doesn’t seem like they’re together anymore romantically when she comes back from the US. They hang out, but they’re never even shown holding hands or being intimate together, so I wasn’t sure what to make of their relationship. I could only appreciate it when she eventually decided to go back and threw away the lighter, that felt like the official sign that she was letting it all go. It was a relief that she didn’t become the typical ‘jealous ex-girlfriend’ towards Na Bi, I really appreciated how they refrained from adding extra drama and involving more people in stuff than necessary. I don’t really know what else to say about her character, I just wish they revealed a bit more about who she was. Other than that, her acting was fine, she was definitely way less annoying than in High Schooler, lol.

Yang Hye Ji looked familiar to me, but I haven’t seen her in anything before. I thought Bit Na was a very refreshing character who kind of ‘led’ the side character group. I loved how edgy she was, both in fashion style and in personality, and it was even nicer to see her develop this more serious side as her relationship with Gyu Hyun developed. As I said, I really enjoyed their dynamic and I also loved how despite her seemingly casual personality, she really cared a lot about Na Bi and her other friends and she was very loyal in that aspect. I also liked how she eventually started rooting for Na Bi and Jae Eon and just kind of went😏when she spotted them stealing glances at each other. She became their #1 supporter, lol. I generally liked how there were more sides to her, and how she balanced being a loyal friend with being an outgoing person without a care in the world. Her relationship with Gyu Hyun definitely forced her out of her habits a bit, but it only made her become more mature and she grew a lot as a person. It made sense for her to end up with someone a bit older and more mature and serious like Gyu Hyun. I liked her performance a lot, she managed to maintain a level of immaturity that never became annoying to me.

Personally, Gyu Hyun is pretty close to my type – I have a weakness for tall, broad-shouldered guys who appear to be kind of cold but who are actually very warm-hearted. Also, his deep voice with the dialect😳… I loved that he was immediately willing to take responsibility for Bit Na, knowing that he was a bit older and that she still had a more immature mindset when it came to dating. I think he did the right thing in trying to let her come to him, and his strategy of distancing himself after she’d made him feel silly about being serious definitely bore fruit. Their relationship dynamic was very original, I felt like they were the couple that no one expected would end up together, even though they eventually admit having been interested in each other from the start. I haven’t seen Kim Min Gwi in anything before either. He has a really unique look, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a model or something. Anyways, I liked Gyu Hyun’s character a lot, not just because of my personal preference, but also because he and Bit Na were such an unexpectedly good fit for each other, and I liked that the side characters’ relationships also got established to the extent of me getting invested in them.

Is it me or does Lee Ho Jung have something of Kim Go Eun going on? Especially when she smiles, she really reminds me of her, maybe that’s why she looked a bit familiar to me. Anyways, apart from an appearance in Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (which I don’t remember) and the movie Midnight Runners (which I don’t remember) I haven’t seen anything with her before. I really liked Sol. I think she was a really good casting fit for the role, and I also liked that she worked with a different kind of sculpturing, using blocks of concrete (I believe?) to make a more abstract work than for example Na Bi. It was nice having different characters with different vibes around in the workshop, and I particularly liked how at ease Sol was with herself. She’d already accepted that she was in love with Ji Wan, and so even when that guy started making advances, it took her a while to even acknowledge what he was trying to do, because she literally didn’t look at anyone else. I thought it was really strong of her to just come out with her feelings to Ji Wan when she did, she didn’t keep it a secret per se, and she also wasn’t scared of how Ji Wan would react. The way she started smiling when she realized Ji Wan had already accepted her feelings but was just worrying about being able to maintain their friendship, was really sweet. I also liked her style, she seemed like a really chill person to be around and she also knew when to be there for her friends and when to keep a distance. The number of times she meaningfully tapped Ji Wan on the shoulder to shut up when she’d run her mouth about Jae Eon when Na Bi was present… Like, I don’t even know if she really understood what was going on between them, but she had enough sense that she knew the topic was sensitive to Na Bi and she supported her friend. I really liked her performance, I hope I can see her in more things in the future!

While Lee Ho Jung reminded me of Kim Go Eun, Yoon Seo Ah occasionally reminded me a bit of Suzy. I’ve only seen her in True Beauty, where she was the younger version of the FL’s older sister, but I don’t really remember her from there. She made a much bigger impact on me in this series, I think it was a really nice showcase for her. Ji Wan isn’t in the same class as Na Bi and the others, but I do think she is enrolled in the same arts programme – I remember her asking Sol to sit for a reference portrait somewhere in the beginning of the series. Through her reaction after seeing Sol with a guy and consistently being disappointed after finding out her friend is not telling her things, like whether or not she’s planning to study abroad, it was clear from the start that she wasn’t just concerned about her as her best friend, there was something more there. In the beginning, I had the feeling that Sol’s feelings towards her were still unrequited, and that she would’ve had to come out to Ji Wan, but then Ji Wan also started acting like that and I was like, ‘well, at least this will make it less dramatic as they’re both already on the same page’. When she initially walked away after Sol’s confession, I was a bit surprised, but I didn’t think it was because she was appalled by the fact that her best friend was in love with her – I had the idea that she was also very aware of her own feelings, but that she still needed to accept them fully before giving her an answer. Turns out, it wasn’t even that, she just became scared of ruining their friendship by overthinking it! I get it! No, but seriously, I was really happy to see a couple consisting of two girls be featured in such an important side story. The only thing I would’ve wanted to see in addition was a kiss between them, because then it would’ve truly felt like they were depicting it as they depicted any of the relationships in the story. But this was a big step in itself, so we’re on the right track. Ji Wan’s pettiness in the beginning, when that guy came with Sol to their campus festival, was the only thing that briefly made me go😖but still it wasn’t enough to really touch my buttons. I still liked her character a lot. It was fun seeing all these new and refreshing characters who all got along so well.

