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.

Good Morning Call -Our Campus Days-
(グッドモーニング・コール Our Campus Days)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

It has been a while (a year?) since I watched the first season Good Morning Call and I actually only found out about a week ago that it had a second season, so I caught up with it really quickly.

The second season reconfirmed my previously established opinion: that Good Morning Call is basically Itazura na Kiss 2.0. Don’t get me wrong, ItaKiss is one of my favorite Japanese drama series, I loved the newest drama version (the Love in Tokyo one), and I can never get enough of the story. But to watch something that is so similar to it in so many ways… you can’t help but compare. BUT I will talk about GMC here and try not to be too biased.
By the way, I found out that neither Good Morning Call nor the second season had a page on wiki.d-addicts!! So I created the pages myself: http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Good_Morning_Call & http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Good_Morning_Call_-Our_Campus_Days-.

To give a short summary of how season 1 started out: ditzy happy-go-lucky high school Yoshikawa Nao (Fukuhara Haruka) has to stay in Tokyo to finish her high school while her parents have to return to the countryside. She finds an almost too-good-to-be-true apartment for really cheap rent and just can’t believe her luck until suddenly the door opens and Uehara Hisashi (Shiraishi Shunya) enters, claiming that he lives there. In the end it turns out that the landlady fooled them into sharing the apartment, that was why it was so cheap. Uehara is the most popular guy in school and since it would be a problem if anyone would find out about them living together, they keep it a secret.
However, as they continue living together a lot of things happen and they ultimately fall for each other, despite many troubles and hardships (mostly caused by their own jealousy and lack of self-esteem). At the end of the season, they both move out of the apartment, but end up becoming next-door neighbors in their new homes.
Season 2 opens with Yoshikawa and Uehara starting at university and meeting some new people; friends, but also love rivals. Misunderstandings lead to more jealousy and lack of self-esteem and the two go through a lot, even though they are better able to express their feelings. In the end it all works out and they solve their problems and continue to be a lovey-dovey couple. Simple as that.

Sometimes I enjoy watching something like this, a not too heavy storyline, just light romance and comedy. It creates a balance between all the different genres of series I watch. It doesn’t really have a storyline at all, it just depicts the daily lives of this couple and how they get closer to one another.

Even though Nao’s character is very similar to Kotoko’s character from ItaKiss, for some reason (maybe it’s the actress) I didn’t find Kotoko annoying at all while I cringed a lot about Nao. In the beginning I just didn’t really like her ultra-cutesy voice and the way she over-acted everything. But Kotoko does that too and I can’t really find out why I don’t find it annoying in Kotoko’s case. I guess it has to do with that, in my opinion, Nao is even more over the top in her behavior towards Uehara than Kotoko is towards Irie. She gets lost in her imagination and ideals so much that she doesn’t think about whether Uehara would actually like what she’s doing or not. She is so clumzy that she actually bumps over 5 things in one go and messes up the whole place. And even so, she has this natural charm that attracts guys, even though she doesn’t notice anyone other than Uehara.
When it comes to Uehara, she has no self-confidence and she panics as soon as she sees him with another girl. However, I feel like she definitely has self-confidence because she’s brave enough to be herself and not care about what anyone thinks about her when she’s with her friends or on her own. She dresses up cutely and admires herself in the mirror, she tries to be more feminine in her way of walking, even though that might mean making a fool of herself while people walking by are watching. That takes courage. But literally everything she does is for Uehara. I can’t really explain, but I think it must be the actress after all. Because Kotoko is almost exactly the same character but I can’t think of her as annoying no matter how I try.
I was happy to see Uehara with more expression in season 2. He tends to be quite poker-faced, but it was nice to see him actually talk about Nao with a fond look in his eyes and being more kind to her, hugging her and showing his affection more often.

This season introduced 2 new rivals, Natsume Shu (Sugino Yosuke) and Kumanomido Saeko (Takahashi Maryjun). Natsume is a walking flirt who becomes friends with Uehara and though initially isn’t interested in Nao at all because she’s not his type, he starts falling for her anyway. Saeko-san is lab assistant in the university’s research lab and she recruits Uehara to work part-time for her, also eventually falling for him. However, both are wildly aware that Nao and Uehara are impossible to break up. But they try, anyway. They always try.
More tropes: the moment when one of them finally decides that he/she needs to talk with the other again and then at that exact moment sees the other with his/her respective rival (being kissed or else) and loses all confidence again. And the moment when one of them is kissed by their respective rival, keeps it a secret until it comes out and makes everything awkward again while they just could’ve been honest about it. As maybe became apparent in my review of Andante, I really dislike the ‘not-telling-each-other-stuff’ trope. If you’re a real couple and you don’t want anything to get in the way of that, be honest with each other! Because if you keep it a secret it seems even more suspicious than if you just flat out say it and make clear that it didn’t mean anything to you.
In the end they temporarily broke up because they worried too much about ‘what ifs’, which seemed kind of pointless to me. ‘What if we hadn’t lived together, would we have fallen for each other?’ Why can’t they just accept that it happened that way, it was their unique way of meeting and falling in love, and in the end they fell in love with each other’s personalities, not because they were living together. It may have increased the number of times they met in person, yes, but to me it didn’t really seem like such a big deal to worry about. Just accept that you love each other!
Maybe this is really easy for me to say as an outsider, but it just seemed like a lot of needless worries while they could’ve just been clear to one another and appreciate the relationship that they had, no matter how it came to be or how it would or would not have otherwise.

