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.

So I Married an Anti-Fan
( 그래서 나는 안티팬과 결혼했다 / Geuraeseo Naneun Antipaengwa Gyeolhonhaedda)
MyDramaList rating: 6.0/10

Hey everyone, it’s time for a new review! This one had been on my list for a while, and after my last watch I was really excited to start on it. I’d heard some stories about how it was going to get cancelled or whatnot, so I really wanted to see what this could’ve been about. Turns out it didn’t have to do with any controversy per se, but more with the fact that they weren’t able to find a broadcasting channel for the show? In any case, I guess they figured that out because we are now able to watch it completely online. My expectations were that it would maybe be a bit similar to Her Private Life or something, as it also revolved around an idol fandom and the entertainment industry, but it turned out to be quite different, and I have to say that unfortunately I didn’t end up liking this one as much as I’d hoped. I will elaborate on that more in this review of course, but that’s just to give you a heads up. Okay, so let’s get to it!

So I Married an Anti-Fan is a 16-episode K-Drama with episodes lasting about an hour each. The story is about aspiring journalist Lee Geun Young (played by SNSD’s Choi Soo Young), who seems to be the ultimate doormat. Her nickname at work is ‘Just Geun Young’ (aka ‘geunyang geunyeong’) because it’s so easy to dump tasks on her and say ‘Just let Geun Young do it’, because she never stands up for herself. In one of these instances, she’s chosen to cover a task where she needs to take a picture of/have a short interview with idol popstar Hoo Joon (played by Choi Tae Joon). She and one of her colleagues, Go Soo Hwan (Kim Min Gyu, always a fave), are sent to this club where he’ll make an appearance, but she doesn’t get the chance to talk with him. After having dinner with Soo Hwan and getting a little drunk, Geun Young goes in search of the bathroom but instead stumbles upon Hoo Joon having a seemingly earnest conversation with a girl she can’t identify. The girl seems very upset and at one point it even looks like Hoo Joon strikes her, but then he notices Geun Young and goes after her. Without even giving her a chance to explain herself, Hoo Joon smashes the camera in her hands and this incident creates the first bad connection between them. When Hoo Joon leaves the building later, Geun Young even goes after him and throws her shoe at his head, hitting him, which causes her to get some bad press as a result. Hoo Joon is so popular nation-wide that Geun Young is automatically put away as the bad guy, because after all Hoo Joon would never do anything to provoke such behavior. In any case, Geun Young is fired from her job almost immediately afterwards and, assuming it has to do with Hoo Joon’s influence in the matter, she decides to become his anti-fan and starts demonstrating outside his agency, much to the dislike of his fans.
Admittedly, Geun Young is going through a rough patch around that time. She quite recently broke up with her boyfriend after finding out he was actually gay (nice twist) and was using her as his beard, and then after she loses her job, she also loses her house. She stays with her friend Mi Jung (played by Kim Ha Kyung) for a while, but Mi Jung has a boyfriend who is planning to move in, so Geun Young doesn’t feel comfortable intruding on their space. And now, she’s also starting to become a target of online hate from Hoo Joon’s fans. In any case, we can understand that she’s in a tight spot.
On Hoo Joon’s side, we find out that he was actually not directly responsible for Geun Young losing her job, after he hears what happened to her he even mentions that he found it quite extreme to fire her over something like that. Apart from that, he still doesn’t exactly like Geun Young, so he doesn’t extend a helping hand or anything either.
Then, the both of them are suddenly approached by the producers of a new variety show called ‘So I Married an/my Anti-Fan’. The idea of the show is to put Hoo Joon and Geun Young in one house together and make them pretend like they are a married couple. I wonder if this idea was inspired by the actual existing show involving celebrities called ‘So We Got Married’. They initially both refuse the offer, but Geun Young is in desperate need of money and Hoo Joon has to keep up his reputation of being a forgiving and loving national treasure. So they end up doing it, and that’s how their real story starts.
In the meantime, we have two other important characters, the second main leads if you will. One of them is Choi Jae Joon, nicknamed JJ (played by Hwang Chan Sung), the CEO of his own talent agency, and Oh In Hyung (played by Han Ji An), a trainee under JJ, who was originally part of a girl group that disbanded and is now working hard for her second debut as a solo artist. Jae Joon and In Hyung used to be trainees together with Hoo Joon and the three of them used to be very close friends – Hoo Joon and In Hyung were even in a relationship at some point. However, things turned sour between them after Hoo Joon suddenly got his chance to debut (even though he started later than the other two) and became increasingly popular, leaving the other two behind. While In Hyung has never blamed him for his success even though it ended up driving them apart, Jae Joon has remained consistently bitter towards Hoo Joon, accusing him of betraying him and In Hyung. Especially after Hoo Joon refused joining Jae Joon’s agency. Out of spite, Jae Joon ‘took’ In Hyung into his agency to keep her on his side, also because he had been in love with her since even before Hoo Joon joined them as trainees. Let’s just say there’s a lot of bad blood between the two guys, mainly on Jae Joon’s side. Even though the relationship between Hoo Joon and In Hyung is now also very awkward and uncomfortable, it’s clear that they still care for each other, even if it’s not in that romantic way anymore. It’s more like, they wish each other luck in their respective careers, if they have to work together, so be it, but outside of that they’re not actually keeping in contact. They both have each other saved on their phones as ‘Stranger’ and they only call each other in case of emergencies. Actually one of the reasons why Hoo Joon decided to take on the variety show with Geun Young is because his management threatened that if he didn’t do it, he’d have to do it with In Hyung, and he didn’t want to put her (or himself) in that position.
So that’s how it starts, Hoo Joon and Geun Young start the variety show ‘So I Married an/my Anti-Fan’ together and while they’re both initially out to get each other, they end up falling in love.

I just want to clarify from the start that my criticism on this show didn’t lie in the actors’ performances. I think everyone did a great job and played their characters very convincingly. I think my dislike stemmed mostly from the fact that I couldn’t fully sympathize with most of the characters, especially the four main leads. I’ve never had this before while watching a K-Drama, but the relationships between all the main characters were all so messy and problematic, and even toxic at times, that I constantly had this gloomy feeling hanging over me while I was watching it. Especially in the first half of the series, everything was so icky, even between the main leads, and that’s also part of the reason why I couldn’t fully support the main couple. It just didn’t feel right. Everyone had their reasons, everyone had their backgrounds and all that, but the way they all treated each other was really problematic, and I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable about it until the end, even though it did get a little bit better towards the finale.

