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.

Douse Mou Nigerarenai
(どうせもう逃げられない / I Can’t Run Away Anymore Anyway)
MyDramaList rating: 5.5/10

Hiya! I actually didn’t expect to be able to upload a final review before the end of this month and I was initially planning to leave this review until after my deadline in June. However, since I went through it so quickly and frankly just wanted to get it over with, I decided to devote my final vacant afternoon of the month to finish it. For the next series my Wheel of Fortune app picked out, I watched this short little romance drama which probably made it onto my list after I read the synopsis and thought it might prove to be interesting. As it’s been a while since I watched any simple cute romcoms, I was hoping it would raise my giddy spirits a bit. Unfortunately, I’ll have to say right off the bat that for my seventh watch this year, it didn’t turn out to be a Lucky Number Seven. This will be a relatively negative review, so be prepared.

Douse Mou Nigerarenai is a Japanese MBS drama that consists of 9 episodes of about 24 minutes. It’s based on the manga series of the same name by Kazui Kazumi. The story starts when main characters Sakisaka Takumi (played by Shirasu Jin) and Nodakura Naho (played by Yokota Mayuu) meet for the first time. As he gets into a fight with his date in public, Takumi drags Naho – whom he sees staring at the spectacle from a near distance – into the conversation and introduces her to his date as his new girlfriend (🚩). After the date has stomped off, Naho gets mad at him for 1. being so rude to his date and 2. for using her for his own convenience like that. Despite her anger, she still gives him her handkerchief to ease the spot where he got slapped. That same afternoon, the two meet again under unexpected circumstances – Naho was actually on her way to a job interview at Takumi’s company.
Takumi is a photographer who got famous for a photo called “A World With You”, with which he won a prestigious advertisement design award. Now, five years after that win, he owns a tiny company called Solo Design which provides designs for all sorts of things, from plush toys to tableware to food packaging.
With only temp experience, Naho means to take a short-term job before she joins a permanent office job, as it’s her dream to become an ‘OL’, which is a common Japanese term for a typical office lady. However, it doesn’t take long for Takumi to hire her as a full-time employee at Solo Design after Naho is tricked by her ‘friend’ and misses the entrance test for a company they were planning on entering together. Despite the small hiring budget of Solo Design and the fact that Naho’s tasks are way too small for a permanent contract, she is able to stay on at Takumi’s company.
While Takumi initially starts out teasing Naho a lot for her naivety and unbreakable positivity, for example for nicknaming her ‘Norakura Aho’ (‘aho’ means idiot; 🚩), Naho comes to see that behind that bad boy attitude, there’s also a soft side to her new boss. It doesn’t take long for the two to develop an attachment to each other, which starts from Takumi’s warnings regarding Naho’s habit to trust everyone way too easily. However, when the two start getting closer, a traumatic incident from Takumi’s past pops up and this causes him to start distancing himself from her.

Just to get this out of the way, this was possibly one of the most toxic relationships I’ve seen in a Japanese drama so far. Nothing about it was romantic to me. It was problematic and messy and if I were Naho I would’ve just let Takumi deal with his own shit by himself. Still, for the sake of this review I’ll try my best to remain objective and reflect on both characters’ perspectives.
Starting with Naho, what struck me as unusual from the start was that the story wasn’t written from her perspective. The synopsis illustrated her as the main protagonist, but the story actually starts from Takumi’s perspective. Naho is introduced as a very bright and forward-looking person, with the additional trait of having blind faith in everyone and being positive to a fault. She can even be described as a bit immature, because she also lets herself get teased very easily and tends to pout about it rather than actually stand up for herself. Despite the (very) occasional rebuttal, she has the habit of blaming herself a lot for things that aren’t hers to take on. Apart from these basic characteristics, I generally found it very hard to gauge her as a character since she doesn’t have much inner dialogue and the viewers also don’t get much insight into her psyche from the get-go as she barely talks about what she really feels when we’re just getting to know her character. We also don’t get any information about her family or background, so it was hard to pinpoint where she might have developed her naive and positive habits, for example. Any kind of backstory to support how she turned out the way she did would have been welcome, because without that she was really just a blank slate to me that I had to start filling in by myself, and this didn’t really help in building empathy and understanding for her.
Takumi is introduced as a typical bad boy who just plays around with women but has no intention of settling down for something serious (🚩). His first response to meeting Naho is to flirt around and fluster her, playing into her naivety (🚩). This in itself was alarming to me, because it felt like he just hired her to joke around with her. Seriously, taping her slippers to the floor so she’ll fall over? Making her run errands with a piece of paper that says “I’m an idiot” pasted to her back? What are we, ten? 🙄🚩 To switch up this childish behavior and keep Naho by his side, he would suddenly show a different, more caring side, for example in standing up for her against the ‘friend’ that tricked her into losing that permanent job opportunity. He’d be all like, “You’re way too gullible, I’ll protect you” (🚩). Heck, he even freaking KISSED her out of blue, without consent, just to make the point of, “See, there’s bad people like me who’ll just take advantage of you”. 🚩🚩🚩 I would’ve been out of the office at that point, but unfortunately, this actually gets Naho attracted to him more and more. No matter how fickle he is in his treatment of her – teasing her one moment, then drawing her closer the next – Naho just can’t stop developing feelings for him. It even goes so far that she starts blaming herself for not being able to support him properly in his trauma which has literally nothing to do with her.

Before going into the most problematic aspect of the story – Takumi’s trauma – I’d like to introduce the few characters that I did actually like in this show: the other employees from Solo Design. When Naho starts working there, she joins a team of two colleagues besides Takumi: Amari Takehiko (played by Kusakawa Takuya) and Urae Sayaka (played by Ishida Nicole). A third colleague named Fukasawa Kaoru (played by Asaka Koudai) joins in a bit later. Amari and Urae are immediately very warm and welcoming to Naho and they really validate her presence in the office. When Naho at some point decides to leave because she feels bad about hogging a permanent employee spot, Urae immediately states that she can’t get things done without her and the whole team tries to persuade Takumi to reject her resignation.
I also liked the short arc about Urae debating to go solo and how this brought about some honesty from Takumi’s side. This was one of the few instances where I felt like an event in the office actually contributed to the main characters’ development while it simultaneously highlighted a supporting character in a relevant way. I wish there would have been some tiny arc around Amari as well, as he was kind of left behind in that regard. Anyways, it was nice getting to know at least Urae a bit better.
I had slightly mixed feelings about Kaoru at the beginning, mostly because of his ‘fun’ habit to tell Naho to take her clothes off as a joke 😒 . However, his character’s additional purpose was established when it was revealed that he knew more about Takumi’s past and he was the person who could tell Naho about it when Takumi decided to keep his distance from her.
Another supporting character that I liked was Takumi’s niece Tsubasa (played by Honda Miyu), purely because she was the only person in his family who didn’t think of him as problematic and just liked him as a nice uncle in an uncomplicated way.

It’s time to go into what messed up the story the most for me. From the start, it’s revealed through short flashbacks that Takumi has a past with the woman in his famous photo “A World With You”. The photo features a woman with short hair holding a young dog in a field of flowers. When Naho first enters Solo Design, she is immediately warned by Urae not to talk about the story behind the photo and Takumi’s past in general (🚩). Takumi also seems to have withdrawal symptoms whenever it’s raining, which kind of reminded me of the ML’s trauma from A Business Proposal.
It’s eventually revealed that the woman in the picture, Chiharu (played by Kobayashi Ryoko), was his older brother’s wife and that Takumi had been in love with her (🚩). She tragically died after she and Takumi got into a car accident in the rain one time. Apart from Takumi’s guilt regarding her death (he was driving and therefore he claims he killed her), there seems to be something else behind his lingering attachment to her. Ultimately, Naho learns that, on the night before the accident, Chiharu came to visit Takumi at his house. She appeared on his doorstep, drenched and dejected, and told him she’d slept with her company’s boss in order to get promoted. She ended up at Takumi’s place because she felt too scared and ashamed to face her husband.

Okay, so listen. I get that Takumi wanted to lift some weight off of Chiharu at that point. Seeing the woman he loved in that state must have been awful and I get that he just wanted to help her in whatever way possible. Honestly, I get that. But seriously, how the FUCK did he come up with the idea to take the place of the person she slept with in her story? Why couldn’t he have just promised to keep her secret and help her cover it up or something? Like, how did this solution make it any better? He literally complicated the situation by taking on part of the blame and creating a reason for his brother to hate the both of them rather than just his wife in case he found out. It just didn’t make sense to me why Takumi felt the need to put some of that blame onto himself. Also, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he actually chose to use the opportunity to confess his feelings for Chiharu right there and then. She was sitting on his couch, completely soaked and in tears, filled with shame, and he thought it would be a good chance to tell her that he would do everything to protect her – he even started KISSING her, like, what the heck was he thinking?! It actually made the situation go from bad to worse.
Just when I thought that was the worst of it, I was only more disturbed by Chiharu’s reaction. Not only did she allow Takumi to ‘kiss it better’ (she even started kissing him back 😒 ), in the car the next morning she even told Takumi that she was happy to hear his confession! Like, girl, what?! Are you seriously going along with this right now? Despite defending her actions with her boss, she was in a very delicate situation and state, and I also don’t know for sure why she came to Takumi or if she expected anything from him. Still, fact remains that she went along with his idiotic idea and didn’t even reject him when he expressed his true feelings for her while she was married to his brother. They were both at fault. I said what I said. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

So yeah, Takumi has been carrying the guilt of Chiharu’s death with him the entire time and that, in combination with the blame he put on himself for covering up her secret, has been the main reason why he’s never allowed himself to be happy. That’s why he constantly keeps distancing himself from Naho, even after drawing her in time and time again. It’s like, he would admit to liking her and kiss her only to come back the next day to tell her that he’s changed his mind and they can’t be together. It’s all connected to his self-victimization and the fact that he’s punishing himself over and over again for what happened to Chiharu. Everything combined just made the situation super unhealthy and problematic. On the other hand, Naho didn’t make it any better because she in turn also started self-victimizing by constantly blaming herself for not being able to help him. The way their relationship kept building on their respective victim complexes was so toxic it actually became hard to watch. At some point I just kept yelling at Naho to remove herself from the situation because it wasn’t doing either of them any good and Takumi really need to get his shit together first. The simple truth was that he started something new when he was still stuck on his dead first love in several messy ways. It was actually painful to watch him change his mind every other day, confusing the shit out of Naho and hurting her again and again in the process. The worst thing was that, even when Naho was like “I’ve decided to give up on him for real!”, I knew he was going to come back and she was going to fold again and they would end up “happily ever after” without actually resolving anything. Every single time that he pushed her away and then came back to hug her again I was like 🤬🤬🤬 That pattern just kept repeating and it’s also exactly what happened in the end.

What contributed largely to the messy storyline was the writing. Apart from complicating situations such as what happened between Takumi and Chiharu, some dialogues also just didn’t make any sense. As I said, Takumi started changing his mind every other day about what his intentions with Naho were. There was this one ‘official’ confession scene where he told her he liked her (not for the first time, by the way) and kissed her and then the next day he sat her down to reject her again saying he “thought about it for a very long time”. Bro, you confessed to her YESTERDAY. Unless your definition of ‘a very long time’ is one day, this doesn’t make any sense. Naho confirmed this, as she should’ve, by getting super confused and saying that “this is really sudden” because yeah, IT WAS. His feelings literally changed overnight. These kinds of conversations kept repeating and it just got exhausting to watch.
Also, in the final episode when Takumi finally ‘officially officially’ confesses to Naho, he says that patching things up with his brother “made him fully realize that Chiharu was gone and how much he missed her for the first time”. Dude literally spent five years stuck on his feelings for her, punishing himself for her death and now he suddenly says, “Wow, I just realized for the first time that she’s gone and how I miss her”. What the fuck was that about?
Finally, there were several red flags that went up during and after the final confession. When asking Naho to be his forever, Takumi didn’t just rattle on about how much he still missed Chiharu and wished he could spend time with her, he also ‘proposed’ with the words “Please give yourself to me”. ?!?! Until the very end he STILL had the audacity to expect her to devote herself to him even after confirming that he STILL missed Chiharu. In the short and unimpressive scene after that, which shows them in the foreplay of officially sleeping together for the first time, he literally tells Naho that he’ll “love her (or “make love to her” 👀 ; the Japanese language can be quite ambiguous) enough to make up for all the times he made her cry by herself”. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 🚩🚩
Seriously, on the scale of J-Drama love confessions, this one gets a -10 out of 10. I’m gonna run out of red flags.

There were only a few moments where I felt that Naho had a backbone, but she’d always revert to her apologetic self afterwards, and that was a real waste.
I liked how she made Takumi face up to Urae when she was debating on quitting. It was nice to see Takumi becoming the puppy, turning to Naho to ask if he did it right.
Also, although I liked how certain she became of her own feelings for Takumi at some point, it felt kind of weird and out of place when she suddenly went dominant on him, grabbing him by the tie and kissing him first, leaving him uncharacteristically flustered. It was like, even though she did stand up for herself at times, it was very inconsistent and she never retained that attitude for longer than an episode.
Another example was that, even though I thought it was a powerful move of her to cut her hair after Takumi had said that that was the only thing he liked about her, it still didn’t have any lingering effect on her character development.
As we are on the topic of Naho’s hair, I’d just like to take this opportunity to say that I hated what they did with it. In the first couple of episodes, Naho has long hair and she always wears it really cutely, either in a braid or a ponytail. Despite feeling proud of her for actually cutting her hair – because I thought it was so brave of her to actually try to ‘cut’ herself free of Takumi – this was quickly diminished by the fact that they didn’t just cut the actress’ hair and tried to make it work. They actually gave her a typical black bob-style wig and a super sloppy and ill-cut one at that. Like, at least make it look like her actual hair!
I also find it a bit weird that they decided to feature Naho with her long hair on the series’ poster. Admittedly, the long hair looks way better, but she only has that hairstyle for the first couple of episodes. Since I got used to the bob-style wig which she has for more than half of the series until the end, seeing the poster was kind of weird. I actually had to do a double-take to make sure it was really her.

All in all, I think the relationship depicted in this drama was very problematic. Takumi was a walking red flag and though Naho didn’t deserve to get dragged into it, she actively started involving herself into it. While it could be seen as touching that someone goes through so much to help their loved one through their trauma, fact remains that it’s not up to them to fix it. You can only stand by someone for so long without letting it affect your own mental health. Naho literally became miserable because of Takumi and vice versa. The last couple of episodes were just the two of them crying whenever Takumi decided to push Naho away again. In my opinion, they were not healthy for each other and the few ‘cute’ moments they had together didn’t make up for anything.
In positive terms, I do think we should give it to Naho that her loyalty and feelings towards Takumi were so strong that she was prepared to go through all of that to be with him. On Takumi’s side, he really just needed to face his demons and he probably wouldn’t have been able to do it without Naho, despite the fact that it took so many painful situations to get there. I just didn’t like how they kept feeding their own and each other’s sense of self-victimization. As a result, I did not feel anything for them, not when they smiled at each other or when they were breaking their own hearts. The drama became so unnecessarily heavy because of all the crying and needless self-blaming in the second half that I started wanting them to either just cut ties and move on with their own lives or for Takumi to resolve his feelings as soon as possible to at least give Naho some peace of mind.

My biggest issue with this series is that it was probably written to be a heartfelt love story between a pure girl and a troubled guy. The opening sequence depicted a cute little kitten and a big strong tiger, which probably meant to symbolize Naho and Takumi, respectively. Naho’s brightness was meant to light up Takumi’s darkness. Honestly, I liked Naho more in the beginning of the series, before she developed feelings for Takumi, because then she was still very bright in her positivity and she visibly managed to surprise and impress Takumi with her straightforward attitude. It was a shame that she actually ended up getting dragged into his darkness with him.
As if the story and the depicted relationship in this series aren’t toxic enough, I actually find the title of this drama very red flaggy as well. I know that this drama is based on a manga series – and I hope that the manga at least builds up their relationship a bit more steadily and healthily – but seriously, to feature two people in such a toxic cycle of self-victimization and then title it “I Can’t Run Away From It Anymore Anyway”? Although there was no mentioning of the title throughout the series, I can actually picture Naho responding to Takumi’s proposal with “Sure, I’ll give myself to you, because I can’t run away from it anymore anyway.” 🤡 The fact that I can picture her saying it with a genuinely happy smile on her face worries me.

To end on a positive note, I really liked the ending theme, Thermocline by Momosumomosu. It’s a very cute song.

Since this is such a short review, I’m going to add a small cast comments section. I actually didn’t know any of the actors in this show, which was a first!
I don’t know what it was, but something in Shirasu Jin’s face reminds me of Song Joong Gi. I’ve seen him before in Gakkou no Kaidan, Eigyou Buchou Kira Natsuko, Totsuzen Desu Ga, Ashita Kekkon Shimasu, Kizoku Tantei and Erased, although I don’t remember him from any of these (sorry). Apparently we’re the same age! When I looked up more information about him I learned that he recently got married to a woman six years his senior.
Apart from the fact that I didn’t feel much for his character Takumi, I have to admit that his acting was good, especially when it came to his crying scenes. He’s done a whole bunch of dramas so maybe I’ll come across something in the future where he portrays a less problematic character.

I just found out Yokota Mayuu was in 3-nen A-gumi and I hate that I can’t remember her character! But that must mean that she has way more up her acting sleeve, because everyone in 3A was great. Watching her in this show really made me hope that she was a better actress and that the passiveness in her character was solely due to the poor writing of the series. I would’ve just liked to see her portray more expressions in this show, because she really just went from 😊 to 🥺 with no in-betweens. There are at least three more series with her on my list, so I know I’ll get see more of her and I’m actually looking forward to that.

Apparently I’ve seen Asaka Koudai before in Boku no Yabai Tsuma, but it’s been too long so I don’t remember him from there. There are so many Japanese dramas that I watched before I started writing reviews, so I barely remember anyone from those. I wish there could’ve been a bit more consistency in his character. Despite his eventual revelation as a plot-relevant character who know more about what happened to Takumi in the past, he was introduced as a kind of comical and even slightly perverted character, with this “Take off your clothes! 📸” joke. In the end, he only made this joke three times before it disappeared from the dialogue completely and he was suddenly attributed a more serious part. Still, he was a good person and his acting was fine, so I don’t have much more to comment on.