What makes the series for me the most are the usual bunch of friends surrounding the lovey-dovey couple, always around to help out. Nao’s best friend Marina (Arai Moe) and her boyfriend Micchan (Nagashima Shugo), their former senpai Daichi (Sakurada Dori) who has now got an admirer of his own at the handball club, the hopeless romantic Abe Jun (Nagasawa Koya) and Nao’s new friend Ota-chan (Yoshida Madoka).
And this time around I really liked the ending theme ‘on and Go!’ by YUU for YOU. It was just so happy and catchy that I would listen through the whole thing at the end of each episode. It also helped making the story lighter and more enjoyable for me.

This season had 10 episodes (the former 17) so it was nice and short to watch. I’m almost expecting a third season which will be about their engagement or something, just like ItaKiss went all the way until their first child was born. Anyways, it’s a refreshing change after a heavy series like Just Between Lovers. I guess Japan just really loves its drama tropes and cute cheesy love stories. And I guess I will keep watching them as well.

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.

Just Between Lovers
(그냥 사랑하는 사이 / Geunyang Saranghaneun Sai)
MyDramaList rating: 9.0/10

I started watching this series because I saw a lot of gifsets from it pass my feed on Tumblr and it looked cute so I wanted to see for myself what it was about. I hadn’t seen or heard anything about it from any other drama source sites, but it turned out to be a new series and I was just curious.
In the end, it turned out to be one of the best series I’ve seen so far. Especially when I just got into it, I was so excited about it I really had to restrain myself from just watching it all the way up to where it was (because it wasn’t completed yet at that point). It only finished this week.

I also didn’t know anything about the actors, I only saw gifs about the two main actors and I didn’t know them. They turned out to be more movie actors, so it was nice to see a drama without the typical hyped mainstream popular idols. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to find out Lee Ki Woo was in it. Lee Ki Woo was actually the first case of second male lead syndrome I ever had, and also my first K-actor crush (both because of his role in Flower Boy Ramyun Shop). It had been a while since I’d seen him in a drama, and even though his role in Just Between Lovers was quite angsty (and again second male lead), I was excited when I found out during the first episode.
I found out later that apparently the male lead is from Kpop group 2PM, so what I said in the Andante article about my opinion on idols who act in dramas: this was a case in which I didn’t have anything to complain. His performance was great. This is definitely someone who can act.
I could only base my expectations on the things I’d seen on Tumblr, so I thought it would be a simple introverted girl falls for bad boy kind of story. I couldn’t have been more wrong. From episode 1 on, it was BAM: firm storyline, BAM: emotional depth, BAM: great acting, BAM: beautiful cinematic shots.

The story takes place in a city where 10 years before, a catastrophe struck: a department store collapsed due to a construction error and 48 people died. The two main characters, Ha Moon Soo (Won Jin Ah) and Lee Gang Doo (Lee Joon Ho) are both survivors from this accident – they were stuck in the debris for a while, until they were eventually saved. However, they both lost a family member; Moon Soo her younger sister and Gang Doo his father.
Ten years later, they meet again as their work (Moon Soo being an architectural model developer and Gang Doo being a construction worker) collides and they eventually start working together on a project to renew the memorial monument for the victims of the disaster.
It turns out that this disaster is actually what binds everyone in the series, but it has also torn people apart. Somewhere around the end, there is a little part where they imagine how it would be if it had never happened, how they would be living, and we can see that in that case, a lot of people would still be together, both in families as in relationships.
The relationship between Moon Soo’s parents was destroyed after the death of her little sister, her mother turned to alcohol and her father left home to run a noodle and kimbab restaurant by himself.
The romantic relationship between Seo Joo Won (Lee Ki Woo), the director of Moon Soo’s architecture company and Jung Yoo Jin (Kang Han Na), the team leader of Cheongyu, was also ruined, and even though Yoo Jin is trying to get Joo Won back, he doesn’t seem to be interested anymore.

