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.

Girl From Nowhere
(เด็กใหม่ / Dek Mai / New Girl)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10 (both seasons combined – S1: 7.5 / S2: 6.5)

It seems like I’ve officially jinxed myself into pulling every single double-season show that’s on my list, lol. There’s not even that many, but my Spin-the-Wheel app just keeps picking them out one by one. Anyways, in the case of this drama it wasn’t that big of a deal since the episodes were quite short (under an hour each), and the series as a whole was episodic rather than that it had an extensive storyline that spanned two seasons. I was very excited when this show popped up on my app because this is actually THE FIRST THAI DRAMA I’ve ever watched. There’s only a couple on my list, so the fact that I was able to pull this one feels quite special, in a way. Although I had a certain idea of what to prepare myself for when I started this series, I went into it with an open mind and was surprised to say it was quite different from what I’d expected.
I am very excited to share my thoughts on this.

First of all, I’d like to give a general trigger warning – I’m honestly surprised they didn’t give one before every single episode – because this series contains graphic depictions of bullying, violence, self-harm, physical and psychological torture, murder, rape, and (sexual) assault.

Girl From Nowhere is a GMM25/Netflix Thai drama with two seasons of thirteen and eight episodes, respectively. The length of the episodes varies from between 38 to 50 minutes. I personally watched it on Netflix, but you can also watch it on KissKH. The series is structured like an anthology, reminiscent of Black Mirror, in which all the episodes are standalone stories that don’t necessarily refer to each other. The only consistent element throughout is Nanno (played by Chicha Amattayakul), an enigmatic teenage girl who transfers to a new school every episode to expose all sorts of corruptions, not just within the schools and their education systems, but also among the teachers and students themselves. To be more specific, these corruptions stretch from systematic issues (eg. schools that either heavily restrict their students in their freedom or encourage them to go to extreme lengths to secure their own success) to personal qualms (eg. teachers and students that get pushed to the edge after acting on their feelings of lust, jealousy and greed).

Just to clarify before I start, when I went into this show I didn’t know it would be episodic. From the short clips I’d seen of it before, I thought Nanno would just be attending one single school and create chaos and drama among different groups of people there. I didn’t know there would be a fantastical element, either, so it ended up exceeding my expectations in several ways.
While I was watching this, I was strangely reminded of The School Nurse Files, both because of the wild and bizarre nature of some episodes, and because it uses the backdrop of a high school to amplify the level of teenage drama. It’s often said that teenagers aren’t fully capable to make big decisions in life and love because their brains aren’t fully developed yet, and with that in mind I did find some depictions of student characters going to extreme lengths in terms of romance and popularity quite staggering.
To me, one of the most interesting things about this drama is that it plays around with morality issues, and sometimes leaves you wondering if it was really necessary for Nanno to get involved and go so far in pushing people over the edge.

Just like with The School Nurse Files, I actually consulted some other reviews to see if they shared my sentiments and/or offered any insights that I might have overlooked. Since some episodes actually blurred the lines between what was real and what wasn’t, I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss any major symbolism. On the other hand, I sat through this show with a mindset that allowed me to take in all the absurdity and craziness without ending up with a genuinely frustrated “WTF” feeling. While I definitely found myself thinking “what the helly did I just watch” several times, I’m glad to say I was able to appreciate the bizarre nature of the show as a whole. No matter how weird and surreal things got, there was a lesson to be found in each and every story, even if the episode didn’t end with a satisfying conclusion.

Since Nanno is the only consistent character in the series (with the exception of Yuri in season two), I’d like to first give my analysis on her and then elaborate on her actions throughout the episodes.

When I say that Nanno is an enigmatic girl, I don’t just mean that she acts mysterious: she is an actual enigma. We don’t get to know anything about her, where she’s from, what her intentions are, or even who she really is. She just appears ‘from nowhere’ as the new girl at a new school and typically leaves behind a trail of destruction in her wake. In some cases, just showing her face is enough to draw the attention of a male and the jealousy of a female student. In other cases, she actively approaches someone and provokes them by planting a seed of doubt, jealousy or greed in them, as if to see just how far they’ll go. She goes back and forth between helping, provoking, seducing, and punishing, and never lets you know her next move. All in all, it seems like it’s her intention to bring out the worst in people by playing on their weaknesses and insecurities, only to sit back and watch the chaos unfold with a sinister excitement that often comes out in almost robotic bouts of manical laughter.
For people who are used to main characters that they can (learn to) relate to and empathize with, Nanno is definitely a very unconventional protagonist. While she does expose corrupted school systems and teaches bad people a lesson, she doesn’t seem to have any conscience whatsoever with regards to who gets involved in her schemes, and tends to go very far in her punishments. It doesn’t seem like she’s there to help anyone out, as she even goes so far as to provoke timid people that probably wouldn’t have acted out if it weren’t for her push, however slight it might be.
What also surprised me (and threw me off in some cases) was that Nanno doesn’t shy away from getting caught in the crossfire herself, either. While in most episodes she takes the position of a bystander that subtly edges someone on, there are also instances where she lets herself get murdered, raped and disfigured in order to prove a point and record evidence – it went pretty far in some cases.
The only intriguing thing about these horrible scenes was that, much to the horror of her assailants, Nanno always appears back at school in perfectly good health the next day, even after being murdered or beaten bloody. Practically speaking, if she was a normal human being, of course this wouldn’t be possible. Even if she regained consciousness and got her injuries treated, you’d think that there would at least be scars or some sort of proof that she was physically harmed. And that’s when the question of Nanno’s immortality comes in.

The first time Nanno shows uncommon abilities is when in Apologies (S1E2), new versions of her keep popping up next to her assailants while they’re burying her, almost like a ghost that’s haunting them. Since this is the first ‘surreal’ event in the series, I wasn’t really sure what to make of it and if I should even take it at face-value. It could just be a visualization of how much the reality of their deeds haunted her assailants. Then, of course, Nanno appears back at school the next day, which might suggest her immortality but still doesn’t explain whether or not those different versions of her were real or not.
This element is confirmed in Liberation (S2E6), when she actually shows different versions of herself to the whole class and teaching staff and even has them operate individually for everyone to see. While the first time there was still the mystery of whether it really happened or not, the second time it’s not even disguised as a possible hallucination anymore, and it actually proves that Nanno isn’t human to a full room of people.
Apart from creating multiple versions of herself, Nanno is also able to spawn just about anywhere, in any random place, and seems to possess all the necessary information about her targets before she even gets to know them personally. We never see her on her way somewhere outside of the school, she’s just suddenly there. Throughout season 1, we get more and more hints that she’s not normal, but it still remains very much a mystery what exactly her deal is.
From the way Nanno keeps showing up unscathed after everything that’s done to her, it almost seems like, whenever she’s physically incapacitated, a new version of her just spawns to take her place. The fact that multiple versions of her are able to appear simultaneously should at least mean that it’s not just one and the same Nanno that undergoes all the physical damage that’s inflicted on her throughout the series. It might even be possible that every single episode deals with its own Nanno, in a multiverse kind of way. That would at least explain why there’s no mention of her between different schools – because surely people would’ve shared their crazy experiences online and figured out the same girl was reported in different places.
Apart from her respawning tendencies, Nanno also seems to be able to have some sort of supernatural abilities. In Wonderwall (S1E6/7), a female student discovers that everything she writes on a certain bathroom stall wall comes true, and all hell breaks loose when the entire school finds out and starts using it as well. I think this was the first episode that actually felt fictional to me, especially with how it ended. While it’s never explained how this even worked, we are just led to believe that Nanno had something to do with it, as she also comes to taunt the student with her misuse of the wall’s power in the end.
In BFF (S1E12/13), a group of ex-classmates ends up gruesomely slaughtering each other for an antidote, only to wake up and find that it wasn’t real and they’re all still alive, even though the syringe is still there.
In JennyX (S2E7), Nanno takes over someone’s life, with no one being able to see she’s not actually the same person. There is no explanation for how she’s able to pull these things off, but it does hint at the fact that she must possess some sort of magical powers. Honestly, these episodes reminded me of that reality-bending device from the Black Mirror episode Bête Noire (S7E1). Maybe Nanno had one of those too, lol.
One thing I’ll say about these more surreal-feeling episodes is that I definitely preferred it when they kept things as more of a mystery. In that sense, I felt like season 1 was much more intriguing than season 2, where Nanno’s superhuman-ness almost became like a running gag and they didn’t even try to be mysterious about it anymore.

Once I started thinking that Nanno might not be human, my mind immediately went to a more metaphorical explanation of her character. It occurred to me that, rather than an actual person, she might be some sort of human-shaped manifestation of people’s darkest emotions. Maybe she is just that little voice in someone’s head that goes: “Do it”, and her disguise as a high school girl is only meant to help her blend in unnoticed and to give her targets something physical to rage at and put all the blame on. Whenever people point their fingers at her, she just shrugs and says: “I only helped you get what you wanted. The repercussions are all on you”, which could also simply be the voice of reason that people get after realizing the full extent of what they’ve gotten themselves into.
The final shot of season 2 is narrated by Nanno’s voice saying: “It’s a world with absolute freedom in which people will take rights into their own hands. Will the world even need me after this?” Doesn’t that just mean that people will continue to choose to be evil, even after a mirror has been held up to them?
Despite my own ideas, I am aware of the common theory that Nanno is actually the Devil’s daughter, and I agree that this would explain her behavior in a couple of specific episodes when faced with the bond between a child and their parent. It comes out most clearly in Lost & Found (S1E8), the only episode in season 1 where Nanno genuinely seems to empathize with her target. She recognizes the void the boy feels because of his father’s absence and eventually manages to bring them back together. This episode stood out to me because it was the first time that Nanno showed compassion and didn’t seem like her usual sadistic self. In Yuri (S2E4), she has a strangely melancholic look in her eye as she watches Yuri and her mom’s interactions. Finally, in The Judgement (S2E8), Nanno finds herself interfering with a heartbreaking confrontation between a mother and a daughter as well. These might all hint to the fact that, besides using such sadistic methods to exploit people’s bad sides and push them over the edge, Nanno secretly misses a parental figure herself – maybe she’s just filling up her loneliness by flaunting around and punishing mortals to keep herself entertained because Daddy Devil never has time for her.
If this would be the case, I can’t deny that I would find that a bit of an anti-climax. I actually love the fact that we never get to find out what exactly Nanno is and why she’s doing what she’s doing. What kept the show so intriguing and interesting to me was the mystery element of it all, and that’s why I didn’t even find it necessary to redeem Nanno or give her some sense of humanity. I liked going back and forth between appreciating her and despising her and being able to form my own theories and opinions about her, so I didn’t really want that filled in for me. This is also part of the reason I liked season 2 less than season 1, because even though the truth is never fully filled in until the end, season 2 definitely reveals more explicit information. With the introduction of Yuri, Nanno actually starts explaining her actions more often, and I honestly found that kind of a pity because it felt like she lost some of the invincibility and confidence she’d had throughout season 1. It reminded of how I feel whenever The Doctor from Doctor Who says he doesn’t know something. When a main character is introduced with so much self-assurance that they never even feel the need to spell out their intentions, it just feels weird to suddenly see them in a position where they need to explain or seem unsure of themselves.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about every single episode, so I’m going to pick out a couple that stood out to me for a specific reason.
In Trophy (S1E3), Nanno enters a school that blatantly rewards students for excelling in a specific field. She sets her sights on Mew (Chonnikan Netjui), a girl who feels inferior for not excelling at anything in particular, and encourages her to copy and edit something from online and just make sure she doesn’t get caught. Instead of getting in the middle of things herself, here Nanno takes the role of a supporting character, a bystander who just encourages her classmate, who washes her hands of Mew as soon as her lie drives her into a corner.
What I liked about this episode was the plot twist at the end, that it was never about Mew’s personal deception as much as it was about the corrupted nature of the school. Even after Mew gets publicly exposed for not actually being good at art, the school covers it up, seemingly unbothered by whether or not their students’ talents are legit, as long as their creations benefit the school’s reputation. This changed my entire view on the story, including Nanno’s intention. While at first it seemed like she just wanted to push Mew over the edge by letting her indulge in her fake success, maybe Nanno actually wanted to expose the true core of the problem – the school itself – which had driven its students to become so desperate to prove themselves, even if that didn’t lead to a clear solution. In the end, Nanno only exposes the true nature of the school, but isn’t able to stop the school from letting its students get away with forgery and plagiarism. I don’t know if it was just me, but she didn’t seem as satisfied at the end of this episode. I wonder if she actually meant to accomplish more but ended up accepting that some things were just too corrupt to change.

One episode that frustrated the heck out of me for being unfair was Social Love (S1E5). So far I’d always accepted Nanno’s actions to at least a certain extent, but here I really didn’t understand what her intention was. She ‘accidentally’ gets herself paired up with a popular boy named Hann (Tatchapol Thitiapichai), which leads them to become the most admired couple in school (ship name: ‘Hanno’) and actively goes along with the act while knowing that Hann already has a girlfriend, Yui (Chanicha Boonpanuvichit).
What made me empathize with Yui the most was that she was the first character to actually get mad at her boyfriend instead of Nanno. She kept telling Hann to own up to his lies and quit the act, and couldn’t bring herself to physically harm Nanno when push came to shove. It was so cruel that she kept being punished for Hann’s cowardice. He kept urging her to do things that would discredit Nanno, and then stood back when the entire school started ostracizing her. Heck, she even got the shit beaten out of her and all this guy could say was: “It’s Nanno’s fault, she needs to go for this to be over.” He never took any responsibility for his own contribution to the situation and continued to put Yui in danger, all to protect his own popularity. I felt so bad for Yui, she deserved so much better. #JusticeForYui.

Another episode that made a big impression on me was the two-parter Wonderwall (S1E6/7). I thought it put a lot of things into perspective. In this story, Nanno evokes the jealousy of a female student named Bam (Morakot Liu). When Bam vents out her frustrations towards Nanno on the wall of a bathroom stall, she discovers that everything she writes on there (at least, all the hateful things) end up coming true. If she writes that someone is a stinkface, that person’s face starts to stink, if she writes that someone is a stupid dog, that person starts acting like a dog, if she writes that someone should kill themselves…
Honestly, while of course it’s mean to write such things where everyone can see them, I think writing things down is a way more acceptable way of venting than physically acting on harmful feelings. In my opinion, after getting a taste of the power her written words held, Bam became fully aware of the harm that she did, especially when the power of the ‘wonderwall’ became known to the entire school and created absolute chaos. I’m just saying that I could relate to how guilty she felt. No matter how good her intentions were to tell that bullied girl about it, she never foresaw that it would escalate like that. I guess the moral of this story was that the oppressed won’t hold back once they get a chance to overthrow their oppressors, even in a seemingly innocent school setting.
I actually empathized with Bam a lot. Maybe not to the same extent as Yui in Social Love, but I did appreciate her confessing to Nanno that everything was her fault and that she was sorry for cursing her as well. As such, I found it quite cruel that she ended up in freaking Borderland after writing that she wanted everyone to disappear. I get that Nanno wasn’t as forgiving, but I personally would’ve let her go after she apologized so sincerely. Bam acted in the heat of the moment without any real intention to hurt anyone, and ended up facing consequences she never wished for. Wasn’t that enough punishment?

One of my favorite episodes was Liberation (S2E6). Besides the fact that the black-and-white effect only emphasized the grim and restricted nature of the school even more, I also thought it was really powerful that everyone stayed black and white even after they got out, as if to show that their experience at that school was a stain that they’d never be able to fully wash off. I also appreciated that this was the first time Nanno ever helped an entire class stand up for and regain their freedom.

Looking at overarching themes and elements, I think we can categorize Nanno’s behavior based on specific episodes. In The Ugly Truth (S1E1), Lost & Found (S1E8), True Love (S2E2) and Liberation (S2E6), she comes out as a kind of moral crusader, either by punishing a wrongdoer for their misdeeds or by helping people that needed to come to terms with their own loneliness. Even in Pregnant (S2E1), where Nanno punishes playboy Nanai (Teeradon Supapunpinyo) for carelessly impregnating girls by getting him pregnant in return, it felt like a proper punishment because he actually came to reflect on his actions and ended up loving and keeping his baby. As I mentioned before, although I didn’t personally need Nanno to be humanized, these episodes were definitely interesting in the sense that they revealed a deeper layer to her character, a different look in her eye that we usually didn’t get to see.
It also occurred to me that, in all the cases where Nanno actually did ‘the right thing’, she’d end the episode with a little triumphant ‘my work here is done’ stretch, whereas in other cases she’d just walk off or disappear without showing a clear reaction to her accomplishments.

In contrast to this side of her, BFF (S1E12/13), Minnie and the Four Bodies (S2E3) and SOTUS (S2E5) evoked a brutal and unforgiving side from her. I have to admit that I found these episodes, specifically the last two, quite hard to watch. I personally think that the best lesson for a wrongdoer is to be made aware of the consequences of their actions and learn how to be a better person while carrying the guilt of their past misdeeds. The fact that Nanno retaliated against these students in tenfold, by submitting them to excessive physical and psychological torture actually made me feel like she was stooping to their level and showing that she was just as bad as them. I honestly didn’t feel like there was a valuable lesson in these harsh punishments whatsoever, it just made the episodes needlessly cruel and hard to watch.
On a side note, it was interesting to see the recurring element of Nanno’s immortality in the way she allegedly retained the same appearance for decades, and that she would actually come back to haunt and punish people after several years had passed. It also seemed like she saved the cruelest payback punishments for people that had personally harmed her.

Another couple of episodes, like Trap (S1E9), Thank You Teacher (S1E10) and The Rank (S1E11), left me hanging with a question mark regarding what exactly Nanno meant to accomplish.
While I usually love scenarios in which a group of people is confined to a room and people’s true colors come out through tensions and heated arguments (my mind immediately went to the Doctor Who episode Midnight, one of my all-time favorites), in hindsight I really didn’t understand the message Trap was meant to convey. The switch from a suspense story about a serial killer on the loose to a detective about who killed Koh (Awat Ratanapintha) to a moral lesson about how people can be manipulated to lie from a young age on was a bit confusing to me. It made me wonder what the real message of the story was, and what Nanno actually meant to accomplish here.
In Thank You Teacher, I honestly don’t feel like Nanno did anything, except trigger Teacher Aum (Claudia Chakrabandhu Na Ayudhya)’s trauma because she happened to look like the student her husband cheated on her with. The revelation that Teacher Aum even killed her own child and had been hallucinating the entire time was also very unexpected and dramatic. The only lesson I learned from this episode is that it’s important to seek psychological help, and I’d at least expected Nanno to do a bit more than just sit around and watch how Teacher Aum’s mental health deteriorated every day.
The Rank reminded me a bit of the Black Mirror episode Nosedive (another favorite) and was honestly one of the more absurdly comical episodes to me because it was so ridiculous and over the top. As aggressive as it got, the idea that it was based on was actually ridiculous. Of course, just like with Trophy, it all came down to the school being incredibly toxic as they raised girls to only care about how they looked to the outside world, but in contrast to Mew, Ying (Apasiri Kittithanon) never saw this corruption for what it was and continued to beg for her crown until the very end. I’m also quite sceptical regarding the fact that the token ‘fat’ girl ended up winning after getting a complete Birth of a Beauty-style makeover that made her skinny and pretty. This episode also didn’t really have a satisfying ending, and really just ended with the exposal of the true damage that the school inflicted on its students’ minds.

Honestly, I think there’s something to say about every single episode and they all left an impression on me, beit in a positive or a negative way. The main conclusion that we can come to is that there is a lot of fluctuation in Nanno’s behavior and it’s always unpredictable what she’ll do and who she’ll target. As I mentioned earlier, I preferred season 1 to season 2 because I liked the mysterious element for what it was, without needing an explanation and I actually was a bit disappointed with the turn that season 2 took.

When they first teased The Girl With the Red Ribbon in Pregnant (S2E1) and then in True Love, I was actually expecting a nemesis to show up, someone who somehow knew what Nanno was and tried to warn people about her. I thought it would be kind of cool to give Nanno an opponent who was her equal in strength but had the opposite intentions. However, when the true nature of The Girl came to light, I can’t deny I was a bit disappointed.
Yuri (Chanya McClory) is one of Nanno’s previous targets. In Yuri, she’s introduced as a poor student who clings to the toxic friendship of her two influential friends, even if they treat her like their servant. When Nanno offers to help her expose these friends, Yuri turns on all of them, revealing an unexpected sadistic side that ends up killing everyone in the room, including herself. However, we are provided a key piece of information on Nanno’s powers when Yuri is revived after ingesting some of Nanno’s blood, allowing her to become something similar to her.

To be completely honest, I didn’t really like Yuri’s character. She was basically a less patient and more bloodthirsty version of Nanno, and I didn’t feel like she had anything new or interesting to offer. She was very blatant and vocal in her approach, and just kept trying to one-up Nanno in beating her to punishing certain people. While Nanno had her occasional shifts in sentiment, Yuri was just straight-out cruel, and that made her a bit one-dimensional in my opinion. She just wanted to kill people, whereas Nanno’s intentions, however vague, seemed more layered. I also didn’t like how Yuri made Nanno look weak by drawing more literal explanations out of her and pointing out to her that she was losing her touch. It was kind of a pity that a new recurring character like her, who was teased in such a promising way, basically turned out to be nothing more than a copycat.
Apart from the introduction to Yuri, I found the increasing addition of senseless violence in season 2 a bit off-putting. Seriously, I don’t think there was a single episode that didn’t include anyone bleeding or being beaten the shit out of. In contrast to the changes of focus in the season 1 episodes, I had a harder time watching season 2 because it seemed to focus purely on inflicting physical pain while that shouldn’t have been the main point. There was no need to kill Minnie or Mr. Lucky, or to give Junko (Ploy Sornarin) Nanno’s blood to strengthen her desire to kill even more.

In conclusion, while Nanno remains, so does the question regarding her innate evilness. Before she dies for the last time, we see that she actually gets a scar that doesn’t heal, after which Yuri suggests that she’s becoming more and more mortal. While she still respawns after her death in The Judgement, Nanno doesn’t seem to intend to take any action against her new bloodthirsty copycats and accepts the fact that evil will continue to spread, either with or without her influence.
As a whole, while I appreciated the moral questions this series posed, I can’t deny that it lowered my faith in humanity to the pits of Hell, lol. The rare depictions of a good deed were like a drop in a desert of despair. It’s definitely not a ‘fun’ show to watch. Nanno brings out the darkest sides of people, even in cases where this could’ve easily been avoided. In terms of reflection and redemption, it leaves a lot to be desired. Be that as it may, it definitely makes you think, and I found myself strongly confronted with my own views on right and wrong. As I said before, there is a lesson to be learned from each and every episode, and sometimes that lesson lies in the bigger picture rather than in how Nanno deals with certain people and situations. In that sense, I found it an incredibly interesting show to watch.

I just want to make a couple more remarks on certain elements of the show that deserve a shoutout.
First of all, the strong messages that it conveys are only amplified by the amazing cinematography. Every episode was a movie in itself, and it was cool to see how much detail and attention went into framing every single story. From the shot angles to the transitions to the changes in color and perspective, they did an incredible job. Even if the content of the episodes was sometimes painful to watch, the aesthetic of how it was visualized definitely made up for it.
Personally, I also appreciated that, despite the arthouse style of the series, they kept a lot of graphic details out of shot. Don’t get me wrong, there was still a lot of blood and the images of Nanno’s eyeballs rolling over the floor and Junko pulling out a girl’s entrails are imprinted on my brain forever, but I was happy that we didn’t get to see any nakedness and genitals during rape scenes and that the majority of the murder scenes where filmed from one angle. I don’t know if this was a good thing or not, but Nanno’s death scenes kind of de-sensitized me at some point because I knew she would turn out fine.
Apart from how high-quality the series looked in terms of cinematography, the acting was just as next level. I just want to give a standing ovation to every single actor that appeared in this. What I really appreciated was that, in contrast to for example Korean shows that focus a lot on beauty in their casting choices, these actors actually looked like they belonged in their respective settings. The student characters looked like regular students, pimples and braces and frizzy hairstyles included. Everyone went the extra mile in their acting, which was amazing to see. Even in episodes that were more fictional and absurd than others, everyone went for it as if they experienced it in real life. Every single actor’s performance had me sitting on the edge of my seat and managed to evoke an emotional response from me, which doesn’t always happen.

Before I move on to my (very short) cast comments, I just want to make one final remark on the opening sequences for each season and the posters. The opening sequence for the first season features a figure in black that looks like Nanno getting ready. She pulls up her socks, puts on her jacket, buttons her sleeves and cuts the hair hanging in front of her face up to just above her eyes, creating her iconic hairdo. Since this clip initially shows her all in black with her face covered, I can’t help but wonder if this was maybe her getting ready to step out for the first time after coming out of the darkness – the place she was born from.
The opening sequence for season 2 focusses on the bond between Nanno and Yuri. It shows Nanno literally walking backwards and looking over her shoulder, almost as to retrace her steps to go back to where she ‘merged’ with Yuri: the bathtub that they both emerged from in the Yuri episode. It also clearly shows the two girls in a shared red garment that seems to symbolize the blood that they now share. I thought this was a really aesthetic and cool way to depict the origin of their bond, and it makes a lot more sense when you know how they relate to each other.
Speaking of this symbolism, I actually find it quite interesting that, while the poster for the first season makes sense because it centers on Nanno, the poster for the second season actually depicts a more ‘mainstream’ kind of image that features a couple of main characters from specific episodes of the season. Besides Nanno and Yuri, we also see Nanai, Minnie, Kaye and Jane. It may be a really trivial thing to think about, but I just wonder why they chose to put different characters instead of simply an image of Nanno and Yuri, like from the opening sequence of season 2?

To match the effect of the poster for the first season, I think it would’ve been a bit more impactful if they’d chosen a different, slightly more mysterious image for the second season as well. In a way, the fact that the second season’s poster differs from the first season’s is also fitting since, at least in my opinion, there was a distinct difference in tone between the two seasons as well, but I just wondered why they chose for this image. Also, if they were going to depict specific characters, why not Junko? She’s the person who is enabled by Yuri to continue her cruel legacy, after all? Guess we’ll never know.

For my cast comments, I’m just going to cover the two recurring characters. I’d like to emphasize that I was blown away by every single actor in this show, but since this is my first time covering Thai actors, I’m afraid I won’t have anything more inspiring to say about everyone than “they were amazing”, lol.

Chicha Amatayakul really knocked it out of the park as Nanno. Of course it’s easy to say that no other actor could have possibly pulled off a role as well, but she just ticked it all the boxes that were needed to create all those different sides and layers to Nanno. Her natural beauty and cute smile could go from innocent to genuinely creepy, and her typical smirk and fierce gaze never ceased to make an impact.
The weird thing about Nanno is that, no matter how evil she got, I just ended up loving her as a character, and couldn’t help but enjoy when she showed her sinister excitement again. The one thing that did occasionally put me off a bit was her manical laughter because it sounded kind of forced at times, but on the other hand the unnatural sound of it also contributed to her weirdness.
This woman – apparently she’s only one year younger than me?! – had to act out so many disturbing scenes. She had to exude confidence during physically intimate scenes and repeatedly immerse herself in fake blood and bruised face make-up, jumping off of things and lying down on all sorts of surfaces. She must have gone through rollercoaster after rollercoaster while filming this, and still managed to put out an incredible performance. I would say I’ll definitely remember her, but I think that speaks for itself because it’ll actually be quite difficult to forget her face after this, lol. Anyways, it would be cool to see her in another Thai drama sometime! See if I can get used to seeing her as someone other than Nanno, haha.

I’ve seen a lot of comments sharing my dislike of Yuri’s character, but I just want to clarify that that had nothing to do with Chanya McClory’s performance. She was really good, and I’m glad that I got to see her transformation from her poor past self to Yuri the Menace, lol. On a more serious note, I read that she actually discovered that she had a brainstem tumor right before the second season came out, which means that she has fought through that while filming this as well. If anything, that just makes me appreciate her performance even more. Again, the fact that I wasn’t too impressed with Yuri’s character was in no way related to my opinion about the actress’ performance, because just like every other actor in this show she really poured her all into it. I guess it just goes to show that even the most poor and desperate person can succumb to the darkness once they’re exposed to it, and she did great in portraying that transition. I hope I’ll get to see more of her acting in the future!

Well, that’s it for this review. I have definitely been sleeping on Thai dramas, because dang, these people can deliver! I don’t even have a proper excuse for never watching any before, but I’ll definitely be adding more to my list from now on. By the way, in contrast to how long it took me to write the actors’ names out in this review (some took me three checks 😭), I really appreciated that they gave all the characters such short and memorable nicknames. It’s so much easier to remember ‘Oh’ and ‘Bam’ than ‘Sattawat Phupha’ and ‘Wiphada Cheunchom’. No disrespect to Thai names, but I’m new to them so it’s definitely something to get used to. 🙏🏻

In conclusion, I’ll just say that this series is a very unique little gem. It’ll make you uncomfortable in every single way, but it will also make you laugh out loud and gasp for breath with its unpredictable twists and gutwrenching scenarios. I think the main lesson to draw from this series as a whole is that evil doesn’t have to be born, but it can spread like wildfire once someone lights even the smallest of candles. In this day and age it’s more important than ever to remind kind and compassionate and not give in to instinctive hatred – that’ll only makes things worse for everyone. The idea that even the most innocent person can be persuaded into the darkness with a single bite of chocolate is quite scary, and this show will definitely keep haunting me for a while. On the other hand, it was really intriguing and it put a lot of things into perspective as well regarding certain issues of morality. Besides the many profane and graphic aspects of the show, it highlights many sociological issues such as sexism, beauty standards, social media, social class differences and capitalism. It places the seemingly mundane issues of teenagers within a bigger picture of social pressure, with quite the disturbing outcome. After all, if people willingly start choosing to act on their darkest thoughts from an early age on, how will that impact the future of this world?

I swear to God, if my Spin-the-Wheel app picks out another double-season show, I’m gonna be mimicking Nanno’s manical laughter, lol. We’ll find out soon!

Oh, and remember to keep an eye out for this girl.

Bye-bee! x

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.

Missing: The Other Side (S2)
(미씽: 그들이 있었다 / Missing: Geudeuli Itseodda / Missing: They Were There)
MyDramaList rating: 8.0/10

Hello everybody, and welcome to my review of the second season of Missing: The Other Side. You can find my review of the first season here. Despite my week-long holiday in-between and the fact that this season was slightly longer than the first one, I was able to go through it quite quickly. As I thought, it was a good idea to watch it in one go, since there were a lot of references to the events of the first season. It was also a good idea to split the reviews for each season, because altogether it would’ve become an incredibly lengthy monster review that no one would probably take the time to read, lol. In any case, I really enjoyed the journey on which this whole series took me, and the way it consistently touched me from start to finish will definitely stay with me. I’d just like to thank my Spin the Wheel app for picking this show out for me now, because otherwise it would’ve probably taken me a very long time to get to it.

Since I already spent such a long review on the first season, for this one I’ll try to remain a bit more concise (although I can’t guarantee anything, knowing myself). The premise of the full story is that there are two men, Kim Wook and Jang Pan Seok, who for some reason are able to see and enter specific ghost villages that are invisible to the regular eye. These villages house ghosts of people whose bodies haven’t been found yet. Through communicating with these ghosts, Wook and Pan Seok set out to assist the police units in charge of missing persons cases in order to locate the bodies. Once found, the ghosts are able to pass on by disappearing from their village.
In season one, Wook and Pan Seok deal with the ghosts in Duon Village, a place in the countryside, while simultaneously dealing with their own losses – Wook’s mother who disappeared and Pan Seok’s young daughter who got kidnapped. At the end of season one, after the two help locate pretty much every single ghost in Duon Village, it is hinted that there might be another ghost village, one where Pan Seok’s daughter may have resided before she was found. The second season deals with this village, hidden in an abandoned industrial complex. Wook and Pan Seok set out to deal with a whole new community of villagers, including a shocking number of young children, and a new overarching case that ties in with the events of season one.

Let’s just start like we always do. Missing: The Other Side (S2) is a tvN K-Drama with fourteen episodes of about an hour long. I watched the full series here. The story takes places two years after the events of season one. After locating the bodies of all the villagers from Duon Village, Kim Wook (Go Soo) and Jang Pan Seok (Heo Joon Ho) haven’t been able to see any ghosts ever since. Together with Lee Jong Ah (Ahn So Hee), they now continue Wook’s original business of catching scammers and frauds, occasionally assisted by officer Shin Joon Ho (Song Joon Cheol/Ha Joon) and detective Baek Il Doo (Ji Dae Han) from the missing persons police unit.
However, their newly acquired ‘peaceful’ life is disrupted when a ghost suddenly appears in front of Wook and leads him to another ghost village, referred to as Industrial Complex 3. This ghost, a young man named Oh Il Yong (played by Kim Dong Hwi) is somehow able to leave the village, although he still can’t physically do anything when he’s outside. When other ghosts try to escape, they just respawn at the big tree that forms the entrance to the village (like the basement room in Thomas’ café in season one). When Wook and Pan Seok enter the village for the first time, they are shocked to see an entire school of children there. It doesn’t take long for some kids to spot Pan Seok and inform him that his daughter Hyun Ji used to be there as well.
At hearing this, Pan Seok immediately forms a strong connection with this new village and ends up spending a lot of time there. Even without Hyun Ji present, he can’t let go of the fact that she was there for fifteen years. He decides to stay there and gather as much information as he can to visualize how Hyun Ji lived in this village all this time.
The appointed ‘leader’ of Industrial Complex 3 is a middle-aged woman called Kang Eun Shil (played by Lee Jung Eun), nicknamed Captain Kang as she used to command a fishing boat. She runs a supermarket right across from the big tree and is always the first one to welcome new arrivals and put them at ease. Having lost her own husband and son while she was still alive, she is an incredibly warm and motherly figure to everyone in the village, especially to the younger people and children.
As Wook and Pan Seok get acquainted with all these new people, Il Yong leads them to a new case involving a drug dealing gang, which turns out to be connected to Lee Dong Min (Lee Yoon Jae), one of the main culprits from the first season, who’s still in jail. Whilst they unravel Il Yong’s involvement with this gang, Wook and Pan Seok set out to find the bodies of all the ghosts from this newfound village.

I just want to say right off the bat that I was slightly thrown off by the opening sequence to this season, because it specifically depicted the disappearance of children under a very mellow and hopeful soundtrack. Overall, the fact that this season predominantly focused on finding missing children and dealt with a considerable level of child abuse and suffering left me quite distraught. It occasionally got a bit too much for my heart to take, and I won’t deny that I’ve cried multiple times while watching this. It was definitely on another level than season one.
Also, the general focus seemed to have been a bit different in this season, as it centered more on people that had already been missing for a longer period of time rather than people that were currently missing and investigated by the missing persons unit. In this season, it was mostly Wook and Pan Seok bringing a missing person to Joon Ho’s attention and having him pick it up at his police unit instead of the other way around. As such, I was initially a bit worried that this would be a continuous case-by-case story where they just covered a new person in each episode. Although that’s kind of how it started in the first couple of episodes, I’m really glad they strayed from that as soon as the connecting story of the drug gang came into play. In the end, I was just as touched, heartbroken and flabbergasted by the plot twists and cliffhangers as I was in the first season, so props for the writers to pull off another very successfully written season.

Just like in my previous review, I’d like to start by giving a brief summary of the overarching storyline of the drug gang that plays out while Wook and Pan Seok look for the villagers’ bodies, because this ties in to Lee Dong Min, Choiseung Construction and other specific events from the first season. Basically, the drug squad police unit now led by Captain Lee Man Sik (Kim Jae Cheol), who was in charge of the missing persons unit in season one, is currently in charge of tracking down a drug deal gang that doesn’t only illegally deal drugs but also for some reason kidnaps and murders people, which brings them back into cooperating with the missing persons unit. The ring leader of this gang calls himself ‘Goliath’, and while the police have confirmed his existence through the dark web, they keep being one step behind in the drug gang’s schemes, which keep leading to new innocent victims, mostly young women.
For some reason, Il Yong keeps hovering around these drug dealers, suggesting that he knows them and/or that they had something to do with his death. The person he specifically identifies as his killer is Kim Pil Joong (Jung Yoon Jae), who at some point is thought to be Goliath himself. However, it turns out that there are even more people behind him, like the mysterious ‘Steve’ – later identified as Noh Yoon Goo (played by Kim Tae Woo).
I just wanted to introduce this plot in advance before I move on to my character analyses to make it easier to refer back to.

Since I’ve already written elaborate character analyses on the main recurring characters in my first season review, I’d just like to write a bit about how their dynamics developed in season two and address some new plot tools that were added to flesh out their personalities even more.
As we know, Wook’s mother disappeared when he was seven. In season one, he finds out she was murdered, meets her ghost in Duon Village and helps locate her body in the final episode so she can finally move on. Now, two years later, Wook doesn’t have a real job anymore and just goes around catching bad guys together with Pan Seok and Jong Ah. He and Pan Seok also live at Jong Ah’s place since they can’t afford something for themselves. In the first episode, Wook heroically manages to track down a voice phishing scammer and is awarded a Brave Citizen award. This is where he meets Il Yong for the first time, although he doesn’t realize he’s a ghost yet at that point.
Besides re-awakening Wook’s ability to see ghosts and find a new ghost village, this season adds one more storyline that significantly contributes to Wook’s character development. One of the women that gets kidnapped by Goliath’s drug gang early on in the story is Moon Se Yeong (Im Seon Woo), a single mother. Her teenage daughter, Moon Bo Ra (played by Choi Myung Bin), one day appears in front of Wook’s apartment, claiming that Wook is her dad. As it happens, Wook used to date her mother Se Yeong back in the day, but he keeps denying that he’s her father because “he’s never been married”. Of course, this is kind of a vague argument because we all know marriage isn’t a condition to have a child – it would’ve been clearer if he’d just said “we never slept together” or something. I have to admit I didn’t really understand why they had to keep this so vague until the end, even in the conversations between Wook and Se Yeong. I guess it’s because they had to wait until the end for Bo Ra to finally accept that he wasn’t her real father but that he still came to care for her like one, but I honestly don’t think it would’ve made a difference if they’d at least made it clear to the viewers that he wasn’t her biological dad. I don’t think it was something that needed to be kept ambiguous to that extent. Anyways, even though it turns out that Wook isn’t her dad, his acquaintance with Bo Ra and reunion with Se Yeong does contribute significantly to his character development. You could say that he actually learns how to be a dad without being one. I loved how, in the final episode, he told Bo Ra that there are father-daughter relationships like theirs everywhere, like with Pan Seok and Jong Ah. I just thought this was cool since I literally described the relationship between those two as a father-daughter bond in the first season.
While Wook starts off with the same vibe as in season one, quite careless and free, he definitely matured even more after meeting Bo Ra and keeping her safe, both while her mother was missing and after she was found, and that was cool to see. It honestly made me feel like he came to understand Pan Seok’s fatherly sentiments towards the kids in Industrial Complex 3 a bit better as well.

Speaking of Pan Seok, I definitely felt like he became more sentimental in this season. Of course, as if finding out what happened to his daughter and locating her body after looking for her for fifteen years wasn’t enough, he’s now actually able to see the place where she stayed during all those years. In a way, it was really sad that the wasn’t able to find it before, while she was still there, but he takes all the gratitude and closure he can from what everyone in the village can tell him about her, and she even left a letter for him. I have to admit I was a bit worried at first when he kept insisting to stay at the village more than returning home, because I didn’t know if it was a good thing that he would start spending more time with ghosts than with the living, but in the end it all turned out okay. Additionally, he was already used to spending more time with ghosts during his entire time living by Duon Village, so I guess my worries were invalid, lol. Nevertheless, he still definitely kept me on my toes in terms of naivety. In hindsight, most situations that initially made me go “are you kidding me?!?!” luckily turned out to be staged and/or part of a plan, but I definitely didn’t think it was wise to drink any kind of beverage when he visited that poison lady’s house, for example. Apart from the new things he found out about Hyun Ji, I didn’t feel like there was that much additional development to Pan Seok’s character. Which is fine, of course, since we already got to see so much of him in season one and he just remained to be the soft goofy old man we knew and loved.

Now that I think about it, we definitely found out more about Wook’s past than Pan Seok’s in this season. Not only did we get a glimpse into his dating history and that Se Yeong was his first love, but we also found out that Noh Yoon Goo was the one that actually killed his mother. I actually gasped out loud when they suddenly revealed that and literally showed the footage of him killing both Wook’s mother and Detective Park. The fact that he was revealed to be the henchman that killed those people for Lee Dong Min was wild. It made the connection to the first season much more tangible and I thought that was pretty cool. Aside from that, it was nice that they kept adding to Wook’s character and development with news pieces of information instead of just letting him stay the same after getting to know him throughout season one.

If Jong Ah wasn’t already my favorite supporting character in the first season, she definitely stepped up her game in this one. I loved how she came to join Wook and Pan Seok in their quest to find those missing bodies, even when she couldn’t see the ghosts herself. I also really loved the bond she built up with Bo Ra when she came to stay at their place. Despite her initial disapproval of the idea that Wook had a daughter (her crush on him was definitely more apparent in this season), she became such a great eonni to Bo Ra, and it was nice to see how the young girl started opening up to her more and more as well.
One other thing I appreciated was the consistency in Jong Ah’s personality. I still remember how thoughtful she was for making those new flyers and banners of Hyun Ji for Pan Seok in season one. If that didn’t already warm my heart, her literally building an entire café at the industrial complex and gathering her friends to set up a full-fledged campaign to find all those missing children, even putting their pictures on the cupholders and everything, definitely did. Honestly, I loved how she just refused to stay behind and kept thinking of ways to help despite not being able to see the ghosts herself. Her growth throughout this season really touched me, and I thought it was all the more fair when the last episode revealed that she also became able to see ghosts. She opened up her mind and helped out so much, it almost felt like a reward that would allow her to keep helping out even more.

In this season, we are introduced to two friends of Jong Ah who end up helping her out at the café that becomes their new headquarters to locate the missing people from Industrial Complex 3. These friends are Geun Hyung (Lee Kyo Yeob) and Seul Gi (I can’t find this actress credited on any of my source websites, but I’m guessing from the ending credits – yes, I went there – that she might be called Lee Hye Ryung). We first meet these two when Jong Ah visits her hometown in one of the first episodes. This particular trip ends in a tragedy since the friend whose wedding she was going to attend ended up as one of the victims of the drug gang, wedding dress and all. After this, when Jong Ah sets up the Chamjoeun café, she asks Geun Hyung and Seul Gi to come work there and help her promote those missing people. They two of them are kept in the dark about the whole ghost business, of course, but it was still nice that Jong Ah found some allies who agreed to help her in such an important cause. I also liked getting some insight into Jong Ah’s personal life and family history through seeing her meet her childhood friends and visit her parents.

After the events of season one, I was really glad to see Shin Joon Ho so fresh-faced and cheerful again. We all know he really went through it, so it was refreshing to see him suddenly be much more animated and smiley in this season. Of course, the edginess was still there when he visited Lee Dong Min in prison and stuff, but all in all I think he processed everything very well. It was cool to see how he now immediately took up Wook’s requests and actively promoted the missing persons cases while working around the fact that the clues he got came directly from ghosts.
I remember saying that I loved how he came full-circle with detective Baek at the end of the first season, and now that we actually got to see him work together at the missing persons unit, everything just seemed to fall into place. He and detective Baek became such a fun duo together and it was great to now have that origin story of how far they came after initially dismissing each other’s sentiment so much. Honestly, I didn’t even realize how much Joon Ho had grown on me until the part where he got stabbed and I was like “NONONONONONO”. I actually panicked there for a second! I really liked how he cleaned up in this season and became an even stronger ally in helping out Wook and Pan Seok and becoming more friendly and supportive towards them.

One thing that I also picked up on in season one but that struck me again in this season, was the nature of the relationships between Wook, Pan Seok and Joon Ho. Even though they went through so much, both individually and together, and saw each other through a lot of heartbreaking and traumatic events, for some reason I still wouldn’t define them as ‘friends’. I don’t know if it’s because they’re all manly men who don’t need to express how much they actually care for each other, but I can’t help but feel that they consistently remained more like partners in crime than actual buddies. I think this is quite a unique aspect of the series as a whole. These men came into each other’s lives under the weirdest of circumstances and ended up helping each other out with the most personal and emotional stuff, and it still feels like they’re more like allies and work partners than chums. Honestly, when Wook gave Joon Ho that hug towards the end, even I was like ‘oh, wow’, haha. I feel like the growth that these men went through, also in relation to each other, is one of the greatest aspects of this series. The way they keep it so mature and professional while always having each other’s backs and even crying along with each other when the occasion arises brings a really unique heartwarming depth to their dynamic. I really loved that.

Now that I’ve covered the main recurring characters, let’s move on to the new people that this season introduced to us, starting with the living ones – I’ll save the sob stories until the end.
I quite liked the introduction of Bo Ra and Se Yeong. It was nice to get some more insight in Wook’s past, but they also ended up being really nice supporting characters that contributed to Wook’s growth. When they showed how Se Yeong was being held captive, I honestly already abandoned all hope that she was going to be found since that had never happened before. I did wonder why her kidnapper was keeping her alive for so long and kept telling her that she’d put them both in danger if she escaped, but I just assumed she would end up being another unfortunate victim. After the first season, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d ended up killing her even after her desperate escape attempts and established attachment to her daughter. That’s why it came as such a surprise when they managed to rescue her in time and she was happily reunited with Bo Ra.
I was really interested to hear more about Se Yeong’s past relationship with Wook. Not just because of the “is he Bo Ra’s dad or not” question, but also because we haven’t actually seen Wook involved in any romantic relationship before, be it in the past or in the present. In terms of his character development I was quite interested to find out what he would be like in such a dynamic. From the way they spoke with each other, I thought they were really sweet. Despite the fact that they must’ve broken up on bad terms, they actually still acted kind of shy with each other, which was cute to see. It was also nice that Se Yeong just went along with the new relationship between Wook and Bo Ra and didn’t even seem to care that he wasn’t her real dad. I feel like she ended up instilling some new sense of responsibility in Wook without even meaning to, and I really liked seeing that.
Se Yeong’s dynamic with Bo Ra was also really heartwarming. We’re introduced to them after she’s been kidnapped, so all we initially hear about her is that she’s a sloppy single mom that goes out every night and neglects her daughter. Bo Ra still seemed very attached to her, so I was hoping to see them reunite and interact at some point. I remember how sad I felt that we only got to see a couple of flashbacks of Joon Ho and Yeo Na when the latter was still alive, so I knew it was going to be hard to only get to know Se Yeong and Bo Ra separately from each other as well. Luckily, that didn’t happen this time and mother and daughter were happily reunited.
I really liked Bo Ra. She was such a mature kid for her age. It was so brave of her to just go out to seek help when her mom disappeared, first with the police station and then with Wook, after recognizing him both from her mom’s picture and from the Brave Citizen award ceremony on TV. There are many movies and series that depict someone introducing themselves to a parent they’ve never met before, but I gotta say Bo Ra didn’t seem to be that nervous at all. She just walked up to him like “Hi, dad”, lol.
I also appreciated how smart she was, both when Noh Yoon Goo suddenly came up to her and introduced himself as a friend of her dad’s and when she confronted Wook with the fact that she knew he, Pan Seok and Jong Ah were somehow finding missing people and offered to help. Even after finding out that Wook wasn’t her real dad, she stayed so calm and mature. Their hug after he told her he’d still be her father was really sweet. She was a nice new addition to the cast of characters, one that was both linked to one of the covered cases and Wook’s character development.

Even though they did bring back two guys from Lee Dong Min’s gang in season one – Jang Do Ri (Yoo Il Han) and Mangchi (Park Won Seok) – we got a whole new set of bad guys this season. I actually liked that they linked this gang to Lee Dong Min to establish the history of his crimes even more, instead of just creating a whole new separate gang that had nothing to do with the events of the first season. I just love it when you think something is over and done with, and then the show suddenly provides you with a new piece of unexpected information that contributes even more to the story as a whole.
Noh Yoon Goo, who is only introduced in the final six episodes of the season, is revealed to have been working for Lee Dong Min for many years. I found it kind of interesting that he, with his flair and presence, was actually someone who did another person’s bidding, calling someone else “hyungnim” and doing their dirty chores for them. He talks about his history with Lee Dong Min in some detail at some point, saying that he came from nothing and started working in construction at sites that were owned by Choiseung Construction, and that Lee Dong Min sought him out and brought him up as one of his henchmen. It’s even revealed that Noh Yoon Goo was the real culprit behind the murders on Wook’s mother and detective Park – we even get to see him kill them through flashbacks.
I would’ve liked seeing Noh Yoon Goo and Lee Dong Min interact a bit more in person. They had one phone call, but we only hear Noh Yoon Goo’s side of the conversation. At some point, it seems like Lee Dong Min changed his mind about something and Noh Yoon Goo ends up bribing another prisoner to kill him in his cell. When asked by Jang Do Ri why he did that, he just says that he’s a changed man now and that he’s not desperate enough anymore to “start a fire at an orphanage for chump change” – suggesting that he was also responsible for setting those orphanages on fire. In the end, he definitely worked his way up as a more intimidating enemy than Lee Dong Min. I mean, if you look at how easy it was to track down and arrest Lee Dong Min in season one, Noh Yoon Goo had nothing on him.
I’ll say a bit more about the open ending of this season at the end of my review, but one thing that kind of bummed me out was that Noh Yoon Goo was introduced so late into the series. Although we got some solid information on how he knew Lee Dong Min, there was still so much to find out about him. I was really hoping we’d get to at least see a final confrontation after Wook would find out that he was the one who killed his mother. Honestly, for someone who was just walking out in the open and doing some casual sightseeing, Noh Yoon Goo remained a very mysterious person right until the end.
I also would’ve liked to get a bit more conclusive info on Kim Pil Joong. Despite the fact that he was introduced as a cold-blooded killer who betrayed his friend, he did end up making sure Noh Yoon Goo wouldn’t get his hands on Il Yong’s body. It explained all the more how confused he was to see Il Yong in the village, because of course he knew he was still alive. It would’ve been nice to get a bit more insight in the friendship between him and Il Yong and how exactly he turned on him. In hindsight I felt like they could’ve done more with his character, just like how they kept Sang Cheol in the village for a while longer to gradually reveal his innately good nature. It’s kind of ironic to say, but in Pil Joong’s case it was actually kind of a bummer that he was found so quickly – they just had him and I feel like he could’ve told them way more. Not gonna lie, I would’ve liked seeing him and Il Yong rekindle things in the village some more before he disappeared, so at least Il Yong would’ve known it was never Pil Joong’s intention to kill him.

Before I move on to my character analyses of the Industrial Complex 3 ghosts, I first wanted to comment on some general similarities to the first season. Not that it really bothered me or anything, but I did find it interesting that they repeated the event of a new ghost appearing just when Wook discovered the new village (Yeo Na in season one, Alice in season two), and how this new ghost became a key character throughout the story. Secondly, I also thought it was typical that they introduced at least one “bad” ghost that still bothered people in the village. Seriously, the fact that they sent a child rapist to the village that happened to have the most children in it was pretty sickening, but I thought the way they dealt with him was actually quite similar to how they dealt with Woo Il Seok in the first season. Having said that, the similarities mostly lay in the way and timing of their introductions, because their stories were definitely very different from the ones in season one. I just wanted to make note of it, since it wouldn’t have surprised me if they purposefully reused some tactics from the previous season. In fact, that would actually be a logical thing to do, since the ghost villages essentially all worked the same way.
One thing that did strike me was that, at some point, whenever someone died, they just immediately ended up at Industrial Complex 3. Like, it almost became a running gag and I was a bit worried that it might end up de-sensitizing me to the impact of their deaths: after all, they just ended up at the village and could be further questioned from there. Especially seeing how for example Thomas got separated from his comrades and Alice got separated from her mother in death, it would’ve made sense if some people got sent to different villages. In that sense, I found it a bit typical that every next now dead person just arrived at Industrial Complex 3. Despite this, I really appreciated that the writers found new and innovative ways to deal with the ghosts, like making Pil Joong disappear almost as soon as he arrived, and introducing ghosts that were either able to leave the village or forced to stay even after their body was found. I really liked that it wasn’t just a repetition of the first season but that they raised more questions that only added to the depth of the world they created. I’ll keep saying it, but the writing of this show is without a doubt one of its greatest assets. They used the second season to both flesh out what we’ve already seen and to open up new loopholes and possibilities to elaborate on.

Let’s start talking about the residents of Industrial Complex 3, starting with Captain Kang.
In terms of the similarities I just mentioned, I really wondered what kind of “leader” Captain Kang would be, and how much she would differ from Thomas. I’m really glad that they managed to flesh her out as such a strong individual character that I just couldn’t help but love. Just like with Thomas, there was a moment at the beginning where I feared she might have had some shady intentions – Lotso the Bear traumatized us all – but she really turned out to be the warmest and most empathic person ever. Her own story only came out in the final episodes, but it already became clear what kind of person she was through everything that led up to that. She literally treated everyone in the village as her own children, and despite getting used to everything after spending forty (!) years there, she would still tear up at the thought that all these children could’ve grown up to be such wonderful adults. The scene at the sports field day when she got emotional as she visualized the kids at the age they would’ve been if they hadn’t ended up at the village actually broke me. The way she and Mr. Jung talked about them as “pretty flowers whose stems had been cut too soon” was heartbreaking.
I also thought it was so touching that she actually kept a whole archive of important artefacts that former villagers had left behind, and that the objects they’d given her didn’t disappear with them when they were found. It meant so much to Pan Seok to have something tangible that Hyun Ji had left behind for him. I thought it was a really nice touch that they added in something that remained after the ghosts left the village, so that the remaining residents still had something solid to remember them by.
Through Captain Kang’s own story, we find out that she drowned at sea five years after she buried her own husband and son, who also died during a fishing accident. She always assumed her body had to be somewhere at the bottom of the sea, and so she also told Wook and Pan Seok not to bother looking for her. When it was revealed that her leg started acting up each time her death anniversary came around, I assumed that meant that something may have been sticking into it in the water or something. Until those two old friends of her were introduced and they revealed that she was the only one of her crew that disappeared from that boat, I didn’t even expect there to have been a different truth behind her death. As it was revealed that not every single ghost had lost their life because of murder, I also thought that maybe Captain Kang really did just get unlucky. Her own acceptance of this truth and the fact that she’d probably stay in the village forever due to the alleged location of her body only made it all the more painful when it was revealed that her old friend had actually killed her for her insurance money and stored her body in the freezer of her old warehouse, which he took over after her death. The discovery of her body literally sent chills down my spine. The realization that she’d just been sitting there propped up against the wall, completely frozen, for forty years was horrible. Her response to finding this out and the frustration at still not being able to leave the village really gave me goosebumps.

Speaking of this, I really wonder why she, and Thomas for that matter, weren’t able to leave the village after they were found. Season one starts off with Thomas back in Duon Village, talking about the living people that helped them to what’s later revealed to be Il Yong. I actually thought he left at the end of season one, since they found the bodies of his comrades and also suggested that he must be among them as well. I saw some comments online from people speculating that people like him and Captain Kang, the established ‘admins’ of their villages, might not be able to leave since they’ve somehow been assigned the role to welcome new arrivals for all eternity. The only difference here is that, while this would make sense for Thomas as he was the first one to arrive in Duon Village hundreds of years ago, I’m not actually sure if Captain Kang was the first one to arrive in Industrial Complex 3, and if it really didn’t exist before she came there, much later than Thomas. While Wook and Pan Seok did promise her to find out the reason why she couldn’t leave, this season also left us hanging on that question. It ends with her welcoming yet another new arrival, seemingly accepting that she has no other choice but be there for every new poor soul that ends up there.
I just felt so bad for Captain Kang, because it seemed like, even though she acted just like Thomas in how she’d accepted her role and made peace with the thought that she’d stay behind forever, when push came to shove she still had hope that she would be allowed to move on as well. The way she screamed into the void about the unfairness of being forced to stay behind in the village after what was done to her, even after her killer had confessed and her body had been found was incredibly heartfelt. For what it’s worth, I really hope they manage to find out a way to help her move on, because this was actually cruel.

On a side note, I actually didn’t fully understand the testimony Captain Kang’s killer’s wife gave at the police station. The only things they made clear was that her husband had killed Captain Kang on the boat during that storm and somehow ended up putting her in that freezer. His wife never knew about this, but slowly started going crazy after allegedly being haunted by Captain Kang’s ghost.
In her testimony, she says the following:

“I did it. I never even dreamed she was in that freezer. If I’d known, when I found her with the leg caught in the net, I wouldn’t have untangled her and let her drown. I thought my husband had pushed her into the sea. I hoped she’d move on without losing any limbs.”

What I get from this is that the wife found Captain Kang’s body in the water with her leg stuck in a net, and that she untangled her so she could at least sink without any inconveniences to her limbs. Saying that she was under the impression that her husband had pushed her into the water would suggest that she was aware of the fact that her husband killed Captain Kang. This would at least explain why she started hallucinating that Captain Kang was haunting her, because why would she be haunted if she didn’t even know about her murder? She just didn’t know that her husband put her body in the freezer afterwards.
All in all, I found it quite a roundabout way of admitting to what exactly she’d done, especially since she started out with “I did it”. I guess she just meant that she was the one who ‘killed her’ by letting her drown, and regretted that after finding out her husband had stored her body. Still, I had to read through this several times to analyze her testimony. I feel like this series occasionally tends to hint at things and revealing certain truths in a very vague and roundabout way.