Ishida Nicole looks so familiar to me, but I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything before. Despite being a side character and only getting so much screentime, I actually really liked her performance. She just had a nice presence within the Solo Design studio and it helped to get a little arc about her character and how she came to work at the company. I hope I get to see her in more dramas in the future!

I would’ve liked to see some more action revolving around Kusakawa Takuya’s character Amari. The actor was also in Tantei no Tantei but, as with almost all of the beforementioned Japanese dramas, I barely remember anything about that, let alone the supporting cast. It would’ve been nice if Amari could’ve also gotten a tiny arc like Urae, at least to explain how he’d ended up at Solo Design. In a short series with such a limited cast as this, I think it’s good to explore whatever characters you have. I would’ve liked some more scenes with Amari and Urae in-between all the drama going on between the main leads. A more occasional pallet cleanser would have been very welcome. I see that he’s also done a whole bunch of dramas starting from 2008 so chances are I might come across him again in a future watch.

I’m going to leave it at that for the cast comments and, consequently, this review. I went through it really fast and I’m honestly going to say that I’m glad it’s over. I didn’t enjoy the story or the romance as much as I’d hoped – I was basically just wrecking my brain in confusion because so little things made sense, lol. Still, it managed to make me curious to the original story and if it did anything, it was to make me watch more series with these actors just to confirm that they participated in better written projects than this.
As always, I don’t know what my next watch is going to be, but the review will at least have to wait until mid-June because of my final deadline.

Until next time! 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.

Sashidashinin wa, Dare desu ka?
(差出人は、誰ですか？/ Who is the Sender?)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Heya-heya-ho! Just wanted to drop one more review before the end of the month and before I get busy with my final college assignments! I’m really liking how my Spin the Wheel app is picking out these varying series that I wouldn’t have been able to get to this soon otherwise. This show proved to be another hidden gem which I enjoyed a lot and I can’t wait to share my thoughts and feelings about it. I didn’t exactly know what it was going to be about before I started but I never expected it would be wholesome in the end – it actually made me tear up a couple of times. I’ve really missed feeling getting this touched by a drama. It’s been a while since I got really caught up in something and I had a really good time watching it, so this will be a pretty positive review. Now, without further ado, let’s start!

Sashidashinin wa, Dare desu ka? is a TBS Japanese drama with a unique format of 40 episodes of 15 minutes, which makes it incredibly addictive and bingeable. The story focusses on Class 2-D of Arakawa High School and their homeroom teacher Tachibana Junta (played by Emoto Tokio). At the start of the first semester of their second year, Tachibana suddenly announces a new element to their homeroom class – something he calls the “Letter Game”. Basically, every single student in their class has to submit at least one handwritten letter to another classmate that contains their honest feelings about something. There are no conditions on what the message should contain, so it can either be positive or negative, and the sender doesn’t have to sign their name under it. The only rule is that, if even one student doesn’t send in a letter before the end of the second semester, the whole class will fail the year.
The main character that the story follows is Kuwazuru Mitsuki (played by Kouzawa Sara). She lives with her extremely lovey-dovey parents (Shimada Tamayo and Kaneko Noboru) and cat, and is childhood friends with her classmate Mitarai Ken (played by Komagine Kiita). While it is revealed that she used to be very outspoken and used to protect Ken from being bullied when they were little, she has become quite timid and now prefers to stay in the background. Her favorite snacks are Cat Potato chips, which she often goes to buy at the convenience store. Her best friend from the same class is Saeki Ayaka (played by Otake Aika) and she has a secret crush on the quiet and mysterious boy in class, Ichinose Touya (played by Fujiwara Taiyu). All in all, she gets along with everyone and lives a peaceful life, but that all starts to change when the Letter Game starts. Suddenly, brutally honest feelings and secrets come to light which only start adding up to the rising tensions within the class. Soon, the question of who sent the letter will turn out to be less important than the issue of communicating and resolving issues between people.

First of all, let me say that this show gave me major 3-nen A-gumi vibes. Even though Sashidashinin is much milder – the kids aren’t held hostage and there’s no threat of killing anyone (I was half expecting Tachibana to go, “If even one of you doesn’t submit a letter before the end of the year, you will all die“) – the elements of the eccentric homeroom teacher (who turned out to be terminally ill), the increasing tensions within the class and the fact that the whole Letter Game was tied to getting the students to spend less time venting their unfiltered feelings on social media really took me back. On the other hand, I think Sashidashinin did a really good job of creating a situation that enabled these kids to open up to each other in a very healthy way. Even when the letters started revealing dark secrets and things got intense, it always ultimately led to honesty and genuine conversations and I loved how the students initiated that all by themselves. Even though Sashidashinin only focussed on a specific group of students within the class (3-nen A-gumi highlighted every single classmate), it was more than enough to build sympathy for everyone and it actually made me like every single person in the end.
Despite the fact that I was really invested in the story and I couldn’t stop binging it, there was one thing that obstructed me from getting “too into it”, and that had to do with the episode format. I honestly feel like I would’ve gotten more emotionally immersed in it if the episodes had been longer and included more content. Having to jump out of it and click on the next episode after every ten minutes broke the flow for me a little bit. Although I still really enjoyed the story and indulged in all the (spilled) tea between the students, I feel like they would’ve been able to build up the tension in certain arcs better in slightly longer episodes. I definitely wouldn’t have been as immersed in 3-nen A-gumi if it would’ve had this format. I think the format played a big part in keeping the series quite light and mild, even though some of the revealed secrets were pretty intense.

I’d like to go over some of the mainly featured characters and their respective stories/secrets that were revealed through the Letter Game.
To switch things up, I’d like to start with Tachibana, the teacher. The whole truth about his decision to start the Letter Game is revealed in the last couple of episodes through flashbacks after he’s already passed away. Throughout the story there are several clear hints that indicate that he is sick, mostly the amount of time he spends with the school nurse, Obata Kimi (Susuki Miyuki). At some point he tells the class that he was inspired by the suicide letter from some famous athlete in which he was finally able to share all his honest feelings to his family members. However, in reality it all started when Tachibana discovered the words “I want to die” on one of his students’ career questionnaires. The forms was anonymous, so he started the Letter Game in order to make his students express their honest feelings and identify who’d written that message in the process. He realized what a lousy teacher he’d been and now that he knew he only had three more months to live, he wanted to make one final attempt to get his students to tear themselves away from their phone screens and communicate openly with each other.
Regarding Tachibana as a person, not much is revealed. We only learn about his motives for the Letter Game after he’s already passed, and we see that he’s concerned for his students’ wellbeing in-between his erratic outbursts and casual dismissals of their problems. Other than that, we don’t get to know him very well, which adds to the enigmatic element of his character. I don’t think he was meant to be a mysterious character per se, because the students also seemed to feel comfortable enough around him, but he kind of made himself stand out more as an eccentric figure after announcing the Letter Game. As I mentioned before, his character reminded me a bit of Suda Masaki’s character from 3-nen A-gumi because even though he freaked everyone out at some point, he still managed to get everyone to be deeply touched by his actions in the end.
I personally would’ve liked to get a bit more information on him as a person, and also on his relationship with Kimi-sensei. I really loved their friendship and even how it was suggested they may have been romantically involved. He was such a different person when he spoke with her and I would’ve liked to get to know him a bit better and not just after he already passed away. But all in all, I thought the way he was portrayed, silently watching the chaos unfold while hoping that everyone would make it out okay, was quite powerful. Unlike the teacher in 3-nen A-gumi, apart from reading the letters out loud he deliberately stayed away and left his students to patch things up by themselves, and that was probably the best way to fix it. By not taking the initiative to solve whatever issue was raised by the letters, he managed to make everyone aware of each other’s situations and get them to stop relying on adults for solutions. It was a really good strategy which could’ve also gone completely sideways.

Ironically, even though Mitsuki is the only student who ends up not submitting a letter, she still ends up playing a very central role in the majority of her classmates’ “letter experiences”. What I thought was so good about this show from the start was how it depicted typical teenage anxiety when it came to friendships, amplified by the influence of social media. Although the overall vibe in class 2-D was great, we are immediately introduced to strained relationships as well, for example in how Hikari has started to crop her former friend Hana out of her Insta photos. It made for a very strong start of the show to see Mitsuki react to herself being cropped out of a picture by her best friend Ayaka, and this worry was immediately amplified by her reception of a letter saying, “I hate you so much”. Little signs that indicate something is wrong while the other person is acting like nothing happened can only drive you crazy with anxiety and confusion, and confronting that weird tension is always scary. However, Mitsuki takes the leap and this not only brings her closer to her best friend, but also to herself.
I think Mitsuki was a very well-written character, all in all. Despite her being such a typical teenager and student, I also thought that her backstory justified very well why and how she became the person she was and how realizing this made her reconnect with her past self. The information that she used to be super upfront and basically got diminished by other people’s negative opinions about her outspokenness really helped me empathize with her. Although it was clearly difficult for her, she really became more open about her feelings and she started talking things through rather than just pretending everything was fine to spare everyone else’s feelings. As she so fittingly says, just trying to get along with everyone without talking about what’s important is basically the same as ignoring people’s feelings. I found it really wholesome to watch how she learned from the lessons the Letter Game and her classmates taught her, and how she used them to reflect and grow as a person.
The only thing that kept puzzling me is how the heck she was related to her parents, lol. Her mom and dad were basically a lovey-dovey comedy duo and Mitsuki was so reserved in contrast. Admittedly, her home situation was super warm and loving, but sometimes I really found myself wondering how Mitsuki could be the product of those two, lol. I really loved her cat, by the way.

I think Ayaka may have been my favorite character in the show. She was such a good friend and she dealt with everything so maturely, even when things got tense and awkward. I loved the way in which she came clean about cropping Mitsuki out of that picture and how she just wanted her to rely on her more. Despite being a typical moodmaker and always acting cheerful and unconcerned, Ayaka was incredibly invested in her friends’ situations and feelings. I have to admit I was kind of scared that her walking in on Mitsuki and Ikuru after she’d told Mitsuki she liked him would burst another bubble, but it was so mature of her to trust her friend instead of lashing out at her. She didn’t even confront Mitsuki or get angry at her for keeping it from her. Their friendship was so wholesome and I loved it.
Besides standing up for Mitsuki when she got that hate letter, Ayaka also proved her solidarity to her classmates in other ways. Although it was very ballsy of her, she actually exposed Hikari’s domestic abuse. This really put Hikari on the spot and I understood why she got angry at first – imagine this suddenly being brought up through an anonymous letter in front of the entire class. But I found it so touching that Ayaka had actually caught her hidden video message and immediately decided to find a way to help her. Others might have seen it and decided to stay away from it, but Ayaka actually went around asking people for advice and searching for solutions. She ended up playing a major part in getting Hikari to safety in the end. The fact that she was prepared to get herself involved in trying to save a classmate/friend was such a redeeming characteristic of her. She kept standing up for her friends, she kept supporting everyone’s crushes even when her own didn’t work out, and she kept supporting her classmates through everything. She was literally the best person.

One of the characters that I found most interesting to dissect was Narita Ikuru (played by Sakurai Kaito). He’s revealed to be the son of a big construction company’s director who grew up in a wealthy family. I guess this initially made him popular on a shallow level as people just liked to ask him for things since he was rich. He would offer to host birthday parties for his friends in his family’s buildings and things like that. Besides that, his big passion is soccer, which he started pursuing with professional ambitions. He’s introduced as the most popular guy in class, and Ayaka has a blatant crush on him.
What made him such an interesting character to me was his duality. On the one hand, he’s depicted as an incredibly cool guy and caring friend. He treats the girls in his class especially respectfully and always offers to help people out when they express their worries and troubles. After Mitsuki receives her hate letter, he constantly asks her if she’s okay and offers to find the culprit for her, and he also acts like a protective older brother to Hikari. This respectful and genuine side of him has attracted a lot of affection from girls around him, but he never plays around with anyone. When Ayaka confesses to him the first time, he apologizes and seems to be genuinely touched even though he doesn’t feel the same. Their friendship doesn’t get strained because he exudes such a genuine and caring energy. In contrast to this soft side, Ikuru can also be seen as kind of a bully. He always sleeps through class and asks others to make his homework for him, and he blatantly bullies his classmate Baba Hiroto (Kubozuka Airu). This duality made him a really intriguing character to gauge, because he really didn’t seem like a bad guy.
His image ultimately started to crumble when someone exposed him with a letter that revealed to the whole class that his family’s business went bankrupt and he also quit playing soccer. Despite everyone’s expectations, Ikuru may have actually been the one suffering the most all this time.
Through an initial letter stating that he’s been bullying his classmate, it’s revealed that Ikuru and Baba are actually childhood friends. With Ikuru pursuing soccer and Baba pursuing shogi – a form of Japanese chess – they started out rooting for each other and having each other’s back, but when Baba kept losing tournaments he started criticizing Ikuru for retaining such a carefree and positive mindset when he wasn’t even as ambitious as him. This caused their friendship to become strained and Ikuru started venting all of his frustrations from his home situation onto his old friend without actually meaning to. I honestly found the arc about their friendship very heartwarming, because you could also see how frustrated Baba had become in constantly being bullied by the friend he still cared about so much. It actually made me tear up when Ikuru finally read Baba’s letter and bowed his head to him in apology in class. Men expressing emotion still gets me.
In their final expressions to Tachibana during his funeral, Ikuru admits that he was the one who wrote “I want to die” on that form. I just found it so heart-wrenching that, for the guy who was always reaching out to his friends and classmates to rely on him, it was the hardest thing to reach out himself. Still, he really grew as a person and it was so satisfying to see how he started talking things out with his male friends as well. I personally found it surprising that he only admitted to having feelings for Mitsuki after she told him that it didn’t matter what he did because he would always be himself. I actually thought he had feelings for her from the start, lol. Despite his genuine intentions, the kabedon and immediate unconsented attempt to kiss Mitsuki before even getting a response from her did surprise me, but he definitely redeemed himself by how he handled her rejection. The fact that he let it go so respectfully and told her he would root for her no matter what was such green flag behavior. He was a really good guy and I’m glad that we got to see his emotional development in this story, especially because he was made out to be the toughest guy in the crowd.

Another character whose duality intriguid me was Ichinose Touya. I think it’s safe to say he went through the biggest character development out of everyone. In class, he’s the silent and stoic study genius who never really engages with everyone. If this had been an anime, he would be the dreamy guy you spot reading a book against a fluttering curtain with cherry blossoms drifting around him. We are introduced to him through Mitsuki’s eyes, whose curiosity in him quickly turns into a crush. As dreamy and mysterious as he might seem, there’s actually a very serious backstory to Ichinose’s character. He lost his father recently and now has to help his single working mother to take care of his two younger siblings. This situation has inevitably caused him to grow up very fast, and now he’s just focussing on getting through school and working hard at his part-time job in order to take care of his family. His situation has led him to avoid other ‘unimportant’ things such as participating in events and dating – he simply can’t afford to think about enjoying leisure activities at the moment. Despite this, Ichinose has a very surprising side to him which he only shows outside of school after he finishes his part-time job. He spends the final hours of his day skateboarding and rapping on the streets. The manager of the gas station he works at is a professional rapper (Cypress Ueno) and it’s clear that Ichinose really admires him. Although he means to keep this side of him a secret, he inevitably ends up bumping into Mitsuki one night and she is more than happy to have a shared secret with him. Through this first encounter, the two gradually become a bit closer and throughout the story Ichinose learns to open up more in class as well. He starts showing more surprising sides of him and participating in social events more as well.
The buildup in the relationship between Mitsuki and Ichinose was one of my favorite dynamics in this show. The more he became certain of his feelings for her, the cuter Ichinose became and it was so adorable to see him try and get friendlier with her. It happened so gradually and naturally but it didn’t take away the euphoric effect when they FINALLY confessed their mutual feelings for each other in the final episode. Admittedly, I didn’t like that he temporarily reverted back to his original ‘leave me alone/it’s none of your business’ attitude towards Mitsuki after his mom collapsed, especially when he’d JUST admitted that he wanted to get to know her better. Still, it just made the way Tachibana and his classmates made him face the fact that he was allowed to be a kid for a bit longer and didn’t have to take on all his family’s responsibility by himself extra moving. Realizing how literally every single person in the room had his back must have meant a great deal, especially since he was so used to avoiding getting involved with anyone in the beginning. I really loved the person Ichinose became when he finally let go of those heavy responsibilities he felt towards his family. It was so sweet to see him finally allow himself to actually be interested in Mitsuki and express that to her, even though it still took him some time to act on it. The way he asked her permission to send her a message on LINE had my heart🥹. Seriously, what a cinnamon roll.

On a side note, I just want to mention how much I loved Mr. Harada from the gas station, the rapper manager. He was awesome. He talked like Killer Bee from Naruto.😂 I loved how he would encourage both Ichinose and Ikuru to talk things out like ‘real men’. On the other hand I thought it was hilarious how he just owned up to the fact that he had no romantic experience whatsoever and would be of no help when it came to advise on women. He’d be like, ‘Bro, I ain’t got nothin’ for ya there. Peace out.’✌🏻😂

The storyline that probably touched me the most was Ken’s. Seriously, bless Ken. As mentioned before, he’s Mitsuki’s childhood friend and classmate and he’s often depicted playing basketball, either at school or by himself in the evening. In the beginning, he’s often shown asking Mitsuki to walk to or from school together and being disappointed when she rejects him, and this is later revealed to be connected to the fact that she doesn’t want Ichinose to see her walk home with another guy. While it would’ve been predictable to interpret Ken’s approaches as an expression of interest towards Mitsuki, this is called into question when it’s revealed that he used to date her classmate Momoko (Ohira Kurumi). They even get back together at some point. Throughout the story, Mitsuki often talks to him about her feelings for Ichinose and he’s always there to lend a listening ear and a supporting shoulder. However, things are not as they seem.
I just want to take this opportunity to say that I was so proud of myself for calling this. I don’t even know exactly when it was, but I definitely knew by the time he started crying when Momoko kissed him during the school trip. I just KNEW it and I’m so happy it played out the way it did. It just makes me so grateful when Japanese dramas include LGBTQA+ issues in their stories and normalize it, because it still feels like such a general taboo in Japanese society.
At some point in the beginning, Ichinose receives a love letter through the Letter Game which is beautifully written and mentions a book called Night on the Galactic Railroad (which is also a main reference point in the show Gisou Furin). Towards the end of the series, Mitsuki finds the book in the library and sees that, several weeks after Ichinose borrowed it, Ken did as well. Instead of creating an awkward situation of confronting Ken with this and people making fun or something, the show treated the topic in such a heartwarming and normalizing way and it actually made me cry. First of all, because Ichinose is a walking green flag. He already figured out the letter had come from Ken but never confronted him or made him feel embarrassed about it. ON THE CONTRARY. During the afterparty of their second year graduation, he actually insists on dancing with him. Not just because they were picked out as dance partners but because he actually wanted to. Seeing him be so accepting and respectful of Ken’s feelings for him despite not being able to reciprocate them was so freaking touching. I was so happy for Ken that his feelings were validated like that. Also seeing Mitsuki express to him that she’d always be his ally…😭 this whole arc was just so wholesome and I loved it. Ken was so freaking brave for sending Ichinose that letter, even if it was anonymous, asking him if he could just keep loving him in secret. It was so fulfilling how everyone who knew validated his feelings so much. He was just Ken and he was Kenough.