I didn’t even realize I recognized Jung Jae Kwang, but he was one of the patients in It’s Okay to Not Be Okay. I remember him being the alcohol addict who tried to elope with a girl, lol. Anyways, I really liked Gyung Joon’s character, he was such a sincere guy and I loved how he just turned into this caring husband figure to Min Young. In that final episode scene where she ran out to make it to a job interview and he came running after her in his apron, being all like, ‘Min Young, you forgot your sweets! You always start craving sweets when you get nervous!’, that was so precious. They were such an underrated couple, and nothing concluding even happened between them, but I loved their scenes together so much. He was a really nice addition to the supporting cast, I liked him a lot.

Han Eu Ddeum occasionally reminded me a bit of MAMAMOO’s Solar. She’s so pretty! I can’t say I’m surprised that she’s a model. Then again, it was really nice to see this other side of her, the sitting-on-the-couch-eating-snacks-and-farting-while-watching-TV side. I found out I saw her before as the FL’s younger sister in Valid Love, which is from 2014, and she hasn’t done any other drama series in-between that and this.😮 She is in Celebrity, though, and I’m going to watch that one day, so at least I’ll have that to look forward to. I loved how Min Young kept being flustered by Gyung Joon, but she never turned tsundere or pushed him away, she just accepted the natural flow of their developing relationship and she always accepted his gestures of kindness. I would’ve liked to see their relationship come to a fulfilling confirmation, but on the other hand, we can basically assume that they ended up together. I was surprised because I initially didn’t expect these two to get their own love story, but I liked how Min Young suddenly got into that crisis and how this opened up all sorts of possibilities for her that eventually made her realize she wanted to stay at Gyung Joon’s house. They were very sweet together.

I really liked Seo Jae Hee as the professor. I recently saw her in Twenty-Five Twenty-One, where she had a considerably large supporting role, and while I can’t deny the strict type suits her very well, it was nice to see a warmer and more concerned role of her as the students’ professor. I loved how she genuinely worried about Na Bi’s progress, and I think she might’ve even noticed about some side things that her students were dealing with, because she kept telling Na Bi not to let herself get distracted too much, and in the end she told her to just live, laugh and like whoever the hell she wanted, so that was nice. I don’t think her role even had a name, she’s just credited everywhere as ‘Professor’, but she still deserves a shoutout because she was an underdog important character in Na Bi’s journey through her semester.

I also want to give one final shoutout to Yoon Sa Bong for her lovely portrayal of Na Bi’s aunt. I’ve only seen her before as slightly vexing characters, such as in Arthdal Chronicles. I see she’s also credited in a bunch of other series I’ve seen, like Shopping King Louie, Tomorrow With You, Fight For My Way and The Sound of Magic, but most of those I don’t really remember. She made the biggest lingering impression on me in Arthdal, so that’s what I’m basing most of my references on. It was so nice to see her as such a genuinely sweet aunt to Na Bi, it really made me want to hug her. It was nice to see her portray a character type I hadn’t seen of her before, so that was a nice change.

To finish off with some nice guest appearances of favorite actors: Seo Jung Yeon as Jae Eon’s mother, Ahn Se Ha as Do Hyuk’s noodle restaurant chef and Kim Min Gyu as a random guy in the Internet café who made Bit Na realize that Gyu Hyun’s perspective on dating wasn’t actually that crazy. It’s always nice to see familiar faces pop up like that, they always make me go ‘Heeeey I know you 😃😃’. It was nice to see them.

And with that I think I can conclude my review on Nevertheless,. Speaking of the title, by the way, I liked how they consistently incorporated it in every episode title. Every episode title had the same rhythm to it, with the ‘nevertheless…’ part at the end of the sentence, and only the final episode had the ‘nevertheless…’ part at the beginning of the sentence. Episode titles sometimes tend to be quite poetic and ambiguous, but since ‘algoitjiman…’ is such a colloquial phrase in Korean, it made every episode title sound very simple yet straight to the point.
I ended up enjoying this series more than I expected, to be honest. I was prepared to have my heart broken and to be annoyed out of my mind by indecisive youths who couldn’t make up their minds about relationships, but it actually turned out much more edgy and realistic than I’d anticipated. There was next to no unnecessary drama, everyone just dealt with their own stuff while maintaining solid, loyal friendships, and I even ended up debating about the definition of a ‘red flag relationship’. I liked how diverse and relatable all the characters were and how the story shows different kinds of romantic relationships with different types of couple dynamics. Every side story was interesting, everyone contributed something to the story and the series itself, in terms of cinematography, looked really good. I really enjoyed watching it. It was also refreshing to hear youngsters talk about smoking and sex like it’s the most normal thing in the world, and not making it a taboo topic like many series do.

The main story features a very unconventional relationship, and I thought I’d be much more defensive about it, but I actually found myself getting addicted to the main actors’ chemistry. I honestly think I could watch this again when I’m in the mood for something spicy, lol. I can’t help but feel like I have a similar opinion as when I watched Love Alarm – I’ve seen so many negative reviews about how bad the ending is and how it’s even a ‘waste of time’, and I’m like, what are you complaining about now? What’s not to your liking? I was honestly glad that Na Bi and Jae Eon ended up together, as there was literally no other option and their feelings for each other were undeniable, so what’s problematic about them ending up together? I’ll be on the defending team for this drama, that’s all I’m saying.

Now I’m going on to another, long-awaited series that I’m really curious about. It’s from 2019 and it’s going to be a back-to-back episode series, which I haven’t had in a while. I’ll probably be able to finish it within this month, so stay tuned for the next review!

Until then, bye-bee! ^^