The first really mysterious ghost we meet in this season is Oh Il Yong, who for some reason is the only resident of Industrial Complex 3 that’s able to leave and enter the outside world. Initially, Captain Kang is the only one who knows about this, and they have this silent agreement that he will check up on the relatives of the villagers so that Captain Kang can let them know that their families are doing okay without raising suspicion, attributing it to the fact that ‘she has her sources’. As she’s been in the village for so long and is such a trusted figure to the villagers, no one would think to doubt her, and that would be her way of covering for Il Yong.
I have to say that, for someone that finally managed to track down one of the living people able to help him that Thomas talked about, Il Yong definitely remained very vague and suspicious for quite some time. I actually agreed with Wook when he complained to Captain Kang that Il Yong had the tendency to just appear at random places but never explain anything. To be fair, I can imagine that Il Yong was probably caught off guard when he met Wook after screaming into a void for three years and he might have been struck in a “now that I found someone, I don’t actually know what to ask of him” kind of situation.
From the way Il Yong kept lingering around Pil Joong and the other drug gang members, I already had a feeling that he might have been involved with that gang himself before he died. It could be that he was kidnapped and killed himself, but seeing as he was dressed the same way as them, I thought it was more likely that he was a part of that gang and tried to get out of it or something. Turns out I was right, but they still did a really great job at supporting his decisions. Same as with last season, I loved that even when my hunch about something was right, the way they revealed it still managed to touch me in some way.
In the end, I really couldn’t bring myself to blame Il Yong. He showed his true nature in his response to realizing he gave drugs to a father who went on to kill his own kid in a blind rage. The fact that his mention of “I can still see his face” turned out to refer to the crying kid was so painful. Being confronted with the destroying consequences of his first ever job, he immediately wanted out and ended up getting stabbed by his trusted friend. He was still so young and his heart was in the right place. He got involved with the wrong people because of his underprivileged background and immediately came to regret it. He ended up in the village while carrying the guilt of causing an innocent child’s death, and this information only supported all the more how kind and brotherly he acted towards all the young children that ended up there. I loved how literally his clothing style and his personality started to become lighter and brighter as soon as he and Wook cleared the air and started working together more amiably.
With regards to the continuous genius of the cliffhangers that this series uses, I’ll just say that the revelation that he was actually alive and being nursed by that mysterious woman Wook kept seeing in his dream really got me. As much as his comatose state explained the fact that he was still able to visit the outside world, I actually didn’t see that coming. It immediately reminded me of Kim So Hyun’s character from Let’s Fight Ghost, who was able to help the male lead with solving crimes as a ghost while her real body was actually in a coma the whole time. I remember that the girl in that show didn’t retain any memories of her time as a ghost when she woke up, so I’m glad at least Il Yong ended up remembering it in the end.

In both Captain Kang and Il Yong’s cases, I was actually not prepared for the discovery of their bodies. In Il Yong’s case it wasn’t immediately clear that he survived (🤜🏻that bloody cliffhanger🤛🏻), so when he suddenly disappeared I was more in denial than distraught. While Captain Kang was crying her eyes out over his abrupt disappearance I was just sitting there like “huh?!” Like, I was convinced he couldn’t have just died, he was established as a way more important character than that.
I had the same when they found Captain Kang’s body in that freezer and they didn’t even show her disappearing in the village. I thought there was no way there were just going to let her leave like that, without a proper send-off. Regardless, I still gasped when she was revealed to be still there. Honestly, this series was so good at never letting me know its next move, my goodness.

I think it’s safe to say that the school was a very prominent place in Industrial Complex 3. It’s where a lot of scenes took place, as many of the depicted events involved activities with the children and taking them on field trips. It’s no wonder that most of the adults that arrived at the village ended up working at the school.
The first person we meet, who’s also the first missing persons case that gets solved in the story, is Yang Eun Hee (Kwon Ah Reum), a young woman who was killed by her jealous boyfriend twenty years prior. It was really touching how they revealed that Pan Seok knew her mother from when they were both looking for their missing children in the past.
After Eun Hee is found, the two people that remain in charge of the children are Jung Young Jin (played by Jung Eun Pyo) and Ahn Hye Joo (played by Yoon Ji Won). Mr. Jung, a former Korean literature professor, is initially very hesitant about the truth behind his death. He has told Captain Kang that he took his own life so his wife could get a pension, and that he’s too ashamed to be found. There were several moments where I found his behavior a bit suspicious, but he was alright. When he wasn’t working at the school he was usually tending to his garden or helping Captain Kang out with chores at the supermarket. The way he ultimately revealed that he had lied about his death and that his son had accidentally killed him was so well played out. He had been acting like such a calm and patient man that I assumed he’d made his peace with staying at the village forever, just like Captain Kang, so it was a pretty big shift for him when he finally asked Pan Seok to search for his body in the end. Seriously, it didn’t even matter who it was, every single time they found a body that was hidden out of sight somewhere, it gave me goosebumps. Even if some discoveries and disappearances from the village hit me harder than others, the underlying notion that those bodies had been there for so long, just dismissed even by their own family members in some cases, was absolutely horrific. It never ceased to give me chills.

Hye Joo was a young woman who used to be an art therapist. I’m not entirely sure how long she’d been in the village, and it was only ever revealed that she had an elderly father left that Il Yong occasionally checked up on. She’s one of the only ghosts that doesn’t end up being covered in this season. Since I’d assumed they would locate every single person in the final episode like they’d done in season one, this actually came as a surprise to me. I’d expected her to also get her own arc of how she died and get closure by being found. I liked Hye Joo, she was really nice and it would’ve been interesting to get a bit more background information on her.

If there’s one character that unexpectedly grew on me, it was Go Sang Cheol (played by Nam Hyun Woo). Sang Cheol is initially introduced as Se Yeong’s kidnapper, and a part of Goliath’s drug gang. It’s only after he is killed by one of his gang mates and ends up at Industrial Complex 3 that we find out he was actually an undercover police officer from the drug squad who infiltrated Goliath’s gang. He’d been instructed to kidnap and kill Se Yeong but ended up keeping her away from him. Despite initially appearing very guarded and grumpy, it’s quickly revealed that he’s quite the crybaby and kind of a tsundere. In the village, he takes on the role of sports coach at the school. Being surrounded by the children and the warmth from the villagers, Sang Cheol gradually becomes more amiable with everyone and even starts patrolling around the village, keeping true to his original job.
I really loved the way he bloomed into being such a sweetheart. I think he particularly became more expressive in his more sensitive feelings through Ro Ha’s arc, which I’ll talk about after this. I’m not gonna lie, even though we saw him get killed and knew what happened to him, it still gave me goosebumps when Joon Ho found him behind that wall in that abandoned house, accompanied by Noh Yoon Goo’s secret stash of drugs. The fact that they actually went through the effort to hide him there and build a whole freaking wall to hide from sight, bro. We’d already seen how he looked when he got killed, but the shot of his face in the plastic bag peeking out from that hole in the wall was actually chilling. I’m not even lying when I say that I was sad to see him go. They were sitting around the campfire after the field day, all cozy and all. He really grew on me as a character and I would’ve liked to have him stay in the village a bit longer, since he also actively started helping out with the safety of the village and became like a hyung figure to Il Yong.
Also, something that specifically touched me in Sang Cheol’s case was Captain Lee’s attachment to him. Captain Lee, the head of the drug squad team, was the one who’d brought him into the undercover case and was constantly worried about what had happened to him. I can’t really put my finger on it, but the way he genuinely cried when Sang Cheol’s body was found and kneeled down when he informed his parents of their youngest son’s death was heartbreaking on a different level. I actually felt bad for him, thinking of how guilty he must have felt bringing Sang Cheol into that job. There was something really admirable about the responsibility he felt for his death. It was quite touching to see this side of Captain Lee, I’m glad they brought him back and gave him more to deal with in this season.

I hope you’ve prepared your heartstrings, because I’m now moving on to the main child characters from the village. Even if they ended up not locating every single child, I thought it was a really nice gesture that Jong Ah at least set up that campaign to raise awareness and direct attention to all the children that were missing. I don’t know if all those children were in Industrial Complex 3, but it was suggested that this village was assigned to mostly fragile and defenseless people – which leaves me with the question how freaking Choi Yeong Bae ended up there, but alright.
The first child to be investigated and found by Wook and Pan Seok is Lee Ro Ha (Kim Ha Eon). He always appeared as a cheerful kid with a talent for drawing. Before they actually start investigating his disappearance, Hye Joo is able to give Pan Seok a nudge in the right direction by showing him some drawings that Ro Ha made after he just arrived, which ultimately lead them to the location of his body. This happened around the time that the annual sports field day approached, and Ro Ha became visibly anxious with regards to his running ability. He kept getting upset for not being able to run faster and became really insecure about not being able to win the race. While Sang Cheol was encouraging him in the village, Wook and Pan Seok were out to figure out what had happened to him.
This particular story also put things in perspective for me regarding the fact that not everyone ended up in the village because of murder. As it turns out, after Ro Ha’s father (Son Kwang Eob) had been sent to prison for ‘accidental homicide’, Ro Ha and his mother ended up homeless, and when his mom collapsed at some point, she was taken away in an ambulance that left Ro Ha behind. While running after the vehicle to catch up to his mom, Ro Ha ended up falling off a mountain cliff.
Just like how Captain Kang’s leg kept acting up because it had gotten stuck in a net, I just had a hunch that Ro Ha’s obsession with running faster must have had some additional meaning, but it still gutted me that it was because he never got over not being able to run fast enough to reach his mom. By the way, am I the only one who finds it really weird that the ambulance didn’t take him with them? Maybe he arrived just when they took her away or something? I just can’t imagine they would’ve left him there if he’d been sitting and crying by his mother’s side when they came to get her. Anyways, I just had this feeling that they would probably find his body as he was crossing the finish line of the sports field day. It was just such a typical euphoric moment for it to happen and I could already picture how it would happen. In the end, it happened exactly as I’d imagined. And I still cried my eyes out. I really can’t get over the way they frame these moments so that, even when you know what’s going to happen, it still punches you in the heart. I think that Ro Ha’s disappearance from the village was the first scene where I didn’t just tear up but actually had tears rolling down my cheeks. His little euphoric face as he was catching his breath after just winning the race 😭😭😭.
Also, can I just say how bad I felt for Ro Ha’s dad? I don’t know exactly what he did to get sent to jail, but from the way he acted I really don’t think he was that bad of a man. The first thing he did after being released was go home to his family only to find out that 1. his wife had been admitted at a psychiatric ward and 2. his son, who he hadn’t seen since he was eight years old, was missing. The scene where the dad broke down at the site where they found Ro Ha’s remains and they showed him his little shoe was gut-wrencing. Ro Ha would’ve been in high school if he was still alive. Excuse me, I got something in my eye again.

When Wook and Pan Seok first arrive at the village, the first children to greet them are Choi Ha Yoon (Kim Seo Heon) and Lee Yeong Rim (Lee Cheon Moo). I think Ha Yoon was supposed to be the girl that came up to Pan Seok at the end of season one and told her friends that he was Hyun Ji’s father. Since Ha Yoon had been Hyun Ji’s best friend, she was able to tell Pan Seok the most of about her and even showed him Hyun Ji’s headband that she received from her; just like with Captain Kang’s archive, every item that had been given to another person in the village remained even after the giver disappeared.
Ha Yoon and Yeong Rim are two peas in a pod. Apparently, they had already been friends when they were alive and arrived at the village together. Ha Yoon is very protective of Yeong Rim, who’s a bit of a crybaby and, according to their own words “not very smart”. She has to keep reminding him of things and gets mad whenever she spots him with banana milk. Apparently, the two of them disappeared after a strange lady approached them in the playground and gave them banana milk to drink. Even though they don’t seem to remember what exactly happened after that, at least Ha Yoon had recognized the banana milk as ‘dangerous’, just as the logo of the Blue Bird Care charity, which became a big lead in their case.
Honestly, I loved these kids so much. I especially loved how smart Ha Yoon was. She actually figured out all by herself that Pan Seok wasn’t dead like them because he didn’t appear in the picture she took of him and knowingly kept it a secret because she was convinced that he would find her just like he’d found Hyun Ji. It gutted me seeing them as college students in Captain Kang’s imagination of them at the age they would be if they’d still been alive.
By the time Wook and Pan Seok start looking into Ha Yoon and Yeong Rim’s disappearances, we’d already seen several people disappear from the village, including Ro Ha, so I actually had the audacity to think that I was mentally prepared for whatever came next. Even after learning about the circumstances in which they disappeared, I thought I would be able to handle it. Boy was I wrong. The moment they found those pots buried in that lady’s greenhouse and Ha Yoon and Yeong Rim disappeared while they were happily riding the swings in the sunset, I was once again bawling like a baby.

Like I mentioned before when I was talking about the similarities between the two seasons, there was one ghost that appeared in the village right when Wook and Pan Seok first discovered it. This is a five-year old girl called Lee Alice (played by Kim Tae Yeon). I swear, I could cry just be looking at her. She was so freaking tiny 😭 I didn’t even want to think about what might have happened to her. Throughout the story, we see her slowly but surely become more comfortable in the village, and it was particularly sweet to see how quickly she warmed up to ‘Uncle Wook’. Although the fact that they lost sight of her a couple of times was quite concerning, she really became the baby sweetheart of the village. I loved how she ended up staying close to Captain Kang and kept consoling her, she was such a sweetie 😭.
Although Alice’s case ultimately doesn’t get solved, we do find out that she had an abusive father, which I think explains enough. Interestingly, Il Yong ends up finding Alice’s mother (played by Filippino actress Cherish Maningat) in a different village that even Wook and Pan Seok can’t see. Il Yong manages to convey that Alice’s mother got beaten by her Korean husband because she couldn’t speak Korean fluently. What can I say, if that’s a dealbreaker for you, you probably shouldn’t marry and have a kid with a foreigner. Anyways, for some reason Alice got separated from her mother in death. I honestly found this really interesting and hoped they would elaborate on that more, but that didn’t. The husband fled away to Guam, so they couldn’t easily track him either – I can only hope his plane dropped him above that island full of prehistoric animals from Cage of Eden.
Because Alice had been introduced at such a specific time and they kept bringing her back into focus, I just assumed that they would leave her discovery for the end as one final tearjerker. Honestly, it’s because I was mentally preparing myself for Alice’s arc that I wasn’t as shocked by the unexpected discoveries of both Il Yong and Captain Kang’s body. This was another thing that they left open, and I wondered why. I was completely convinced they’d pull the same trick as in season one and just finish off all the discoveries in the final episode. I really hope they’ll still get to it and manage to bring Alice and her mother together in some way in the end. I just want this little baby to find peace 😭🙏🏻.

I’d just like to discuss a couple more side characters before I move on to my final remarks and cast comments. Of course I can’t talk about every single thing that happened here, and there are bound to be aspects that I don’t discuss, I still want to point out two villain characters that gave me proper chills.
The first one, whom I’ve already mentioned, was Choi Yeong Bae. He was a child rapist that for some reason was sent to Industrial Complex 3. Captain Kang had made sure to drop him at an island surrounded by water and hid the boat in the woods so he wouldn’t be able to get back ashore to the children, but at some point he still manages to swim to the edge of the map and respawn at the big tree. He actually ends up kidnapping and gagging Ha Yoon, after which literally everyone jumps on him.
Now it wasn’t as much his character that made an impression on me, but his wife, Jo Yoo Seon (Lee Seung Hee). Wook manages to track her down and get her side of the story. This woman actually murdered her own husband because he couldn’t even keep his hands off his own daughter. There was something so eerily powerful about the way she immediately believed Wook when he told her about her husband’s ghost and handed his ashes over to him. There’s always something to be said about reasons for murder, but I honestly found this woman so strong. She was walking around like a zombie, coughing up blood and looking like she could pass out at any moment, but as soon as a strange man approached her telling her that her husband was still harming children in the afterlife, she was like “do what you have to do”. The quiet rage of her consent really stuck with me. Like I said before, I really appreciated how this season kept finding new ways to deal with the cases of each ghost, and this one definitely jumped out to me. It just goes to show that there’s a different kind of mourning for the relatives of criminals.
The second person that made a big impression on me was Kim Geon Joo (Oh Yoon Hong), the lady who killed Ha Yoon and Yeong Rim. She might not have been as mysterious and intriguing as Kang Myung Jin from season one, but she was so. freaking. creepy. I mean, look at her in this screenshot, man.

Can we just acknowledge how fricked up this woman’s psyche was? The fact that her own mother had suffered so much that she ended up begging for death messed her up so much that she started to believe that everyone going through a heart time wanted to die. She would literally see a child cry at the side of the road for a trivial reason such as fighting with a friend, and be like “ah, they’re in pain, I should just end their life right here to ease their suffering”. Excuse me, ma’am. No matter how much you may have believed that you were ‘nursing’ or ‘helping’ people, that way of thinking is just messed up. The freaking audacity of her to be like “I saved those little children, if I hadn’t ‘helped them’, they would’ve still been in pain.” If you hadn’t ‘helped’ them, they would’ve grown into beautiful smart college students, making the world a better place. They would’ve been in the bloom of her lives. They didn’t ask you to take away their lives for them, so don’t you dare give yourself credit for that. Honestly, that pissed me off so much. The realization that she approached Yeong Rim because he had been crying about his parents getting a divorce, and Ha Yoon had probably just been there with him and ended up as collateral damage really sets my teeth on edge.
Of course, there’s something to say about her psyche, she was clearly not well and should’ve received help herself, but this honestly doesn’t make up for anything she’s done. This woman had every single drink in her fridge drugged to get rid of any kind of unwelcome visitor and she killed so many people, from children to the elderly, in her conviction that she was ‘saving’ them. It was messed up.

Now that I’ve finished my character analyses, I’d just like to make a couple of final comments before moving on to my cast comments.

First of all, to keep things happy, I just want to mention that I literally YELPED at the sight of Pan Seok’s puppies (now doggies) again and realized they had a puppy of their own 😭🙏🏻❤️. I finally remembered their names: Junggoon and Manggoon, and their little Jjamppong 🐕🐕🐕. I loved that they kept these doggies in the story and gave them their own proper houses. They may not have appeared as much throughout the story, but they still made everything better whenever they appeared on screen. I also loved that Jjamppong was able to travel to the village and interact with the ghost people. The scenes of little Alice playing with him were the cutest. Honestly, big shoutout to these pups.🫶🏻

Despite the fact that the writers of this series did another amazing job at filling in blanks and linking events together, in hindsight there’s just one tiny plothole that I noticed. I clearly remember that the children that recognized Pan Seok as Hyun Ji’s father at the end of season one came up to him in the street and disappeared through another portal, meaning that they were able to leave their village as well. Since this season established this was only possible if the person wasn’t fully dead yet, and Il Yong’s case was a very rare one that no one else had ever heard of, it seems that this may have been a slip-up, although of course I understand there was no other way for the children to catch a glimpse of Hyun Ji’s father before he ended up going to their village. They must have been from Industrial Complex 3, since that’s where Hyun Ji was, so that probably shouldn’t have been possible, especially not for a group of them. I just realized this while I was writing this review and referred back to the way they teased the second season in the first season’s finale. Anyways, again, it’s a tiny inconsistency that didn’t have any further repercussion on my experience of this show, and apart from this they really did an amazing job at clarifying and wrapping up things.

It’s time for the cast comments! I really loved seeing both the familiar faces from season one and the new faces from season two come together. Once again, I was really impressed by the overall acting performances, these actors have made me both laugh and cry out loud and I just want to make sure I credit as many of them as I can.

Can we just agree that Go Soo pulled off that long hair so well? I actually liked it more than his hair in season one, haha. I have to say Wook definitely grew on me in this season, compared to season one. I remember that I kept getting kind of annoyed in the beginning that he kept so much to himself, but he definitely opened up way more in this season and immediately consulted others when he found something out, so that was a huge improvement. I loved how natural he was with the kids, specifically Alice, and how well he ended up taking care of Bo Ra, even while knowing she wasn’t his real daughter. He actually became a dad, in one way or another, and it suited him.
This is still the only series I’ve seen of Go Soo so far, but I really hope I’ll get to see more of him. I’m glad I got introduced to him through this show!

I was more than happy to enjoy some more good guy action from Heo Joon Ho. I really hope I’ll get to see more performances of him where he isn’t a bad guy, because now that I’ve seen him as Pan Seok I don’t want to go back. 😭 I’m glad Pan Seok was able to get even more closure through discovering the village Hyun Ji stayed at, and that Industrial Complex 3 was basically like an intermediate station for him as well, despite the fact that he was still alive. I feel like he cried a LOT in this season, more than in season one, and his emotional portrayal hit me every single time. He is such a good actor, and I really can’t wait to see more dramas of him.

It was great to see Ahn So Hee back as Jong Ah again. I loved that everyone started calling her Jjonga, as kind of a fond nickname, haha. I really love that they brought her back as more than just a supporting character this time, and that her contribution to the cases just kept growing and growing. I would love to see her in a third season with the ability to see ghosts for herself, that would be such a boost for her. There’s just something about her energy and determination that is so fun to watch. Ahn So Hee really stepped up her game this season. According to MDL I have at least one more show with her in it on my list, so I’m already looking forward to seeing her again. I’m sad to say goodbye to Jong Ah (for now).

I loved seeing Ha Joon as a more cheerful Shin Joon Ho in this season. He did a really good job at turning a new leaf without losing any of the anger that still bubbled under the surface regarding what happened to Yeo Na. He actually became one of my favorite characters in this season, purely because of his new-found determination and alliance with Wook and Pan Seok. It was also great to see him be more expressive of his emotions and sentiments towards the cases he dealt with. It’s because I got to know him through the traumatic events of season one that I managed to feel so much more for his character, knowing what lay underneath. I was kind of hoping we’d get to see him visit his grandmother at some point, but I guess he really didn’t form any new ties with Choiseung Construction (which is probably for the better). It was nice to see him again, and I hope I’ll get to see him in more shows from here on out as well.

Moving on to the new cast additions, I was so excited that Lee Jung Eun was going to be in this season. She’s one of those ahjumma actresses that always manages to blow me away with her performance, no matter which show she appears in. I’ve seen her before in King of High School, Who Are You: School 2015, Oh My Ghostess, Let’s Fight Ghost, Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, Tomorrow With You, Fight For My Way, While You Were Sleeping, Wife I Know, The Light in Your Eyes, Our Blues, Yonder and the movie Parasite, and there’s still a whole bunch of her dramas on my list. Lee Jung Eun just has this undefinable balance between steadfast & tough and warm & motherly which was a perfect fit for Captain Kang. She’s able to express an incredible range of emotions with such natural ease that it always impresses me. I love all the layers that she managed to convey through her portrayal of Captain Kang, from the stern to the heartbroken parts. I really enjoyed her performance in this drama.

I was convinced that I knew Kim Dong Hwi from something because he looks so incredibly familiar, but it turns out I haven’t seen any dramas with him before. As a matter of fact, he’s only done five dramas so far, two of which are still in production. He has been appearing in movies since 2014, but his drama debut was in 2020, according to MDL. In any case, I really loved him as Oh Il Yong. The new sense of mystery that he brought with him immediately pulled me into the story, I loved his dynamic with Wook and how he gradually opened up more throughout the story. At the end of this season, he turned himself in after awaking from his coma and had his final conversation with Wook in jail. If there’s going to be a third season, I would really like to get a bit more backstory on him, as well as some explanation for how he was able to link minds with Wook while he was comatose. Could be that it was just the strength of his desperation to find a living person to help him, but since Wook also ended up dreaming about that merry-go-round I’m just curious to find out what that dream link is about. In any case, I thought Oh Il Yong was a really nice new character and I think Kim Dong Hwi did a really good job portraying him. He seems like a very natural actor and I hope he’ll get the chance to make more drama appearances soon.

I’ve seen Choi Myung Bin before in Tunnel, Chicago Typewriter, 100 Day Husband, Itaewon Class and Twenty-Five Twenty-One. I really liked her portrayal of Bo Ra. She exuded a very mature vibe from the start and her dynamic with both Wook and her mother was really sweet. I definitely didn’t expect Wook to be approached as a father figure, but I think the way they made him adapt to that was really natural, and I would actually love to see him spend more father-daughter time with Bo Ra. Choi Myung Bin was only fifteen years old when this show aired, which only makes me applaud her performance more. It just always impresses me when such young people are already able to convey such deep and heartfelt emotional performances. Can’t wait to see her in more things, which I will, according to MDL.

I honestly think my initial distrust for Mr. Jung came from the fact that I somehow associate Jung Eun Pyo with a scheming eunuch, lol. Not that I’ve actually seen him as a scheming eunuch before. 😂 My first memory of him was from The Moon That Embraces the Sun, where he did play a eunuch (a loyal one), but I guess through my history of historical dramas I’ve generally started associating eunuchs with being scheming. 😂 Other than that I’ve seen him in My Love From Another Star, God’s Gift: 14 Days, Fated to Love You, Kill Me, Heal Me and Café Minamdang. It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve seen him in a bigger role, so it was kind of a throwback seeing him in this series. I was positively surprised by his performance in this show, it was nice to see him again.

Apparently I had the exact same thing with Nam Hyun Woo as I did with Kim Dong Hwi: I was positive I recognized him from something, but according to MDL I haven’t seen him in anything before. Curious. Anyways, as I’ve already said in my review I really liked Sang Cheol, he was one of the side characters that actually grew on me and that I was sad to send off. I guess I just generally have a soft spot with tough-looking guys that are big softies on the inside, because as soon as Sang Cheol started opening up more I just melted. I loved the way he tried to comfort Ro Ha and how he cheered him on as he was reaching the finish line. His death was very tragic, just like the way he was found. Nam Hyun Woo did a really good job at portraying a character that may have experienced something miserable, but was in no way pitiable, even in death. We need more heroes without capes like Sang Cheol.

One actress that I did recognize correctly from something was Yoon Ji Won. I remember her being the copycat girl from Cheese in the Trap, who was quite a nasty piece of work. She also appeared in Fantastic, but I don’t remember many side characters from that. Luckily her portrayal of Hye Joo was much kinder. I keep repeating it, but I really wanted to get to know more about her. We didn’t even know how long she’d been at the village and how she met her end. If there’s going to be a third season (I know I keep saying it, but that’s just how much I want closure for everyone), I’d like to see the team investigate her disappearance and bring her to peace as well. I thought she was a nice new addition to the cast.

For some reason I keep mixing up Kim Tae Woo with Kim Tae Hoon, and not just because of their names. 😆 They just have the same vibe over them. In any case, I was really impressed by Kim Tae Woo’s performance as Noh Yoon Goo. I don’t think I’ve seen him in a villain role before. I’ve only seen him before in good guy roles like in God’s Gift: 14 Days, and I specifically remember how much I loved his character in Romance is a Bonus Book, which is still one of my highest-rated shows. Seeing him with his funky hairstyle, clothing and his flashy way of talking was definitely something to get used to. Noh Yoon Goo was definitely one of these villains that act all chummy and smiley before showing the monster within. It was actually chilling to see him flip a switch and just strangle that other prisoner in the bus like that without a moment’s hesitation. I guess it was all the more scary because he consistently kept his own hands clean so far, he was just flaunting about and dining at restaurants, and the finale actually revealed his criminal tendencies for the first time (apart from the flashbacks we’d seen of him from when he still worked for Lee Dong Min). Seeing Kim Tae Woo portray that kind of malice was actually very impressive, he pulled off a very intimidating villain. I always like to see actors in dramas that I haven’t seen in a while, and he was definitely one of them. Bravo!

Finally, I can’t end this cast comment section without a huge shoutout to the amazingly talented child actors that appeared in this show: little Kim Seo Heon, Lee Cheon Moo, Kim Ha Eon and Kim Tae Yeon. All of these kids were under ten years old when this show aired, and they all managed to break my heart into tiny little pieces with their heartfelt performances. Korea’s drama industry has a bright future with such talented little sweethearts. Seriously, despite being quite an emotional person I don’t usually cry that easily, but these children really managed to steal my heart. I hope they’re all growing up happy and healthy wherever they are, and that they will grow up to be as beautiful and mature as the characters they’ve portrayed in this show. 🙏🏻❤️

In conclusion, while I may be wrapping up this review as the final installment of this series since there hasn’t been any news about a possible continuation, I think we can all agree that the finale of season two HEAVILY suggested a third season. In fact, they left more things open than the first season did.
The first season ended purely with the suggestion that there was another village, and that that’s where Hyun Ji might have stayed at. This in itself could’ve just been an ending without further elaboration, apart from the confirmation that there were more ghost villages.
This season ended with the introduction of several new plotlines, and didn’t finish all of its existing ones. First of all, they didn’t end the season with locating every single villager’s body, as both Hye Joo and Alice remained together with Captain Kang. Apart from that, they also left us hanging with the promise of finding out why Captain Kang couldn’t leave the village even after she was found (just like Thomas). Noh Yoon Goo ends up escaping during his transport to jail and Wook still has to find out he’s the one who killed his mother. Then there’s the revelation that Jong Ah suddenly becomes able to see ghosts as well, and the introduction of at least two new villages. We never find out why Wook was able to dream about the room that Il Yong’s body was in through his eyes and why he started dreaming about that mysterious merry-go-round. And what about freaking Im Si Wan as a potential new village head welcoming us under said merry-go-round?
Concerning that last one, Im Si Wan’s cameo appearance might just be a tease, just like how Hotel Del Luna ended with the revelation of Lee Joong Gi as the new owner – it doesn’t necessarily indicate another season. After all, we already got enough confirmation that there are more ghost villages, through this season and Alice’s mother. Still, there’s a lot that they left us hanging on.
In my opinion, the story definitely asks for a more complete ending than this. I’ll actually be a bit mad if there really isn’t going to be a season three, because there’s no way they’re writing off Noh Yoon Goo’s escape as “oh well, sometimes people don’t get what they deserve”. I need more closure than that. There is still so much more to figure out about Noh Yoon Goo and how he ties in to everything, especially after the revelation that he’s not the real Goliath either. I am more than positive that the writers of this show are able to pull off a perfectly satisfying conclusion to this story. Let’s just keep it at that: I’ll be waiting.

I would definitely recommend this series. I think it’s important to note that, besides the chilling and heartbreaking aspects of the story, the heartwarming and touching elements are just as significant. Yes, the world is an awful place full of scumbags that feel entitled to take other people’s lives, I’m not going to sugarcoat that. But, as I mentioned before in my review of season one, it’s kind of comforting to imagine that those who met such a chilling end at least get to experience some final peace in a beautiful quiet village where everyone enjoys the small happinesses of eating a warm meal and spending time with loving, caring people. As much sadness the villages are filled with, they thrive on the temporary relief from the horrors of the outside world and create a comfortable intermediate station before the afterlife. It’s just as important to keep our eyes open to the cruelties of the world we live in as it is to acknowledge the warmth and beauty that we can find in it. I think this series mirrored this contrast very aptly by juxtaposing the awful body finds to the way the ghosts disappeared from the village. A tragic discovery versus a heartwarming depiction of closure. The beginning of a painful road of mourning versus a long-awaited chance to move on. I’ll leave it at that.

It’s never happened before that I got to watch two double-season shows in a row. I’m happy to watch whatever I can, of course, but as much as I love writing reviews, it takes a lot of time and energy to finish them, especially if the story is stretched out over multiple lengthy seasons. I know I have a couple more multi-season dramas on my list, but for now I hope my app picks out a good old single-seasoner next, lol.

Until then! Bye-bee! x

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.

Missing: The Other Side (S1)
(미씽: 그들이 있었다 / Missing: Geudeuli Itseodda / Missing: They Were There)
MyDramaList rating: 8.0/10

‘Ello ‘ello! Welcome to a new review. Seriously, after finishing my monster review of the two seasons of Yumi’s Cells I was not prepared to immediately get another double-season show thrown at me, lol. As you can see, for this series I’ve decided to cut the review in two, so one for each season. This is because, from what I’ve read, the two seasons for this show aren’t one continuous story – they have their own plot and cast of characters. Also, looking at my work and holiday schedule for this month, it was easier for me to split the review into two separate ones. It’s probably also more easily accessible like that. Now, without further ado, let’s dive into this hidden gem of a show. When this title popped up on my Spin the Wheel app, I felt like it hadn’t actually been that long since I put it on my list. I feel like I only watched the trailer quite recently and thought it looked good. Surprisingly, I also didn’t know the majority of the actors, and it really grabbed me from the start. I’m excited to share my views on this, so let’s go.

Missing: The Other Side (S1) is an OCN K-Drama with twelve episodes of about one hour and ten minutes each. I watched it on my new go-to website KissKH.
The story begins with the introduction of several characters, starting with Kim Wook (played by Go Soo). Wook is a conman with seemingly little empathic tendencies. He and his small team, consisting of Lee Jong Ah (played by Ahn So Hee) and Kim Nam Gook (Moon Yoo Kang), solve their own little cases, Café Minamdang-style. Apart from this business where they hack and scam bad guys, Jong Ah is a proper company employee and Nam Gook runs his own pawn shop, so everyone has a cover. It’s revealed early on that Wook and Nam Gook know each other from the orphanage they grew up at together, and it’s later shown that they met Jong Ah as adults, when they helped her from getting conned. The three of them are very tight.
Next, we meet Shin Joon Ho (played by Ha Joon), a police officer in the Violent Crimes unit. Since he mainly deals with wrapping up cases such as aggravated robberies and burglaries, he never really gets too involved with the victims’ stories and is initially portrayed as quite stoic and cold-hearted. We learn that he is getting married soon, but it seems that he’s been fighting with his fiancée a lot and she stopped picking up his calls, which only contributes to his irritable behavior.
We are also introduced to Detective Baek Il Doo (played by Ji Dae Han) from the Missing Persons unit as he keeps bumping heads with Joon Ho. Since his team deals with ongoing cases that involve a lot of emotional implications for both the victims and their loved ones, Detective Baek is baffled by Joon Ho’s lack of emotional empathy towards his cases.
And then there is Jang Pan Seok (played by Heo Joon Ho), an initially quite mysterious middle-aged man who lives by himself in a rural area called Duon-ri. From the flashes we get before we are properly introduced to him, he also seems to be looking for bodies, although it isn’t immediately clear why.

Things get set in motion when Wook one day witnesses a young woman getting kidnapped, and ends up getting chased by the abductors himself. While outrunning them, he falls from a steep cliff and ends up near Duon-ri. Pan Seok finds him and brings him to his house to take care of him.
It doesn’t take long for Wook to discover a strange village near Pan Seok’s house, where a whole lot of people, including children, seem to live happily away from the city. After being initially greeted by the enigmatic café owner Thomas (played by Song Geon Hee) and getting suspicious looks from the “village mom” Kim Hyun Mi (played by Kang Mal Geum), he comes across a crying little boy called Seo Ha Neul (Jang Seon Wool, bless him). Wook’s confusion grows when he realizes he recognizes this kid from a missing poster.
It takes a while for Wook to come to terms with what’s happening, but it turns out that Duon Village – which only he and Pan Seok are able to see – houses the spirits of the dead. Specifically, people whose bodies haven’t been found yet. Pan Seok has been around Duon Village for ten years already, trying to locate the spirits’ bodies and passing anonymous evidence to the police to help them get found. While initially stubborn and unruly, Wook ends up helping him. As they gather more information from the spirits themselves to aid in their respective investigations, the two men start acting as mediums between Duon Village and the real world, passing on information from one side to the other in order to locate the spirits’ bodies and allow them to pass on.
Joon Ho starts getting involved with the Missing Persons cases as well when his own fiancée, Choi Yeo Na (played by Seo Eun Soo) turns out to be missing. Wook is put in a tight spot when he realizes that Yeo Na is the woman he witnessed getting kidnapped, and she also arrived in Duon Village as a spirit.
While dealing with all these heartbreaking cases, Wook and Pan Seok come to terms with their own family losses as well: Wook’s mother who disappeared when he was seven, and Pan Seok’s young daughter who went missing fifteen years earlier.

The way the story was built up kind of reminded me of He is Psychometric, because it starts with one incident but then throughout the story you find out it goes way back and there’s a lot more behind it than you initially expected. I personally loved the way they gradually gave away more and more information. Even when I predicted things correctly earlier on, I still liked the way they eventually revealed it through subtle hints and transitions. Admittedly, there were a few things that felt a tiny bit anticlimactic, but all in all this show had me sitting with my mouth open A LOT, lol. There was just something about the writing that worked really well and made everything fall into place in a very satisfying way.

I’d like to give a concise summary of all the storylines that play out throughout the series, because a lot happens and a lot of cases are intricately connected to each other.
It all basically comes down to two separate serial killers, Kang Myung Jin (played by Kim Sang Bo) and Lee Dong Min (played by Lee Yoon Jae). These two guys are responsible for the disappearance of several residents of Duon Village and other victims that are revealed throughout the story, such as Pan Seok’s daughter Hyun Ji (Lee Hyo Bi).
Kang Myung Jin is arrested by Detective Baek’s team fairly early on, after he is linked to the case of Kim Mi Ok, one of the spirits in the village. After Pan Seok managed to locate her body, he left a clue leading to Kang Myung Jin for the police to find, causing him to get arrested quite quickly. However, there’s something about this killer that makes Detective Baek feel like this isn’t the only crime he’s committed. I also felt like there was more to this guy, because they kept bringing him back into focus with the humming and stuff. Detective Baek is determined to get Kang Myung Jin prosecuted for everything he’s done, not just the murder of Kim Mi Ok. Ultimately, it is revealed that Kang Myung Jin has been murdering women for a very long time ever since he was a student, and unfortunately Hyun Ji was one of his victims as well.
While Detective Baek is mainly on the case of Kang Myung Jin and helping Pan Seok in whatever way possible to find a lead on his missing daughter, Joon Ho’s search for Yeo Na ultimately leads him to Lee Dong Min, a director at a construction company called Choiseung. He, along with two other directors, is entitled to part of the shares Chairwoman Han Yeo Hee (played by Jung Yeong Sook) has signed away in her will. However, his entitlement falls through when the Chairwoman suddenly finds out that her daughter Soo Yeon, who passed away 27 years earlier, gave birth to a child before she died. If there truly is a grandchild, then that child surely must become her new heir (this gave me Birth of a Beauty vibes).
Being responsible for killing the Chairwoman’s daughter in the first place – and two spirits in Duon Village who posed a risk to this coming out – Lee Dong Min goes so far as to track down every single survivor of the orphanage fire he orchestrated back in the day, including Nam Gook and Yeo Na, just in order to make sure that they are not related to the Chairwoman and won’t pose any threat to his claim to the company shares.
Honestly, this bothered me so much. The fact that he didn’t just take their DNA to check if they were the grandchild but actually killed them first and THEN compared their DNA only proved that he was a serial killer. It was so senseless. In the end he “justified” this by saying that they were “leading lives they weren’t entitled to, anyway” because they were orphans. That made me so mad. The whole stigma on orphans that seeped through this story was aggravating, to say the least.
Throughout the investigations of these killers, mostly led by Joon Ho’s search for Yeo Na and Pan Seok’s ongoing search for his daughter, we find out who all the villagers are and what happened to them, even the ones that aren’t connected to these cases. In-between the two major storylines, Pan Seok and Wook keep passing on new leads to the police that help them locate new bodies that will allow more spirits to pass on.

I just want to go over some of the main characters in a bit more detail and discuss some dynamics that I really liked before moving on to other comments regarding the series as a whole and aspects of the story that touched me in particular.
Let’s start with Kim Wook. Honestly, as much character growth as he got in the end, I thought he was a very whimsical protagonist. After his mother disappeared when he was seven, he grew up in an orphanage and learned to fend for himself, which ended up turning him into quite a selfish person. Apart from his friends whom he grew up with, he doesn’t have anyone to rely on, which makes his life very easy but also quite lonely. He simply chooses not to stop and think about it, but we later find out that he’s actually been dealing with a lot of grief and resentment regarding his mother’s disappearance. So much so, in fact, that it’s part of the reason why he’s able to see the village.
As I mentioned before, the people closest to Wook are his friends Jong Ah and Nam Gook. Jong Ah is a young woman with amazing hacking skills who even seemed to have a little crush on Wook. From the way she called him “oppa” to how her face lit up when he complimented her or told her she’d been of help to him, I think it wasn’t too much of a stretch. There wasn’t any romantic build-up or anything between them, though, so she ultimately felt more like an affectionate younger sister.
Nam Gook was another story. He was like a brother to Wook. They grew up in the same orphanage after Wook was abandoned by his mother and Nam Gook’s previous orphanage burned down in a fire. I really wished Nam Gook could’ve gotten a bit more screentime before he was taken away so tragically, but they did establish his character just enough to make his death shocking. When it happened, I was actually in denial about the fact they really just killed him off like that so soon. I thought the whole team would be in on all the action until the end.
After seeing Wook tear up when dealing with Ha Neul’s case in the first three episodes, his reaction to Nam Gook’s death was absolutely GUTTING. That’s the first time we actually see him completely break down, and this becomes the trigger for him to chase down the killer and cooporate with Joon Ho in locating Yeo Na, who was presumably done in by the same culprit.
On the other hand, from here on out I couldn’t help but get a little frustrated by Wook’s tendency to keep all the information he’d acquired to himself.
For one, if he’d told Joon Ho beforehand that he’d witnessed Yeo Na get kidnapped and that he placed a tracker on the abductors’ car because he already feared they might go after Nam Gook, they would’ve been able to proceed with the investigation much faster and maybe even prevented Nam Gook’s death. Of course, for plot purposes, they couldn’t let everything get solved within a couple of episodes, but it bugged me that I didn’t understand why Wook didn’t come out with the fact that he’d been tracking the suspects until AFTER Nam Gook died. It literally went like: “oh btw, I placed a tracker on their car” “wait, what?! are you kidding me?! pass me that info, now!” Like, even Joon Ho set his pride aside at some point to BEG him for his help since he acknowledged Wook’s contribution to certain cases. It really reminded of Café Minamdang, where two teams basically tried to solve the same case individually while they could’ve just worked together from the start. Of course, he went through a very confusing and surreal ordeal with the discovery of a spirit village only he and one other living person could see, and he also later admits that he was still way too confused to process everything properly. Still, I think he could’ve dealt with certain things way better. Even if he wasn’t able to share the testimonies of the spirits, there were enough things that he could’ve shared that would’ve sped up the investigations.
To give an example, I honestly felt like he could’ve done a much better job at easing Joon Ho into accepting that Yeo Na was dead. I get that he couldn’t exactly tell him that she was a ghost and he could talk to her, and that it would be hard to inform Joon Ho of her death after seeing him so convinced that she was still alive. But I still feel like it would’ve been better if he’d prepared the both of them for the truth a little sooner. It was heartbreaking enough to know that they wouldn’t be able to reunite and we had to wait for Joon Ho to finally figure this out about by himself.
The way Wook eventually ended up telling him the first time was the WORST. It was exactly what I dreaded would happen, that he wouldn’t find the right timing (if there was one) and end up blurting it out in order to get him to focus on saving someone else, someone who was still alive. That actually hurt, man. And then, when Joon Ho came to ask him afterwards what he’d meant by saying Yeo Na was dead, why didn’t he just tell him what he told Pan Seok, that his abductor had said he’d sent Wook after Yeo Na and then ordered his men to throw him into the sea? That was something he picked up in realtime, not in the village, and it was a direct link to what they’d done to Yeo Na. Honestly, that was probably the worst timing to suddenly bring up he’d met Yeo Na’s ghost, as it understandably aggravated Joon Ho even more. Why create more tension when he could’ve just shared some solid facts that he acquired directly from the culprits and that would’ve actually helped them speed up the search?
Honestly, it was pretty frustrating to see Wook constantly withhold evidence and information from Joon Ho about what really happened to Yeo Na. This got additionally messy when Yeo Na herself sent a scammer to Joon Ho in order to lead him back to the village where she was, because she also didn’t immediately accept the fact that she was dead. She and Wook went right past each other in their attempts to guide Joon Ho to where they needed him to be, which was pretty chaotic.
Besides this, I also didn’t really get why Wook didn’t tell Pan Seok and Thomas about the fact that Yeo Na was Joon Ho’s fiancée from the start. What use was it to keep that to himself? I kept thinking that, the more people knew about everything that was going on and how everything was connected the better, and the more they could find out together. As a viewer, it was quite annoying to see the main lead hold onto all that information without sharing it with the people that would’ve benefitted from it the most. Although again, I get that they had to fill twelve episodes and couldn’t just solve everything in one go, I wish there had been a better explanation for Wook to be so secretive about everything he found out.

Also, when that killer Woo Il Seok ended up in the village and started assaulting the spirits, why did Wook let him off the first time? Why did he let him roam free to keep attacking people? It’s not like he was going to lay low after Wook warned him ONCE. I guess he just wanted him to get lost until they found a way to make him disappear from the village? Still, surely it would’ve been better to look for his body in the outside world after making sure he was locked up so he couldn’t attack anyone else in the village?
By the way, I found it lowkey funny that they actually went to look for Woo Il Seok’s body to get him to disappear from the village. For most spirits it was a really special and emotional moment to be found, and they would be waved off by the rest, all: “Go safely, we’ll miss you”. But then for Woo Il Seok they were like, “let’s get this guy out of here asap cause he’s annoying”, lol.

One of the major developments in Wook’s character occurs when he finds out that Hyun Mi, the beforementioned “village mom” who was continuously suspicious of him, is actually his mother. She used to work as a housekeeper for Chairwoman Han’s daughter at the time, and she was murdered by Lee Dong Min because he thought she’d witnessed him murdering Soo Yeon, not realizing it was actually little Wook who’d seen him. Wook finds out about this when he realizes Hyun Mi is holding on to the same pendant his mother used to have, with a picture of him as a kid inside.
To be completely honest, I totally expected him to confront her with it as soon as she grabbed the pendant back from him. I would’ve probably immediately blurted something out along the lines of: “Why do you have my mom’s pendant?”. But even after figuring out she was his mom, he kept quiet about it, out of some sort of consideration. In hindsight, I feel like this silence may have been caused by the fact that he had to come to terms with the fact that the resentment he’d felt towards his mom all this time was misplaced. He’d always thought she’d abandoned him, but it turns out she was murdered and didn’t have a choice in leaving him behind. They hit a really delicate chord with that, creating all these additional feelings of regret and guilt people developed regarding the deaths of their loved ones.
I have to say I actually thought it was very realistic that, after they found out about it, Wook and Hyun Mi initially remained a little awkward around each other. It would’ve been very typical if it had been an instant emotional reunion, and so I thought it was very well-considered that they wouldn’t immediately jump into each other’s arms. Despite being reunited, the fact that Wook hadn’t seen her since he was seven hadn’t changed, so it wasn’t odd that he felt estranged from her. Hyun Mi also kept a respectable distance until he opened up to her, which was probably the best way for things to go. This made it even more touching when they did eventually give each other that long overdue hug.

All in all, I think I can redeem Wook’s actions through the fact that he grew up alone, without anyone to rely on, and even became a conman. It was in his nature to keep things to himself and not be an open book to everyone else. As a viewer, he may have been a slightly frustrating protagonist at times, but I do appreciate that they kept him true to his character. Also, as I said before, his character development was really satisfying. Although I admit I never completely warmed up to him because of how he kept his guard up until the end, I did come to feel for him, especially seeing how he responded to the cases that involved kids. The way he teared up during Ha Neul’s goodbye and when Pan Seok found out what had happened to Hyun Ji actually hit hard.

Speaking of Pan Seok, my heart actually broke for this man. He is initially depicted as quite hard to gauge – he seemed very stoic and intimidating, but on the other hand he had really silly and sensitive moments as well. The first thing I came to like about him was how he only lost his chill in reaction to super minor insults, like when Wook commented on his dog or called him “tacky”. Then he suddenly went all grim in the face and went: “wHaT dId YoU sAy”, haha, that actually cracked me up.
Other than that, it immediately becomes clear that he’s a very trusted and loved person in the village. It’s later revealed that, in the ten years after he lost his daughter and wife, he spent all that time around the village to help everyone out as much as possible, both with their new stay and by trying to find their bodies for them. He’d treated the entire village as his family, even after losing his own, and it kills me to think he might’ve also stuck around in the hope that Hyun Ji might one day come to the village. Everyone knew about his search for his daughter and wished so hard for him to find her. Even though they couldn’t physically do anything to help him, they kept thinking of ways to show their support and gratitude to him through meaningful gestures, such as feeding him a grand meal.
Honestly, I just loved how there were so many people that wanted to help Pan Seok find his daughter, from Detective Baek to the guy from the theme park she disappeared from. This man told Pan Seok he’d keep putting up the missing posters until the day he retired. It just showed so well what a kind person Pan Seok was and how much sympathy he evoked in the people around him. He was just a concerned father, determined to go through the very end to find his daughter, all the while making sure he never caused anyone any unnecessary trouble. His reaction to the new posters Jong Ah designed for him was so touching. She even made banners to hang up around the theme park. Pan Seok remained so genuinely humble and grateful for even the slightest bit of help, it really warmed my heart.

On the other hand, his desperation for help also caused Pan Seok to be quite gullible whenever someone shot him a hint about Hyun Ji’s whereabouts, which unfortunately led him to get scammed a couple of times.
I’d just like to use this opportunity to say that people who take advantage of families that are looking for their missing relatives and actually try to make money from their grief and loss are the absolute worst scum of the earth. That shit isn’t just mean, it’s inhumane. Not only are they interfering with an ongoing investigation, they are actually disregarding a human life that may have been found earlier if it weren’t for their selfish and needless interference. It’s despicable.
Pan Seok had been looking for his seven-year old daughter for an entire decade. He and his wife took her to a theme park on her birthday, he took her eyes off her for one second to buy her ice cream, and then she was gone forever. When they couldn’t find her, his wife unalived herself. Pan Seok was a desperate, grieving husband and father who NEVER stopped looking for his little girl, and even kept promising his wife that he’d bring her home one day.
It should be a crime in itself to take advantage of someone like that. Pan Seok was naive, and he admitted himself that it had happened before and that he got irrational when it came to Hyun Ji. He was just that desperate to get his hands on any kind of lead, and I can’t blame him for that.
Whenever I hear stories of people pulling things like this – because yes, they’re out there, I’ve even heard of people prank-calling the victim’s parents pretending to be their child – I get so freaking angry. You were born with a beating heart, so at least try to be a human being.
The only good thing about this part was that Jong Ah was able to track down the sucker who pulled this trick on Pan Seok and force him to return the money.

Speaking of Jong Ah, she might’ve been one of my favorite supporting characters. She was so smart and spunky at the same time. I was actually scared something might happen to her, but luckily Wook managed to locate her super fast after she got kidnapped that one time. I love how she just sank her teeth into Wook’s business and helped him so well in tracking down all the people he asked her to look up. She was such a great contribution to the cast of characters, honestly.
I loved that she basically figured out by herself that the “clients” Wook and Pan Seok kept asking her to look into were all missing people, and how she immediately believed the story about the spirit village. It was so refreshing to have such an uncomplicated, open-minded character like her. Honestly, I wanted to high-five her when she said that she was convinced that another version of her existed somewhere in an alternate universe, lol.
I really loved her dynamic with Pan Seok, in particular. I admit I actually theorized she might turn out to be Hyun Ji at first. The bond between them was built up with such a natural father-daughter dynamic, her always helping him out and him always treating her to food when she came by. Of course she couldn’t be Hyun Ji, because she ended up looking into her disappearance as well, and it would’ve been a bit of a cheesy plot twist now that I think about it, but that’s just how much I loved them as a team.

I also really liked the dynamic between Wook and Pan Seok. They started out as such an odd pair, almost like a reckless nephew and a concerned uncle, and I wouldn’t even say that they became “friends” as much as that they became true partners in crime. They just became a team that relied on each other and helped each other out without getting too emotional, and I really liked that. They even got to rely on each other when they both became unable to see the village anymore at the end, and even without access they still kept looking for all the remaining spirits’ bodies.
I don’t know why, but it actually made me emotional when Wook and Pan Seok both lost their spirit vision as soon as Hyun Ji and Hyun Mi were found. That just proved that their ties to these missing people, and the grudges they held onto regarding their disappearances were linked to their ability to see the spirits. That was an unexpectedly touching twist, and I like that it kind of “explained” why they were able to see what others couldn’t. I guess the fact that Joon Ho couldn’t see Yeo Na was because he didn’t share a similarly long grief or resentment towards her disappearance? Maybe things would’ve been different if she’d gone missing years before and he’d been looking for her for longer? Guess we’ll never know.

To talk a bit more about Joon Ho, I also really liked his character development. Besides the fact that he came full circle in the end, I also really liked the budding bromance between him and Wook. It’s not even that they really became friends throughout the story, but they definitely starting warming up to and relying on each other. I loved how, when Jong Ah was kidnapped, Joon Ho still ended up coming there despite being initially ticked off by Wook’s sudden declaration that Yeo Na was dead, and how he immediately tracked down Wook when he went to the Chairwoman’s villa. The image of him dropkicking Lee Dong Min in the head made my day, that was awesome.
What got me the most was how losing Yeo Na actually changed Joon Ho and allowed him to become much more expressive in his emotions. It’s actually so sad to realize that the only scenes they had together were flashbacks and situations where he couldn’t see her. The first time he mentions Yeo Na, he’s annoyed because she isn’t answering his calls. The fact that they parted on bad terms because of a stupid fight and never got to tell each other they didn’t mean it made it all the more painful. In his flashbacks with Yeo Na, Joon Ho seemed like a completely different person with how affectionate and dedicated he was to her. We only get to know him as stoic police officer Shin Joon Ho, so it gave his character a very reassuring layer seeing him care for his fiancée so much. He honestly showed more warmth towards Yeo Na than towards his mom, which tells you just how much he adored his bride-to-be. The flashback scene of how he proposed to her, with a quote that she loved so much, was really sweet.
Joon Ho was raised by Jo Myeong Soon (played by Kim Jung Eun), the former director of the orphanage that Lee Dong Min ended up burning down, Pureun Hessal (Blue Sunshine). She never approved of Yeo Na as his wife, and was actually quite mean to her – as I mentioned before the stigma on orphans ran through this story very strongly. In hindsight, her behavior towards Yeo Na was actually really misplaced for another reason, which made it all the more wry.
The first time I started suspecting that Joon Ho might actually be Chairwoman Han’s lost grandchild was when she was talking about her daughter and it just cut to a shot of Joon Ho walking down the hall on his way to speak with her. There was a period of time where I thought it might be either him or Wook, since they both had a link to “sunshine”: Joon Ho’s mother ran an orphanage with the word “hessal” in the name (which is what Soo Yeon called her unborn baby in her diary), and Wook was always going around telling people his mom named him so he would “brighten the world”. I thought maybe Wook had been secretly Soo Yeon’s real child and Hyun Mi just adopted him to shield him, but when it turned out that he really was the housekeeper’s child, my bets were on Joon Ho. Like I said before, even when I guessed things correctly before they were revealed to be true, I still really liked the way they revealed this. I loved how they subtly hinted at the necklace Joon Ho gave Yeo Na during their proposal, how they made Lee Dong Min squint at it a couple of times before actually revealing the connection through the Chairwoman, who recognized it as Soo Yeon’s necklace. That was really clever.

What was also clever was that the writers were very aware of all the implications of their plot twists. Instead of just revealing that Joon Ho was the long lost heir to Choiseung Construction and reuniting him with his grandmother, they actually made him realize that this meant Yeo Na got killed while he had been the actual target, causing him to crumble down with guilt even more. It happened on several occasions that the killers gaslighted people by saying: “they got killed because of you”, and at this point I really didn’t want things to get even more painful than they already were, but on the other hand it was a very realistic depiction of how everything wasn’t just “alright” in the aftermath. I’m glad Joon Ho pulled himself together after this, but it was really painful to see him and his adoptive mother cry out their regrets and feelings of guilt to one another.

Moving on to Yeo Na, I really liked her. I loved how she didn’t just wallow in self-pity after finally accepting she couldn’t go back to Joon Ho, but that she still kept thinking of ways to see him. It was cool to see how resourceful she was, for example in trying to create a smoke screen and letting up those lanterns in the hope someone would find her. I’m glad at least she and Joon Ho scolded Wook for not telling them earlier that he’d known about their relationship and kept the fact he’d been communicating with both of them this entire time. Still, she didn’t hold a grudge for long. It was nice to at least get a glimpse of how she and Joon Ho had been as a lovey-dovey couple before things went south. It was really sad to realize that she, and all those other spirits, had died for such senseless reasons – no reasons at all, if you ask me – and how they just needed to sit and wait around until they were found.
I’m not going to lie, when Thomas built her that chair to wait by the spirit portal and encouraged her to find a way out, I actually believed she would try to sneak out when a new person arrived or something. Of course this wasn’t going to work since her body was in a suitcase on the bottom of the ocean, but I still think the way they retained that sense of hope throughout the story was really touching.

I’d like to go over some supporting characters in a bit more detail now, starting with the villagers.
First of all, we need to talk about Thomas. Before we hear who Thomas really is in the final episode, he is possibly the most mysterious person in Duon Village, and the only one who’s claimed to have already been there for a hundred years. He built a café around the spirit portal, so that when people first came in, they would have to go past him and he could immediately put them at ease.
I love how they kind of played with Thomas’ credibility, like how they made you debate whether or not he really was a good person by revealing he’d actually been locking up alive people in an abandoned building in the village. I’m really glad he turned out to be a proper bean. When they finally found his body at the end and he smiled back like that, I actually found myself smiling back. I couldn’t help but feel bad for him, always looking on as everyone eventually got found, without a single hope that he himself would be located after such a long time. In the final episode, he tells Wook that his real name is Cha Gwon Mook, and that he’d been an independence fighter at the time that Korea was still one country. The fact that he was actually revealed to be a hero that fought for the country’s independence, and that he never so much as bragged about that said so much about him. He was literally the guy that everyone came to in need of help, he was always building stuff for people and just making sure everyone was at peace. When it was revealed that he had been locking up bad people that had come to the village, he literally went: “You’ve all been through so much bad stuff while you were alive. I just wanted to make sure that this place would be your safe haven”. He was the best. I really liked the way they built up his character and made the viewer wonder about his intentions before inevitably falling in love with him.

I’ve already mentioned Hyun Mi in terms of that she was Wook’s mother, but she wasn’t exactly alone in Duon Village. After she came to the village 27 years earlier, she met Detective Park Young Ho (Lee Joo Won), who’d been murdered around the same time, and they actually fell in love in the afterlife. By the time Wook discovers the village, these two have become the main couple that shelter all the children that end up there. It’s so sad to realize that Hyun Mi was so protective of the village children because she hadn’t been able to stay with her own child while she was alive.
As it turns out, she and Detective Park (who actually used to be Detective Baek’s senior) were both murdered by Lee Dong Min to cover up his murder of Soo Yeon – Hyun Mi was her housekeeper and Detective Park was in charge of her case, as he suspected she didn’t die because of an accident. Their bodies were buried together underneath a building. It was kind of bittersweet that they ended up there together and fell in love in the afterlife.
While they took care of several children, the two that were always with them were Beom Soo (Ahn Dong Yeob) and Joon Soo (Go Dong Ha). Beom Soo was a young man with a developmental disability, which meant he had the mind of a much younger kid. He is the first spirit that Wook meets in Duon Village. It’s ultimately revealed that his body was hidden after his killer hit him in a hit-and-run incident.
We never find out exactly what happened to little Joon Soo, but it is suggested that he was attacked by “a scary man” as he got particularly triggered when unfamiliar men approached him. Wook eventually managed to win his trust, after which he became a much more lively and affectionate kid.
One more resident that is introduced is a young woman named Jang Mi (played by Lee Joo Myung) who was killed by her abusive boyfriend. She’s also one of the cases that gets solved about halfway through the series, and she had a really touching goodbye, dissolving after she’d brought the other villages roses (jangmi) to remember her by.

I have one more thing to talk about with regards to Duon Village: Pan Seok’s puppies. Seriously, I got teary-eyed whenever these fluffy balls of joy came on. It broke my heart to find out that they could still see their mom even though she was dead. 😭 I don’t remember their names, but they were so freaking adorable and I couldn’t help but squeal whenever they appeared on screen.