I read this in comments before and I really like this: that the main theme of this drama is ‘healing’. Also, ‘coping’ and ‘processing’ I think. It shows different people who deal with the aftermath of the disaster in their own ways. There are people who forget and move on, there are people who try to forget but are still occasionally triggered, and there are people who can’t move on. Moon Soo’s mother is someone who can’t move on and sometimes she drags Moon Soo with her. Especially at moments when Moon Soo seems to finally move on with her life, her mother has the habit to remind her and almost obstruct her from moving on. Moon Soo is trying to cope, even though she still has nightmares about her little sister dying and she is still triggered sometimes, especially when she’s on the construction site or when entering a department store. Same goes for Gang Doo, also because he actually spend a few days in the debris with a corpse and he sometimes thinks he hears that guy’s voice telling him off for living on like that.
Moon Soo’s father is ‘coping’ through anger mostly, but he doesn’t suppress the memories. He has pictures of both his daughters in his store and doesn’t try to make the pain go away like his wife.

Something I also liked about this drama that it actually gave hope and it didn’t turn to typical Korean drama tropes. The chemistry between Moon Soo and Gang Doo was heartwarming – I haven’t been this excited for a couple since Suspicious Partner – and they didn’t always have to talk. Korean dramas usually include a LOT of dialogue, so it was a relief to see two actors being able to express such love for each other without even saying a word. Because sometimes words aren’t needed.
Also, when halfway through it became clear that Gang Doo was sick, I was so scared that they’d kill him off. Because for a while it seemed like they were this ‘doomed couple’, they were both emotionally damaged and they found compassion and comfort in one another and normally that means that at a certain point something is going to happen to one of them. But fortunately, in the end it all ended well and that was just such a relief, because I was really scared they’d do it. Instead, it just became this love story where two damaged people just ‘found’ each other and that was really heartwarming. Their chemistry was on point, like I said, the build-up to where they finally confronted each other with their feelings was well constructed, everything just fitted.
Also, another important thing that I really appreciated in this drama: they actually TALKED about what they were feeling. Usually I get so frustrated, just like with Andante when someone is sick and they keep it to themselves and start distancing themselves from others: NOT HERE. There was a moment where Gang Doo distanced himself from Moon Soo, but that was purely because he felt like he was not good enough for her. But because she kept pursuing him, he eventually melted. When he was sick, it didn’t remain a secret because either he or his younger sister (who is a doctor) told Moon Soo anyway.
So, a very important thing learnt from this series is that it’s important to talk to others in order to heal and face your problems in order to solve them. In the end, it helped literally everyone. Moon Soo and Gang Doo were united, Moon Soo’s mother went to rehab for her alcohol problem, Moon Soo’s father went back to his old job as a bus driver (which was initially why he wasn’t around when the mall accident happened).
One last thing is that I always appreciate (even thought that might be weird to say) when dramas show a really dramatic disastrous happening in a really realistic way. We’ve seen enough car accidents, and all the other typical tropes from Korean dramas. One of the earlier cases was in Descendants of the Sun, when an earthquake happened and a reactor (I believe?) collapsed while there were still people working on it. The effect of that, and how the medical team was immediately dispatched and the cruel injuries of the wounded, it just gave me goosebumps because it was so realistic.
I was really struck by how they showed the collapse of the building and the scenes where young Moon Soo and Gang Doo were trapped in the ruins, and the other guy whose leg was shattered. It made a big impact on me, more than the stereotypical accidents that usually occur in Korean dramas.
Last but not least, I really enjoyed the way it was filmed. There was something cinematic about it that I don’t see in many dramas, but it made it that much more realistic. It really suited the story and the acting style of the characters. It gave the series as a whole a calm but penetrating atmosphere. And the musical soundtrack was also very nice.

About the actors in particular: first of all, bravo for the acting. Especially Moon Soo and Gang Doo. It was really nice to just see a drama which wasn’t about appearance and exterior things. Won Jin Ah, who played Moon Soo, was really outstanding in my opinion. Because her character feels so many contradicting emotions, even when she smiles there’s this layer. We learn she doesn’t see herself as a good person, she feels bad because of her mom, her parents’ relationship, leaving her sister behind and everything. She feels this guilt and still tries to allow herself to be happy when she meets Gang Doo. Gang Doo is someone who just seems to be cursed. Everything in his life is a mess, he lost his father, his ability to play soccer and fulfill his dream of becoming a soccer player for the national team, he gets into fights, he hears voices of the dead, he also struggles with guilt of making it out and leaving this other person behind. But instead of feeling sorry for himself and keeping it in, he confronts it and when he gets sick he gets really pissed because ‘what the heck did he do to deserve all this’. But finding Moon Soo just literally heals him and makes him focus on the good things he’s done. Even though few, he is surrounded by people who care about him, not only Moon Soo but also the Grandmother, his affectionate friend Sang Man and his mother, his little sister.
Something I also liked was that there was never any true hatred between the characters. Even though Joo Won is initially envious of Gang Doo because he also likes Moon Soo, he never truly despises him. When he finds out they are together, he just tries to move on immediately, without turning into the pushy second male lead who tries to force his feelings on the female lead. Yoo Jin too, even though she seemed a bit pushy in terms of nosing into other people’s relationship, doesn’t form a threat to the main couple. In fact she encourages them to be together.

