SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU STILL PLAN ON WATCHING THIS SERIES OR HAVEN’T FINISHED IT YET!!

My First First Love / Because It’s My First Love
(첫사랑은 처음이라서 / Cheossarangeun Cheoeumiraseo)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

It’s hasn’t been long since my last review because I finished this series within two days on Netflix! It was originally really far away on my list because it only recently came out but my friend hyping about it to me so much that I decided to also start watching it. It feels kind of weird to watch an Asian drama on Netflix, the feeling of watching a single episode is kind of blurred because the whole thing starts playing without interruption.

With this I will bring to you a fairly short summary of a very short drama 🙂
The English title is My First First Love, but the literally translated Korean title is Because It’s My First Love so I’m not sure which one to use.
Anyways, this 8-episode drama is about Yoon Tae Oh (played by Ji Soo), the oldest son from a very rich family, who gets his father’s permission to live on his own when he’s seventeen. He starts living in a very big house with a lot of rooms and although friends come over a lot, he doesn’t want the house to turn into a lodge or a place where people crash.
Tae Oh is a very energetic and positive person who doesn’t really worry about much, probably also because of his privileged life.
On the other hand, we have Tae Oh’s childhood friend Han Song Yi (played by Jung Chae Yeon), whose life takes a turn for the worse. After her father passed away and her mother abandoned her to work in the city, Song Yi has been living alone in the house her father built from scratch. Until one day, unannounced, she comes home and a moving company are taking all the furniture out. It turns out that her house had been on sale for a while and there was no response to the eviction notices, so basically a new family is moving in and Song Yi has to move out. She is literally put on the street with nowhere to go.
In another part of town, another of Tae Oh’s friends, Choi Hoon (played by Kang Tae Oh), also a rich family’s boy, is kicked out by his parents because he ‘shamed the family’ in his ambition to become a musical actor. He is literally left with nothing but his underwear – although he steals one of his mother’s dresses and a pair of heels.
Enter friend number 3, Oh Ga Rin (played by Choi Ri), a young lady from yet another rich family (blame Tae Oh’s dad for all the connections), escapes her security at the airport and disguises herself to run away from home.
All three of these people end up at Tae Oh’s house. They all have nowhere to go, and Tae Oh is the first person they think of.
The last friend, the only one who doesn’t end up living at Tae Oh’s house, is Seo Do Hyun (played by Jin Young). Do Hyun is not from a wealthy family (his father owns a dumpling shop) and he’s working several parttime jobs while studying for the civil servant exam. He always seems aloof and calm, unlike Tae Oh.
After some initial reluctance from Tae Oh, he can’t deny that he has way too many rooms for himself so the three friends move in with him.
Hoon promises he will stay until he passes an audition, but Song Yi really doesn’t have a choice and Ga Rin refuses to go back.

The rest of the story is mainly about the triangle relationship between Tae Oh, Song Yi and Do Hyun. Song Yi is Tae Oh’s first love. He wanted to confess to her in high school but then overheard her saying to some friends that she never had romantic feelings for him and gave up.
Song Yi’s feelings towards Tae Oh remain neutral – she does admit she felt attracted to him at times, but it never had a lasting impact. To her, he’s just a good friend who’s always there for her.
Do Hyun and Song Yi meet for the first time when Do Hyun is helping out with the moving company as a parttime job, so he is immediately aware of her situation. They meet several times after that and slowly get to know each other better. They eventually start liking each other and start dating without Tae Oh knowing they’re even close with one another.
In the meantime, Tae Oh also gets himself a girlfriend. He meets Ryu Se Hyeon (played by Hong Ji Yoon) when he mistakes her for his blind date and she plays along. He is blinded by how pretty she is and completely dives into getting to know her better.
In the meantime, Se Hyeon and Song Yi follow a class together and Song Yi doesn’t like her very much. Firstly, Se Hyeon is the one now living in Song Yi’s old house (coincidence? nah: K-Drama) and secondly, Song Yi hears rumors about her having several boyfriends because she’s too free-spirited to want a serious relationship.
Even so, both relationships progress, though both of them not fully accepted by the childhood friend.