The final character I want to mention is Mr. Wang Myung Chul (played by Kim Nak Gyeon). I haven’t mentioned him yet, but he was the gang leader that executed all of the kidnappings and murders for Lee Dong Min. I don’t even know if he was aware of the bigger picture – he did seem a bit flustered when he was questioned by the police, almost as if he didn’t actually know everything – but he was a pretty good villain character. The fact that Lee Dong Min never did anything himself but just paid other people to do his dirty work for him was very typical, and Mr. Wang also didn’t seem to have any hesitations on whether or not to get involved. He ended up getting killed while in prison, from food poisoning by the looks of it, but they never really showed how that happened exactly. I think it’s safe to say that he was silenced before he might actually give away too much about the client he worked for. That was kind of a shame, because I was curious to find out how much Mr. Wang knew. Anyways, I thought he was quite an interesting character.

Now that I’ve completed my character analysis, I’d like to move on to some comments regarding the series as a whole and parts that particularly spoke to me or touched me.
All in all, I would say that I thought this series was just the right combination of thrilling and heartful. It kept me on the edge of my seat in anxiety and excitement, and it simultaneously kept me emotionally engaged and teary-eyed throughout.
The specific concept of focussing on victims whose bodies were never found intrigued me. As it happens, earlier this year I translated a novel about deceased people that got the chance to return to their loved ones’ side as an object, so I’d been involved with a story that dealt with death from the side of the deceased before. I guess that might have been part of the reason why this particular perspective spoke to me so much. It was such an original and interesting spin on regular detective stories, and I though they executed the interplay between the two sides very well.
In relation to this, I also think the title of the series is very fitting, as it literally tackles missing persons cases “from the other side”, the side of the victims. It might be a strangely soothing thought that victims who are still waiting to be found at least get to experience a peaceful stay at an intermediate station like Duon Village before they pass on. The writers did an excellent job at portraying such raw emotions and heartbreaking cases while retaining an indefinable sense of hope, love and acceptance. The way they wrapped up the first season was so wholesome, and I also loved how they subtly hinted to the existence of other villages and consequently a second season: in the final episode, Thomas talks about how his freedom fighter friends might have ended up in a different village than him, and the series ends with a couple of children skipping off into a different portal after identifying Pan Seok as Hyun Ji’s father, suggesting that Hyun Ji had also been at a different village during the time she’d been missing.
There were so many ugly truths and wry and senseless situations, from how Joon Ho and Yeo Na got separated to the fact that Hyun Ji had actually been buried so close to Duon Village all this time. But apart from all these unfair and painful side, there was also so much beauty and hope in it. I can’t express enough how well-balanced and well-written it was, also in how they kept explaining things and tying up loose ends in terms of the plot. They really thought of most things, which contributed greatly to the consistency and solidity of the story. I had a really good time watching it.
One more thing that I wish to applaud is that this show had the best cliffhangers. I can’t get over the way they suddenly brought in Joon Ho as a contender for being Chairwoman Han’s grandson through the mention of “hessal” from Soo Yeon’s diary, or how they revealed that Kang Myung Jin was responsible for Hyun Ji’s disappearance by overlapping the song Pan Seok used to sing to her with the tune Kang Myung Jin had been humming the entire time. I said it before, I already had the feeling that something else was up with this killer since they kept bringing him back into focus, but it was still such a good and unexpected twist.

I would like to highlight a couple of scenes that particularly shook me and/or made me cry, in chronological order.
First of all, the way Seo Ha Neul disappeared while running towards his mom, who couldn’t see him. As I said before, the fact that they started off the series by depicting a child murder was absolutely heartbreaking. The fact that his stepfather killed him for accidentally damaging his limited Gundam figure while playing with it and hid him in a freaking water tank on the roof of some building, not to mention the fact that he actually went back to the body just to get the figure parts out of his backpack because he could sell those. These depictions might have been fictional, but knowing that these things actually happen in real life as well made it incredibly painful to watch. It was heartbreaking seeing little Ha Neul go all: “Mommy! 😃😃” and run towards her while she couldn’t even see him.
Then there were Yeo Na’s attempts to let people in the outside world know where she was before she could accept that she was really dead. The way her glowing lanterns just dissolved at the edge of the barrier, and how Joon Ho couldn’t see or hear her yell at him from the hot air balloon was really sad.
The flashback of how Hyun Ji went missing was actually haunting. The fact that it was her birthday and Pan Seok literally took his eyes off her for ONE SECOND to buy her some ice cream. You could just see the guilt settle in Pan Seok at that very moment, and it made it even more devastating to know that he would soon also lose his wife and keep on searching for his little girl for fifteen more years to come.
Hyun Mi’s emotional reactions to first finding out Wook was her son (specifically the fact that she thought his presence in Duon Village meant that he was dead as well) and the way she thanked the heavens when she found out he was actually still alive.
When Joon Ho finally allowed himself to break down completely about Yeo Na in the art gallery where he proposed to her and when the notification of their wedding day popped up while he was in the middle of an interrogation. More than that, the ENTIRE scene of Joon Ho and Yeo Na sitting side by side at the edge of Duon Village on their wedding day, both bawling their eyes out while Joon Ho still couldn’t see her.
The moment Pan Seok found out what happened to Hyun Ji when Detective Baek showed him the picture of her hairband which they’d found amongst Kang Myung Jin’s “victim trophies”.
These were just a couple of instances were I actually got goosebumps by the actors’ portrayals of their characters’ emotions. I was so impressed by how genuine and raw these emotions were expressed, each and every one of these depictions hit me straight in the heart.

As I mentioned before, there were a few minor anticlimactic aspects to the show, and although they didn’t impact my general impression of the series too much, I’d still like to share them.
I have to say that I was actually a bit underwhelmed by how quickly Lee Dong Min gave himself away as the killer. We’d already seen that he was Soo Yeon’s murderer from Wook’s memory (the glasses gave him away), but given the way the series had been dealing with plot twists and cliffhangers so far, I was actually prepared for another surprise with regards to this. We didn’t actually see him kill Soo Yeon firsthand, we only saw him stand over her body, so it might’ve still turned out differently. But when Wook confronted him, he immediately went shifty-eyed and “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, which kind of made me go like: “oh, okay, so he just admitted it.” Fair enough, there were only two more episodes to go and they had to start wrapping things up, but it was still a bit anticlimactic to me how he immediately folded during his very first sit-down with Wook.
Secondly, I HATED that Kang Myung Jin unalived himself. There was still so much to uncover about his character and I hate that he got to take the easy way out like that. Pan Seok didn’t even get to find out about the fact that he’d been the bunny mascot at the theme park! I kind of wanted to know more about Kang Myung Jin’s psyche after he responded so peculiarly to the fact that he didn’t get to keep all his victims’ trophies. Ever since Crash Course in Romance, I’ve been very sensitive to killers “getting away with their actions” by unaliving themselves to escape the punishment they deserve, so the fact that they pulled this with Kang Myung Jin of all people was really dissatisfying. It definitely felt like an easy fix to wrap up things quickly in the final episode. In the end, no justice is served for either Kang Myung Jin or Lee Dong Min’s victims, and the only “peace” is found in the fact that Wook and Pan Seok manage to locate all the Duon Village residents’ bodies. Which is wholesome in its own way, but it still bugs me that they kind of rushed the ending to Hyun Ji’s case like that.

Finally, it’s time for the cast comments! As I mentioned before, this was a rare occasion where I didn’t know the majority of the actors in this show, so I’m excited to voice my first impressions on these amazing cast members.

While I have one other show with Go Soo on my watchlist, this was my first introduction to him. From MDL I can see that he’s done a bunch of movies as well. I just want to emphasize that my comments on Wook’s whimsicality and my occasional frustrations with his character stand completely separate from the actor’s performance. I was very impressed with his portrayal of Wook, and especially with how he handled his character development throughout the story. The conman that first came into Duon Village was a completely different person from the person who got reunited with his long lost mother. It was really clear to see how Wook changed seeing all this injustice and senseless killing, not only in his experience of Nam Gook’s death but also in his efforts to solve the cases of every single Duon Village resident. He was written as a very realistically flawed human being, and that’s part of the reason why I can redeem him for not knowing what to do with all the information he obtained. I really liked that he got to show so much variety in his expressions in just this role alone. I’m curious to see more of him, starting with season two.

Heo Joon Ho was one of the few actors I already knew, but I can’t even begin to express how great it was to finally see him as a good guy. After his evil roles in Master of the Mask and Come and Hug Me (his character from that show still haunts me), he really blew me away in his portrayal of Pan Seok. I loved seeing him in the role of a concerned father who would do anything to get justice for the people he cared about, be it his daughter or any of the people in the village. Honestly, I really wanted to see him in a good guy role because he’s so easily typecasted as a villain, and this show was the best choice for him to display that he is so much more than a grim face. I really loved seeing him as Pan Seok, and his emotional delivery was amazing. I can’t wait to enjoy his character some more in season two.

Apparently, Ha Joon was also in Radio Romance and Arthdal Chronicles, but I don’t really remember him from those roles. I will definitely remember him from this, though. I loved how we got to know Joon Ho and how he became more and more expressive and emotional throughout the story. He was probably one of the characters that I came to feel for the most, since he ended up shifting perspectives the most through losing his fiancée. If you think about all the shit that he went through, first losing his fiancée and then finding out he was actually connected to the reason she was killed, it honestly made sense that he would fall apart. Instead, he managed to pull himself together, transferred to the Missing Persons unit, and went on doing the exact same thing to ensure this would never happen to anyone else. Now that’s what I call character development. I’m really excited to see what he’ll bring in season two.

Seo Eun Soo also appeared in Jealousy Incarnate, Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim, Duel and Hotel Del Luna, so she was another familiar face. I feel like she pops up a lot in shows that are less hyped or mainstream, but she always delivers on her performances. I’m definitely going to remember her portrayal of Yeo Na. As I mentioned in my review, I really loved the fact that she was written as so much more than just a damsel in distress. Despite being a defenseless young woman, she was prepared to do whatever she could to get back to Joon Ho, and I also thought it was very realistic to have at least one character in the village that didn’t automatically accept the fact that she was dead. It was cool to see her come up with her own plans, even reckless ones like setting that conman free in order to give Joon Ho yet another hint of where she currently was (or thought she was). Seeing her go through all those attempts only to keep being confronted with the fact that Joon Ho couldn’t see her and there was nothing to be done made her sympathize with her a lot. It warmed my heart seeing her pass on with an accepting smile at the end. I always end up being pleasantly surprised by Seo Eun Soo’s drama appearances, and this was no exception.

Apparently Ahn So Hee used to be a member of WONDER GIRLS! I hadn’t seen her in anything before either. Jong Ah was definitely one of my favorite supporting characters, as I said. I loved how she was able to remain a funny sidekick and still contribute so much to the story. I did wonder what happened to that idol trainee that came to work for her when she took over Nam Gook’s pawn shop though, he kind of vanished into thin air at the end. I kind of hoped they might end up together, lol. Anyways, I really loved how they positioned Jong Ah’s character within all the drama that was going on, and how they made her such a relevant addition to the character cast. Ahn So Hee gave Jong Ah a really nice dash of adventure while also nailing the more emotional scenes. I saw that she’ll be in the second season as well, so I’m really excited to see her again!

Apparently I’ve seen Ji Dae Han before in Vivid Romance, Chicago Typewriter and Thirty But Seventeen, but I don’t actually remember him from those shows. Honestly, from his presence in this series I felt like he must’ve been in way more dramas, but I guess he typically does more movies. Anyways, I really enjoyed his performance as Detective Baek. It meant so much to have a loyal ally that was willing to help out Pan Seok to the best of his abilities in the police force. I really liked the dynamic these two men had, they really felt like old friends. He was such a welcome contribution to the cast of characters. I loved that, despite his grumpy demeanor, he was so invested in obtaining justice for every single victim that he became in charge of, and it actually killed him to deliver the news of Hyun Ji’s fate to Pan Seok. I did wonder if he was actually allowed to be so aggressive towards the people he interrogated. Like, of course you’d want to beat up a bad guy when he’s not talking, but I couldn’t but wonder if this was actually allowed, lol. In any case, I see that he will also return in season two, so that should be fun.

Song Geon Hee looks so familiar to me, but according to MDL I’ve only glimpsed him before as minor roles in My ID is Gangnam Beauty, Love Alarm and Arthdal Chronicles (I don’t recognize anyone from Arthdal based on their usual appearances lol). I really liked his portrayal of Thomas. It was so cool how they managed to keep him so mysterious throughout the show, even after he came clean about who he had been, which only attributed more glamor to his character. I also liked that they explained how he got the blond hair, lol. I still wonder how he got the name “Thomas”, though. It seems interesting that he ended up with such a western image after being possibly the most traditionally Korean spirit in Duon Village, even in his way of speaking. He was such a good and cool character, honestly. It might just be my interpretation, but I somehow got the feeling the writers must have really loved him as well. Honestly, it would be so great if everyone could get themselves a Thomas, a beacon of calm that would literally craft you a bicycle if you asked for one. He was the best boy. I’m really excited to see him in more shows now!

I’ve only seen Kang Mal Geum before in The Silent Sea and although I remember her character I can’t say I have a very clear memory of her performance. As such, she’s another actress that I’ll remember mostly because of her role in this show. I thought she was amazing as Hyun Mi. There’s a reason I pointed out her emotional scenes in the parts that particularly touched me: her emotional responses to first finding out Wook was her son and then realizing he was still alive were both gut-wrenching. She made such a great transition from suspicious village woman to warm mother figure. I actually really liked her mother-son chemistry with Go Soo, even in all its awkwardness. It just fitted their circumstances so well to carefully open up after first feeling kind of estranged from one another. I actually gasped out loud when she dissolved and Wook suddenly found himself unable to see the village anymore. There’s a couple more series with her on my watchlist, so I’m really curious to see her in those.

I knew I recognized Lee Joo Myung from something, she’s Seung Wan in Twenty-Five Twenty-One! It was kind of weird seeing an actor portray an adult character when you’ve only seen them as a high schooler before, and this show even came two years before that! Anyways, it was really cool seeing her in this. Jang Mi’s story was so tragic, and I appreciated that it contributed to the endless cases of hostesses or “women in lesser jobs” that get into abusive relationships because of their circumstances. I’m glad they gave her a proper arc and a proper goodbye. Honestly, there was one moment when she hugged Thomas and he flinched a little that immediately made me think they’d be a cute couple, but unfortunately she passed on soon after that so there was no chance for anything to bloom between them.

Ahn Dong Yeob is another actor that I’ve apparently seen in Thirty But Seventeen and Dali and the Cocky Prince, but I don’t remember him from those. I’ll definitely remember him as Beom Soo, though. His portrayal of this developmentally disabled boy was really heartwaming. I loved how they kept bringing him into the story and how he kept showing that he was actually much more aware of the situation than people would expect him to be. It was cool that they made him utter the license plate of the car that hit him earlier on before actually connecting that to finding his body at the end. He was such a sweet boy and I loved how he didn’t go too far in making his character a stereotype of someone with a mental disability. He made a really beautiful contribution to the cast of characters.

Out of all the bad guys, I want to make a special mention of Kim Sang Bo, who played Kang Myung Jin. I hadn’t seen him in anything before either. I don’t know what it was about him, but his acting actually gave me goosebumps. The way he would go from looking dead inside to a very subtle smirk, or how he’d switch from mindlessly humming to suddenly crying actually made me think like he had some sort of personality disorder. I was so intriguid by his character and how he’d become the psychopath that he was. I guess that’s why it bothered me even more when they just let him off himself like that at the end. Kim Sang Bo actually brought a serial killer to life that I wanted to understand better, and that says a lot. He was incredible. It’s been a while since I’ve been so genuinely intrigued in the performance of an actor I had never seen before. My compliments!

Lastly, I just want to give a big shoutout to all the amazing child actors in this show. There was Jang Seon Yool who played Seo Ha Neul (he also played the child version of Yeol in Alchemy of Souls), Go Dong Ha who played Joon Soo, and Lee Hyo Bi who played little Hyun Ji (she also played the younger version of the female leads in Thirty But Seventeen, The School Nurse Files and Dali and the Cocky Prince). These kids did such an amazing job. The fact that they were able to express such genuine emotions in a story that was so raw and heartbreaking in itself was enough to hit me in the heart. I’m telling you, South Korea’s acting industry is in good hands with this next generation of talented little actors and actresses.

To sum up my review, I’ll just say that I did not expect this story to tug at my heartstrings so much from the get-go. I’m not even lying when I say that I was already bawling my eyes out by episode three. Starting out with the case of a missing child was BRUTAL, but it did set the tone for the rest of the story in a very powerful way. I don’t think I’ve ever teared up so much throughout an entire series as I did while watching this one. They definitely did a great job at depicting heart-wrenching situations and raw grief.
Another thing that I really admired about this show was that, despite the fact that it started out a bit confusing with all the different units and they had several storylines playing out at the same time, they managed to bring everything together in such a great and wholesome way. I loved how Joon Ho ended up coming full circle, transferring to the Missing Persons unit with a newfound sentiment for the victims and their loved ones after he went through it himself. Seeing him come eye to eye with Detective Baek in contrast to how they clashed in the beginning was really touching.
I’m also surprised that they actually managed to locate every single spirit in the end. It initially felt like they were rushing it a bit by wrapping up all the remaing people in the final episode, but because the episode was so lengthy it ended up not feeling rushed at all. I actually finished the show with a smile on my face. They did such a great job at building up the dynamics between the characters and creating links between their cases that I couldn’t help but get super invested. I’ve seen comments saying that there were boring moments in-between, but I honestly can’t think of a single one. It had me on the edge of my seat the entire time and there wasn’t a dull moment whatsoever.

I honestly feel like there’s so much more to say about this show, but I’ll save that for my review of season two, which I’ll be moving onto immediately after uploading this. As I said before, after the initial dread of facing another double-seasoner I did NOT expect to be hit in the feels so much while watching this. I’ve really come to appreciate using an app to pick out my watches for me, because otherwise it would’ve probably taken me ages to get to this one. It really made a big impression on me, and I’m very excited to start on season two. I can’t wait to meet Pan Seok, Wook, Joon Ho and Jong Ah again, along with a whole new cast of characters to get attached to.

As soon as I finish my review of season two, you’ll be able to find it here.

Until then! Bye-bee! x

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.

Yumi’s Cells Season 1 & 2
( 유미의 세포들 / Yumieui Sepodeul)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

Hello hello, it’s been a hot minute! Welcome to a new review. It’s taken me quite a while to finish this; after my last review I didn’t expect my next watch to be a double-seasoner. When my Spin-the-Wheel app picked this one out, I was initially hesitant to watch it, not just because it was a lengthier show, but also because I know there’s a third season coming out next year and I wondered if it would be better to wait and watch the whole thing in one go. Still, I decided to watch the first two seasons first, since they pretty much tied together into one story. When the third season comes out, I’ll just make a separate review of it (just like I did with My First First Love) and share the link in this post.
So, Yumi’s Cells. I have to admit that this show wasn’t always on my watchlist – I added it later on since I kept seeing it pop up. It was kind of similar to how I felt about Alchemy of Souls: I wasn’t initially that interested when it came out but I still ended up adding it to my list with a “let’s check it out at some point” kind of mindset. Finishing it kind of felt like getting something off my chest, in a way, because even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I can’t deny that I usually prefer to watch shows that are a little less time-consuming to watch. I am very glad that I decided to take notes while watching it, because it would’ve been a lot to remember from start to finish, especially with how long it took me to get through the whole thing. In any case, this is my review of the first two seasons, and I’m excited to share my views.

Just one side note before I start: I usually use a specific spelling system for Korean names to avoid associations with similar words and names in English and Japanese, but since some names were actually spelled out on-screen in this show, I decided to adhere to that and not create unofficial spellings to suit my own principles. Shortly put, I will stick to the official spellings of the names for Yumi, Ruby and Louis rather than for example use Yoo Mi, Roo Bi, Roo Yi.

Yumi’s Cells is a semi-animated multi-season TVING/tvN K-Drama which so far consists of two seasons of 14 episodes with a duration of about one hour and five to ten minutes. Every episode is in turn divided into three to four subchapters, which almost makes it feel like watching a serialized animation. I watched both seasons on my newly discovered K-Drama website KissKH (S1 & S2). There’s also a movie on there, which is fully animated and directly based on the webtoon of the same name by Lee Dong Geon.
Yumi’s Cells centers around Kim Yumi (played by Kim Go Eun), a woman in her early thirties who initially works in the finance department of Daehan Noodles, a large noodle brand corporation. We initially get to know her through the introduction of her Cells, aka the different aspects of her personality that are depicted as little animated creatures that reside inside of her, much like the Emotions from the Disney Pixar’s Inside Out movies. These Cells live in their own proper Cell Village and are responsible for how Yumi navigates through life and responds to her surroundings. Besides common Cells like Reason, Sensitivity, Anxiety and Pride, every person has their own distinctive Cells that are directly tied to their individual personalities and interests. Cells that regularly appear within Yumi include Appetite, Fashion Sense, Deduction, Naughty and Stingy. Besides this, every single person also has a Prime Cell, a main distinctive Cell that leads all the others and basically makes up the biggest aspect of their character. In Yumi’s case, this is Love. If there’s anything Yumi loves, it’s falling in love and being in a relationship.
However, when we first meet Yumi, this aspect of her personality seems to have temporarily “died”. Her Love Cell has been in a coma ever since Yumi’s last relationship painfully ended four years earlier. Still, there is hope: Yumi has developed a crush on one of her co-workers, Chae Woo Gi (played by SHINee’s Choi Min Ho). In order to get to spend time with him alone, she’s even willing to compete with another co-worker who’s also aiming for his attention. Nevertheless, Yumi’s crush is cut short prematurely when Woo Gi confides in her that he isn’t attracted to women (we love a progressive K-Drama🏳️‍🌈). Instead, he asks if she would be interested in going on a blind date with a friend of his, as he’s sure they’ll get along. This blind date heralds the start of the first season’s main plot and the revival of Yumi’s Love Cell.

Honestly, I think this show found me at the perfect timing. I’m also in my early thirties, and have been struggling with the insecurity of not having found someone to settle down with yet. Seeing a protagonist my age who was living her best life while casually dating without caring too much about the future or society’s standards was really refreshing and relatable to me. Some sequences resonated with me a lot personally, and it just felt like I was in the right state of mind to watch this series without feeling inferior in my own dating experiences, so that was a huge plus for me.

Before I get into more specifics regarding the characters and the story, I just want to emphasize how much I loved the interplay of the animation and live-action in this show. By creating an incredibly smooth transition between the Cell Village (animated) and Yumi’s life (live-action), and even occasionally intertwining the two, it really set itself apart with its unique and creative ways of storytelling. I kept getting surprised by the cleverness of the animated visualizations of certain sensations and experiences, and the incredible attention to detail.
I think this show did an amazing job at capturing complex human emotions and situations in such relatable and creative images through its animation. From how Reason and Sensitivity were always bantering with each other, to how the Village would fog over when the character drew a blank and ended up relying on the first Cell that managed to emerge from the mist to take control of the situation. The fact that they visualized Yumi’s stress relief and excitement through an actual rock band called Endorphin, associating it with blowing off steam like one would at a concert was genius. I also liked how they depicted the build-up of frustration through showing the Cells throwing bean bags at a gourd until it cracked, and how every new hobby and infatuation with something or someone spawned a new Fanclub within the Village, reminiscent of extracurricular college club orientation stands.
One of my favorite depictions was the “jar of courage” which symbolized the amount of courage one needed in specific situations. I thought it was really cool how they showed different scenarios in which Yumi needed courage from her jar, from getting rid of a bug and cutting in on the highway to changing departments at work. I also loved the symbolism of borrowing courage from others as a way of gaining confirmation from others to support certain decisions. I thought that was a really wholesome depiction of normalizing relying on others when you couldn’t muster enough courage or determination by yourself.
I also really loved the depiction of the Man Reconnaiscance Team. While she was single, Yumi had this unit of Cells that made her aware whenever there was an attractive guy near her. I loved how her Man Reconnaiscance Team literally went on a break as soon as Yumi stopped noticing other guys after developing a new crush or getting into a new relationship. They’d be like: “We’ll be back when she gets lonely again”, lol. It was giving dating apps 😂. It was also funny how, supporting this, all other men just became bland and featureless stick figure drawings when Yumi’s heart was already occupied with someone. The integration of all these animations into the live-action was actually brilliant. I remember the scene where Yumi went into her own Cell Village to calm down her Love Cell and the antenna on her hood actually vibrated at Yumi’s touch, that was animated SO well.
Apart from the genius animations, they also did a really great job at being consistent throughout both seasons, for example with how Yumi’s hair kept growing as time passed and how they kept referring back to people, scenes and events from Season 1 in Season 2. I always love it when they do that, because it shows just how meticulously the writers and creators worked on creating a coherent and sensible story.

Now, without further ado, let’s get into the actual story. The first season focusses on a new romantic relationship that Yumi gets into, with the guy that Woo Gi sets her up on a blind date with. This new love interest is Goo Woong (played by Ahn Bo Hyun). I don’t remember exactly how he and Woo Gi met, but Woong is a self-established game developer with his own tiny studio that he runs with his two friends Louis (played by Joo Jong Hyuk) and Seo Sae Yi (played by Park Ji Hyun). Currently, they’re working on a game called “Bow-Wow Time”, in which you basically have to take care of a pet dog.
Admittedly, Woong isn’t exactly Yumi’s type in terms of appearance: he appears on their blind date in way too casual clothing and Yumi isn’t really fond of his long hair and little beard. She basically fakes her enthusiasm throughout the whole date, and initially gets uncomfortable when he keeps messaging her afterwards. Woong, on the other hand, falls for Yumi at first sight.
What’s immediately interesting is that we also get introduced to Woong’s Cells, who desperately try to guide him through the date when he draws a blank as soon as Yumi introduces herself to him, after which his cringy Humor Sense takes over. Despite her initial ick, Yumi does find herself falling for Woong and his dad jokes when he takes care of her after she collapses one time, and they start dating.

Now that I’ve established the premise of the first season, I’d like to go over the main and most important side characters that are introduced in Season 1 to give a bit more context before I move on to specific points of Yumi and Woong’s relationship.
Let’s start with Yumi and her direct surroundings. As mentioned before, Yumi is a woman in her early thirties who works in finance. We later find out that she’s had the dream of becoming a writer before, but she gave up on that after losing her confidence when applying for a writing contest. With this, her Writer Cell was also buried. Now she works at Daehan Noodles and gets along well with the people she works with, including Section Chief Nam Joo Hyuk (Jung Soon Won) and her co-workers Kang Yi Da (Kim Min Gyung/Mi Ram) and Lee Ruby (Lee Yoo Bi). Ruby is the co-worker that also fancies Woo Gi, a younger and extremely cutesy woman whose specialty lies in flirting and spotting sparks between people. While Ruby starts out as a kind of love rival, Yumi becomes more fond of her throughout the seasons. Yumi, Yi Da and Ruby ultimately become a unit of three that always looks out for each other, which is nice.
Yumi grew up as an only child, and her parents still live in the countryside where her dad runs a hardware store that he named after her. Her parents (Seong Ji Roo and Yoo Yoo Seon) make a couple of appearances, and from those it’s more than clear just how much they adore their daughter – they also always immediately stuff her with food when they see her, lol.
Other than that, Yumi leads a normal life that balances work with social activities. While she’s conservative in some ways and doesn’t particularly wish to stand out in a crowd, she has a very solid personality. She’s confident about herself, knows what she wants and is very honest when it comes to her own feelings.
The Cells really help in creating a solid understanding of Yumi’s character and making her a flawed and therefore very realistic person. As Yumi went back and forth between setting her boundaries and masking her true feelings, I went back and forth between rooting for her and disagreeing with her actions. It added so much to the story that it was told through the eyes of someone who was trying to find her way, someone who made mistakes and learned from them, and who most of all just kept going, no matter what hardships she went through. In the end, I really liked Yumi as a protagonist, because even at times when I couldn’t really relate to her thought process, she always came around to make me understand and respect her in some other way again. She wasn’t trying to be perfect, she was just doing her best to live a happy life, and that in itself made her as admirable as anyone.

Moving onto Woong’s side of the story, I honestly was taken aback by his character at the start. From how he initially presented himself and the way he behaved around his teammates, I didn’t think he’d even be interested in going on blind dates, and I certainly didn’t expect him to fall for Yumi at first sight. It immediately brought out a very unexpected affectionate side in him, which stood in funny contrast to his appearance. He really started out as the most devoted boyfriend Yumi could’ve wished for, from the way he made his way into her heart to how willing he was to always fix their misunderstandings.
We don’t find out a lot about Woong’s past or his family. Apart from Woo Gi, his friends Louis and Sae Yi seem to be the only ones that have stuck by him for a long time and know him best. When he meets Yumi, Woong is still a rookie game developer trying to make his big break, so he isn’t exactly financially independent yet. He does have an apartment, but he spends a lot of time in his studio working. While he and Yumi start out as a very sweet and worryfree couple, the fact that he doesn’t have the financial stability to provide for a substantial relationship – should it develop into that – eventually becomes a major deal for Woong as their relationship progresses.

All in all, I thought Yumi and Woong made a really cute couple. The way things developed between them after that awkward first date was very realistic, and I also liked the transition from Yumi’s initial “ick” to allowing herself to see what a good guy Woong actually was. They initially don’t have that many issues, they’re just enjoying the “honeymoon phase” of their dating journey and we follow them as they get more comfortable and initiate the first signs of intimacy. They both already had at least one relationship before this, so it wasn’t that neither of them knew what they were doing, but they still had to break the ice and this little slowburn was really cute to see. In their happy moments, they really seemed like a very affectionate and solid couple. However, as their relationship progressed and they started learning about the aspects in which they differed, it was as if the communication between them gradually got rusty to the point where more and more misunderstandigs arose that ultimately drove them both to the edge.

In hindsight, Yumi and Woong went through a LOT of misunderstandings. There were a couple of reasons for that, starting first and foremost with Woong’s pride (which ironically was also the first and foremost thing on his priority list). Through their respective Cells, it became clear that while Yumi, having Love as her Prime Cell, always ended up prioritizing her partner in a relationship, Woong always kept himself at #1. It wasn’t even that he was self-absorbed or prideful per se, but he just prioritized holding onto his own values before others’, even in close relationships. While his boastful side did come out more strongly in Season 2 when he actually became the CEO of his own company, in Season 1 he was still just a poor rookie game developer working from a tiny studio that he basically lived in with his two college friends. At the time he met Yumi, he wasn’t yet at the point where he wished he could’ve been, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to see that this was one thing that ended up sabotaging their relationship. It was because of his pride that he started keeping several major events in his life to himself, like selling his apartment to live in his studio in order to save money, and the real reason why he ultimately moved out of Yumi’s place. It felt like he wanted to keep things simple and happy while he sorted things out by himself, seemingly forgetting that he had Yumi to support him through all those decisions.

I think what it came down to in their relationship was that Yumi and Woong got along the best when they weren’t thinking of the future. They were the cutest and sweetest couple when they were just in the moment, enjoying each other’s company and doing fun things together. But the fact that things got tense as soon as they headed for the next level in their relationship was actually the biggest indicator of how incompatible they truly were. I’m not just talking about the fact that their marriage views didn’t align, but also about how they kept clashing whenever a conflict or misunderstanding arose between them.
As much as he doted on Yumi, I think it’s safe to say that Woong was a pretty big people pleaser. He didn’t like tense situations and conversations and tried to avoid them as much as he could to keep the peace. This also caused him to suppress his own feelings and keep quiet about things that were actually important to talk about in a relationship, especially with regards to things that he was actually aware of but kept quiet about since he didn’t want to make a fuss about it. This avoidant attitude of his ultimately pushed Yumi to her limits, as she kept getting hurt by his lack of clear communication.

There were a couple of situations that bothered me, both in relation to the tension between Yumi and Woong and with regards to Sae Yi, who’s up in a minute.
First of all, the diarrhea scene. The very first time that Woong is invited to Yumi’s apartment, he gets bowel problems. The circumstances were also not helping: it was Yumi’s birthday and he just managed to make amends with her about something with a cake and she invited him up to her place to celebrate her birthday together. Right at that crucial moment, Woong’s Bowel Cells suddenly announce an emergency case of NUMBER TWO, which results in an almost sitcom-like situation where Woong not only locks himself up in Yumi’s bathroom, but also ends up clogging her toilet.
While I know how awkward it is to visit someone’s place and not be able to flush something down the toilet, I still found it a little silly of Woong to be so overly self-conscious about this, especially at this stage of their relationship. In hindsight I guess this could also be attributed to Woong’s pride issue, but seriously: he could’ve just told Yumi that he had indigestion and she could’ve helped him out. Screw embarrassment: this could literally happen to anyone, and if you can’t even bring yourself to tell your partner about something like this, I don’t think you’re starting out very well when it comes to building up trust and dependence. To prove my point: Yumi actually ended up putting him to bed at her place and taking care of him by rubbing his belly, without a single shred of judgement about his bowel issues. There was no reason for him to refrain from being honest about something as trivial as this.

Secondly, there was the issue of the full-glass shower hotel room. Yumi and Woong went on their first trip together and Woong asked Yumi to book the hotel room, with specific instructions on which facilities they wanted in the room. Because the availability was limited and she couldn’t double-check with Woong in-between since he was in a meeting, Yumi ultimately ended up booking the only room with a view of the ocean, which included a full see-through window to the shower. This strongly triggered her Conservative/Etiquette Cell, as it was a pretty big deal for her to see straight into the bathroom from the bed. What made it worse was that, as they headed for the hotel, Woong expressed his unfiltered disdain for full-glass showers, which put Yumi on the spot even more when they actually entered the room. This was actually the first time that Woong retaliated against Yumi – he tried to make light of the situation, which made Yumi even more aggravated, and then he pulled the “Okay, so you wanna leave, then?” move, which almost ended up ruining their trip. Luckily, they did eventually see eye to eye and admitted they didn’t mind the full-glass shower that much, after all.
Just like with the diarrhea issue, it bothered me that Yumi was somehow too embarrassed to just communicate to Woong what had happened. Even after his meeting, she could’ve called him saying: “Hey, I tried to book a room but there was nothing available that ticked all of our boxes. I got the only available option with an ocean view, but it has a full-glass shower, which I’m not sure you’re okay with it. What should we do, should we book to something else or just stick with this?” Instead, they created this whole, again quite sitcom-like, situation where Woong went down to the booking office to confirm that Yumi had not agreed with the full-glass shower when booking the room, and Yumi tried to stop him from hearing the phone call she had had with the booking agent and he still ended up hearing it and so on.

Thirdly, there was the lack of trust Yumi had in Woong turning up looking nice enough at her friend’s wedding. I honestly felt like she was treating Woong very unfairly at this point, as she was literally using him to make herself look better to her friends. She just wanted to prove to them that she had a presentable boyfriend, since they didn’t seem to believe her.
Even though she had fully accepted Woong by then, beard and all, this part made it seem like she was still embarrassed about the way he looked, from the way she checked with him whether he’d shaved and put on something formal or not. Even though she knew that Woong had initially declined the wedding invite since he had a very important deadline coming up and he only agreed to stop by briefly because it mattered so much to her, she was literally just stress-apping him to confirm how he looked and what he was wearing and getting anxious about him embarrassing her in front of her friends.
Woong didn’t even know the real reason why she wanted him there. He didn’t know he was stepping away from his important deadline purely to satisy his girlfriend’s super selfish need. Heck, he freaking RAN there when his taxi was too slow, all because it mattered to Yumi that he was there, and still she only cared about whether or not he would be sweating from all the running and show up looking like a mess. This really pissed me off, I’m not gonna lie. It would’ve still been okay if she’d just taken it all back when he arrived looking absolutely fine (of course), but then there was also the thing with her ex that made the situation even more messy.
Besides wanting to show off her boyfriend to her friends, Yumi also wanted to show her ex-boyfriend, who was coming to the wedding too, that she was doing just fine after he broke up with her. It had been four freaking years since they split up, but she still felt like she had to prove to him that she’d moved on. When it turned out her ex just wanted to notify her that he was getting married soon (to the girl he’d abandoned her for), Yumi actually retaliated by lying about how she was getting married as well.
This was a very petty reaction from Sensitivity (who did get rightly punished for it afterwards), but I still found it very inconsiderate of Yumi, all the more because she knew that Woong wasn’t keen on marriage in general. Of course, she didn’t know Woong was standing behind her while she was talking, but she could’ve at least stopped to realize that, as soon as he’d arrive, he’d also have to go along with this lie in front of all these people he didn’t even know. Imagine showing up at a stranger’s wedding just because your partner urgently asked you to come, and then hearing them tell some random guy that you’re getting married. He was the best for playing along with it in the moment, and I’m just glad that Yumi explained the situation to him directly afterwards, but it still really pissed me off. As much as the Cells helped to relativize Yumi’s choices, this one just didn’t sit well with me.

Finally, I’m gonna have to start talking about Sae Yi, one of Woong’s college friends and colleagues who worked with him on “Bow-Wow Time”. Even before Yumi and Woong meet, Sae Yi is introduced as someone who is very confusing to Woong. It’s revealed later on that he used to have a crush on her in college, but they never hooked up. He ended up banning all his feelings for her out because her mixed signals confused him too much and he wanted things to be simple. Now, whenever Sae Yi starts trying to flirt with him or bring up stories of their college years, Woong literally goes into full Defense Mode in order to avoid the conversation. From the way he started acting when he got into a relationship with Yumi and how he even sent Sae Yi away in the end, I think it’s safe to say that he didn’t have any romantic feelings for Sae Yi, but there was definitely some lingering tension between them. She was still a close friend that he couldn’t completely ignore, even after Yumi expressed how uncomfortable Sae Yi made her. Mind you, his connection with Sae Yi was the cause of several fractures in their relationship, and Sae Yi herself definitely did NOT help to clear the air between them.

Honestly, while I had hoped that Sae Yi would actually turn out to be cool when she eventually met Yumi face-to-face, she was as bad as she could have possibly been. She made me feel really uncomfortable. While she never clarified her true feelings for Woong, it was like she always kept him on a hook as her final option, and she always kept reminding him of his principles when it came to dating and marriage. As soon as Yumi entered Woong’s life, she seemingly became cautious of her own position and only proved to Yumi that she was right to be concerned, time and time again. When Yumi visited the game studio, Sae Yi was always hovering around Woong, “subtly” touching him and showing off how well she knew him through and through, better than Yumi. She knew Yumi was conscious of her and only kept adding fuel to the fire, all the while feigning ignorance when either Yumi or Woong confronted her with her actions. Her worst action was that she at some point legit went: “You know what? No. I’m not gonna let Yumi take him” and literally moved into Woong’s apartment building overnight. That was WILD. She did all that and still couldn’t even tell Woong clearly to his face that she was interested in him. She just kept both of them grasping at straws as to what her true intentions were, it was VERY aggravating.

Unfortunately, even though it was clear that Woong didn’t have feelings for Sae Yi and he even told her off for butting into his relationship and telling Yumi unsollicited stuff about their past, he still didn’t clear things up when Yumi needed it the most. I honestly thought he handled the situation in a way that was very inconsiderate towards his girlfriend, especially since he was aware of the tension between Yumi and Sae Yi.
Yumi ends up finding out about Sae Yi’s move to Woong’s building in the worst way possible: she bumps into Sae Yi in the elevator on her way to surprise-visit Woong. Even when faced with the awkward situation where Yumi and Sae Yi both turned up at his door and he realized Yumi found out that he didn’t tell her that the girl she’d warned him about had moved into his building, Woong just invited her in as if nothing happened. He chose to act oblivious while knowing what was going on, which was the worst way to deal with the situation. As I’m typing this, I have to admit that this part hits me even harder now since I literally went through a similar situation recently with a friend. Having experienced that, I’m all the more aware of how hurtful it is to be kept in the dark about things I have every right to be worried about – it completely invalidates the excuse of “not wanting to say something to be considerate”, because it only confirms the existing suspicions.
This situation in particular leads to a pretty big fight between Yumi and Woong, in which I again found myself going back and forth between them. As much as I thought Woong was in the wrong for being inconsiderate about the Sae Yi situation, Yumi also didn’t really give him a chance to explain things and put her mind at ease. While I agree that he had enough chances to tell her, and his Cells did keep him from explaining things more clearly, I could understand why it pissed him off to be ordered to apologize without being given the chance to share his side of the story (this also reminds me of the situation I personally went through). I did feel like it was fair for him to finally get angry once, since he was usually the one to fold and apologize and Yumi probably took this for granted.
I think this was one of the conflicts between them where I could actually relate to both sides, which in a way made it even more frustrating to watch since they both refused to relate to each other’s feelings. On the other hand, I can’t say it ruined the story for me, because it was still a very realistic depiction of a miscommunication.

Another example of a miscommunication between Yumi and Woong occurs when Yumi tells him she’s thinking of switching departments at work. After writing something for the marketing department at her company, she’s asked to consider transferring there to develop her writing skills even more, which in turn ignites a new spark to Yumi’s long-buried dream of becoming a writer. After building up her jar of courage through several other friends and colleagues, Yumi faces a disappointment when Woong, of all people, discourages her decision.
I think what happened here was the following: for Yumi, this decision was directly linked to her suppressed passion for writing. She was praised for the piece she wrote for the marketing department, and this awakened a new flame of hope and courage in her. However, I honestly don’t think Woong was aware of how much writing meant to Yumi. I think she only mentioned to him in passing that she used to want to become a writer, but nothing more. As such, Woong gave a much more objective opinion on how hard it was to change departments and take on a new field of work without substantial experience, unaware of the underlying damage this advice did to Yumi’s accumulating courage to pick up writing again. In hindsight, Woong was also talking from his own current position where he decided to sell his apartment to gain more funds for his studio, which he hadn’t told Yumi about either. So basically, they asked for and gave each other advice from their own respective positions in life, without actually being aware of each other’s respective positions in life.
In both abovementioned miscommunications it felt to me like Yumi was usually the one to cut off and walk away from the conversation, even though she also often didn’t clearly communicate her feelings. Woong would get annoyed, sure, but at least he always tried to understand where Yumi’s anger came from and fix things.

All in all, even though Yumi and Woong always found a way to make up, I didn’t really know how to feel about the way they “dealt with” the Sae Yi matter. Honestly, it didn’t feel like they solved it at all – they suddenly were back together without any indication that they’d talked things through. Did they actually come to a compromise regarding the issue or did they just agree to make up? I’m guessing Woong must have apologized in some way, also because he made Sae Yi leave the game team. It did seem like there was still some tension regarding Sae Yi in Woong’s life, and we find out later that he did keep in touch with her without Yumi knowing, although Sae Yi eventually got herself a boyfriend and didn’t pose a threat to their relationship anymore in the end.

As much as I loved Yumi and Woong as a couple during their happy moments, I couldn’t help but feel that their relationship was ultimately doomed to fail, looking at how they “dealt” with everything they went through. The fact that things kept happening that made their trust and dependence on each other waver was a clear enough sign that their relationship wouldn’t hold forever.
Just when things seemed to be promising between them again, and Yumi actually suggested marriage after they’d started living together at her place for a while, which they both seemed to like, Woong ends up walking away because of his pride again. Turns out he was actually very embarrassed about shacking up at his girlfriend’s place as a result of his own poverty. Here again, he wasn’t honest with her and just said he’d move out all of a sudden. After this, Woong started putting in less and less effort, making Yumi less and less motivated to continue.
Seeing as how Woong eventually was the one to break off the relationship, I thought it was quite ironic how panicky he got at first when he sensed Yumi was going to break up with him, and that he actually managed to finally set his pride aside and put Yumi first once he felt like he was going to get dumped. Like, he was able to do it for something like THAT, but not for admitting he had indigestion. 🙄 I guess that just proved how deep-rooted his pride was. I also found it very typical that Woong’s Reason Cell actually lacked the self-awareness to acknowledge what Woong had done wrong – that was very typically “men”.

Honestly, with the way things ended between them, I didn’t even expect Woong to make a comeback in Season 2. Like, I expected they’d refer back to him in flashbacks since Yumi still had to get over him, but I honestly didn’t think they would actually bring him back as a love contestant after how Yumi cut him off when he bought the rice cooker from her. I was honestly surprised when they used that encounter to ignite a whole flashback scene from Woong’s side to show a “what could have been” scenario in which he dreamt how things could’ve developed between them if he hadn’t let his pride get in the way.
I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about his comeback in the second season. At first I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him, probably because we saw a whole season of Yumi and Woong as a couple, even though I fully respected that Yumi was so direct in setting her boundaries with him after she started dating someone new. But when he came back in Season 2 and started revealing that he always regretted walking away from Yumi’s proposal, and that it was all because he hadn’t felt secure enough about his financial situation at the time, it still felt very “too little, too late” and I couldn’t really get behind the idea of them getting back together again. As Sensitivity and Anxiety also confirmed, the only reason Yumi couldn’t completely shut Woong out of her heart was that she still felt both sorry and thankful towards him. It’s kind of ironic that Woong ended up not being able to fully move on from Yumi after all that time, and I found his newly acquired confidence to pursue her again a bit awkward, since Yumi clearly had no intention of getting back together with him whatsoever.

By the way, can I just say how badly I felt for poor Louis? This guy literally got caught in the crossfire between Yumi, Woong and Sae Yi, and he had to watch his team fall apart. He just wanted to have a good time making games with his good friends. I did like how he stuck by Woong all the way to the company he eventually built and remained a recurring character throughout the seasons, but that part in Season 1 must have been quite painful for him to live through. #PoorLouis

Before I move on to my discussion of Season 2, I just want to comment on the transition between the two seasons. I was initially debating to make this review into two separate ones, one for each season. But as I mentioned in my introduction, I decided not to because the two seasons tied together so intricately that they basically made one single story. Season 2 picked up immediately where Season 1 left off, and even covered both seasons in its final ending credits as well. I thought it was really smooth how Season 1 already set up the plot for Season 2 and made the story continue seamlessly, including the time it took Yumi to get over her break-up with Woong.

Admittedly, even though I knew from the poster that Yumi would be dating someone else in the second season, I had not expected this person to already be introduced halfway through the first season. Apart from this, they also already spoiled that Yumi and Woong weren’t endgame quite early on in Season 1, when the Library Cell in the Yumi Library referred to Woong as “Yumi’s boyfriend at the time” and they didn’t reveal Yumi’s wedding picture. Speaking of which, the same went for Season 2. It was already revealed that Yumi would get yet another new love interest in Season 3, so I can’t deny that watching her relationships in these first two seasons unfold while knowing that they both wouldn’t last did take away from the effect of the break-ups. Still, I did enjoy watching Yumi go through both relationships, because they were very important experiences for her and contributed significantly to her character development. Also, I never pass up on a cute romantic storyline, no matter how it ends.

Yumi initially meets Yoo Ba Bi (played by GOT7’s Park Jin Young) when he helps her find her lost umbrella. He works at the same company as her, Daehan Noodles, but in the marketing department. Yumi initially only sees Ba Bi as a bland, featureless stick figure drawing; the way men appear to her when she’s not looking for one. But this changes when they keep bumping into each other and find an unspoken comfort in each other’s company. It just so happens that when they get to know each other, they’re both in a relationship that isn’t really working out that well anymore. Woong is incredibly busy finishing up the prototype version of his game, and Ba Bi’s girlfriend is a lawyer who can barely make time to meet up with him. By the time both of their relationships end in Season 1, they’ve already established a close enough friendly relationship with each other in the meantime, and it doesn’t take long for Ba Bi to suggest they start dating. Yumi is initially hesitant since she didn’t see this intention of his coming, but gradually opens herself up to the possibility of a new relationship again.

One thing that immediately jumped out to me was how different her relationships with Woong and Ba Bi started. They kept comparing the two, but in a way which clearly reflected how much Yumi had learned from her relationship with Woong, and how she now wanted to do better with Ba Bi. I loved the different ways they respectively made their way into Yumi’s heart, Woong’s Love Cell in the disguise of a frog symbolic of the sweater he gave her, and Ba Bi like a freaking wrecking ball. It was interesting to see the variety in how Yumi’s feelings for them developed as well. With Woong, it was mostly her Love Cell that took the lead as she fell for him gradually, but in Ba Bi’s case it was more Sensitivity and the other Cells that kept recognizing green flags in him while Love was still unable to fully take the lead after the break-up with Woong. I feel like Woong actually managed to win Yumi’s heart through unexpected gestures, while with Ba Bi her feelings developed more slowly since they started out as friends and she had to make that transition first.

From the moment we meet Ba Bi, it’s clear that he’s an incredibly sincere and stand-up person. He has a sweet way with words that immediately flusters Yumi, but he is also very respectful not to cross her boundaries. He is very straightforward and doesn’t beat around the bush with people he’s interested in. Ba Bi becomes an incredibly important person to Yumi, not just as a love interest but also in her journey to revive her writing dream. He is actually the first person to acknowledge her writing and suggests she should write something for the marketing department, which eventually leads to her transferring there. After Yumi quits her job to pursue writing as an occupation, he is the most supportive partner ever. As was mentioned at the end of the second season, Writer Cell owed her revival to Ba Bi, since he was the one who nudged Yumi back into the “write” (👀) direction.
In contrast to Woong, Ba Bi is the most understanding and considerate boyfriend ever. He immediately notices it when something is wrong and is always mature and empathic, even in conflicts. He calls Yumi every day, trusts her completely and never makes her worry, which occasionally makes Yumi wonder how the heck she managed to find such a perfect guy. He is handsome, smart, sweet, considerate and funny, and they compliment each other perfectly.
Ba Bi also happens to the heir to a tteokbokki restaurant, which is Yumi’s favorite food. Coincidentally, this restaurant is named after him, just like Yumi’s father’s hardware store is named after her. At some point later on (after the marriage proposal), Ba Bi takes Yumi to the tteokbokki place to introduce her to his father (Jeon Noh Min). I really loved this scene, where she basically melted his father’s heart by devouring an entire plate of tteokbokki by herself. The way his dad started out so cold and ended up coming after them to give Yumi some pocket money was really cute. He was a precious man. It would’ve been even cuter if we didn’t already know that they weren’t going to last.

I really loved Yumi and Ba Bi as a couple. Not just because of the perfect conditions, but also because they were so naturally drawn to each other from the start. It honestly felt like Ba Bi already developed feelings for Yumi before they both broke up with their exes. They found this lovely sense of calm and comfort in each other that they both missed in their relationships at the time, which clearly foreshadowed them getting together.
I can’t deny that, as much as I loved the intimate scenes between Yumi and Woong in Season 1, the ones with Ba Bi were on a different level. The scene where they started making out on Yumi’s couch and there was this whole Moon Landing sequence in which the Cells had to guide Yumi’s hand to Planet H2, aka Ba Bi’s butt. 😂😂 I also couldn’t with the visualization of their Tongue Cells. Where were these during her kissing scenes with Woong?! The fact that their caps were literally tongues and they actually “visited” each other’s house to have tea and “dance” together…😳 That was a really funny take on an intimate scene, and although it did kind of take away the spicy element (except for the Naughty Cell of course), it made it very entertaining to watch. 😂👌🏻

But of course, as we already knew, Yumi and Ba Bi ultimately wouldn’t last. I was actually curious how they were going to make them break up, because they seemed so perfect and happy together. I’m not gonna lie, starting from episode 8 onwards, things took a turn that I honestly didn’t really like.
It all started when Ba Bi temporarily moved to Jeju Island for work and Yumi found out about Da Eun. In episode 8, there was a subchapter called “Ba Bi’s Secret”. I’m assuming this referred to his inability to answer Yumi’s question of when he started liking her. For some reason I still don’t understand, Ba Bi’s Cells stopped him from answering honestly. He did end up answering her later, but not before two of his Cells (I don’t even remember which ones) burned the scroll with his honest answer on it. Why did they interfere with that to the extent of knocking Ba Bi’s Love Cell out and stealing that scroll? This was the first time Ba Bi started acting out of character. He was always super communicative and considerate, so it didn’t really make sense for his Cells to suddenly rebel against that for no clear reason. Also, it wasn’t really clear to me until the end what exactly the “Secret” was that the subchapter referred to.
In any case, this is when Yumi starts getting weird vibes from Ba Bi, and that feeling is only strengthened when she finds out about Yoo Da Eun (played by Shin Ye Eun), Ba Bi’s young and pretty intern that he hasn’t told her about. Although Yumi is naturally suspicious of other attractive women around her boyfriend, Da Eun appears to be the complete opposite of Sae Yi. She is not trying to stir things up between them, she’s just super bubbly and also acts very respectfully towards Yumi. After talking to her a couple of times, even Yumi is able to convince herself that Da Eun doesn’t pose any threat – she’s just very young and innocent.
However, this didn’t change the fact that Da Eun actually had a crush on Ba Bi. Before she transferred to Busan, she decided to tell Ba Bi about her feelings for him – to get it off her chest, not to actually make him choose her – and for some reason this kept bothering Ba Bi. In the end, he kind of pulled a Woong-like move, selling his house in Jeju and moving closer to the company without telling Yumi about it. It’s ultimately revealed that he did this to create more distance between him and Da Eun, because he was swayed by her, even if just for a moment.

I admired Yumi for immediately setting her boundaries and sticking to her principle of ending things as soon as her boyfriend was swayed by another woman. If that’s a rule she made for herself, then I respect that she stuck with that. I also didn’t blame Da Eun for anything, by the way. She was happy admiring Ba Bi from afar and backed off as soon as she found out he was taken. She never had the intention of getting between Ba Bi and Yumi. I’m even positive that she felt guilty about being part of the reason they broke up. She never wanted to steal Ba Bi away, she just needed to share how she felt before taking her distance from him, and I thought that was respectable as well.
Still, I hated the break-up. As I said, props to Yumi for standing up for her own values and drawing the line, but the whole thing was so rushed and out of the blue. There was barely any build-up in Ba Bi’s feelings for Da Eun, and it wasn’t like something happened between them while Yumi was away either. Then again, he did get swayed by Da Eun multiple times, he kept thinking about her, all the more after she’d confessed how she felt about him. I just didn’t get why, all of a sudden, Ba Bi went from being Mr. Perfect and Considerate to being so easily swayed and they had to break up so suddenly because of that. I really thought they were solid, Ba Bi had been such a dependable guy, and then suddenly he wasn’t. It just seemed very out of character for him.

Now that we’re on this weird part, episode 8 was actually the first episode where I found myself very confused about things developing in certain ways. Besides Ba Bi’s sudden out-of-character behavior, the show also started introducing some new characters and relationships that felt a bit random to me.
For starters, Ahn Dae Yong (played by Jeon Seok Ho). He was the publisher that acknowledged Yumi’s writing skills after reading the story she submitted for a contest and who provided her with the chance to debut as a writer. He also turned out to be a former college senior of Yumi’s who’d had a major crush on her back then, and who got completely delusional when meeting Yumi again through this opportunity. Honestly, when they suddenly inserted this chapter about Ahn Dae Yong, it felt super random to me. It almost seemed like they introduced him as some sort of new love rival, while in fact he just convinced himself that he was pulling all these strategies to make Yumi fall for him. Meanwhile, Yumi was actually annoyed by the way he went hot and cold, first demanding she change literally everything about her story and then suddenly sending her donuts in the mail and offering to take her out to dinner. Like, I didn’t even have time to sympathize with his character because he started acting so outrageously from the moment he was introduced. 😅 At least it was good that he backed off as soon as he found out Yumi had a boyfriend and he ultimately ended up marrying her friend Yi Da, which was also kind of random but cute, I guess.
In any case, the random introduction of Ahn Dae Yong and Ba Bi’s sudden turn towards Da Eun without anything substantial leading up to it really came out of nowhere for me, and I had trouble accepting how things developed after that.

Speaking of random new relationships, I still can’t believe they actually pushed Control Z and Ruby together. Control Z (played by BLOCK B’s P.O/Pyo Ji Hoon) was selected as the illustrator for Yumi’s debut novel. He was an odd fellow, and he and Yumi clashed from the moment they met, although he did seem to have a very playful side to him as well from the way he followed her on social media and kept teasing her. For some reason, the writers decided to label both him and Ruby as “(self-proclaimed) dating experts” and made them start dating each other almost immediately after meeting. Like, cute and all, but it was so random? 😂 I didn’t get any kind of dating vibes from Control Z – the only thing that suggested he saw himself as a dating expert was that he criticized the relationship in Yumi’s story as unrealistic. From the way he presented himself I honestly thought he was supposed to be kind of anti-social, and he didn’t seem like Ruby’s type at all to me. After all the efforts Ruby had gone through to pursue Woo Gi throughout the seasons, I found it kind of hard to believe when she was suddenly like “Ruby doesn’t play around the bush” and just agreed to date Control Z within one week of their first meeting. I don’t know man, maybe they just wanted to surround Yumi with more relationships to take inspiration from, but I didn’t really feel what was going on between these two. 😅

Just as I was about to make my peace with Yumi’s decision to break up with Ba Bi – since she made it with newly acquired self-awareness and strength and I was proud of her for coming such a long way – they suddenly got back together again. Even after that wholesome scene where Yumi entered her Cell Village and urged Love to give up the Prime Cell position because she didn’t need love as her prior drive anymore and knew now that being in a relationship didn’t guarantee her happiness. I did not see that coming. I knew there had to be more to come since there were still a lot of episodes to go, but I wasn’t ready for their relationship to suddenly take that turn.
After being so determined in her decision to walk away from Ba Bi, maybe because Sensitivity took over after Love spiralled and turned into freaking Smaug, Yumi suddenly revoked her principles and got back with her ex for the first time in her life. But even after they got back together, things just weren’t the same anymore. Love was absent, and Yumi was purely living on Sensitivity, who enabled her to go along with Ba Bi’s soothing apologies way more easily. What made things even more messy was that at this point, they also reintroduced Woong into the picture and worse, they made him determined to win Yumi back now that he had made something of himself.

I can’t stress enough how much I DREADED the Battle of the Exes. Like, I get that Woong was being petty about the fact that Yumi chose to get back together with Ba Bi and not him, but it really wasn’t his place to provoke Ba Bi like that. He could’ve just said: “Don’t worry about the fact that Yumi took care of me, she’s not the kind of person who gets swayed” without including the: “Unlike someone 😏” part, since that would’ve at least attributed some respect to Yumi as a partner. The way he said it could’ve caused Ba Bi to think that Yumi talked to Woong about their break-up and badmouthed him, even though Woong actually found out and made assumptions about their break-up all by himself. Honestly, Woong’s whole boasting monologue in this confrontational scene was painful to watch and I agreed with Ba Bi that he was being very childish. He basically started waving his success in Ba Bi’s face, even though Ba Bi was perfectly content with his life and it didn’t even have anything to do with their conflict regarding Yumi.