Speaking of Yoo Jin, the only thing that didn’t really interest me that much was Jung Yoo Jin’s character. I had seen the actress before in Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo and I remember here having these vivid expressions on her face and her acting didn’t bother me at all, but in this series it just seemed like she had ONE expression throughout the WHOLE series. I almost didn’t recognize her because of that. The only moment where I truly felt some compassion for her was when she was crying in her car at a certain point, and it felt like that was literally the only moment where she expressed some apparent emotion. For the rest, I didn’t really get what her true contribution to the story was, except being the second female lead and (former) love interest of Joo Won, even though she still failed getting him back. I would’ve liked getting more information on her in order to get more sympathy for her character, because now she just wasn’t really interesting to me. Also because she seemed a bit shallow to me, talking a lot about extern things rather than showing real emotional depth. When asked what she liked about Joo Won, she only mentioned outward factors, that he’s tall and handsome, looks good in suits and listens to everything she says. That put me off a bit about her because it sounded so one-sided and didn’t talk about his personal traits or his feelings at all.
But in the end she wasn’t an evil person or anything like that and she did become a bit more humble towards her feelings. It might’ve been the actress and her lack of expression, but also her story line wasn’t as deep as the others’.

I want to express a special compliment to the character of Jung Sook Hee (played by Na Moon Hee), the grandmother. I was just so happy to see an actual grandmother in a Korean drama. Usually, the grandmas are either really rich and dolled up or real household grandmas – this was a realistic grandma, shabby and grumpy but warm and devoting her life after her husband’s death to helping poor people and foreigners without health insurance to get medicine. It wasn’t about making her look pretty or whatever things to do so often. Even though she wasn’t Gang Doo’s actual grandma, she was this figure of familiarity and familial love to him that he’d never had after his father died. Her death was really sad, and heartbreaking for him, but that too was something he had to heal from and that’s what pushed him and Moon Soo truly together, because for the first time he had someone to comfort him after losing family.

I really enjoyed this series and I’m sad it’s over. The ending was very simple and happy, and I think it fitted the theme very well. It wouldn’t have made sense to me if they’d let Gang Doo die, a lot of comments also said so. The series is about healing and healing together. It’s important to talk with others who’ve suffered and learn not to blame yourself or think about what might have happened or how you could’ve avoided it – because the accident still happened, and with or without you people would’ve suffered. The renewal of the memorial park was a nice plot line to bind all the people who were directly or indirectly victimized by the accident and the series ending with the completion of it also showed the victim’s relatives finally feeling at ease.
One of the strongest parts I think was when Moon Soo noted that, when Yoo Jin said many people would feel uncomfortable about the memorial renewal because it would remind them again of what they’d lost, it was just about that. Reminding people of what they’d lost, giving them the space to grieve and process and finding others to talk about it. It’s supposed to be uncomfortable and confronting, but that doesn’t mean that it should be ignored and forgotten.

Overall this series is going to score high in my rankings, very well done to the writers and the actors. The story, the structure, the plot lines, the character development of the main actors were all very well written and the acting was really good. For some characters I would’ve liked a bit more input and story line, but still, very good.

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.

Andante
(안단테 / Andante)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

I decided to watch this drama because I saw a trailer of it and it looked kinda cute, and from what I understood from the summary there would be something special about it.
I first thought that the main character would move to a village where strange things were happening and where the people at school were strange – almost as if there was something supernatural about it.
In the end, it was anything but supernatural. It was about real life. Life and death.

Of course a lot of people were excited about it because of Kai, but I’m not that into EXO and I hadn’t really seen him act before (instead of Seven First Kisses and EXO Next Door, where in both cases he played himself) so that wasn’t really a main reason for me to watch. As I said in the introduction, I don’t really like to judge dramas on the famous people acting in them, especially in the case of idols, because there’s a lot of dramas that prove idols aren’t necessarily good actors. And I didn’t know anyone else from the main cast (except maybe the mother and grandmother) so I really went in without any expectations.