I think it’ll be good to start by introducing the four main characters and their relationship dynamics, because besides the above there’s still a lot more to say about it.
Let me start with Geun Young. I read a lot of negative comments about Geun Young’s character, especially in the first half of the show, but I have to say that that was the part where, rather than disliking her, I mostly just felt really bad for her. True, she was a doormat, she couldn’t stand up for herself and didn’t manage to speak up even in cases where it really wasn’t that hard, only causing herself to be put in dire situations over and over again. But it can’t be denied that she was put in an incredibly bad position. It was really sad to see how she just couldn’t get anyone to listen to her, no one even took the time to think about her situation or to put themselves in her shoes for a moment. Even the producers from the variety show acted like these super nice and supportive people who were trying to improve her public image, only to resort to evil-editing in the show, causing her to receive more and more online hate and then not even offering support when she was literally assaulted by Hoo Joon’s fans in public. They kept telling her ‘it will blow over and hey, look on the bright side, our ratings have never been higher!’ Like, are you freaking kidding me? I didn’t believe they actually cared about Geun Young, it was always only about their show and their ratings.
I found it a bit hard to typify Geun Young’s character. Her parents were living in the countryside, she lived and worked in Seoul, and she wanted to be a journalist with specialization in the entertainment industry (I guess), and as far as I know, for that kind of work you need to be really persistent and tenacious at times. You can’t afford to be hesitant to step up to celebrities and ask them about private stuff, you can’t think about being sentimental when you’re writing an article that could possibly destroy an artist’s image. It didn’t really seem to fit Geun Young’s personality in my opinion.
Rather than having actual trouble voicing her opinions, it seemed to me as if it mainly happened in groups of people that she felt were higher in rank than her, people she couldn’t refuse. Because one-on-one, she had no trouble telling someone off. But for some reason, when it was her in front of multiple people, she just couldn’t speak her mind freely or she just waited until the chance passed for her to say something. Which also doesn’t seem like very journalist-like behavior. I don’t know, I guess what I’m saying is that I found it difficult to determine what kind of person she was, and I was very curious about giving a character like her the ambition for journalism, of all things. In general, it seemed like she was quite a passive person by nature, she was patient, she put up with things and she had trouble speaking up about feeling uncomfortable, which continuously put her in situations she could’ve easily avoided by simply saying ‘no’. Even after telling her ex-boyfriend off in the first episode, I mean she showed there and then that she was sick and tired of always being so patient with people, so I thought that that was the moment where she decided she was going to change, but she really doesn’t, not even at the end of the show. There were a few instances where she was straightforward and honest with people, which I very much appreciated. Like how she declined that contract from Superpatch to spy on Hoo Joon while she was filming the show, and how she eventually saw through Jae Joon’s motives of bringing Hoo Joon down. Those were the only moments where I finally saw a strong side in her, but apart from those, she remained pretty passive and that was a pity.
The thing that happened in Japan was one of the things that really made me roll my eyes, though. As much as I could relate to her being unable to speak up, this was just stupid. They arrive for a shooting session in Okinawa, and it’s automatically assumed by the producer team that everyone has already been to Japan (aka Okinawa) at least once. Geun Young fails to speak up about the fact that she has never been to Japan (aka Okinawa), and as a result she’s forced to guide Hoo Joon around. Like, why would you let yourself be put into that position? There was more than enough opportunity for her to say ‘excuse me, I’ve never been here so I can’t guide someone around’. But she still put up with the lie and just made an even bigger fool out of herself getting them lost. That was probably the first time for me to get annoyed with her inability to speak up for herself, because this was just ridiculous. As if it was a shameful thing to admit! It was the producers’ mistake to just blindly assume that everyone had been there.
On a side note, I found it weird how they didn’t make a difference between being in Japan (in general) and being on Okinawa (in particular). If someone would say to me, I’m going to Japan, my first thought would be Tokyo or Osaka. But Okinawa is a completely separate island, it’s all the way to the south of the main islands and as far as I know, it has its own culture and language/dialect. So just assuming that having been to Japan before automatically means that everyone knows their way around Okinawa felt unrealistically presumptious to me. Like, I’ve been to Japan, I’ve lived in Tokyo, but I’ve never been to Okinawa before, so I wouldn’t know my way around there either. It’s just weird that they would say ‘we’re going to Japan’ instead of ‘we’re going to Okinawa’, and that they just assume everyone has been to Okinawa before as if it’s the same thing as having been to mainland Japan, when it’s literally a separate island. Anyways.
Even when the relationship between Hoo Joon and Geun Young improves, I still found her way too patient. It really felt as if she was just letting everything happen while Hoo Joon was the one who initiated everything. She was always on the receiving end. I mean, if that was okay for her, then great, but it just made her seem like the most passive party in their relationship as well. Hoo Joon was constantly the person who came to her, who initiated all the kisses, while she kept letting herself be surprised. Seriously, even after he’d already kissed her three times, she still went 👁👄👁 when he’d suddenly hug or kiss her again. She just stood there while he kissed her and made their relationship work, basically. I would’ve liked to see more scenes in which she took things into her own hands.
Speaking of moments where I wished she’d stood up for herself more, there was for example the scene where he stood her up and she waited for him in the snow. She left her phone at home by accident (seriously, what is it with her and her phone, first she accidentally takes someone else’s phone, then she forgets her phone at home, then she doesn’t notice it ringing right next to her?), but even when she realizes he’s late, she just stays there. I’m not sure she realized she didn’t have her phone, but come on, even when you don’t realize and you’re already waiting for more than an hour, what’s stopping you from just going home, even if it’s just to pick up your phone and go back? I didn’t get why she just kept sitting there without even thinking, oh maybe something came up and he contacted me but I don’t have my phone. And then when she finally gets home and sees her phone there with his message that something did come up, she just texts ‘It’s okay’, like WHY?! I would’ve just told him, ‘yo I forgot my phone at home and just got your message after waiting for you in the snow for three hours. Do what you want with this information, but I now caught a cold because of this, bye.’ Like, even in a situation like that she still let him walk all over her and I didn’t see the point, she could’ve just been honest, there was nothing to do about the situation anymore, either way. Make him feel bad about standing you up, don’t be shy!
Also, her naivety when it came to Superpatch suddenly hiring her without even expecting to spill any tea about her time on the show with Hoo Joon. Seriously, she should not have kept that personal file on Hoo Joon on her laptop for anyone to access. I mean, she was fooled, but she should have known from her first interview with that director that Superpatch was a company of opportunistic jerks, and I found it very neglectful of her to not even lock away her private files before just handing her laptop over to a colleague on her first day. I would’ve kept standing by that colleague’s side while she installed the stuff, like, I wouldn’t have let the laptop or its contents out of my sight. While it was a bit extreme of her to completely blame herself for In Hyung and Jae Joon’s car accident, because that in itself wasn’t her fault, but I get that she’d punish herself for her own stupidity in not being more careful with the stuff she wrote in her anti-fan period. All in all, in my opinion Geun Young was just way too much of a ditz to be a journalist. Maybe that’s why at some point people started encouraging her to pick up writing instead, lol.