Which brings me to Momoko, because despite her fickle attitude in the beginning it can’t be denied that she made a huge sacrifice for Ken. I thought their shared (secret) bond was really touching. At some point towards the end it’s revealed that Momoko had a part-time job as a cosplay model, but she quit after a creepy otaku client got handsy with her. It’s not explained in detail what happened, but I guess we can fill it in by ourselves – it ended up traumatizing her. Still, she could never bring herself to delete her social account because she had a lot of fans waiting for her to make a comeback with new cosplay shoots. When she returned to school, Ken was always the person that sought her out and she ended up trusting him enough to share her secret with him. His constant support made her fall for him and they started dating, but then he suddenly broke up with her. Momoko eventually figured out by herself that he fancied guys and she offered to be his beard despite the fact that she was still genuinely in love with him. Seriously, her feelings were still so strong after they broke up that she became bitter about how friendly Mitsuki was with him, and she ended up sending her that hate letter. As much as I didn’t particularly like her in the beginning, I started liking her more during Hikari’s arc, because that’s when she admitted about Mitsuki’s letter and she just became much more likable. I did feel like something was off when she and Ken started dating again and when it was revealed that she was basically acting as his beard it just clicked. It hit hard that she sacrificed her feelings in order to protect him, after he’d been there for her after that traumatic experience. Still, it did confirm that she had a good heart and cared a lot about her friends.

I’ve already mentioned her a couple of times, but I also want to devote a paragraph to Hikari’s story. Hiiragi Hikari (played by Umakoshi Yuri) is initially depicted as this super bright girl who also works part-time at the students’ regular meetup diner, Bunny’s. She has a blatant crush on Ikuru and she occasionally lets a sneery side shine through, for example when Ikuru pays a lot of attention to Mitsuki or when it comes to her classmate Hana, with whom she’s apparently had a fallout before the start of the series. She also really loves gossip and is very active on social media. She can be described as a bit nosy, as well: she has the habit of secretly filming people and then sharing that as a buzz, which doesn’t always go down well. In any case, she never lets anything slip that would suggest her to be a victim of DV.
I know that in Ayaka’s paragraph I mentioned that I understood Hikari for getting angry at her for exposing her secret like that, but on the other hand I also found it confusing. After all, she reached out herself by uploading a video of her dad coming at her with the words “Help me”. By doing that, did she really not mean for anyone to figure out that it was her? Why else would you upload a video like that? In any case, the arc in which they ended up getting her out of her parents’ house and Tachibana telling her she did so well on her own for so long had me choked up as well. Apart from the fact that this experience really helped her mature, I think she was also one of the people who needed to learn the risks of freely spouting stuff online the most. Considering this, it made all the more sense that she was the one crying the most at Tachibana’s funeral, because he had played such a big part in that lesson for her. If it hadn’t been for him and the Letter Game, nothing would’ve changed for her. I loved that they brought these reasonings back in the students’ respective responses to Tachibana’s passing, because they all related to him in different ways.

Finally, I’ll say something about the most ‘buzzing’ couple of class 2-D: Hana and Yutaro. Watanabe Hana (Utsumi Seiko) and Moro Yutaro (Miura Ryota) had their own livestream channel together, called ‘Hanataro Channel’. When the Letter Game started they often shared details about the daily letters on their channel, which not everyone liked. I’m actually not sure if they were a real couple or that they were pretending to be one for the channel – or both. I believe the reason they broke up at some point was because Yutaro was seeing different girls or something – which I found kind of hard to believe seeing how blatantly unserious he was. Anyways, not long after breaking up, Hana comes to the discovery that she’s pregnant. Not gonna lie, my first reaction to this was, “right, of course, because a teenage pregnancy was the only type of drama we didn’t have yet in this classroom🥲”. But I actually really like what they did with this plotline. After trying time and time again to get Yutaro to talk about it and accept that she intended to give birth to the baby, Hana actually mustered up the strength to take her fate into her own hands. If he was not going to own up to his responsibility, then she was going to raise the child by herself without him.
Honestly, while I wanted to slap Yutaro in the face multiple times, I still found his character so well-written. He was so typically the kind of guy that’s in that phase of trying to act cool but who just can’t own up to it when things get serious. Admittedly, it’s more than valid that he didn’t feel ready to take responsibility for being a father, but he was just so immature about it. He didn’t just literally run away everytime she tried to talk to him, but he also had the audacity to straightout tell her to get an abortion before even asking about her feelings or even properly reflecting on the matter himself. I was so, so, SO proud of Hana for letting him go even though she still loved him. Also, when he had that letter he’d written to himself read out like that and still came back to take responsibility, it was such a freaking power move of Hana to be like, “Yeah, PASS.” I loved her for calling him out for the fact that he was just trying to take responsibility despite still not being ready for it. This made me respect her so much more than if she’d been like, “Yay, now everything is well between us again🥰”. I loved how she took on the responsibility for her baby the SECOND she found out she was pregnant and how she just moved on by herself when Yutaro couldn’t do the same. She was so freaking strong throughout it all and I was really proud of her maturity compared to his. All respects to Hana-chan!🫡

While these were the characters that were predominantly featured throughout the events the Letter Game brought on, there were also some fun side characters that added to the atmosphere in class, like Nogi Shizuka (Nasu Hohomi) who kept falling in love with every single guy in class and Matsuo Akito (Shiroma Taiyou), the class clown who was all muscles but no brain. I also liked that there was some ethnical diversity – I believe two of the students were mixed-race. A general shoutout to the show for inclusion!

All in all, despite the unique format I think this show did a really good job building its characters’ stories and personalities, they justified everyone’s feelings and created a show in which communicating openly was central. I really love it when dramas use their platforms to advocate for honest connections and shine light on the risks and dangers of spouting your unfiltered thoughts online. Although I was mentally preparing myself for an escalation like in 3-nen A-gumi, I was really touched by the way the Letter Game actually enabled openhearted conversations about topics they’d otherwise never felt comfortable bringing up. Shortly after Tachibana shared the “I want to die” message with them, the class went on a school trip and I remember a group of students gathered around a campfire and started sharing experiences about times when they went through something that made them ‘want to die’. Not to share exciting buzzing stories, but to actually relate to one another and not feel alone. I thought that was really beautiful because talking about serious things really helped them to understand each other better. Everything that happened through the Letter Game ultimately helped to bring the class together more closely than before and I thought it was a really powerful thing. It actually made me want to start writing letters to convey my true feelings to certain people, because it would come across much more genuinely than through a text or DM. I really appreciated the openness with which this show dealt with all sorts of topics, from typical teenage misunderstandings to family troubles and future responsibilities. Rather than adding these elements in for shock value – which many Japanese series tend to do and just makes everything overdramatic and angsty without adding any actual depth to the story – I really felt like this series had the educating purpose of making certain topics discussable and highlighting the importance of honest communication. I can’t remember a Japanese series which centered so much on talking about one’s feelings, and especially encouraged it among its male characters. It was a very enjoyable and touching watching experience. It’s been a while since a Japanese show both made me laugh out loud and wipe away a tear every now and then. I found it incredibly wholesome and I liked the way the writers didn’t settle for standard solutions. It would have been so typical for the censored and conservative nature of Asian dramas in general to problematize Ken’s queerness or Hana’s decision to take full responsibility for her pregnancy without the support of the father. Topics like this need to be talked about more openly to become less of a taboo, and shows like this are such a beacon of hope for that.

I’m really glad I got to watch this when I did because it lifted my spirits in this time of widespread worldly crisis. I just wished we could all focus on what’s most important: talking and really listening to each other. Besides being a typically enjoyable romantic high school story, the discussion of contemporary issues for the sake of promoting their importance in this social media-peppered society made it even more resonating and valuable. You never know what someone is struggling with and sometimes something as simple as a handwritten letter might be able to save a person in whatever way. You’re never too cool or mature to rely on people around you when you can’t get out of a situation by yourself. No matter how hard it is to ask for help, you’re never alone and sometimes support manifests itself in unexpected ways, from unexpected people. I’ve personally also learned that my friends tend to be grateful and appreciative when I open up to them, especially because everyone knows how hard it can be. This show definitely teaches a very important lesson and I would absolutely recommend it.

Having said that, I actually feel like this is a good point to end my review. I know I usually include cast comments but for some reason it doesn’t feel necessary in this case. Apart from Emoto Tokio, who I’ve previously seen in Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu, all actors were new to me and I saw that a majority of them haven’t done much besides this project. Overall, I think everyone did a really great job. Sure, there were some typical cringy Japanese acting habits here and there, but all in all I think everyone had great chemistry and the acting was pretty natural. Despite the usual tendency to act overly dramatic and angsty, the actors all remained very sincere and credible in their delivery.
Because of its parallels with 3-nen A-gumi, this show made me realize that I really like stories like this, where a group of people is put in a situation that makes them open up and be honest about their feelings. Of course there will be drama and tensions and nasty confrontations, but in the end it will all contribute to a better and safer atmosphere. I guess it all comes down to the fact that I’m a sucker for open communication, and for men who aren’t afraid to show emotion amongst each other.

Although I’m going to start on my next show right after publishing this review, I’m going to be busy with my final college assignments in the next few weeks so I don’t know when I’ll be back with a new review. Just to inform you and keep you on your toes in case you’re keeping track of my review activities, lol.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to put my honest feelings in a letter.

Until next time!
xx

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 Secret Life of My Secretary
(초면에 사랑합니다 / Chomyeon-e Saranghabmida / Love At First Sight)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

Hello hello hello! It’s review time again! I’m so glad that my schedule is a bit less busy than the past few months and I was able to watch this (and some other shows) without too many breaks in-between. I was really excited when my Wheel of Fortune app landed on this show because it’s been on my list for ages and I was ready for a new cute office romance story. It had some actors that I was familiar with and I had only seen some minor clips of it before (mostly just the iconic Veronica Park introduction). Apart from that, I had no idea what the story was about and I like going into something without any idea of what to expect, so that was nice. Of course I’m going to be sharing my thoughts and opinions in more detail throughout this review, but all in all I can say that I found it enjoyable. Although it was a bit silly and unserious at times and lacked some depth here and there, there were cute and touching moments and I found it amusing to watch.

The Secret Life of My Secretary is an SBS K-Drama which you can either watch as 32 back-to-back episodes of 35 minutes or as 16 episodes of about an hour. I watched it in the latter format on KissAsian. The story is about Jung Gal Hee (played by Jin Ki Joo), who works as a secretary for Director Do Min Ik (played by Kim Young Kwang) at T&T Mobile, a mobile media company. Despite being the middle child, after losing both her parents Gal Hee was put in charge of taking care of her two siblings. In order to take care of her older brother Joong Hee (Seo Dong Won), who is blind, and send her younger sister Nam Hee (Kim Ji Min) to study abroad, Gal Hee has devoted all of her energy and focus in her job as a secretary. She’s worked herself to the bone under Do Min Ik for the past year, even sacrificing her own meals in order to get everything in order for her demanding boss. With her signature appearance and characteristic red cardigan, everyone has come to refer to her as the OG minion of the company. What’s kept her patient throughout her job is her family motto: “One moment of patience may ward off great disaster.” She strongly believes that as long as she remains patient and keeps her head down, she will ultimately be rewarded for it.
Her boss, Do Min Ik, is one of the head directors of the company. His mother Shim Hae Ra (Jung Ae Ri) is the Chairman and his uncle Shim Ha Yong (Kim Min Sang) is the CEO. However, Min Ik is not actually blood-related to his mother and uncle – he was born out of an affair on his father’s side. After his father passed away he was kept in the family but never completely accepted as a member of it. He, his mother and uncle are basically putting up a show of a happy harmonious family for the public (reminiscent of the male lead’s family situation in Radio Romance). After surviving the accident that killed his father (if I understand correctly) at the age of seven, Min Ik severely hurt his head and had a surgical clip installed. Ever since then he’s been very cautious about getting into any kind of situation where he could get hurt. Apart from that, having been raised in such a ‘pretense’ family environment and being betrayed by a very trusted secretary once, Min Ik has closed off his heart and trust to anyone he hasn’t known for an extended period of time. After the secretary betrayal he has also consistently taken on a new secretary every year, never extending any contracts. His most trusted person at present is his childhood friend Gi Dae Joo (played by Goo Ja Sung), who also works as a director at T&T. Min Ik’s main talent is that he is excellent at reading people and remembering faces and names after only meeting someone once.
Despite Gal Hee’s devoted service and strong belief in her family motto, she faces a harsh disappointment when she too is fired after her one-year contract ends. However, her anger towards her boss is short-lived when she witnesses him getting attacked by a masked person and taking a serious fall from a balcony.
Due to this fall, the clip in Min Ik’s head moves and results in a serious case of prosapognosia – the inability to see or read people’s faces. In fact, it’s so serious that he stops being able to see people’s faces altogether, they just turn into blank canvases, which causes him a lot of anxiety and stress. That is, until Gal Hee appears, because for some reason, she’s the only person whose face he can still see. It turns out that, because of her consistently familiar appearance, the image of her in her signature red cardigan was imprinted on him. With Gal Hee literally being the only ‘familiar face’ around, Min Ik begs her to stay on as his secretary for as long as he has trouble seeing people’s faces.

I typically mention comments on the series’ title at the end of reviews, but I just wanted to point out that I really like the original Korean title, ‘Love at First Sight’, as it directly refers to the cognitive error aspect of the series. The English title ‘The Secret Life of My Secretary’ refers more to the misunderstanding that occurs once Min Ik’s prosapognosia causes a mix-up between Gal Hee and his blind date, Veronica Park (played by Kim Jae Kyung). I still think ‘the secret life’ may not be an entirely appropriate reference, because it’s not like Gal Hee is actively impersonating Veronica Park as a secret second identity or anything. It’s more A Business Proposal than Her Private Life, if you get my drift. Gal Hee gets herself into trouble which results in her having to pretend to be someone else to her boss. So yeah, I actually like the Korean title a bit better as it is both a play on a common expression and refers to the sight-related issue in the story.

At some point, shortly after Min Ik stops being able to see faces, his mother sends him on a blind date. She and Park Seok Ja (Baek Hyun Joo), the CEO of Park Group which owns the several “CinePark” cinemas, decide that, because they have a son and daughter of the same age, their children should meet. Min Ik’s intended blind date will be Park Group’s eccentric heiress Veronica Park (NEVER to be named by her original name Park Ok Soon!), who is not only renowned for her critical eye regarding movies, but also for her notorious reputation with men. Her nickname is literally ‘Suction Pump’, as she ‘sucks in’ men and goes through them in a very quick succession.
Gal Hee actually worked as Veronica Park’s secretary before she came to T&T, and she is NOT keen on seeing her more often, so she really hopes her boss won’t date her. However, because of a mix-up with a different appointment at a different meet-up place, Veronica mistakenly ends up going to the wrong hotel and meets Min Ik’s friend Dae Joo instead, for whom she falls immediately. Anxious to fix the mistake, Gal Hee (who was just about to go clubbing with some other secretaries and therefore happened to be all dressed up) goes to the hotel Min Ik is waiting at to tell him about the mix-up. Instead, Min Ik mistakes her for Veronica Park because of her outfit – he doesn’t recognize Gal Hee without her cardigan and there wouldn’t be a reason for her to turn up at his blind date dressed like that. Meeting her boss like that, Gal Hee succumbs to the temptation of finally being on the receiving side – to have someone serve her and cater to her instead of the other way around. Just for one night, she thinks, I’ll allow myself to have a fancy dinner with my handsome boss. The idea is to repel Min Ik from wanting to see Veronica Park again, so she tries her best to come across as extravagantly and off-putting as possible, but the caring secretary in her still ends up being considerate enough to make him interested in her. As expected, it doesn’t stop at ‘just one night’. As Min Ik’s feelings for her version of Veronica Park increase while he simultaneously starts trusting her more and more as his secretary, Gal Hee ends up stuck in a web of lies and pretense. It only gets more messy when she starts developing romantic feelings for her boss herself.

All in all, the central trope of this drama is the classic ‘one time mix-up leads to lie that keeps growing bigger and bigger until it explodes’. It reminded me a lot of shows like I’m Not a Robot (where the male lead also had some sort of handicap and starts relying on the female lead) and A Business Proposal, (where it also all starts with a blind date that leads to a misunderstanding, and the repelling actually leads to increased interest on the male lead’s part). In this case, the problematic part is that Min Ik actually couldn’t see faces, so it felt extra wrong that this was taken advantage of.
Besides the main storyline of Min Ik and Gal Hee/fake Veronica Park, there’s also the love story between the real Veronica Park and Dae Joo. While Dae Joo initially only approaches Veronica Park for work reasons, Veronica Park’s infatuation with him ultimately results in affection from his side as well.
Apart from the romantic storylines, there’s a third supporting plot in which Dae Joo’s secretary and aunt Lee Eul Wang (played by Jang So Yeon) secretly started a fund to compensate drivers and secretaries within the company who suffered from bad treatment or actual injuries on account of their bosses, with money that was illegally obtained by the company through bribes and wasteful expenses.