Anyways, even after they got back together, there was just a lot of anxiety left between Yumi and Ba Bi, which ultimately led to Ba Bi not telling her about the fact that he broke his leg in an accident on his way to the airport and never arrived in the U.S. for his business trip. Maybe the excuse “I thought you’d be too busy” is just triggering for me at the moment due to my own experience, but I really couldn’t fathom why Ba Bi thought it was better to lie to Yumi about being in the freaking hospital “because he didn’t want her to worry”. She’s your girlfriend! She has the right to worry! Didn’t you get back together to prove that your relationship was strong enough to withstand misunderstandings? What the heck are you doing? That scene did NOT pan out the way I expected, especially with the sudden marriage proposal after Yumi found him at his apartment with his leg in a cast. When Ba Bi popped the question, my instant reaction was actually “OH GOD NO” because it just didn’t feel right. Not only because I already knew they were going to break up anyway, but also because things had already gotten so messed up between them.

Seriously, why did all of Yumi’s relationships have to end right at the point of becoming final (living together/getting married)?! I can’t imagine how draining it must be to constantly build up to that point and then losing it at the last minute and having to start all over again. 😭 I think this may be one of the reasons why Yumi started growing on me more and more throughout Season 2. She may have been a bit petty and temperamental in Season 1, but she really grew through her experiences and ended up properly prioritizing her own wants and needs, even excepting that Love might not be suited as her Prime Cell after all.

Season 2 ends with an eight-month time jump to after Yumi broke off her engagement with Ba Bi. After spotting a phone call from Da Eun on his phone, she suddenly realized that she didn’t even feel jealous or anxious anymore, which was the biggest indicator that her love for Ba Bi was gone. She even started seeing him as the bland stick figure from before. It was interesting how they emphasized that, ever since the initial break-up, Yumi’s Love Cell had been absent, even through her reunion with Woong and getting back together with and receiving a marriage proposal from Ba Bi. In finding a new acceptance for being single, Yumi is able to finally let go of her desire to be in love and starts focussing on her new journey of becoming an established writer. The season ends with the name-only introduction of her new editor-in-chief, a guy called Shin Sun Rok, who is confirmed to become Yumi’s new love interest in Season 3.

While I may have mostly shared confrontational and frustrating parts in this review, I want to emphasize that I thoroughly enjoyed watching both seasons. I loved how the series showed Yumi’s growth through these specific chapters in her life. It was so satisfying to see how she matured as a person, how she took the lessons from her relationship with Woong into her relationship with Ba Bi and learned from her past mistakes. I’m honestly starting to feel like each season symbolizes a defining chapter of Yumi’s life: in Season 1, she didn’t realize where her heart truly lay and Woong didn’t fully support her in giving writing another shot. In Season 2, Ba Bi helped her rediscover her passion for writing and supported her from the sidelines. And in Season 3, her love interest will be her editor-in-chief, someone who works with her closely and will probably help her firsthand to establish her desired dream of becoming a full-fledged writer. I also loved how she made the transition from just being a girl yearning for romance to a woman realizing her full potential. The transition of her Prime Cell from Love to Writer was also very essential in this, since it symbolized how she literally changed both her career path and her brain chemistry to prioritize her dream of writing over her love for being in love.

When I started watching this show, I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. I guess I thought it would be some sort of sitcom or silly romantic comedy, but I love that it turned out to be such a powerful story about someone navigating through love and life and ultimately reaching her true self. The consistency between the two seasons and the genius of the Cells’ visualizations of her emotions and principles was very satisfying. This series frequently had me laughing out loud, and the more emotional and serious scenes hit just right as well. I loved how this show portrayed human communication so well, there were so many relatable situations and feelings in there that I couldn’t help but relate to. It was a very nice balance of comedy, romance and drama, and I had a really good time watching it. As I said, I feel like this show found me at just the right timing, and it definitely helped me become more content with myself as well, so that’s a huge plus.

Now that I’ve covered the main story and characters, I can’t end this review without elaborating a little more on the Cells, as they deserve to be credited just as much as the live-action characters. Again, I was really impressed with how incredibly relatable they made every single Cell, and how natural the interplay between them was. The writers did a great job at constructing the conversations between the Cells, from who could say what at which moment to how they all related to one another.
Let’s start with the titular Yumi’s Cells. Yumi’s Cells are depicted as chibi-like figures that all wear a variation of the same sky-blue bodysuit. Each Cell is characterized by an individual trait such as a specific hairstyle of accessory. The Prime Cell is distinguished by a different color outfit. Yumi’s Love Cell has a pink bodysuit with a cape, including an antenna with a little heart on the hood and they are able to fly, unlike the other Cells. After Writer takes their place as Prime Cell, Love is shown in the same blue outfit as the others, without a cape. Interesting to note is that several of Yumi’s Cells, including Love, Anxiety and Hair, are depicted with blonde hair, while most of the others are shown with either black hair or no hair at all as it’s covered under their hoods. Apparently, this is because in the original webtoon and animated movie, Yumi is actually blonde-haired. I just thought that was a nice detail to refer back to the original work it was based off on, since they didn’t dye Yumi’s hair blonde in the drama version.
Reason and Sensitivity are both black-haired. Reason is depicted with one lock of hair peeking out on the front of their hood, while Sensitivity is depicted with two long pigtails. I think it’s safe to say that these two were the main active Cells in Yumi’s Cell Village, and it was just so symbolic of the clash between mind and heart. Reason was always running around trying to get other Cells to calm down and remain rational, while Sensitivity often caused trouble by making Yumi says things without thinking and regretting it later. I really liked their dynamic, since despite their bantering they also seemed to be best buds at the same time.
Anxiety was depicted with wavy blonde hair coming out of their hood that had two bunny ears on top. I loved how they personified Anxiety so well by literally making them the Cell that was always lurking in the back going: “Are we sure this is a good idea, though? I feel anxious…” It was also very typical that Anxiety was always attached the closest to the Prime Cell, because “the higher you rose, the more you’d have to lose”. There were so many clever references in the design and the execution of these Cells, I loved connecting the dots and going like “Omg that’s SO true”, also for example how Anxiety was ALWAYS one of the Cells that Lullaby had to chase away for interfering with Yumi’s sleep (we all know the unwelcome 3 A.M. anxiety thoughts).
Writer wears a little barret over their hood. I thought it was really clever that Yumi’s Writer Cell didn’t only embody her passion for writing, but also her tendency to get over-confident or discouraged when things didn’t turn out the way she planned. The fact that Writer ultimately became the Prime Cell didn’t mean in any way that Yumi stopped struggling with writing altogether. On the contrary, Writer ultimately couldn’t handle the pressure anymore and jumped off the castle they resided in. I just loved how every Cell also retained a human element, such as not being able to handle stress or failing in with they were suppose to support Yumi in.
When something started becoming a big issue to Yumi, the corresponding Cells would also automatically grow bigger. The only Cell that was bigger than all the others throughout the entire series was Appetite. They were very big and always hungry, with a little tteokbokki on top of their head, since that was Yumi’s favorite food.
Lastly I just want to mention Naughty, because they were probably one of my favorites. Naughty basically symbolized Yumi’s horny side, and always came out when things were about to get spicy with her boyfriend. Honestly, Naughty was a menace. 😂 I couldn’t with the way they were constantly wiggling their little butt while making moaning noises. I would think this would normally get censored or something, but I gotta admit this show had some seriously suggestive parts that they didn’t even try to mask.
I honestly really like that they also featured the Cells from other characters except Yumi’s, this really helped in gaining more understanding from multiple sides.
Woong’s Cells were quite similar to Yumi’s except they were dressed in a darker shade of blue. His Reason Cell wore round glasses, while his Love Cell also had a little heart antenna on his hood and we also later on meet his Sensitivity Cell, who is wrapped in a blanket. My biggest lol about Woong’s Cells was that his Naughty was literally a horny dinosaur. 😂🦖 It was so funny when Yumi and Woong were getting it on for the first time and their two Naughty Cells both completely lost it.
Ba Bi’s Cells are dressed in dark green, and have more pointy hats than Yumi’s. I couldn’t find too many differences between them, but they were all a very friendly and festive bunch (the mariachi musicians cracked me up).
Lastly, and also most randomly, we also get a glimpse at Ahn Dae Yong’s Cells who, unlike any of the others we see, are actually shaped like super muscular men in tight grey bodysuits. I did find it funny that his Love Cell was so emotional and always immediately carved the name of his love interest into a mountain as soon as he got infatuated with someone.
All in all, I really loved the addition of the Cells and how they each had their own distinctive personality and role to play. So much thought must have gone into how these Cells ran the Village and kept things going. It brought a very unique and entertaining element to the series and made it all the more enjoyable to watch.

I’ve mentioned the movie before, but I’ll just elaborate a little bit more on it before moving on to my cast comments. Yumi’s Cells: The Movie is a fully animated movie that’s directly based on the original webtoon, and is not linked to the drama series. It basically retells the second season of the drama, from the moment Yumi starts dating Ba Bi to the moment they break up, with some slight plot adjustments (Yumi quits her job because Section Chief Nam keeps stealing her ideas, Ba Bi has his own dream of starting a tteokbokki diner instead of being the heir to one who doesn’t want to take over, Da Eun is his part-timer instead of his intern, that sort of thing). It also introduces a couple of new Cells inside the Village that don’t appear in the drama, such as Schedule, Jinx and Depression. Other than that, it focusses just a little more on Yumi’s writing dream and doesn’t end with her encountering Love Interest #3.

Time for the cast comments!

I love that Kim Go Eun is doing more dramas these days. So far, I’ve seen her in Cheese in the Trap, Goblin and The King: Eternal Monarch (still my fave of all time). I’ve also seen her in the movie Tune in for Love, and there’s a couple more dramas and movies with her on my to-watch list. What can I say, Kim Go Eun is the GOAT. She always delivers and always manages to surprise me with her versatility. Apart from Cheese in the Trap I haven’t actually seen her in a romantic comedy before, but even this she pulled off with so much ease. I really enjoyed how she portrayed Yumi, and especially how she made the character’s transition so natural and relatable. It wasn’t weird at all seeing her switch boyfriends because she had great chemistry with both her co-stars and she did a great job at performing Yumi’s fluctuating emotions. I loved seeing her portray so many different moods in this show, from giddy and smiley to numb and heartbroken. I’m really curious to see her bring back Yumi in Season 3, and to see her in the remaining shows I still plan on watching.

It was really cool seeing Ahn Bo Hyun in this series since I’d yet to see him in a romantic show. So far I’ve seen him in Descendants of the Sun, Her Private Life and Itaewon Class. I’m really excited to see See You in My 19th Life, as well. I thought he did a really great job as Woong, especially since I feel like he must have been quite a complex character to play. There was something so natural about how he pulled off the look and the attitude that Woong had in Season 1, and it was great to see this new side of him as an actor. I’m not gonna lie, I actually liked the authentic long hair and little beard better than his hair in Season 2, it kind of took away his uniqueness. In his portrayal of Woong, I thought he was able to express a very distinct softness combined with a goofiness that I hadn’t seem him portray before, which was really nice. His chemistry with Kim Go Eun was also very good – their kissing scenes were absolute fire 🔥 I’m very curious to see him in more things now!

Not gonna lie, I nearly choked when the series started with Yumi’s dream about waking up next to Woo Gi aka Min Ho from SHINee. 😂 I’ve seen him before in To The Beautiful You, Hwarang, Somehow 18 and Lovestruck in the City. I had no idea he was in this! I kind of wished he’d appeared more, but he seemed to kind of disappear more and more after setting Yumi and Woong up. I would’ve loved it if he’d made another appearance at the end, since it basically all started with him. It would’ve been a nice full-circle moment if he could come back at least once before the official end, so I hope he can come back in the third season, even if it’s just for a guest appearance. I really liked his character, he was really kind and genuinely cared for Yumi as a friend. I really hope things worked out with the male co-worker he had a crush on. 🥹 Petition to bring Woo Gi back for Season 3, anyone? Chae Woo Gi, that is, not Yumi’s ex Woo Gi (the fact that they shared a name was a pretty awkward coincidence, lol).

I’ve seen Lee Yoo Bi before in Pinocchio, Uncontrollably Fond and Somehow 18. From the credits on MyDramaList I see she’s also gonna return as Ruby for Season 3, which is cool. As the main reference I have of her is her role in Somehow 18, seeing her as Ruby was a very big transition, lol. I loved how she embraced the cutesyness of the character and ticked every single box of the stereotypically girly flirt, lol. I do like that they made her more relatable and likeable throughout the seasons, because at first I was just rolling my eyes at her along with Yumi, haha. It would be really funny to get a glimpse at Ruby’s Cells, now that I think of it. I’m so curious to see how her Inner Feelings would react to things. From the way she presented herself, I was inclined to think that literally everything would be done through one of those Reserve/Masking Puppets that Yumi’s Sensitivity also occasionally used. In any case, Ruby was a very entertaining character and she definitely grew on me. I gotta say, as a fellow Ruby myself, I can’t deny that hearing my own name get pronounced in Korean by several famous actors took some getting used to. At least now I know what it sounds like when Kim Go Eun says my name. 😂 #proudofbeingaRuby.

It was a very nice surprise to see Park Ji Hyun’s portrayal of Sae Yi as well. I realize I’ve only seen her in historical dramas before, in The King Loves and Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung, so it was a switch to suddenly see her in a modern-day setting. Honestly, she killed it as Sae Yi. She actually made me genuinely dislike her, which means she did her job right. It was really cool to see her play a toxic character for a change, and it definitely made me curious to see more sides of her acting. Honestly, I also would’ve liked to see her Cells, because I don’t think we saw anything apart from that one wall that showed the note expressing her wish to marry Woong as her final option. I would’ve liked to see what was going on inside her head, and if she actually had a Reason Cell that tried to tell her she wasn’t being nice, lol. In any case, she was one of those actors that I didn’t know was in this but definitely played her part very well.

I kept wondering where I knew Joo Jong Hyuk from, but then I realized he was the cocky lawyer from Extraordinary Attorney Woo, lol. I haven’t seen him in anything else yet, and I don’t think he’s going to be in Season 3 since he’s not credited on MDL – which probably means Woong isn’t going to be in it, either. As I mentioned before, I kind of felt sorry for Louis since he basically had to sit through the “break-up” between Woong and Sae Yi. I’ve personally been in a situation where I broke with one friend from a group of three and the other person got caught in the middle of that, which was awful. It was nice that he got to come back as a Director at Woong’s company though, he also became a much more accomplished person. It’s still weird to see him as a chill and friendly person in contrast to his character in EAW, lol. I liked his character here, and I hope I get to see more different sides of him in the future!

I’d only seen Park Jin Young in a lead role before in He is Psychometric, and it was nice to see him as a much more romantic and mature character in this show. Honestly, I almost fell for him a little myself, lol. He pulled off Mr. Perfect so naturally it was almost scary. 😂 Although in reality he is four years younger than Kim Go Eun, I had no qualms about her calling him “oppa” because he actually managed to come across as older than Yumi, which was cool. I really enjoyed his chemistry with Kim Go Eun, they seemed really natural together. I also liked getting to see him act out a variety of emotions, especially later on when things got a bit emotional between Ba Bi and Yumi. I thought he did a great job at portraying Ba Bi’s inner conflict when it came to his feelings for Da Eun, and the scene where he asked Yumi to marry him with tears in his eyes was really impactful. I could really feel how much he loved and adored Yumi, and I also liked that they remained on good terms in the end. He actually made me get attached to Ba Bi, which made it even harder when he suddenly started acting so out of character. He did great!

It was also nice to see Shin Ye Eun again. I’ve only seen her before in He is Psychometric, in which her role was a lot more serious than here, but I honestly really liked her performance of Da Eun. She seemed like a genuinely nice girl, and it suited her that she had no malicious intent towards Yumi like Sae Yi did. I think Shin Ye Eun did a great job at portraying Da Eun’s own conflicted feelings, and how genuinely hurt she seemed after finding out she’d caused them to break up. The way she was like “Team Leader, I’m so sorry, I think I made a mistake” actually touched me, and I couldn’t even blame her for drunk-dialing Ba Bi one time because she didn’t even care that much that he didn’t pick up. I think the most important thing to know about her was that she had no bad intentions. She was just a girl trying to get over a one-sided crush without causing trouble for her crush and his partner. I’m glad that in the end, it wasn’t even that Yumi broke up with Ba Bi because of Da Eun, but more that Da Eun made her realize that her feelings for Ba Bi had changed. Again, I don’t blame Da Eun for anything, and Shin Ye Eun did a really good job at portraying Da Eun’s genuinity and innocence. It was nice seeing her in this!

Lastly, I just wanted to mention P.O/Pyo Ji Hoon because he always makes me smile whenever he appears in a drama. I’ve seen him before in Temperature of Love, Encounter and Hotel Del Luna. I love the way he always brings a whimsical side to whatever character he plays. He cracked me up with his “ZZZZZZZZ”, lol. It was a really nice surprise seeing him in this, it felt like I hadn’t seen him in a very long time. Hopefully I’ll get to see him in more soon!

I just realized this, but this series actually reunited two actor couples from different shows! Choi Min Ho and Lee Yoo Bi (Woo Gi and Ruby) played the main leads in Somehow 18 and Park Jin Young and Shin Ye Eun (Ba Bi and Da Eun) in He is Psychometric. It suddenly occurred to me when seeing them play characters in this show that also showed romantic interest in each other, albeit one-sided.

Last but definitely not least, I want to give a huge shoutout to the amazing voice cast that contributed to this video. They may not have appeared physically, but their voices gave life to all the different Cells, which made them as much a part of the cast as the live-action actors. From what I can find on MDL, there was Ahn So Yi (Love, Stingy), Shim Kyu Hyuk (Reason), Ahn Young Mi (Naughty), Kim Yeon Woo (Fashion), Sa Moon Yeong (Anxiety), Park Ji Yoon (Sensitivity), Lee Jang Won (Appetite), Jeong Jae Hyeon (Deduction, Rampage, Lullaby) and Eom Sang Hyeon (Hysteria). I believe the voices for the Cells were the same as in the animated movie as well, so they did a LOT of work. A big round of applause for these amazing voice actors!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I knew this was going to be a lengthy review, and I honestly wanted to get it over with as soon as possible since it already took me so long to finish this show and I can’t wait to continue on with the next one. Still, that isn’t to say that I wanted to get this show over with because I got tired of it. I genuinely enjoyed watching it, and I’m glad I got to in this specific time of my life when I could relate to it the most.
The mix of live-action and animation was amazing and the way they visualized all these complex yet relatable emotions and situations was absolutely genius. I loved the realistic portrayal of Yumi’s relationships and how it all built up towards her final one. At least, I assume Season 3 will be the last season since it took a while to come out while Season 1 and 2 basically made one continuous story together. I’m honestly very excited to see what Season 3 will bring to the table and if they manage to bring back the same originality and creativity from the first two seasons.

Please find the link to my review of Season 3 here.

And with that, I would like to finally conclude my monster review of the first two seasons of Yumi’s Cells. I’m very excited to move on with my list, and I hope I’ll get to share another review soon.

Until then, bye-bee! x

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.

Kanojo no Inai Jikan
(彼女のいない時間 -그녀가 없는 시간- / Kanojo no Inai Jikan -Geunyeoga obsneun shigan- / The Time Without Her)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

When I mentioned in my last review that I hoped to post another one within this month, I didn’t expect that the next one would literally only take me a day to finish, lol. So here we are again, with a surprise review. I don’t even remember how I came across this short series, but I might’ve put it on my list when I went through Kim Hyun Joong’s dramas after finishing When Time Stopped). I always find it interesting when Japanese and Korean dramas collide, like with Haru ga Kita, so I was curious what this one was going to be about. I saw that it had super positive reviews on MDL, but the summary didn’t really give me a clear idea of the plot, so I went into it with an open mind. I’m glad I did, because it turned out to be a real gem. It actually felt more like watching a movie than a short series, also from the way it was shot and built up. I’m excited to share my views on it.

Since the series is so short, I decided to watch it twice, so I could double-check things I may have missed. I would actually recommend doing this, because it really doesn’t take long and I did notice things I didn’t see the first time around. If you choose to watch it again, I’d suggest focussing on the subtle ways Mai’s face is hidden during the funeral and in the flashbacks, and whether the people Eun Tae and the girl meet on their trip actually acknowledge the latter. It’s quite interesting watching something back while knowing the full truth, and this series lends itself for that perfectly.

Kanojo no Inai Jikan is a Nagoya TV mini series that consists of four episodes of about 30 minutes each. MDL lists it as a Japanese drama, and although it felt more like a Korean drama with Japanese elements to me, it’s true that it’s formatted as a J-Drama; the Korean dialogues are all subtitled in Japanese, suggesting it’s targeted at a Japanese-speaking audience. As such, I also followed MDL in using the Japanese title for this review. By the way, as far as I could find, the only way to watch the full series is through this YouTube channel, which has decent English (and Spanish) subtitles. Admittedly, not all the subtitles are correct (it did help that I understood Japanese), but it doesn’t take away too much from the story or the dialogues, so it’s not too bad.
The story focusses on Cha Eun Tae (played by Kim Hyun Joong), a Korean man in his late thirties who just lost his beloved Japanese wife, Mai. Due to the shock of her death, he suddenly finds himself unable to remember her clearly, both in terms of how she looked and their history together. It’s not just in his head – he’s actually diagnosed with temporary amnesia. The thought of not even being able to remember his wife and cherish his memories with her now that she’s gone causes Eun Tae to lose all hope, including his will to live. Just as he is contemplating following Mai to the afterlife, a photo appears out of nowhere. It shows him at a young age, holding a time capsule with the words “To Us in The Future” on it, written in both Japanese and Korean. Thinking that this photo might help him regain his memories of Mai, Eun Tae decides to take one last trip before deciding whether or not to leave this life.
After arriving at Jeongseon, where there’s a big time capsule park, a Japanese girl in a high school uniform (played by Tenshō Amane) calls out to Eun Tae at the station, handing him his wallet and saying she saw that he lost it. Eun Tae is immediately thrown off by her blunt way of speaking when she insists that he should be thankful to her and that he should even treat her to a meal. After revealing the purpose of his trip to her, the mysterious girl insists on joining him on his journey to regain his memories. With his new companion, Eun Tae embarks on a trip that will help him regain much more than just his lost memories.

Starting off the story with a protagonist who tries to off himself is pretty heavy, and it immediately sets the tone for Eun Tae’s state of mind. He’s almost like a living ghost in the way he wanders across the train platform when he arrives in Jeongseon. Still, he is able to find the strength to take this final trip with only a single photo in hand, even if he has no idea where to look or what to expect.
The only backstory we get from him is his history with and love for Mai, and this is further underlined by the crippling regrets and feelings of guilt he carries with him. As it turns out, he feels responsible for Mai’s death, as she died in an accident while she was on her way to see him after he’d called her out. Apart from that, there’s all these things that he never got to do with her, like going on trips and taking pictures together. Despite the fact that he’s losing sense of Mai, the sharp stings of these regrets stay with him. One quote that jumped out to me in the first episode came from the man at the train station when he asked about the purpose of Eun Tae’s visit. When Eun Tae says there’s “a hole in his memory that he means to fill”, the train guy corrects him by saying that “that means there’s a hole in his heart, since memories are connected to the heart”. In hindsight, I think this quote qualifies as considerable foreshadowing. At that point, Eun Tae is only thinking of regaining his memories and sharpening those blurred images, but he doesn’t know yet that the trip will ultimately help him fix the entire hole in his heart that Mai left behind.

The mysterious girl who remains unnamed until the last episode is an enigma throughout the story. From the moment she walks up to Eun Tae for the first time she’s incredibly quick on her feet, witty and even flirty with him. One moment she acts as if she’s just a runaway kid, the next she drops hints and makes comments that suggest there’s more to her than meets the eye. While she initially gets on Eun Tae’s nerves for being so straightforward and nosy, the things she says and does keep striking chords with him, and he eventually admits that she reminds him of Mai. While at first it really just seems as if she’s in Korea on a solo trip because she felt like she had to get away from home and didn’t get the chance to travel and make memories before, the fact that she keeps popping up at the same places as him even after disappearing for a while is uncanny – it almost feels like she’s there especially for Eun Tae.
Personally, I deducted fairly early on that the mysterious girl probably wasn’t real. The way she approached Eun Tae was weird to me from the start, simply because I didn’t find it realistic for a Japanese high school girl to suddenly hit on a random foreign man like that. When the strange occurrences increased, like how she kept disappearing and reappearing, switching outfits and skipping through unknown territory as if she knew it like the back of her hand, I quickly found myself looking for signs that other people couldn’t actually see her. When rewatching the series it’s very clear that this is the case, but I have to say that they managed to keep it very subtle. In any case, as soon as the guesthouse lady couldn’t remember if there’d been a second person, and when the guy at the time capsule park was like “You were here on your own the other day”, it didn’t really come as a surprise. Still, it’s not like that was the only plot twist.
In the end, it’s revealed that the mysterious girl is actually Mai, or at least what she looked like as a teenager. What I liked about this plot twist was that it only added more substance to the revelation that she wasn’t real. It’s not just that she was a ghost or a spirit or something like that, she was Mai’s spirit that appeared in order to guide Eun Tae on the trip they never got to go on, and persuade him to keep living as long as he could remember her. The fact that she appeared to him in her high school uniform was probably because that’s what she’d looked like when they’d buried the time capsule together.

After rewatching the series, I jotted down a bunch of indicators that subtly foreshadowed the truth about the girl, both in terms of her not being real, and her being Mai.
With regards to her not being real, if you look carefully, you can actually see that none of the people that Eun Tae meets along the way throw her a single glance. It’s framed very subtly, because Eun Tae and the girl are often standing very closely together. But if you look at their interactions, they’re always only addressing Eun Tae.
During the first encounter between Eun Tae and the girl at the train station, after she returns his wallet to him, the guy on the train platform stands very closely behind the girl as he confirms that it must indeed be his wallet. However, in hindsight it could be possible that he just saw Eun Tae stare blankly at his wallet (which he might have already been holding or which just appeared to him, just like the photo in the beginning) and, making the connection with that he’d lost his memories, just confirmed that to him.
The lady at the first restaurant where they eat together only nods at Eun Tae when she puts the food on the table, and when the girl wonders why she’s looking at them so weirdly, it might have been due to the fact that he ordered two portions of food for himself (and possibly the fact that he was talking to air).
The man at the time capsule park only looks at Eun Tae when he’s giving him directions, and despite the long and tiring climb up the hill, the girl doesn’t break a sweat while Eun Tae struggles a lot.
When the guy at the second restaurant invites them in, he also only keeps looking at Eun Tae even when the girl swiftly passes him as she skips inside.
The lady at the guesthouse has no recollection of another person staying in Eun Tae’s room, although she chalks it up to her fuzzy memory. Even if there had been another person, they didn’t pay their share for the room. Inside the room, the girl mysteriously switches from her bathrobe outfit to pajamas in a second, just like the way she disappears at the temple when playing hide and seek, even though she keeps holding on to him until the final second.

When it comes to indicators that the girl is Mai, there are many other hints besides the fact that she acts super familiar with him and her surroundings when she’s allegedly never met him or visited Jeongseon before.
One of the first things she says when she starts following him after their encounter at the station, is “Don’t you remember me? (…) I don’t mean from just now.”
When they’re waiting for the bus to the time capsule park, she actually looks melancholic when she says that she’ll have to come with him now that she knows the reason he’s here.
When they’re eating at the second restaurant, there’s a certain urgency in her voice when she talks about how lonely she would be if she’d disappear from the world and no one would remember her, and how that’s all people really strive for, to be remembered by at least one loved one. Speaking of this discussion, I think the point that she was trying to make her was that she tried to urge Eun Tae to keep remembering her (Mai) for as long as he was alive. Even though Eun Tae said that him not remembering Mai didn’t mean she disappeared from the world completely because there were more than enough people who could acknowledge that she had existed, meaning it didn’t necessarily need to be him, the girl tried to show him that it only mattered that he, the person she (Mai) loved the most, would stay alive to remember her, that it wasn’t the same as being remembered by other people. That’s what I got out of it, at least. It also ties in with the way the girl is constantly complimenting him for going out of his way to regain his memories of her (Mai).
When the girl is blowdrying her hair in the guesthouse, it sounds like she’s humming the same tune as in one of Eun Tae’s earlier flashbacks of Mai.
When they’re having tonkatsu and Eun Tae opens up about his suicide attempt and admits that he now no longer wants to die, the girl smilingly affirms “All thanks to me, right?”
When they’re resting after having tonkotsu, the girl casually mentions that he shouldn’t be such a downer because maybe this day they just spent together “was a very long-awaited day to someone”, again referring to the fact that they didn’t get to go on a trip together before and Mai had been looking forward to it so much. She also encourages Eun Tae to tell her more about Mai and the regrets he had towards her, and says that she wants to laugh as much as she can while she’s alive for Mai’s sake as well. She also talks to him about why taking pictures as happy memories is so important to her, adding that if she should forget, the time they spent together will be lost forever.
All in all, there are a lot of very subtle indicators that make it tricky to see the truth. Sometimes it’s hard to see whether the people they meet actually acknowledge the girl or not, and a lot of the girl’s dialogue can be interpreted as that she just joined him because she wanted to make special memories for herself and was interested in his mysterious amnesia. In that sense, I think this show was written very cunningly, and it would take thinking back and reconsidering things multiple times to actually realize what it all really meant.
Besides being very familiar and friendly with him, the girl actually flirts a lot with him as well, for example by saying that even if someone saw them together, “age didn’t matter in love” (which is a strange thing to say to someone you literally just met). She also eventually snuggles up to him as they go to sleep and actually kisses him when they’re at the temple, although she covers that up by saying she just wanted to give him a shock to see if that would jolt his memories, since it was a shock that made him lose them in the first place.
Towards the end it becomes less and less of a secret, when she mutters Eun Tae’s name even though he never told it to her, and when the time capsule guy straight up tells him that he was alone when he visited the park the first time. After that, Eun Tae discovers the girl doesn’t appear on any CCTV footage or pictures that he took of her. In the end, he finds her at the place where he and Mai buried the time capsule together, right after she read his wish card at the temple that said “I will meet you at the place that holds our memories, wait for me there” in Korean.

Speaking of those pictures he took of her, there’s only question I’m left with. If Mai wasn’t actually physically there, then who took that photo of him in the hotel? That picture would’ve at least proved there’d been someone in there with him, right? The same went for all the stuff she gave him, like the photo, the camera, her school bag, the diary… You’d think she wouldn’t be able to leave him anything tangible, right? I guess we’ll never know.

When you consider the fact that Mai appeared to Eun Tae in order to both help him regain his memories of her and simultaneously fulfill their shared regret of not being able to travel together, the ways in which she helps him out as the girl actually become much more meaningful. She reminds him of things they did and places they visited together by very subtly providing him things that trigger his memory without him even noticing it. She mentions she never got around to travel and that she loves taking pictures. By saying that waiting for the pictures to get developed “the old way” beats taking instant pictures with a cellphone, as it adds an element of excitement to making memories, she may have also hinted to the fact that she grew up in a time when cellphones didn’t exist yet. She keeps a diary, scolds him for speaking his mind too thoughtlessly and takes him out for tonkatsu, and all of these things trigger memories within Eun Tae.

I’d like to say something about the romantic element in this series. To be completely honest, I couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable with the fact that Mai returned in the form of a high school girl and started hitting on Eun Tae like that. While the dynamic of an unusual friendship between a grief-stricken man and a bright young girl worked, I did actually “eek” when she kissed him (there is a 20-year age gap between the two of them in real life, after all). Although I’m positive that they didn’t really kiss – you can see that their lips don’t actually touch – I still would’ve preferred it if they divided the younger and older versions of the characters, instead of only aging Mai up and down. I found it a bit strange that they didn’t use a younger version for Eun Tae in the picture. I couldn’t find any information on other credited actors in this series, so I guess it was also Tenshō Amane in the blurred flashbacks of adult Mai, although they made her voice sound much older.
Speaking of which, I’m not even sure of the exact timeline between them. I deducted from Mai’s urn that she’d been 38 when she passed away (it says 1986~2024), so she and Eun Tae must have been around the same age. It’s not clear from the prologue where or how they met exactly, only that they decided to settle down in Korea after going back and forth between their respective countries for a while. Seeing them in the flashbacks and the pictures taken when they buried that time capsule in Jeongseon, I couldn’t help but wonder at what age they actually met. They must have been teenagers when they buried that capsule together, so it seemed kind of surprising that they already decided to stay together forever at that point.

Now that I’ve covered all I wanted to note about the content of the series, I’d like to mention a couple of practical things that stood out to me. I deducted earlier that this series was probably listed as a Japanese show because it left the Japanese dialogue un-subtitled and only captioned the Korean dialogue, but I noticed they also occasionally played around with the subtitles in some parts quite randomly. When Eun Tae goes to pay for his room at the guesthouse and has a short interaction with the lady running it, the Japanese subtitles don’t appear at the bottom center of the screen as usual, but in the air around the characters as they’re speaking, only putting them back at the start of the next scene.

This happens once again halfway through the conversation between Eun Tae and the guy at the time capsule park when he tells him there was no girl with him before.

I wonder why they decided to add these captions if they were just going to keep switching back to regular bottom center subtitles straight after. It was kind of an odd inconsistency, so I wondered if there was any reasoning behind it. As a subtitler myself, I can’t help but notice these things.

By the way, I just realized that I find the title quite puzzling as well. In each language, the title translates to the same meaning, “the time without her”, or “the time when she isn’t there”. I’m guessing that “the time without her” refers to the time in which Eun Tae is left alone after Mai’s death, possibly even the entire duration of his trip until he remembers her again. However, we can now say for sure that Mai was actually with him the entire time. She’s the one making sure he notices the photo of the time capsule, before physically appearing in front of him as a mysterious girl, keeping her name a secret because he needed to remember it by himself. In the end, she’s even able to leave him a farewell note. So what “time” are they actually referring to in “the time without her”? This actually kind of reminds me of my similar question regarding the title of When Time Stopped. While it’s definitely a catchy title, I do think it’s good to at least make clear what exactly it refers to.

Despite the small inconsistencies and questions I still have after finishing the show, I won’t deny that this was a very beautifully written and executed short series. It captured the raw reality of a man desperately trying to remember his most beloved person, and I thought the build-up to Eun Tae both regaining his memories and finding closure with Mai’s death was very powerful. I can even overlook the age difference issue because it was relevant to the plot for Mai to appear to him like that, like she literally stepped out of the picture they took on the day they vowed to stay together forever. I loved how it all came full circle, like how the voice he’d heard on the night he was goin to kill himself echoed Mai’s words from when they’d assembled the time capsule, and how that ultimately led him back to her. Through concise and striking dialogues and the recurring theme of taking pictures and keeping diaries to emphasize the importance and value of making and recording memories and literally bringing Eun Tae back into the light, the writers and directors really did a great job at putting together a short but powerful story about dealing with loss.

Now that I’ve wrapped up my main analysis, I still want to jot down some cast comments, even though this will be quite short since there’s only two main actors.

Let me start by saying that this is without a doubt the BEST performance of Kim Hyun Joong I’ve seen so far. It was really great to see him as a regular man instead of the mysterious handsome flower boy guy he’s usually made out to be. This is honestly the most realistic and raw I’ve ever seen him act, and it was very impressive. Even despite the haggardness caused by his deflated will to live, he was still able to do so much with his expressions, and his crying scenes were very heartfelt and convincing. Move over, Boys Before Flowers, Playful Kiss and When Time Stopped! Since is the most recent thing he did and I don’t have any of his other shows on my to watchlist, I’m actually not sure if I’ll get to see anything more from him for the time being, so I’m really glad that I got to see him in this at least.

Apparently, apart from one movie and a couple of TV specials, this is the debut and so far only drama that Tenshō Amane (or Fujioka Amane) has appeared in so far. I was kind of surprised to find that out, since I just assumed she’d be more active. I liked how she just exuded this natural confidence when moving around and dragging her co-star along. She didn’t give the impression of being new to the screen at all, which I guess can be chalked up to the fact that she’s also a model. Still, modelling and acting are too different things, and I found her very charming. She looked very natural next to Kim Hyun Joong and also didn’t seem shy to act playful, flirty and affectionate around him. I was actually impressed with how fondly her eyes sparkled when she looked at him, she was able to convey Mai’s love for Eun Tae in a really mature way for her age. I hope for her that she’ll get more acting opportunities, because she definitely seems to have the looks and the skills for it, and she’s only 19! She still has her whole life ahead of her, so I wish her the best of luck. Fun fact: I actually did some research on her and it seems like she’s definitely got the celeb genes from her family, both her father and older brother are actors, and she and her two sisters are models – her younger sister is also called Mai, by the way, written with the exact same kanji as her character in this show! Thought that was a fun detail to share. Also, I really want to know which hair products she uses.

And with that, we’ve reached the end of this short but special review. I’m glad this show found its way onto my list, even if I don’t remember exactly how I came across it. I wanted to make sure I made note of as much details as possible since it’s such a short series, and because it deserves to be acknowledged for every hidden hint that was so masterfully written into it. It was a very touching and heartfelt depiction of a grieving man who rediscovered the meaning of the beautiful memories he shared with his wife, and learned how to keep using his love for her to keep going even after she was gone. It was incredibly sincere and impactful in its simplicity. It didn’t try to make things more exaggerated or emotional than they were, it was powerful because it was so realistic and genuine. All in all, this was truly an unexpected gem, and I’m glad to have discovered it.

I guess I’ll now repeat the same words I did last time and say I hope I’ll get to finish another drama within this month, lol. It was actually nice finishing two shows in a row, it’s really been a while since I’ve had the time and space to squeeze in two back-to-back reviews. I’m really curious to see what show my Wheel of Fortune app picks out next.

Until then! x

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.

Forecasting Love and Weather
(기상청 사람들: 사내연애 잔혹사 편 / Gisangcheong Saramdeul: Sanaeyeon-ae Janhogsapyeon / The People of the KMA: A Cruel History of Office Romance)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hello hello hello! After an incredibly busy month with multiple deadlines I am back for a breather and some well-earned drama watch & review time. This show had been on my list for some time, so I was glad I finally got to watch it. I’d seen and heard quite negative things about it, and it has quite low ratings and bad reviews on MDL, so I was curious to see for myself what the deal would be. I have to admit I might contribute to an unpopular opinion here, similar to the case of Love Alarm: I actually enjoyed this show. The casting was good, the characters were interesting and the setting was quite unique. I liked the metaphor that was created between love and the weather, and the rising tensions that predicting both air pressures and human feelings brought with them. I’m excited to share my thoughts on this show, so let’s get into it!

Forecasting Love and Weather is a jTBC/Netflix K-Drama with 16 episodes of about an hour and ten minutes each. It focusses on a team of weather forecasters at the KMA (the Korean Meteorological Administration) who work hard to provide daily weather forecasts as accurately as they can. As the original title suggests, the series follows several KMA employees and how they combine their intensive work with their personal struggles (which concept-wise reminded me of shows like Doctors and Jealousy Incarnate). Although there was a clear division between the main and side characters, almost all the side characters got a relevant backstory and arc, so it did feel like the screentime was distributed very evenly.
The main character in the story is Jin Ha Kyung (played by Park Min Young), who finds herself in the position of team director at the Chief Team of forecasters at the KMA after the former director resigns due to health issues. As a full-fledged career woman who single-handedly worked her way up at the KMA, Ha Kyung can be quite rigid and doesn’t typically get emotional. She prefers to keep work and private as separate from each other as possible, even more so after her own office romance ends in her fiancé cheating on her a month before their wedding. The fiancé in question, Han Ki Joon (played by Yoon Park) works at the KMA Spokesperson Office, where he’s in charge of directly dealing with people’s complaints about weather-related issues. Although Ha Kyung and Ki Joon are introduced as a couple about to get married, it’s clear from the start that both their hearts aren’t really into it – Ha Kyung frequently cancels wedding-related appointments because of work, and Ki Joon keeps holding off on paying for any of the wedding prepations. Ha Kyung eventually finds out about Ki Joon’s infidelity when all the wedding preparations suddenly get cancelled because of the overdue payments. After this, she vows to never have an office romance ever again and consequently builds an even higher wall around herself – something that instantly creates tension between her and her new teammates, who were already struggling to accept her as their new director.
On the other hand, there is Lee Shi Woo (played by Song Kang), a young and bright weather enthusiast who originally works at the Metropolitan Weather Office (if I remember correctly). Besides his passion for the meteorological, he tends to have really good hunches about abrupt changes in the forecast, which have so far always proved him right. Around the same time that Ha Kyung finds out about her fiancé’s infidelity, Shi Woo goes through a break-up as well, with his girlfriend Chae Yoo Jin (played by Kim Ah Young/Yoo Ra), who also works at the KMA as a daily weather reporter.
While Ha Kyung and Shi Woo initially collide due to a disagreement in predicting heavy rain, they somehow find companionship in one another after they find out that their exes actually cheated on them with each other: Han Ki Joon and Chae Yoo Jin were seeing each other. When Ha Kyung and Shi Woo go out for a friendly drink together after work one night, they end up having a one-night stand. The next morning, things get even more awkward when Shi Woo announces he’s actually been transferred to Ha Kyung’s team at the KMA. Since all four parties within this relationship square now work at the KMA, it is impossible to avoid one another, which becomes an even bigger issue once Ha Kyung and Shi Woo decide to seriously date each other as well.
While the awkwardness between the four main characters unfolds, we also get insight into the personal circumstances of several of Ha Kyung’s teammates, including Senior Forecaster Eom Dong Han (played by Lee Sung Wook), Assistant Director Shin Seok Ho (played by Lee Seung Won/Moon Tae Yoo) and bureau agents Oh Myung Joo (played by Yoon Sa Bong) and maknae Kim Soo Jin (played by Chae Seo Eun).

Before I move on to my character analysis I just want to comment on the setting of a weather station as “the main hub” of the story. As I often say, I always find it interesting when K-Dramas cover a specific field of work that I’ve never encountered before, and this was a brilliant example of that. Although I admit I do not remember the names of every single station or department that the KMA was associated with, nor did I register any of the meteorological terms that were used during the discussions and meetings, all in all I thought it was really nice how this show highlighted this specific occupation, and how it represented the passionate people working there. In a sense, it wasn’t that different from shows about people working at hospitals and the like, as they also occasionally had to sacrifice their private lives in the line of duty.
Another thing I liked about the setting was that it made me aware of the importance of weather forecasting in a way I’d never considered before. The fact that there are actually so many parties and stations involved, and that weather forecasts mean so much to so many different people was very eye-opening. I personally know never to fully trust the weather and I purely use the forecast as an indicator of what to wear when I go out and whether or not to bring a raincoat or a thicker jacket. It has never occurred to me to complain to our national weather station when the forecast turns out to be different than predicted – in fact, I actually didn’t even know that was possible. But through this show I learned that weather forecasts are incredibly important to people working on the land and at sea, and that it actually ties in with precuring serious safety measures as well. I thought it was really interesting to see how they highlighted the importance of the work that the KMA did, depending on each season, and also how tough the job itself is. These people literally get paid to study charts and read data off monitors in order to predict what the weather – possibly the most unpredictable force of nature – is going to be like the next day. All in all, this show made me want to give a round of applause to everyone involved in this unique and extremely unpredictable work field – I bet they never get enough credit for what they do.

While the KMA is the main set for most of the workplace scenes, there are several different other stations we get to know and see throughout the story. Most of these we only get a glimpse of through the video call screens during the meetings, but it does happen that people visit other stations and show up on the other side of the screen, like when Shi Woo is still working at the Metropolitan Office, and when Shi Woo and Ha Kyung visit the Typhoon Center on Jeju Island. Still, these appear only briefly, along with the introduction of the person in charge there – most of the story takes place at the HQ of the KMA in Seoul. Within the KMA, we also get to see a lot of different rooms, such as the main characters’ respective offices, the briefing room where the Spokesperson Office updates the weather reporters, and spots like the cafeteria, the staircases and the roof. By showing different spots at the KMA HQ, it actually felt like I was familiarizing myself with the building and everyone’s workplaces, so that was also a nice extra.
The Chief Team office is basically the main room in the KMA building where two teams rotate shifts to make sure the weather is monitored 24/7 through satellite reports and thorough analyses. Ha Kyung is in charge of Team Two, and although we do get to see the people from Team One occasionally, we aren’t introduced to all the employees to the same extent – which is probably for the best because that would’ve been a lot of people, and the current screentime balance was just right, if you ask me. Still, it was nice that they actually added in a convincing amount of people to fill the office spaces – at least they didn’t make it seem like it was just the main characters working there. Even if they weren’t introduced as elaborately, all the people in the background were given a certain attitude and personality, so it wasn’t like they were just fillers either. I liked the attention to detail in that aspect.

Let me begin my character analysis now, starting with the four main characters and their backgrounds.
Ha Kyung was raised in a family that consisted of her parents and one older sister. When she was a teenager, she found her dad in the house after he hang himself, which was (understandably) quite traumatic for her. At present, her mother Bae Soo Ja (played by the magnificent Kim Mi Kyung) and older sister Jin Tae Kyung (played by Jung Woon Seon) still live together in a traditional house while Ha Kyung lives in a comfortable apartment by herself. Ha Kyung’s relationship with her mother and sister isn’t great – she especially prefers not to interact with her mother too much since the latter is always going on about her getting married, even after the fiasco with Ki Joon. Now that Tae Kyung is divorced and Ha Kyung got cheated on, her mother is even more adamant on finding a good match for at least her youngest, ignoring her daughter’s very clear rejections on the prospect.
I honestly thought it was interesting that Ha Kyung’s mom’s main purpose in the story was to butt into her daughter’s love life despite the fact that she hadn’t even been that happy in her own marriage. She really seemed to be stuck in her conservative ways, always firing the same questions at eligible men about their families and backgrounds. She didn’t listen when her daughters told her to stop, and instead scolded them for “not understanding her” while it should’ve been the other way around. She was a typical tough love kind of mom, she wasn’t affectionate with her daughters at all despite caring about them a lot. I’d like to think that she became a bit more lenient or at least understanding towards different perspectives on love and marriage throughout the story, though.
Ha Kyung’s older sister Tae Kyung, 40 years old if I remember correctly, is an unsuccessful children’s book author. Not much is revealed about her first marriage that ended in divorce, but it does seem like she’s given up on finding a new partner. Although she often stands up for Ha Kyung when their mother brings up the topic of marriage again, she does keep getting involved in Soo Ja’s attempts to convince or appease Ha Kyung. Despite having the clear career path and dream of writing (and drawing) children’s books, it’s revealed that Tae Kyung is quite naive in the publishing industry, and has no experience whatsoever in contractual negotiating, nor does she have a knack for thinking of interesting stories. She ultimately becomes more of a regular character when she crosses paths with Shin Seok Ho, but I’ll elaborate on that later.
In any case, back to Ha Kyung. It’s established from the get-go by her mother that Ha Kyung is “very careful” and I actually think this might have contributed to her initially “cold” demeanor. It’s not that she’s arrogant or doesn’t like other people, she just prefers to stay in her own bubble rather than join the small talk of colleagues. I think her preference to focus on serious rather than casual relationships came through in two different ways.
At work, she initially takes on the role of director while drawing a clear line between herself and her subordinates. She sees them purely as colleagues and refuses to act friendly with them. However, the more she finds out about their personal circumstances and the sincerity with which they’re all trying their hardest to balance life and work, the more she starts warming and opening up to them. Eventually, she even joins them for a team dinner and karaoke. This proves that she doesn’t completely shut herself off from people, but she only starts opening up once she forms a real connection with them.
The same goes for romantic relationships. It’s not that she ignores her mother’s nagging because she’s against the idea of marriage – she actually admits at some point to Shi Woo that she’s never entered a relationship without the prospect of getting married. This mindset also doesn’t change after Ki Joon cheats on her, which I actually thought was pretty strong of her, because it would’ve been valid if this experience completely ruined the idea of building up a relationship with someone for her. It actually takes her less than a year after breaking up with Ki Joon to start dating someone new with the same intention. She genuinely likes Shi Woo and has no trouble showing him her affectionate side. The reason she and Shi Woo keep their relationship a secret at work is merely because they don’t want people to gossip about them (as this would also reignite tensions with Ki Joon and Yoo Jin), not because they are embarrassed to come out with it. All in all, it really felt to me like she just preferred serious connections and relationships with people rather than casual friendships and dating, which is pretty natural.
I quite liked the way that Ha Kyung grew closer to her teammates throughout the story. I think there was actually way more development in the relationship she built with her co-workers than there was in the relationship between her and Shi Woo, although falling in love may have contributed to her becoming more sociable. I also thought it was nice that Ha Kyung really wasn’t as rigid as she made herself out to be in the first place, as she literally fell right into a new office romance right after “vowing” she’d never enter a similar relationship again. I feel like one thing that might have been frustrating to people was that she kept going back and forth between expressing her feelings for Shi Woo. On the one hand, she keeps telling him that she’s serious about him, that she wants to make this work, even asks him to move in with her quite early on, but on the other hand she keeps reeling herself in and seemingly can’t bring herself to be as open and expressive about her feelings as Shi Woo. As much as she’s allegedly left the incident with Ki Joon behind her, it can’t be denied that it hit her pretty hard. Besides her first lash-out at Ki Joon in the beginning of the story, she also eventually breaks down in front of him after Shi Woo breaks up with her, yelling at him how it’s his fault that her confidence was completely destroyed and the fact that she’s become so scared of giving her relationship with Shi Woo her all without worrying about losing it again. It was good to at least see her express these valid emotional feelings every now and then, because it did make her more relatable to me once I knew that there was way more going on behind the surface of her collected calmness.
All in all, although I do appreciate that she was made out to be careful and think things through very thorougly before acting on her feelings, there were some moments where I really would’ve liked Ha Kyung to be a bit more proactive. Sometimes she would just numbly stand around instead of chasing other people or expressing herself more clearly, and I was also a bit sceptical about her getting involved in Shi Woo’s relationship with his dad, although that did work out in the end. While these aspects did cause some minor frustrations every so often, I still thought she was an interesting character because of her established tendency to be careful and hold herself back, and she did go through a nice development of becoming better at that.

You could say that Shi Woo was the polar opposite of Ha Kyung. He had an awful upbringing, but he managed to come out of it as a very upfront and genuine person. The way he was introduced, especially in his initial relationship dynamic with Yoo Jin, really made him seem like a puppy – he got excited about every single sky and scenery, and spammed his girlfriend with pictures of clouds (as someone who loves skyscapes this would’ve actually made my heart explode, but I guess it wasn’t Yoo Jin’s cup of tea 😂). While he seemed a lot more free-spirited than Ha Kyung, he also immediately clarifies that he doesn’t play around in relationships and that once he’s serious, he gives his undivided attention to that one person. However, the only breaking point between them is that Shi Woo doesn’t believe in marriage. The dynamic between Ha Kyung and Shi Woo kind of reminded me of Ta Mi and Mo Geon in Search: WWW, although in that show it was the woman who was against marriage. Shi Woo’s lack of affinity with the idea of marriage stems from his upbringing, and more specifically his dad.
Shi Woo’s father Lee Myung Han (played by Jeon Bae Soo) is a gambling addict. Ever since Shi Woo’s mother passed away when he was still very young, his dad has neglected him, just leaving him outside motels while he went inside to gamble all his money away. From Shi Woo’s reactions to getting calls from his dad, it’s clear that his hatred towards him goes pretty deep. His father always finds ways to harrass him and the people around him for money, and this is one of the reasons that Shi Woo is anxious to tie the knot with someone – his father has always been at the end of all his relationships and the last thing Shi Woo wants is to burden the person he loves with that.
We get to see first-hand who brazen Lee Myung Han is as soon as we are introduced to him. Besides the fact that he only ever calls his son for money, the moment he clocks someone who’s close to Shi Woo, he somehow manages to find a way to obtain that person’s contact details and starts harrassing them as well. I was baffled when he actually just barged into the KMA to talk to Ha Kyung after seeing her with Shi Woo once. The audacity of him to just walk up to a random stranger and be like “hey, I know you’re close to my son, care to give me some money?” was mind-boggling to me. And that wasn’t even the worst thing. I still don’t know how exactly he got wind of Shi Woo’s accident at the Typhoon Center, but I guess the hospital called the only indication of a parent they could find on his phone? In any case, this man actually started a riot at the KMA under the pretense of “you caused my son to get injured”, but in reality he didn’t care as much about Shi Woo’s wellbeing as he did about getting his hands on the monetary compensation he could get for his son’s injury. This man was actually prepared to exploit his son’s injury in order to get money out of it, heck, he even got himself hit by a car to receive insurance money. He was absolutely deranged and I understood completely why Shi Woo wanted nothing to do with him. There wasn’t a single shred of parental sympathy in him whatsoever. He honestly seemed pretty delusional, as if he truly believed that it was normal for a father to treat his son like this. Whenever people tried to reason with him or make him see that he was being ridiculous, he just got violent. I actually thought it was pretty bold of Ha Kyung to bring Myung Han with her to see Shi Woo at the hospital and to urge Shi Woo to make up with him. Even after it was revealed that Myung Han had cancer, I honestly still expected Shi Woo not to care, because that’s how deep his disdain for his father had been established from the get-go. Still, I guess Shi Woo was really just that good of a person, because he still managed to shed a tear about his dad even after having been treated as a cash cow for his entire life.
In any case, I couldn’t help but admire the fact that Shi Woo managed to become the opposite of his father. With this kind of upbringing it often happens that a kid, despite knowing he’s being mistreated, still ends up copying a parent’s behavior because that’s the example that they grew up with and they don’t know any different. Shi Woo didn’t have any other parental figure in his life, so I found it quite impressive that he was able to deduct that his father’s behavior was bad, and that he actively made sure he never grew up to be like him, even though he couldn’t fully escape his dad’s presence in his life. I felt like his relationship with his dad was more than enough justification why he didn’t want to get married. If you look at how Myung Han went after Shi Woo’s friends and dating partners, how far would he go to harrass Shi Woo’s life partner? I totally get that Shi Woo felt like putting the woman he loved in that position would only burden her for the rest of her life.
Although Shi Woo initially seems like Ha Kyung’s opposite in how playful and expressive he is, he actually shrinks away once he starts feeling like he’s burdening her. After the initial tension caused by finding out about each other’s views on marriage (through their exes, ironically), things only get more strained when Ha Kyung keeps responding to Myung Han’s calls. I mean, I get that her own trauma with her dad strengthened her in not wanting Shi Woo to have any regrets with his father, but there were several moments where I actually went “not sure if Shi Woo would appreciate that 😬😬😬”. It definitely got a little messy at some point, especially when the whole ordeal with Shi Woo’s dad fell together with their relationship getting exposed at work right after they broke up, causing them to keep up the pretense to avoid any more negative gossip.

To be completely honest, I couldn’t really get into Ha Kyung’s and Shi Woo’s relationship in the end. I felt like the part where they were happily dating in the beginning was fairly short compared to the part where things got awkward between them, and the messy back-and-forth element of their relationship got a bit “meh” in my opinion. In contrast to several other (romantic) storylines occurring in the background, the romance between Ha Kyung and Shi Woo was actually not the most interesting thing to me in this show. Of course I thought it was nice that they managed to work through things and still ended up going back to each other once they both finally got rid of the issues that were holding them back, but throughout the series I wasn’t really feeling the constant melancholic and awkward looks between them. I wouldn’t say their relationship ruined the show for me, absolutely not, but it just kind of remained stagnant in the awkward stage and they only kept telling other people about how much they still liked each other without actually confronting one another and clearing the air between them earlier on in the story.

Moving on to the next problematic relationship, let’s talk about Han Ki Joon. I’m fairly positive that this guy contributed to many a negative review, but I actually found his clownery quite entertaining.
I think we can all agree that Ki Joon was a hot mess. After breaking off their ten-year relationship and an engagement because Ha Kyung’s commitment to her career made him feel inferior, he literally just married the next first girl that looked at him with interest and treated him with admiration and respect in less than a year, and then found himself stuck in a marriage without actually knowing what to do. As if that wasn’t enough, despite him being the one who screwed everything up, he actually couldn’t fully let go of Ha Kyung after they separated. Ha Kyung was always the one telling him how to do things, and she always helped him come up with inspiration for his seasonal columns. Being a manchild, Ki Joon ended up helpless without her guidance. The fact that he had to ask his ex-fiancée for help at work and then gloated about the result to his colleagues was unbelievable. Honestly, while he started out as the jerk who cheated, he just got more and more clownesque throughout the story, and I have to admit I found it more hilarious than frustrating because he was just so ridiculous.
Looking at the way Ha Kyung dealt with being put in an incredibly awkward position at work and having to figure out all kinds of stuff by herself while trying to hide how much she got hurt in the process, it was all the more unbelievable how brazen Ki Joon was when he kept approaching her for help. Truth be told, he was just very incapable in many ways, even in maintaining his relationship with Yoo Jin. It honestly seemed like he had no clue how to be a husband. On the contrary, when he found out about Shi Woo being Yoo Jin’s ex (plus the fact they used to live together) and the fact that Shi Woo and Ha Kyung were dating, he actually believed he had the right to butt into their relationship because “Shi Woo is bad” and “Ha Kyung deserves better”. While taking care of Ha Kyung shouldn’t have been any of his business anymore, he kept claiming that “he didn’t want her to get hurt again”, as in some weird way of compensating for the pain he inflicted on her? – it was all kinds of weird. Even Yoo Jin didn’t make that big of a deal of it, despite her own initial disbelief about Shi Woo and Ha Kyung’s relationship. It’s pretty ironic that Ki Joon’s new obsession with Ha Kyung’s dating life almost cost him his marriage with Yoo Jin as well.
Even after finally seeing eye to eye with Shi Woo and letting Ha Kyung go, I kept having trouble accepting that Ki Joon was suddenly painted in a more positive light. While it was good that he and Ha Kyung made up, it still felt weird that they reverted back to being friends like that. The scene where they went out for a drink together and comforted each other like “You’re actually a good person” and “Why wouldn’t Shi Woo want you anymore, you’re a formidable woman”, kind of put me off. It felt very out of place for them to suddenly be all chummy and “water-under-the-bridge” with each other, and for Ki Joon to suddenly become the token person to give advice about life and relationships while he was still making a mess of his own marriage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an immature man represented in a K-Drama, which is kind of admirable in itself, lol. I’m just glad that I was able to laugh about it rather than feeling constant annoyance towards him, because that might’ve actually ruined the show for me. I’ll just say that I’m glad he was at least able to reflect on his own stupidity and make up with and hold onto Yoo Jin.