I liked Geun Young’s parents a lot. I’m not entirely sure what exactly it was that her mother (played by Yoon Bok In) did, she was playing the hwatu cards everytime she was on screen and at some point it seemed like she was also drawing them herself? I’m not sure, but I liked that she was the kind of tough love mom who may have cut the lease on Geun Young’s house and scolded her over the phone, but when Hoo Joon visited them, she was still suspicious of him and still wanted proof that he was worthy of her daughter first. Her dad (played by Park Chul Min) was also so great, like whenever Geun Young was evil-edited on TV, he would break down the town’s antennas, haha. I really liked how wary the both of them initially were of Hoo Joon, knowing he was partly responsible for what their daughter had to go through on that show, and it was nice that they both really had her back.

Oh, and I thought it was interesting that it seemed like shoes were kind of a symbol in the beginning. In the first episode, Geun Young wears a pair of shoes that her ex-boyfriend gave her, but they are too big for her. Later in the show, she receives a pair that doesn’t fit well either, and at some point she receives a pair from Hoo Joon which finally fit, after he’s asked her ex-boyfriend for her size. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I like that at some point she made this parallel between ill-fitting shoes and her relationship with Hoo Joon, how he just ‘didn’t fit her’. She came back on that, obviously, but for some reason I liked that they kept that theme of ill-fitting shoes in it. Also, because their whole story began with an ill-fitted shoe being thrown at Hoo Joon’s head, of course.

One other character I severely disliked was Geun Young’s initial boss at the journalist company she worked, the woman nicknamed Mean Moon Hee (played by Yoo Seo Jin). She was such a bitch. Not only did she keep Geun Young in the dark about the real reason she was fired, basically letting her unleash all her anger towards Hoo Joon for no reason, she even went so far as to steal Geun Young’s previous proposals. She’d constantly bring Geun Young down, even after she already left the company, and the way she acted all smug about it was really irritating. With her, I also wondered why she suddenly decided to come clean to Geun Young at the end, it wouldn’t have hurt to just keep her character as the meanie ex-boss she didn’t want to run into ever again. Anyways, I sincerely disliked this woman, she was also very petty in her own way.

Hoo Joon kept giving me a lot of mixed signals in the beginning, and I really didn’t like him at first. Even though he didn’t seem too bad, in that he didn’t actually press for Geun Young’s dismissal from work even after she threw a shoe at him, but even after that he really didn’t help Geun Young out even when he knew she was going through hard times because of his fans. In the development of their relationship, rather than taking the initiative, it felt more like he just decided that they were going to be lovers without even checking with Geun Young first if she was on the same boat with him. If I had to put into words how I felt towards him, I’d say that even though he seemed sympathetic in a general way, he didn’t actually go out of his way to extend a helping hand to people until something had already happened to them. Something like that. He knew exactly what Geun Young would be going through, he knew his fans and how hardcore they could be, and still he just kind of stood by and watched. When he spotted her upset or crying, he’d just be like ‘hang in there’, like yeah, because taking it on himself to tell his fans to go easy on her was too much to expect, apparently. He did start standing up for her more after the song leak-issue, and of course after they started seeing each other in secret, but before that, even at times when he was already warming up to her, he would just watch and do nothing. One time that really pissed me off, was when he asked Geun Young to wait in line for an entire night so she could get a new video game soundtrack for him, and he didn’t even thank her for it afterwards. Like, it was at that moment that he heard that she supposedly signed that contract with Superpatch and had been spying on him all this time, but even so he still could have had the decency to at least thank her for keeping his spot in that row. What was up with him bringing her there and then leaving halfway anyway? He brought her there, he made her stay up for 10 hours for something that didn’t even involve her, and then he couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘thanks for the trouble’? No matter how suspicious he was of her by then, that was just dirty. It was also wrong of him to assume that without double-checking, by the way. Because it wasn’t even true, and instead of keeping a closer eye on the matter, he suddenly just turned completely cold towards her. After that, Geun Young was assaulted by his fans AGAIN and he didn’t even do anything. He legit just went, ‘That’s not right, I wonder where security is’, and walked AWAY. When he was finally told that the contract thing wasn’t true, he got angry at his informant, while he himself also shouldn’t have assumed, all the more because at that point I thought he might not even believe she would do that. Anyways, he would just play with her feelings on and off in the beginning, being super nice and chivalrous one day and completely unconcerned about her the next, so I get why Geun Young also got confused by him. And instead of genuinely apologizing after he unrighteously accused her of something and treated her like trash, he’d just butter her up with some expensive gift like a pair of shoes. Seriously, how hard is it to say ‘sorry’? I really didn’t appreciate that side of him. And that’s also why I didn’t care for their first kiss at all. It came at the completely wrong time, and it just felt wrong to me. I literally went, ‘What the fuck, NO’ when it happened. He said something like, ‘I’m so pissed off at you, I get so confused and worried and now I just need to confirm what this is’. Like, it was completely on HIS terms and she was more than right to push him away because what the actual fudge, man. Of course they still kissed after that, but really, this is the first time as far as I can remember that I did not agree with a first kiss between the main couple. The timing was weird, right after this thing happened and he was supposed to apologize to her.
Even though he finally became consistent in his behavior towards Geun Young after they kissed (as in, at least he didn’t turn his back on her again after that), he still kept being super casual about things that would cause Geun Young a lot of trouble. For example, when that producer thought it would be a fun idea to release the footage of them accidentally bumping lips on the first day of shooting. Everyone knew that that would only unleash even more fan hate towards Geun Young, and still when it was released and Geun Young panicked, Hoo Joon just made it into a casual joke like, ‘hey, but at least now us kissing isn’t an accident anymore’, as if he didn’t even take it seriously what this would do to her. Everything was smooth-sailing for him, but apart from some general worrying about Geun Young’s wellbeing, it took him way too long to actually hold that press conference and tell everyone that they needed to leave her alone, and that was mainly to clear his own name, or rather all the lies that had been built up around his celebrity persona. So yeah, I found it weird how their relationship went along with Hoo Joon’s wishes and Geun Young kind of just went along with it.
Also, I want to mention Hoo Joon’s family situation because I am still confused. He tells Geun Young at some point that he was born in Alaska and that his father left him when he was really young. His mother stayed in Alaska, and while he calls her multiple times throughout the show, she never picks up. Which caused me confusion because why was that? Was she avoiding him? Was she actually there? Was she dead and was he just calling out of a sense of melancholy? She only picks up the phone after he finally finds out about his father and then she just cries. Colour me intrigued, because I still have no idea what that was about. The only thing we find out is that there is this ring that his father left – his mother told him it was his father’s ring, and with that ring he and Manager Seo are trying to find out where his father is. In the end it (or rather Jae Joon, because he gets himself involved) leads him to a lawyer, and he says that yes, that ring belongs to him, but Hoo Joon’s father used it to propose to Hoo Joon’s mother and engraved the Y A M A letters in it. (I called what they stood for by the way✌️ but not before going, ‘…You Are My Anti-Fan?’ xD). Anyways, the whole story was a bit vague for me until the end, but eventually it turns out his father passed away and he’s able to visit his grave. What additional purpose this whole quest with the ring was about, what it actually contributed to Hoo Joon’s development, I am not sure.