So basically the story is about two siblings who live in Seoul with their mother (their father has been missing for 12 years) and their aunt (their mother’s younger sister). These two kids, Lee Shi Kyung (EXO’s Kai/Kim Jong In) and Lee Shi Young (Lee Ye Hyun) are troublemakers. Shi Kyung always skips school to go to the Internet cafe and has been fooling his mother into thinking that he’s doing great at school (including faking his report cards etc.) Shi Young enjoys some alternative cosplaying.
One day their mother finds out everything they’ve been hiding and doing behind her back and decides to take them away from their spoiled city life. She brings them with her to their grandmother (their father’s mother) who lives in the countryside. So the whole family of four, including the aunt, moves to the countryside. They haven’t been in contact with their grandmother for a long time so in the beginning Granny is hesitant to let them into her house, but she eventually does.
As Shi Kyung and Shi Young start school in their new neighborhood, they notice there are some weird things going on. The school has strange classes in which they need to lay in a coffin, have their own funeral portrait taken, have to think up their tombstone inscription and assemble funeral flower arrangements. The students also have to volunteer at the local hospice, a place where sick people who are past the point of being cured are basically waiting until they die.

At this point, I thought ‘Okay, so I’m guessing this drama is about some spoiled city kids who come to the countryside and actually learn to become more conscious and grateful of life and learn about the value of life and death.’ From the first day on, Shi Kyung is involved in happenings at the hospice and when someday suddenly passes away in front of him, this is a serious wake-up call for him. But that’s not all there was to it.

Shi Kyung also becomes interested in a (at first impression) mysterious girl, although we already find out in the second episode that she’s not actually mysterious because a part of her past is revealed in a flashback. She is a student in Shi Kyung’s class and also skips class a lot. Her name is Kim Bom. As time goes by, the two become closer and they start dating. Shi Young befriends another classmate named Park Ga Ram, whose father is the director of the hospice. They start dating eventually as well.

In the first half of the series, there are a lot of different happenings with different patients at the hospice that Shi Kyung and his friends get involved with and the episodes always end very emotionally but comforting at the same time. To me, it mainly showed how important it is to have no regrets and be with the people you care about until the last moment.

But then, a new plotline is introduced and this is where I started getting more and more confused. It is revealed that Bom’s father passed away in the hospice because of brain cancer when she was still very young. And then suddenly Bom collapses in the middle of class. Having seen too many K-Dramas already, the alarm bells in my head were immediately ringing: she has the same disease as her dad.
From here on I became more sceptical because it dealt with one of the drama tropes I dislike the most: someone turns out to have a terminal disease and instead of getting help and talking about it, they keep it to themselves and even push the people around them away. Maybe it is naive or even rude of me to say, but I always find this so selfish. There are enough things that you might keep to yourself because you are ashamed or don’t want anyone to find out for some reason. But if it’s about a disease – and certainly one that can’t be cured – you have all the right in the world to let other people worry about you. I can understand that it is very difficult to tell people, because you know it will break their hearts. But that will happen anyway! You can’t stop people from feeling sad about it. I just felt very frustrated with Bom that she went for the typical ‘I don’t want to cry and I don’t want others to cry so I’m gonna pretend it’s okay and eventually just disappear from everybody’s lives’. …So it’s okay if you die and no one knew and the people around you are even more heartbroken because you never told them? It’s okay as long as you don’t have to see them cry? Sorry but that was a very selfish thing to do. And especially towards Shi Kyung, whose father disappeared. I couldn’t believe it when she actually said ‘I’ll just disappear, just like his dad’. With that, my respect for Bom really went down.
Also I found it really harsh that Shi Kyung had to experience his girlfriend dying, I didn’t expect they’d go that far. The things he went through at the hospice seemed like good enough lessons for him to mature and become more caring about the value of life and death.

In the last few episodes I was just generally confused about the message of the series.
In the final episode they even rushed the plotline of his dad in last minute, resulting in Shi Kyung getting a major guilt trip about his dad’s disappearance and – as he discovers – death. And then suddenly his grandmother starts showing symptoms of dementia and Shi Kyung actually has to pretend to be his dad for her to ease her painful memory of not being able to give her son his favorite rice cakes before he left and never returned.
I just felt really sorry for Shi Kyung in the end because everything was going relatively well and he was learning and even getting along with Shi Young and his family better, and then suddenly his girlfriend dies and he remembers his father disappeared (and died) indirectly because of him.
And then suddenly everything was right again and he found peace and liked himself more as a person.

So yeah, I got a bit confused at the end. It reminded me a bit of Reunited Worlds, where the entire time I thought the plot would be about letting go of the past but then the main character decided not to let go of the past and I was like ‘…okay so what is this about then?’ And when I read the comments and they were all so positive like ‘great drama this and that’, I felt kind of lost because halfway through I couldn’t really take it seriously anymore because I had lost the sense and meaning of what I was actually watching.