Much according to Min Ik’s wavering trust in people, we as viewers are put on the wrong path and led to suspect the wrong people from the get-go. We see Dae Joo meeting up with Min Ik’s uncle in secret. We see Dae Joo inviting Min Ik to their special boat where Min Ik is then surprise-attacked. We see Dae Joo is spotted interacting with the masked guy on CCTV and we see him getting his alibi debunked. Everything points towards the suspicion that Dae Joo has something to do with the attack on Min Ik, and this is only emphasized when he suddenly raises his hand against Min Ik during a vote concerning Min Ik’s potential presidency. Min Ik’s prosapognosia is a very inconvenient factor in the police investigation, because even though he saw the guy’s face during the attack, he’s now not even able to recognize him if he were standing right in front of him. This, again, is taken advantage of. Shortly after the incident, Min Ik is appointed a new driver, Eun Jung Soo (Choi Tae Hwan), unaware that this is the same man who attacked him and caused him to fall. Seeing Dae Joo and Jung Soo’s short interactions at the company, it’s suggested that they know each other and/or are in cahoots with each other. It’s all very suspicious.
The only ‘villain’ character that remains consistently bad throughout the series is Min Ik’s uncle, Shim Hae Yong, because he takes every opportunity to use anything he can against Min Ik. Finding out his nephew has a severe cognitive illness is the best news he can get.
My point is that in this regard, we as viewers are very much led to sympathize with Min Ik as he now can’t even rely on his talent of reading people and determining who is on his side anymore. He can’t even recognize the people he grew up with, so this hits him very hard. Again, it reminded me a lot of the male lead’s situation in I’m Not a Robot because he actually developed an illness which was directly linked to his ability to trust people.

I’d like to go over the four main characters of the series in a bit more detail before I elaborate on some minor characters and my more critical opinions of the story.
First of all, Gal Hee. From the moment we are introduced to her, we can see that she is a very caring sister who is willing to sacrifice her own (mental) health to work herself to the bone to provide for her siblings. After her mother died when she was nineteen, she has bulldozered on working as a secretary for many demanding bosses, accepting her fate as a minion while believing that one day she would be rewarded for her persistence and patience. That in itself already shows a lot of determination. You almost wouldn’t expect it from the way she presents herself and how submissively she acts, but she actually does have a backbone. This is also shown initially when Min Ik asks her to come back as her secretary after firing her, because she doesn’t hesitate to voice her disagreement with the situation and she doesn’t shy away from standing up for herself on how hard she works. What I liked about her was that, contrarily to my expectations when she was first introduced, she wasn’t as much of a passive insecure heroine as I thought she would be. Usually, when characters are portrayed like her, this is immediately linked to an image of being ‘unattractive’. Despite the stark contrast between how Gal Hee looked and how she dressed up as Veronica Park, there wasn’t any recurring element of Gal Hee being put down for her looks per se, so that was nice. She also didn’t keep putting herself down compared to other women, she really stuck to herself and her own strengths and that was admirable. The simple fact that she got angry at Min Ik for firing her because she knew she was worth more than that was so great.
It was nice that it didn’t start out as a romantic story with one party already harboring feelings, because it would’ve been so frustrating to see Min Ik’s behavior at the beginning being condoned through rose-colored glasses. He actually treated her like a doormat, I couldn’t believe he actually made her apply his lip balm for him and called her away from her own meals to feed his office fish. Of course, once the whole fake Veronica Park thing was set in motion, things became messy and complicated because she just couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth and put an end to it. On this topic there’s actually something I need to reflect on, because I usually tend to get too frustrated with characters that start making up excuses so they won’t have to tell the truth. I remember how frustrated I was while watching Gisou Furin because the female lead was getting so stupid in ‘missing’ every opportunity to be honest. In the scene where Min Ik came to confront Gal Hee with the fact she’d been lying to him when she was just planning on telling him and all she could do was apologize, I was all, ‘well if that’s all you’re gonna say he’s never going to understand!!’ I remember being frustrated with Gal Hee for not standing up for herself more in that situation. But then, when she got back home and had another ‘talk’ with her mother, she came back to it and admitted that she hated how she couldn’t say anything else even though she prepared a whole speech, and that actually took away my frustration. Additionally, I’m also in a situation at the moment where I’m not 100% honest about my feelings for someone out of fear that it might ruin things, and I can admit that it’s definitely NOT always a matter of ‘if you wanted to, you would’ve done it already’. I actually started relating to keeping quiet about some things more than I did before. Still, when it involves actively tricking someone and lying to them about pretending to be someone else, it’s a bit different, but at least I stopped getting too annoyed with Gal Hee’s struggles in trying to muster up the courage to tell him.
I liked Gal Hee’s ‘talks’ with her mom, by the way, especially because it tied in with the fact that she was still relying on her mother’s presence so much when trying to take care of her siblings. I thought it was really sweet that she made up an image of her mom to go to for comfort when she was feeling down. In the end it made me feel like Gal Hee was making up sweet and encouraging words from her mother as a way to keep picking up the pieces by herself. When in the last episode her mother told her that she wouldn’t come back now that Gal Hee had another person to seek comfort with, that pretty much confirmed it for me.

I think it’s safe to say that Do Min Ik is the character that goes through the most significant development in this show. I really liked how gradual his development occurred, how it just went from an inconvenient situation to him actually realizing how important it was to keep his friends close while not closing himself off from everyone. He went through a very traumatic experience, not only physically from the fall but also mentally as he suddenly couldn’t see faces anymore and that made him feel so incredibly lonely. Imagine being alone in a crowd of people you don’t know and suddenly seeing one friendly familiar face, the only one you can make out well enough to ask for help – that’s the kind of person Gal Hee became to him. To be honest, I wondered about his true feelings for his secretary for a long time before he started thinking about it himself. There were just some things he did and said to her that really didn’t seem like things a boss would do/say to his secretary without any meaning behind it. Sometimes he’d look and smile at her and I would be like, bro, that’s definitely not how a boss should look at his secretary when he merely just ‘appreciates her work’.😏
You could say that the prosapognosia ultimately led him to develop feelings for Gal Hee. He had no one else he trusted enough to rely on besides her, and I honestly don’t feel like anything would’ve blossomed between them if they’d just parted ways after she was fired. In that regard, it wasn’t a typical ‘meant to be’ romance story, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it would’ve been even more typical if it had been revealed that their pasts were also linked in some way. But I still found it interesting to realize that if it weren’t for the prosapognosia, they would probably never have grown closer. Min Ik started developing feelings for Gal Hee next to his blooming feelings for (fake) Veronica Park, so I don’t feel like it only started after Gal Hee pretended to be his blind date.
I saw a lot of synopses of this show that described Min Ik as a ‘cold-hearted boss’, but I actually don’t agree with that. He seemed to be a very mischievous person from the start. Even when he called Gal Hee over and asked her to do all kinds of tedious stuff, there was always a twinkle in his eye that made me feel as if he just liked teasing her. He may have only started becoming aware of everything she did for him later on, but I don’t actually feel like he thought she wasn’t good at her job. He may have held onto her purely because of his prosapognosia, but remember that he also ended up coming to that company sports event that he never went to and even did a piggyback ride with her, purely because she (unknowingly) persuaded him to come. Even though he was going to fire her, he still did something she wanted, to show at least some appreciation for her. I just don’t agree with the use of ‘cold-hearted’ here because that’s not what he was. If you look at his relationships, with his mother and uncle and Dae Joo, you can see that he cares a lot and it actually hurts him to mistrust them. I personally think his upbringing didn’t make him a cold person, but rather someone who hid how much he actually wanted to trust and rely on someone. After being betrayed by a secretary once, I think he just became more cautious in getting attached and started setting boundaries by only employing secretaties for a single year. I think he just spent a very long time trying to protect himself (from both people and situations that might (physically) hurt him) whilst maintaining a cheerful and sharp-witted attitude. He never seemed cold-hearted or shallow to me from the start. Think about it: he literally couldn’t see faces. He fell for (fake) Veronica Park without even knowing what she looked like. His entire attraction to her was based on Gal Hee’s considerateness and kindness, not on her looks. Of course, he kept thinking about what she looked like and how pretty she must be, but he still fell for her without knowing. Falling so hard for someone purely based on their actions and personality is quite rare, because looks always play at least a little part, whether we want to accept that or not. On the other hand, he also fell for Gal Hee knowing what she looked like and didn’t even care that she was his secretary when he finally admitted his feelings for her. All in all, I just want to say that Min Ik wasn’t as bad of a guy as he was made out to be. He lost his most defining ability and fell into a pit of anxiety and loneliness, only to fall in love with what he thought were two different women whose faces he couldn’t even see. He went through a lot of emotional rollercoasters and ended up resenting a lot of people who (sometimes inadvertently) caused him all this, and still he could find it in himself to forgive Gal Hee and even support her when she joined the secretary hunger strike protest against his own presidency. He literally gave up his own chance of becoming the next president so he could get Gal Hee to eat something. You can say a lot about him, but not that he was ‘cold-hearted’.

You may have noticed that so far I’ve referred to Veronica Park by her full name and not just by calling her ‘Veronica’. There’s a simple reason for that: Veronica Park is not just a name. It’s a statement. As I mentioned in my introduction, I’d only ever seen clips of Veronica Park’s iconic self-introduction before I started watching this show. I had no idea who she was going to be – for all I knew she was the female lead. I know that she’s a very popular character and I’ve seen many comments saying that they finished the show because of her. I’d like to contribute to that.
Veronica Park is introduced as a very strong caricatural character, from the way she talks to the way she walks. Her use of exaggerated gestures and expressions immediately causes her to appear as a comical character. I have to admit that I was a bit sceptical in the beginning because I don’t really care for characters that are comical for the sake of being comical. If she’d continued to remain such a caricature, I probably would’ve gotten a bit tired of it eventually. However, she grew on me more than I expected, especially after finding out that Gal Hee had been impersonating her. I am so glad that they motivated her personality with the story of how she never thought anyone would go the extra mile for her. Everyone she met was always just interested in her money and heritage to her family’s company so she just gave up on finding something genuine and started having fun. The side of her that came out during the part where she confronted Gal Hee with the impersonation and tried to convince Dae Joo of her true feelings for him was my favorite. I really loved seeing that mature side of her come out there, it really made me respect her character a lot. She was probably the last character you’d expect a heavy background story from and although it wasn’t that heavy, it was still enough to make her character more appealing to me, so I’m grateful for that. Apart from that I also came to like the eccentric ways in which she tried to seduce Dae Joo. She somehow managed to be vulnerable by completely going for it and that actually made me want to try being more honest and direct about my own feelings as well. She won Dae Joo over by being her genuine messy and funky self, no shame and no regrets, and I think that’s something to be admired for. I also loved how unapologetically crazy she was together with her mother. I mean, you could see where she got it from, lol. I loved how her mother also introduced her to Min Ik’s mother as ‘I have a crazy daughter available’, lol. Like, even her mom didn’t try to hide that she was eccentric or try to make her behave differently, and I really liked their dynamic.

Because of the misleading events in the beginning of the story, I really wasn’t sure what to think about Dae Joo initially. For me it was mainly because he was already shown having secret dinners with Min Ik’s uncle before I got a good understanding of what kind of person he was. From then on, everything just seemed to point towards him as being suspicious and secretly villainous. Honestly, I kind of judged him for lashing out at Min Ik when he openly confronted him with his suspicions. It couldn’t be denied that the circumstances were suspicious and everything seemed to point to him. Also, it was clear that Min Ik didn’t want to believe it but just needed clarity about the situation. The way Dae Joo started guilt-tripping Min Ik for suspecting him didn’t seem very Dae Joo-like, although I understood how hurt he must have been by the suspicion itself.
Apart from that, Dae Joo was a perfectly pleasant character. Pleasant, leaning on bland, if I may honestly say so. I didn’t really feel much for him throughout the show, only that he was a good friend with a nice personality. I actually feel like he gained more personality throughout his relationship with Veronica Park, although I definitely cringed when he said, “Awesome~!!” in the same way as her in the final episode, lol. She definitely rubbed off on him. But yeah, even his background story was mostly explored through the eyes of his secretary, and he never talked about what losing his mother at a young age was like for him, so there weren’t that many aspects about his character or story that allowed me to get more (emotionally) attached to him. I would’ve liked to get a bit more in-depth information from him about how he was always the poorer friend to Min Ik, or how him having to work his way to the top from a poorer background shaped him as a person. I liked the scene where he gave Min Ik his boat as a kid because he felt bad for how his mother treated him and then later admitted that it was a lie that he gave that boat away willingly. Like, there were some aspects of their friendship that came out that I liked, but I still don’t feel like his character was explored as much as the other three main leads. Everyone else had at least one crying or emotional confession scene, but Dae Joo remained pretty much out of sight in that regard. Although I think that putting him next to Veronica Park made for a very interesting romantic dynamic, I do feel like his character could’ve been attributed more characteristic features or interesting elements, because now he just kind of went along with what happened to the other main characters.

I want to talk a little bit about Lee Eul Wang and her secret secretary organization. It’s revealed at some point that Eul Wang was the sister of Dae Joo’s mother, and that the two sisters used to work for Min Ik’s father. There’s a flashback of the two at Min Ik’s house when he was little, and they were also seen in a flashback running errands for Min Ik’s father at the company, which simultaneously reveals that he didn’t treat them very well. One day, Dae Joo’s mother got into a car accident while trying to save the fish that was meant to be a gift for Min Ik. After losing her sister, Eul Wang decided that she would try to do what she could to compensate drivers and secretaries suffering at the hands of their bosses. She started to intercept items that were bought with bribe money and replaced them with fakes, for example. She managed to get together a group of drivers and secretaries to help her out, ultimately forming the organization Euldoguk.
I remember being very intrigued by her relationship with Dae Joo in the beginning. It seemed like they grew up together although she was clearly older than him, but he still called her ‘noona’ rather than ‘imo’. I do believe that she was his aunt, his mother’s sister, but it’s also not that she took over the motherly care for him or anything. I found it quite mysterious. It was clear that she cared about him more than a secretary would normally are about her boss, and this was later confirmed when she told him she’d promised his mother she would keep protecting him. This also resulted in the fact that a large part of the money from the fish incident was given to his tuition to study abroad. Other than that, Dae Joo didn’t have anything to do with the organization – he didn’t even know it existed – and his previous encounters with Min Ik’s driver were also purely coincidental.
Eun Jung Soo, Min Ik’s attacker-become-driver, was also a victim that Euldoguk strived to protect. He used to be the driver of Min Ik’s uncle, but was mistreated so badly that he got into a traffic accident and ended up at the hospital with several fractures. Seriously, this made me so angry. Shim Ha Yong was literally kicking him in the shoulder from the back seat, screaming at him while they were on the freaking highway. He caused the accident by himself and then proceeded to sue Eun Jung Soo for intending to harm him. Eun Jung Soo didn’t get any compensation for getting hospitalized, and Eul Wang reached out to him. The attack on Min Ik was unintentional, as Eun Jung Soo was only trying to get back a USB stick with the information of Euldoguk that Eul Wang had entrusted to him. After that, Eun Jung Soo met Dae Joo, who just happened to know that Min Ik was in need of a new driver. Eun Jung Soo didn’t even know that the client he was getting introduced to was the same guy he attacked before. In any case, none of it was intentional or part of some plan to undermine Min Ik’s chance at becoming T&T’s new president.
While the last couple of episodes reveal what had truly happened and kind of redeem Eul Wang and Eun Jung Soo’s actions, I still think they could’ve made themselves way less suspicious from the start. While I thought it was nice to have some underlying mystery story to be solved besides the main love stories, I did feel like it could’ve been built up a little better. They made Eun Jung Soo seem like such a suspicious person despite his timidness, and the in-between random scenes of the secretaries running errands for Eul Wang, such as stealing that painting from Shim Ha Yong’s office, were kind of confusing. In hindsight I understand it better, but throughout the rest of the series I couldn’t really find myself to be that invested in what was happening in the background.

Before I move on to my main criticism of the show, I want to devote one last paragraph to the secretaries at Gal Hee’s office. Their bond really reminded me of Jugglers, which is also basically an homage to secretaries who have to bend over backwards for their demanding bosses. Goo Myung Jung (Son San), Ha Ri Ra (Kwon So Hyun) and Boo Se Yeong (Choi Yoon Ra) were three other secretaries that stuck with Gal Hee throughout the show. They were the people Gal Hee was closest to in the office, but they were also active members of Euldoguk without her. I found them a very funny trio and I enjoyed their scenes, especially Myung Jung, she cracked me up.
Speaking of these three, does anyone know what the heck happened to Mo Ha Ni? Ha Ni (Han Ji Seon) was Shim Ha Yong’s secretary and seemingly the secretary Gal Hee was closest to at the office. It seemed like she’d get a much bigger part to play when Shim Ha Yong asked her to keep an eye out for Min Ik and his secretary, and all the more when it was revealed she knew Eun Jung Soo, she even called him ‘oppa’. I was so intrigued by how she could be related to Eun Jung Soo (although now I suppose she just knew from Euldoguk) and if she would go against Gal Hee as Shim Ha Yong’s secretary (again, Jugglers flashback) but she just disappeared altogether! I think the last scene where she appeared was during the funeral where Min Ik momentarily regained his cognitive ability, when she called Eun Jung Soo to get out of there, but after that she never appeared again. That was kind of a bummer. I always find it a bit sloppy when series don’t deal well with the sudden disappearance of a character. Even if an actor is cut from the show halfway through, at least make up an excuse of what happened to them. Sometimes this doesn’t make it better (I remember this happening to a key character in The One and Only and the excuse they made for it was also very sloppy) but don’t just omit an entire character and stop mentioning them altogether after giving them some interesting information that could impact the plot. Maybe not everyone who watched it noticed this, but I did, and I want to know what happened to Ha Ni.😤 Anyways, I liked the secretaries, they were a fun bunch.

I found Min Ik’s mother, Shim Hae Ra (Jung Ae Ri) quite difficult to gauge. In the first flashback we see of her she didn’t seem fond of Min Ik at all, but in the present I couldn’t help but feel like she was hiding the fact she actually developed affection for him. She appeared cold throughout the story and she kept telling him to put up a good show, but in the meantime I felt like she didn’t actually resent him. She even agreed to make his favorite dish for him after he’d be elected president and that wasn’t something they would show off to the public. It was nice that she finally accepted him in the final episode though, when she introduced him as her son to the new housekeeper. I found it hard to determine at what point her feelings might have changed or if they had already changed, but I kept feeling like she at least cared more about him in a sincere way than his uncle did.
Speaking of that uncle, I just need to address him as the official antagonist of the story. What a childish jerk this guy was. He literally didn’t care about Min Ik at all, family or no, he grabbed whatever he could to use against him, including such a delicate issue as his illness. He didn’t even stop to think about how awful it was for his nephew to suffer from this, no, it just meant he wasn’t qualified, ha! Also the way he treated Eun Jung Soo and the other secretaries was just wrong. For a middle-aged man he acted like a spoiled little child. He’d literally point and laugh at someone and then skip away humming as if he just stole another kid’s marbles. Pathetic little man, that guy. I don’t have any good things to say about him, really.