If I had to point out one single person that wasn’t even slightly problematic to me in this show, I would say Hoo Joon’s manager Seo Ji Hyang (played by Kim Seon Hyuk). He was the best guy. Not only was he always loyal to Hoo Joon, he really cared about Geun Young’s wellbeing as well, he supported their relationship without a single bit of judgement, only worry that it would harm the both of them. He was Hoo Joon’s person, but he never turned his back on others even when Hoo Joon did, with the exception of Jae Joon and In Hyung, he was actively trying to keep Hoo Joon away from them for everyone’s sake. So yeah, he was the greatest, and no other character in the show came even close to his level of sincerity.

Choi Jae Joon was another character that really set my teeth on edge. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this annoyed by a second male lead. He was such a petty child. His reason for hating Hoo Joon and continuously wanting to bring him down in whatever way possible bordered on obsessive and irrational and it clearly originated from a major inferiority complex. Basically, Jae Joon got increasingly jealous of Hoo Joon, especially after he got together with In Hyung. For some reason, Jae Joon felt more entitled to In Hyung because he knew her first. He knew her longer, he trained with her longer, so he should’ve gotten together with her. Amazing logic. Anyways, he kept his jealousy about their relationship hidden for a while, but then when Hoo Joon got to debut first and then declined Jae Joon’s offer to join his agency, he decided that that was the ultimate betrayal and from that moment on, he had the right to take everything away from Hoo Joon, starting with In Hyung. I don’t know exactly how it went, but Hoo Joon showed up at In Hyung’s debut party (or the celebration of her entering JJ’s agency) and saw Jae Joon kissing her, so I guess by then Jae Joon and In Hyung had already gotten together. It just made things really awkward between them. But one of the worst things was that in his plan to keep In Hyung away from Hoo Joon, Jae Joon also limits In Hyung in a lot of opportunities that are necessary to climb up in her career. After all, she has to start from the bottom in order to gain fame again, and he basically takes away all her openings, just because he doesn’t want her to catch a glimpse of Hoo Joon’s face. And strangely enough, a lot of the openings that In Hyung gets lead her to a collaboration with Hoo Joon in one way or another. She gets the chance to sing the guide track for a new duet, and this happens to be Hoo Joon’s new song. She happens to get a commercial gig in Okinawa, and this happens to be with Hoo Joon.
Besides his childish behavior towards Hoo Joon and In Hyung, Jae Joon is also just a really irresponsible CEO. He gives the permission himself for In Hyung taking these jobs, because he won’t even listen to the managers when they tell him ‘hey, there’s this commercial and they can’t find anyone to do it…’ and Jae Joon would be like ‘whatever, just send anyone, deal with it somehow’ and then of course In Hyung would jump to the occasion because she is just desperate for any chance she can get. The way Jae Joon kept sulking about these things was so childish. I get that he was also under a lot of pressure from his dad who gave him the company and his older brother (nice guest appearance of Sung Hoon, by the way), but he was really not in a stable mindset to run a company. He only cared about keeping In Hyung away from Hoo Joon, even if that meant literally blocking her career. And whenever In Hyung told him off and said to him that he needed to let the whole Hoo Joon thing go (like, even she was moving past it) he would just become super toxic and tell her that she couldn’t go anywhere etcetera etcetera. It was just pathetic. He would even call out Hoo Joon to meet him at night ‘to talk’ and then punch him in the face and feel smug about it. Like, wow, you’re so accomplished now. Seriously, one type of character that always gets on my nerves is the type that acts all high and mighty, but in reality is just really lame and childish. That’s what Jae Joon made me feel like too.
The thing that made me super confused in the end was the way (and the reason) Jae Joon changed his mind about Hoo Joon. Just before the accident, he has a talk with Hoo Joon which ends in him giving him the contact of that lawyer that’s linked to his father. Hoo Joon tells him that his father abandoned him as a kid and this seems to shake Jae Joon up. Then he says something along the lines of, ‘You ‘having it all’ always made me feel less guilty about hating you, but now that I know you were also abandoned by your father as a kid I can’t even do that anymore’. This already made me go…. wait, what? Was that what this was about? And then after he gets into that car accident with In Hyung, he wakes up and he has a flashback that reveals that everything that happened between him and Hoo Joon in the past was because of Hoo Joon’s CEO. It’s revealed that Jae Joon knew that Hoo Joon didn’t want to debut first but was forced to by the CEO. So, if he knew that all along, it makes even less sense to me why he always fixated all this hatred on Hoo Joon.
After he wakes up from the accident, it’s like he’s suddenly a completely different person. Maybe he came to see how stupidly he had behaved all this time and chose to turn over a new leaf? From that flashback, it seemed like he had been aware of the CEO’s hand in everything all along, so was it really just the jealousy of Hoo Joon seemingly ‘having it all’ that kept him going wasting all his time and energy on obstructing Hoo Joon? I mean, he even went so far as to get involved in Hoo Joon’s quest to find his father, which was none of his business. Why would he go so far to find dirt on Hoo Joon, when he knew all along that the CEO was behind all of it? He really must have lost his mind as his jealousy of Hoo Joon escalated with the day. It’s crazy.
Lastly, I found it interesting how he kept being so nice to Geun Young. I get that he was glad to have an ally in his hatred towards Hoo Joon in the beginning after seeing her throw that shoe, but it also felt like he was going to use her to his advantage. It just felt like his approaching her had an ulterior motive from the start, so I couldn’t really take him seriously in that either, his kindness just seemed fake and he was clearly victimizing himself in front of her. It made me feel like he didn’t actually care whether it was In Hyung, it just had to be him snatching away the person who was most important to Hoo Joon at that moment. Like, he even tried to recruit Geun Young for his agency while she wasn’t even a celebrity. So yeah, at some point I found myself thinking he didn’t actually care about In Hyung per se, he only cared about keeping her (or anything Hoo Joon held dear) to himself only to obstruct Hoo Joon in truly ‘having it all’. I mean, towards Hoo Joon he even spoke very disrespectfully about In Hyung, calling her a ‘thing he picked up after Hoo Joon abandoned it’. When Hoo Joon’s interest shifts to Geun Young, Jae Joon has to get her on his side too and in that process, he completely starts neglecting In Hyung’s career. I felt like the only moment in which he truly saw In Hyung was when she was screaming at him right before crossing the street with the intent of getting hit by a car.
Despite the fact that I was really confused by him suddenly waking up as a nice and calm person after the accident, I didn’t even really care about the fact that he and In Hyung got together again. The only thing that bothers is how quickly everything suddenly seemed to be ‘okay’ between them again, because their relationship throughout the show was so incredibly toxic.