When she was first introduced as Shi Woo’s very unenthusiastic girlfriend, I honestly didn’t really expect to like Yoo Jin. From the way she treated Shi Woo before she broke up with him to her unapologetic attitude regarding the whole cheating situation, I just felt like she was going to be “the other woman” who was going to be all smug towards Ha Kyung or something. However, I’m actually glad that they made her better than that. Although she didn’t exactly become one of my favorite characters, I did find myself understanding and supporting her side of things several times.
First of all, I could actually get behind her reason for breaking up with Shi Woo when she explained it. Although I usually dislike it when people in relationships can’t enjoy the present moment as they’re already thinking about when they’ll break up, but I can understand that, if you already know that you have different views on marriage, it might be kind of draining to sit through a relationship when you know that you’re going to have to break up at some point. This again took me back to Search: WWW where the FL was constantly sabotaging her own relationship because of this, while the ML just wanted to be in the moment and not worry about the future. Yoo Jin just couldn’t bring herself to stay with Shi Woo when she already knew they wanted different things. I actually appreciated that she at least broke up with Shi Woo, even though she’d already been cheating on him, instead of letting stuff unfold like Ki Joon did.
Secondly, I didn’t blame her at all for wanting some space and leaving for a while after Ki Joon became so obsessed with Ha Kyung’s dating life. I honestly thought Yoo Jin’s lingering connection to Shi Woo was much more natural and understandable than the one between Ha Kyung and Ki Joon, because at least Yoo Jin didn’t act like she was still invested in Shi Woo’s private life after they broke up. Apart from the fact that she took the news of his new relationship a certain way and she felt the need to inform Ha Kyung about certain things (such as Shi Woo’s view on marriage), at least she didn’t make that big of a deal of the fact that he moved on. Honestly, I would also start feeling miserable and insecure if my fresh new husband got so absorbed in his ex’s new relationship that he actually bailed on important family meetings for it. Ki Joon and Yoo Jin got married after only seeing each other for a couple of months (!) so it was only natural for there to be worries, but Yoo Jin seemed to be the only one dealing with this and Ki Joon didn’t exactly put her mind at ease. I just didn’t understand how he kept telling everyone around him how much he loved Yoo Jin and blatantly showed off their relationship at work, only to come home all “I’m tired” and “Let’s talk later”. It actually made me wonder if it had been worth it to both of them to throw their former relationships away for this. At least Yoo Jin was rational enough to realize that this wasn’t right, but she could never get Ki Joon to listen to her even for a second. I honestly hated the way Ki Joon just immediately jumped to conclusions, like with the bag she’d bought for his mom and the article on the faulty report that accidentally got uploaded. He never let her get a word in to defend herself even when she had nothing to do with it, it was really shitty behavior. At some point Ki Joon was treating Yoo Jin so badly I honestly felt she deserved better and I thought it was really good of her to take a break from him and visit her mom on Jeju Island, because that’s also when a different and more sympathetic side of her came out. It was nice that they revealed a little bit about her family background. I liked the small addition of her having trouble accepting her stepdad as her new father, followed by the stepdad going straight for Ki Joon’s throat when he “made his daughter cry” and getting all emotional about Yoo Jin (accidentally) calling him “Dad” for the first time 🥺. I think showing her in a different environment, even just briefly, contributed greatly to her character as we got to see her as a daughter and a sister instead of as “the other woman” and a neglected wife.
Thirdly, I actually thought it was really mature of Yoo Jin when she initially decided not to have the baby. I thought the way she considered all the right things – like how they’d only just gotten married and how things were so messy between them, the responsibility and the costs it would bring with it, and how she just didn’t feel like she’d be able to give the baby a comfortable and stable home with things being as they were – actually made her a very mature person. She reflected on how rashly they’d jumped into marriage and acknowledged how going into having a baby the same way would be less than recommendable. On the other hand, Ki Joon was still the kind of guy who’d be like “it’ll be fiiine” before realizing that he actually wasn’t prepared at all when it was already too late. It was really satisfying to see how Yoo Jin just kept proving she was so much wiser than Ki Joon was, and how she thought things through way more realistically than he did.
Using that as a segue, I also liked how this show tackled the topic of companies treating female employees like shit as soon as they get pregnant. I actually experienced something like this (indirectly) in real life, at the first Japanese company I worked at. I quit after one year because the manager was a misogynist and I’d gotten sick of work after having to spend eight months alone in the office with him. About half a year after I quit, I got a text from a Japanese ex-colleague who’d joined shortly before I left, and she basically told me that she now understood why I hadn’t been able to cope with that manager. Basically, after getting married and finding out she was pregnant, she’d gotten fired on the spot, much for the same reason as that stupid guy gives Yoo Jin. If a female employee gets pregnant, it means she’ll have to take a leave of absence for a considerable period of time, making it only harder for her to reintegrate when she ultimately comes back. This was also tackled in Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu, where this one woman came back after maternity leave and made a whole scene of trying to convince everyone not to treat her any differently now that she’d given birth. It’s such a derogatory way to look at female employees, but it’s apparently very common at companies in Asia. In any case, I really liked how Yoo Jin dealt with this in the end after she’d embraced her pregnancy and was like “screw you guys, I’m doing whatever the hell I want because I’m a mom now”. That was really satisfying, all the more because it was such a turn-around from how anxious she had been throughout the series.

All in all, I found the relationship between Ki Joon and Yoo Jin very problematic, from start to finish. Starting with their respective motivations of why they fell for each other, please tell me I wasn’t the only one who listened to Ki Joon’s story and went “so you basically fell for her because she made you feel smart?” He felt so inferior to Ha Kyung because she did everything for him, that he immediately fell for a girl that showed even the slightest bit of interest and admiration towards him. I just couldn’t when he went all “the way you looked at me 🥹” when she was literally just asking him to explain some work-related things to her. If you’d ask me, the way she looked at him was like a student listening to a teacher talking about a topic they were interested in, it didn’t immediately scream “marry me”. On the other hand, while I repeat that Yoo Jin’s stance in their relationship was way more realistic, she also explains her decision to marry Ki Joon with “he was the first guy to propose to me before we actually started dating”. I mean… wouldn’t you say this is actually kind of a, you know, major red flag? So basically, she cheated on Shi Woo with a man who at least wanted to marry her, and Ki Joon cheated on Ha Kyung with a woman who at least made him feel like an interesting person. …….. I don’t know, man. 🚩 Even though, as I discussed earlier, I could get behind Yoo Jin’s reasoning for breaking up with Shi Woo, I still found it really rash of her to literally just jump on the first next man who told her he did want to get married. The whole issue of them getting married so soon and then being kind of at a loss to make things work and Yoo Jin getting pregnant whilst they were in that mess just made their whole relationship feel so wrong to me. Even the fact that Yoo Jin at least showed more maturity in realizing the reality of their rushed marriage and pregnancy couldn’t completely fix that for me.

You know, the setup of this love square actually reminds me of a webtoon called Couple Breaker, which is also about two couples of which one guy and one woman cheat on their partner with each other. The remaining partners (the Ha Kyung and Shi Woo counterparts, so to say) decide to join a reality show to take revenge on their exes by pretending to be a better couple than them, and ultimately end up falling for each other for real. I remember the “cheaters” were also really brazen in this story, and they even ended up regretting having broken up with their former partners. The guy was also very much like Ki Joon in his clownery. So yeah, there were a lot of common elements there, which was funny to see in a drama.
Once the entangled relationships of these four main characters were revealed, there was this part where things were just constantly awkward. Honestly, at some point two people couldn’t even enter the same room anymore without getting suspicious looks from either an ex or a current partner, and it got quite tedious. I kept feeling like Ki Joon and Yoo Jin somehow kept holding on to their exes, although for different reasons, and the way they started warning their exes’ new partners about stuff also felt icky to me. Sure, if your ex is abusive or problematic, I think it’s good to help out their new partners by at least warning them what they’re getting themselves into, but in the case of these four there was just too much sourness involved to make it seem like they were genuinely trying to help each other out. Admittedly, this square still wasn’t as bad as the one from So I Married an Anti-Fan, but it still didn’t sit right with me throughout the entire series. Of course I’m glad they all got to sort out their respective relationships in the end but on the whole, the constant mess throughout the story definitely took away from my investment in the main leads’ romantic relationships.

Now that I’ve discussed the four main characters of the story, I’m very excited to move on to the side characters that actually made the show for me. I’m not sure when I last enjoyed the side characters’ storylines more than the mains’. I’ve seen shows where the side characters’ stories overtook the mains’ and I didn’t like it, but in this case I think they did a great job at creating supporting characters with respectively relevant and interesting storylines.
First of all I want to talk about Eom Dong Han, who was quite possibly my favorite character in the show. He originally works at a different station (I forgot which one) and gets transferred to the KMA at the same time as Shi Woo, where he becomes a Senior Forecaster. This basically makes him vice-director to Ha Kyung, meaning he gets to sub for her when she can’t participate in meetings for example. While he was introduced as a bit of a grump, I really liked how he gradually integrated into the KMA and how he actually started joining in on more team activities as well. One development I really liked was when at first he wouldn’t start a meeting when Ha Kyung was running late, and later explained to her that he’d only take direct orders from her, not through other people. They just had a really nice conversation where they cleared a misunderstanding, and where Ha Kyung instructed him to start meetings in her place from now on, should such a situation occur again. It was such a nice and subtle confirmation of this agreement when he actually ended up doing just that later on, it really showed how much their teamwork had grown. Besides this, I thought it was hilarious that he was the only one who didn’t catch on to Ha Kyung’s and Shi Woo’s relationship when he literally shared a house with the two of them, lol. He might have been really good at his job, but he definitely had a lot of socially awkward characteristics, and being unable to read the room was one of them. The way he went “SHI WOO-YA! I HEARD YOU AND THE DIRECTOR ARE DATING!! 😃😃” in the cafeteria sent me 😂😂 It was so typical for him to miss every single social cue to be discreet about it.
Despite his respected reputation at the KMA (the Team Two members even originally wanted him to become their new team director), Dong Han actually has a bit of a complicated situation going on at home. Being as dedicated to his job as he is, he actually missed out on most of his teenage daughter’s upbringing, and for this reason his relationship with his wife has soured considerably. He’s become so estranged from his family that they’re not even used to seeing him at home anymore, and his daughter actually feels awkward when he’s around. Even when he tries to commit to becoming better at it, Dong Han always ends up moving back into the KMA’s Night Duty room because he feels like he’s just making his wife and daughter uncomfortable when he’s around at home.
Honestly, I thought the writers did a really good job at expressing both Dong Han’s and his wife’s feelings on the matter. While some people might have found it annoying to see them constantly go back and forth, thinking “just get divorced already”, I was actually really rooting for them to work things out and to not keep avoiding each other. I found it really refreshing how Hyang Rae (played by Jang So Yeon) expressed her feelings to Dong Han so clearly, because I feel that sometimes people just don’t talk about these kinds of things and just let them explode awkwardly in the end. As much as I sympathized with Dong Han and his desire to at least become more friendly with his daughter Bo Mi (played by Lee Seung Joo), I also thought Hyang Rae was right in scolding him for being so wishy-washy. I agreed with her that, when he asked her if he could move back in, he shouldn’t have been so quick to move out again and that he should at least make an effort. It must’ve been extremely exhausting for her to constantly be like “is he going to show up or not”, getting her hopes up time and time again. On the other hand, seeing her hesitate to divorce him also pinched my heartstrings, because you could see that she really didn’t want to, despite how tired she was of being disappointed. I’m not even going to lie, the scene between Dong Han and Hyang Rae in the Night Duty room actually made me tear up. It was really heartwrenching when Hyang Rae expressed that she was never serious about getting a divorce but got so hurt when he’d agreed to it so easily, and how she’d prefer him to be thankful for the things he did get to experience with her and Bo Mi instead of only apologizing for his shortcomings all the time. The way they both started crying and ended up hugging like that was so touching to me, because I was truly rooting for them to work things out and preferably stay together.
I actually really liked the gradual development of the relationship between Dong Han and Bo Mi. It was so endearing to see Bo Mi slowly but surely become more comfortable with her dad. At the beginning, it actually felt like he was a stranger to her and she didn’t even want to be in the same room with him. But then, when she became aware that her mother was contemplating divorce, she actively started seeking her dad out by taking that field trip to the KMA to gain more understanding of the work that he did. The fact that she actually grew to like him so much that she’d come home early to catch the weather forecast, all proud that her dad had contributed to that 🥹. Although I didn’t really understand why she lied about being able to eat ham, I am actually convinced that she decided not to mention it because she didn’t want to put her dad on the spot for not knowing about her allergy in front of his colleagues. It must have been something like that, because I feel like it wouldn’t have been hard at all for her to just say, “I actually have an allergy” if it weren’t for the excited looks his teammates were giving them. She didn’t even blame him for it and only became more interested in learning more about him and spending more time with him, which in turn also made Dong Han really happy.
Honestly, you can say a lot about Dong Han and how he handled his family situation, but you can’t say he wasn’t a doting father. The way he told his colleagues how he just couldn’t stop smiling when he looked at Bo Mi 🥹. It was so clear how much he cared about her, even though he kept missing the opportunity to actually show up for her. Don’t even get me started about the look on his face when he heard about Bo Mi collapsing in the bathroom, and how he stayed at the hospital the entire night. I think what I liked about him the most was that he was literally just a middle-aged guy trying his best while knowing fully well how incredibly awkward he was. The way he embraced that and kept trying in his own clumzy way to be better was just so endearing to me. Honestly, I got so caught up in rooting for him that it was actually painful to see him turn the car around while he was heading for Bo Mi’s birthday party. I mean, I knew he was going to prioritize work, but when he got that call and went all “But it’s my daugther’s birthday! I even did my hair!” 😭 it made me so sad. He’d come such a long way from being a completely absent father to a dad who actually beat himself up for not being able to be there for his daughter. It didn’t make it any better when he arrived at the office and the situation got solved super quickly and I was like “my guy lost his chance at redemption with his family for this?!” 🥲 My favorite part about this scene was that Dong Han got to tell the leader of Team One to “stop being a preachy boomer” 😂 I saved that quote because I loved it so much, what a legend.
All in all, I thought Dong Han was a very realistic and relatable character, all the more because he kept trying to set things right while being painfully aware of his own flaws. I really enjoyed his storyline and I actually found his development with his daughter more engaging than the main leads’ relationships at times. 🙈

Another one of my favorite characters was Shin Seok Ho, the Assistant Director of Team Two. What immediately piqued my interest about him was the way he acted when he was alone at home. I loved seeing him lounge around in his bathrobe with a glass of wine, looking out of his penthouse apartment, lol. It was such a funny contrast to the stiff person he seemed to be at work. While he started out as just another interesting character to me, I actually folded when they showed his treatment of the people who fixed the air conditioning at work. There’s this time when it’s super hot and the air conditioning in the Chief Team office is broken, and the employees keep complaining about why it’s taking so long to fix it. Seok Ho is repeatedly asked to get an update, but can’t bring himself to complain when he actually sees the people trying to fix it, completely drenched in sweat and in even worse condition than the office employees who at least have hand fans to cool themselves. As if that in itself wasn’t already decent enough of him, once the issue eventually gets fixed we actually see Seok Ho personally handing out cold drinks to the workers and thanking them for their hard labor. That was the moment I decided I loved this guy. It’s always the kind gestures that people show when no one else is looking that get me the most. Despite the fact that he’d seemed so withdrawn and self-absorbed in the beginning, I loved how we actually got to see the goodness in him through this subtle kindness.
From some point onwards, Seok Ho keeps bumping into Tae Kyung by coincidence, starting with when Tae Kyung asks him to store some side dishes meant for Ha Kyung in his fridge since Ha Kyung isn’t home (he lives one floor above her). After that they meet again at a coffee shop, and then at a bookstore where Seok Ho is the only person to pick up Tae Kyung’s book. After confronting him about his opinion on the book, Seok Ho shares some tips with her and they start meeting up more frequently as they learn they have some things in common. It was the most adorable thing to see Seok Ho fall for Tae Kyung. The way his face lit up when Tae Kyung showed genuine interest in his hobbies made me feel like maybe he’d felt embarrassed about them before, and that only made it all the more sweet. I honestly adored the romantic development between these two, they were so incredibly cute together. I also loved how it brought out both a pure and a passionate side of Seok Ho. I liked the part where he’d gotten distracted at work and made a mistake and called out Tae Kyung to tell her that it wouldn’t be wise for him to date her since he couldn’t afford to get distracted at work, and she just went “I’m in love with you too” and they ended up spending the night together, lol. Also, the moment Tae Kyung’s mom was like “Are you considering marriage?” and he was like “Yes” while Tae Kyung said “No” and he went all “But but but, you are both my first love and my first time and you need to take responsibility for taking my virginity!” 😂😂 I definitely did not expect to see Seok Ho of all people trip over his own feet while falling in love, but it was so worth it. Seriously, the fact that he started his own publishing company so he could publish Tae Kyung’s books himself?? If that isn’t true love, I don’t know what it. All hail Shin Seok Ho.

Another interesting side character among Team Two is Oh Myung Joo, a middle-aged lady who’s balancing her work with being a housewife. Her husband (Son Sang Gyu) also works at the KMA, but he hasn’t been doing too hot and Myung Joo gets an unexpected curveball thrown at her when he suddenly announces that he wants to quit his job and start studying for the Civil Service exam again and go back to training to become an engineer or something technical (I don’t remember it exactly). This means that Myung Joo will become responsible for the entire family income next to taking care of her children whilst hubby gets back to full-time studying. They promise it’ll only be for a year and Myung Joo goes along with it, but it doesn’t take long before this lifestyle starts taking a toll on her sleeping schedule, causing her to doze off and lose focus at work as well.
What I appreciated about Myung Joo was that she really was the best of both worlds. She was an incredibly loyal and trustworthy member of Team Two, always prepared to stand up for someone who’d made a mistake and take responsibility for them. I also loved how she was such a warm and lovely mother figure to Soo Jin, always caring about whether she was happy in the team and supporting her in every way. As a wife, she was also really accommodating and loving to her husband and children. On the other hand, she was a very strong and confident person who wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself. The way she confronted her husband after busting him playing baseball with friends while she was literally carrying both their kids home after an exhausting day of work was so satifsying. I loved how she just went “Here are your options: you get your ass back to work, we get a divorce, or you get the hell back to studying and ace that exam”, that was such a powermove. I mean, honestly, the fact that he even pulled that knowing fully well that was the last thing he should be doing – at least he held onto her and they still made it work, he chose for option #3, but phew… I definitely didn’t blame Myung Joo for standing her ground there, all the more after we’d seen her struggle so much since she’d become the main breadwinner of the family. I loved Myung Joo, she always managed to lift everyone’s spirits and made sure everyone was happy in the team. I also liked how she was the first team member who approached Ha Kyung in order to help her gain more understanding of her teammates and improve their teamwork. She was the best mom both her family and team could’ve wished for.

Kim Soo Jin was the youngest member of Team Two, and probably the one who got into the most trouble. It’s eventually revealed that she initially wanted to join the Policy Division team, but got placed at the Chief Team instead. While she doesn’t dislike the work, she occasionally gets demotivated, saying things like “I didn’t study so long to just do this and this”. At first glance, she might’ve seemed like just a young spoiled girl who still had a lot to learn (she gets reprimanded quite harshly by Ha Kyung a couple of times as well), but I liked seeing her learning curve throughout the story. It was also nice to see the flashback of how Ha Kyung used to be just like her when she started out, and how that also softened her to be more understanding and supportive of Soo Jin. It was nice to see how Soo Jin gradually fell into place in the team and how she grew more confident. It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable or anything, and while it’s true that sometimes people just fit better at different departments, I was really proud of her for eventually deciding to stay at the Chief Team – even if it might have been partially because she liked being looked up to by the new batch of trainees, lol. I mean, it still came down to her finding her drive to become a respected senior herself, and that automatically motivated her more to improve her skills and share her knowledge with the next “generation”.
Although they started out with a lot of tension between them, I really loved to see how Ha Kyung, Myung Joo and Soo Jin started opening up to each other more, to the point where they actually went to dinner and karaoke together. It was just really nice seeing the three women of Team Two join forces and grow together in their own respective ways. All in all, I think this show did a great job at gradually building up the teamwork of Team Two, and I think this came together really nicely when they stood up against Team One together: that moment where the whole team was standing in front of the elevator and just burst out in a silent victory dance together was really wholesome.

I just want to comment on one more character before we move on to my other comments about the series: the Director General. Go Bong Chan (played by Kwon Hae Hyo – I couldn’t help but scream “BRIAN!!!” when he appeared on screen, lol) was the director that supervised both Chief Teams. He was basically in charge of supporting the team directors and urging them to make decisions and/or appoint subordinates to visit other stations. He was always present at the meetings and covered for whenever someone made a mistake. I thought it was funny how it was kind of a running gag that the KMA made mistakes in predicting the forecast, and he always had to report that to the higher-ups or something. That one time when they predicted the first typhoon right and he was confirming it all happy on the phone before going back to apologizing when then they predicted the second one wrong again, lol. I liked his character, it just felt right seeing him as a supportive director again after Search: WWW. Even though he could get quite stern, he was always on his team’s side and it was nice to see his dynamic with Ha Kyung as well. He was cool.

Now that I’ve gone through my character analysis there are some other things that I want to point out that jumped out to me or just crossed my mind while I was watching the series.
I think it’s safe to say that one of the main themes this show deals with is to create a metaphor between the weather and love. Love lends itself for countless types of symbolism. When tensions are rising or passion is building up, it’s not uncommon to add in a shot of a boiling kettle or something else that suggests something that’s physically hot. This series even has an episode called “Tropical night” where the heat literally contributes to the ongoing tensions between characters. In this sense, using the weather as a metaphor for love might not have been the most original idea, but I still liked it. They kept finding ways to create original metaphors, like through the changing of the seasons, constantly migrating anticyclones, an unusually dry rain season and actual typhoons. Combining these meteorological phenomena with specific events and twists in the stories, I think they actually did a pretty good job of keeping things engaging and interesting, and I liked that there was always a subtle mention of or reference to the episode title.
My favorite quote would definitely have to be the one from Ha Kyung’s mother in the final episode, where she comments on that Ha Kyung spends more time “predicting the answers of tomorrow” than focus on “the feelings of today”, which I thought was a really good way to express the theme of only ever looking ahead in a relationship instead of enjoying the current moment.
Another type of symbolism that I liked, which I honestly only picked up on in the final episode, was the use of the screens during the video meetings. I don’t know if this was just me, but when Ha Kyung and Shi Woo were captured kissing together on the screen showing the Observatory Tower in the final episode, it suddenly occurred to me that they’d come a long way, first being on different sides of a screen and then on the same one at the KMA but still apart. Capturing them finally officially “together” on screen was like a cute way of confirming that they were officially on the same page/screen in terms of their relationship. Maybe this wasn’t intentional and I just interpreted it as such, but I still thought that was kind of sweet.

Something else I appreciated about this drama was that it actually focussed equal parts on daily office life and romance. Of course there was romance involved, but I liked that the story was centered on people trying to balance private and professional. I’m glad Ha Kyung’s and Shi Woo’s story wasn’t just about them romancing each other, but also about them adapting to a new team and applying their own work experience and knowledge to match everyone else’s. It was as much about improving skills and teamwork as it was about building and maintaining both romantic and familial relationships. I thought the way this series kept the focus on the work aspect set it apart from typical office dramas, and that made it quite original in itself.

On the whole, I have very few criticisms about this show. I already pointed out some minor frustrations and confusions I had with the main characters in my analysis, so I just want to point out a couple of things that felt just a little bit off to me, even though they didn’t negatively influence my watching experience as much.
First of all, I felt like they didn’t really do Shi Woo’s unique introduction (with the rain reference in his name and his reputation of having 100% correct hunches) a solid. Whenever it comes to things that are made out to be specifically important to a character and then just disappear as if they never existed, I always have to think of Jugglers, where the ML had a trauma of fire which was then never mentioned again until in the final episode and I was like, “oh right, that was a thing”. I kind of had that same response when (either through a mention or a flashback) they brought back the whole explanation of Shi Woo’s name and how his hunches were always correct and I was like, “right, I completely forgot about that”. I mean, let’s be honest, after that one correct hunch in the first episode, it’s not like this was a thing that kept setting Shi Woo apart from the rest of the team – I distinctly remember him predicting that second typhoon wrong so…. Not sure why they set the bar so high for him at first if they were just going to drop it at some point.
Secondly, and I’ve already kind of talked about this before, but I really didn’t understand why they ended up making Ki Joon someone who kept giving advice to other people. I feel like he had a lot of sit-downs with both Ha Kyung and Shi Woo that just made me go “why is he acting all wise all of a sudden?” If there was anyone who had anything to learn, it was him. He was quite literally clowning his way through life, love and marriage, and no matter his own devotion, I honestly couldn’t help but feel uncertain about him being a father when he wasn’t even able to be a proper husband during the several months that he was married. I thought it was kind of a weird decision to chalk the counselling talks up to him, is all I’m saying.
Although of course I’m glad that everything fell into place at the end, I couldn’t help but feel that the ending was very conveniently happy for every single person. Conveniently almost to the point of being not necessarily realistic. Ha Kyung and Shi Woo reunited, Ki Joon and Yoo Jin made up and came to an agreement to have the baby, Dong Han and Hyang Rae made up, Myung Joo and her husband made up, Seok Ho and Tae Kyung made up, everything ended all good and well between all the couples.
My main issue with this ending lays in how they wrapped up the relationship between Shi Woo and his dad. In my opinion, it didn’t really make sense for Myung Han to suddenly turn a new leaf in the final episode. After how he’d consistently been acting, showing not the slightest care for his son, I found it kind of hard to believe that he suddenly reflected on his behavior and realized he’d been a bad father, or that he even started crying about the way he’d treated Shi Woo. Seeing them all chummy in the end after Myung Han finished his chemo therapy was kind of odd, as to me there hadn’t been a clear transition point where they got on good terms with each other. Like, of course it’s nice that they made up, but in combination with all the other relationships also ending so conveniently and happily, I couldn’t help but feel they really just went for a general happy ending for everyone, even if this wasn’t necessarily a realistic turn of events in the case of some storylines. Again, I’m not saying I don’t appreciate a happy ending, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded it if at least one couple decided to break up or one married couple decided to get divorced. Like, with the struggles they’d faced, it was kind of typical that everything was just wrapped up so ideally for literally every single character.

We’ve reached the cast comments! I honestly really liked the casting of this drama, everyone did a great job at conveying their characters’ struggles and representing the passionate work of weather forecasters.

It was really interesting to see Park Min Young in this series. I’ve seen her in several shows before, like Sungkyunkwan Scandal, Healer, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? and Her Private Life and also in the variety show Busted!, but I feel like this is the first thing I’ve seen her in where her role didn’t purely have a romantic storyline. Although I’m used to see her portray career women in office settings, it still felt different for this drama because as I said, there was a bigger focus on the career aspect of her character than on the romance, and she didn’t have as many kissing scenes in this series as in others. Which was good, in a way, since that allowed her to show that she was capable of more than just passionate romance dramas. On the other hand, I have to say that, despite the occasional scene where she actually had an emotional outburst, her energy throughout the series was quite low. I guess I’m used to seeing her smile more, but it felt as if she mainly had one numb expression. Although I really like Park Min Young, this is probably one of my lesser favorite roles of her, not because she didn’t perform well but because I just missed a certain energy and sparkle in her eyes that I’ve seen before. Still, it was a nice transition to see her in a role that I hadn’t really seen her in before, and she definitely pulls off the career woman image. I hope I’ll get to see her remaining shows that are still on my list soon!

One of the main reasons this show was on my list was that I was actually really curious to see Park Min Young and Song Kang as a couple, lol. I’ve seen Song Kang before in The Liar and His Lover, Love Alarm, Nevertheless,, and My Demon, and since he mostly gets cast as quite devilishly handsome bordering on toxic male lead characters, it was actually very refreshing to see him portray such an unproblematic puppy as Shi Woo. Unproblematic in terms of personality, not in terms of family history, obviously. I was wondering if I’d ever get to see him portray a character that wasn’t exuding with confidence or constantly flirting around, lol. It was fun seeing him with Park Min Young, as she must be quite the sunbae to him, but they looked quite natural together and I really liked their first kissing scene where they drunkenly started pecking each other outside of that restaurant. It was interesting seeing him in an office drama as well, I definitely got to see a new side of him come out through this character. I think I was most impressed with the scenes that involved his father since those brought out the darker and angrier parts of his character that he usually kept hidden. All in all, I liked his performance here, and I’m curious to see what more he has to offer.

It’s been a while since I’ve last seen Yoon Park in a drama! He appeared in Uncontrollably Fond, Age of Youth, Shy Boss, The Package, Radio Romance, Room No. 9, Itaewon Class, and a bunch more shows that are still on my list (and which I’m now even more excited to watch). Despite my (and probably everyone’s) criticisms on Ki Joon as a character, I think Yoon Park actually outdid himself in portraying him. I can just imagine him going “what the hell is wrong with this guy” at his own character, lol. In my case, the fact that it was Yoon Park really helped me deal with Ki Joon, because it enabled me to enjoy his performance rather than get super frustrated with the character. When you hate the character, it means the actor did a great job, and I think Yoon Park did an amazing job. It was nice seeing him in a larger role again, I feel like it’s been ages. I really hope I get to see more of his acting again soon.

Apparently, Kim Ah Young/Yoo Ra appeared before in To The Beautiful You, but I only remember her from Radio Romance, but mostly because I remember from my review that I didn’t understand the purpose of her character 😬. I’m glad I did feel a bit more for her character in this show, although I still found Yoo Jin’s and Ki Joon’s relationship pretty problematic as it was. It was nice to see Yoo Jin get redeemed as a more mature person rather, and I did end up feeling more sympathetic towards her. I was happy that they didn’t make her character more spiteful towards Ha Kyung or something, it was nice to at least have one party of the “cheating exes” to be realistic about their situation and even have second thoughts at some point. I just realized that, apart from the scene where Ha Kyung caught the two of them in bed together, Ki Joon and Yoo Jin actually didn’t have any kissing scenes together, despite the fact that they should’ve been in their “honeymoon phase”. That’s actually funny now I think about it. Anyways, it was nice to get a better introduction to her as an actress through this show, and I hope that her remaining dramas that are still on my list will be good as well!

I was so happy to see my favorite eomma actress Kim Mi Kyung again! It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve seen her, which is crazy because she appears in so much stuff. So far I’ve seen her in the movies Kim Ji Young: Born in 1982 and Sweet & Sour, and in the dramas Sungkyunkwan Scandal, Secret Garden, Baby-faced Beauty, Missing You, I Hear Your Voice, The Master’s Sun, The Heirs, Healer, Another Oh Hae Young, The Sound of Your Heart, Shy Boss, 20th Century Boy and Girl, Go Back Couple, Her Private Life, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, Crash Course in Romance, and a bunch more that are still on my list. Even as the most nagging mom who kept sticking to her conservative beliefs and forcing her daughters to marry, they could never make me dislike any character she plays. She’s so effortlessly funny, tough and endearing at the same time, you can’t help but love her. I recently read something somewhere about her declining a role offer because of a kissing scene, and that she’d said that she didn’t like roles or dramas that revolved solely around romance. Honestly, if I think back on the roles I’ve seen her in so far, I believe she stuck by that every single time, which is admirable. I always respect it when actors stand up for what they believe in when it comes to acting. I hope I get to see her again soon!

Jeong Woon Seon was one of the few actors I hadn’t seen in anything else before. If I check her MDL list she’s only done seven dramas so far, and this was her second project. I thought she made a really natural sister to Ha Kyung, despite them not being that close. I also really enjoyed her chemistry with Seok Ho, it was nice that they decided to give Tae Kyung some romantic development as well. What I liked about Tae Kyung was that she was just her own person, living her own life, but that she still contributed to the main story in a relevant way. I thought Jeong Woon Seon did a really humble and sincere job at portraying her, I’m curious to see more of her!

Lee Sung Wook just keeps crawling up in my list of favorite ahjussi actors. So far I’ve seen him in Duel, The Silent Sea and quite recently in 365: Repeat the Year, where he actually played a serial killer. With his role as Dong Han, he definitely redeemed himself for that – I think this might actually be my favorite role of him so far, followed closely by his performance in The Silent Sea (justice for Kim Hee Sun ✊🏻😭). Lee Sung Wook just has this super likeable down-to-earth energy. From portraying effortless humor to darker and more emotional and serious layers, he always pulls it off with realistic expressions and body language. I always really enjoy his acting and I absolutely loved him in this show. It doesn’t happen often that an awkward middle-aged male supporting character ends up being my favorite person in a series, but I guess that just proves how good he was. I think this might’ve also been the first time I’ve seen him portray a father, so that familial dynamic also made a difference. I just love him. Hope to see him again soon.

Lee Seung Won (or Moon Tae Yoo) is apparently a musical actor! Not gonna lie, imagining Seok Ho singing on stage is pretty funny to me. I actually hadn’t seen him in anything else before either, and I was really impressed by his performance. I thought he did a great job at portraying how Seok Ho’s einselganger tendencies were tested once he started falling in love, it really was the cutest thing. Who would’ve thought he was capable of being so affectionate! His chemistry with Jeong Woon Seon was the sweetest, and I also liked him within his work team. He showed a lot of emotional range and different sides to his acting in this role alone, which was cool to see. Can’t wait to see what more he has to offer! Lowkey curious to see him in a musical now too.

I’ve seen Yoon Sa Bong a bunch of times before, mostly as guest roles like in Shopping King Louie, Tomorrow With You, Fight For My Way, Age of Youth, The Sound of Magic and Mask Girl, but I mostly remember her from her roles in Arthdal Chronicles and Nevertheless,. I really loved her as Myung Joo. She has such a natural warm motherliness over her, but never loses her spunk and I think this role brought those two things together in a very nice way. Honestly, I would’ve given a lot to have someone like her on my team who’d make sure I was doing alright, lol. I liked that she got a little backstory of her own, which only contributed to her strength as a working mother. It was really cool to see her in this, Myung Joo was Best Mom.

This was the first drama performance I’ve seen of Chae Seo Eun, and I see on MDL that she’s still quite new to the scene; so far she’s appeared in five dramas, starting from 2020. There’s at least one other drama of hers on my to watchlist, so I’m curious to see her in that. Anyways, I thought Chae Seo Eun did a really good job as Soo Jin, she really embodied that rookie that kept debating whether or not she was in the right place. She might not have gotten much backstory, but her development throughout the series was really clear, and I liked that they didn’t lose sight of her within the team. It was cool to see how she came to appreciate her work more and more, and how she started glowing once she was able to teach new people, how much confidence that gave her. I thought she did a really great job!

As I already mentioned before, my first response to seeing Kwon Hae Hyo appear on screen was to yell: “BRIAN!!!”, in a reference to his character in Search: WWW. I didn’t expect to see him in yet another cool director role after that so soon! Other than that I know him from the movie Inseparable Bros and the dramas Lie To Me and Jealousy Incarnate, which are quite old shows. It’s so nice to see him appear in more recent dramas again, I hope I’ll keep seeing him around.

It was quite ironic to see Jeon Bae Soo as Shi Woo’s dad since so far I’ve only ever seen him in kind father roles, lol. He appeared as a dad in Fight For My Way, Revolutionary Love, Thirty But Seventeen, Abyss, The King: Eternal Monarch and Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I’m bound to see him again in another show soon. In any case, I say it’s ironic, but of course it’s only better for him as an actor to play different types of people, and he did a very good job – he actually set my teeth on edge with this portrayal of Myung Han. He did painfully well at playing the shameless dad who was completely oblivious to his own wrongdoings and just lashed out at whoever tried to educate him. I was quite impressed with his performance, it was cool to see a side that I hadn’t seen from him before.

I wasn’t expecting to see Jang So Yeon again after just finishing Welcome 2 Life! Apart from that I’ve seen her in While You Were Sleeping, Something in the Rain, Touch Your Heart, The Secret Life of My Secretary and Crash Landing on You. She’s usually cast as timid sweet ladies, so I have to say it’s refreshing to see her in a bit more feisty roles lately. Feisty as in, not afraid to stand up for herself and bearing her fangs. Even though there were times where I felt Hyang Rae might be a little harsh on Dong Han, she did always back it up with very solid arguments, and I appreciated that she was so articulate and open about her frustrations. She actually enabled me to see things from her side, as a wife whose husband was so absorbed in his work that he completely neglected her and her child. I could already feel the storm coming (we’re sticking with weather puns for this review) when Bo Mi suddenly also started paying more attention to the weather forecasts, lol. In any case, it was nice to see her in his and I liked seeing yet a different side of her acting skills.

I can’t believe this was actually Lee Seung Joo’s drama debut! She did so well as Bo Mi! She’s only appeared in four dramas so far, but I really hope she can continue to grow and develop her acting skills, which were already really good in this show. I really liked her chemistry with both her parent actors, and I enjoyed seeing how she gradually warmed up to her dad throughout the show. I thought it was really powerful that Bo Mi herself, despite being so awkward with her dad at first, took the initiative to learn more about his work and get to him better, that was really endearing to see. She even stopped getting mad at him for not being able to make it to things because she came to understand how important and interesting his work was, and I thought that was super mature of her. I sure hope Lee Seung Joo will be a new upcoming teen actor, and I wish her a lot more great acting opportunites. You go, girl!

Finally, I just want to give a final shoutout to my queen, Seo Jung Yeon. The way I yelped when she was revealed to be the director at the Typhoon Center. I always credit her, even if she just appears as a guest actor. I love this actress so much. From her appearance in movies like Midnight Runners and Be With You to her many iconic drama performances in Valid Love, She Was Pretty, Descendants of the Sun, Moonlight Drawn By Clouds, Bride of the Water God, Something in the Rain, Come and Hug Me, Melting Me Softly, The King: Eternal Monarch, Run On, Nevertheless,, Dali and the Cocky Prince, Our Beloved Summer, My Demon and so many more. It was so great to suddenly make a power appearance in this drama as well, as that badass Typhoon Center director. Loved seeing her, that was such a cool surprise.

And with that we’ve reached the end of this review! All in all, I had a good time watching this drama. I’m not sure what ruined it for other viewers to make them all rate it so lowly, but I honestly wasn’t really bothered by anything major throughout the series. The casting and the acting was good, the characters were really quirky and well-established, and the setting was very interesting and unique. I realized in hindsight that I might’ve actually learned more if I’d watched this with Dutch subtitles, since I do know a couple of terms from the daily weather news, haha. Anyways, I thought it was really cool to see just how crucial the work is that weather forecasters do and how so many different parties depend on accurate weather reports. I liked getting glimpses into different departments of the KMA, like the reporters and the spokespersons, and how everyone depended on each other. As the original Korean title of the show suggests: this was indeed a depiction of a fairly unfortunate incident of an office romance (lol), but the characters really kept me on my toes and managed to even make the stupidest things entertaining. In this case, I think it was a very good choice to portray male clownery in such a realistic way – I’m actually impressed that this was directed by a man, lol.
I liked that in essence, it focussed on everyone’s individual growth within work and relationships (in both the romantic and the familial sense), and that it kept a balance between those two instead of choosing to either prioritize the romance aspect or the career aspect. I appreciate shows that focus on characters struggling to balance work and private, because this is actually a really big sociological issue in many (Asian) countries. In a more specific sense, I really liked Ha Kyung’s personal growth, how she started out as a lone wolf but ended up defending every single member of her team to other stations, showing how much she acknowledged what everyone was going through. She learned how to become more responsible as a director and to be more open about her true feelings, so that was a nice development. I really liked the cast, it was nice to see both new and familiar faces, and some side characters really ended up unexpectedly stealing my heart. It may not have been the most spectacular drama in terms of plot, but I personally quite like these daily life stories that don’t move as fast and focus more on character building, so I enjoyed it.

It was nice to be able to take a couple of days off to work on this, believe it or not but it actually feels like blowing off steam after such a busy month. I do hope I’ll be able to finish another show within June, but we’ll have to see.

Until next time, bye-bee! x

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.

Welcome 2 Life
(웰컴2라이프 /  Welkeom 2 Raipeu)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hello! I’m in the middle of a very busy month right now, but I really wanted to share this review before things got too hectic, so here we are. This time my Wheel of Fortune app picked out a show that was actually quite high up on my to-watch list, and I’m glad I got to watch it because it turned out to be quite the hidden gem. I can’t even remember when or why I put this on my list, because I don’t remember seeing it get promoted much around 2019. Still, it had incredibly high ratings and good reviews on MDL, so that naturally piqued my interest. I thought this show did a great job balancing out thrilling and tragic moments with touching and sweet ones. It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish and I’m very excited to share my views on it. Before I start I do want to make a disclaimer for several potential trigger warnings such as murder, (domestic) violence, human experimenting and psychopathic behavior.

Welcome 2 Life is an MBC K-Drama which you can watch either in the format of 32 back-to-back episodes of 35 minutes, or in 16 episodes of a little over an hour. It took me a while to find a site where I could watch this show, but I ended up discovering a new website for Asian dramas called kisskh.do, which has the whole show in the 16-episode format with good video and subtitle quality. It’s completely free, no subscription needed, and zero ads (!), which is perfect. I’m definitely going to use this website more often!
The story focuses on Lee Jae Sang (played by Rain/Jung Ji Hoon), a relentless lawyer who works for Yulgaek, a law firm mostly known for defending high-status clients. As such, Jae Sang is often in charge of defending despicable higher-ups who are definitely the culprit, but he is so good that he always manages to help them get away with what they’ve done. This in turn has caused him to make a lot of enemies as well, mostly on the side of the police investigators and prosecutors he faces off against, even earning him the nickname “Lee Jae Sshang” (which I believe alludes to the “f”-word). Jae Sang doesn’t seem to have any trouble working for the higher-ups despite knowing their shady antics, he’s quite snobby and very much likes his wealthy and comfortable lifestyle. Everything seems to be going his way, especially when he gets promoted to co-CEO of Yulgaek with his partner Kang Yoon Gi (played by Han Sang Jin).
The only type of physical resistance Jae Sang receives comes from his ex-girlfriend Ra Shi On (played by Lim Ji Yeon), an investigator who works at the local police force. Every single time Jae Sang manages to defend an influential bad guy against a victim that she brought forth, she personally comes around to kick his ass, knowing he’ll never sue her because of their history together.
However, as much as Jae Sang turns a blind eye to the deeds of his clients, his better judgement gets the better of him when he learns that one of his clients is actively giving orders to have people killed, something even he can’t condone. As he drives off to bring evidence of this to Shi On’s team, said client orchestrates a car accident to make sure Jae Sang never gets to the police.
When Jae Sang wakes up next, he finds himself in a completely new and unfamiliar world where everything is topsy-turvy. Instead of a lawyer, he is suddenly a prosecutor working closely with Shi On’s police team. Moreover, he is actually married to Shi On and they even have a young daughter together, Bo Na (Lee Soo Ah). He seems to have been teleported to a parallel world in which he made all the right decisions in defending and saving innocent people, and in which he lives a sweet married life with Shi On, who genuinely adores him and even calls him her “hero”.
In this new world, the other person he was in the car with during the accident got hurt instead of him, and as long as this person remains comatose, it seems that Jae Sang is stuck there. At first he decides to play along as prosecutor for as long as he has to stay, but as he starts working on several cases with the prosecution and police team, he becomes more and more aware of the true corruption of Yulgaek and the cruelties of its clients, and he also starts rekindling his love for Shi On. By the time he’s finally able to go back to his own world, he has completely switched sides and immediately quits Yulgaek to help the police to solve the case he left unfinished in the parallel world, including several illegal businesses and a horrible serial killer that’s affiliated with Yulgaek’s most influential client, mayor elective candidate Jang Do Shik (played by Son Byung Ho). At the same time, he has to also win back the favor of the original Shi On, who still hates his guts.

For starters, I’d like to say that I thought this show made really interesting use of the parallel world trope. In most series that depict some sort of parallel world or trip back to the past to rediscover lost values and feelings (thinking of shows like Go Back Couple and Wife I Know), the characters actually stay in the other world for the majority of the show and only get back in the very end. As such, I was expecting Jae Sang to stay in the new world for the majority of the show before somehow managing to get back in the end and then setting everything right in a jiffy in the final episode. However, I actually appreciated that they didn’t make it so easy. Jae Sang returns to his own world halfway through the series, and then still needs to go through a lot of hardships and dangerous ordeals before he’s finally able to figure out all the involved parties and serve justice the way it was meant to be served. It was really cool how they created this puzzle of information through the two worlds, a puzzle of which the pieces all ultimately fell into place completely, leaving no plotholes.
I thought the way Jae Sang gradually came to see clearly was really well-paced as well. They kept the tension really high throughout the show and there was never a dull moment. The way they alternated between scary, violent scenes and touching, wholesome ones created a very nice balance, and all the characters were established very solidly. The writing was very good, I thought it was cool how they gradually revealed plot twists and developments along the way, it kept me intrigued the entire time.
All in all, this drama really surprised me in how well-constructed it was. It was a very solid, mature drama that depicted a lot of human cruelty but still managed to maintain a hopeful undertone and it ended up being pretty wholesome. The way the story was constructed reminded me a bit of He is Psychometric, because it starts with the focus on a certain incident – in this case the Segyeong Orphanage Massacre – but it turns out there’s so much more behind it. I can’t deny there were times when I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that so many people just stood by and defended someone who was literally killing others without a shred of guilt, not even caring about anything as long as they got to keep their reputation. The violations and the audacity of those lawyers in using the law in favor of all those big and influential people was disgusting, but it also made it all the more satisfying when the police finally started connecting the dots and caught everyone. It was a properly thrilling drama with just about enough love and humor in it to make it heartfelt, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Before I’ll get started on the character analysis part, I just want to establish that from now on I’ll start differentiating between the two worlds as W1 (the original world) and W2 (the parallel world) to make things a bit easier to follow. The story itself can be divided into two halves: the first half in which Jae Sang travels from W1 to W2, and the second half in which he returns to W1 with all the new knowledge accumulated in W2.
I also educated myself a little on the work of prosecutors in order to formulate things correctly in this review. I found myself wondering about the cooperation between Jae Sang and the police force throughout the story, but apparently it’s normal for prosecutors to work closely with police officers and investigators as well as with victims and witnesses, so that checks out. I didn’t remember many legal dramas I’d watched before that depicted such a close collaboration between a prosecutor and the police force (I think most legal dramas focus on lawyers) so I wanted to make sure I got my facts straight before I started writing my analysis.

What makes Lee Jae Sang such an interesting lead character is that he starts out as a bad guy. When we are first introduced to him, he is a snobby defense attorney who helps influential people get away with everything and doesn’t blink an eye at the injustice. He remains that way in W2 for a while as well, and even almost goes back to Yulgaek at some point because he misses his old comfortable life so much. As much as we get to sympathize with him while going through his character development, it’s still hard to blame W1 Shi On for hating him so much after we find out what exactly he did to make them fall out with each other. Even after Jae Sang has fully realized his mistakes and reflected on his actions, he still has a long way to go in gaining Shi On’s forgiveness, and this gives their relationship a very wry but realistic dynamic.
Although we do get some background information on how Jae Sang started out and chose the path he did in W1, we don’t get a very solid reason as to why Jae Sang decided to take the opposite path from Shi On, apart from that defending the high and mighty secured him a more stable and comfortable position. He’s adapted a very arrogant and derogative attitude as a lawyer, and all the affectionate feelings he once had for Shi On when they both started out in the legal field have dissipated. As such, his first reaction to Shi On’s wifely affection in W2 is one of aversion – the idea of being married to her is initially very uncomfortable and shocking to him. However, maybe because they’ve been acquainted for so long and once felt so comfortable with each other, it doesn’t really take him that long to warm up to her presence and affection once he settles into his new life. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even take him that long to kiss her again in W2. I guess that must have meant that, despite their differences and the circumstances surrounding their separation, his feelings for her must’ve still been there, albeit dormant or suppressed to protect himself from the pain the break-up actually caused him. Thinking back on it, we even saw how devoted he seemed in the very first scene leading up to the break-up, how he was waiting for her with the balloon to celebrate their anniversary and everything. Since the first thing to change within him in W2 is his returning affection towards Shi On, I felt like that’s what he eased back into the quickest, since he hadn’t gotten rid of all his feelings to begin with. It took him less time to get accustomed to being with Shi On again than it took him to get used to being a prosecutor, even though that is how he originally started out as well. He started out as a stand-up guy who (not on purpose) helped catch a guy assaulting his wife, consequently helping out Shi On win her first case as a police trainee, and this is how they first got acquainted and started warming up to one another. However, as W2 starts providing Jae Sang with more and more background information on Shi On, we find out that there’s actually a whole lot that he never knew about her, and this provides a very distinct difference between the two versions of Jae Sang.
By the way, was I the only one who found it interesting that the main thing that differed between the two worlds were Jae Sang’s life choices? Literally everything else was the same, the only thing that deviated was that Jae Sang had built a family with Shi On because he didn’t mess things up with her. I thought that was kind of interesting. Sure, there were a couple of other minor things that were slightly different, but in terms of the main storyline and characters, not much was different between the two worlds – the events all occurred in the same way, the bad guys were all exactly the same and acted exactly the same, the dynamics between everyone were the same, etc. It really seemed like this parallel world came into existence purely because of Jae Sang’s deviating decision in joining the other side of justice.
As he starts seeing things clearly, Jae Sang becomes a much more amiable and sympathetic character. It was really satisfying to see him realize how badly he’d lived his life, to see him turn a new leaf after reflecting on his behavior and to see him strive to be a better person, both for himself and for the people around him. I honestly don’t remember any other show where the main character actually made such a gradual 180 turn in perspective, it was very well-paced out. By witnessing the kind of person he was in W2 – in other words, the person he could’ve become if he’d stuck by his original morals – Jae Sang ultimately managed to become the best version of himself through reflection and adaptation, and that was a really satisfying development in his character. I thought the difference between how he woke up in W2 and how he ultimately left there actually alluded to his innate goodness. I felt like this parallel world experience served as a very necessary push to nudge him back into the right direction.
The only thing that confused me a bit about Jae Sang’s character development at some point was the timing at which he suddenly announced he wanted to go back to being a lawyer in W2. By that point he’d already devoted himself to several cases through which he’d become aware of how corrupt Yulgaek was, and he also already started rediscovering his feelings for Shi On. It seemed to me as if he’d already started reflecting on his bad actions and acknowledged how inhuman Jang Do Shik was, so it didn’t really make sense to me why, at that point, he suddenly declared to go back to Yulgaek. Why did he suddenly start missing his penthouse apartment, bigger car and rich and comfortable lifestyle from W1 again, out of the blue? I thought it would’ve made more sense if they’d made him come to that decision a bit earlier on, during the time when he was still in the transition of getting used to his new position in W2. Because it happened at a moment where I already felt like he was changing, I even initially expected that maybe he wanted to go back to Yulgaek to break them up from the inside or something, not because he suddenly still wanted to go back to his heartless ways from W1. It became all the more confusing when they basically just discarded this announcement shortly after. Jae Sang kept working just as hard at being a prosecutor and he never ended up going back to Yulgaek because he did change his mind. I don’t know, I thought they could’ve paced this decision out a bit better by adding it in the beginning and then make him change his mind to stay a prosecutor after going through several cases and rediscovering his feelings for Shi On. The way it happened now seemed a bit random, because it was literally like “Screw you, I’m going back to Yulgaek!” and then immediately “Wait, never mind, I’m staying!”. Apart from this section, everything about Jae Sang’s character development felt really natural to me and I ended up really liking his character, although I did feel like he could’ve been a bit more cautious with confronting the bad guys with everything he knew about them in the end, that kind of gave me anxiety, lol.

Shi On’s introduction in the first episode immediately stands in such stark contrast with Jae Sang’s that it’s almost laughable: she beats him up after he waits for her with a balloon to celebrate their anniversary. In other words, we are initially introduced to Shi On the way W1 Jae Sang sees her: irrationally violent. She’s definitely a feisty one, which makes her an apt police detective, but she does seem to have problems controlling her temper at times. I personally thought it was a really good decision to reveal Shi On’s backstory through the much milder perspective of W2 Shi On, who’d been supported through everything by her loving and loyal husband.
To sum it up: Shi On used to have a half-brother, Ahn Soo Ho (Kim Hyung Beom) who ran a small orphanage in the countryside, Segyeong Orphanage. He lived on the site with his wife and daughter as well. Shi On was particularly fond of his daughter, her young niece Se Rin (played by the same child actor as Bo Na, Lee Soo Ah). When redevelopment plans were announced, Soo Ho openly went against them, refusing to give Jang Do Shik’s company the land they needed. Not long after that, the Segyeong Orphanage Massacre happened, in which every single person was slaughtered and Soo Ho disappeared, resulting in him becoming the main suspect. Shi On, knowing exactly what kind of person Jang Do Shik is, has never stopped looking for her half-brother and is convinced that Jang Do Shik’s construction company had something to do with the massacre that also victimized her beloved niece. As a matter of fact, Shi On ran into the culprit on the night of the massacre and fought him briefly before he knocked her out and she woke up to find the bloody crime scene. It’s been her mission to find both her brother – as she believes in his innocence – and the culprit – to serve him the justice he deserves.
Now that I think of it, there’s actually one other thing that wasn’t completely clear to me regarding Jae Sang’s stance in this background story. Despite the fact that they broke up because in W1 he lied to her about putting in effort to look for her brother, Jae Sang initially doesn’t seem to remember anything about Soo Ho or Se Rin when he gets into W2. I don’t know if he actually did suffer from temporary amnesia, but it seemed more like he didn’t know about the full massacre story, even though he must’ve been around as she kept looking for him. He didn’t remember the promise about buying a hairpin for Se Rin, let alone who Soo Ho was and that Shi On even had a brother, he only found out about that through Shi On’s colleagues at the police force. So that was a bit weird, now that I think of it, seeing as the exact same things happened in both timelines. I guess in W1 they must’ve never gotten around to talk about it before they broke up or something?
Anyways, I thought it was really powerful to show the two different sides of Shi On through the lens of the two worlds. In W1 we mostly got to see her tormented and agitated side, whereas in W2 we got to see a much cuter and affectionate side of her as a mother and a wife. Despite these different sides, she never lost her spunk. It was interesting to see how much influence Jae Sang’s life choices and changes had on her demeanor and future with him. The two of them were in the center of everything, and I liked how their relationship kept being such an important core element without it taking over from the heavy main story. I liked seeing Jae Sang and Shi On in different dynamics through the two worlds, it must have been challenging for the actors as well to keep changing the way their characters talked to each other in each world.
What I also found refreshing was that the main couple’s relationship didn’t need to be built up from scratch. They already had a history together, so it wasn’t a typical slowburn romance. The two of them had already been intimate, so there wasn’t even that much giddiness between them. I guess the difference was that this show depicted “love” rather than “romance”, and this was established mostly through Jae Sang’s new-found willingness to put everything on the line to protect Shi On. It wasn’t a big deal that there weren’t that many kissing scenes between them, because they’d already been through that phase and now the kisses were only used to emphasize the strong love that already existed between them. I thought that was really nice, because it didn’t even take away from how sweet they were together. They were an adorable married couple in W2, all the more because they were already so comfortable around one another. As much as I love romantic build-up in K-Dramas, I can’t deny that the mature dynamic between Jae Sang and Shi On fitted the story way better than if it had been something that still needed to be built up and bloom from scratch. To make them a couple from the start, exes or not, it immediately set the tone for the two of them as adults in a realistic relationship.
It was actually heartwrenching to see Jae Sang coming back to W1 after watching W2 Shi On get assaulted in front of him and then coming face-to-face with W1 Shi On who literally shot daggers at him with her eyes. Jae Sang had to use all of his newly required intel (and feelings) to win W1 Shi On back and get her to forgive him. I thought that was a really cool additional plot to the story.

I’d like to go over Shi On’s team members now, starting by Shi On’s senior and closest friend and colleague, Goo Dong Taek (played by Kwak Shi Yang). Although I guess he can be seen as a potential second male lead since he had feelings for Shi On, he never actually got a word in because Shi On only ever saw him as a friend in both worlds. Honestly, I don’t think I would’ve minded seeing them get together in W1 with the way things initially were between Jae Sang and Shi On, lol. Anyways, Dong Taek was Shi On’s trustworthy partner who always looked out for her yet never treated her like a weak damsel. He respected how strong and independent she was and made peace with just showing his love for her in a way that wasn’t in the least intrusive, so I really appreciated that about him. All in all, he was just a really stand-up guy. Even despite his aversion against Jae Sang in W1, he still filled Shi On in on how he’d told him to look out for her, informing her of how much Jae Sang cared for her, even though he knew that meant he would decrease his own chances with her even more. I loved how he was able to set his personal feelings aside when it came to protecting the right person, and how he immediately came running when Jae Sang got kidnapped. After 365: Repeat the Year I was actually scared that he’d turn out to be a mole or something, but I’m glad he wasn’t faking anything. I really liked his dynamic with Shi On, how they had this unspoken agreement that when he’d scold her, she knew he was just looking out for her and they had their little inside jokes about it. I could very well imagine Shi On getting troubled about him confessing his feelings to her because, despite the fact that she knew what a great guy he was, she just couldn’t deny that her heart still lay with Jae Sang, even underneath all that disdain in W1. Dong Taek was the best guy, honestly. I loved how he dealt with the unspoken rejection and just wished her the best – honestly, that’s the best way to handle rejection. He cared about her, so he let her go. I loved him.

Then there was Yang Go Woon (played by Lim Sung Jae). I really liked his character and how he was established as so much more than just a comic relief character. He contributed so much to all the cases. I thought it was really cool that we got to see him (emotionally) respond to all the cruelty and violence the police team had to deal with, and that he never fell behind in beating up bad guys. I actually lol’ed when they headed into battle with the goons that kidnapped Jae Sang and he threw that huge white roll (I don’t even know what it was) at them, that was actually epic. I liked how he combined effortless humor with such realistic responses to heavy situations, it made me sympathize a lot with how he acted within the police team. I’ve mentioned this many times before, but I appreciate it when – if they have to have a character that’s categorized as being chubby – the jokes about that don’t outweigh the character’s actual contribution to the story. Go Woon was undeniably an irreplaceable asset to the police team, he was very concerned about the wellbeing of both his teammates and their clients, and he was just a very good guy. I loved the dynamic that bloomed between him and Ji Ho when they found out they were both TWICE fans, lol. He really added a much needed lightness to the heavy undertone of the story and it never got too over-the-top comical. He brought just the right balance to the show, I really liked him.