As I also marked down the previous series I watched for being a bit unserious regarding certain topics I hope I don’t seem too uptight about how I review, but I find it important to voice my own perspectives and opinions. I saw that this show got a lot of high ratings on MDL because people loved its unseriousness, so it’s really just a matter of taste. As I mentioned earlier, I had an overall good time watching this, so it’s not that the unseriousness made me dislike it, per se. It’s just a very typical K-Drama with typical tropes and misunderstandings, which has both its charming and frustrating aspects.
I think I felt it the most with Gal Hee’s older brother. The thing is, I felt like the fact that he was blind didn’t actually contribute as much to the story as it could have. The moment Min Ik lost his ability to see faces, I immediately thought that helping him out would actually suit Gal Hee well because she had a brother who couldn’t see. Like, I thought that aspect might have become a significant link to how she would start helping her boss out, because she knew how to treat people who couldn’t see (well). However, I don’t think they actually created a direct link from that at all. I think Gal Hee only once mentioned that she had a blind brother but never really made a connection between him and her boss. I don’t know, it just felt like her brother’s blindness would’ve actually contributed some more to the depth of their relationship or something. Contrarily, the brother was made into quite the comical character. While I was appalled by the fact that Eun Jung Soo literally broke into their house and attacked a blind person for a laptop, the scene suddenly became comical because of Joong Hee’s actions and that changed the whole mood of the situation. It was a serious break-in, but then I suddenly couldn’t take it seriously anymore. I guess I found it a pity that the blind person became the clown. I don’t know if his representation of someone with blindness resonates with some people, but I wasn’t really able to take him very seriously. On the contrary – it started to annoy me a bit at some point. While he was a very loving brother to Gal Hee, and their hugs really warmed my heart, I did start feeling like he was doing it on purpose or something. I wasn’t really sure what to think of his character.
I also had mixed feelings about Nam Hee. She lies to her older siblings that she’s admitted into Pennsylvania University with a fake admission letter, only to hide away and do some auditions to try and become ‘a star’. Like, I understand that she wanted to find a way to contribute to the financial situation and it was sweet that she wanted to do it for Gal Hee because she saw how much her sister was carrying on her own (Backstreet Rookie vibes). Still, I found it a bit random how she ended up at Veronica Park’s place because she didn’t actually do anything there, she was always just sitting around in her office, bickering with her. Gal Hee eventually busts her at a theatre show and then she comes back home and that’s it. I get that they wanted to give Gal Hee’s siblings some storylines of their own, but this again didn’t really add anything to the story for me.
The part in the second-to-last episode where Joong Hee and Nam Hee intrude on Min Ik and Gal Hee’s date, was one of my least favorite ones, lol. I got so annoyed at them for knowingly tagging along and then just changing the trajectory, making it impossible for the two lovers to spend a single moment together. What was that about? Was it a test or something? I was really irritated by their interruptions there, and I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t just allow them to go on a date together. It’s not as if they hadn’t been seeing each other before that, so why the sudden urge to intrude now? Again, maybe I’m just too serious but I didn’t understand why they had to do that.

My general criticism of the show is that I felt like it was a bit sloppy in terms of consistency. I don’t just mean the fact that they omitted a character without explanation, but the plot just felt a bit wobbly to me all in all, as if they went with the flow without paying too much attention to detail. The humor was a bit slapsticky and random and it lacked depth. I don’t like comparing things to each other, but one thing I liked about A Business Proposal for example, was that they used the classical slapsticky jokes and tropes as a kind of reference to the old-school series but supported it with two very solid love stories built on genuine trust and emotional connection. I felt like this series leaned too much on the comicalness of the tropes but struck out on adding a certain layer of depth that I personally would have appreciated.

The main inconsistency for me came from the details of Min Ik’s prosapognosia. When it first happens, we experience it together with Min Ik: first people’s faces start changing and morphing into other people’s faces, and then they disappear altogether, leaving a blank canvas. Even though he sees Gal Hee’s face, he later says that he still can’t read her expressions very well. As in, he can’t see if she’s laughing or crying. But, so, what, does he just see one neutral expression on her face the entire time? One time they were on the beach and Gal Hee was making a really troubled expression because she felt so bad for misleading him, yet she told him that she was smiling very widely because he extended her contract. Like, it was clearly audible from her voice that she wasn’t smiling, but apparently he missed that too? Also, even after it was established that he could only see Gal Hee’s face when she was wearing her red cardigan, there was also one scene where she was wearing the cardigan and he told her he couldn’t see her face. So… I didn’t get a very clear image of what exactly he could and couldn’t see, and how his prosapognosia worked. His doctor started sharing ways with him to increase his blood pressure, as this seemed to help with a different patient, but in the end his ability only came back on three occasions.
His illness is never fully cured, as the final dialogue in the last episode reveals that Min Ik and Gal Hee basically continued to thrive on the short-lived moments where he regains his sight and they can make out whilst he can actually see her face. Doesn’t seem ideal, but hey, if it works for them, who am I to judge? In any case, my point is that, while the prosapognosia was the key instigating event in the series, they sure managed to keep its details and conditions vague until the very end.

To conclude my main analysis, I want to go into a little more detail about things I liked about the relationship between Min Ik and Gal Hee. There were several scenes that I found really sweet and even gave me some butterflies. All in all, I really liked to see Min Ik register the level of considerateness Gal Hee was giving him, even when she was pretending to be Veronica Park. The way she jumped up when she saw him eating peanuts, how she massaged his hands to stop his indigestion. Things that she learned during her work as his secretary now suddenly got a more romantic layer to them, and it was nice to see Min Ik suddenly take in those gestures differently. Receiving this treatment from fake Veronica Park ultimately made him realize that Gal Hee was the one who’d always treated him like that, which made him come to accept his feelings for her. Sure, it was a bit awkward to see him struggle with his feelings for both women, not realizing they were the same person, but I do think that the way he bounced back had a really good build-up to it. The time it took him to forgive Gal Hee was also well-paced, it wasn’t too short or not too long.
The scene that probably gave me the most goosebumps was the scene where he helped her wash her hands in the sink. I don’t know, it was oddly sensual. Also I have a thing for hands. Anyways, it was so weirdly sweet and typical that Gal Hee was the only one going, “uhm, sir?? 😳😳” while he was so focussed going, “no, we have to finish all the steps, Secretary Jung.”😂 I think that was even before he admitted his feelings for her, so it just added to the things he did and said to her that made me sceptical about whether he really didn’t realize his true feelings for her way earlier than that. I mean, he was so incredibly sweet to her. He hugged her and sent her appreciative texts… I mean, I don’t think that’s the norm for typical purely professional boss-secretary relationships.

I’d like to go over some cast comments now!
Since the last association I have with Kim Young Kwang is that of a psycho serial killer, it was kind of refreshing to see him in an innocent romantic comedy again! I’ve seen him in a bunch of shows such as Pinocchio, Go Ho’s Starry Night, Lookout, Room No. 9, and most recently Somebody, and his appearances throughout have ranked him on my list as an actor I always like to see in dramas. I feel like there are so many sides to his acting and it’s nice that he gets to explore a wide variety of roles in his repertoire. I think he had a very nice character presence in this show. It was nice to see Min Ik grow as a person in a very gradual and natural way. I honestly felt for the guy, because there were a lot of shitty aspects to his life and the way he grew up but he couldn’t exactly step away from those things either. In hindsight I really think that he knew his family wouldn’t fully accept him no matter what he did, and that he thought he ended up at least protecting himself by staying out of trouble and keeping people he spent a lot of time with at bay. He needed a caring person like Gal Hee to lower his walls a bit and admit that he needed some real comfort and TLC. I liked seeing Kim Young Kwang in this, it was nice to see a more comical side to his acting again after all the angsty stuff I’ve seen of him lately. I always like seeing him portray different emotions like sadness and fear, because he just naturally exudes confidence.

I’ve seen Jin Ki Joo before in Moon Lovers Scarlet Heart Ryeo and Come and Hug Me. The latter was the first main lead role she landed, and it was nice to see her as the female lead in a romantic comedy, as I hadn’t seen her in that genre before. Can I just say that she has such a cute doll face and the most adorable smile ever? Every time he faced changed into a smile I was like 🤗🤗. Anyways, it was nice seeing her portray the character of Gal Hee, as I had never seen her in something comical before. Come and Hug Me was a love story but with a super intense layer to it so I don’t remember her smiling a lot. It was nice to see a different side of her acting and she surprised me, to be honest. Her emotional scenes in particular were very good, but it was also funny to see her expressions go all over the place in the more comical scenes. Now that I’ve seen her in three completely different roles, I’m curious to see more of her. I’m still a bit new to her even though she has been a leading lady for some time now. I guess I just have to see more of her!

As iconic Veronica Park’s character was, I was actually surprised I didn’t know Kim Jae Kyung from anything else. I see on MDL that she was in Madam Antoine, but I don’t actually remember her from there, it’s too long ago. I think her performance was my favorite in this show. She did a great job at balancing Veronica Park’s eccentricity with the deeper layer that was beneath it and the switch to her more serious acting happened so naturally, it really surprised me. She’s the kind of comical character that I like because despite her caricatural tendencies, she delivered 100%. I’ve said this multiple times before in series, but for me humor only works when the actor isn’t trying to be funny and it’s just the character that takes themself super seriously. In Veronica Park’s case, she may have been a bit cray-cray but she never once apologized for it, she embraced it and the actress embraced it and that’s ultimately what made me love her so much. In fact, she even inspired me in a way, because it actually dawned on me that being unapologetically yourself, not caring what other people say of you, can also attract the right people. I would really like to see Kim Jae Kyung in some other show again, I really loved her performance.

For some reason I expected Goo Ja Sung to be an idol actor or something, but he’s not. He’s the same age as me, I found out! He hasn’t done that many acting jobs yet and I haven’t seen him in anything else. I hope he’ll get more opportunities to act in the future. As I said in my review, his character didn’t leave as strong of an impression on me as the other main leads did. However, I don’t want to blame the actor too much for that, because it mostly has to do with the fact that I feel like the show could’ve given Dae Joo much more to work with in terms of storyline and character development. He remained the same throughout the show and I would’ve really liked to get some more emotional depth from him. His acting was good and I liked the unlikely couple he made with Kim Jae Kyung. I just wanted to get a more insight into his background and perspective of the story.

Ever since I discovered Jang So Yeon in Touch Your Heart, I keep discovering she’s in so many other (older stuff) as well! She also appeared in While You Were Sleeping, Something in the Rain and Crash Landing on You and probably a lot of other shows that are still on my list. I really like her as an actress. She has such a sweet motherly face but I really like when she gets a role that has some edge to it. I liked seeing a bit of that edge in her character Lee Eul Wang, fighting for fair treatment of drivers and secretaries belonging to large companies. Despite the futility of it I really liked her spunk when she started calling Shim Ha Yong out for his mistreatment of his employees and how she was prepared to take all the blame for what she’d done and wouldn’t even judge the others for wanting to stay on with the company. On the other hand, I would’ve like to see her relationship with Dae Joo get established a bit more thoroughly. It kept me guessing as to how exactly they were related and I really liked their dynamic in the few scenes they had together, so I would’ve liked to see a bit more of that. I really like that Jang So Yeon keeps popping up in both new and old shows I watch, it always makes me go, ‘Hey, it’s the lady with the nice face!😀’ I hope I’ll get to see her in more series to come.

Note: I am aware that my cast comments have started to become shorter recently. I’ve started focussing more on the lead actors and only adding comments on specific supporting characters when I really want to give them a special shoutout. In this case I didn’t really feel the need to do that, as I’ve already mentioned the characters in my review. That’s not to say I think the cast was bad! Just thought I’d clarify that.

We’ve reached the end of this review and it took me an entire day, again. To sum up my thoughts about it in one concluding paragraph: I thought it was amusing. I had a fun time watching it, it was a very typical romantic comedy with some occasional emotional and touching moments that added a bit of depth to it. It reminded me a lot of several other shows, which I have also referred to in the review. It was kind of mixture of classic office romance dramas that I’d watched already, so it felt very familiar.
Still, it was a little bit too slapsticky and tropey for my taste and I missed that bit of depth. While I do like me some light and comical stuff without too much drama every once in a while, I would’ve liked to get some more depth and consistency within different aspects of the story. The love stories were all very lovey-dovey and sweet but lacked real passion, I didn’t feel as much chemistry between the respective couples as I would’ve liked, and I feel that that’s because of the light and comical tone of the show. Nothing became too serious or too heavy and that’s definitely not a bad thing, but I guess I was just in the mood for something more serious and passionate. It happens. Still, I don’t want to take away the fact that I found it very entertaining to watch and some scenes really put some things into perspective for me. I’m glad I finally got to watch it.

My hope is that I can’t finish another show before the end of May, but on the other hand this month is going to get a bit busier again with some deadlines (including me finishing my thesis) so we’ll see when I’ll be able to upload the next review! I’m super excited to spin my Wheel of Fortune app to see what’s up next, so I’m going to do that for starters.

Until next time! 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.

Café Minamdang
(미남당 / Minamdang)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

Hey-ya-ho, I’m back again before the end of the month to share another review! I’m glad I was able to find time to finish this within a couple of weeks, which is rare these days! I’m going to become more busy the next couple of months until I graduate, so it might not be possible for me to finish as many shows per month as last year.
This is the fourth show my Spin the Wheel app picked out for me and I was able to watch it on Netflix, which allowed a much more enjoyable watching experience than my previous watch. Even though I finished it quite quickly, I still went back-and-forth between other shows in-between as well, so there are bound to be details that aren’t as clear in my memory as I would like. Still, I want to share my thoughts on this show. All in all I’d say it was amusing to watch. It had a nice cast of characters and actors, and I had a good time watching it overall. I look forward to sharing my more detailed opinions in this review!

Café Minamdang is an 18-episode Netflix K-Drama with episodes of about 1 hour and 3 minutes each. The title refers to the café ran by the main character, Nam Han Joon (played by Seo In Gook) and his team. His team consists of his partner and good friend Gong Soo Cheol (Kwak Shi Yang), his younger sister Nam Hye Joon (Kang Mi Na) and their rookie member Jo Na Dan (Baek Seo Hoo). Han Joon and Soo Cheol formerly worked at the police force, Han Joon as a criminal profiler and Soo Cheol as a detective. After both getting dismissed after a certain incident, they eventually decided to start running a new ‘undercover’ private detective agency together with Hye Joon and Na Dan. With Han Joon’s excellent profiling skills, Soo Cheol’s brutal strength, Hye Joon’s genius hacking skills as a former National Intelligence Service employee and Na Dan’s agility and skill to get away with the slightest interference, they’ve started a fake shaman fortune-telling business to cover their ongoing case-solving. Using Café Minamdang as their cover, Han Joon has become famous for his reliable predictions as a shaman, while he’s actually financially extorting his clients. He pretends to be enlightened by the spirits to see the truth about his clients’ situations and while he tells them to stick to certain life styles or rules to ward off spirits of misfortune, he and his team go about solving their clients’ situations for them behind their backs, which results in huge amounts of reward money when their clients come back to tell him that he was right and their troubles did disappear/get solved. All of this to build Han Joon’s reputation as an excellent, reliable and highly skilled shaman. The accuracy of his (self-fulfilled) prophecies has even led to his nickname, “The Miracle of Yeonhae-dong”, which is where the café is located. However, we eventually learn about Han Joon’s true purpose of continuing this detective work even after being dismissed from the force. Six years prior to the start of the story, his best friend Han Jae Jeong (played by Song Jae Rim), who was a prosecutor, was killed by a serial killer Han Joon has come to nickname as “Gopuri”. In Korean shamanism, there is a ritual in which a white cloth is tied into several knots, and the untying of these knots is called gopuri. The signature trademark of this serial killer is that such a gopuri cloth is left at each crime scene, hence the nickname “Gopuri”. This also likely contributed to Han Joon’s decision to use shamanism in his detective façade, as he may have thought it would help him get closer to the killer in one way or another.
On the other hand, we have Han Jae Jeong’s younger sister, Han Jae Hee (played by Oh Yeon Seo), who is a police officer. After her brother was killed and she and her parents moved abroad for a while, she changed her name from Jang Mi to Jae Hee, and is still determined to find out the truth about what happened to her brother. She knows Han Joon as well, as she used to get taekwondo lessons from him when she was a teenager. She had a crush on him at the time, but never got to confess her feelings. Now, so many years later, she’s stunned to meet Han Joon again when the cases they work on keep colliding. Jae Hee’s team, Major Crimes Investigation Division Seven, further consists of Officer Jang Doo Jin (Jung Man Shik), Kim Sang Hyeop (Heo Jae Ho) and rookie Na Gwang Tae (Jung Ha Joon). Another person she becomes close with is Prosecutor Cha Do Won (played by Kwon Soo Hyun), who starts helping out the police team with cases and even develops a crush on Jae Hee. The two get closer throughout the investigation and Jae Hee comes to trust him a lot, even though she never reciprocates his feelings.
The story starts out as a tug-of-war between Han Joon’s Minamdang team and Jae Hee’s police force team as they keep crossing paths while solving the same cases and continuously clashing as they go about it in significantly different ways. Eventually, when Han Joon and Jae Hee finally reveal their respective connections to Han Jae Jeong, they start working together on catching Gopuri. Their relationship also develops from a rivalling one to a romantic one.
The investigation of Gopuri ultimately reveals a lot of shady businesses orchestrated by a group of very influential people and leads the police and Minamdang teams to go after several different suspects, which include Cha Do Won’s older brother Cha Seung Won (Lee Jae Woon), a guy called Goo Tae Soo (Won Hyun Joon) and a mysterious shaman lady called Auntie Im (Jung Da Eun).