Talking about In Hyung, I also had mixed feelings about her, although I didn’t dislike her as much as the previously mentioned characters. I kind of liked that she was mature in the sense that she just cared about her career, and was only anxious because of the tensions between the three of them. It was nice that she didn’t hold Hoo Joon responsible for anything and she also got fed up with Jae Joon’s constant obsession with wanting to tear him down. While her CEO/boyfriend was just digging himself deeper and deeper into his own misery, she was constantly struggling to make her second break. She joined Jae Joon’s agency and even started dating him (already a potential red flag, a CEO dating one of his trainees) thinking that he cared for her and her career and that he would fully support her. Instead, whatever she tried, he kept on following her around just to tell her that she wasn’t allowed to do stuff. He literally took every opportunity away from her out of personal spite towards Hoo Joon, not even caring about In Hyung’s career. She was righteously fed up with that, but it was sad to see that no matter what she said or did, she just couldn’t pull completely free from him, and he kept finding her. It was really annoying, especially after she personally moved away from his company. I really went, ‘omg, leave her alone already’ multiple times.
On the other hand, it seemed like she cared about her own career so much that she didn’t even think about other people. I found her a bit naive in this, because if she’d just read a single article about the variety show, or even about who Geun Young was, she should have known that, as soon as a scandal around Hoo Joon happened, Geun Young would be blamed for it. She should’ve known that Geun Young would be used as a scapegoat, because she was ‘The Anti-Fan’ and she’d already received so much hate for the way the variety show portrayed her. So to just mindlessly leak that duet song with her guide track on it and then going, ‘Oh sorry Geun Young, I didn’t think they would blame it on you’ was just DUMB. Again, I get it, she was desperate, but contrarily to Geun Young, she didn’t think about the consequences of her actions, or what it would do to other people. I liked that Geun Young stood up for herself after hearing this ‘apology’ from In Hyung, like ‘what the heck, you should have thought about how this would hurt multiple people around you’. So on the one side, I liked that In Hyung wasn’t the type of second female lead/ML’s ex who would start sabotaging Hoo Joon’s new relationship, I liked that she saw Jae Joon for what he was and that what he was doing wasn’t right. She tried to become independent and fight for her own career, but I didn’t like how apathic she became in some situations. Like, when coming face-to-face with Hoo Joon, she just became this shaky little lamb, also in that first episode scene where Geun Young spots them together at that club. I also found it quite extreme that she actually tried to unalive herself twice, the second time with the actual purpose of making Jae Joon watch on and regret it. Especially since the direct cause of this final loss in opportunity wasn’t actually Jae Joon’s fault. I really believe that this was what made Jae Joon finally open his eyes to what he’d mentally done to her, so that was good in a sense, but it was really extreme. In Hyung was completely lost, she didn’t see any further opportunity to climb up and losing her ‘last’ chance (as far as she could see) was enough to blame it all on Jae Joon and decide to ‘leave this world’. She only survived because Jae Joon jumped in after her and received most of the collision – I also still don’t get why she would think that he would just watch her get hit by a car, by the way. But anyways, they end up happily ever after, after they reconnect in the aftermath and they even start living together.

I found the relationship between Geun Young and In Hyung one of the most awkward relationships I’ve seen between two female leads so far. They really didn’t have anything to say to each other. Geun Young got interested in who she was after seeing her around Hoo Joon a couple of times, where she always looked really upset, but despite some minor interactions, the first time they really talked was after In Hyung confessed that she was the one who leaked that song. Like, there wasn’t bad blood between them per se, but they also didn’t become close or anything. They just acknowledged each other’s existence and went on with their lives, which I appreciated in the sense that there was no additional drama created between the two of them. But it was still a bit awkward.