The interesting thing about Moon Ji Ho is that he did come from different places in both worlds. Honestly, I don’t even remember who he was in W1 before Jae Sang switched worlds. All I know is that he worked with Jae Sang at Yulgaek, as that was established when Jae Sang came back to W1, and that he was loyal enough that he joined Jae Sang immediately when he went back to being a prosecutor. In W2, Ji Ho is a hacker. Jae Sang manages to track him down and convince him to join the police team as he possesses both mad hacking and investigation skills. I guess you could say that Ji Ho joins the police team later on through Jae Sang in both worlds, so that much was the same. Ji Ho is like a breath of fresh air to the team because of his youthful energy and snappy personality. I liked that they kept the habit of his dialect popping out when he started swearing consistent in both worlds, those were nice little details. He became kind of a funny duo with Go Woon, earning them the nicknames “rice grain” (Ji Ho) and “rice ball” (Go Woon), lol. I really liked the light interactions between the team members in-between all the heavy drama, like whenever a scene between them came on it felt like a breather. They were like pallet cleansers, so to say, and I really appreciated the distraction from all the horrible things that were happening in the background. I think it’s very important, especially in shows like this that depict a lot of violence, to balance out the humorous parts. I remember feeling a bit uncomfortable with the way they used humor in shows like Café Minamdang and The One and Only because it felt kind of misplaced at times, but I think this show did a very good job at balancing the humor just right with the more serious layers of the story.

Another nice side character was Ha Min Hee (played by Park Shin Ah), the forensics inspector. She worked closely with the police team and in the first episode there even seemed to be a kind of friendship or at least closeness between her and Shi On. At some point she became a more regular character as she joined the police team in the investigation and helped out a lot. She was often seen with Go Woon and Ji Ho as they were goofing around a bit, and I liked the recurring joke of her being like “Omg, is it me?” whenever it was suggested that anyone liked anyone on the team, lol. She was a nice addition to the cast because she was also able to contribute in her own way and she had a nice dynamic with the other team members as well. I liked that she got more screentime throughout the show, I thought she was cool.

The lead prosecutor of the investigation team was Oh Seok Joon, nicknamed “Galileo” (played by Park Won Sang). I have to admit the joke kind of went over my head, although I feel like it had to do with his hotheadedness (correct me if I’m wrong). Although Chief Oh was definitely one of the slightly more exaggerated comic relief characters, I liked that they at least fleshed him out a bit by giving him some backstory with his estranged daughter, and through his connection with Ms. Bang. I have to say that I sometimes found him a bit too loud and all over the place, but I guess that was just his personality. It was cool of him to, despite his initial disdain towards Jae Sang, still allow him to take risks and do things his own way, even if it’d come back to bite him in the ass later. At least he was willing to trust him as part of the team and he entrusted him with the main investigation despite his personal dislike for him.
Like I said with Ji Ho, I liked how the show played with recurring scenes and phrases in both worlds; in Chief Oh’s case there was this scene where he was drinking with Ms. Bang outside a local convenience store and he overheard two guys talking about conducting a robbery and went over to intimidate them. In W2, they turned out to be drama writers brainstorming new ideas, while in W1 they actually turned out to be wanted criminals, lol. I liked those subtle little twists.
Although I’m pretty glad they established all the characters as they did and thought they made the right decisions in who to give more backstory, apart from the story about his daughter Chief Oh was one of the characters that felt a little too shallow for me at times. Maybe it also had to do with the acting, but he seemed to be a bit more explosive than necessary at times, which made it look like he was meant to be a funny character because he was so all over the place. It didn’t distract me too much, and I’m happy that he still had enough serious stuff to do, but I sometimes felt like he was being a bit too loud for no reason.

Wrapping up the police team, lastly there was Ms. Bang Yeong Sook (played by Jang So Yeon). I’m not entirely sure what her exact job title was, but I feel like she was kind of keeping the team together and making sure everyone got everything they needed, almost like an office manager of sorts. She was mostly in charge of the paperwork, that’s for sure, but she also managed to dig up a lot of information for the investigation. What I just mentioned about Chief Oh also went for Ms. Bang: although I appreciated the quirkiness of her character, sometimes it felt like she was acting a bit too animated and comically.
I did like that they ended up being a couple though, and how she kept getting aggravated by how dense he was not to recognize that she was hitting on him. The prank with the wasabi macaron actually cracked me up, the way she stared at him with a smile until the realization hit him and he went “…WASABI?!”😂 That was funny. They had their moments, undeniably. I thought it was nice that she and Chief Oh got some scenes together to establish how long they’d worked together and how comfortable they were around each other.

Before moving onto the bad guys, I just want to dedicate one final paragraph to Bo Na. I’ve already mentioned her as being Jae Sang and Shi On’s daughter in W2, but she is too precious not to mention in a bit more detail. I really loved how they incorporated Bo Na, who initially didn’t even exist in W1, into the main couple’s life. It was hard for Jae Sang to accept that she was his daughter (which, technically speaking, she wasn’t), but the way he warmed up to her to the point of not being able to deal with her not being there when he woke up back in W1 was really heartwrenching.
I loved Bo Na, she was the sweetest. I loved how she unknowingly helped Jae Sang figure so much out about his marriage to Shi On and how it only caused him to love the both of them more and more. The scene where she got kidnapped was actually nail-bitingly scary, I was so afraid something would happen to her, but I’m glad they kept her safe. I also really loved how the North Star came back in both worlds, how in W2 Bo Na told Jae Sang that he’d said before that she and Shi On were his North Star, and how in W1 at the end Shi On found out she was pregnant after dreaming about a North Star in her belly. The way Jae Sang went “At least that means it’s Bo Na” was so sweet.🥹 I thought it was a really fun twist to add in a child in the parallel world and make her just as important as the people who had counterparts in both worlds.
Finally, I really loved that they ended the series by showing the two worlds side by side. On the one hand you had Jae Sang and Shi On hugging after finding out they were pregnant, and on the other hand you had Jae Sang and Bo Na accompanying Shi On in her wheelchair after recovering from (what I think must have been) Sun Woo’s attack. That was such a wholesome ending, I loved that.

With regards to the ending, there’s actually one theory that suddenly popped into my head at some point. I’m pretty sure it’s invalid because W2 was very clearly established as a parallel world, especially when looking at the ending, but I still want to mention it.
When Jae Sang gets kidnapped and loses consciousness after being suffocated by Sun Woo’s men, he briefly goes back to W2 were Bo Na is trying to get him to “come with her to see Mom”. Just like when he fell into a coma in the first place, as soon as he falls unconscious his mind immediately transports back to W2. And it was in that moment that it almost felt like some sort of afterlife. The last thing we’d seen of W2 Shi On was that she was about to have her head smashed in by Sun Woo, so we’re led to believe that she died since no one showed up to help in time. The way Bo Na was urging that they needed to go see Shi On, in combination with him being on the verge of death in W1, almost felt like Bo Na was trying to guide him to the light so that he could be with W2 Shi On again, or something. I don’t know, suddenly I was like, what if his time in W2 was indeed all just a dream from when he was in a coma, like this place his mind created where he did everything right? Then again, it wouldn’t really make sense that he was able to go through regression/hypnotic therapy to recall something from W2, and seeing the ending with Shi On still alive in the hospital also debunks this theory. Now I feel like maybe the original W2 Jae Sang came back to his own body when W1 Jae Sang went back, and that he managed to fight Sun Woo off at the last moment or something. There wouldn’t really be another way to get out of that situation, so I guess that’s what must’ve happened. Still, for a moment there I was like, wait, was W2 actually like some sort of afterlife that Jae Sang’s mind created to make up for all of his regrets or something? I still wanted to share it.

It’s time to move on to my (and I hope everyone else’s) least favorite characters of the show, the infamous bad guys. Admittedly, what made them powerful bad guys was the fact that they were actually untouchable and therefore able to do whatever the heck they wanted. No one standing around ever even lifted a finger to stop them, which was pretty wild to me. I just couldn’t fathom that NONE of all those people even stopped to think for a single second about how inhumane and cruel the work was that they were being made to do and witness. All in all, I thought the monstrosities depicted went pretty far. I get that they needed to visualize just how despicable these people were, but it was a lot to stomach. Some parts actually made me physically uncomfortable, which is a good thing I suppose – I’d be more worried if people didn’t start feeling unwell while watching their deeds.

The biggest initial bad guy that’s introduced in the show is Jang Do Shik, the most popular candidate to become the new mayor. Mind you, Jang Do Shik isn’t just a big shot who abuses his power: he is an actual monster. When an old man accidentally spits out soup over him during a charity event for elderly people, this same man is later seen in Jang Do Shik’s office where he’s been beaten bloody with a golf club. Jang Do Shik doesn’t just fake being nice to the people he needs for support – he even assaults his own wife and son on a daily basis. He’s the type of guy that, if you just happen to accidentally bump into him on the street, that same evening you’ll get kidnapped and brought to him so he can beat the shit out of you. I have no idea how this guy was able to walk the streets freely, because he was literally a ticking time bomb that had to be held back so he wouldn’t explode on people at the tiniest of inconveniences. Some things just don’t make sense, but Jang Do Shik was definitely inhuman on another level. It kind of got annoying at some point, the way he pulled a pokerface – which made him look like a Sontaran from Doctor Who, sorry not sorry – whenever someone confronted him with his misdeeds and he just brushed it off. Seeing his character, we are immediately led to believe that he’s undoubtedly responsible for all the deaths and disappearances of people who just happened to go against him. He didn’t spare a single thought for them either, he just wanted his land and the position of mayor and it didn’t matter how many people he had to get rid of to make that happen. Imagine if that sort of person was actually in charge of ruling a… oh wait, syke, we don’t actually have to imagine that. I think that that’s what made him so scary. In the context of today, I wasn’t even comforted by the idea that his character was fictional anymore because we are literally dealing with people like him throughout the whole world right now. It’s actually terrifying.
Anyways, back to fiction and this review, Jang Do Shik has everyone in his pocket. On TV he appears to be the kindest and most hospitable man ever, behind the scenes everyone is too terrified of him to ever speak against him. That’s how he rules the town.
Lawyer Kang Yoon Gi, W1 Jae Sang’s former colleague, is his designated attorney who follows him everywhere and is very much aware of all the shit he’s pulling. I honestly really hoped that Yoon Gi would come to his senses, because he definitely flinched when he heard Jang Do Shik talk about getting rid of people, but he stuck by him until the very end. And beyond, because he wasn’t even willing to let anything slip after he died. Seeing this portrayal of defense attorneys makes me really scared for legal systems anywhere. I find it unbelievable that people actively use the law like this, to work around rules that were set in place specifically to protect the innocent and serve justice to those who truly deserve it. How can you call yourself a lawyer, let alone a human being, when you literally stand around watching your client ordering people to be murdered left and right to tie up loose ends, how you can manage to condone that and even find ways to defend it in court? This was absolutely baffling to me, and it was something that bothered me throughout the series because it was just so infuriating.
Apart from Kang Yoon Gi there was also Min Sung Jin (played by Choi Phillip). In W1, he was initially a prosecutor who kept facing off against Jae Sang, but their positions were reversed in W2. After Jae Sang returned to W1, Sung Jin suddenly also changed sides to become an attorney defending Jang Do Shik, which was a bit weird to me. Did losing so many cases to Jae Sang cause him to also fall for the toxic mindset that getting on the wrong side of the law would at least help him win more cases or something? Anyways, he also became a bad guy defending Jang Do Shik’s cause.
Jang Do Shik of course has many other people supporting him, in exchange for his support in their (often illegal) practices. One of these other people is Park Gi Beom, aka “Pastor Park” (played by Kim Joong Gi). This guy had the audacity to call himself a freaking “pastor” and hide behind the holy Bible while literally supplying helpless women as guinea pigs for illegal experiments. This guy was the absolute scum of the earth, and he had that annoyingly smug little smile of his to prove it. It really was just a world of scumbags helping each other out through equally illegal measures, and no one was better than the other.

The last person in Jang Do Shik’s support scheme was Yoon Pil Woo (played by Shin Jae Ha), the young “national hero” of biotechnology who ran a company called the Babel Research Center. Not gonna lie, my first impression of Pil Woo was a positive one, since he looked so annoyed as soon as he saw Jang Do Shik, lol. I was like, anyone who makes that face when seeing Jang Do Shik must surely be an ally!
…Boy, was I wrong. Honestly, I did NOT expect him to be an even bigger monster than Jang Do Shik.
Pil Woo, officially named Ji Sun Woo, is eventually revealed to be Jang Do Shik’s illegitimate child. He grew up under an abusive mother who just used him as a means to get Jang Do Shik to give her money. Traumatized by his mother’s abuse and his father’s neglect, Sun Woo grew up to be a classic psychopath – can’t say the apple fell far from the tree. Despite Jang Do Shik’s unwillingness to acknowledge him as his son, Pil Woo became obsessed with gaining his father’s respect and started getting rid of everyone that opposed him, masking it as “helping his father out”. His modus operandi was always the same: he smashes people’s heads in with a hammer.
As it turns out, after assaulting his own mother and being sent away by Jang Do Shik again, Sun Woo actually got taken in by Soo Ho at Segyeong Orphanage, where his psychopathic behavior only escalated. He was responsible for all the bad rumors about Soo Ho allegedly mistreating the orphans, and he was the one true culprit of the Segyeong Orphanage Massacre. After being taken in so kindly, he killed Soo Ho and his family just as easily as he did the other kids, all because he thought it would “help” his father in gaining the land he wanted. Jang Do Shik wasn’t even aware that he was doing this for him, but despite calling him out for being a lunatic after finding out, he never actually did anything to stop him. Admittedly, Sun Woo did help him keep his image clean by silencing anyone who knew more than they should.
Besides “helping out his father”, Sun Woo also ran his own little business at Babel, with the help of Pastor Park. In order to create some sort of antidote he needed to do illegal experiments on humans, he handpicked out women under the promise of a “Women Support Program” for women trying to get out of dangerous situations. The women applying for this program mostly included (former) sex workers and/or hostesses, or women who’d worked in other shady businesses and wanted protection. Sun Woo actually tricked these women by promising them this amazing support program, only to drug them and use them as experiments under very unsanitary circumstances with substances that were definitely not meant to be inserted raw into human bodies. This part actually made me sick to my stomach, all the more because for him, this was just a twisted way to take revenge on his mother, who’d also been a hostess. He keeps going further and further, spiralling even beyond Jang Do Shik’s control and ultimately even kills his own father himself. So much for becoming daddy’s special boy, I guess.
The one person that’s always by his side is his stoic henchman Ha Yoo Seok (played by Ha Soo Ho), who, like the lawyers and all the other henchmen defending Jang Do Shik and the other despicable higher-ups, apparently hasn’t got a single human bone in his body. It was actually disheartening to see so many people turn their back on the meaningless killing of innocent people. I feel like this show had more inhuman characters in it than human ones. I’ve definitely not seen this many bad guys in a show in a very long time, maybe ever. I kept hoping that characters like Secretary Ha would open their eyes stand up for what was right at the end, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. This guy even actively aided Sun Woo in his killings and also took the lead in kidnapping Jae Sang and suffocating him.

By the way, as much as I didn’t care for Jang Do Shik to exit life, his death didn’t really feel satisfying to me. I guess I really wanted him to face all the consequences of his actions in court and get either a life-long prison or a death sentence, but the fact that he was just killed by the other freak on the block was strangely anti-climactic. It was definitely a plot twist when Sun Woo suddenly turned Jang Do Shik’s men against him – I’m still not sure how he managed to do that behind the scenes – but it would’ve personally made me feel better if Jang Do Shik at least got to face the humiliation of having to show his face to the public and his voters after they found out about everything he’d done. I’m glad at least that’s what Sun Woo got. I loved it when he asked Chief Oh if he could get a death sentence and Chief Oh was like, “Nah son, you get to suffer first”. That was way more satisfying.
Now that I’m on this topic, please tell me I wasn’t the only one who thought Shin Jae Ha’s character in this show was SCARILY similar to his role in Crash Course in Romance? Seriously, who keeps casting this guy as a psychopath? I don’t mean to compare performances of the same actor in different shows, but it was uncanny, especially the scene on the hospital roof. The thing that ruined the ending of CCiR for me was the fact that his character ended up jumping off the roof and offed himself so that he couldn’t ever be put to justice for all the people he killed. As soon as I saw Sun Woo move towards that roof edge I literally got flashbacks and went “OH NO, NOT AGAIN, DON’T LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT AGAIN”😭 Thank GOD he didn’t get to jump this time. I’m not gonna lie, I know this show came five years before CCiR, but since I saw CCiR first this show actually felt like redemption for the way they let his character in CCiR get away with it. Honestly, I would’ve been SO mad if they’d let Sun Woo off like that in the exact same way, because I’m still not okay with it. TO THIS DAY.😭✊🏻

Although this series produced countless more victims than culprits, I’m just going to highlight a few characters that were caught in the crossfire as victims of their situation, starting with Jang Do Shik’s wife, Woo Yeong Ae (played by Seo Hye Rin). Man oh man, did the scenes between these two physically hurt to watch. It’s one thing to be human scum and go around beating people up behind the scenes, but to not even retain yourself towards your own family?
I know there’s this ongoing discussion about why women who are stuck in awful marriages “don’t just leave”, but I think Yeong Ae was a very clear example of why leaving wasn’t an option without putting her own life and her son’s in danger. It didn’t matter if it was because she wore a little too much make-up, put on a different perfume than usual or didn’t tie her son’s necktie properly, Jang Do Shik would always find fault with the tiniest thing that Yeong Ae did and the way she brought up their son (because God forbid he had any hand in that). He didn’t even have the “decency” to keep his son in the dark, no, he actually took to beating up his wife with a freaking golf club IN FRONT OF their son. He would’ve even done the same to his kid if it weren’t for Yeong Ae always jumping in front of him, begging him to beat her instead. It was appalling. The scene where Yeong Ae comforted her son while they were both crying their eyes out… You’d think you knew how bad Jang Do Shik was, but there really was no end to his inhumanity.
It was so sad what happened to Yeong Ae. Admittedly, Jae Sang was pretty rash with his plan and I did feel like they could’ve at least given Joo Won’s teachers a description of the detectives that were coming to pick him up. But the wry thing is that the plan would’ve actually worked if it weren’t for Sun Woo interfering behind his father’s back. It was so awful because the police wasn’t even aware of Pil Woo/Sun Woo yet at this point, so they didn’t understand what went wrong. The only “positive” outcome of this was that it sent the police investigation into a whole new direction, and I also think it was a very defining moment for Jae Sang, because it made him realize that he couldn’t just easily predict what would happen based on his intel from W2. He actually put a woman in more danger than she was trying to get away from. I did love it when it was revealed that Yeong Ae at least left them the evidence for the Women Support Program that Sun Woo was working on in secret. By doing that she still showed her trust in Jae Sang and it made me feel like she didn’t completely die in vain. She was such a brave mother who’d do anything for her son, and I couldn’t help but feel for her.

Speaking of the son, Jang Joo Won (played by Eom Ji Sung), when it was revealed that he was a vicious bully at school, and especially that he literally copied his dad’s behavior to assault his schoolmates, I couldn’t really understand how his mind worked. Of course, he was fourteen, his brain wasn’t fully developed yet, and the insanity of his father’s behavior did more damage to his upbringing than his mother tying his tie the wrong way – seriously, how delusional are you if you think your child isn’t going to get fucked up when you literally beat his mother bloody in front of him every night? Anyways, what confused me was that Joo Won took on his dad’s actions as “the right way” to punish others for being weak, even though he must’ve been plenty aware that his mother didn’t deserve to be beaten by his dad. During the scene where Jang Do Shik grabbed that golf club, Joo Won was literally cowering in fear, crying his eyes out and calling for his mom. That response stood in such stark contrast with how he suddenly claimed to feel like he had to behave the same way to execute power, and he even seemed to enjoy beating up his schoolmates too. It just didn’t feel like a logical response, no matter how I tried to think about it. It helped a little that they at least had him explain his side of the story afterwards in that heart-to-heart with his mother, but I still found it hard to understand how his trauma would manifest into him doing the same thing as his dad. Then again, they say a lot of bullies used to be bullied themselves, so I guess it’s just a way of lashing out their fears and insecurities at others to make themselves feel powerful. Could be that my brain is just not able to comprehend bullies, simple as that.
Anyways, underneath that violent kid was just another traumatized soul and it broke my heart when, just after that, his mom also got murdered after trying to save him from Sun Woo. The scene where Jae Sang visited him in the hospital to apologize for the deal he’d made with Yeong Ae that ended up getting her killed was just as heartwrenching as the murder itself. The fact that Sun Woo did it out of spite towards Jang Do Shik’s “real family” too, like did he want to kill Joo Won’s mom so they’d be equal as Jang Do Shik’s sons or something?
Looking at Sun Woo’s whole “I’m Jang Do Shik’s special boy” logic, I was honestly a bit surprised that he didn’t actually go after Joo Won. Wouldn’t the acknowledged son, the final obstacle to being daddy’s one true special boy, be his most direct enemy? I mean, of course I’m glad he didn’t try to kill Joo Won, but thinking about it in hindsight, it was a bit strange. Joo Won actually ended up becoming an orphan. I sure hope he was taken into protective custody by the right people and didn’t grow up as messed up as the rest of his family. Poor boy.

One other person I want to discuss is Jang Hyun Joo (played by Shin Min Kyung), one of the applicants for the Women Support Program and the only one who ends up surviving it. I felt so bad for her, it was so awful to see her so hopeful and relieved at the thought of this support program while knowing she was probably just going to be discarded like trash. I’m glad at least she survived, but she also had to witness the horrors of that experiment lab and saw other girls die on the beds around her. The part about the Women Support Program was just so appalling. I hated that this extra “business” took the most time to figure out. Before they found Yeong Ae’s evidence, the police never even linked these missing women to the ongoing investigation. It was such a relief that they managed to save Hyun Joo. It was just so sick that some psychopath’s mommy issues ended up getting all these innocent people involved that literally had nothing to do with anything.

I’ve noticed it seeping through my analysis so far already, but I just want to emphasize how much I appreciated the consistency and reasoning of this show. Everything that happened was explained in one way or another, from the resemblance between Bo Na and Se Rin to the eye drops that Shi On kept from the Segyeong Orphanage killer to the reason behind Joo Won’s erratic behavior at school and the underlying reason for Sun Woo’s handpicked guinea pigs for his “Women Support Program”. I found the attention to detail to make sure no plotholes remained very satisfying, because it actually made the show as a whole way more solid. I believe the only thing I missed was that they never explained what happened to the insane lady from the first episode who orchestrated Jae Sang’s car accident. We see her get arrested in W2, but we never actually find out what happened to her in W1 after Jae Sang returned.
I also thought the cases that Jae Sang worked on in W2 that gradually brought him closer to Shi On and the police team were all equally impactful and relevant. Admittedly, everytime they solved a case and went right into the next one I found myself sighing “crime really never ends, huh”. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the cases that were covered because they were all equally important. They weren’t just fillers, they actually tied into the main story as well. The Yak Ji Orphanage case tied in with the Segyeong Orphanage Massacre and led Jae Sang to find out the reason why Shi On had broken up with him in W1. Then there was the young lady who ended up giving up her life (and her retinas) to her blind dad and the other missing people who were all murdered on the command of Jang Do Shik or other affiliated persons. Even the case with the mother of Bo Na’s friend who committed identity fraud was intriguing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but the main reason this drama was so thrilling to watch until the very end was because it was so solid, both in the plot and the characters as in the writing and the acting. I was honestly very impressed by it.

Before moving on to the cast comment section, I just want to make one comment about the title, because I actually find it pretty interesting. Both the Korean and the English titles are the same, “Welcome 2 Life”, naturally a word pun on “Welcome to Life”, with the “2” supposedly referring to the two worlds. However, I do wonder what the “welcoming” element in the title refers to. Saying it out loud it almost sounds like a heralding of what life is about, which I hope isn’t the case. I’d like to think it mostly refers to Jae Sang coming back to life, not only when he regains consciousness in W1, but also how he’s snapped back to reality/justice/life after his time in W2. I think there might be different way to interpret the title, so if anyone has any other theories, feel free to let me know!

We’ve reached the cast comment section! As I said in my introduction, I didn’t remember any kind of promotion regarding this show, so I was very surprised to see such good reviews and so many familiar faces. Overall I thought the acting was really good, everyone took their characters very seriously and did a great job at balancing humor with serious acting.

Although I knew Rain by name and face, I didn’t think I’d actually seen him in anything before until I realized he played the main lead in the movie I’m a Cyborg But That’s Okay, lol. I mostly know him for being a singer and being married to Kim Tae Hee, lol. Anyways, I really liked his portrayal of Jae Sang. He did a very good job at making the gradual transition from being a selfish jerk to a much more compassionate person, and he cracked me up with his facial expressions many times. I especially loved his chemistry with little Lee Soo Ah who played Bo Na, he seemed so natural with her. I guess it helps that he has children of his own, but it was still very enjoyable to watch him being such an affectionate dad. I also really liked his chemistry with the female lead actress, they seemed very comfortable together. I thought he was very natural in portraying all sorts of different emotions and the way he switched between cool and collected and goofy and even aegyo was very fun. I enjoyed his performance in this show, I hope I’ll get to see more of him!

Lim Ji Yeon has such a unique beauty about her. Nowadays I think she’s most famous for her role as that awful bully in The Glory, and although I haven’t watched that I could just imagine how different that role must have been from her role in this show. It was really interesting to see her as more of a tomboy girl like Shi On, even though she never lost her female charm. I have seen her before in High Society (I keep forgetting she was the second female lead there🙈) and in Doctors, but I think this is the first main lead role I’ve seen of her and this is probably what I’ll remember her by the most until the next thing comes along. I thought she did an absolutely amazing job at portraying Shi On, all the more with the additional layers of the character’s horrible background story. She portrayed Shi On with such spirit, consistence and charm that I couldn’t help but grow to love her. I immediately put another of her shows on my list because I want to get to know her better as an actress (even if I end up not watching The Glory👀). I thought she was a really good casting choice for Shi On, and I loved her chemistry with the two male leads and little Soo Ah as well.

I keep forgetting how fine Kwak Shi Yang is😭. I guess it’s because my last association with him is his role in Café Minamdang, where he played an absolute idiot, lol. Still, that only proves that he has variety! His role of CM couldn’t have been more different than how he played Dong Taek. I’m not gonna lie, I fell for him a little. Besides this I’ve seen him before in Oh My Ghostess, Chicago Typewriter, Clean With Passion For Now, and he’s in a bunch of shows that are still on my watchlist, so that’s nice. As I mentioned in my analysis, I was really relieved that they didn’t make him a secret mole or that I made him like this petty second male lead. It was bad enough to see him yearn for Shi On silently, but the way he dealt with it and let her be happy actually made him even more attractive. I really appreciated this solidity of his character, how he was written to always stand up for justice, even if that meant setting his personal feelings aside. It was so important for Shi On to have such a loyal friend like him to fall back on, and he really embodied the dutiful loyalty of a police officer while also displaying a healthy playful side. I really liked seeing him in this, and I can’t wait to see him in one of the other shows that are still on my list.

I’ve seen Son Byung Ho in a bunch of other shows before, like 49 Days, Cheese in the Trap, Fight For My Way, I’m Not a Robot, Room No. 9 and Clean With Passion For Now. He’s one of those familiar ahjussi faces that pop up every now and then and just always look familiar. His portrayal of Jang Do Shik will probably haunt me for some time. I got so angry and annoyed with him and his smug face and he actually made his scenes painful to watch, which only means he did that good of a job portraying the role. Never forget to differentiate between role and actor! No but seriously, I was very impressed by how despicable he managed to make Jang Do Shik. It can’t be easy for a regular person to play someone so inhuman, someone with such little compassion, so I can only applaud him for doing just that. I’ve no doubt I’m going to see him pop up in another show some time, but this series definitely made me remember him.

I repeat, who keeps casting Shin Jae Ha as psycho characters?😭 I just want to see him in a romantic comedy or something, lol. I’ve seen him before in Sassy Go Go, Go Ho’s Starry Night, While You Were Sleeping and Crash Course in Romance, which is the most recent thing I saw him in – I don’t really remember him from those other shows, it’s been too long. As I said, his role in this show reminded me a lot of his character in CCiR so it doesn’t really feel like I saw a new side of him. That isn’t to say that I wasn’t impressed by his performance, because he too will probably keep haunting me for a while, lol. Don’t you just love it when actors with super cute smiles start smiling them in a psychotic way and you can’t look at them normally anymore? That’s what happened with Kim Young Kwang in Somebody, and it’s also what happened with Shin Jae Ha in both CCiR and this show. I sure hope I get to see him in a cute, normal guy role again someday!

I feel like I’ve never seen Han Sang Jin in another type of role than a lawyer or a business man. I just can’t picture him without a suit on, lol. I saw him most recently in Birth of a Beauty, but I’ve also seen him in Hyde, Jekyll, Me and Circle (although I don’t exactly remember him from there). I think I’ve yet to see him portray a different kind of character than a bad guy/stoic businessman, and his role in this show was kind of a repetition of what I’d already seen him do before. I’m actually curious to see what more variety he has to offer. In some way I would’ve actually liked to get a bit more backstory on Kang Yoon Gi to make more sense of why the heck he’d stay on Jang Do Shik’s side. I know I didn’t imagine that flinch on his face when he realized what his client was getting into, so I guess he must have been just as terrified of him as anyone else, but he never really acted scared. I think I mentioned it in my review as well, but I was actually hoping for him to switch sides or at least testify against Jang Do Shik in the end, but I guess siding with the bad guys makes you a bad guy forever as well. I hope I’ll get to see more different roles of him in future watches!

Another typical ahjussi face I’m always happy to see in K-Dramas is that of Park Won Sang. I’ve seen him before in Dream High, Healer, W: Two Worlds, Fantastic, Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, Wife I Know, The King: Eternal Monarch and Our Beloved Summer. I always love the energy and vitality he brings to his characters, and his character in this show was no exception, although as I mentioned I sometimes felt like he was trying a little hard to be extra at times. Despite being the Chief Prosecutor of the investigation team, he mostly stayed inside the station and behind the glass during interrogations, and although he still contributed a lot to the story and the team it would’ve been cool to also see him get some more action. I understand they left that to the younger and fitter team members (Chief Oh was literally complaining about his back the entire time) but I thought that for someone who put on such a loud mouth towards his team members, he might have also dared to step into the field a bit more. Anyways, it was still nice to see him in this.

I’ve seen Jang So Yeon before in Something in the Rain, Touch Your Heart, The Secret Life of My Secretary and Crash Landing on You, and I’m sure I’ll see her again in multiple shows that are still on my watchlist. I thought she made a really funny character of Ms. Bang, with the pencil skirts and the whoopy hairdo, and my only occasional issue with her performance was that, just like with Park Won Sang, she tried just a little bit too hard to be quirky. I haven’t actually seen her in “funny” roles before so maybe she’s not too accustomed to it or something, but those two were the only ones for me to occasionally fell out of line with the serious acting of the rest of the cast. Still, I thought she made a really nice contribution and it was very nice to see her appear in this, in a role I hadn’t really seen her in before. She’s also always a very familiar face that I like to see pop up in K-Dramas.

Apparently, this series was Lim Sung Jae’s drama debut! He’d appeared in movies before but when it comes to dramas this was his first project, so that’s cool. Apart from this I’ve seen him before in Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and there are some more shows of his still on my list. I really liked his portrayal of Yang Go Woon. As I said before, I thought he did a great job at being effortlessly funny without it becoming too much, and he remained a very solid and relevant character throughout the story. I really loved what he brought to the table and he made me laugh a lot. I sure hope I get to see him in more soon.

Last but certainly not least, little Lee Soo Ah! I can’t believe that she was actually six years old when this aired! She’s such a natural, even at that age. She also appeared in Wife I Know and Hotel Del Luna. She’s eleven years old today, but I see on MDL that this show has been her last so far. I really hope she’ll get the chance to keep acting and honing her skills, because we need more child actors like this! I was really impressed by both the cheekiness and the seriousness she managed to put into Bo Na, and her chemistry with her on-screen parents was really endearing to see. I really loved her performance.

Having said that, I think I’ve reached the end of this review. I was able to write this in one go with the right mindset, which felt really good, and I’m happy with how it turned out. I managed to discuss everything I wanted to say about the story and the characters.
All in all, this series really took me by surprise. I didn’t know anything about it – I assume I must’ve put it on my list when I saw the tag “parallel worlds” but I don’t think I expected this when I put it on my list. This is definitely a hidden gem. The story was solid, the writing was great, the characters were well-established and evoked all sorts of emotions. It definitely needs a couple of trigger warnings for the extreme violence that’s depicted, but it did all add to the story and supported the cruelty of the bad guys, so it wasn’t purely for shock value either, unlike for example in The One and Only where I thought they used the heavy themes in all the wrong ways. I thought the concept of a man finding his way back to his old morals and feelings and coming to terms with what was the right thing to do was executed very well in combination with the thrilling investigation story. It was all wrapped up really neatly at the end, the final was immensely satisfying. Be it the main storyline, the love between the main couple or the interactions between the side characters as welcome pallet cleansers, all in all I really enjoyed watching this, it had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

I don’t think I’ll be able to share another review before the end of this month due to my busy schedule, but I will start on my next watch right after uploading this so I guess I’ll see when I’ll get to finish it.
Thank you for reading until here, and I’ll be back soon.

Bye-bee! x

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.

Search: WWW
(검색어를 입력하세요: WWW /  Geomsaekeoreul Ibryeokhaseyo: WWW / Enter Search Query: WWW)
MyDramaList rating: 8.0/10

Hello hello hello! Thought it’d be nice to drop another drama review before the end of the month. Just like my last watch, I only added this show to my list quite recently after seeing a clip from it on TikTok, and it didn’t take me too long to finish despite the lengthy episodes. Honestly, I couldn’t get enough of it. It pulled me in from the start and was just the right balance of good story, mature, fun and quirky characters, effortless humor, tenderness and heartache. It was more than I expected it to be, and I’m really glad I decided to put it on my list, and for my TikTok algorythm to show me a sneak peak of this gem of a show. I’m really excited to share my views on it in more detail, so let’s go!

Search: WWW is a tvN K-Drama with 16 episodes of each about 1 hour and 15 minutes. I watched it on Viki (I got a Viki Pass now since it’s become my go-to site to watch K-Dramas) for good quality video and subtitling. The story centers on three career-oriented women in their late thirties/early forties – Bae Ta Mi (played by Lim Soo Jung), Cha Hyun (played by Lee Da Hee) and Song Ga Gyung (played by Jeon Hye Jin) – who work for two rivaling web portal engine companies: Unicon and Barro.
These three women have known each other since high school, where Ga Gyung, the eldest, was a respected and admired sunbae to both Ta Mi and Hyun. At the beginning of the series, Ga Gyung and Ta Mi both work at Unicon, which they’ve helped build together, but they’ve been having conflicting views more and more often. Finally, Ta Mi can’t take it anymore and exposes to the whole country during a live broadcasted hearing that Unicon has fabricated real-time search words on the portal website in favor of a certain presidential candidate. Inevitably, she gets fired for this, and after some deliberation she decides to join the competitor, Barro, where Hyun works. While there’s initially some disdain between the two of them – Hyun also has her own personal attachment to Ga Gyung – Ta Mi ends up helping Barro to become what Unicon couldn’t because of its ties to KU Group, led by Ga Gyung’s mother-in-law, that keeps demanding her to approve unethical regulations through Unicon. Whilst the competition between Unicon and Barro plays out, we explore the love lives of the three women as well, and how they do or don’t manage to balance these with their professional ambitions. Will the initial bond between the three women hold in the end, or will their business ambitions take the upper hand even if that means never seeing eye to eye again?

The first thing that pulled me into this show was the opening theme, Search by Elaine. As soon as it started, with the cool animation and the catchy beat, I knew this show was going to be good. I love how, through some really simple shapes and images, they still managed to incorporate so many recurring themes of the story, like the piano keys, the elevators going up and down, the cars riding through city streets, the word searches… It’s so cool. I never skipped it, I’m even sad the sequence got shortened halfway through because I was always bopping to it, lol.
All in all, the whole soundtrack was amazing. I enjoyed every single song, from the MAMAMOO one to the tracks by Sam Kim and Kim Na Young, and the one sung by Lee Da Hee herself which fitted Hyun’s relationship with Ji Hwan so perfectly. I also loved Millennial Love, the game music that Mo Geon composed, and which basically became the theme for his and Ta Mi’s relationship (the fact that it played both during their breakup and their reunion😭). They did so well with the music, it literally sounded like everything was created to fit the theme of the series to a T and I loved the attention to detail in the sound effects they used. I know I usually always mention the soundtrack as an afterthought at the end of my analysis, but in this case I wanted to point it out at the beginning because it was actually the first thing that drew me into this show.

One of the major things I liked about this series was that, besides the fact that it had a solid story and interesting things kept happening, it mainly focused on the (emotional) development of the characters, and this makes it ideal for me to review as well. I’d like to go over the main characters one by one and tie them together in terms of how they were all connected to each other and how they all contributed to each other’s development in one way or another.
First of all, Bae Ta Mi, the undisputed protagonist. Ta Mi is established as always having been a very independent woman. She has definitely dated before (Lee Dong Wook no less), but she insists on never getting married or having children. She’s very passionate about her job, and is consistently one of the few people that will actually take risks in order to do things the right way, even if that means exposing her own company for fabricating search words, or going against the government to secure the privacy of the portal website’s users. Her career is undeniably her main focus, and even though she doesn’t completely shut herself off from the possibility of dating, she is someone who has learned to be comfortable and confident by herself. I think this characteristic came across very well when she met Mo Geon, since he really caught her off guard and she actually pushed him away several times. I honestly think that if it hadn’t been for the fact that their businesses ended up collaborating, he would’ve just remained as a one-night-stand to her that she never planned on pursuing anything further with. So yeah, while she still acts on feelings of attraction and lust – possibly helped by a drink or two – Ta Mi is not actively searching for a life partner. I feel like she kind of made her peace with the fact that the average man wouldn’t accept a woman who didn’t want to get married. She had enough other things in her life that were more important to her. Besides her job, it’s clear to see that she enjoys her private time as well: she goes for dinner by herself without any shame and she has no trouble making friends. I really liked the way she reached out to Da In when they met at that restaurant, and how she kept reaching out to Ah Ra when she was still working at the Unicon cafeteria.
Despite the fact that we don’t actually get much background information on Ta Mi, her family, or how she grew up, I really liked how well-established she was as a character nonetheless. From the start, it’s clear as day what kind of person she is and what her values and morals are. She’s not afraid to go head to head with her boss to confront her with the approval of unethical regulations from higher-up and uses a live broadcasted hearing to expose both her own company for fabrication and some official for illegal intimacy with minors. She keeps coming to work and holding her head up high when she walks down the street, so yeah, she was definitely a badass.
What I particularly liked about Ta Mi was that, despite the lack of prior backstory as I mentioned earlier, we really get to know her throughout the story because she has great character development. Especially in the emotional sense, she goes through so much and we join her on that rollercoaster to become just as invested in her life as when there’d been a whole explanation of how she grew up and became the way she was. It encompassed one of my favorite sayings: “it doesn’t matter where you come from, it’s about where you go from here”. I feel like this is exactly what happened with Ta Mi, because we are just thrown into her life as a full-fledged adult and join her on her journey as a 38-year-old career woman, going through a romance and feelings she never thought she’d experience. I thought that was a really cool and original way of introducing and following a character. We see a strong and independent woman who learns to open herself up and be more vulnerable through developing friendships, depending on others, and experiencing a serious romantic relationship. In hindsight, it didn’t even matter that we didn’t get to see how she was as a child (apart from that one flashback) or that we didn’t get introduced to her parents or something, because that wouldn’t have been relevant to her story: this was about Ta Mi as an independent adult who didn’t have (or need) anyone, from her past or present, to rely on. She was a self-made woman, through and through, and this was a major part of her personality.
I personally thought Ta Mi was an incredibly refreshing and original protagonist. I’ve gotten so used to female lead characters having some sort of sad backstory or defining reason for being the way they are at the beginning of the story, but I kind of liked how they didn’t make a big deal of how Ta Mi became the way she was – she just was, and it didn’t matter how she got there. The only thing that mattered was how she would act after finding out the company she’d been working at for years was pulling unethical strings. I also thought her way of making decisions was very mature: whilst initially against the idea of joining Barro as they had been competitors for so long, she actually ended up switching sides and learned for herself that Barro had way better rules and work ethics than Unicon. She always remained professional on the workfloor, even if she had issues with a specific person, and it was also cool how she remained open to criticisms from other people, how she actually appreciated that. I actually think it’s mostly thanks to criticisms she got from Hyun that she became better at treating her co-workers with equal respect and gratitude, and she also improved articulating certain feelings that she’d otherwise kept to herself for being too sentimental. I really liked seeing her open up to her team members at Barro and how they became such a well-functioning machine throughout.
I’d say that, despite some of her actions in her relationship with Mo Geon (which I’ll discuss later on) Ta Mi was a really relatable and admirable female lead character. I always appreciate female empowerment and this show had an abundance of that, first and foremost through Ta Mi. The writers did an amazing job establishing her character and the actress portrayed both her independence and vulnerability very well. I loved how she both kicked ass and had her determination shaken every so often, because this only contributed to how human and realistic she was. All in all, she was a really cool character and I liked her a lot.

Moving on to our second power woman, Cha Hyun. Hyun is initially introduced as a rival character to Ta Mi. They work for rivaling companies, which basically causes them to dislike each other out of principle. When Ta Mi comes to Barro after she’s fired from Unicon, it takes Hyun a long time to accept her as part of the company, especially when the two of them are set up to work together in Barro’s new Service Care Task Force team. Despite her impeccable sense of fashion and the way she presents herself professionally, Hyun has a surprisingly aggressive side to her as well. She’s tall, athletic, does martial arts, hits the baseball centre when she needs to let off steam, and even has been criminally convited for beaten up a guy that groped her in an elevator at work. In other words: don’t get on her bad side. Contrarily, once on her good side, she proves nothing but an incredibly loyal ally who’d go the extra mile to stand up for and even chase bad guys for you.
Underneath that confidence and strength, Hyun also has a very vulnerable side, which comes out when she watches dramas, suffers from heartache, and in particular, with Ga Gyung. Through flashbacks, we learn that Hyun has been enamored with Ga Gyung ever since she first saw her in high school. Hyun was kind of a tomboy while Ga Gyung was the most popular girl at school who came from a wealthy family, and a special friendship grew between them. Through the years, Hyun never stopped believing in Ga Gyung’s good side, convinced that she was still the same girl she admired in school. I’m not going to lie, at first I actually thought there was some romantic tension between them. The way Hyun got enthralled with her, the bond they shared, the way she got shy when Ga Gyung called her “cute” and stuff… it just screamed “first love” to me. While the story ultimately doesn’t explore these feelings between the two, I did like that they kept the possibility of these feelings open. Honestly, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Hyun turned out to be bisexual or something. It really seemed to fit her personality to be open-minded about the people she felt attracted to, especially since she didn’t seem to have the greatest experiences with dating men so far. As soon as she opened up to someone – as she ultimately does with both Ta Mi and Ji Hwan – she became super affectionate and girly in her behavior, so it really wouldn’t have been a stretch if you ask me.
Cha Hyun was without a doubt my favorite character of the show. I loved her so, so much. I loved the layers to her personality, her different sides, her quirks, how she literally showed up with two baseball bats when Ta Mi called her for help, lol. She was so multi-faceted and I enjoyed every single scene with her because she kept showing new sides to her personality. I also really loved her budding romance with Ji Hwan, how she went from a supportive noona to a love-struck girl when she was with him. She cracked me up to no end, from her first introduction when Ta Mi accidentally got into her car whilst fleeing from reporters to the time she suddenly showed up and rushed past Ta Mi as she was chasing the guy that fabricated Ta Mi’s as a search word. I also loved how she was able to set her initial disdain for Ta Mi aside as soon as the latter got wronged and she just couldn’t help but feel and stand up for her. Honestly, Hyun was the best wingman ever and I loved how the friendship between her and Ta Mi developed. They went from competitors to a power duo, quite literally. Enemies-to-besties. It was so touching to see how she ultimately came to understand Ta Mi so well that she could just pinpoint exactly what Ta Mi was struggling with when she got distracted or started isolating herself, and how she’d just order food to her place with a note that even in isolation she had to keep eating. I loved their friendship dynamic so much. In terms of what I appreciate in a character, Hyun really left nothing to be desired. She was both tough and vulnerable, loyal to the right causes, and just unapologetically herself in every way. I absolutely adored her.

Looking at how both Ta Mi and Hyun develop themselves throughout the story, Ga Gyung definitely stands in stark contrast with them. From beginning to end, she remains quite stoic and keeps her feelings hidden, although this of course has to do with the fact that she’s been held down by KU Group for so long. I honestly really felt for Ga Gyung, once the truth behind her marriage to Jin Woo was revealed. In the beginning, I found it kind of hard to like her because she didn’t stand up for Ta Mi when she got fired for revealing the truth about Unicon’s faults, and she kept choosing KU Group’s side over what would actually be the right thing to do.
It’s hard to get inside Ga Gyung’s head because she prefers to keep to herself rather than talk about her feelings. In hindsight, it’s actually incredibly sad to realize that it was her dream to “disappear”. She was forced into an arranged marriage with no love in it as her parents groveled at the Chairwoman’s feet and she was just expected to follow orders without exception. There was never any room for her to speak her mind or talk back to anyone, she just had to do what she was told and initially, that’s what she did, even if it caused her to lose friends and allies. When we see her in the flashbacks with Hyun in high school she seemed to be a much more lively and bright person, so I can only imagine how much her adult life must have broken her. When you think about it like that, she’s actually a very tragic character, but instead of becoming pathetic, she takes matters into her own hands to find her own kind of peace.
What I liked the most about Ga Gyung’s character development was that she chose to break free from her chains all by herself. No one talked her into it, no one advised her or helped her to stand up for herself. She actually made the decision to break free from KU Group’s grasp all by herself, and that was really gratifying to watch. How she could be so strong when even her own parents weren’t on her side was very impressive, and it only made me realize how truly lonely she must have felt this whole time. Of course it was nice that Jin Woo started showing care towards her at the end, but I liked that Ga Gyung still stuck with her plan to become independent rather than that there was an unexpected blossoming of romance between them after all. I liked the silent affection that existed between them, but it really felt like it was too little too late for them to still work something out, especially after Ga Gyung decided to divorce him and sever all ties with his family. The moments where she managed to secure the CEO position at Unicon and appeared on the news to expose KU Group while they were expecting her to show up elsewhere were really satisfying to watch because she actually did all that by herself without getting caught by her mother-in-law. I just loved when she exposed Jang Hee Eun and just went “Should’ve given me the alimony🤷🏻‍♀️”, that was absolute peak.
All in all, whilst Ga Gyung is initially established as an undeniably less likeable and relatable character than Ta Mi and Hyun, the development she goes through by herself does make her really cool and admirable in my eyes. She actually fought her own battles without any help of a romantic partner, which is unusual in a K-Drama, and I thought that made her a very original and strong character. I feel like we viewers are so used to empathizing with characters through experiencing their emotions with them and watching them go through hardships and getting through life with the support of friends and lovers that we sometimes forget about the people fighting their battles on their own, without such help and support. We meet Ga Gyung when she’s already neck-deep into the hardships and has to find a way out by herself while maintaining her distant demeanor towards the people around her. In a way, it was like Ga Gyung didn’t even allow the viewers to become too emotionally attached to her, and this was quite a genius feature since it fitted her character so well. The only person she allowed herself to soften with was Hyun, and I guess her hubae did prove to be a kind of weakness to Ga Gyung, seeing as how hurt she was when Hyun chose Ta Mi’s side instead of hers. Still, it was cool that her decision to oppose the government alongside Barro was part of her own plan and the result of her own deliberations rather than purely because of her attachment to Hyun or any other kind of weakness. I loved how they revealed that she’d conspired together with Unicon’s former CEO and created that link with all the exposing info on KU Group, that was so satisfying. I’d have to say that all in all, I also really liked Ga Gyung in terms of character originality and how she built up the strength to go against the higher oppressing power all by herself. She managed to make a sad and oppressed character powerful and I really respected that about her.

To say something about the three women in general, I just want to emphasize that I thought it was amazing how they were able to create such strong and well-established female lead characters without even giving them that much backstory, except for their prior connection in high school. I loved how they incorporated the flashbacks into current-time situations, like how Hyun had taken Ga Gyung’s side against Ta Mi when they were kids, and she ended up basically reenacting that situation as adults with the exception of taking Ta Mi’s side instead. The subtle revelation that that girl from the past with the drawing was Ta Mi was so powerful. Honestly, it wouldn’t even have mattered that much who it was, but the simple detail that it had been Ta Mi made it even more powerful because that made it hit Ga Gyung differently than if it had just been a random girl back then. By using these short but succinct flashbacks instead of elaborate backstories, they still provided more than enough context for the relationships between the three women, and I thought that was really awesome.
Other than that, there were a couple of moments where I just really applauded their combined badass-ness. I actually debated on making GIFs of these moments because they were just so amazing. The moment when Ga Gyung became Unicon’s CEO simultaneously with Brian’s reinstallment at Barro was one of my favorite moments. I loved the part where the camera rotated around the three women; the way it highlighted them in that triumphant moment just made me applaud. Honestly, I can’t remember the last show that I watched where I constantly found myself clapping and mumbling “Oh my god, I love this, this is awesome, I love this show”.
I loved how the focus of the story remained on the three women throughout, and how it ended with them driving off into the sunset together. Although all of them (except Ga Gyung) were reunited with their respective boyfriends, the focus wasn’t on that, it was on the three of them succeeding at showing the world what female empowerment looked like, and that was so, so satisfying. It was giving Barbie – the men were actual accessories, lol.

Speaking of these men, let’s get into these fine male accessories, shall we?
Park Mo Geon (played by Jang Ki Yong) is a 28-year-old musical composer who has his own little studio, Millim Sound, where he and his small team work on creating music for video games. I’m not entirely sure if they purely limited themselves to game music, but that’s what’s featured the most in the story, anyways. Mo Geon (whose name is purposely similar to the English name “Morgan”) grew up in Australia with his adoptive parents. He hasn’t been back to Korea for that long when he and Ta Mi first meet, at a local arcade game cafe. He beats her at Tekken, and their immediate connection causes them to keep talking for hours before ending up in a one-night-stand. As it turns out, the music that Mo Geon shares with Ta Mi that night is for a game that her company’s Games department is supporting, and they end up meeting at the office not much later. Despite the fact that Ta Mi keeps pushing him away, mostly because of their 10-year age gap, Mo Geon has clearly fallen for her at first sight and keeps trying to get back in touch with her. For him it wasn’t just a one-night-stand or a mistake, he’s actually immediately smitten with this headstrong independent woman, regardless of her age.
When it comes to Ta Mi, I would definitely say that Mo Geon was a puppy, but also a puppy that knew to play hard to get, lol. I really liked how their dynamic was basically Ta Mi acting standoffish, only to get disappointed when he started doing the same. He was really good at teasing her, lol. In all honesty, the TikTok clip that brought me to this show was the one where Ta Mi was silently checking him out and he went, “Please stop undressing me in your mind” (I do love me some spicy flirting in a K-Drama😏) .
What I appreciated the most about Mo Geon was that he basically vocalized everything that I was thinking about his relationship with Ta Mi. I will talk about this more later, but I have to admit that there were times where I understood his side of things better than Ta Mi’s. He saw everything exactly for what it was, he was very articulate about his feelings, and he never wavered in his love for Ta Mi. He was such a steady green flag, I really liked him. I think we got more backstory from him than from any of the other characters, regarding his adoptive history and the relationship with his biological Korean mom.
Despite the fact that the passing of his biological mother was very awful and sad, I did think it was a good twist to use that incident as something that made Ta Mi realize her true attachment to him by herself, rather than that it made him so pitiable that she felt like she had to go back to him. It was good that they took some distance, because it only made their hearts grow fonder in the end.
Seriously, the chemistry between these two was insane. Even before Ta Mi finally allowed herself to feel her feelings and let Mo Geon in, every single scene they had together just sizzled and I loved it. The scene where they stayed over in a hotel room and sat talking opposite each other was enough to give me goosebumps. They didn’t even do anything physical, but when he suddenly grabbed her wrist at the end, I was like 🫣🫣, lol. I do have to admit that I found their first official kiss a bit mild – I honestly expected them to jump each other😂 – but their romantic scenes were consistently satisfying (and don’t even get me started on that pantry kiss😭👌🏻).
I really liked how mature Mo Geon was despite his age difference with Ta Mi. I believe he did mention something about that he had to grow up fast as a foreign kid in Australia, but it still kept surprising me how emotionally intelligent and articulate he was about his feelings (regular men could learn a thing or two). He was so reflective in the breakup with Ta Mi, as well; I appreciated how he could both stand his ground on his perspective while being respectful enough to back off after hearing her side of things. He really ended up giving her the space she needed to ultimately come back to him out of her own accord. Green flags all around. He was definitely a keeper, and I’m glad Ta Mi did end up keeping him. In their happy moments together they were really sweet and I loved how their respective personalities somehow worked so well together. The actors really made it work too, their chemistry was very enjoyable to watch.

Cha Hyun’s male accessory is introduced a bit later into the show. The first link to him is established when Hyun is watching her favorite show “What’s Wrong With Mother-in-Law”, and realizing that the actor who plays the male lead doesn’t even have a profile page on Barro – he seems to be pretty unknown for someone who plays the lead in such a popular drama. It isn’t until a while later that Hyun accidentally trips a guy on the street after mistaking him for a thief, before realizing that they’re filming a drama and the guy she tripped (and injured) is actually the male lead from the before-mentioned show. His name is Seol Ji Hwan (played by Lee Jae Wook) and he turns out to be a rookie actor who isn’t even signed to an agency yet. Taking full responsibility for his injury, Hyun starts visiting him at the hospital and becomes kind of a benefitor to him using her power as a general manager at Barro. She manages to get him recast in the show after his initial character is written out, she sends coffee trucks to his sets, gets him a personal billboard at a train station… Even though she keeps claiming that she only does it because she’s a fan, there is definitely something growing between them that surpasses a simple celebrity-and-fan relationship – I mean, celebrities don’t usually take their friends to dinner to thank them for their support, or walk their fans home, right?
Seol Ji Hwan was an actual puppy, without the hard-to-get games. He was so innocent and kind and truly grateful for every little step he could take in becoming a better actor. I loved how he was initially introduced through his drama character who was an absolute jerk, and then when Hyun met him in real life he was all smiles and politeness, lol. I thought their romance was really sweet. Hyun was initially the one keeping him at bay, because Ji Hwan wasn’t so dense not to realize what their relationship was starting to look like – he wouldn’t keep asking her “Are you really just a fan?” if he didn’t see what was going on. The scene where Hyun basically lured him to the place where his billboard was at the station was so touching, and I loved their kiss in the lost-and-found room. It was so sweet to see how Hyun was gradually showing him all the different sides to her, and Ji Hwan fell for both the impressive influential badass, the giddy drama fan and the sobby lovestruck girl.
Honestly, at some point I kind of expected Ji Hwan to be a jerk, and that he was just using her influence to make it big, but I’m really glad he was an actual green flag. He could’ve easily taken advantage of what she did for him, but that would’ve made for a whole different story, lol. I liked that Hyun kind of got her fairytale ending at the end, establishing a relationship with her favorite actor. But yeah, I really liked Ji Hwan, he was the sweetest. I’m glad they gave him layers as well, because I don’t know how I would’ve felt if he’d just remained a soft puppy until the end – he definitely knew how to make the move when push came to shove, so that was nice. He and Hyun made a really cute couple together. I shipped them so much, and everytime Hyun let him go without a word I was like “Hyuuuuun!! Don’t let him gooooo 😭😭😭”. He was the purest and sweetest boyfriend for Hyun, and I really liked how they built up their relationship. They were the cutest.

I actually found the relationship between Ga Gyung and her husband Oh Jin Woo (played by Ji Seung Hyun) very intriguing. At first it seemed like Jin Woo was kind of a jerk who completely neglected Ga Gyung as his wife, but I was really surprised when he suddenly started taking note of her and doing things to help her out, even hiding her from his own mother. I do remember him saying that he always felt sorry for how she got trapped by his family, and if I’m correct he did insinuate at the end that he did develop (new) feelings for her, but Ga Gyung still went her own way. I’m not saying that I don’t respect that they remained separate, but I do admit I was kind of curious what would’ve happened if they did actually fall in love towards the end, if Ga Gyung ended up letting him in even though she would still disappear in the end. When his ridiculous car pulled up in the finale, I actually thought it would be him coming to get her one last time (although the revelation that it was the girls was also badass, of course).
In any case, in hindsight I do like to think Jin Woo went through a change, and it was really sweet what he did to help Ga Gyung and how he went along with the divorce, etcetera. I have to say I found him a bit hard to grasp because of the sudden change in his behavior, and I think it would’ve personally helped me to get a bit of insight into both his and Ga Gyung’s psyches to figure out what they were truly thinking about each other, because the fact that they both didn’t talk about their feelings didn’t make it very easy. Despite this, it was nice to see that Ga Gyung at least had Jin Woo on her side, and that he ultimately was willing to help her out in any way that he could, even if that meant going against the wishes of his own mother and the entire KU Group. It was cool of him to take a stand against his own family because he also saw that what they were trying to do was unethical.
I thought that all in all, this show did a really good job at making its characters think outside of the box and reflect on things that they’d gotten used to throughout their lives. It was very satisfying to see even a character like Jin Woo come to terms with what he believed was the right thing to do and to figure out where his real loyalties lay. In the end he was actually a pretty stand-up guy, he just acted on his sympathy for Ga Gyung a bit too late.