I still feel like it was a portrayal of life and death and how to cope with loss and grief. It’s important to see your important people before it’s too late and not be obstructed by your feelings of shame or guilt regarding your illness or something. In that sense, the concept of the drama was very refreshing. But I just didn’t really see the additional value of Bom’s death and why they had to bring in the long-gone dad in the end. I felt like Shi Kyung had already learned enough without having to go through those two major loss experiences.

Despite the emotional depth of the series, they still managed to keep it quite light, and this I think was also reflected in the acting. Besides the amount of tears that were shed in the latter half of the series, most of the acting was light and comical. A lot of mother-getting-angry-at-her-son scenes and boy-daydreaming-of-his-girlfriend scenes.
I saw one comment criticizing that there was no actual kiss in the drama, but, even though I am a big fan of romance and good kissing scenes, I didn’t believe that was the point of the drama. If you’re marking it down because of that, you’re clearly missing the point. The relationship between Shi Kyung and Bom was very pure and they had a lot of cute moments holding hands and hugging each other. It was clear they liked each other very much and sometimes kissing isn’t even necessary.

Even though I had mixed feelings about Kai’s acting in the beginning, now I actually think it suited his character very well. Shi Kyung was often very impulsive and almost child-like and I think it needed to be to show his innocence. In order to see him clearly mature throughout the series. I will come back to you after I’ve seen more dramas with him to decide whether I think he’s a good actor or not (Haru ga Kita is on my list), but I think within the style of this drama, his acting was good enough.
I also thought the girl playing Bom (Kim Jin Kyung) was really pretty, and even though she didn’t have a lot of expression on her face, she was able to convey a lot through her eyes and I think that’s very remarkable.
As Shi Young, Lee Ye Hyun had kind of the same face the whole time, except for the moments where her cocky side melted away and we finally got some emotional response from her. I personally call it the ‘heol’ (헐) face – it’s the face that just constantly looks unimpressed and pissed off by everything.
I would have liked to see a little more depth in Park Ga Ram (Baek Chul Min)’s character, because now he was just the ‘nice best friend’ type of person but he didn’t really get his own storyline. And apart from that there were some other storylines that I would’ve liked to see develop more, such as the aunt and her triangle relationship with the teacher and the delinquent student.

Overall it was a refreshing theme, something I haven’t seen in dramas before and the thought behind it (if I got it right) is very comforting. Just some plot details that were kind of confusing for me and the sense that somewhere along the road they sort of lost sight of what they were trying to convey with the series.

Hiya! I decided to add another thing to my blog: Drama Reviews.

Although I’ve been watching Asian drama series since I started college in 2011, it was in 2017 that I suddenly realized I’d watched a lot of shows that I remembered nothing about. I suddenly came up with the idea to write reviews to record my feelings and thoughts after finishing a show, so that’s what I started doing, using this blog that I’d been neglected for quite some time.
If you read my reviews chronologically, you’ll find that I’ve improved my writing considerably throughout the years, adding structure to them and even adding cast comments at the end. It has ended up becoming kind of a hobby in itself where I take writing reviews quite seriously and put a lot of thought into which parts I want to cover and how to go about it.

Having said that, please be aware that I’m writing these reviews mainly for myself, to keep a record of series I’ve watched. I even occasionally read back my own past reviews. Of course this blog is online and open to whoever finds it, and I really appreciate positive comments and feedback. In fact, I’ve been getting a lot of very lovely comments in the past years. It’s cool to know that people sometimes stumble upon my blog and find my reviews enjoyable and helpful to read.
To the occasional Debbie Downers, I just want to say this:
Please keep in mind that these reviews contain my personal thoughts and feelings. If you don’t agree with my insights and/or ratings, that just means we have different opinions, not that one of us is “wrong”. There is no reason to get snappy or hateful, so if you choose to leave a comment, please try to remain kind and constructive.
I’d prefer to create a friendly discussion platform rather than deal with unnecessary “your review sucks” comments. To each their own opinion. I put a lot of time and energy in these reviews, so please bear that in mind. Personally, if I come across a review that I don’t agree with, I just think to myself “Hm, I disagree” and I move on. It’s really not that hard.