Before expressing my main criticisms about the show, I’d like to go over the main characters one by one and discuss them individually in a bit more detail.
First of all, Nam Han Joon. He’s the typical ‘acts silly but has a serious backstory’ type of person. When he’s pretending to be a shaman and running his business, he basically has dollar signs in his eyes at all times. He doesn’t really seem to sincerely sympathize with his clients or other people when it doesn’t bring in money. However, we do get to sympathize with him when we see what he went through when Jae Jeong was killed. Seriously, the scene where he found him in his house and wasn’t able to save him, the way he broke down on the floor crying GUTTED me. These types of scenes in-between the sillyness are initially what got me really interested in the story because I like it when it’s not just comedy. I like it when there’s something serious behind the comedy which drives these characters. I also found it interesting that, despite the constant emphasis on what a genius Han Joon was (be it as a shaman or a profiler) he still remained a human being who made mistakes and didn’t immediately pick up on every single thing. It took him a long time to realize who Gopuri was, after the viewers already got that information. The fact that he also went into something with Soo Cheol and didn’t anticipate beforehand what could go wrong was pretty ironic for someone posing off as a shaman who gives others advice about what to look out for. But in a way, I liked that because it proved that he was just another human being trying his best. He wasn’t a professional detective and certainly no Sherlock Holmes, so of course he still made mistakes. It would’ve been neat if he just picked up on everything automatically and figured out everything from the start, but that wouldn’t have been as thrilling as seeing him fail and having to face his own flaws in the process.
I liked how he became more and more sincere throughout the story as well. He started out as a purely money-obsessed fraud, but through being reunited with Jae Hee and realizing how much his team meant to him, he did have some solid character development. It was nice seeing that, despite his casual behavior, his friends and family meant the world to him, and he carried the guilt of not being able to protect Jae Jeong with him every single day. Honestly, I thought his consistent loyalty to Jae Jeong was very endearing, even when it came to getting his blessing to get romantically involved with Jae Hee. He actually held himself back for his best friend and that also proved how much he meant to him. I thought the way in which they gradually showed his sincerity bit by bit throughout the story was very effective, because in that way it really felt like slowly getting to know him better rather than adding in an abrupt change in his character. It even made me sympathize with his decision to create the purpose of Minamdang. Even though he just seemed to be plain greedy at first, everything he did after Jae Jeong’s murder was in some way connected to catching Gopuri. The fact that it all had a purpose in the end also helped me sympathize with him more, because he was actually working towards something and not just extorting money out of people purely for personal gain.

When we meet Jae Hee for the first time, she’s just been appointed as the new leader of Division Seven of the Major Crime Investigation department. Her nickname at the force is ‘Ghost Han’ because when she gets serious about catching a culprit, she’ll move as swiftly and quickly as a ghost, and this has earned her a reputation as well, even though it’s mostly a scary one. Still, once she and her team mates get to know each other better, they get along just fine. I personally really liked her teamwork with Officer Jang and the mutual respect that grew between them.
I thought the revelation of what she was really like matched Han Joon’s case as well. We first get to know her as this reputed and esteemed police officer, but she too makes a lot of mistakes and judgement errors, and we see that she too is just a regular and flawed human being. She starts caving to Han Joon’s charm again from the moment she’s reunited with him, and basically starts acting like a love-struck girl trying to push away her feelings towards her crush. This side of her stood in stark contrast with the intimidating impression she made during her first introduction. Still, I liked how she too went through a major character development, even though it also included a lot of betrayal and pain while working on her brother’s case and finding out who Gopuri was all this time. I really appreciated that she got a breakdown scene after finding out about Gopuri’s true identity because this must have been so hard for her to accept. To find out her brother was killed by someone she’d trusted and worked so closely with, someone who even confessed his feelings for her. I’m glad they paid attention to that betrayal and made a deal out of it rather than brush it off with a simple “that bastard!✊🏻” and be done with it. It made me sympathize with Jae Hee a lot to see how her trust in people suffered such a blow in that moment.
Admittedly, there were times when I felt like she wasn’t actually as good a police officer as she was made out to be in the beginning, but I also don’t think it’s fair to expect her to pick up on things all the time. It was basically the same as with Han Joon, they had the qualifications to work at the force but that didn’t mean that they were intuitive about every single thing.
One thing I do want to mention that I found kind of ridiculous was the flashback from around the time that Jae Jeong was killed. Jae Hee was still a rookie officer at that point and she and another officer were chasing this lady who’d been stealing strawberries from a greenhouse or something (?). They stumbled upon this suspicious truck that literally had blood trickling out of the back door. As the place in itself was already super remote, making it a perfect hiding spot, I honestly couldn’t believe that they actually went, “Ehh, I certainly hope that’s not blood!” “Yeah, I hope not!” and LEFT without even checking it out. Like, seriously, what was that? The fact that they didn’t even inspect the truck – because it definitely was blood – and just walked away?! Like, at least call back-up or someone else if you don’t want to inspect it by yourselves but don’t just shrug it off and leave it for what it is! 😂 That was the only time I actually doubted Jae Hee as a police officer, lol. Sure, there were other moments where I thought she could’ve thought things through a bit more, but you can’t expect someone to be flawless, even in the police force, so I won’t judge her too much for it. We’re all human beings, after all.

To say something about the relationship between Han Joon and Jae Hee, I thought it was cute. I liked the scenes from before they officially got together, when it was the two of them just holding back the urge to kiss each other, lol. The tension between them built up pretty fast and it created a nice push-and-pull vibe.
One thing that did confuse me was the age difference between them. I don’t actually know how far apart in age they were, but in the flashback of Jae Hee (Jang Mi at the time) getting taekwondo lessons from Han Joon, Jae Hee is actually a teenager. As in, she’s portrayed by a teenage actress (Kim Min Seo) while Han Joon is consistently portrayed by Seo In Gook. In that flashback, it seemed like there was a significant age gap between them, as he looked like an adult while she was clearly still a kid. Moving ahead to the period in which Jae Jeong was murdered, six years prior to the present story, Jae Hee is an adult by now and played by Oh Yeon Seo. So how long ago was the taekwondo lesson flasback scene? And why didn’t they use a younger version actor for Han Joon when clearly about ten years had passed?🤔 Jae Hee must have only been slightly older than his own sister Hye Joon. To look at that flashback scene and picture them as a couple would be kind of inappropriate age-wise, so I’m actually curious about how much they differed in age. This puzzles me all the more since I found out Seo In Gook and Oh Yeon Seo are the same age in real life. Other than that, as with all the romantic relationships in this show, they ended up being very lovey-dovey, talking to each other in baby voices and stuff. Again, since this stood in such stark contrast with how they were introduced as well-reputed impressive people, I found this kind of funny.
What I also found funny was that, despite them both having such close connections to Jae Jeong, they apparently had no idea they were both connected to him. Like, they all knew each other individually but it seemed like Jae Hee/Jang Mi didn’t know her taekwondo teacher was her brother’s best friend and Han Joon didn’t know Jae Hee was Jae Jeong’s little sister. As in, he knew that Jae Jeong had a little sister, but he didn’t know she was the girl he taught taekwondo. I found that a bit odd.

If we’re going to talk about Cha Do Won, I’m proud to say that I didn’t trust this bastard from the start. At first, I thought this purely had to do with my association regarding the actor, as he also played a sociopath killer in Abyss, and I tried to set aside my bias towards him. But then there were all sorts of situations where he just conveniently disappeared and only ended up supporting Jae Hee from the sidewalk. The scene that sealed the deal for me was when they were still after the person they initially suspected for Jae Jeong’s murder even though Han Joon was convinced it wasn’t him. This suspect was in a hospital bed and Jae Hee and Do Won were watching him. What happened was kind of wild, because they pretty much allowed a suspicious-looking doctor inject something lethal into the guy’s IV-drip and just let him walk away while the suspect immediately showed a strong physical reaction to whatever he’d been injected with. When Jae Hee went after the doctor guy, she left Do Won behind in the room with a single instruction to “Take out the IV-drip and make sure he’s safe!” After the whole ordeal, Do Won had just disappeared completely and, big surprise, he hadn’t taken out the IV-drip. He literally emerged from the shadows as soon as Jae Hee was alone again, being all “aw shucks, we didn’t catch him”. That’s when it started going 🚩🚩🚩 for me. Every time he ‘cooperatively’ went after a bad guy and ‘accidentally’ let him escape, I just went “yeah, right”😒. So yeah, it wasn’t a surprise to me that he turned out to be Gopuri, but there’s still something about the revelation of it that didn’t sit fully right with me. The show used this specific way to introduce new characters by pasting a name tag on them (in an almost comic book kind of way), and this also happened with Do Won, they just pasted ‘GOPURI’ on him and I was like, “oh okay, they’re not even going to beat around the bush about his identity?”😅 At that time I was only 100% certain that he was involved, but not that he himself was Gopuri, so for me it kind of killed the suspense having it revealed like that. Personally, I would’ve liked to first get to the bottom of his involvement with Goo Tae Soo and Auntie Im before just being served the de-mystified truth on a platter. Because now the story became more of a ‘how long until Han Joon and Jae Hee figure it out’ game and it definitely took away part of the thrill in my opinion.
I’m also still a bit confused about Cha Do Won’s timeline. We find out that he’s been a psychopath ever since he was a kid, and after he actually ended up murdering someone his parents hired a specialist in hypnosis therapy to brainwash him and make him forget he did it. Worse, they made him believe that it was actually his older brother Seung Won who did it, because he already had quite violent tendencies at the time. Like, if you’re going to brainwash a murder from a kid’s memory, at least make him believe the victim died tragically in some other way, why was there a need to put it on his brother’s tab? The therapist continued monitoring and hypnotizing young Do Won with a clicker device – the clicking sound triggered him to hold back his urge to kill or physically harm.
When the police and Minamdang teams start looking for dirt on Cha Seung Won as a part of their investigation of the group of influential men involved in an illegal prostitution deal, Han Joon and Jae Hee come across the incident in which Seung Won allegedly killed a kid when he was a teenager. When they visit the building in which this took place together with Do Won, this is where Do Won starts getting weird flashbacks for the first time. It’s almost as if his memory is triggered and he suddenly remembers two versions of the same accident. However, it doesn’t seem like he fully realizes that he did it himself yet – unlike me, who immediately went, “it was him himself, huh”🙄. The way they made that look was that he didn’t actually remember being that psychopath kid and killing someone way back when.
On the other hand, it’s revealed that he basically went around killing people his entire life. While he personally went after people that evaded the law (like a self-appointed vigilante, very fitting for a prosecutor), he made his accomplice Goo Tae Soo kill other people like Jae Jeong, who came too close to the truth and therefore needed to be silenced. So it’s not like brainwashing him into forgetting one specific incident as a kid stopped him from becoming a serial killer. It just made me feel like in the end, the whole brainwashing thing didn’t really amount to anything, even though it was also suggested that he became a serial killer exactly because he found out he’d been brainwashed. As in, he might have turned out okay if they didn’t alter his memory as a kid – well I don’t think so. All in all, it just wasn’t clear to me if he was aware of the fact that he’d been brainwashed as a child. I found it a bit confusing how long he’d been conscious of anything and if maybe he’d remembered everything from the start.

To explain a bit more about his brother, Goo Tae Soo and Auntie Im – here’s what I gathered.
His brother Seung Won was involved in a land development project that involved all a group of influential old men who signed up for an illegal prostitution deal. He was a lawyer and therefore quite influential. While he didn’t get involved in the prostitution deal himself, he did help cover up a bunch of things which made him an accomplice. Having been a bully since childhood, he was also inclined to get violent when things didn’t go his way.
Goo Tae Soo used to be a victim of domestic violence when he was young, and he ended up killing his alcoholic father and setting his own house on fire. While he was very fond of his mother, he walked away from home and was unfortunately picked up by a young Cha Do Won and Auntie Im, who was already by his side then. Do Won immediately appointed him as his ‘magpie’, like a pet, and that’s what he’s been treating him as ever since. Goo Tae Soo was basically manipulated into believing that Do Won and his accomplices were on his side, and he obediently killed anyone that posed a threat to Do Won. What ultimately cost him was his attachment to one of the idol trainees that was selected for the prostitution deal. He got attached to her since she reminded him of his mother, so killing her did actually affect him. The teams figure this out by the shoes the victim was wearing when she was found, as they were identical to the ones his mother wore on an old picture, and they realized they looked alike, they had a similar smile or something like that. I actually pitied Goo Tae Soo a bit because he was definitely done dirty as a human being and he just ended up trusting the wrong people. I did feel for him when they reunited him with his mother at the end and let her come visit him in prison. The way he broke down behind the glass made me empathize with him a little. Not that I condone anything he’s done, absolutely not, but I did feel like he was forced to join the dark side when he was in a very fragile state after the whole ordeal with his dad.
When it comes to Auntie Im, there’s still a lot I don’t understand. Apparently she was once an actual shaman-in-training but got caught doing something illegal and was kicked out, and this made her vicious enough to set her former training temple on fire. I’m still not completely sure how she ended up at Do Won’s side and also how she looked exactly the same in the flashbacks of twenty years prior. Like, in the scene where child Do Won meets teen Goo Tae Soo for the first time, she’s portrayed by the exact same person as in present time when Do Won and Tae Soo are both adults. If she was that much older than Tae Soo in that flashback, she should’ve been a granny in the present time. There’s no explanation about that and any further mystery surrounding her character was debunked when Do Won killed her just to frame Han Joon for it. Anyways, Auntie Im was the person who prepared the gopuri cloths for each execution and we learn that she helped influential people get rid of opponents through voodoo-like rituals, so she was definitely a skilled shaman herself, even though she mainly used her ‘powers’ to help the wrong people. She found out she chose to side with the wrong people too late and died at Do Won’s own hands.

I have to admit that in the part about the land development plan where all those influential people were introduced I found it very hard to keep up with who was who and what was happening. There was a lot of name dropping and I was barely able to figure out what the whole deal with Auntie Im and Cha Seung Won, let alone all the other people that were involved. I hope I at least got it right in essence in the above paragraph. At some point there were just too many involved parties being thrown into the mix and I found it hard to keep track.

To go back to the Minamdang team, we need to talk about Soo Cheol. I think that out of all the characters, Soo Cheol was probably intended as the biggest comic relief character. From the way he talked to the way he walked, there wasn’t much to take seriously. I think he was made to be a caricature of the brute force with the smallest brain, even though his heart was undeniably in the right place. I did wonder what he was like as a police detective before he got dismissed though, because I just can’t picture him in a position of bearing responsibility for the nation. Still, when it came to being loyal, he took the crown. I enjoyed Han Joon and Soo Cheol’s constant bickering and the way they’d always slapped each other’s ass, lol. I found it interesting that they both saw each other as brothers but also always rejoiced when one could get away with something the other couldn’t. There was this playfulness to their friendship, and I feel like even though they did push each other under the bus occasionally, those cases didn’t hold much weight because they both knew each other’s loyalty. They were always there for each other in the moments it truly mattered, and that was the most important thing. Honestly, Soo Cheol covered Han Joon on so many occasions. He pretended to be the café’s shaman so that Han Joon’s very Christian mother wouldn’t get a heart attack. He allowed himself to get kidnapped and beaten unconscious without a second of hesitation. That’s an incredible level of loyalty and I appreciated him for that.

I wanted to know SO BADLY what happened to Hye Joon’s career at the NIS. I don’t even know if she quit or got fired, and how she was even able to still access so many systems from her own room without attracting the attention of the feds. I would’ve liked some more backstory on Hye Joon, to be honest. There were so many interesting things about her that weren’t really explained. For example, how did she get from the NIS to becoming this unhygienic hermit that hacked clients from her room for money? Also, I found her active dating life very contrastive to her image as this floppy girl who didn’t even care to wash her hair once a week and cussed like a sailor. There were constant jokes about how badly she smelled and how dirty she was, but she still managed to present herself as an attractive young woman to the outside world. I would’ve really liked to understand her a bit better as a person. I did like that they established some similarities between her and her brother, for example the mole under their right eye but also how they could lash out and hide their affection for each other behind strong language but always ended up hugging each other while gross-sobbing it out after getting out of a dangerous situation.

I thought the romance that bloomed between Soo Cheol and Hye Joon was really sweet. Sure, it became very lovey-dovey, but I really liked the scene where Hye Joon just kept kissing him until he finally broke and allowed himself to kiss her back. I don’t know, something about the way he resisted to allow himself to finally be lucky in love was really endearing. I also found it quite respectful of him not to immediately throw himself on Hye Joon but instead let her convince him that she was serious about him as well. They were really sweet together.

Jo Na Dan joined the Minamdang team when Han Joon and Soo Cheol helped him and his friend out of a loan shark situation one time and after that he was so impressed with these two hyungs that he wanted to join ‘their club’ at once. As his main task is serving at the café, Na Dan is only asked to carry out small tasks like planting a tracking device somewhere or checking a certain place for evidence when no one else is around. I liked that they didn’t involve him in the most serious cases like Gopuri, because he was still a minor (I think?) and his safety meant a lot to them as well. Na Dan was a very uncomplicated and cheerful boy and I wonder to what extent he was actually aware of the fraud they were committing. In any case, he was mostly at the café to set the mood and entertain the guests, and he was really good at that.
He was such a pure child, I remember when Do Won threw him off the stairs at one point and I went, “NO NOT MY BABY BOY😭”. He was too innocent and pure to get involved in a serial killer case and I kept being afraid something would happen to him. If it were up to me though, I would’ve probably tried to shield him way more from a lot of things than the other Minamdang members did, because they still asked him to do illegal stuff.

For a Major Crime Investigation Division, you could say that a lot of comic relief also came from this place. Especially when it came to Sang Hyeop and Gwang Tae, and I have to say that this actually started to get on my nerves a bit at some point. Officer Jang was the only one who actively joined Jae Hee as a solid partner and came close several times to capturing Goo Tae Soo on his own, actually risking his life. I respected him because he was the only one who didn’t keep screwing things up. Of course he also contributed to the comic relief, but it was more subtle than with the other two guys.
Honestly, at some point I just wondered why Sang Hyeop and Gwang Tae were even included on missions at all, because they always managed to screw things up for the stupidest reasons. I think they were responsible for most of the slapstick action besides Soo Cheol, to the point where it just started to piss me off, lol. I mean come on, how the heck did Gwang Tae manage to down an entire bottle of relaxants on the most important day, when they were literally going to corner Do Won? And how did Sang Hyeop let himself get scared out of his mind by a couple of plastic skeleton dolls, like some kid in a haunted house? How did they follow someone they hadn’t even identified as the actual culprit yet onto a ship without thinking about the fact that it was being boarded for departure and they’d get stuck at sea if they stayed on it for too long? Like, slapstick is slapstick and comedy is comedy, but it still has to keep making sense for police officers to act this way.