Now that I’ve covered all the main characters I’d like to briefly go over several important side characters, starting with the task force team at Barro which Ta Mi and Hyun are put in charge of. When Ta Mi leaves Unicon, she takes two people with her: fellow employee Choi Bong Gi (played by Woo Ji Hyun) and Jo Ah Ra (played by Oh Ah Yeon), who worked at the company cafeteria.
Ta Mi first meets Bong Gi in an elevator at Unicon, and quickly takes note of his personality and positive attitude. I liked their little interaction about how she asked about his “lover” because she couldn’t deduct whether he might be straight, bi or gay, after which he continued to use the word “lover” to indicate his partner, although their gender is never actually revealed. Again, just like with Hyun, I appreciated that they kept that open.
Bong Gi was a literal ball of sunshine, he was always in a good mood and knew how to appreciate everyone and everything. Although he doesn’t really get an arc or any solid backstory, he was a very pleasant supporting character who was on Ta Mi’s side from the start. I thought it was nice that Ta Mi, after the whole ordeal with the hearing and her exposing Unicon’s fabrication antics, at least had a support in Bong Gi. It was so sweet how before the hearing she was like “What lipstick should I wear, I wanna look f*cking badass” (loved that in itself) and afterwards, when everyone else judged her for what she did, Bong Gi came to see her to give her a thumbs up and tell her that she’d looked “f*cking amazing in that lipstick”. Those kind of interactions just proved that they were on the same wavelength and I loved how, when she got the job offer from Barro, Ta Mi immediately knew she wanted to bring Bong Gi along.
I also thought Ta Mi’s affection for Ah Ra was really sweet. Ah Ra used to work at Unicon’s cafeteria and was constantly looked down upon for being “just a coffee girl”. Ta Mi, on the other hand, took note of the fact that Ah Ra always had interesting things to say about business and politics, and she always went to see her to run things by her, because she always got inspired by her. I loved how she just invited her to come work with her at Barro and Ah Ra started screaming with joy, haha. It was nice to see their bond deepen as well. At some point, Ta Mi admitted that she often thought about Ah Ra and felt like coming to see her whenever she was struggling with something, and she does eventually call upon her in the middle of the night one time. Not only did Ah Ra come up with good ideas, working at Barro actually awakened her aptitude and passion for marketing, which she chose to focus on.
Both Bong Gi and Ah Ra were such loyal and sympathetic characters, I really liked their dynamic with Ta Mi and how they just followed her to Barro and fit right in with the rest of the team. I liked that Ah Ra got some more screentime as well, for example when getting patronized by that jerk of a webtoon artist and receiving that bag from Ta Mi (which was super sweet of her) helped her to ultimately find the confidence to come up with new marketing ideas during team meetings. It felt so gratifying when she came up with that public advertisement idea based off bus ads with Bong Gi, it was really nice to see her grow in the background even though the main focus of the story was on Ta Mi. The way the side characters were given attention without it distracting from the main story was really great.
Moving on to the Barro employees, I have to start with Brian. I loved Brian. Min Hong Joo aka Brian (played by Kwon Hae Hyo) was Barro’s CEO and also the one who brought Ta Mi on after seeing her on the hearing for Unicon’s fabricated search words. Although aware of Hyun’s disdain towards Ta Mi, he immediately feels like she’d be a good person to have on the team.
The great thing about Brian was that he had his heart in the right place and he didn’t get as easily persuaded by money and politics as others. He was super chill – sometimes almost too much so – and was mostly focused on creating a happy work environment whilst maintaining good quality of work. Although he agreed with Ta Mi most of the time, there were things he couldn’t approve of because it would affect the company negatively, and that was his biggest concern. I feel like he was a really good judge, both of character and of what would be the right thing to do in practice. Of course, no one liked to see him step down as CEO, but because he did it as a way of taking responsibility, that act in itself was very well-received and attributed to his good character. I loved his reaction to going through the 2500 signatures of people that petitioned him to come back. He had to come back of course, because KU Group was more than eager to take advantage of his absence and sign a deal with his temporary substitute. As I mentioned earlier, the scene in which he came back was one of my favorites. How Ta Mi and Hyun stopped the interim CEO by the entrance to obstruct him from signing the agreement with KU Group and Brian just appeared like, “Hey Kevin, thanks for keeping my seat warm but you don’t have to come to work anymore” and everyone was like “BRIAAAAN 😀😀😀”. That was so satisfying, I was actually sitting at my PC going “YESSSS BRIAN’S BACK LET’S GOOO 👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻”. They did such a great job at highlighting Brian’s absence as a sad one and hyping up his return, I was pulled right in, lol.
As for the other Barro members of the Service Care Task Force team, there’s Choi Jung Hoon aka Alex (played by Song Ji Ho) and Hong Yoo Jin aka Jenny (played by Ha Seung Ri).
I failed to mention this before, but Barro used an English name system where people addressed their colleagues by first names instead of job titles to create a more equal and friendly work environment. The CEO is called Brian, Hyun is called Scarlett, and after coming to Barro, Bong Gi becomes Joseph, Ah Ra becomes Ellie and Ta Mi stays true to her own name and becomes Tami, supposedly a variation on Tammy.
For Alex and Jenny, I feel more comfortable using their English names since that’s how their mostly referred to as throughout the show. I was actually really glad that we at least got a bit of story on both Alex and Jenny. I really liked that little arc in which Alex started doubting his position at the team after Ellie became more involved in marketing, which used to be his expertise. I thought it was a really nice addition to the story because it also became a lesson for Ta Mi to honestly tell him that she didn’t want him to leave and that she really appreciated his contribution and presence in the team. Once he opened up about his insecurities he really became a much more animated person, and he and Ellie started working together on marketing without any further issues.
Jenny was kind of an enigma, haha. I loved how she was introduced through the story of how she used her genius hacking skills to stop traffic so she could spend more time with her crush while waiting for the bus, lol. I initially thought she would be kind of a rigid character, but it was nice to see how quickly she warmed up to Ta Mi, so much so that she even went so far as to collect all the information on the person who fabricated her name as a search word, that was really cool of her.
I really appreciated the whole Service Care Task Force team, they worked so well together and created a really fun and safe space for Ta Mi to turn to. I liked how each of the employees contributed to Ta Mi’s character development as well, even through the tiniest of gestures.

Now that we’ve talked about the Barro team, I also want to briefly discuss the main people at Unicon. At the start of the story, the CEO at Unicon and Ga Gyung’s direct boss is Na In Gyung (played by Yoo Seo Jin). While she and Ga Gyung seem to be on well enough terms at first, In Gyung is under the direct orders of Chairwoman Jang and when Ga Gyung gradually starts rebelling against her mother-in-law, this also puts In Gyung in a difficult position. She becomes more and more greedy to keep her CEO position, but at some point even she can’t control Ga Gyung anymore, and ultimately she becomes the brunt of Ga Gyung’s disobedience. In the end, Ga Gyung is able to provide evidence of that In Gyung hired people with a debatable work history, and takes the CEO position from her. Although In Gyung initially holds a grudge, it seems that she comes to see clearly at some point, as it’s revealed that she provided Ga Gyung with all the necessary information to bring KU Group down.
I honestly didn’t really like In Gyung, but that had everything to do with how she just couldn’t bring up the courage to go against KU Group. She would’ve actually enabled really bad regulations for Unicon, which she was probably aware of, but she kept telling Ga Gyung to just grin and bear it. Although it was a cool revelation that she was the one who ended up helping her expose KU Group, it also came a bit out of nowhere for me since there hadn’t really been any prior hints of her loyalty leaning more towards Ga Gyung than to KU Group in the end. Still, it was nice that she eventually recognized the wrongs that KU Group was planning to pull, and maybe taking distance from Unicon helped her realize that, so I’m not complaining.
The final thing I will say about In Gyung is that her hair looked way better after she quit working. During her time at Unicon she always wore her hair in a super tight hairgel ponytail which wasn’t too flattering for her facial features in my brutally honest opion. But in the few short scenes of her and Ga Gyung during the exchange and the exposure of the KU Group information, the hairgel was gone and her hair looked much prettier and healthier. Sorry for the shallow comment, but that was my honest personal opinion, lol.
If I had to point out a main villain, I’d definitely say it was Ga Gyung’s mother-in-law and Chairwoman of KU Group, Jang Hee Eun (played by Ye Soo Jung). What I thought was really interesting was that, besides her work as the Chairwoman and going on trips with politicians and such to secure their loyalty and support, she was attributed some really curious hobbies. I actually thought it was cool that she was always doing something with her hands when Ga Gyung came to visit her, like painting or sculpting or even tattooing. If anything, it gave her even more of a gangster vibe seeing her sitting there doing her thing while discussing business, lol.
I don’t know what it was about her, but her calm only made her even more intimidating. I was definitely glad that Ga Gyung was able to get away from her unscathed in the end, as in, she didn’t actually get too threatening or anything, but I still thought they did a great job and creating that aura of power around her. I know I said that I didn’t mind that the main characters didn’t get as much backstory, and maybe it wouldn’t have been relevant, but I was definitely curious to learn a bit more about Jang Hee Eun’s psyche and how she became as crooked as she was. Seeing her views on how Ga Gyung should’ve kept behaving as a daughter-in-law it seemed like she still was quite old-school, especially since she got both Ga Gyung’s parents on her side with regards to her beliefs as well. While she initially seemed to see Ga Gyung as an easy-to-manipulate daughter-in-law (when she arranged their marriage she literally told Ga Gyung she’d become “the dog of KU Group”), but I did find it interesting when, as soon as Ga Gyung started rebelling, she suddenly started saying that she liked her and was willing to actually give her the CEO position and all that. In the end I couldn’t really pinpoint what her true feelings towards Ga Gyung were, although it did seem like she felt a lot of annoyance towards her, especially once she started acting up and talking back.
I definitely wouldn’t say Mrs. Jang was a “nice” character, but I still liked the vibe she gave off, especially since she looked like such a frail old woman. I think she was an intimidating enough opponent, and seeing what she put her daughter-in-law through I’m just all the more proud of Ga Gyung for breaking free from her grasp.

Moving on to side characters outside of the corporal rivalry, I’d like to talk a bit about Jung Da In (played by Han Ji Wan). I’ve already briefly mentioned her before, but she and Ta Mi meet when the latter offers to share her meal with her at a BBQ restaurant. Da In has just recently returned to Korea from studying piano in Germany, so she’s happy to make new friends. Besides agreeing to meet up to go out for meat every now and then, Da In also starts teaching Ta Mi how to play the piano – this is something Ta Mi suddenly wants to learn after hearing Mo Geon’s game music. While I initially thought it was nice that there were two separate characters in the show who happened to play the piano well, as soon as Da In said she was going to meet her first love on the same day that Mo Geon had his school reunion, I immediately made the connection. I thought it was pretty cool how they introduced Da In as a separate character first, before involving her in the main story like that.
Honestly, I liked Da In. She was a nice person and she didn’t do anything wrong by liking Mo Geon. I actually appreciated how upfront she was to Ta Mi when she found out Ta Mi had known that Mo Geon was the first love she’d been telling her about and never said anything. I also thought it was cool of her to still confess her feelings to Mo Geon and just gauged if there really was no chance for her, like, she was just true to her own feelings and I couldn’t hate her for that. Even after getting a bit upset with Ta Mi for keeping her in the dark about her relationship with Mo Geon, she still reflected and came back and apologized for everything she could apologize for. I agreed wholeheartedly when she said she couldn’t apologize for still having feelings for Mo Geon, because that is something you can’t help. It was just nice to see that, besides being a lovely and bright person, she was also mature enough to understand the situation and reflect on and apologize for whatever she could. I thought she was a nice supporting character, and as I said it was cool how she became further involved in the story, also in how Mo Geon asked her to play the piano instrumental for his music etcetera. I liked her, she was cool.

The last couple of side characters I want to mention, purely because they kept popping up throughout the story, are Pyo Joon Soo aka Matthew (played by Kim Nam Hee) and Yoon Dong Joo (played by Jo Hye Joo). Pyo Joon Soo worked at Barro, in the Games department. To be honest, I’m not sure if they were making games or producing/funding them or something, but they did have meetings with people like Mo Geon for the music and stuff, so I suppose they were involved with the production, at least.
Pyo Joon Soo is introduced when he suddenly appears next to Ta Mi and treats her VERY friendly. Ta Mi doesn’t recognize him at first but then realizes she dated him back in her twenties (I still can’t get over the fact she legit forgot about him 💀). In any case, it’s been a long time since they saw each other, he cheated on her back then, and so she’s not comfortable with him being so overfamiliar with her. Especially when she finds out he’s actually dating Hyun at that point, and all the more when he turns out to be dating yet another woman.
I’m not gonna lie, Pyo Joon Soo was pretty wild, lol. He just skipped through life and didn’t seem to feel any real remorse towards the women he was dating at the same time. It was funny when he got upset about working with Mo Geon after finding out he was dating Ta Mi. I initially thought they were going to bring Pyo Joon Soo in as a potential love rival or something, but I’m glad he was established as a clown from the get-go, lol. Also, was I the only one who realized they actually misspelled his name on his name plate at work? 🥲 It said Mattehw, lol. I kind of hoped they’d make a joke about it somewhere, but I guess it was a genuine typo and no one else noticed it😅.
Yoon Dong Joo was an influencer, or at least someone who livestreamed vlogs while doing all sorts of things, from visiting places and grocery shopping to mukbangs. Every so often she contributed to real-time search words as she boosted certain topics through her vlogs. She stirred up some drama when she posted an article online exposing her relationship with Pyo Joon Soo, in which she emphasized that SHE was his girlfriend first, NOT Hyun, and this sparked some ill feelings between the two. I love how Hyun called Ta Mi when she was going to meet Dong Joo face-to-face, like she knew she was going to need someone to hold her back, lol.
I honestly didn’t find Dong Joo a very sympathetic character, she really didn’t seem to care much about other people and her actions were slightly childish at times, but it was nice that they at least involved her in different parts of the story to keep her presence relevant. Overall, I can’t say the stories of Pyo Joon Soo and Dong Joo interested me that much, but they weren’t completely irrelevant characters and they still made their own fun contribution to the story.

I’m just going to give one final shoutout to Byun Woo Seok for his appearance as Han Min Gyu, the troubled idol that Ga Gyung got into a semi-scandal with. From what I gathered, Ga Gyung had acted as his “sponsor” before, with all the associated implications, and he at some point even attempted suicide. He appeared quite sporadically and I have to admit I wasn’t too invested in his story, but just as with Dong Joo I liked that they kept him as a recurring character in the story who also contributed to Ga Gyung’s character development. It reminded me of Cha Eun Woo’s role in The Best Hit, albeit significantly more minor. It was just nice seeing another familiar face, even among the more minor characters.

With that, I think I’ve mentioned everything I wanted to say about the characters that I wanted to mention. I’d now like to make some more general comments about things I liked about the show and get to some minor criticisms before moving on to my cast comments.
First of all, I thought the setting of the two rivaling companies was very interesting, and especially the focus on portal websites. I also love it when dramas feature a specific occupation or industry that you normally don’t stop to think about, so this was definitely a very unique choice. I can’t say exactly that I learned that much about how it all worked, and some explanations went straight over my head, but I did appreciate that it focussed on how equally important and stressful working on these portal websites is and how much influence search words have on modern society and politics.
Besides the rivalry in itself I also found the difference in work environments between Unicon and Barro very interesting. There was definitely a stark contrast between Unicon, with its traditional corporal vibe, and Barro, with its western-influenced naming system and open office spaces. I would definitely prefer to work at Barro based on how it was decorated alone, it looked so cool! I loved how the design of the office matched so well with the relaxed vibe of how the people interacted with each other and worked there. Everything about it screamed casual, fun, relaxed, whereas Unicon was much more of a traditional company with a regular hierarchy. Whereas Brian was super easy to approach and interacted with his staff on the same level, Unicon’s CEO was always on a different level than the regular employees and therefore treated differently as well. Corporal dramas can get a bit stuffy sometimes, so I always like it when the office space looks cozy enough to make me want to work there, lol.

Something else I picked up on throughout the show was that they occasionally used really cool and original cinematography and transitions between scenes. I always love it when they do something unique with the cinematography, because I know there can be a lot of symbolic meaning behind the choice of certain angles and shots. I honestly wished I’d made some GIFs because that would’ve made it easier to explain it, but some examples I can remember were a long pan shot to indicate time passing at the Barro task force office, the cinematic sequence of Ta Mi and Mo Geon spending their time after their breakup, and the rotating shots during Brian’s return and the reveal of the three women in the car in the final episode. I love, love, loved the moment when the roof of the “ridiculous car” opened up to reveal the three ladies as WOW by MAMAMOO started playing, that was such a cool moment.
As I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of moments where I was just squealing behind my PC because of cool moments, and the cinematography strongly contributed to my experience of these, so I just wanted to give that aspect a shoutout.

Finally, I thought it was really cool how the English title Search: WWW was derived from Ga Gyung’s final exposure of KU Group’s unethical business. She went on the news and encouraged to go to their portal website of choice and type in “www”, which led them straight to all the chat conversations and secret messages that revealed KU Group’s shady business, given to her by In Gyung after she had to step down from Unicon. This moment actually felt like a proper TITLE DROP HOO! moment, because it made way for a really satisfying ending. After that, I couldn’t agree more that this sentence by Ga Gyung became the title, both in Korean and English. Up to that point, I was inclined to think the “WWW” just stood for the World Wide Web, but this gave it yet another cool last-minute twist and I really liked that.

We’re approaching the end of this review, which means that I’ll only jot down some final criticisms before making my way on to the cast comments. I say criticisms, but they aren’t as much criticisms on the story or the quality of the show as comments on a couple of character responses that I didn’t really get or agree with. It didn’t take away from the rest of the show, that’s for sure, but I still wanted to mention them.
The first one has to do with the whole Pyo Joon Soo two-timing Hyun and Dong Joo and Ta Mi being aware of that. On the one hand, I guess it was a bit similar to how Ta Mi kept her mouth shut when she found out that Mo Geon was Da In’s first love and walking away instead of telling her “sorry, he’s my boyfriend”. On the other hand, the situation was quite different because at this point, Ta Mi wasn’t as close with Hyun yet, and she did actually tell Pyo Joon Soo to stay away from her. Anyways, I just found it very hard to believe that, when Hyun confronted Joon Soo and he let slip that he’d talked about it with Ta Mi, her first response was to go after Ta Mi for not telling her about it sooner. Like, the problem in this whole ordeal was clearly Pyo Joon Soo, why would she get angry at Ta Mi when they weren’t even that close yet? That made no sense to me. It made no sense to me that the girls, including Dong Joo, ended up fighting amongst themselves when it was Pyo Joon Soo who put them all in that situation in the first place. It would’ve been so much better if the three of them just ganged up on him from the start! Girls should stick together!

Coming back to the topic fo Ta Mi and Mo Geon’s relationship which I already teased before, I had difficulty understanding why Ta Mi kept sabotaging their relationship, and I felt like I was more on Mo Geon’s side than on hers. I feel like Ta Mi couldn’t stop worrying about the future while Mo Geon just wanted to enjoy the present with her without thinking too far ahead. Instead of having a nice time together and enjoying each other’s company in the here and now, Ta Mi kept bringing up the issue that he wanted to get married and she didn’t, and it was like she kept looking for excuses to break it off with him. Not because she didn’t love him (quite the opposite), but purely because she felt like she was holding him up while he could’ve been looking for a partner his own age who did have a marriage wish. No matter how many times Mo Geon told her he didn’t care about her age and that they didn’t need to think of deciding whether to marry or not, she really stood her ground on that.
At some point, Mo Geon said something along the lines of “There is just no present with you, because you only worry about the future”. I don’t remember the exact words, but I thought that was a really good way of phrasing it.
Besides Ta Mi’s consistent wavering in their relationship, another thing that bothered me was that I felt like she used Da In’s confession to him as an excuse to break things off with him. I mean, it’s not like she busted them cheating or anything, and she must’ve known that Mo Geon would reject Da In. I honestly thought Ta Mi was actually in the wrong here. She was the only one who knew that Da In was in love with Mo Geon. She realized she’d unknowingly encouraged her to chase after her own boyfriend, and still she actively chose not to do anything with that information. Sure, she quit her piano lessons out of unspoken consideration, but as Mo Geon also commented, she chose to walk away instead of butting into their conversation to say ‘back off, he is my boyfriend’, while that was exactly the kind of move Mo Geon would’ve wanted her to make.
I thought Mo Geon’s descriptions of her behavior were very accurate. It actually felt like, even without the Da In situation, Ta Mi would’ve found some other excuse to justify why their relationship wouldn’t last. Of course I’m glad that she did end up realizing how much she needed him in her life, but I really would’ve liked her to at least be carelessly happy in the moment while they were together instead of constantly doomthinking like “oh wait but he still wants to get married so it won’t last anyway”. It would’ve made their relationship more enjoyable to watch if it wasn’t for this cloud constantly hanging over them. It’s because of this that I ended up enjoying the relationship between Hyun and Ji Hwan more, because at least Hyun – despite also initially holding back – expressed her feelings very clearly when push came to shove. Ta Mi just kept her walls up the entire time, which made me feel for Mo Geon because he was literally head over heels with her and never made a big deal about their differences because he just enjoyed spending time with her. I guess I just couldn’t really understand why Ta Mi was so bent on sabotaging herself when she was literally living the dream: she had a really nice connection with a super cute, younger guy who was completely into her. Just enjoy what you have!

I’d say that’s it for my analysis, really! I’d like to start on my cast comments section now. It was really nice to see so many familiar and new faces in this show, and I definitely saw some new sides to actors I’d seen before, so that was exciting.

I’d seen Lim Soo Jung before in I’m Sorry, I Love You and Chicago Typewriter, and in the movie I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Okay. I know she does more movies than dramas, but it seems like she’s been doing more dramas recently, so that’s cool. I think this is the first time she really made a big impression on me. Her portrayal of Ta Mi was really nice, I loved how she could switch between the different layers of Ta Mi’s personality and portrayed both the tough badass side as the more emotional and vulnerable side. I also really liked her chemistry with Jang Ki Yong, especially since in real-life there’s a 13-year age difference between them! It didn’t look like that at all, to be honest, I thought they were very well-matched. I might actually check out her more recent dramas, I’m really excited to see her in more modern dramas since I’d only seen her in older stuff before. Anyways, I thought she was a really great choice for Ta Mi, she certainly embodied that confidence and she did looking f*cking badass with that lipstick (not to mention the Swarovski sunglasses😎. I hope I get to see more of her!

It’s funny because I mainly know Lee Da Hee as the host for variety shows like Road to Kingdom and a panellist for Single’s Inferno, but I haven’t actually seen that many dramas with her. Besides her appearance in one of my favorite shows, I Hear Your Voice, I’ve only seen her in The Beauty Inside. Welp, guess I can add a new favorite role of hers to my list! As I mentioned in my analysis of Hyun, she was my absolute favorite character. I will forever remember Lee Da Hee as Hyun now, she did such an amazing job. It was my first time seeing her portray such an expressive and versatile character who could go from kicking someone’s ass on the street to gross-sobbing over a drama series. She brought so much energy, so much effortless humor, and I’m delighted that I got to see her in this. She’s definitely rising in my list of favorite Korean people, I just love how this show and this character brought such an unexpected spunky side out of her and how she was so natural throughout the whole thing. I absolutely adored her in this, and I know I’ll see her in more. I can’t wait!

Apparently, Jeon Hye Jin was also in I’m Sorry, I Love You, but it’s been too long since I watched that – I only remember Lim Soo Jung from it since she was the main character. So yeah, besides, that I didn’t actually know Jeon Hye Jin from anything else, and it was cool to see an unfamiliar face shine among so much familiar ones. I really liked her portrayal of Ga Gyung, she emitted such an enigmatic energy that I just wanted to take a peak inside her head to see what she was thinking. I think she did a great job at suppressing her emotions as Ga Gyung, like it was actually nice when there was a tiny smile here and then, but other than that she kept everything she felt strictly to herself, not only from the other characters but also from the viewers. Even we are left guessing as to what her next move would be, and that was actually quite genius. I liked that there was at least one main character to keep my on my toes, and it was all the more satisfying when they all drove off together in the end, finally free. I thought her portrayal of Ga Gyung was very impressive, because you could just feel the silent rage bubbling under her stoic demeanor sometimes and that made her very unpredictable. I thought she did great. Now I wonder if I’ll ever see her in anything where she’s suddenly super smiley and bubbly, because that’ll take some getting used to, haha. I’m curious to see different sides of her acting now that I’ve seen her stoic side, though!

I’ve seen Jang Ki Yong in a bunch of shows before, such as Surplus Princess, The Liar and His Lover, Go Back Couple, My Mister and Come and Hug Me. I think this might have been the first time I’ve seen him play a flirty/seductive role, but I can honestly say he pulled it off very well. He definitely made me swoon (again, that pantry kiss scene😩)! He just has something over him that’s effortlessly confident, not in a dominating or toxic masculinity way, but in an actual smooth way, lol. I really liked what he brought to Mo Geon, he got to show a variety of emotions and as I said I really liked his chemistry with Lim Soo Jung. It looked like they were actually comfortable with each other, despite being 13 years apart, and I can imagine that isn’t always an easy thing to pull off, even as professional actors. It was nice seeing an unexpected cheeky side to his acting, he really portrayed Mo Geon’s youthfulness and maturity very well. He’s such a consistently good actor who always delivers, so I was glad to see him in this and look forward to watching more of his shows.

I didn’t even know Lee Jae Wook was in this until I saw the introductory section! At first I legit thought he would just appear as a character in the TV show, but I’m glad they made him an actual person, lol. I’ve seen Lee Jae Wook before in Extraordinary You and Alchemy of Souls, and after the latter he really stole my heart. Now I am happy to see him in anything, whether it’s as a jerk or a puppy – and in this show, he got to play both!😆 It was actually really nice seeing him as such a smiley guy because he does tend to have a bit of an RBF, lol. I thought his chemistry with Lee Da Hee was super sweet, and the romance between Hyun and Ji Hwan was my favorite out of the whole show. Honestly, he was such a cutie patootie as Ji Hwan, and I loved how he got to show off his versatility through his portrayal of that awful drama male lead. I honestly couldn’t when he got slapped with seaweed, and when he went “You can’t be pregnant! I’m infertile!” with that super serious expression on his face🤣🤣. He did an awesome job, I really hope I get to see him in more dramas after this, I love seeing new sides of his acting!

Apparently, Ji Seung Hyun appeared in Descendants of the Sun, but I don’t remember him from there. He’s also in a bunch of shows that’s still on my to watch list. In any case, while watching this I didn’t think I recognized him from anything else. It’s funny how the couples are matched like this, with him and Jeon Hye Jin being the only main actors I didn’t know before. I thought they were very well-matched in energy, and I even admit getting a little excited when Jin Woo suddenly started acting so caring towards Ga Gyung and holding her close. I loved the scene where he comforted her when she started crying after signing the divorce papers. I would’ve liked to know a bit more about their relationship as a married couple though, because despite the fact that they were clearly never affectionate or intimate with each other, there still seemed to be some kind of empathy between the two of them. Ga Gyung even admitted that he wasn’t one of the reasons why she wanted a divorce, so despite his neglect of her he must have at least shown her some kind of sympathy during their marriage. I liked that he became a bit more emotive and expressive throughout, to the point where I actually wanted to root for him to win Ga Gyung over, lol. In any case, it was nice to see him switch between a seemingly distant husband to a supportive friend to Ga Gyung, and I liked the silent chemistry that existed between them.

I’ve seen Kwon Hae Hyo before in Lie to Me and Jealousy Incarnate, and although I can’t remember him exactly from those shows, his face was definitely familiar to me. I really loved him as Brian. He brought just the right energy to the Barro team, and I loved his dynamic with Ta Mi and Hyun, like they were his rowdy daughters or something, lol. It was cool to see how he switched between the relaxed, jovial co-worker and the serious, more responsible CEO. If only every CEO could be like Brian, that would make the corporal world a much better place. I really enjoyed his performance, he made such a great impression on me in this show that now I’m looking forward to seeing him act in something else. Great casting choice. He didn’t even do that much and still managed to invoke such sympathy that I was actually ready to sign that petition for his return along with the other 2500 people, haha. He was the best.

I was getting confused when searching on MyDramaList because I was sure that I recognized Ye Soo Jung from something but couldn’t find anything I watched that she appeared in – and then I got to Specials and realized she was Sister Sabina in the SF8 episode The Prayer! I keep forgetting MDL lists SF8 as a special rather than an actual drama. Anyways, I definitely remember Ye Soo Jung from that! It was really cool to see her portray Chairwoman Jang, I wouldn’t have guessed she would be able to exude such an intimidating energy from tattooing, lol. I thought she made a formidable villain character, especially because of her consistent calmness. She already managed to make me feel uneasy with just one stern look, and that’s impressive. As I said, it would’ve been nice to get a little bit more backstory on Mrs. Jang, or at least just a hint of humanity to redeem her, but on the other hand it wasn’t really needed because all that mattered was that she continued to be crooked, even after Ga Gyung exposed her shadiness to the world. I thought she did a great job at portraying her as this frail-looking yet intimidating and calculating business lady.

I’m going to leave it here for the cast comments. I know I discussed way more characters in my analysis, but I simply don’t have much to add to what I’ve already mentioned about the supporting actors. I generally liked everyone’s performance a lot, the casting was great and everyone brought a really exciting energy to the show in their own way. I hope I get to see the actors I didn’t know yet in more dramas in the (near) future so I can build on my references.

And with that, we have reached the end of this review! I kind of bulldozered on today because I didn’t want to take more than two days to finish this. The story is pretty straightforward, there’s plenty of interesting events and not a dull moment in the character and romantic developments, so I had a really good time watching it. I’m not even lying when I say this one is going into my favorites list, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I really like that shows like this exist which despite not having even been promoted that much (as far as I know) still turn out to be actual gemstones. From the music to the cinematography to the acting, the setting, the story and the characters, I was properly pulled in and I wasn’t disappointed. I am so glad I put this on my last after that Mo Geon thirst clip🤣. I really had a great time watching this.

Having said that, I am very much looking forward to my next watch and I’ll try to upload another review next month.

Until then, bye-bee! x

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.

Love of Summer Night
(夏夜知君暖 / Xia Ye Zhi Jun Nuan / Summer Night Knows Your Warmth)
MyDramaList rating: 6.0/10

Hello hello! Welcome to another drama review. I’m happy I got to finish this one quite fast without taking too many breaks in-between. I remember adding this show to my list quite recently, maybe after seeing a clip from it on TikTok or something. It was nice to switch between shows that I’ve been waiting for to watch and ones that I only recently discovered. There were definitely a lot of inconveniences while watching this show and it had a lot of flaws, but overall it was a cute simple love story with an interesting plot. Sometimes it’s nice to watch a show that’s just cute to watch despite not having too much depth, especially when it’s short and refreshing. In any case, let’s just get to it!

Love of Summer Night is a MangoTV Chinese Drama with 24 episodes of about 35 minutes each. The story is about college student Su Nuan Xia (played by Wang Zi Wei), who aspires to reassemble her dad’s basketball team. Her father was the respected coach of the Qingmeng University basketball team, but when he passed away from a heart attack right after his team lost an important match, the team disbanded and most of the members lost their passion for basketball altogether as a result from losing their beloved coach. Nuan Xia, majoring in sports management and anatomy (I believe) at Qingmeng, wishes to follow in her father’s footsteps, reassemble the team and become the new coach. Supported by her roommate and best friend Xiao Tu Tu (played by Jiang Shen), who will act as the team’s manager, Nuan Xia starts tenaciously pursuing the old team members while keeping an eye out for new potential talent along the way. She encounters her first hurdle when she meets Jun Ye (played by Deng Chao Yuan/Aaron Deng), the former star player who doesn’t seem to have any intention to return to the team whatsoever. When the former captain of the team and the girls’ childhood friend Chu Ran (played by Zhang Da Yuan/ Darrien Zhang) shockingly decides to transfer to the basketball team of rivalling university Shenhua, it leaves them even more discouraged. However, through trial and error they still succeed to recruit the original team, including the remaining members Shen Ying Liang (Meng She), Zhang Xiao Qiang (Li Dong Shan) and Qi Feng (Zhang Mao Chang) and one new promising player called Ling Xuan (Qi Tian Ying), a very agile delivery guy. With this new team, Nuan Xia strives to beat Shenhua University and make her late father’s wish come true, even if that means starting from scratch in getting all the players to get along and play as a team. Also, she and Jun Ye start developing feelings for each other that seem to go way beyond coach and player – will they be alright?

Let me just start right off the bat by saying that it was nearly impossible to watch this series with proper English subtitles. I looked around and saw a lot of similar complaints about it, so I know I’m not the only one. I eventually watched it on Dailymotion because even the YouTube captions couldn’t do it for me. The subtitles were so confusing and all over the place that it made it hard to follow what was going on; they mistyped the characters’ names a lot and even started translating them into half English half Chinese at some point, which made it even harder to figure out what everyone was called (which is already a struggle for me in Chinese dramas in general). I’m convinced that I must’ve missed a lot of information provided in the original dialogue that wasn’t included or conveyed clearly enough in the subtitles, which is a real pity. I really don’t understand why people can sub Japanese and Korean shows flawlessly, but there’s never a Chinese show with proper, clear, grammatically correct English subtitles. In this case, it actually took away from my watching experience because I legit couldn’t understand some conversations because of this barrier.

Having said that, when I look past the practical inconveniences and focus on the story in general, I did think it had an interesting premise. The idea of a female protagonist wanting to reassemble her late father’s basketball team was fun and original, also because it included breaking a certain gender stereotype (in this case, having a female basketball coach), something I always appreciate seeing in Chinese dramas. I remember really liking Sweet Combat because it featured so many strong athletic female characters and it actively challenged gender stereotypes in the context of sports and physical strength. I liked the concept of Nuan Xia having to prove herself to be her father’s daughter in terms of coaching skills, and how she would have to find ways to get the players to get along and start playing as a team. It was a nice way to start the series, showing Nuan Xia’s determination to do this for her dad whilst maintaining her own personal ambition for following in his footsteps.
My only criticism in this regard would be that I think they could’ve done way more with it. The premise was strong, the intention was there, but they didn’t actually go as far as to really use basketball as a way to tap into the characters’ personalities or the technicalities of the sport itself. I believe the only time they really started analyzing gameplay and tactics was during the final match in the very last episode. Despite the fact that the actors actually had to play basketball and seemed to be apt enough at it, it felt like they didn’t actually use the sport as a bonding tool as much as they set out to do, and the way they depicted the trainings felt quite shallow. Despite Nuan Xia’s eccentric ideas of cuffing the players’ hands together to become more in sync with each other and the occasional jogging sessions around the athletics field, there was no realistic in-depth training depicted. I couldn’t help but read some comments on MDL that also criticized this, how it didn’t give a very realistic portrayal of playing basketball. Honestly, as a complete sports noob, it didn’t bother me as much that the basketball playing wasn’t that realistic, I enjoyed the parts where they were playing nonetheless. But I did find it a pity that they didn’t use the training to, for example, tap into each player’s personal strengths and weaknesses more. Introducing the players individually throughout the trainings and attributing them their own personal quirks and flaws would have given them much more to work with, and it might’ve made up for the lack of backstory and depth in both the story and the characters.

This lack of backstory and the fact that this caused the characters to remain quite one-dimensional makes it hard for me to really analyze the characters as elaborately as I usually do in my reviews. What I’ll do is I’ll just go through the main cast one by one to give a concise summary of their personalities and relationship dynamics with the others, adding my personal comments and criticisms as I go.

Starting with Nuan Xia, as I said, I really liked how determined she was from the start, because this made it very easy to root for her from the get-go. I also liked that she wasn’t just some typical female lead with rose-tinted glasses on who just wanted to grant her dad’s wish without actually having the skills to do so – besides being very physically strong, she actually inherited her dad’s coaching skills, which immediately shone through when she started scouting people. She didn’t shy away from commenting on the guys’ body proportions and physical strengths, or even from touching their chests and stuff – she acted really professional when it came to the team and I thought that was very cool of her. I guess it was just nice to see a confident and athletic female character who accepted herself for who she was, even if she wasn’t the “girliest” in the way she acted and dressed. I think she even mentioned to Jun Ye in one of the final episodes that he would have to accept that his girlfriend had “manly” characteristics (after which he very sweetly pointed out all her feminine and cute ones). It was just nice that she was unapologetic about who she was, and that she never got insecure about her looks or personality even once. She was a very solid female character, and I appreciated that. I think she was one of the few characters in the story that remained very consistent, even after she became lovey-dovey with Jun Ye. There was no sudden change in her personality, she adapted very naturally to the new feelings and still remained herself. She actually had a couple of legit badass scenes, like when she filled in during the first match against Shenhua’s reserve team and how she got out of that car wearing the sunglasses – even if the situation was silly, I really liked the energy she gave off during those scenes.

Jun Ye comes from a wealthy family and is expected to take over his family’s company – which is why his grandpa doesn’t like him going back to the court. That’s about all the backstory we get from Jun Ye, during the short arc where his grandfather tries to stop him from dating Nuan Xia and playing basketball. Other than that, while seemingly stoic and guarded at first, it doesn’t take him long at all to start falling for Nuan Xia. I was actually really surprised when he already started daydreaming about her in like, episode four or something. On the other hand, it might have been for the better because it definitely sped things up between them and getting to the point can sometimes be very refreshing compared to a slowburn romance. In any case, it didn’t take long for Jun Ye’s cool demeanor to thaw and for him to become more cooperative in Nuan Xia’s attempts to revive the Qingmeng basketball team. If I remember correctly, he had a personal attachment to the basketball court hall since it was built for him by his father (?) or something, and that’s how he ultimately ends up joining the team. Since the disbanding of the original team, Jun Ye’s skills have definitely dwindled and he needs to up his game as much as everyone else in order to regain his former reputation of star player. What he may lack in skills, he makes up for in looks and popularity – he has his personal cheering squad, led by a girl named Anna (Wu Jia Xuan). Luckily for Nuan Xia, he is cool enough to dismiss all these fangirls and outward attention when it comes to expressing his feelings for her. I appreciated that he didn’t beat around the bush and didn’t send any mixed signals but just approached her directly as soon as he acknowledged how he felt about her. Although it happened quite fast, it was nice to see how he just couldn’t help be intrigued after witnessing how physically strong she was; I like to think that that’s the first thing that really made an impression on him, just like how Domyouji started liking Makino after she kicked him in the face in HYD, lol.

While I liked the romance between Nuan Xia and Jun Ye and how naturally it happened, one thing that kind of took away from the romantic development between them was the addition of the extra scenes at the end of each episode. I read several comments about these, and apparently no one really understands what they were for and if they were supposed to be hypothetical scenarios or something. They are basically cute short scenes of Nuan Xia and Jun Ye as a couple. While there wasn’t anything wrong with the scenes themselves, my point is that they already started showing these extra scenes before the two actually became a couple in the main story, which was very confusing. Showing their lovey-dovey relationship dynamic ahead of time kind of ruined their romantic development for me. It took away the anticipation of watching how their love would bloom and how they would be as a couple. I honestly still don’t understand why they felt the need to add these extra scenes. In my opinion, they could’ve either added them in the main story once the two got together, or omitted them altogether. I thought it was a very weird decision to structure it like this. After all, their dynamic pretty much starts off as a kind of enemies-to-lovers trope, so prematurely spoiling them as a lovey-dovey couple right off the bat took away the whole effect of watching them slowly grow closer.

Chu Ran was the captain of the original Qingmeng basketball team, and he and Nuan Xia’s father apparently shared a bond similar to one of father and son. This also supports the storyline that he and Nuan Xia grew up together, and that he was always like a big brother to her. Nuan Xia’s father’s heart attack happened right after Chu Ran missed the final shot in their final important match, and it’s revealed in the very last episode that he’s always been haunted by that. This incident has made him believe that winning is the only important thing, and that’s why he decides to join Shenhua as an assistant coach, as their chances are higher than Qingmeng, which had fallen apart. Despite now being rivals, Chu Ran still remains on good terms with Nuan Xia and Tu Tu.
The most confusing thing about Chu Ran for me was the fact that his intentions remained very unclear to me. He initially says that Nuan Xia and Tu Tu are like younger sisters to him, and when Tu Tu first tells him that Nuan Xia and Jun Ye are getting together, he doesn’t seem to be affected by that news at all – he even says something along the lines of “they look good together”. But then, after that, it’s suddenly insinuated that he actually does have feelings for Nuan Xia, creating a sense of love rivalry between him and Jun Ye. This became even more confusing with the “introduction” of the random girl in the extra episodes, who seemed to suddenly become Chu Ran’s girlfriend (I’m getting back to this later because this actually made no sense to me). Until the very end, I had no idea whether Chu Ran was actually in love with Nuan Xia or not, because if he did, it was really only in words and not actions. It may have also had to do with the actor’s stiff acting and the fact that he consistently had one and the same expression on his face throughout the show, which made it hard for me to read him. In any case, it wasn’t that Chu Ran was an unsympathetic character, but the fact that he remained so stoic and his intentions weren’t conveyed clearly (again, this might be the subtitles’ fault) I found it a bit hard to gauge what he was thinking most of the time. I also found it a bit weird that they only played out that dramatic emotional story of him being traumatized by Nuan Xia’s father’s death, believing it to be his fault and causing him to get obsessed with winning so as not to cause something like that again, in the very last episode. Like, they could’ve revealed this psychological layer to his character gradually throughout the story. Dumping the lore of Nuan Xia’s father’s notebooks in which he wrote so much about Chu Ran in the last episode without any gradual buildup or closure, only to wrap it up within ten minutes, felt kind of random and it definitely didn’t have the dramatic effect that it could’ve had.

If there was any character I would’ve liked to have more substance, it was Tu Tu. Despite the fact that she’s the cute, happy-go-lucky ever-loyal sidekick of Nuan Xia, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the point was that she really was just that: a sidekick. She really just exists as Nuan Xia’s best (childhood) friend and college dormmate who goes along with everything her bestie does. She even joins her on the whole basketball mission, even though it’s never established what her own personal attachment to the team or the sport is. I originally didn’t think about it too much, figuring she just did it because she’d also known Nuan Xia’s dad and was just being an supportive friend, but in hindsight it hit me that she actually didn’t seem to have a life of her own.
I remember loving how in A Little Thing Called First Love, the best friend character went her own way in college, being the only one who decided to study something else than the rest, creating a life for herself besides her friendship with the FL. I feel like Tu Tu would’ve been a much more interesting character if they’d at least given her something to do besides tagging along with Nuan Xia all the time. Honestly, it didn’t feel like she had any personal ties with or knowledge of basketball and she definitely didn’t seem like the sporty type herself. She was always just kind of hanging around during the trainings, occasionally bringing in some drinks and meal boxes. She really didn’t seem to have her own personal life besides that. Even after she got together with Ling Xuan, the only change was that she started occasionally helping out at the boba shop where he worked part-time, but that’s it. It’s like she was only ever the supporting character in other people’s stories, but never the main character in her own. I was really curious to find out more about how she and Nuan Xia came to be such close friends – I mean heck, if she devoted her entire college life to assist Nuan Xia in her dream without expressing any personal ambitions for herself, it must mean they had an unbreakable rock-solid friendship, right? Despite the way she dressed there was really nothing that set her apart as an individual character with a mind of her own, and that was a real pity. The only time I thought she showed some proper backbone was when, after Ling Xuan finally confessed back to her, she expressed her self-awareness by acknowledging that she felt rushed to respond to his confession, and that she didn’t immediately want to jump in on it, but instead preferred to take it slow to reconfirm that she still felt the same way. That was unexpectedly, dare I say uncharacteristically mature of her, compared to the simple-minded hopeless romantic girlie she was initially made out to be. Besides this, I also had an issue with the actress’ acting, because she really didn’t seem to know how to convey anything through her facial expressions and it just seemed like she was saying her lines without any feeling behind it. Tu Tu could’ve been a really cool supporting character, and I liked how they “designed” her with the cute clothing and the bunny references in her accessories, but I would’ve liked it if she’d shown at least a bit more personality and individuality in her own life and hobbies, rather than only ever hanging around Nuan Xia or Ling Xuan.

Ling Xuan was one of the characters that quickly piqued my interest because of his personality, as he immediately set himself apart from the others. I really liked the way Nuan Xia discovered him, how she saw him run really fast while doing deliveries and just went straight after him. I thought it was also nice to have at least one slightly whimsical character in the show, because his mood swings actually kept me on my toes, lol. I also liked that they paired him up with Tu Tu, although the way they portrayed their romance did feel a bit forced to me. I personally think they could’ve been an absolutely adorable couple if there’d been a little bit more chemistry between the actors, but the buildup between them was pretty sweet. Just like they saved the dramatic story surrounding Chu Ran until the end, they also created some last minute conflict with Ling Xuan suddenly feeling so insecure that he even debated transfering to Shenhua. I thought this was a bit extreme, and he should’ve just accepted that they let him win that trial match with Jun Ye to get his spirits up for the real match (although I really blamed Tu Tu for telling him the truth in the first place). All in all, it felt like they suddenly drew something dramatic out of something that wasn’t actually that big of a deal, just to create some last minute friction before the final match, and it felt a bit unnecessary to me. Still, I did like Ling Xuan as a character, and although I don’t actually remember if they explained why he had to work so many part-time jobs, I did feel like giving him that “side quest” of maintaining several jobs contributed to his character, because at least it proved that he had a life outside of the basketball team and Tu Tu. I thought he was a nice addition to the team in terms of personality and energy, even more so because he tended to be a bit hotheaded at times.

My personal favorite basketball team member was Shen Ying Liang, the most compliant player who was also the first to agree to come back to the team. I guess it must be because I like characters that have a life of their own outside the events of the main story, because Ying Liang was the only character with a completely different study path than the rest, he majored in science. He was frequently shown doing experiments in a lab. I don’t know what it was with him, but he was just such a sweet beanpole. I loved that he wore his science glasses during trainings and matches, and it was so typical that he literally had a streak of three consecutive shots before he passed out from exhaustion, lol. My boy was fragile, not gonna lie. Still, he brought a really calm and peaceful energy to the team and I liked how he always managed to stay professional and mature, even when people would tell him he should just give up on the team. He enabled a nice balance between players who made it hard for Nuan Xia to bring everyone together and players who just went along with it and appreciated what she was trying to do.

Zhang Xiao Qiang is initially always seen hanging around Jun Ye, even calling him “bro”, but once the team is complete and Jun Ye starts hanging out with Nuan Xia more, he kind of becomes this duo with Qi Feng, which was kind of typical. Anyways, Xiao Qiang was more like the casual, funny guy of the group. He didn’t really seem to take Nuan Xia’s plan seriously at first, but he did end up becoming one of the most loyal team members who always showed up and gave everything he had during the trainings. Again, I liked his energy, how he had another completely different personality within the team to brighten the mood and it was also funny how he immediately started calling Jun Ye out for crushing on Nuan Xia. It was kind of a pity that they took him away from Jun Ye’s side, because that also meant he got lesser screentime, and I would’ve liked it if he’d remained more of a best-friend-to-the-ML kind of character rather than that they just pushed him aside as soon as the main couple got together. Don’t get me wrong, he and Qi Feng were a funny duo, but because they were both supporting characters they really ended up being pushed to the background once the romance development came into play, which was a pity. I would’ve liked to get a bit more background information on him as well.

Qi Feng was the typical brute force of the team, who had the build but – sorry to say – not exactly the brains. I couldn’t help but feel like he would be a perfect cast for Takeo from Oremonogatari, he was like the spitting image of him, lol. My main criticism with Qi Feng was that he really was just depicted as the dumb big guy who could only focus on whether Anna was around or not, since he had a major crush on her. In the beginning I almost thought they would create an unexpected romance between him and Anna, but that didn’t happen. That would’ve been a funny twist, just saying. But no, he was just a big brute with only thoughts of this one girl in his brain. Despite the fact that he and Xiao Qiang made a funny duo, here I also feel like they could’ve done more or at least elaborated on their friendship a bit more. Besides this, I honestly didn’t really like the actor’s acting – his expressions were all over the place, he didn’t really seem to know what he was doing when he said his lines and the awful dubbing didn’t help either. Honestly, his dubbed voice sounded like someone putting on a very typical dumb troll voice. It’s a shame, really, because in terms of physique he stood out so much, but compared to the other team members he really didn’t seem to have any kind of personality or individualistic elements that made him stand out as an interesting character.

All in all, I feel like they had a really nice group of characters in the basketball team, and as I mentioned before, it would’ve been nice to get to know each and everyone individually throughout the trainings, for example by introducing them all through a mini arc to get them to participate, like they did in The Big Boss – didn’t like that show at all, but at least they had proper character arcs. Since the team consisted of such diverse personalities, it would’ve been great if they could’ve tapped into that aspect more and at least highlighted them one by one, also to emphasize their respective strengths and weaknesses as a team. I actually liked the exercise where they were cuffed together to get more in synch, so maybe they could’ve done more one-on-one features of specific team members bonding or something.

Moving on to some characters outside of the basketball team, there’s Anna to discuss. As I mentioned before, Anna is the leader of Jun Ye’s fanclub who is initially established as the bitchy character who tries to put Nuan Xia in a bad light for “trying to steal Jun Ye” from her. However, I’m really glad they redeemed her character because she actually became a much nicer person throughout the show. It was refreshing that they didn’t keep her in as the token bitch girl who just wouldn’t stop pulling stupid pranks to try and make the FL look bad (looking at you, girl from Love O2O 👀). She actually wasn’t that bad, and I liked her dynamic with Lu Ye and how she started seeing him in a new light once he started helping the Qingmeng team out with their training. Again, it would’ve been nice to get a bit more backstory from her besides being from a similarly rich family as Jun Ye and being a possible arranged match for him. Still, as annoying as she was in the beginning, she really redeemed herself and I’m glad they chose to do that instead of making already typical characters even more typical.

If I remember correctly, Lu Ye (Liu Bin Hao) was a former player from Shenhua, but he was also a friend of Jun Ye’s and he at some point starts helping the team out by for example lending them an outdoor training space. He was a very mature character, and I liked his reasoning for both wanting to help Jun Ye out but also not wanting to overstep his boundaries because of his lingering loyalty to Shenhua. Still, it was really satisfying when he actually started assisting in their training and even ended up filling in for the Qingmeng team in the final match. His dynamic with Anna was kind of like the one between Nuan Xia and Chu Ran, they were childhood friends who ultimately came to see each other as more than that, and I liked how he suddenly started pursuing Anna at some point, they were a nice pairing. Although he only appeared occasionally, he brought a very welcome energy which made me glad to see him whenever he stepped in, so that was cool.

Finally, I’m just quickly going over the members of the Shenhua team, who for some reason are credited as supporting characters more dominantly than the Qingmeng people – the actors who played Shen Ying Liang, Zhang Xiao Qiang and Qi Feng aren’t even credited on MyDramaList despite being part of the main cast. Apart from Chu Ran and the coach Han Mo (Xu Peng), there was Xia Ze (Yu Kai Ning), Gu Yuan (Xu Hao), Bai Yin , Jiang Yi Chen (Zhang Hong Yang) and last and very least, Ding Lei (Feng Sheng Hao). Even though these characters didn’t get any significant backstory either, I did like that they at least had personality and exuded a certain sassiness in their playing styles. I actually liked Xia Ze, for some reason. He definitely needed to be more of a sport in terms of competition manners, but he had something cheeky and arrogant to him that I lowkey liked, haha. It was funny how they kind of linked two players from each team together like set opponents, and how Shenhua had a big guy like Qi Feng of their own. The only person I distinctly disliked was Ding Lei, this dude sucked. I didn’t like his attitude, he thought he was the shit but really had to throw a tantrum in order to get Chu Ran to include him in the official team. He also had the same emotionless face throughout the show, which annoyed me, so no, I didn’t like him. 😂 But yeah, even if Shenhua was literally the only team Qingmeng ever played against, it was kind of nice to have a solid set of opponents with their own strengths. It kind of reminded me of Haikyuu!, where you get introduced to players from different teams and their respective playing styles. Again, they could’ve done more with it, but the intention was there.

Now that I’ve completed my notes on all the characters, I’d like to address some final aspects of the series that stood out to me or bothered me in some way.
Something that kept coming back was the fact that this show had the tendency to really botch its character introductions. One main example of this lay with the character Yao Zhen. She was literally brought into the story as a new love rival out of the blue, without a proper introduction or any kind of established history with Jun Ye. She literally just showed up out of nowhere to greet him and I was like, “sorry, but who the f are you?” This in turn made it very hard for me to take her seriously when she went off at Jun Ye for not appreciating her efforts of going after him, like girl, you literally appeared ten minutes ago and you’re already saying things like, “I’m not leaving until you love me, I’ve put in so much effort, you can’t date Nuan Xia” etc. etc. etc. I thought the way they introduced this potential new love rival was super weird, also because she was literally gone again after two episodes.
Secondly, mystery player #21 or “Yang Kai” (Su Yuan) as was written on his basketball shirt. I have no idea where this guy came from. I first noticed him when he was standing around the team outside the practice hall at some point and I was like, “wait who is that?”. After that he was suddenly just sitting with the others in the locker room before matches. I guess he was a reserve player, but he was never even introduced by name. Like, if he was the only singular reserve player, they could’ve at least introduced him at some point, like “hey, this is Yang Kai, he’ll be training with us as a reserve”, but no. He literally just appeared in locker room gatherings, never even during the trainings or matches themselves. The only time he actually got to do anything was during the final match, when he was actually on the bench and got to fall in for Ling Xuan when he hurt himself. But even then, they only let him play a bit just to show that he sucked and missed all the goals before they substituted him with Lu Ye. Then he suddenly got a moment of acknowledgement where he moped in the locker room during break and they were like “Don’t let it get to you, Xiao Yang” and I was like “oh okay guess they did acknowledge him after all”. Seriously, what was up with that? It was just him, so it would’ve been no big deal to at least add in one line to introduce him as the reserve instead of just adding him in without any explanation, because I legit had to do a double-take to make sure there was an unknown random guy sitting amongst them. It’s kind of funny that DramaWiki credits him, because he was quite literally a ghost cast member who didn’t even speak.
And then finally, I’d like to talk about the heroine of the ever-confusing extra scenes saga, the mysterious Qing Zi (He Qian Ying). I already mentioned how confused I was about the extra scenes that were shown after each episode, but at some point the cute couple scenes of Nuan Xia and Jun Ye made way for scenes in which the Shenhua team got dating advice from this girl called Qing Zi. I have no idea who she was or where she came from, and it also didn’t help that the on-screen captions for these extra scenes weren’t translated in the subtitles, because that might’ve helped a little to at least make sense of the scenario that was being depicted. To me, it just seemed like she suddenly appeared as some sort of “love guru” that started teaching the Shenhua team members, including Chu Ran, about how the deal with girls. Why the Shenhua basketball team needed this type of advice when none of them was ever shown interacting with a girl, I have no idea. But yeah, she literally became the main protagonist of the extra scenes at the end of the episodes in the second half. In the end these extra scenes just featured her and Chu Ran, where she apparently, somehow, became his girlfriend and he kept getting into trouble with her because he could never answer her questions satisfactorily. To be clear, this girl didn’t even appear in the main story, ONLY in those extra epilogue scenes, and the situations depicted in these scenes also didn’t tie in with the main story whatsoever. It just made me super confused because I thought they established that Chu Ran had feelings for Nuan Xia, but then suddenly this girl appeared (who Chu Ran also seemed to know already) and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. How was she related to Chu Ran? How was she related to the Shenhua team? Where did she come from?! They literally just dropped in the dialogue somewhere that she was Chu Ran’s girlfriend and I was like “I STILL DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!” Seriously, what was the deal with this show’s tendency to just throw in new characters without even an introduction? What’s more, this girl is actually credited on MDL as a main supporting character when half the Qingmeng basketball team isn’t even credited, and she didn’t even appear in the main story. Make it make sense.

While I thought the animations in-between were a cute and original addition to indicate a little break in the episodes, I think it would’ve been better if the cartoon characters resembled the real life actors a bit more. Most of the time I couldn’t really tell who was supposed to be who in terms of appearance, and I had to memorize the numbers on their basketball shirts to figure out who was being depicted. They could’ve made them look more alike by giving them slightly more distinctive hairstyles or expressions or something.

My final main point of criticism has to do with the issue of coherency throughout the story. I honestly felt like, after they lost that first official match with Shenhua, the story completely dwindled and I had a hard time keeping up with what was happening. Even though they lost, they ended the game with a victorious feeling because of Jun Ye’s final great shot, but then suddenly it seemed like the team lost all its motivation again. Maybe it had to do with the incomplete subtitles, but I couldn’t put my finger on this sudden switch in vibe. Not only did they use this sudden slump period to focus more on the romantic development between Nuan Xia and Jun Ye, but then they also added in that side story of Nuan Xia planning to go to Beijing, which wasn’t clear AT ALL. She just suddenly started acting distant and hired Lu Ye as a substitute coach and muttered things like “I won’t be seeing you for a while”, but her plans remained unspoken until she finally told Jun Ye. Like, Nuan Xia was the main character; we should be following her train of thought most out of everyone, right? The story just took a very confusing and incoherent turn there, also because it suddenly kind of seemed to abandon the whole initial “bring back the basketball team” plot and instead focussed completely on the main couple’s love. Nuan Xia’s mission for her dad suddenly became like a side quest and only returned to its former importance in the very final episode when they went up against Shenhua for the last time. The team members were literally just left hanging around at practice with nothing to do, and then suddenly Nuan Xia didn’t need to go to Beijing anymore and everything was restored and I was like, “so what the heck happened?!” It was so hard to follow. Again, it might have to do with the bad subtitles, maybe it was conveyed clearly in the original dialogue, but it completely went past me. The final episodes leading up to that last match against Shenhua were really just fillers that were all over the place and didn’t tie in with the main story whatsoever.

In practical terms, I would say there was a lot left to be desired in terms of the quality, both in the budget and the acting. I can overlook the budget-thing mostly because it was established as a short and simple story that didn’t pretend to be more than it was, like for example Road to Rebirth. Despite clearly having a lower budget, they still were able to make it a fun enough story with what they had, so that wasn’t particularly an issue for me. As for the acting, I’m going to be brutally honest and say that I really only liked the acting of the two main characters, Nuan Xia and Jun Ye, since they seemed the most natural and actually knew what they were doing with their facial expressions. I specifically had an issue with the acting of Tu Tu, Chu Ran, Qi Feng and Ding Lei because it seemed like they really only had one expression and were quite stiff and one-dimensional in portraying emotions.
I’ve already complained about the subtitling, although that of course doesn’t really have to do with the show in itself as much as with the translators, but one thing I do want to mention – final criticism, I swear – is that the dubbing in this show was also very annoyingly present. I know that it’s common for Chinese shows to be dubbed over, although I still don’t fully understand why, but in this case it was kind of distracting because it was so obvious that these weren’t the actors’ real voices. Especially for Qi Feng, it literally sounded as if someone was just doing a funny voice, and it only made it harder to take stuff seriously.

Before moving on to my conclusion I’d like to briefly discuss the title of the show. When I first looked it up I thought it was quite a generic name, like Love Under the Moon, but while watching the show – and partially thanks to the awful subtitles that started translating the characters’ names into English – I realized that the title is actually a wordplay on the main characters’ names, Nuan Xia (暖夏, lit.: “warm summer”) and Jun Ye (君夜, lit.: “your night”). The title combines the first and last characters of their names (夏夜, lit.: “summer night” and 君暖, lit.: “your warmth”). While I appreciate this hidden wordplay (I love witty wordplay in general), I can’t help but feel like it’s completely lost on a non-Chinese audience. It doesn’t translate into English, and therefore it doesn’t really make sense for people who don’t catch the wordplay because the story has nothing to do with “summer nights”. It would work if it was a love story that occurred specifically in the summer, but that’s also not the case. I personally like the alternative English title “Basket Loveball” under which I watched it on Dailymotion, since it at least incorporates the themes of romance and basketball from the story. While the original title is definitely witty in Chinese, I personally think it’s better to choose a different title in English that has a more direct connection to the story.