Just to give you a heads-up on what to expect before you click on any of the below links:
– as I’ve been watching dramas for at least seven years before I started writing reviews, following my own stream of thought there will be a lot of references to previous shows I’ve watched. If I make references to shows that I’ve also reviewed, I’ve added links to those reviews, but there will also be a lot of references to shows I haven’t reviewed. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to rewatch anything, but at least that’s to explain why some drama titles I drop are links and some aren’t.
– I tend to be quite lengthy, that’s just how I write. I go into detail about things they may not mean anything to others, I take detours, I associate stuff with personal experiences regarding certain topics and characters. It might take me some time to get to my point, but I just want to record every single thing that came to my mind as I was watching the show. If you’re up for reading it all the way, be my guest, but you have been warned now.
– one of the main reasons I decided to embark on this creative writing journey was to become more critical in voicing my opinions. It’s happened several times already that I’ve had an unpopular opinion towards certain shows. Even when I get disappointed by a drama despite it being super hyped for example, I always try to remain as constructive and open-minded as possible, and to get my points across without being disrespectful or sour towards any of the shows or actors that appear in it.

For whoever’s interested, from 2021 on I started making My Year in Asian Dramas videos to sum up all the shows I’ve watched in a year, including my MyDramaList ratings. If you click on one of the years down below, you’ll be forwarded to each respective video.

Also, if you’re curious to see my to-watch list and keep up with what I’m watching at the moment, feel free to check out my MDL account. I don’t share my reviews on there, but it is my go-to site to find and pin new dramas and rate them. You can see what I’ve already watched and what’s still on my to-watchlist. I’m not revealing the order in which I’m watching stuff, though, that little secret is in the hands of my Spin-the-Wheel app. I like to maintain an element of surprise, even for myself.

Maybe no-one reads this, and that’s completely fine, but this does include all my ground rules for my blog, which is really just an outlet for me to voice my passion for dramas.

2018

Andante (2017) (Korean)

Just Between Lovers (2017) (Korean)

Good Morning Call -Our Campus Days- (2017) (Japanese)

Duel (2017) (Korean)

My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend (2017) (Chinese)

Valid Love (2014) (Korean)

Love til the End of Summer (2017) (Chinese)

Todome no Kiss (2018) (Japanese)

Manhole (2017) (Korean)

Quartet (2017) (Japanese)

Temperature of Love (2017) (Korean)

Another Oh Hae Young (2016) (Korean)

She Was Pretty (2015) (Korean)

The Package (2017) (Korean)

Go Back Couple (2017) (Korean)

Because This is My First Life (2017) (Korean)

Meteor Garden (2018) (Chinese)

Wife I Know (2018) (Korean)

Last Minute Romance (2017) (Korean)

20th Century Boy and Girl (2017) (Korean)

I’m Not a Robot (2017) (Korean)

2019

Erased (2017) (Japanese)

A Love So Beautiful (2017) (Chinese)

Kill Me, Heal Me (2015) (Korean)

Jugglers (2017) (Korean)

Radio Romance (2018) (Korean)

Switched (2018) (Japanese)

With You (2016) (Chinese)

My First First Love Season 1 (2019) (Korean)

Short (2018) (Korean)

Individualist Ms. Ji Young (2017) (Korean)

Thirty But Seventeen (2018) (Korean)

Minami-kun no Koibito (2015) (Japanese)

Kimi ha Petto (2003) (Japanese)

That Man Oh Soo (2018) (Korean)

My Mister (2018) (Korean)

Are You Human Too? (2018) (Korean)

Clean With Passion For Now (2018) (Korean)

100 Day Husband (2018) (Korean)

About Time (2018) (Korean)

My First First Love Season 2 (2019) (Korean)

Sungkyunkwan Scandal (2010) (Korean)

Accidentally in Love (2018) (Chinese)

Hotel Del Luna (2019) (Korean)

Gyeryong Fairytale (2018) (Korean)

2020

Hana Nochi Hare (2018) (Japanese)

Love Rerun (2018) (Japanese)

Repeat (2018) (Japanese)

Love’s Lies (2018) (Chinese) – Part I

My ID is Gangnam Beauty (2018) (Korean)

Go Go Waikiki (2018) (Korean)

Haru ga Kita (2018) (Japanese)

The Great Seducer (2018) (Korean)

High Society (2015) (Korean)

The Master’s Sun (2013) (Korean)

What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim? (2018) (Korean)

Unnatural (2018) (Japanese)

Tree in the River (2018) (Taiwanese)

Touch Your Heart (2019) (Korean)

Big (2012) (Korean)

Romance is a Bonus Book (2019) (Korean)

2021

Love O2O (2016) (Chinese)

Dying Eye (2019) (Japanese)

Crash Landing on You (2019) (Korean)

Sweet Combat (2018) (Chinese)

The King: Eternal Monarch (2020) (Korean)

Itaewon Class (2020) (Korean)

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (2020) (Korean)

Somehow 18 (2017) (Korean)

The Third Charm (2018) (Korean)

The Beauty Inside (2018) (Korean)

Nee Sensei, Shiranai no? (2019) (Japanese)

Encounter (2018) (Korean)