Speaking of unthoughtfulness, how did both teams look at Do Won blatantly revealing himself on three different CCTVs and not realize he was trying to lure them there by splitting them up so that he could get to them one by one? That just didn’t make sense to me. He was literally looking into the cameras, basically waving “come and get me” and none of them thought of a better plan to figure out what his actual location was so they could confront him as a group? Of course the additional goal was to save the three people he was still targeting, but it still didn’t make sense to me why they split up the way they did, especially in the case of allowing Hye Joon and Na Dan go out together when the chance that Do Won would appear was so big. There should’ve been at least one (former) police person present in each team. I’m just glad they didn’t get killed.

Apart from these main characters, I want to give one shoutout to some funny side characters that became regulars, and with that I mean Lee Min Gyeong (played by Hwang Woo Seul Hye) and Do Won’s cousin Park Jin Sang (Baek Seung Ik). Min Gyeong was a VIP client of Han Joon who firmly believed in his shaman powers and even tried to pursue him in terms of marriage. Park Jin Sang was in charge of the Joyce entertainment company that ‘provided’ the young women for the prostitution deal. He was Goo Tae Soo’s boss but he didn’t know anything about the deals that were being made with the female trainees at his company. Min Gyeong and Jin Sang were brought together after both being saved by Han Joon’s shaman powers, and they kept appearing together in several scenes, always ready to aide Han Joon. At the end of the show, it’s revealed that they became a couple and even got pregnant, so that was kind of sweet, especially because Min Gyeong was initially so bent on pursuing Han Joon. I just found them a cute side character couple and wanted to mention them.

Now that I’ve presented my character analysis, I’d like to explain my relatively low rating for this show. I’ve seen a lot of really positive reviews and ratings of Café Minamdang and I just want to make clear that I’m not trying to hate on it, not in the least. In fact, I had a really good time watching it, it was amusing while it also had serious parts and great acting, and my general watching experience was good. I’m also very aware that the main point of this show is to not take it too seriously, trust me, I get that. Still, there were some inconsistencies and imbalances between the different genres that threw me off a little bit.
Besides the confusions that I already mentioned in my character analysis, genre-wise I found the constant going back-and-forth between the comedy and the crime a bit weird sometimes. The serial killer case had ties to a lot of very heavy themes like fraud and extortion, but also to sexual abuse and even selling young women overseas for prostitution. While dealing with stuff like that, I sometimes found it a bit distasteful to try and make it ‘funny’ by focussing on the main characters’ dramatic reactions to it.
I remember the police force found out the truth about Kang Eun Hye (the young woman Goo Tae Soo got attached to), who became a victim of the prostitution deal and was eventually found dead in the sewers. This was a very serious case, but then they went and made it ‘funny’ by making Officer Jang burst out in overly dramatic tears about what had happened to her. Like, it just didn’t seem right to make a joke of his reaction like that when he was actually crying about a legitimately horrible thing that had happened to someone. Another example I remember was when the two teams (after they started working together) managed to obtain video footage of how these young women were being raped by the elderly men they were being sent to, and the severity of the footage was again debunked by how everyone just started cussing these men out. Like, of course these men deserved to be cussed out, but the way in which they cussed them out again bordered on exaggerated and comical, so it just didn’t feel genuine. There’s a difference between expressing your disgust about a situation and just going, “those fucking bastards! #$@^%#^#@!! 😤😤” A third example I can think of is when Han Joon came into Hye Joon’s monitoring room and found a lifesize doll version of her strapped up to the ceiling, making it look like she’d been hanged. Like, people actually came into their house to do that to warn them to stay away, threatening Hye Joon’s life like that. While Han Joon and Na Dan initially got a big shock seeing that, after the initial shock it just ended with an overly dramatic reunion when Hye Joon turned out to be okay and after that no one thought back on it even once. Every time they decided to split up or just go after Gopuri in their regular clothes without backup I was like, “uhm, has everyone just forgotten about the hanged Hye Joon doll? Wouldn’t that make you think twice about splitting up and just going after a serial killer empty-handed??” Especially when they split up and left Hye Joon and Na Dan in one team together, that just didn’t make sense to me. They wouldn’t have been able to deal with Do Won on their own. In hindsight it made me feel like they added the hanged doll for shock value and nothing else, because it definitely didn’t raise any more caution among them.
These things actually reminded me of when I watched The One and Only, where they also forced in comedy while the story dealt with a lot of heavy themes. I personally feel like it’s important to remain respectful when you’re dealing with topics like that and make sure you don’t ‘accidentally’ make a joke out of something serious. This might just be me being too serious, but I can’t deny that this didn’t bother me in the slightest.
I mean, even the ending had me going, “ehm okay sure?” when they found a lead to another serial killer case. They actually discovered a severed arm (!) and went skipping out all smiling happily like, “yay, we’re going to solve another serial killing case together, this’ll be fun!😃” So yeah, I had some trouble finding a balance between the different genres. Initially I was really into the Gopuri case and the deeper layer it brought to the story. I guess I just prefer it when people are a bit more serious in detective genres, at least when it comes to the investigation. That’s just my opinion🤷🏻‍♀️. Still, as I said, I had a good time watching the show and it both made me laugh and gave me (good) goosebumps at specific moments, so I’m not going to criticize the use of comedy in the show entirely. I just thought they could’ve created a slightly better balance between the genres and put more sincerity in the characters’ reactions to finding out about all the nasty stuff that was happening.

If I had to describe what this show felt to me genre-wise I would have to say that in terms of serial killer case and investigation it reminded me of Abyss while in terms of comedy and sillyness it reminded me of Wok of Love. I cannot even begin to imagine what combining these two shows into one drama would be like 😂. The overall pace of the show was quite fast, and especially when there were a lot of new names introduced at once I sometimes found it a bit hard to keep track of everything that was happening. Also because of the chaotic vibe of the show, with the Minamdang team members all being so eccentric and everyone being relatively loud and energetic, it was definitely a wild party. I was grateful for the occasional more quiet and serious scenes that brought balance to that energy. It definitely kept me on my toes while watching, and in that sense I can’t deny that it kept me interested until the end.
What I also found remarkable about this show was that it was quite vulgar, as in, there was a lot of un-bleeped swearing and people giving each other the finger, lol. I feel like these things are usually a taboo and therefore censored within K-Dramas, but it was kind of refreshing to embrace the chaotic nature of this show even in terms of language use and openly expressed gestures of dislike.😆

I noticed that the alternative title of this series was “Café Minamdang: Case Note”, and this was also how I put it in my app, but the original Korean title is just “Minamdang”, so I don’t know where the “Case Note” came from. It initally made me think there were multiple seasons or something, but it doesn’t look like there’s another season coming any time soon. The way the show ended, leaving way for the investigation of another serial killer case would potentially allow a second season. Let’s see what happens!
By the way, this was also one of those dramas where I never skipped the opening theme. It was so catchy and made me dance along to it every single time. So, kudos to The Dance of Minamdang by Gonia and Yoo Taepyungyang. I really enjoyed the song, it fit both the shaman theme and the chaotic spirit of the series very well. I’m always happy to credit nice music, especially when it makes me dance.🤗

It was nice to see both familiar and new faces in this show. I don’t usually watch K-Drama with comedy as the main genre, so it was funny seeing these actors go out of their way to show funny sides that I hadn’t necessarily seen before.

I really loved seeing Seo In Gook again. I’ve seen him in several things before, such as The Master’s Sun, King of High School, Shopping King Louie and Abyss. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him in a main lead role instead of a guest appearance or cameo. There’s still some more shows of him on my list, so I’m curious when I’ll get to watch those. I’ve been familiar with Seo In Gook’s comical talent since King of High School, which was the first thing I saw of him that made me immediately fell in love with his face, lol. This drama showcased his comical talent on a whole new level that I hadn’t seen before, though, so that was also nice in a way. I really enjoyed seeing him balance the sillyness with the seriousness and just embrace the chaos at some points. I liked seeing him in this show and I hope I’ll get to see even more sides of his acting in further dramas.

Not me realizing Oh Yeon Seo was the little sister in Baby-faced Beauty! I knew I recognized her from somewhere, but I hadn’t made this connection, lol. I see there are more dramas with her on my watchlist as well, so I’m curious to see those. It’s funny when you know an actor’s face but realize you haven’t actually seen them in (m)any dramas before. I thought she was a very interesting casting choice for Jae Hee because she turned out to be much less tough than I anticipated. I never really know what to expect from female police officer characters in dramas, I just don’t know what they’re supposed to be like. I felt like Jae Hee’s reputation of being Ghost Han sometimes fuelled her and sometimes eluded her, like it wasn’t always consistently present whenever she was investigating a case. There was this time where she had to let herself get kidnapped and then two of her police team members were supposed to free her. Of course Sang Hyeop managed to screw it up by himself, but then Jae Hee suddenly went into Ghost Han mode and just freed herself, like, why did they even make a whole plan based on that she would need to be rescued by two male officers? Little inconsistences like that kept happening which made me question whether channelling The Ghost was something she could do willingly or if it just happened at random times when an emergency arose. Anyways, I did like her acting performance and I liked that the show allowed her to showcase different sides of her acting.

I knew Kwak Shi Yang from Oh My Ghostess where he was the quiet cute cook. He also starred in Chicago Typewriter, Fight For My Way and Clean With Passion For Now. I’m probably going to see him in some other dramas that are still on my list as well. This was the first time I’ve seen him portray such an overly comical character, to the point where it became an actual caricature. Although I wasn’t really sure what to make of him in the beginning, Soo Cheol definitely grew on me as the teddy bear that he was, and I really loved seeing his more sensitive side as well once he and Hye Joon got together. I just can’t unsee the image of this big man squealing as Hye Joon rubbed him behind the ears, lol. He might have been one Hulk of a guy, but he was actually as soft as a mochi. I liked how he managed to maintain the chaos of his character and actually made him so unapologetically awkward that you couldn’t help but love him for it.

I had no idea Kang Mi Na was in this, so that was a nice surprise! I’ve seen her before in 20th Century Boy and Girl, Gyeryong Fairytale and Hotel Del Luna and I hope I get to see her in way more in the future. I’ve known Mi Na since Produce 101, where she and Kim Se Jeong were my two favorites, so I’m always happy to see either of them in a drama. I thought she pulled off the glasses and the red curly hair really well, it actually took me a few moments to realize it was her, lol. Up until now I’ve mainly see her play quirky or sassy high school students, so this was the first time I’ve seen her play an adult – despite her immature tendencies from time to time – and it was also funny to see her as such an outspoken character who didn’t mince her words and also swore a lot. Despite the significant age difference between her and Kwak Shi Yang (13 years – she was 22 when this aired and he 35), their portrayed affection for each other never looked awkward to me. I was actually pretty surprised by how many kisses they shared and how natural they looked together. I liked seeing her in this, I feel like I got to see a whole new side of her acting and I’m super excited to see more of her in the future!

I hadn’t seen Baek Seo Hoo in anything before, but I guess that’s also because he only made his debut as an actor in 2020, after initially being an idol trainee and failing to debut. I found him to be an absolute cinnamon roll in this show, and it’s nice that he got to showcase his talents as Jo Na Dan. He was just such a cute puppy and I wanted to take care of him, lol. I’m so glad nothing bad happened to his character. I hope he’ll get even more chances to act in the future!

As I said, I was immediately cautious when I saw Kwon Soo Hyun in this, and although I hoped I could give him the benefit of the doubt in this show – that playing a sociopathic killer in one series didn’t immediately mean he’d be cast as one in every show I’d see of him – I still had the correct gut feeling about him. Because of his very impacting role in Abyss, I really have to see him in a good character role for a change, because otherwise I fear that I’m going to keep associating him with serial killers forever, lol. Apparently he also appeared in High Society, but I don’t remember from there. I did like seeing him as a nicer guy in the beginning of the show. It was nice to see more affectionate expressions and even smiles on his face before his true identity was revealed. I hope I get to see him as a good character in a show some time, because I’m positive that he’s done more than just evil characters. It would be a waste of talent if he hasn’t been cast as any other type of character, really! But he did a good job in this show, and I can’t deny that he’s really good at flipping the switch between nice guy and psychopath, lol.

Jung Man Shik also looked very familiar to me, even though according to MDL I’ve only seen him before in Me Too, Flower! and I Hear Your Voice, which I don’t remember much of in terms of side characters. But I liked that they included his character here as more than just a comic relief character. It was nice seeing different sides to his acting, even if some were a bit over-dramatic. I have to admit that he did a really good job in the subtle humor department. Apart from that time with the over-dramatic sobbing, he never went too far with acting out the funny parts, unlike the other police officers. He created the image of a very reliable police officer who didn’t shy back from getting into scrapes. Seriously, he was threatened with knives more than anyone in this show, including the time Goo Tae Soo literally held one to his throat. He tried to hold on to him after getting hit by a car and being covered in blood, that’s how determined he was to catch this guy. I really appreciated him as a character, he was just such a good person.

I think I’m going to keep it at this for my cast comments, since these were the people I wanted to comment on the most. There were a lot of supporting characters and guest appearances, but as I mentioned before I had a hard time keeping track of the majority of the people that got involved in the investigation, so this will have to suffice. All in all, I really liked the cast, everyone did a good job. Even when they were written to be overly comical, it was clear that everyone took their characters very seriously and really committed to getting their personalities across, and that definitely bore fruit.
What I liked the most about the main characters in general was that, despite their eccentricity, they were all really just people trying to find their own way and find a community of people to work with. I really loved how, even though Hye Joon was his only real relative, Han Joon always referred to his whole team as his family, to Soo Cheol as his brother and to Hye Joon and Na Dan as ‘the kids’. The feeling of finding and creating a family that doesn’t have to be blood-related was very strong in my opinion, and it was nice to see that through all of the messed up incidents and betrayals, Han Joon and Jae Hee were able to stand firm together. There were a lot of nice moments and I definitely won’t say I disliked it. A lot of series that I rated similarly were ones that I still appreciate for a lot of different things, so it really doesn’t mean I disliked it. I appreciate a good serial killer detective case storyline, and I appreciate good humor when it’s appropriately used, and this series lost me a little bit in trying to find a balance, that’s all.

I’m very curious to my next watch, I’ll be spinning my Wheel of Fortune as soon as I publish this and we’ll see how long it takes for me to post the next review. Thank you if you’ve read through this whole thing and found it entertaining in any way, and I promise I’ll be back soon.

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.

Love Under the Moon
( 山月不知心底事 / Shan Yue Bu Shi Xin Di Shi / The Moon Doesn’t Understand My Heart)
MyDramaList rating: 6.0/10

Hey-hey-hoo! It’s been a while! It feels so weird not to write a review at least once a month. Anyways, I’m back with one now! As you can tell from the date of my last review, it took me nearly two full months to finish this drama. It was very lengthy and very slow-paced, and I took a lot of time in-between episodes. Still, I wanted to give it a proper review as I do with everything I watch. This is the third drama series my Wheel of Fortune app picked out for me, and I honestly can’t even remember putting it on my list but it must have been there for a reason! I like that so far the app has picked out three completely different shows from three different countries – it’s getting bonus points for variation for sure! Apart from that I just want to stress that since it took me such a long time to finish this show, not every single detail may be as clear in my memory as I’d like. Having said that, let’s go!

Love Under the Moon is a Chinese Youku drama series with 48 episodes of each 45 minutes (excluding the opening and ending sequences). It follows the development of a couple that grew up in the countryside together, Ye Qian Ze (played by Ou Hao) and Xiang Yuan (played by Victoria Song/Qian Song). Xiang Yuan and her younger sister Xiang Yao (played by Lin Tian Yuan) lost their parents at a young age. Qian Ze and his younger brother Ye Yun (played by Xia Ning Jun) grew up under the care of their single mother, as their father had left them behind to go study and live a new life in the big city after the Cultural Revolution. Qian Ze’s mother (Yang Tong Shu) basically raised all four kids under her own roof, and so they grew up as one big family.
The connection between Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan has been undeniable ever since childhood. Even though they’re not going around telling everyone they’re a couple, there’s just this understanding between them that they’re going to end up together no matter what. As soon as they finish high school, they start referring to each other as their boy/girlfriend matter-of-factly, and no one bats an eye.
One day, Qian Ze’s father, Ye Bing Lin (played by Ding Yong Dai) suddenly turns up with the intention to take Qian Ze back to Guangzhou with him because he’ll have better chances of education there. Qian Ze, who initially doesn’t want anything to do with his father, still ends up moving away with him after being strongly persuaded by his mother and Xiang Yuan. Xiang Yuan is determined to pass her exams with stellar grades so she can come to Guangzhou and study in the same city as Qian Ze. They’ll be together, no matter what. However, tragedy strikes when Qian Ze’s mother passes away while he’s gone, and he ends up having to move in with his father and his new step-family permanently. He initially can’t really get used to his new life in the city, away from Xiang Yuan and his hometown. He’s awkward with his dad and stepmother Jiang Yu Shan (played by Wen Zheng Rong). He only starts to open up because of his step-cousin Dong Ling (played by Sun Yi/Sun Lan Xiu Mei). Dong Ling, also referred to as Ling Ling, was adopted by her aunt (Qian Ze’s stepmother) after her parents passed away (due to an accident I believe). In other words, Dong Ling is Qian Ze’s adopted step-cousin (🤔) but basically she becomes like a little sister to him. Dong Ling is very eager to meet her new ‘older brother/cousin’ and helps him get settled. As she gets to know him better, she eventually starts falling for him, and gets increasingly jealous of his relationship with Xiang Yuan.
Through the years, Xiang Yuan, Ye Yun and Xiang Yao all start moving to Guangzhou to start a new life there, and a lot of things happen to all of them that make them mature, face hardships and create new bonds and connections with people, both professionally and romantically.

The funny thing is that while I was watching this, I was also reading a book on Chinese tea culture that actually referred to a couple of the same places as this drama did. It also started out with an introduction on the Cultural Revolution and it also partially took place in Guangzhou. I believe even the name of the province the main characters grew up in was mentioned, although I don’t remember the name now (something with an ‘A’). Anyways, it did feel like the stars aligned in that respect, as I was suddenly watching and reading two different stories that took place in the same area. The book is ‘The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane’ by Lisa See, in case anyone’s interested.