The variety show ‘So I Married an/my Anti-Fan’ was the idea of two producers, named Han Jae Won (played by Dong Hyun Bae) and Noh Do Yoon (played by Lim Do Yoon). Although they seem to be a friendly bunch at first, it becomes clear that they really only care about their show’s ratings. Honestly, I didn’t really find their characters all that sympathetic. They were portrayed as really friendly, and also there was some romantic tension between the two of them which even got its own a side storyline, but I just couldn’t agree with how they treated Geun Young throughout the variety show. Geun Young was so desperate and the fact that she was a people-pleaser didn’t help at all, but those people really should’ve considered her position more. On set they would be super friendly and supportive towards her, and then they would keep evil-editing her, causing her to get even more online hate comments, heck, she was literally assaulted by Hoo Joon’s fans in public several times and no one did anything. Everyone was just standing around like ‘why isn’t security doing anything?’ They were standing RIGHT THERE, even Hoo Joon, but no one stepped in to tell people to keep a distance. Geun Young was in more need of a security team than Hoo Joon. And then afterwards they would just crawl in to ask her if she was okay and act all sorry about what happened. Seriously, it was infuriating. Geun Young literally became the scapegoat of everything bad that happened to Hoo Joon and still it seemed like a fun idea of Producer Han to add in that scene of them accidentally kissing. It was all about the media spectacle, who cares if one person’s life is ruined as a result? I was so mad when they heard the show was getting cancelled and Producer Noh actually went, ‘Even after I went through so much trouble for this show’. Like, really? YOU went through trouble? Geun Young literally became Hated By The Nation because of their show, she got so much shit dropped onto her that she couldn’t even walk down the streets without being bothered, she had to secretly stay over at the penthouse they were filming at because she didn’t have a house, but no, you had it tough, Ms. Noh. After all, show ratings are more important than people’s personal lives, everyone knows that. Sorry, I get very sarcastic but I just couldn’t stand her being so senseless while they knew better than anyone what their editing would do to Geun Young’s reputation.

Hoo Joon’s CEO Bae Young Seok (played by Kim Min Kyo) also gave me mixed signals. I first thought he was nice, a kind of comic relief character even, and it was clear that Hoo Joon was very loyal to him. It’s even revealed that he chose to stay with him rather than go to Jae Joon’s agency because he knew about Young Seok’s money problems, he had kids and even some relative in the hospital at some point (Hoo Joon overheard him talking on the phone about pending hospital bills), so it was clear that he was in debt. Hoo Joon stayed with him because he wanted to help him out, as he had been his manager all that time and had always been such a nice man. But I guess at some point he became really desperate for money and he became a scrooge? Or something? Like all of a sudden his CEO was suddenly a bad guy and I even started thinking that maybe that hospital bill phonecall had been fake, that he’d manipulated Hoo Joon in coming to his agency, that the feud between Hoo Joon and Jae Joon had been based on lies and misunderstands all this time, or something. That didn’t seem to be the case, but the CEO definitely started acting badly at some point. I can’t remember all the details, but he issued a couple of articles putting Geun Young in a worse light after finding out (from a vengeful Jae Joon) that the two were seeing each other, and he also gave the order to cancel the variety show. It was kind of an anticlimax to see how everything was smoothened out so quickly after Hoo Joon paid his debts for him, all of a sudden the bad blood was gone and all was right with the world again.

Moving away from the characters that were active in the entertainment industry, I also have some things to say about Geun Young’s friends, starting with Mi Jung. She was a good enough friend to Geun Young, even offering her to stay at her house and Geun Young ends up lying to her about where she’s staying (since she’s actually not allowed to stay at the penthouse), to keep her from worrying about her. But what bothered me about Mi Jung was her relationship with her boyfriend Shin Hyuk (played by Baek Seung Heon). He was studying for the bar exam to become a lawyer, which she strongly encouraged, but he was also a big fan of Hoo Joon and he knew a lot about idols and stuff. As soon as he started talking about that, she started acting as if she was ashamed of him, trying to make him stop talking and all of that. Honestly, Geun Young included, they all kind of dismissed whatever Shin Hyuk was saying, and I thought that was kind of rude because he was genuinely a nice guy. He was only figuring out what he wanted to do and Mi Jung treated him really badly when he just expressed other ideas than the bar exam. Like, he wasn’t allowed to think out loud about other potential career options besides the bar exam because she had ‘invested’ all this time and effort in him? Or something? Like, what the heck was that, it didn’t seem like she loved him for who he was at all. I firmly stand by the fact that she was the one responsible for their break-up, he had all the right to walk away from her at that point. And then even when it was clear she was missing him, when he came back she still acted all tsundere and made him apologize to her, like she really went ‘you have a lot to be sorry for’ and I was like ??? She was the one who shamed him for thinking out loud about other career possibilities, she should’ve been the one to apologize. So yeah, I didn’t like Mi Jung in that aspect, and I thought Shin Hyuk was an absolute bean, she did him so dirty.

I can’t forget to talk a bit more about Soo Hwan, I think I’ve only mentioned him before once. Anyways, I thought he’d play a bigger role in the story, as he is the only side character featured in the opening sequence, and at first I was even scared that he might also fall in love with Geun Young or something, but he really was just a friend of Geun Young’s who appeared only a couple of times to show support. I guess they included him in the opening purely because it was Kim Min Gyu, lol, he deserves recognition no matter how small his role is. But yeah, he was a nice friend to Geun Young until the end, I liked how the three of them (Geun Young, Mi Jung and him) would meet up occasionally and just drink and gossip.

I just want to jot down two scenes that confused me in which Jae Joon and Geun Young realized something, and I wasn’t able to spot where this realization came from. The first scene is where Jae Joon happens to see some roman letters in the office of this lawyer, roman letters that were also on the ring that Hoo Joon was using to track down his father. Now please tell me, was I blind or was it just really unclear what Jae Joon was looking at when he asked that lawyer ‘what are those roman numbers?’ I watched the scene two times, but I couldn’t spot where he was looking, I couldn’t spot these letters anywhere.
Secondly, in the final episode, Geun Young is reading this article about Hoo Joon after he has confessed all the lies surrounding his celebrity persona, and without even being shown what the article actually said, she suddenly goes, ‘That person…’ and she’s suddenly reminded of this guy that Hoo Joon helped one time to nail his marriage proposal. Again, was I missing something here or did this idea really come from out of nowhere? These may not be very relevant details to the story but I still wanted to jot them down since they stuck with me, lol.