As I’ve already commented on the majority of the actors’ performances in my analysis and I don’t really have anything to add to that, I’m going to skip the cast comments this time. As I’ve made clear, I wasn’t very impressed by the acting overall, and it was only made worse by the bad dubbing and subbing. Still, it wasn’t all awful and some people were better than others, but it definitely underlined the quality of the whole thing. I still rated it with a 6.0 because I thought it had potential. The story in itself was interesting and promising and I liked the basketball theme as a framework for the romance plot, but at some point it just felt like the writing team lost sight of their original goal and started adding all sorts of different and confusing side stories (like the extra episodes) that distracted from that. I think I would’ve liked it way more if they’d added a bit more substance to it, especially in terms of the characters’ backstories. It would’ve helped create a bit more empathy and interest for everyone if they’d just given everyone some more solid characteristics and motivation. Still, it was a fun story and the romance between Nuan Xia and Jun Ye was actually cute. I’m curious to see them in different shows now, just to see different sides of their acting. I found out Nuan Xia’s actress Wang Zi Wei was in A Love So Beautiful, although it’s been a while since I watched that and don’t remember the details about her character. I didn’t know any of the other actors, so who knows when I might come across them again – I’ve got enough Chinese dramas left on my list.

I’m going to leave this review here. If you’ve reached this point, thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings. I will be back soon with a new review, can’t wait to see what my next watch will be!

Until then, bye-bee! x

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.

The Best Hit
(최고의 한방 /  Choegoui Hanbang / The Biggest Hit / Hit the Top)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

Hey hey ho, another review let’s go! With my current schedule I try to finish at least one review per month, and as usual these days it took me a while to finish this. To be completely honest, I originally didn’t put this show on my to-watch list, but then when I did, my Wheel of Fortune app didn’t take too long to pick it out and here we are. I had mixed feelings while watching it, but I will say that I overall enjoyed it. It was silly but also legit funny at times and I got to see a lot of variety from actors that I knew and ones that I hadn’t seen before. I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible, since it was a lengthy watch and there’s a lot of things I want to discuss. In a way, it kind of proved why I didn’t want to put it on my list at first, but I’m still glad I watched it because it was entertaining enough to keep me interested in how it would end. Let’s get started, thumbs up! 👍🏻

The Best Hit is a KBS K-Drama with 32 back-to-back episodes of each about 30 minutes. I started watching it on BiliBili but then switched to Viki because the subtitles on there were much more complete, in the sense that they included relevant song lyrics as well.
The show is about Yoo Hyun Jae (played by Yoon Shi Yoon), a popular idol from 1993, who mysteriously ends up time-travelling to the year 2017 in the middle of a typhoon. Once there, he finds out that in the future, he is mostly known as a singer that went missing in 1994. Since he time-travelled from 1993, he doesn’t have any memories of the circumstances of his disappearance – it hasn’t happened yet. He ends up at what used to be his house, the rooftop apartment of his old agency World Entertainment, where he meets his former president Lee Soon Tae (played by Lee Deok Hwa) and manager Lee Gwang Jae (played by Cha Tae Hyun). Without a clue of what happened or why he’s there, he slowly starts finding his way around and figuring out what must have happened to him before he disappeared, including the whereabouts of a large sum of money he last remembers hiding in the attic of his house. However, as of 2017, his house is occupied by Lee Ji Hoon (played by Kim Min Jae), Gwang Jae’s alleged son.
Ji Hoon has been secretly training to be an idol for about three years but just can’t seem to make it to the debut team at Star Punch, one of the biggest entertainment agencies, run by Hyun Jae’s former duo partner Park Yeong Jae (played by Hong Kyung Min). What’s more, Ji Hoon is secretly accommodating his fellow trainee Lee Won Bin, nicknamed MC Drill (played by Dong Hyun Bae) in his apartment, and it doesn’t take long for Ji Hoon’s childhood friend and secret crush Choi Woo Seung (played by Lee Se Young) to join them as well, after she finds out her roommate and boyfriend are seeing each other behind her back.
Ji Hoon, Drill and Woo Seung are the first ones to find Hyun Jae outside of the World Entertainment agency building, dressed in tacky clothing and with a weird hairstyle. Despite Ji Hoon’s initial suspicion towards this stranger, especially when tensions start rising between Hyun Jae and Woo Seung, he allows him to also shack up at his place. From there on, Hyun Jae is determined to figure out what happened to himself in 1994, all the while adapting to the new environment of 2017, including his slowly growing feelings for Woo Seung.

I’ll say right off the bat that I thought the preface of the story was very interesting. It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for time-travel stories, and it was interesting to me that Hyun Jae time-travelled before he actually went missing in the past, because that meant that he didn’t go missing because he time-travelled, but that he must’ve come back to the past briefly before he disappeared or something. I’m all for theories about butterfly effects and parallel timelines and all that, so I was curious to see where it would go.
Having said that, in my opinion they included a lot of suspense in certain elements of the story that stood separate from the main storyline that wasn’t really necessary. For example, instead of just focussing on gradually unravelling the mystery behind Hyun Jae’s disappearance throughout the story, they also kept the logic behind the housing arrangement of all the people living at World Entertainment very vague, as well as the truth about Ji Hoon’s biological parents.
Regarding the housing arrangement, that was something that I would’ve actually liked established from the get-go, because it got really distracting when halfway through the story I still didn’t know exactly how everyone was related to each other and how they all ended up living together.
As for Ji Hoon’s biological parents, I’m not talking about the revelation of Hyun Jae being Ji Hoon’s biological father, but more about how much Ji Hoon actually knew about his parents, because they really went back and forth with that.
All in all I think I would’ve liked it better if they just stuck to focussing on gradually revealing the relationship between Hyun Jae and Ji Hoon and the truth about Hyun Jae’s disappearance, while establishing things like the relationships between all the people living at World clearly from the start, because that was just background information. Keeping even information like that vague for at least half of the series got really confusing. I didn’t like having too many unanswered questions at the same time and it wasn’t really necessary to keep it vague for so long either.
The same went for the fact that the Hyun Jae that time-travelled from 1993 was apparently from a different timeline than the one who disappeared in 1994. If they had cleared that up earlier, it would’ve saved so much confusion about whether Hyun Jae was actually suffering from amnesia or not. Knowing that he was a different version of Hyun Jae would’ve probably also made me feel a little less queasy about his relationship with Woo Seung, as the idea that he was actually Ji Hoon’s biological father consistently kept me from fully rooting for them.

Before I go over my notes – I’m not even kidding, I anticipated forgetting a lot of details because of the time it took me to finish this and actually took notes whenever something popped up that I either found funny or that confused the heck out of me – I’d like to go over the main characters briefly, and with that I mostly mean the people living at the World Entertainment agency building.
Let me give you the overview that took me so long to figure out while watching the show: first of all, there’s the president of World Entertainment, Lee Soon Tae, and his young granddaughter Lee Mal Sook (played by Lee Han Seo), whom he took in after the girl’s parents – Soon Tae’s daughter and son-in-law – perished in a tragic car accident. Then there’s Lee Gwang Jae, World Ent’s manager who is currently in charge of the agency’s two remaining artists, a girl duo called Helter-Skelter and singer Hong Bo Hee (played by Yoon Son Ha), another resident. Bo Hee used to be a popular singer in Hyun Jae’s time – they were even rumoured to be dating – but in 2017 she’s kind of washed up, trying to make a comeback after twenty years without much luck. She also runs a small bakery next to the agency. Then there’s Lee Ji Hoon, Gwang Jae and Bo Hee’s alleged son. Until the truth comes out, the fact that Drill and Woo Seung (and later Hyun Jae) are living with Ji Hoon in his rooftop apartment is initially kept a secret from the rest of the residents, as well as the fact that Ji Hoon secretly commutes to an agency instead of college.
To sum it up, apart from Lee Soon Tae and Mal Sook and Bo Hee and Ji Hoon, it’s not like all the residents are specifically related to one another. Even after finishing the series, I still don’t really know how Soon Tae and Gwang Jae, as president and manager, came to live together in their company’s building. Again, I don’t think it was necessary to keep the logic behind this arrangement vague, and I would’ve liked a solid establishment of the reason behind it as initial background information before the main story started.

For the character analyses, let me start with Hyun Jae, as his character basically ties everyone together. If I understand correctly, his real name is Yoo Bong Jae, but Soon Tae chose the stage name Hyun Jae for him after consulting a fortune teller or someone who picked out fortunate names. Together with Park Yeong Jae, Hyun Jae formed the popular duo J2, where he was clearly the more popular member, standing out in both looks and eccentricity. His catchphrase is 따봉! (dda bong! – translated on Viki as “thumbs up!”), and he apparently likes it so much that he even takes on the name “Kim Da Bong” in 2017 while he keeps his real identity a secret. This catchphrase gradually changes from a weird habit to a familiar and endearing one, especially in his relationship with Woo Seung.
As Hyun Jae tries to figure out what led to his disappearance in 1994, we get some background information about his relationship with Soon Tae and Gwang Jae back in the 90s, and how he didn’t exactly leave things on good terms with them when he time-travelled. He also finds out that his former partner Yeong Jae made it big by stealing Hyun Jae’s notebook filled with songs he wrote, crediting them to his current idol hit MJ (played by Cha Eun Woo). Apparently, Hyun Jae was planning on leaving World Entertainment for some reason he never shared with anyone, and now he has to literally “figure himself out”, or at least what he must’ve been thinking and/or going through at the time of his disappearance.
As of 1993, he wasn’t in any kind of relationship with Bo Hee, so the news of Ji Hoon being their son comes as a shock, even though he’s quite quick to accept it. As he tries to keep a low profile while snooping around, he can’t help himself getting attracted to Woo Seung, knowing fully well that she’s his son’s childhood friend. He even tries to help out Ji Hoon in winning her favor, but in the end he can’t help himself from feeling the way he does and he and Woo Seung somehow get together through a kind of slapsticky enemies-to-friends-to-lovers development. He does end up going back to the past – to 1994 to be precise – through a twin typhoon of the one he originally travelled to the future with, where he meets the 1994 version of himself and finds out that he was actually terminally ill and probably disappeared as he went off-grid to get treatment but ended up passing away or something. In any case, after failing to persuade sick 1994 Hyun Jae to travel to the future and get treated, 1993 Hyun Jae ends up going back to 2017 to get an advance treatment for his then yet undiscovered illness and to stay with Woo Seung.
Despite the fact that Hyun Jae was kind of a goofball most of the time, there were some things that I really appreciated about his character. I’ve mentioned this many times before, but I don’t like it when actors try to act all funny for the sake of being funny, thereby making it seem like they don’t take their character seriously. In my opinion, characters are the funniest when they take themselves very seriously and end up being effortlessly funny because of that, not by making goofy faces or acting exaggeratedly in front of the camera. In hindsight, I’m really glad I got to see both sides of the coin from Hyun Jae, both in his 1993 and 1994 versions. It was really cool to see two completely different versions of him, shaped by their respectively different life experiences.
With regards to 1993 Hyun Jae, who we follow the most throughout the series, I have to say I really liked how quick on his feet he could be, despite usually acting so careless and oblivious. For example, the fact that he figured out all by himself that Ji Hoon must have swapped two bags and accidentally gave Gwang Jae the one containing information of his traineeship, and the lengths he went to in order to get that bag back from the main house for him. It was also really satisfying how, after revealing himself to Yeong Jae in 2017, Hyun Jae consistently remained one step ahead of him in tricking him with the USB, the expired check and ultimately handing over MJ to World Entertainment. Those were all very satisfying power moves which saved us from a lot of unnecessary predicaments and drama, and it was surprising to me how sharp-witted Hyun Jae could actually be when push came to shove. Despite his consistent aloof behavior, he knew exactly what to look out for and he had a surprisingly good radar, also for example in the way he sensed there was something off about Soon Tae, basically being the first to detect his dementia. He definitely kept me on my toes as a viewer. I always appreciate it when a character is more than just funny and goofy and he actually knows very well what he’s doing, so that was a nice touch to his character.
Another thing that I appreciated about him was that he genuinely tried to be supportive of Ji Hoon and Woo Seung as a couple. I was actually rooting for the two childhood friends to end up together, so I couldn’t help but think that Hyun Jae was a real stand-up guy for informing Ji Hoon when Woo Seung called him to come pick her up in the mountains. He actually created opportunities for Ji Hoon to go for it before he went after her himself. The way he kept showing up for Woo Seung instead of Ji Hoon somehow reminded me of My First First Love, where the childhood friend kept coming to the FL’s rescue because her actual boyfriend kept missing the chance to show up for her. Even though the romance didn’t end up going the way I would’ve wanted, I couldn’t help but appreciate that Hyun Jae at least tried to step away and support Ji Hoon in his advances towards Woo Seung. The way he smiled when he overheard Ji Hoon confessing his feelings to Woo Seung gave real “that’s my boy” vibes and I loved that, just as I loved how cool and collected the 1994 Hyun Jae was when hearing about his son. I guess that just proved that Hyun Jae was a genuinely good guy, no matter what timeline he existed in, and he really didn’t want to cause problems, even if that meant he had to go against his own feelings.

Although the true extent of Ji Hoon’s knowledge about his biological parents is kept vague throughout the series, his instinctive ambition to become an idol speaks volumes about his heritage, both for his mom and his dad. He was literally raised by Gwang Jae, a manager, and Bo Hee, a singer, at an entertainment agency, so I could see how growing up in such an environment would stimulate that dream. I also think that it was nice that they gave an insight in the harsh reality of idol trainees waiting for their chance to debut. The initial reason why I switched to Viki was because it included the lyrics of the rap Ji Hoon performed at that first audition, because I just knew that what he was saying would be relevant to the images of the struggling trainees depicted on screen.
Ji Hoon goes through some ups and downs throughout the series, both in his ambitions to become an idol and in his confidence of winning Woo Seung’s heart. Despite his initial disdain for Hyun Jae, he does remain respectful and still chooses to take a step back when he realizes he’s losing the game. In the end, I thought it was a very touching decision of him to become a trainee under Gwang Jae, and it was cool to see that he and Drill eventually became an idol duo called JB, which was almost like a reincarnation of J2.
I would say that my biggest criticism of Ji Hoon’s character was his lack of proactiveness in pursuing what he really wanted. Despite the fact that he does eventually manage to fulfill his idol dream, he initially wavers a lot, even to the point of giving up rather than going the extra mile and working even harder. This was also reflected in his feelings for Woo Seung. It takes him eight full years to confess his feelings to her, but even when he does, he still doesn’t actually go all the way to win her over. After telling her that he won’t give up on her, he continuously misses every single chance to show up for her, basically handing all the opportunities to step in to Hyun Jae on a silver platter. Like, it’s gonna take more than showing your consideration by installing a hammock for her, bro! It’s about direct actions, not just about words and subtle gestures. I definitely feel that, especially with how long he’s been in love with her and how strongly he feels about her, he could’ve done way more to actually make a direct move on her.
I would say that, in terms of personality, Ji Hoon was definitely a bit bland compared to his father. Despite his ambitions to become an idol, he didn’t really seem to utilize his assets that much – he literally went viral because some girls decided to post pictures of him working at the bakery on the Internet, not because he himself made any attempts to get recognition through his good looks or anything. I have to admit that I still don’t fully understand what attracted Ji Hoon so much in becoming an idol, because it didn’t actually seem to fit his personality. He didn’t even seem to care about being in the spotlight that much, neither did he ever mention a specific reason for wanting to be on stage. I guess it was just in his blood and he liked making music? Anyhow, I think it would’ve helped if he was a bit less wishy-washy about his actual dreams and goals and showed a bit more active determination towards what he wanted to achieve.
I think I would’ve liked it if Ji Hoon shared a bit more personality with Hyun Jae. The only thing they seemed to have in common was their love and aptitude for working with music, and I think there was one scene where their enthusiasm overlapped (when they went camping together), but other than that I think it would’ve been nice if Ji Hoon had been attributed some more characteristics or habits that Hyun Jae used to have, to make their connection a bit more clear. Thinking back on it, I didn’t actually feel that much father-son vibes between them at all, and Ji Hoon also remained very stoic when he told Hyun Jae that he knew who he was. I get that he had fully accepted Gwang Jae as his father and nothing could shake him in that, but I still would’ve expected a slightly more heartfelt reaction from him when he realized he was standing face to face with his biological father. I will elaborate a bit more on my criticisms regarding this part later on, but the point I wish to make here is that Ji Hoon’s character all in all just felt a bit bland to me, both in personality and in the way he responded to things. As the biological son of someone as eccentric as Hyun Jae, they definitely could’ve given him more to work with and made him a little less serious, for example. I don’t mean to downplay the fact that he was a nice guy with his heart in the right place, but I just felt like that wasn’t enough to carry him as a main character.

Using that as a segue, I feel like we actually got to know Woo Seung better than we got to know Ji Hoon, and it was interesting that she ended up being more of a main character than him. When we are first introduced to her, she is attending Ji Hoon’s college classes for him to maintain his attendance rate while he’s secretly off to train as an idol. In the meantime, she’s busy studying for the civil servant exam while working several part-time jobs to keep herself fed. She doesn’t need much – when she moves into Ji Hoon’s attic she only brings a small bag of belongings with her. She studies and works very hard, leaving little time to socialize and make friends – as far as we can gather from the story, Ji Hoon is her only close friend. I even felt like she was more comfortable around guys than girls, probably because we don’t get to see her spend time with many female friends. In any case, I guess she’s used to being ‘one of the guys’, which would explain her ‘bro’ attitude towards Ji Hoon and her awkwardness when he suddenly expresses that he sees her as a woman. When it comes to expressing her own feelings, you could say she’s a bit of a tsundere, as she usually snaps back with a witty or evasive remark before she lets herself get emotional or vulnerable.
I personally had mixed feelings about Woo Seung. It’s not that she wasn’t a nice character or anything like that, but I did find her slightly hypocritical at times, especially when it came to her feelings for Ji Hoon. Blame it on my bias, but I really hated the way she rejected him. Instead of at least acknowledging that he had mustered up the courage to confess after eight full years, she actually just tried to unhear it and ignored his feelings by insistently going “can’t we just be friends?” Of course there’s nothing wrong with rejecting someone if you don’t feel the same way about them, but what bothered me the most was that, after telling Ji Hoon straight-up that she didn’t see him as a man, she then went on to elaborate to Hyun Jae that she was scared of ruining their friendship if she chose to date him. Like, why couldn’t she have told Ji Hoon that, if they were so close? Also, phrasing it like “I don’t want to ruin our friendship” actually made it sound more like she was holding herself back because she didn’t want to lose what they had, rather than that she was not attracted to Ji Hoon whatsoever. Honestly, I was kind of surprised by her hesitation and awkwardness, seeing as they’d had no problem with skinship in several scenes before that. She’d already laid her head in his lap and they’d shared an intimate hug when Ji Hoon comforted her after she botched her exam – those interactions actually made me feel like Woo Seung could’ve been harboring secret feelings for Ji Hoon as well.
Also, while she was the one who kept insisting they remain friends, she was also the one who ironically kept emphasizing the awkwardness between them by avoiding Ji Hoon and instead calling Hyun Jae to come pick her up. She remained very vague in what she actually thought about Ji Hoon’s advances, like that kiss. Looking at their friendship dynamic, if she really didn’t like it I don’t doubt she would’ve made that very clear but she didn’t. While it initially seemed like she was allowing Ji Hoon the chance to win her over, she then ended up only casually revealing that she liked Hyun Jae after Ji Hoon had to drag it out of her. Like, would she have even told him herself at some point? Or would she have let it develop “naturally” so that she wouldn’t have to explain herself when it came out? I don’t know, I didn’t know what to think of the way she seemed so self-assured and put-together one time and super vague and evasive towards her own and other people’s feelings the next.
Besides that, I also found it incredibly ironic how Woo Seung, despite her down-to-earth-ness, kept ending up as the central target of most of the slapsticky/comedic situations throughout the show. The majority of my notes are actually comments on situations where her character was purely utilized to create silly scenes. For example, when she loses her contact lenses and still decides to go to work without getting her glasses from home first, purely for the sake of creating “funny” situations where she’s walking around like a blind person. It could’ve been solved really easily if she’d just passed by the house and explained the situation to her employer – it literally didn’t make any sense for her to go to work without even being able to see, that was ridiculous.
Also, when she applies for an internship at Star Punch and is mistaken for a journalist that’s coming to interview MJ, and she goes along with all his weird requests instead of just saying, “sorry, I think there’s been a misunderstanding, I’m here for an internship interview”. I just don’t like it when characters remain vague purely for the sake of creating unnecessary misunderstandings. That kind of humour belongs to full-on comedy shows like Go Go Waikiki. It just got a bit annoying at some point. Especially since, in that particular case, it led her to miss her actual interview and she couldn’t even bring herself to explain about the mix-up. She just kept creating a worse impression of herself by saying she was late while she wasn’t – she was perfectly on time but got taken to the wrong room. It wasn’t even her fault, but for some reason, in those kinds of situations, she was suddenly unable to stand up for herself. Like, I’m all for comedy elements and good laughs, but at least keep it realistic and make it relevant to the story, don’t just create unnecessary misunderstandings for the sake of showing “something funny”.
I think that’s what ultimately bothered me the most about Woo Seung – she seemed to have her shit together but then she still kept getting herself into ordeals where she became “a victim of the situation” and somehow couldn’t bring herself explain what had happened, even though she could’ve very easily worked things out. I didn’t understand why she had to be so vague in explaining things, why for example she would tell Ji Hoon that she got fired instead of admitting that her part-time job got suspended. Why did she keep making things sound worse than they actually were for no reason? I’d say it’s much less shameful to be let go because of a company’s financial situation than getting fired because you are a shitty employee, which she wasn’t.
The only reason I can think of for Woo Seung to be dragged into these situations was to create a connection between her and Hyun Jae, as he was usually the person to get her out of these predicaments. Either that, or he was with her and they went through it together. These situations led Hyun Jae to bare witness to Woo Seung’s flustered and silly sides, which was necessary to build up their romance. In the end, he even managed to pull Woo Seung into his crazy a little bit, causing her to start copying his mannerisms and catchphrases, things that had initially seemed weird and stupid to her. So yeah, I get that putting Woo Seung into flustering situations and getting Hyun Jae to consistently help her out was a plot tool to bring them closer together. Still, I couldn’t help but feel annoyed at times. It just seemed unnecessary and out of character for Woo Seung to get dragged into so many misunderstandings and predicaments that didn’t really serve a deeper purpose. There were more than enough normal scenes between her and Hyun Jae that contributed to their romance-building, she didn’t need to keep falling on her face to create more opportunities for them to bond. I also thought she had plenty of other funny scenes which didn’t include these kinds of situations, like how she went back to her old place and ripped/broke every thing she’d bought with her roommate in half 😂 That was really funny in its craziness because she was so serious about it.
Despite my initial aversion towards the Hyun Jae and Woo Seung couple – which never truly left, to be honest – I did think that, once it was revealed that “Da Bong” wasn’t actually Ji Hoon’s father, they became a cute couple. It was nice to see Woo Seung’s character develop, to see her soften and become more vulnerable towards the people she cared about the most, rather than that she kept taking on everything by herself. It was cool that she started working at World Entertainment as well. She ended up showing sides of herself that would’ve been unthinkable in the beginning of the story. As much as her ambiguity annoyed me at times, it did make her a flawed and therefore realistic character, and I liked that at least she got to be a proper female lead that learned to embrace her true self in the end.

Moving on to Gwang Jae, Hyun Jae’s faithful manager. Not gonna lie, I initially kind of expected him to have a part in Hyun Jae’s disappearance, and that things between the two had actually been much more sour than they let on. Especially when Gwang Jae’s feelings for Bo Hee were revealed, and the fact that he had been watching the relationship between Hyun Jae and Bo Hee unfold in 1994 – who knows, there might have been some grudge or jealousy towards Hyun Jae from Gwang Jae’s side. Also the fact that he registered and basically raised Bo Hee’s child as his own. However, I was really glad when I found out that Gwang Jae had had no ill intentions whatsoever. The way he dealt with everything after Hyun Jae disappeared, the way he gathered everyone at the house, raised Ji Hoon and the lengths he went to to take care of Bo Hee and try to give her another chance at a comeback all proved that he was an incredibly mature and stand-up guy who just wanted everyone to be happy and at ease.
I really liked Gwang Jae, he was such a good guy. I thought it was a nice decision to keep him on as a loyal manager instead of tapping into his envy of Hyun Jae too much, especially when it came to Bo Hee. He was juggling so much at the same time, both in terms of keeping the company running and with Hyun Jae’s sudden return, and still he never got over-greedy. He kept wanting to do things the right way, even if that meant bowing down to Star Punch. He literally created a home for all his artists, even accommodating MJ when he transferred to World Entertainment.
Some examples of moments where he really touched my heart are the way he practiced and ultimately ended up proposing to Bo Hee, and how he reacted when he finally found Soon Tae after the latter went off the grid in a dementia episode. The way he actually CRIED when he saw his busted-up bare foot and when he was driving him back – this man cared so much about his boss he literally treated him like family. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Gwang Jae was actually Soon Tae’s son from the way these two interacted. There was even a moment where I actually wondered if they were related, because that would’ve made their housing arrangement make more sense, but I don’t think that was the case, I really think they just worked together and somehow ended up living in the same house, maybe to save costs for the company or something. I also really loved the father-son dynamic between Gwang Jae and Ji Hoon, and how even though Ji Hoon knew that they weren’t biologically related there was no doubt in his mind that Gwang Jae would always be his one and only father figure. It’s kind of interesting that I got more father-son vibes from people who weren’t actually related than from Hyun Jae and Ji Hoon 😅. But yeah, Gwang Jae was the best father to Ji Hoon – he both wanted him to pursue his dreams and tried to protect him from the harsh entertainment industry, despite knowing that it was probably in his blood to pursue a career in music.
All in all, I thought Gwang Jae was a solid, reliable and consistently trustworthy character and I was genuinely happy for him when he managed to win Bo Hee’s heart. He worked so hard and showed her through his actions what a trustworthy and dependable man he was, and it paid off. I actually squealed at their wedding picture in the last episode because I thought they were so cute together. Hot take: their romance made me happier than Hyun Jae’s and Woo Seung’s. I think it just had to do with the fact that we see Gwang Jae struggle through so much while trying to keep everything in balance – his “family”, his company, his artists – and it all pays off in the end. He got a really satisfying happy ending which he deserved 100%.

I just mentioned that I found it kind of interesting that I felt more familial chemistry between people that weren’t actually related to one another (except in the case of Soon Tae and Mal Sook, which I’ll get to in a moment), but the same went for Bo Hee and Ji Hoon. As I mentioned before it took a while before I realized they were actually mother and son, but am I the only one who felt that they didn’t seem to have that many scenes together? I mean, there were a couple of moments were Bo Hee was like “my handsome son” to Ji Hoon, but other than that I didn’t feel like they actually interacted with each other at all throughout the show. Which is weird, especially when you think of how long it took for Bo Hee to get over Hyun Jae. Wouldn’t it make more sense for her to dote on Ji Hoon way more, seeing as he was the only thing she had left from his father? It seemed like she mostly just got caught in her own nostalgia and melancholia regarding Hyun Jae, and that it didn’t really seem to reflect much in the way she raised Ji Hoon, as his upbringing seemed to have been mostly taken care of by Gwang Jae. While I liked the scenes of her trying to make a comeback and return to the spotlight, in hindsight I do feel like she seemed more focussed on that than on her family.
Regardless, I still liked Bo Hee. There was something melancholic about her, maybe because in a way she was a victim of a harsh situation (losing her beloved and raising a child by herself). She always kept that sadness in her, it seemed, and I was just glad that she could find it in her heart to put the past behind her and let Gwang Jae in at the end, instead of grieving about Hyun Jae forever.
I also liked that they gave her other things to do besides the failed attempts at making a comeback. Working at the bakery really suited her, and it was nice that they gave her the yoga thing and that she kept contributing to the story in different ways, not just as a background character with little purpose besides being “the girl that was left behind in the past”.
One scene that I particularly liked was when she got the chance to appear in a CM as a roll of kimbap, facing off against an incredibly disrespectful junior actress. First of all, I need to indicate that I am allergic to situations that feature adult bullying in professional settings. It always sets my teeth on edge when directors at film sets make an actor do repetitive stunts or other exhausting work purely to bully them. I remember scenes like that from Road to Rebirth, and it never stops making me mad. When they treated Bo Hee like that in that incredibly uncomfortable suit while she was already not feeling well, it really irked me, but that’s why it was all the more satisfying to see Bo Hee stand up for herself against that junior. Even if it didn’t amount to anything and it put her in a bad light, I loved that she stood up for herself and went like “you can’t treat me like this and act like you own the place”. In scenes like that, which are so frustrating to watch, it helps when the character at least takes a stand. I guess I’m also bringing this up to show the contrast with how Woo Seung acted when she kept being wronged. It’s always so much more satisfying when characters speak up rather than keep quiet and let themselves be blamed despite having a valid argument to support that they are right. No matter how timid and soft-spoken Bo Hee was, she at least had the spunk to stand up for herself and this characteristic also came out when she went to Yeong Jae for financial help behind Gwang Jae’s back. She didn’t sit still when she knew there was something she could do to help and I really appreciated that about her.

Moving on to my favorite duo of the show, Soon Tae and Mal Sook. Again, it took me some time to figure out they were actually grandfather-granddaughter, but I really loved their dynamic from the start.
Starting with Soon Tae, I have to say I liked that they showed him both as a strict company president and as a doting grandfather. This contrast gave him much more dimension as a character and allowed me to feel more compassion and sympathy for him. Of course, as soon as he started forgetting words I was like, “uh-oh, Alzheimer’s incoming”, so that didn’t come as a surprise, but even within that trope there were things that really touched me, such as how he immediately started writing Mal Sook’s name over and over again in his notebooks so he wouldn’t forget about her (😭). When he was having a dementia episode and started bawling when he asked his daughter’s ghost not to be mad about the fact that Mal Sook drew him instead of her when she was asked to draw a picture of her mother at school. 😭😭 That nearly broke me, not gonna lie, that scene was heartwrenching. On the other hand, there were a lot of silly and funny scenes in which his love for his granddaughter came through, like when Mal Sook found a boyfriend. The beef Soon Tae had with Mal Sook’s “oppa” was hilarious, the way he literally pulled the “take this money and leave my granddaughter” move and his reaction when he saw the boy eating ice cream with another girl straight after that 😂. Those were comedy fillers that were actually funny because they contributed to the relationship between Soon Tae and Mal Sook, and showed just how much he cared about her. I’m glad they added in a confrontation with Mal Sook’s mom to finally fill in the question of how they came to live together without Mal Sook’s parents. It came a little late, admittedly, but at least they did answer some of my questions, so I appreciated that. I really liked Soon Tae’s character because even if he and Hyun Jae weren’t always on the best of terms, just like Gwang Jae he did remain loyal and never betrayed his company or his family.
Mal Sook was such a sassy little thing, I loved her to bits. The way she could be so down-to-earth and snappy but then still feel all her feelings openly made her so mature for her age, and I loved the energy she brought to the fam. The way she called Ji Hoon “oppa”, vibed along with the Helter-Skelter girls and readily accepted Gwang Jae and Bo Hee as her new parents in the end just showed how comfortable and safe she felt around everyone. I actually really liked that the scenes with her and her grandfather existed separately from the whole Hyun Jae story, like nice and funny pallet cleansers. I can imagine that growing up in such a chaotic household made up out of unrelated people could be quite confusing for a little child, but it was nice to see her walk around so confidently and be her refreshingly bright self around everyone. In hindsight, I really feel like bringing her to the World Entertainment family was the best thing Soon Tae did for her. He immediately surrounded her with such warm and welcoming people after she’d lost her parents. Even if she was too young to even remember losing her parents, she became such an indispensable part of the World Ent family that it seemed like she wouldn’t even want it any other way.

When Drill was introduced, I was worried that he would be that typical comedy relief side character that was extra in everything he did, and that he would be the example of the kind of comedic character that I disliked since it seemed like he was just trying to be funny. However, I gotta say that he grew on me a bit throughout the story, especially when it was revealed that he was hiding some stuff from Ji Hoon and he was actually really insecure about his age and even had stage fright. I liked seeing the backstory of how he and Ji Hoon met at Star Punch, and how Ji Hoon initially mistook him for a senior. I can always appreciate it when the token comedy relief character gets some backstory and purpose outside of just being the funny guy. I’m glad that they gave Drill a bit more to work with than just his portrayed “cool hiphop attitude”, because it was way more interesting to see what was behind that. I always find it a bit weird when people with stage fright try to be idols, but I guess maybe it can stimulate people to work through that? In any case, I did like that Drill and Ji Hoon, who were quite an unusual duo at first glance, bonded over their failed attempts to make it and eventually got the chance to debut as a duo. Admittedly, I did think they were better off together than alone 😅.
It was funny that Drill, while living in one house with “Da Bong”, didn’t get included in the whole Hyun Jae story. He never realized what was going on, which was probably for the better because knowing Drill, he would probably not have been able to keep it a secret. I don’t know what it was, but his energy kind of reminded me of J-Hope from BTS (who is one of my favourite people), so I couldn’t bring myself to dislike him, apart from the fact that he was a bit too intense for my liking sometimes. In hindsight, the unusual friendship dynamic between Ji Hoon and Drill was quite refreshing, and I liked that they kept getting along so well, despite the things they chose to keep to themselves. Not gonna lie, I kind of side-eyed Ji Hoon for reprimanding Drill for keeping secrets from him while he literally kept the whole Hyun Jae thing from him 😂. In any case, they continued to be best bros and it was a nice twist that they got to debut together as a duo in the end.

I have to talk a bit about Yeong Jae, as he was probably the closest thing to an “antagonist” in this story. I actually thought it was nice that there wasn’t a true bad guy/villain character, and that even Yeong Jae was redeemed sufficiently with funny elements such as his defect desk chair and the way he freaked out about Hyun Jae and how he tried to keep his wife in check. Even though he stole Hyun Jae’s notebook with songs and claimed them as his own artistic property, it still felt like Hyun Jae’s disappearance had driven him into a corner and he did what he did to keep going in the music industry, because he knew very well that he wouldn’t be able to continue J2’s popularity on his own. I mean, yes, it was wrong of him to claim ownership of what wasn’t his, but I could also understand his reasons for trying to survive in the industry, even marrying a main investor from their peak days. I didn’t think he was portrayed as such a bad guy, per se, he just did what he had to in order to work his way up and admittedly, he did very well for himself. I liked his little scenes in-between where he was trying to deal with MJ and figure out what Hyun Jae was up to. As I mentioned before, it was very satisfying to see how his attempts to keep stealing Hyun Jae’s music kept failing, and how he tried to fix his own mistakes, like signing MJ over to World Entertainment before even verifying the check Hyun Jae gave him. In these actions, he proved himself to not be as intimidating as his status suggested him to be, and I actually liked that about him.
I realize I hadn’t mentioned his wife yet, but that’s probably because she was quite a minor character. Still, I thought she was interesting so I’d like to talk about her a bit. I guess that Cathy (played by Im Ye Jin) – her Korean name is never mentioned – used to be an investor back in the 90s. I vaguely remember her in a flashback from then, but she ended up as Yeong Jae’s wife. I can’t say for sure, but I did feel like it was more of a business marriage than a love marriage. Still, I liked their little bickering sessions and how they always found a way to appease one another. How Cathy got jealous when she got wind of Bo Hee possibly joining the company (apparently Yeong Jae used to have feelings for Bo Hee back in the day as well) and retaliated by considering Gwang Jae’s business proposal, for example. They just kept taking stabs at each other and then made up by sweet-talking things out, it was kind of funny. I’m glad it still ended well for them, despite losing MJ as their major asset. They still seemed to be good people at heart and I actually would’ve felt bad for them if their entire business had fallen apart.

There are a few more side characters that I would like to discuss because they made my watching experience much more fun. First of all, MJ. Honestly, MJ was probably my favorite side character in this show, he really made me laugh. While he seemed to be a very typical arrogant popular idol at first, we soon see his goofy side come out when he first encounters Woo Seung, and he starts cracking himself up over her name. I loved how that remained a running gag, that every time he saw her and called her by the nickname he made up, he just start giggling to himself. I also thought it was funny how Hyun Jae just decided to dislike him and broke off MJs head from a cardboard cutout of him in a convenience store and just carried it around 😂.
MJ grew on me throughout the story because he actually turned out to be a proper stand-up guy. I thought it was really mature of him to want to come out with the truth that he wasn’t writing his own songs, that it just felt wrong and that it wasn’t the image he wanted to move forward with. Despite his aloof behaviour at Star Punch, he really proved himself to be someone that was passionate about honing his skills in making music, and he was eager to learn from Hyun Jae and Gwang Jae as well, even respectfully calling them “Masters”. I just thought it was really cool how he openly sought Gwang Jae’s advice about coming out with the truth about his authenticity, as it would surely harm the company’s image that he hadn’t been honest from the start. He just seemed very sincere and had integrity when it came to his art, and I appreciated that about him a lot. Honestly, I kind of feared that he might become some sort of additional love interest for Woo Seung, since the two of them kept meeting and he clearly enjoyed teasing her, but even if that had happened I feel like it would’ve just ended as him having an unrequited crush on her. I’m glad they chose not to pursue that storyline, because he was an interesting enough character on his own without becoming a special person to one of the main characters. I really liked him.
Another side character that I haven’t mentioned yet is Do Hye Ri (played by Kim Ji Yeon/WSJN’s Bona). Hye Ri is one of Ji Hoon’s fellow trainees at Star Punch who actually does get to debut in the company’s new girl group, and keeps reminding Ji Hoon to keep going. Ji Hoon quickly (involuntarily) manages to melt down her icy demeanour and she actually confesses that she likes him at some point, although she doesn’t push through after finding out he’s in love with Woo Seung. Honestly, I would’ve liked them to end up together once I got over my hopes for the Ji Hoon and Woo Seung ship. I thought she was a nice supporting character, even if she only occasionally appeared to remind Ji Hoon of his ambitions. It was nice to get some perspective from more trainees than just Ji Hoon and Drill, also to show that even promising trainees like her had it rough. I appreciate it when there are side characters that exist outside of the drama from the main story that just know the main character from something and try to support them in their own way. Hye Ri was definitely one of those characters, I thought she was a nice and meaningful addition to the cast.

By the way, am I the only one who finds it curious that MJ and Hye Ri are featured on the title poster, and not Gwang Jae or anyone else from the World Entertainment family? I guess it has the purpose of promoting the two idols Cha Eun Woo and Bona, but it actually doesn’t make much sense since they’re just supporting characters and the two of them also don’t even meet in the show. I would at least expect Gwang Jae on there, as he is highlighted in the opening sequence and Cha Tae Hyun is even one of the directors of the show. Oh well. 😂

Lastly, I briefly want to mention Helter-Skelter, the girl duo that Gwang Jae is managing at World Entertainment besides Bo Hee. I liked these two girls. They are credited as Heol Le (Lee Jung Min) and Beolddeok (Son Soo Min), and I think the Korean name of the duo was also a combination of their names or something similar-sounding. Gwang Jae would drive them around to gigs in their customized mini-van and sometimes they would just come over to the bakery or something. Whilst these girls were also completely excluded from the main story about Hyun Jae, I really liked the energy they brought to their scenes and how, despite being the only ones that didn’t live at the house, they were also part of the World Entertainment fam. I really loved it when Hyun Jae took the time to improve their song as well, like he even did those kind of things for them when he only occasionally helped Gwang Jae out by driving them around. I liked their screen presence a lot, uncomplicated supporting characters like them really helped to keep things entertaining.

Now that I’ve gone over all the characters I wished to discuss, I’d just like to go over the remaining notes I wrote down while watching the show. I already incorporated several of them in my character analyses, but there are still some more general remarks and examples I’d like to give in terms of things that either confused, irked or amused me.
Let me start with my main criticisms. First of all, I’d like to elaborate a bit more on my issue with the confusing family dynamics. It all starts in the first scene, when they get a family photo taken and there’s a funny back-and-forth between the members and the photographer, who can’t figure out how exactly they are related, which is the point, I guess. He goes, “can your daughter move in a little closer?” and they tell him, “she’s not my daughter!”, things like that. Which is funny, I suppose, but I did wonder why they kept it at making the photographer feel stupid for not understanding whilst they themselves didn’t bother to clear it up either. If they’d just cleared up the dynamics there and then, I would’ve been all set.
This was all complicated further when it was revealed that they held annual memorial services for Hyun Jae – how were they all related to him? – and the mixed things they all told people about each other. I distinctly remember Gwang Jae telling Hyun Jae at some point that Ji Hoon didn’t even know that Bo Hee was his biological mom, but then it seemed like he did because he called her “Mom” all the same. Like, I went back and forth between thinking that Ji Hoon might either have been raised with the knowledge that he had been adopted and that his parents weren’t alive anymore, or that he knew Bo Hee was his mom and he didn’t know his biological father but had accepted Gwang Jae as his dad. I went through all these possible scenarios, only to find out all the way at the end that he DID know that Yoo Hyun Jae had been his dad all along!
Which brings me to my next point: how the heck did Ji Hoon not recognize Hyun Jae/”Da Bong”? They had a very clear picture of Hyun Jae at the memorial altar, and Ji Hoon was even seen checking out a video with Hyun Jae earlier as inspiration. Even if he didn’t immediately make the connection – admittedly, you wouldn’t consider the possibility that your father suddenly appears out of nowhere – I found it really weird that Ji Hoon didn’t even at least recognize him or think he looked familiar, when he literally grew up in a house that commemorated his disappearance every single year. This made all the less sense to me when it was revealed that Ji Hoon had actually known that Hyun Jae was his father all along. Apart from that, there were a lot of other confusing things, like Soon Tae expressing his surprise that Bo Hee still remembered Hyun Jae’s face after twenty years when they’d literally just finished praying to his picture at the altar. Make it make sense.
Another thing that was kept very vague was the logic behind Hyun Jae’s time-travelling. If I’d known from the start that the Hyun Jae that time-travelled from 1993 and became “Da Bong” was not the same as Ji Hoon’s father who had disappeared in 1994, that would’ve made a lot of things so much clearer to me. But no, they chose to only clarify that in the last two episodes, and the entire time before that it wasn’t clear whether “Da Bong” had actually lost his memory or not. Like, he should’ve known that he wasn’t suffering from amnesia, but instead of going, “What are you talking about? I never dated Bo Hee” when Gwang Jae told him about their relationship, he made it even vaguer for himself by going, “Huh? I slept with Bo Hee? Really? 🤔” Like, you’d remember something like that, right?
I initially thought that he made up the amnesia to get Ji Hoon, Drill and Woo Seung off his back when he shacked up with them, but at some point it was like he actually started believing it himself, even though it kept bugging me that he didn’t come to the conclusion that he couldn’t remember what he’d done in 1994 because he hadn’t done it yet. After a while I thought that he must’ve gone back to 1994 and fixed stuff with the knowledge from the future and that’s when he disappeared at some point, but then it turned out that there were two different versions of him!
Which, again, brings me to my next point (I’m killing it with these segues): the time-travel tropes didn’t really add up in my opinion. As soon as the duplicate watches and notebooks came into play, I got sceptical. As far as I’ve learned from other time-travel stories, it shouldn’t be possible for the same object to exist simultaneously in the same time. In hindsight, that was probably the first sign that these were separate timelines, because it also didn’t make sense for Ji Hoon to exist if this Hyun Jae had been his father, since he disappeared before even establishing a relationship with Bo Hee. Actually, now that I think of it, in Somehow 18 the ML had the FL’s past diary and was able to see her entries appear in his own version of it, so maybe it was possible. Still, it felt off for those duplicate items to exist simultaneously, especially in the case of the watches since they were basically keeping them side by side. I also feel like it shouldn’t have been possible for 1993 Hyun Jae to meet 1994 Hyun Jae, like isn’t there a rule that you can never meet yourself when you travel in time? The logic about there being two different versions of him within the same timeline was kind of weird, even for science-fiction. I kind of spun a logic from it for myself in the end, but it was never actually explained how it worked, which felt a bit wishy-washy.
Something else that kept feeling weird to me was that I didn’t get the feeling that Woo Seung ever fully realized that Hyun Jae/”Da Bong” was Ji Hoon’s father from the past. She ended up finding out that he was the singer Yoo Hyun Jae who mysteriously came to the future, but no one ever really told her that he was Ji Hoon’s father, which to me seemed like a crucial piece of information. Finding out that you’d been making out with a past version of your best friend’s dad would certainly provoke a certain reaction, right? If it wasn’t weird enough how calm Ji Hoon remained when he found out who “Da Bong” really was and realized the true implications that had for his and Woo Seung’s relationship, it bothered me that no one ever called out the messiness of Ji Hoon’s father dating his son’s best friend. Of course, in the current time, they were around the same age and it wasn’t probably as weird, but still, I thought finding that out would definitely lead to a certain realization and possible shock with Woo Seung. Instead, I actually found it hard to grasp why she got mad at him when she found out the truth. If she didn’t know about him being Ji Hoon’s biological dad (and I guess she didn’t because again, no one ever mentioned it), was she just mad because he lied to her? What was it exactly that made her so mad that she’d tell him to go back to his own time? Even if it was just because “it didn’t make sense” that she was dating a time traveller, I would’ve liked it if she at least expressed a specific reason for getting mad at him. In the end, her getting randomly angry didn’t even have a meaning, because it was only followed by cringy scenes of the two getting super awkward and avoiding one another despite the fact they still wanted to be together.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it was really strange to me that Ji Hoon, especially if he knew that Hyun Jae was his father all along, didn’t make more of an effort to dissuade Woo Seung from dating him, let alone letting her in on the fact that she was crushing on his DAD. It just felt like Woo Seung had a right to know at some point, you know. The lack of shock response at realizing this was kind of baffling to me, and it’s definitely not how I would’ve let things develop.
The fact that this issue was never acknowledged let alone clearly communicated between the characters made it only harder for me to support Hyun Jae and Woo Seung as a couple. To this moment, I think the pairing was weird. I don’t understand why they didn’t clarify earlier that “Da Bong” wasn’t actually Ji Hoon’s dad and instead chose to let the weird idea float over their relationship for the entirety of the series. I already didn’t like the three “accidental kisses” in the first episode, but I brushed those off as typical jokes since this kind of silly stuff tends to happen sometimes. When they actually started to push the two together it legit made me uncomfortable. I mean, can someone tell me what was romantic about Hyun Jae looking at baby pics of Ji Hoon and Woo Seung together and going, “ahh, she was so cute” ?!?! Nope. Didn’t like that. That was downright gross. Nothing cute about it.
Basically, I wasn’t able to enjoy their romance because I couldn’t stop focussing on the fact that Hyun Jae was Ji Hoon’s dad, and even though they were around the same age in 2017, it just felt wrong. I could only come to peace with their relationship when in the last couple of episodes it became clear that Ji Hoon’s biological dad was a different version of Hyun Jae. If they’d just established that from the start, I may have been more okay with their relationship a little earlier on, but because they didn’t, it pretty much ruined their romantic relationship for me. Which was a shame, because they actually had some decent kissing scenes.

One thing I strongly disagreed with was that they literally revealed the truth of Hyun Jae being Ji Hoon’s biological dad in the very first episode, in an almost sitcom “and that’s how I met my dad” kind of way. The fact that they gave that away from the get-go but kept being vague about other, less important things like the family’s housing arrangment is still wild to me. The revelation of Hyun Jae being Ji Hoon’s dad would’ve been such a great thing to gradually unravel. It would’ve made Gwang Jae’s first mention of him registering Bo Hee’s child as his own much more impactful, seeing Hyun Jae slowly realizing what he meant by that. But no, we already knew, no surprise there, and that really took away from the suspense of the story. All in all I feel like, if they had chosen to pace and reveal certain things in a different way, they could’ve influenced the impact of these revelations way better. Instead they revealed potential major plot twists while keeping other less relevant things vague, and started off with introducing a lot of slapstick filler scenes that only distracted from and delayed the plot development of the main story.

Apart from these criticisms regarding the pacing and development of the story, I’d also like to give some examples of scenes that were kind of missed opportunities or that I thought weren’t concluded properly.
Personally, I don’t really like scenes that play out purely for the sake of comedy relief without a logical ending to it. At some point in the beginning, Woo Seung accidentally drops her phone on a boat and gets stuck in a split position whilst trying to recover it. Eventually she falls into the water, but after Hyun Jae helps her out they just leave, seemingly forgetting about the phone altogether. The same thing happened when Hyun Jae was crawling through the main house’s vent in an attempt to get Ji Hoon’s swapped bag back. After he fell down into the living room when the vent collapsed under his weight, the bag remained up there and was never mentioned again. I just don’t like the inconsistency of scenes like this, also when for example Ji Hoon asks Gwang Jae for a ride somewhere and then somehow ends up in a café to talk with Hyun Jae, like, weren’t you in a hurry to catch a ride? Why are you suddenly meeting up somewhere in town? Like, it would make sense if they went there after catching that ride with Gwang Jae, but the scene switch made it seem like he suddenly just changed plans, lol. I might be nitpicking here, but I always catch these kinds of inconsistencies and they always come across as lazy writing to me.
Another scene that seemed like a major missed opportunity was when MJ turned up at the house unannounced and found out about Ji Hoon and Woo Seung living together. Just at that moment, the shot conveniently switched to Hyun Jae inside, who just happened to be thinking of a way to meet up with this “MJ” who had been stealing his songs, not knowing that he was literally outside at that moment. Everything pointed at a development of “hey, he’s actually outside right now!” and I guess a more impactful moment of MJ finding out they all lived together but no, they actually LEFT IT THERE. They just cut off the scene right there. Why? I was totally expecting that to lead to something and it felt super random that they would be like “Omg, now MJ knows!”– end of scene with no further elaboration on it for the rest of the show. That was random as heck.

Despite the abovementioned criticisms, I still want to emphasize that I had a good time watching this show and there were enough moments to enjoy. Apart from the slapstick moments, there were some genuinely funny moments, such as Gwang Jae and Hyun Jae carrying a drunksleep Bo Hee around when they first met in 2017. The way they kept making pit stops and just plopped Bo Hee on a chair somewhere while they engaged in serious conversations actually cracked me up. It was funny because they kept it as a subtle funny background detail without emphasizing it. I also laughed when Drill and Woo Seung kept clapping to activate the lights in the staircase while Hyun Jae and Ji Hoon were arguing with each other. The combination of a funny action in the middle of a serious scene worked really well. It made me think of the scene from Our Blues when the girl told her father she was pregnant and the fan kept toppling over, adding to the building tension of the situation. I would’ve preferred more scenes like that, as those personally entertained me more than the scenes that were clearly deployed with a comedy/slapstick purpose.

Now that I’ve gone over all the points that I wished to discuss for this series, it’s time for the cast comments!

I’m not going to lie, but Yoon Shi Yoon was actually one of the reasons why I initially didn’t put this show on my to-watch list. I’d seen him in a couple of shows before this, like Me Too, Flower!, Flower Boy Next Door and Vivid Romance, but his performances always ended up being just a bit too goofy for my liking. Having said that, while his goofiness definitely showed through again in this series, I really liked also seeing a more serious side to his acting. I was genuinely impressed with the scene of the two Hyun Jaes talking in the second-to-last episode, because the way he portrayed 1994 Hyun Jae there literally made him look like a different person and it immediately made him much more attractive in my eyes, lol. I wonder if there are shows where he’s constantly serious, cause I might want to check those out 👀😂 It’s amazing how much of an impact it has when an actor that’s usually cast in comedic roles takes on a more serious persona. It was definitely a throwback seeing him in this, and it did change my view of him a little. It seems like he’s been doing dramas up until 2022 but I haven’t seen anything of him recently, I wonder if he’s still active in the background. In any case, it was fun seeing him in this show and he occasionally really impressed me with his acting. I hope he can keep it up!

The way I actually forgot that Kim Min Jae was in this show 🫣. I’d been deprived of his acting since he went to the military so this came as a nice surprise! Also, since he just returned from military service I can only hope more new dramas with him will come out in the near future. Anyways, following up on my character analyis of Ji Hoon, this was probably the mildest performance of Kim Min Jae I’ve seen so far. Up until now I’ve always seen him in roles with a little eccentricity or spice to them, like in Dali and the Cocky Prince and The Great Seducer. As far as I can remember I’ve never actually seen him in such a “vanilla” role as Lee Ji Hoon. Which was refreshing, in a way, since it did count as a side to his acting that I hadn’t seen before. I always like to see Kim Min Jae – he’s still the singular exception to my use of the word “bae” in my nicknaming him Kim Min Bae – and despite my criticisms regarding the passivity of his character, I still liked seeing him in this show. If anything, it’s made me more excited to see him appear in more different genres and roles!

I honestly didn’t recognize Lee Se Young from any other shows, so this was definitely an interesting introduction to her acting! There are some shows with her still on my to-watch list, so I look forward to those as well. May it be clear that my criticisms regarding her slapstick scenes have nothing to do with her acting, and I actually thought she did a really great job. I liked how she managed to convey the different layers to Woo Seung’s personality, going from sassy to soft, from snappy to emotional. The way she portrayed how Woo Seung’s feelings for “Da Bong” gradually developed was also very natural and they did have nice chemistry, regardless of my opinion about their relationship. I hope I can see her in more different shows and genres, I’m really interested in getting to know her better as an actress since it seems like she’s been consistently active the past few years.

I’ve seen Cha Tae Hyun before in The Producers and in some funny cameos in for example Café Minamdang and Legend of the Blue Sea. He is one of those actors that I feel can be effortlessly funny without becoming a token comic relief character. I really liked his performance in this show, Gwang Jae embodied the perfect balance of funny and serious and that worked very well. I also found out that he co-directed this show, which is cool! As far as I can tell this remains to be his only directing work, but it’s still interesting to see how some actors get the chance to explore other sides of the craft. As I think I made clear in my review, he really managed to touch me with his portrayal of Gwang Jae’s selflessness and innate goodness. I thoroughly enjoyed what he brought to this series, and I will always appreciate him for his subtle comedy skills, which is exactly the way I like it.

Yoon Son Ha looks really familiar to me, but I don’t think I recognize her from anything else. I also couldn’t help but notice that this was the last drama she appeared in before she retired, which means that this was probably quite a special project for her. I think she performed the role of Bo Hee really well and did a great job at layering her innocence and subtle bubbliness with her melancholy. Despite the fact that I would’ve liked to see some more heartfelt mother-son scenes between Bo Hee and Ji Hoon, I think she exuded a very welcoming energy and I did feel her motherly vibe with Mal Sook at the end. I don’t know if I’ll get to see her in other stuff since she won’t appear in anything new and I might not get to watch any of her older shows, but I’m glad that I at least got to see her in this.

Although I didn’t recognize him while watching this series, I’ve seen Dong Hyun Bae before as one of the PDs from So I Married an Anti-Fan. Apparently he’s also a musical actor, which seems to suit him perfectly. Regardless of his occasional exaggerated “funny” acting, I did like his performance, especially when more timid and serious emotions came into play. I liked his chemistry with the other people living in the rooftop house, and even though he didn’t exactly contribute to the main story that much, I liked that they kept him in as part of the fam and that they even went through with his ambitions to become an idol together with Ji Hoon. As I said before, his energy reminded me of Hobi a lot, which made it impossible for me to get too annoyed with him. It seems like he’s still consistently doing dramas, so maybe I’ll get to see him in other stuff in the near future. I’m curious to see more variety in his acting!

Lee Deok Hwa is one of those ahjussi actors that I’m always glad to see. I remember him most vividly as the grandpa from A Business Proposal, but he also appeared in Hyde, Jekyll, Me and Suspicious Partner, my all-time favourite show. I’m sure I’ll get to see him in a bunch more shows as he always pops up somewhere. I was really happy to see him in this, he always brings such flair and excitement to his roles, he always has that sparkle in his eye and it’s always a pleasure to watch him act. I really liked his chemistry with the little girl who played his granddaughter. It just seemed to come natural to him to dote on her. He was a really great addition to the show. I can’t believe he actually made me cry during the scene when he had the dementia episode, his delivery and emotional acting was amazing. I think I will never not be happy to see him in a drama.

When Mal Sook first came on-screen I instantly thought it was Kim Min Seo, the child actress from Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Café Minamdang and Mask Girl, but I was wrong. I still think they look very alike, their names sound similar and apparently they’re also the same age, so don’t come for me. Anyways, the child actress that appears in this drama is Lee Han Seo, and I remember her from her stellar performance as Kim Ji Won’s younger version in Fight For My Way. She also appeared in Goblin, 20th Century Boy and Girl and I’m Not a Robot. I really loved her as Mal Sook. Despite being only 8 (!) years old when this show aired, she seemed incredibly mature and smart in the way she acted and conveyed her lines and jokes. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s going to be part of the new generation of amazing child actors-turned-adults, and I can’t wait to see what more she has to offer.

I didn’t even know Cha Eun Woo was in this show! Apparently this was his first official drama appearance as an actor. It was so interesting seeing his first ever feature after seeing him in a bunch of romantic comedies like My ID is Gangnam Beauty, Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung and True Beauty. Honestly, it’s not that I’m even that big of a fan, but I absolutely loved his performance in this. His acting was really natural and cheeky, and it was a very refreshing change from the types of roles I’ve seen him in so far. MJ might not have had much depth to his character, but Cha Eun Woo still portrayed him with a lot of sincerity and personality. He was a really nice unexpected surprise, I’m glad I got to see this performance of his.

It hasn’t been long since I saw Kim Ji Yeon/Bona in Twenty-Five Twenty-One, so it was nice to see her in such a different role here. It was her acting debut as well, and while portraying an idol might not have been that challenging for her since she’s in a girl group in real life as well, I still liked her performance as Hye Ri. It didn’t look like she was new to the scene at all, she looked very natural and confident and portrayed both the sharp and softer sides of her character very well. I’m really excited to see her in more shows, especially Pyramid Game where she plays the main role, and get to know her as an actress even better. It was nice to see her in this!

And with that, we have reached the end of this review! I’m glad to see it took me less time than expected, but I guess it really helped that I made notes that I only needed to work out a bit. I might actually keep doing that as a routine, especially with shows that take me a long time to finish or that I end up watching with many breaks in-between.
Anyhow, this was an enjoyable show to watch overall. It wasn’t too serious, but it still had good acting and a promising story. My only criticisms lie in the fact that I don’t fully agree with their decisions regarding which parts to keep vague and which things to reveal right off the bat. I still feel like they could’ve structured it a bit better, because by leaving that vagueness hovering over the majority of the story, some parts didn’t come across to me as they were probably intended.
In the end, it was definitely the kind of show that I had imagined it to be, for better or for worse, but I’m still glad I got to see it and judge it for myself instead of wondering if I should’ve given it a chance.

I’m very curious about my next watch and I’ll try to upload another review before the end of next month.
Thank you for reading this until the end, and I’ll “see” you in the next one.

Until then!
Bye-bee! x