First of all, we can probably all agree that the ending was way too open to be an actual ending. I can’t imagine that Netflix won’t renew it because this on its own just isn’t a complete series. I mean, the title of the last episode was literally ‘Turning Point’. That proves it’s more fit as a halfway-through episode than a finale.
I’m sure it will be continued and then I’ll be able to conclude this review for good. Everything was left wide open and unfinished, no wrap-ups whatsoever, no-one’s story was done. The season ends when they are in the middle of a trip and Tae Oh sees Song Yi and Do Hyun kiss and suddenly becomes aware of mixed feelings inside of him. The end. Hell no.

I pretty much already wrote the main things that happen in the drama (8 episodes are not much), so I just want to comment briefly on the cast and characters.
Foremost, this series was on my list because of Ji Soo. My friend who hyped me also is a big Ji Soo fan so we promised to watch it together and fangirl together. No but seriously, Ji Soo is the beanest bean of K-Dramaland. He is such a puppy. And he always gets the second male lead roles, so we were really excited for him to get his first main lead and finally get the girl!! And then he didn’t… again. Well he did get A girl, but of course everything is point at his true feelings for Song Yi, so… anyways, again, let’s wait for the second season.
It was really nice to see him in such a cheeky role, although he never loses his boyish charm. But Tae Oh is definitely one of the more confident characters he’s played, it reminded me a bit of his role in Page Turner.

I knew Chae Yeon from Produce 101 and know she’s an idol, but she’s been doing more acting recently. I think this is the third drama with her I’ve watched (after Drinking Solo and Reunited Worlds). I would really like to see more variety in her acting though, she needs to prove to me that she’s not just a pretty face and I’m not completely convinced yet.
When it comes to her private life, her growing relationship with Do Hyun, Song Yi suddenly becomes very independent, but there’s still moments where she keeps relying on Tae Oh. I did like the fact that her character opens up so much as she becomes closer to Do Hyun. When she’s with him, she suddenly talks about her feelings and thoughts and seems to be comfortable and confident, even deciding to just go see him herself without waiting for him. When he confesses to her with this whole story about not being able to give her special dates, she simply smiles and makes it clear that that’s not the words he should say, he came there to confess, so tell me straight out you like me and ask me out. She was waiting for him there, but it was really cute when she was dropping hints to him to encourage him to take the leap. Specifically in that scene where they’re walking side by side and she’s like ‘My mother told me that I should believe in my man’s future, not present’, and when Do Hyun jokingly asks ‘So do you believe in my future?’, she just flat out says ‘Yes’ and completely caught him off guard. On the other hand, when she’s with Tae Oh she often acts way more stubborn and although they’re supposed to be best friends, she keeps a lot from him.
I definitely like Song Yi as a character best when she’s with Do Hyun.
The only scene where I truly thought ‘…really, girl?’ was when after she had her first date with Do Hyun, she went walking home in the rain while she could’ve just took shelter in the convenience store where Do Hyun worked. That way she could’ve 1. waited for the rain to stop and 2. spent more time with Do Hyun even after their date ended. She literally put her hand up to the drizzling rain and went like ‘Hm, I can probably walk home’.
And then she started worrying about her new shoes getting wet. I mean, I get that they were a present and you don’t want to ruin them… but to take running home barefooted while scratching your feet open on the street cobbles as an alternative? That’s even worse than your shoes getting wet, girl! Think for a minute! Sorry, those were just some details I just found so easy to think of. And then in the end Tae Oh had to come to the rescue again with an umbrella and even lend her his sneakers. And she lied to Do Hyun about getting soaked in the rain shower just not to worry him.
I haven’t seen much of Jin Young except his second male lead role in Moonlight Drawn By Clouds. It seemed like he would be the second male lead here too, except he gets the girl and at this point it doesn’t seem like Song Yi has any doubts about her feelings for Do Hyun. They are a very adorable awkward couple. I feel like there is more to Jin Young’s acting than just the kind and calm gentleman role I’ve seen of him so far. But he is definitely a very sympathetic character and his confession scene was adorable.

Hoon and Ga Rin served mostly as the comic relief, but I liked how they showed some character development in Hoon’s case. We see a bit of him struggling with his auditions and even when he passes one, he is kicked out again after only a few rehearsals. There’s no guarantee an audition will give you your breakthrough right off the bat – a harsh but good lesson to be learnt and Hoon definitely matures.
I would like to see more depth in Ga Rin’s character as well. Now she’s just the stereotypical ‘rich lady who experiences life amongst the common people for the first time and is clumzy in everything she does but remains unbreakably positive’. And there’s definitely some potential for her and Hoon to end up together, because Hoon already mentioned that he thinks she’s pretty. And that’s how stuff goes down in K-Dramas.