Now to get to a more general commentary on one of the main themes of this show, which is the entertainment industry as a whole, and in particular, the role of fans. If there’s one thing that this series confirmed for me, is how incredibly harming and toxic the entertainment industry can be, especially in combination with the press. The fans are just mindless beings who go along with any wave the press urges them towards – they can be the most loyal people one day, and the most vicious anti-fans the next. What contributed in me feeling gloomy throughout this show was the fact that the entertainment industry really doesn’t seem to care about people. It just uses the gullibility and naive dreams of people like In Hyung (seriously, when she said ‘I just wanted to be an entertainer, someone who was loved by everyone’, I went ‘oh, honey…’) and make promises to them and then just throw them away without a second thought when the situation gets messy. The only people that care are the idols themselves, they want to succeed, and the agencies are supposed to help them in that, but I get the feeling that for the agencies, it’s not even about the people they promise to help. For them, it’s only about money and reputation. If an artist does well, great, that helps the company, but if they slip up even once, they’re treated like malfunctioning machines.
More than before, this drama series confronted me with the fact that celebrities aren’t seen as normal people by society. They’re supposed to be perfect puppets who never do anything wrong (they even made up all those lies about Hoo Joon, how he studied abroad and how his birthday was on New Year’s Eve to make it more special, only to conceal that he was born outside of South-Korea and grew up without his father for example, because even that can be seen as a ‘minus’), and then when their humanity is revealed even a little bit, everyone turns on them. If they give in to any humane desire or do something bad, even though it’s accepted if any regular person would do it, it makes it an unforgivable sin. In the end, when Hoo Joon gave that press conference, all he wanted to do was the right thing, he wanted to clear himself of all the lies his agency had built around him, but all it did was turn his fans against him, make people call him ‘a liar’ even though he was actually revealing the truth just then. To see how all those fans would be so tenacious in their support for him, and then change overnight because of one article… It’s just stupid. I’ve already been thinking this a lot recently, because people just seem to form their opinions based on news articles while they have no idea what actually happened and this is what makes gossipping about stuff like this so pointless to me. You can keep updated about scandals, sure, but don’t go following things mindlessly and form your opinions about stuff when you weren’t personally there to witness it. It’s such a waste of time. Anyways, I just wanted to mention that I found it interesting that the way Hoo Joon’s fans and the industry + press were portrayed was pretty realistic in its negative extremity. It didn’t sugarcoat anything or made it look like rose petals. While a show like Her Private Life portrays the devotion of the fans in a positive light, So I Married an Anti-Fan takes the interesting choice to put the main character in opposition to those fans. Geun Young seems to be completely alone in her case, at least in having the guts to appear outside Hoo Joon’s agency with cardboard signs to demonstrate her disdain towards him, even though she knows she’ll have to face his fangirls who are waiting on him at the exact same spot. It is relatable to see Geun Young’s will to prove her point, to show Hoo Joon’s mean side to the world, while no one is willing to even listen to her. Unwillingly, she turns an entire fandom against herself and this unleashes the nasty side of fans. I was appalled to see those teenage girls throw eggs at her, like, who raised them so disrespectfully?! It definitely exposes some kind of behavior that appears, especially among very extreme fans, and I prefer that to glorifying fandoms, so for that it gets a bonus point. But it definitely also made the series in its entirety very uncomfortable to watch at times, because you just knew the fans were going to remain an issue until the end and you never knew what they’d do to Geun Young next.
I finally want to give one final mention to Cha Yoo Ri (played by Song Chae Yeon), one of the teenage girls who’s a major Hoo Joon fan. I was annoyed by her from the start because of her constant scoffing laugh, it just made me want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her around saying, ‘you’re just a teenage girl with an infatuation, don’t act like you’re on top of the world’. She also treated Geun Young with a lot of disrespect, but in her case, everything was eventually forgiven because she was just a kid. Sometimes this mindset bothers me, because kids can get away with stuff that’s really not okay. Anyways, then of course she’s given this backstory about her having it tough at home and all that, and she ends up helping Geun Young out one time, but after that she never appears anymore. I kind of expected her to appear more at the end, especially when the whole truth reveal from Hoo Joon happened, I would’ve liked to see her response to that, maybe it would’ve helped her grow up a little.

I think I’ve now covered most of my analysis for each character and the main themes of the show, so I’d like to move on to the cast comments now.
I’ve seen Choi Soo Young before in Run On and Move to Heaven, and her appearances here made me like her a lot. This drama appeared in-between the two I mentioned, and I can only say that I definitely prefer her in stronger female roles. Seeing her in this show reminded me of seeing Lee Sung Kyung in About Time. An actress that’s so powerful in roles of strong-willed woman suddenly put into the role of a passive female character that’s basically dragged around by everyone around her – honestly I didn’t think it suited her very well. Not that her acting was bad or anything, but it was just so weird for me to see Soo Young in such an obedient, people-pleasing role as ‘Geunyang Geun Young’. Type-wise, I just think she’s better suited for more confident and strong-willed female characters. This was confirmed in the few scenes where she did stand up for herself and told people off, because those were the only times I finally felt like Geun Young was growing. I would’ve like to see some more consistency in that, but I guess that wasn’t in the script. I like her as an actress, but I think she can do better than this, they could’ve given Geun Young a bit more fire, rather than making her a passive doormat.

I found it an interesting choice to cast Choi Tae Joon as an idol. I don’t think I’ve actually seen him in a lead role before, now that I think about it. This is also my first review about a series with him, but I’ve seen him before in The Girl Who Sees Smells, Missing 9 and Suspicious Partner. Also, belated congratulations to him for marrying Park Shin Hye and their first child that was born last year (it has the same birthday as me, I found out). The last thing I saw him in was Missing 9 and there he killed several people, so that was definitely an image to come back from, lol. I’m not sure what I thought about him as an idol, his acting wasn’t bad but I guess I just really trouble liking his character. The way he just did everything on his terms, even start his relationship with Geun Young just felt a little icky to me and even though he became nicer in the end, I still didn’t really feel their chemistry throughout it all. So that was a shame. I did like him in other stuff I’ve seen of him (Suspicious Partner is still one of my ultimate favorites), so I hope I will see more of him in the future that will enable to write more positively about his character.
Oh, one thing that I did like was that Choi Tae Joon acted out his idol performances and songs himself, despite not even being an actual singer in real life. I wanted to mention this in contrast to the idol character in my last watch The Big Boss, who was an actual idol trainee and didn’t even get a real chance to show his performance skills – they just dubbed some random soundtrack over it while he was lipsynching to something completely different. Choi Tae Joon isn’t even an idol or a singer, but he still did those performance scenes himself and I respect that.