Lovestruck in the City (2020) (Korean)

Drama Special: What Is The Ghost Doing? (2015) (Korean)

Start-Up (2020) (Korean)

Perfect World (2019) (Japanese)

Run On (2020) (Korean)

Move to Heaven (2021) (Korean)

Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me Season 1 & 2 (2017) (Chinese)

Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung (2019) (Korean)

Come and Hug Me (2018) (Korean)

2022

Melting Me Softly (2019) (Korean)

My Absolute Boyfriend (2019) (Korean)

Room No. 9 (2018) (Korean)

Boku no Hatsukoi wo Kimi ni Sasagu (2019) (Japanese)

Abyss (2019) (Korean)

Arthdal Chronicles Season 1 (2019) (Korean)

Drama Special: If We Were a Season (2017) (Korean)

Love Alarm Season 1 & 2 (2019/2021) (Korean)

A Business Proposal (2022) (Korean)

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021) (Korean)

Our Beloved Summer (2021) (Korean)

Backstreet Rookie (2020) (Korean)

The Light in Your Eyes (2019) (Korean)

Something in the Rain (2018) (Korean)

Drunk in Good Taste (2018) (Korean)

Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022) (Korean)

Fates and Furies (2018) (Korean)

Hajimete Koi wo Shita Hi ni Yomu Hanashi (2019) (Japanese)

Her Private Life (2019) (Korean)

The Silent Sea (2021) (Korean)

The Sound of Magic (2022) (Korean)

3-nen A-gumi (2019) (Japanese)

Put Your Head on My Shoulder (2019) (Chinese)

Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Dokomademo (2020) (Japanese)

Dali and the Cocky Prince (2021) (Korean)

2023

True Beauty Season 1 (2020) (Korean)

First Love: Hatsukoi (2022) (Japanese)

Somebody (2022) (Korean)

He is Psychometric (2019) (Korean)

Our Blues (2022) (Korean)

The Big Boss Season 1 & 2 (2017) (Chinese)

So I Married an Anti-Fan (2021) (Korean)

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (2023) (Japanese)

Crash Course in Romance (2023) (Korean)

My Liberation Notes (2022) (Korean)

Twenty-Five Twenty-One (2022) (Korean)

Copycat Killer (2023) (Taiwanese)

The One and Only (2021) (Korean)

Konya, Katte ni Dakishimetemo Ii Desu Ka? (2018) (Japanese)

Flipped (2018) (Chinese)

Summer Strike (2022) (Korean)

Once Upon a Small Town (2022) (Korean)

Gisou Furin (2019) (Japanese)

The School Nurse Files (2020) (Korean)

Nevertheless, (2021) (Korean)

Extraordinary You (2019) (Korean)

Ito-kun A to E (2017/2018) (Japanese)

Saiai (2021) (Japanese)

Wok of Love (2018) (Korean)

Crush (2021) (Chinese)

Birth of a Beauty (2014) (Korean)

Mask Girl (2023) (Korean)

Doona! (2023) (Korean)

SF8 (2020) (Korean)

2024

Alchemy of Souls Season 1 & 2 (2022) (Korean)

Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu (2019) (Japanese)

Love Under the Moon (2019) (Chinese)

Café Minamdang (2022) (Korean)

The Secret Life of My Secretary (2019) (Korean)

Sashidashinin wa, Dare desu ka? (2022) (Japanese)

Douse Mou Nigerarenai (2021) (Japanese)

Yonder (2022) (Korean)

Emperor or Boss (2021) (Chinese)

Seishun Cinderella (2022) (Japanese)

Perfect and Casual (2020) (Chinese)

My Demon (2023) (Korean)

Road to Rebirth (2021) (Chinese)

Oh! Master (2021) (Korean)

The King Loves (2017) (Korean)

Shards of Her (2022) (Taiwanese)

A Little Thing Called First Love (2019) (Chinese)

2025

Juuhan Shuttai! (2016) (Japanese)

When Time Stopped (2018) (Korean)

365: Repeat the Year (2020) (Korean)

The Best Hit (2017) (Korean)

Love of Summer Night (2020) (Chinese)

Search: WWW (2019) (Korean)

Welcome 2 Life (2019) (Korean)

Forecasting Love and Weather (2022) (Korean)

Kanojo no Inai Jikan (2024) (Japanese)

Yumi’s Cells Season 1 & 2 (2021/2022) (Korean)

Missing: The Other Side (S1) (2020) (Korean)

Missing: The Other Side (S2) (2022) (Korean)

Girl From Nowhere Season 1 & 2 (2018/2021) (Thai)

Lucky’s First Love (2019) (Chinese)

The Tale of Nok Du (2019) (Korean)

Summer Guys (2021) (Korean)