In the beginning I was confused because -though this could be just me- Se Hyeon and Tae Oh’s stepmother just look so much alike. The first time Tae Oh sees Se Hyeon walking I literally thought that is was his stepmom who was suddenly in college for some reason? For a moment I thought he was staring at her because he was like, ‘what’s my stepmom doing here?!’, but then he was like ‘Dang, she’s gorgeous’ and I was like ‘mmmkay it must be someone else then’. But even in scenes after that, I still think they look alike.
Anyways, don’t mind me I guess.
What I wanted to say was that, even though we get the vibe that something is up with Se Hyeon, she did somehow make me empathize with her. She has this whole ‘I’ve been all over the world and studied in the USA so I’m not your traditional Korean prude girl and I ain’t afraid to play hard to get’ thing going on, she’s definitely different from Song Yi. She has a very subtle manipulative treat with which she makes other people do things for her, but when faced with her she doesn’t act like a full-on bitch. She just seems very chill about life and relationships and she does seem to think Tae Oh is cute, at least – even if maybe it turns out she is really using him.
When you look closely you can see that while acting smiley and cute it almost doesn’t occur to you that in the meantime she’s asking Tae Oh and other people to do all sorts of stuff for her (I realized this after watching one episode a second time with my friend). It’s hard to see past her smile and pretty face, but if you look purely at what she’s saying… I don’t know how this will turn out.
I just hope Tae Oh won’t be hurt too much.

I was talking about the couples in the series with my friend and she asked me who I shipped the most. But I couldn’t really give a clear answer and here’s why: K-Drama-wise, it would make sense if the ultimate goal is to push Tae Oh and Song Yi together. But in the situation from the last episode, Song Yi is clearly smitten with Do Hyun and doesn’t seem to have any romantic feelings for Tae Oh. However, Tae Oh is the one who is not certain. And he hasn’t been for a few episodes. I mean, when he takes Se Hyeon home and he finds out she now lives in what used to be Song Yi’s house, I get that he has to get used to the idea but it shouldn’t have to be a problem in his relationship with Se Hyeon. Still, he lingers on it and keeps repeating to himself that he has trouble accepting it without thinking (‘why does it have to be this house?’). It’s like he keeps worrying about things that remind him of Song Yi and he keeps creating these worries for himself.
If he was completely over Song Yi, he wouldn’t have had any trouble accepting this and the series could have ended with both couples happy together. But Tae Oh is the one who will probably start the conflict in the second season because he is at this moment the only one who feels he’s not completely at ease with the situation as it is.

One last thing, about basically all of the characters’ parents: I think Do Hyun’s dad is the only nice parent shown in the entire series. Song Yi’s mom literally abandons her all on her own on the streets without a place to go (she has the decency to call her to tell her that she’s not coming back to her and that she’s always felt like Song Yi was a burden she wanted to get rid of in order to live her life free of obligations = do you call yourself a mother?). Tae Oh’s father is a rich bastard with a preference for younger women, Tae Oh’s stepmother is such a younger woman who got knocked up by Mr. Yoon, Tae Oh’s mother passed away, Hoon was kicked out by his angry dad, Ga Rin’s mom was insanely overprotective of her… I mean, I think them living together in one house and experiencing life like this is actually better for them than going back home.

I would comment more on several masculinity versus femininity points that came along, but I probably shouldn’t get too critical. One thing that probably has to do with sponsoring: I couldn’t help but notice people wore clothes with the same brands on it a lot. I think I’ve seen Song Yi in three different outfits bearing the words ‘Think Less, More Party’, and at one point in one episode both Tae Oh and Do Hyun wore a shirt that said ‘Covernat’.

Overall, it was short and cute and I want to know how it ends (lol). In terms of acting it was all pretty much on the safe side, although everyone did act convincingly. I really want a second season because I’m not okay with this ending that doesn’t qualify as an ending; it felt more like a mid-season break.

It was interesting watching a K-Drama on Netflix, but I think I still prefer going on Asian drama sites and browsing through the episodes to find where I left off the old-fashioned way. (I will probably still watch Romance is a Bonus Book on Netflix though.)
This was it for now! I will edit this review when the second season comes out (hopefully). Stay tuned for the rest of my drama reviews!

Edit on 22/09/2019: I’ve written a separate review on season 2, you can read it here.