I only knew Hwang Chan Sung from What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim? where he had a kind of comical side role, so I hadn’t really expected to see him as a second male lead character, to be honest. Hold on, I just discovered that he was also in Suspicious Partner and he played the FL’s crappy ex-boyfriend who gets murdered!! Okay, so maybe I had a bit of a bias against him from the start, haha. Anyways, he made Jae Joon so insufferable for me that I couldn’t even watch his face anymore at some point because I was so annoyed with him. I didn’t really get how they would write him like such a jerk and then suddenly try to gain some sympathy for him halfway through, it certainly didn’t work for me. But I guess he put on a very sincere performance, again, it’s not that his acting was bad, but his character was just really petty. I see that he’s in a couple more series that I still want to watch, so I guess I’ll get to see more of his acting, I hope he can do more than aggravate me, haha.

For some reason Han Ji An doesn’t have her own DramaWiki page so I had to consult a different one. She hasn’t done that much acting work apparently, Anti-Fan has been her latest drama acting job to date (according to AsianWiki). I didn’t know her from anything even though she seems familiar, or maybe she just reminds me of someone, I don’t know. In any case, I think she was a good cast for a (former) idol, she seemed like she could be an idol based on looks, and it sounded like she also sang well. It was a pity that she was depicted as such an angsty character, because at times she seemed to be really mentally strong, also when she was confronting Jae Joon about the way he was treating her. I would’ve liked to see her show that resilience a bit more, I guess, not just standing shakily in a corner. I wonder what other sides there are to her acting, but none of her other shows are currently on my watchlist. I hope she gets more acting chances in the future because again, there was no problem with the acting itself.

Nowadays it’s a bit weird for me to see Kim Min Gyu in a supportive character role since he’s built himself up to lead role material and I’m also really curious to see him in his latest release The Heavenly Idol in which he himself gets to play an idol. I’ve seen him so far in Who Are You – School 2015, Because This is My First Life, Just Between Lovers, Drunk in Good Taste, Backstreet Rookie and A Business Proposal. There’s still several of his shows on watchlist, as well, so no lack of Kim Min Gyu! Even as a side character, he’s always a very friendly and welcome presence on the screen, I liked his character in how loyal he was to Geun Young.

Dong Hyun Bae also doesn’t have a DramaWiki page, but I guess I’ve seen him before in Shut Up Flower Boy Band, he seemed familiar to me. Lim Do Yoon appeared in Heartstrings, Pinocchio and My Secret Romance but I have no recollection whatsoever of her characters there, all I know is that she too seemed familiar. Although I liked their characters as individuals, and it was cute that they rebuilt their romance, I still think they weren’t as nice as they seemed to be to Geun Young. They were still mostly occupied with their careers over the feelings of the people they were working with. In a way you could say it was interesting to include so many self-absorbed people into one show, lol. Anyways, again, and I’ll keep repeating this, it didn’t have anything to do with the acting, I just disliked a lot of the characters and they still made the most of portraying them.

I’ll just keep it at this for the cast comments. I guess my main criticism was just that: it wasn’t that the acting was bad, but I simply didn’t like the majority of the characters, as in, I found it hard to truly sympathize with anyone. Even if I felt bad for some people at times, they would always do something later that would just make me shake my head in disbelief. I still feel like Geun Young and In Hyung were victims in their respective situations and they did all they could to get out of that, but they didn’t really grow as people, Geun Young remained to be consistently patient with people, even falling for the idol she initially hated, and In Hyung also chose to stick with Jae Joon, who had oppressed her for so long. I guess I was just a bit disappointed with how the story unfolded and how self-centered people remained to be. They also made a point of redeeming people that had been jerks throughout the entire show, from Jae Joon to Geun Young’s ex-boss and Hoo Joon’s CEO. As I said, apart from Manager Seo, no one actually made me go ‘YES THAT’S IT’.
The setup of the story is promising, but also very predictable, of course: an anti-fan and an idol eventually falling for each other, a classic enemies to lovers trope. But the relations between all the characters continued to be problematic in some way, and I found it kind of weird that the first confirmation of the romance between Hoo Joon and Geun Young happened at a really wrong moment. I don’t know, I just couldn’t get into their relationship and I even felt like the actors weren’t that well-suited. That’s my personal opinion.
Speaking of personal opinions, I’ve seen interesting discussions in comment sections of the episodes on Dramacool. People tend to be quite harsh on there, and I’ve seen several reactions criticizing these negative comments. I think I made this point about this before in a previous review, but I feel like it’s dangerous to base your decision to (not) watch a series completely on the reviews of other people. There were several people in the comment section saying that the hateful comments almost made them skip this drama, and that they were glad they didn’t because they ended up finishing it and loving it. All I want to say with this is that, while something might not be your cup of tea, don’t go blatantly bashing it online and ruin it for other people. Other people might still like it and miss out on the chance to watch it based on someone else’s personal opinion. One of the main reasons I started writing reviews is to do just that, create a platform where I express my own opinion without forcing it on others. You may agree or disagree with my review, that’s both fine. But that’s the reason that at the top of my reviews it always says ‘Do not read if you still plan on watching this series or haven’t finished it yet’. Just saying, you might keep someone from their new favorite drama, even if you didn’t like it as much.

I think I will keep it at that. I hope that, despite my less positive criticism, it was still a worthwhile review to read. Let me end it on a positive note nonetheless: it’s an interesting story and the acting is good, I believe it does teach a lesson and there are definitely some good scenes in there, I can’t deny.

So now I will move on to the next batch of my 2023 watchlist, I will try to mix in some variety again and you will see my next review appear soon enough.

Until then, bye-bee!