Honestly, I liked the concept of this series. I’m usually keen on slow-paced stories that focus on the development of the characters and see how they mature as they graduate, become adults and start shaping their own futures. Some examples of series like this are Love til the End of Summer, A Love So Beautiful and With You and for instance First Love: Hatsukoi and Twenty-Five Twenty-One. I love when series have a nostalgic feeling to them and this one had that as well – it starts in the late 1990s, without mobile phones and advanced technology or transport. When Qian Ze moves away to Guangzhou, he and Xiang Yuan initially don’t have a direct way to contact each other. I believe he calls her at school via a payphone once, and that takes a whole lot of time and effort, with an operator and all that. I also really loved the fact that Xiang Yuan had to pass her hand-written letter to a truck driver so that he could bring it to Guangzhou, and how emotional Qian Ze got when he finally received it. It just perfectly captured the pure nostalgia of not knowing when to expect a letter from a loved one and then being completely elated when it finally arrives. Those aspects made it really nostalgic and warm, also because the relationship between the two just persevered so naturally. They would always find a way, no matter how much time it would take, to get in touch with one another.

While I understand that the main message was about showing how strong the love between Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan was and that it could overcome any obstacle, the lack of a storyline beyond that definitely made the show feel very long and dragging. I think it had to do with the pacing as well. Some elements felt a bit random or added-on with the purpose of filling time while the story could’ve been wrapped up much more concisely in my opinion.

Let me just go over the main characters and analyze them a bit more thoroughly.
To start with Xiang Yuan. By the way, I’m aware that she has a two syllable name and ‘Xiang’ is her last name so I might as well call her ‘Yuan’. However, she’s only ever called by her full name ‘Xiang Yuan’ throughout the entire series, even by Qian Ze, so I’m just going to keep it that way. As I’ve mentioned in other reviews as well, it feels weird referring to a certain character by a name that wasn’t used to refer to them in the series. In any case, Xiang Yuan is a very smart and rational girl/woman. She initially studies finances, and throughout college it becomes clear that she has a real knack for business. At some point she starts selling items in her dorm, for example, to earn some side money. She also excels at any internship or job she manages to land. As an adult, she definitely became more serious and she also started challenging Qian Ze more by not choosing his side on every single matter. Still, it was nice that her love for Qian Ze never wavered and their disagreements never reached a point where they would actually consider breaking up.
There were a few times when I didn’t agree with her, even though I understood where she was coming from. The first time was when she persuaded Qian Ze to go to London under the promise that she’d go with him, while she wasn’t actually planning to. It was an agreement she had with his dad to get him to study abroad because Qian Ze wouldn’t listen to his father. The way she went about that was just not right. I mean come on, she literally went all the way up to the gate with him and only fessed up when he noticed she didn’t have any luggage with her. I think it was right of her to be the one to make amends and start emailing him afterwards to show that she was sorry, but I definitely didn’t blame Qian Ze for being angry with her about that. That was just plain betrayal. Also, the time when she walked out of their home-viewing appointment because work was more important to her. Like, I know she was busy and dealing with important things, but it was just a very inconsiderate move. Again, she kind of redeemed herself but it did take her some time to realize the mistake she’d made and how anxious she’d made Qian Ze feel by showing so little interest in their marriage and future together. So yeah, while I generally liked her as a person for her morale and rationale, and I totally understood that she didn’t want to depend too much on the Ye family’s financial support, I did feel like she could’ve been a bit more considerate and thoughtful about Qian Ze’s feelings at times.
I liked the scenes where they would discuss issues together, because they eventually became partners in business as well as in life. I liked how they ended up communicating about things, even though there would be some tension between them and it wouldn’t always end in a hug. I think their relationship, in that respect, was very realistic because it showed that it wasn’t only about the intimate and romantic moments, It was also about actually living together and facing issues together, be it on the work floor or in a more private setting.
I did judge Xiang Yuan a little bit for getting so randomly strict with her younger sister Xiang Yao. I could understand that Xiang Yao was feeling pressured. She didn’t feel as ‘accomplished’ as her older sister, she couldn’t find a proper job to stick to, and then there was also the awkward situation with Ye Yun where she just felt like she didn’t live in the same world as him anymore. And then, when she finally landed a stable job (thanks to Qian Ze) and finally felt happy because she started seeing someone, Xiang Yuan even started criticizing her dating life.

To be completely honest, I felt a bit uncomfortable myself regarding the pairing of Xiang Yao and Teng Jun (Zhao Zhi Gang), but it mostly had to do with the fact that he literally looked like he could’ve been her uncle. I just don’t understand why they couldn’t have casted someone her age. After looking it up I discovered that there’s actually a 15-year age difference between them! When this show aired he was 39 while she was 24! So yeah, that doesn’t really sit right with me.
But it seemed like, in the show, Xiang Yuan’s dissatisfaction with him didn’t even have to do with his age, per se. Other than that he was really sweet and treated Xiang Yao really well, so I didn’t really understand what Xiang Yuan’s beef with him was. Maybe she was just overprotective, which I’d understand, but it just came out of nowhere, especially considering she wasn’t really that involved in her younger sister’s life.

It may have become clear from the previous paragraph, but I was mainly Team Qian Ze during this show. Honestly, what a guy. He definitely took a longer time to mature compared to Xiang Yuan, but I couldn’t really criticize him because I was too softened by his love for Xiang Yuan 😇. Seriously, get yourself a man like Ye Qian Ze. I do think it was good for his character development that Xiang Yuan wasn’t always just agreeing with everything he said and did. Their dynamic would’ve been a lot less interesting to watch if they were just lovey-dovey all the time. The fact that they fought and spent time apart only to realize they really needed each other definitely worked in their favor.
What I liked about Qian Ze was that he was really just living his own life without paying too much attention to other people and their opinions of him. I always really admire this in people, mainly because I’m someone who always, even though I hate it, pays attention to what other people think and say. Qian Ze was a really simple guy and only paid attention to what he was interested in. In the beginning this stood in contrast with Xiang Yuan’s ambitions, as he didn’t really want to take over his dad’s company as long as he could just be happy with his girl. But going through so many experiences and studying abroad and meeting all sorts of people and taking on the responsibility of his father’s company really made him mature.
The only thing I criticized him on was that he could’ve acknowledged the Dong Ling situation way earlier. He was too bent on proving Xiang Yuan wrong and thereby let it escalate a bit. I mean, fair enough, Dong Ling still persevered even after he’d clearly rejected her a couple of times, but it could’ve saved us so many painful situations caused by Dong Ling’s delulu state. I did like how, when he eventually acknowledged the truth, he did everything he could to stay away from her and reject her approaches. Not because he particularly cared about it himself, but because he knew it made Xiang Yuan uncomfortable. He was fine with letting it slide because it didn’t mean anything to him. He’d made clear that he wasn’t interested in her like that, so it didn’t matter to him whether he kept something she’d given him as a present, for example. But what matters is that he was willing to go the extra mile and tell Dong Ling to back off because he wanted Xiang Yuan to feel at ease about the situation, and that was also a big green flag about him.

Dong Ling was definitely the cause of a lot of my frustration while watching this show.
First of all, because it was annoying how persistent she was in trying to woo Qian Ze and kept believing that she could actually break him and Xiang Yuan apart despite facing rejection after rejection. I honestly couldn’t even watch it without feeling secondhand embarrassment at some point. I also just didn’t understand why she kept doing this to herself. She knew Qian Ze loved Xiang Yuan and that he wanted to spend every free moment he had with his girlfriend. Still, whenever she heard someone say they were together, her face would drop and I’d be like, ‘for the umpteenth time, what did you expect?! 🙄’ I can’t believe she kept expecting to hear something different. It got even worse when she went after him to London. It was just so painful to watch that she kept expecting Qian Ze to be happy to see her, while he literally went, ‘what the fuck are you doing here?’ when she suddenly appeared on his doorstep. I really applauded the fact that Qian Ze immediately started looking for a room mate for her because he was not going to live in one house with her, that was really sharp of him. But then she would just chase every single potential room mate away, of course. The final drop was definitely that cup (no pun intended). Seriously, that was next-level obsessive stuff. She literally made Qian Ze a cup with the engraving, ‘you are in my blood, you are the sin of my life‘. 😬 Yikes forever. I’m just glad that was about the last of it before she finally realized she was the one who needed to wake up from her delusion.
Secondly, when she finally got over Qian Ze and finally moved on to live her own life, she just ended up with the worst ending ever. I just couldn’t feel satisfied with how her storyline ended. Honestly, the only thing I wanted was for her to find her own happiness after coming to terms with her own inability to let go of a fruitless pursuit. She was a talented young lady and I honestly believe that she grew and matured a lot, in her own way. It was a very good call to move abroad for a while to get herself together, too. But then what, she ends up offering herself into a transactional marriage just to get the company out of trouble? Was that really the only way to go? Was she really just destined to be miserable? It just didn’t feel fair. No matter how much she annoyed me while she was pursuing Qian Ze, I honestly didn’t wish this kind of ending for her. She deserved better than that.

I have to admit I did end up changing my mind about Qian Ze’s father and stepmother. In the beginning I was worried that they would only care about the company and the family’s reputation. At one point it even seemed like they intended to break Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan apart because they saw how much influence Xiang Yuan had over Qian Ze – in the sense that he always listened to her, not that she ever tried to manipulate him or something. But I liked that they turned out to be good people, and they naturally came to acknowledge their relationship as more than just a youthful infatuation. It was nice to see how Bing Lin came to see Xiang Yuan’s work skills and allowed her to become part of his company not just to do her a favor or hold something over her, but because he actually started trusting her. Heck, he entrusted his entire company to Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan together because he trusted that they would be able to run it. He became much more of a family man throughout the series and I liked that.
I also came to like Jiang Yu Shan more. While I first thought she would get a bit of a nasty streak and maybe start feeding Dong Ling’s delusion by helping her out to break Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan apart, in the end I was kind of touched by her character. Despite her initial stoicness, her true colors really came out after Dong Ling left for Europe and she started missing her so much. I think it was also good of her to slowly start dissuading Dong Ling to stop going after Qian Ze because she saw how much it was damaging her niece. She had such warm motherly feelings for her. Seeing her reaction when Dong Ling phoned her to say she was offering herself up for that marriage only proved that. It was nice seeing her transform into a warmer person.
The only thing I still don’t really understand is why she had to go through that car accident while her husband was recovering from his heart surgery. I assume it was because they needed a reason to call Dong Ling back, but I still found it quite drastic, especially because they dragged it out for so long that she wouldn’t wake up. The only touching moment that came out of it was that we got to see Ye Bing Lin’s genuine sentiment towards her, which he would probably never have expressed in a regular situation.

One other key character that I need to discuss is the main ‘villain’ of the story, Ye Bing Wen (played by Li Chong Xiao). He is Bing Lin’s younger brother and Qian Ze’s uncle. He works as a sales director at Jiang Yuan, the company that belongs to the Ye family and that his older brother is the CEO of. From the very first time we are introduced to him, it is foreshadowed that Qian Ze will ultimately have a fateful but inevitable confrontation with him. Bing Wen himself is recently divorced and is now seeing a younger woman who used to be his assistant, called Liu Yang, also called Xiao Liu (played by Lu Zi). As soon as Bing Lin introduces Qian Ze to the company and starts suggesting that he might take over from him, Bing Wen starts getting nervous. After all, he’s a direct Ye family member who’s worked at the company for so many years – where’s this boy suddenly coming from? Even if they’re directly related, Qian Ze was raised by his mother and only recently brought to Guangzhou. Moreover, he doesn’t even express any interest in running the company. Gradually, as Bing Lin’s health worsens and he keeps depending on Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan more than his younger brother to take command of Jiang Yuan, Bing Wen starts getting more and more annoyed and even starts pulling strings to cause the company trouble so Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan are put in jeopardy. He orchestrates a fight in the factory and a potential hostage situation. He even goes as far as to use a small factory’s steel beams for a big bridge project which leads to actual casualties, as the construction breaks due to the poor quality of the beams. As this project was secured by Xiang Yuan, sabotaging it was just an attempt to make her look bad and cause the company to lose credibility because of her. He even gets his girlfriend Xiao Liu, who has started to work for a different company in the meantime, to aid him in his actions.

Besides these characters, there are also a couple of recurring supporting characters that made up the social circles of the main characters and make several appearances throughout the story. I just want to go over a couple of people that I liked and want to mention.
First of all, Ah Can (played by Bob Li/Bo Li). I don’t exactly remember his relationship with Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan, but he was also someone they grew up with in the countryside. I believe he was like an older brother figure in their neighborhood. He stayed behind after Xiang Yuan left for Guangzhou, and then later suddenly turns up as an assistant to a big business partner Xiang Yuan has to persuade. I believe it was about a bidding which she needed to secure for Jiang Yuan. In any case, she meets Ah Can there and he helps her out a couple of timese. I initially feared that he might get romantically interested in Xiang Yuan, but he never approached her in that way, luckily.
Then there’s Mao Zhi Jie, nicknamed ‘Panzi’ or ‘Fatty’. If there’s anyone I want to give a shoutout here, it’s Zhi Jie. I’m going to refer to him by his actual name because it didn’t sit right with me that they kept calling him ‘Fatty’, even way into adulthood when he became an accomplished businessman. Mao Zhi Jie was probably one, if not the purest character in this story. He was so sweet and naive, and I really hated Dong Ling for taking advantage of him. Dong Ling basically offered to date Zhi Jie because he was Qian Ze’s dorm mate and college friend, and the only reason she kept in touch with him was to ask him about what Qian Ze was doing. I know she ultimately realized that she wasn’t being fair to him, but I’m still mad because she never genuinely apologized to him or confessed that that’s what she used him for and that she never actually liked him. It was so sad to see Zhi Jie get mad at Qian Ze when he started questioning Dong Ling’s intentions with him. It was just so obvious that she wasn’t sincere with him, but he chose not to see it because he liked her so much. He deserved so much better. I was really happy when he came back and turned into such a well-established businessman, and that he even got married to another one of Xiang Yuan’s former college dorm mates. At least he found someone who came to like him for who he was, and didn’t get stuck on him being a bit chubby. Honestly, the fact that, when they were reunited, Dong Ling still referred to him as ‘Fatty’ made me pretty mad. Like, at least look him in the eye and acknowledge how well he turned out. At least feel sorry for doing him so dirty.
The only college dorm mate Xiang Yuan keeps in touch with is Zhang Yue (played by Wan Tong). Zhang Yue is initially the kind of student who never comes back to the dorm, skips all her classes and is more outgoing than bent on studying hard. She and Xiang Yuan first collide when she brings a drunk person with her to the dorm to let them sleep there. After that, when Xiang Yuan starts running a little business within the dorm, she starts helping her by providing her own clothing and accessories as merchandise.
After graduation, Zhang Yue even provides Xiang Yuan with her first job. She’s managed to get her hands on a fiancé who works as a director and Xiang Yuan becomes his assistant. This fiancé, Shen Ju An (played by Danson Tang/Tang Yu Zhe) initially seems like a good enough person and boss, but at some point Xiang Yuan starts getting suspicious of him because he seems to be tied to another woman (I’ll talk about that later).
In any case, I really liked the friendship between Xiang Yuan and Zhang Yue, all the more because you’d never expect these two to remain so close after seeing how they were in college. I also found it an interesting choice of Xiang Yuan to keep quiet about her suspicions towards Shen Ju An. On the one hand I understand that she probably did it because it was something between the two of them and she didn’t have conclusive evidence that anything was going on. But when Zhang Yue started confiding in her that she feared her fiancé might be hiding something from her, I thought it was interesting that she didn’t say anything. I believe she even dissuaded her from having suspicions. But then when it ultimately came out that Xiang Yuan had had her doubts, Zhang Yue also didn’t really get mad at her for keeping quiet. I don’t know how to explain it, I just liked how their friendship worked despite the fact they didn’t even discuss every little thing with each other.

All in all, I generally liked all or at least the majority of the characters. There weren’t too many that it became too chaotic, and it was also nice that not everyone made a comeback because that in itself emphasized how sometimes people just come into your life and leave again without coming back.
For example, Xiang Yuan’s former college classmate Xiao Hua, who chose to let herself be sexually harrassed only to get a permanent position after interning at this finance company.
Then there was that other intern – I believe her name was Su Li? – who did come back after being pretty nasty to Xiang Yuan. She was actually prepared to use the fact that the manager was stalking and sexually harrassing Xiang Yuan against her in case they would choose to keep her when their internship would end. That really made me go, excuse me what? What happened to “girls got to have each other’s backs”?? Anyways, she eventually came back as an ally. I guess it was a good personality trait of Xiang Yuan’s to hold no grudges, but I personally wouldn’t have felt the need to see her again.
There were also a couple of instances were people made a comeback or were re-introduced that I didn’t even recognize anymore. Maybe too much time had passed since their first appearance and I just didn’t remember them, or they were people that hadn’t actually made an appearance before but just happened to be someone the main characters had known from the past. It could get a bit confusing, to be honest. For example that guy that Dong Ling apparently pushed down the stairs when they were kids, the guy she ultimately ended up marrying. When he was introduced, it was in a way that made me think ‘Oh, am I supposed to remember this guy?’ only for it to be revealed that this was his first appearance. To add in a new character to establish a past/childhood link so late in the show was a bit much. I wasn’t really waiting for any new people or storylines to get introduced at that point.

To get back to the ‘Shen Ju An being tied to another woman’ thing, this was probably the one storyline that I could’ve done without. I honestly have no idea what made the writers think it was relevant to show that Shen Ju An had some lingering attachment to his ex. His ex who apparently still thought they were together until he suddenly proposed to Zhang Yue. And instead of cutting ties, he kept claiming he felt sorry or responsible for securing a happy life for her? Seriously, what was that about? He kept going behind Zhang Yue’s back and made up business trips while he was dealing with getting his ex settled somewhere or something. I don’t know what that was about, but in my brutally honest opinion it didn’t need a storyline of its own.

Now that I’ve discussed all the characters that I wanted to mention, I’m going to comment on some elements from the show and my watch experience in particular that contributed to my opinion of the series, from sequences that jumped out to me and details that I liked to things that didn’t make much sense to me or that I found a bit random.
Despite the fact that there were a lot of things that I found a bit chaotic or messy, I thought the overall acting was pretty good and I liked the scenery shots a lot. Especially from the beginning, when they were still in the main characters’ hometown, I think they did a really nice job presenting it as a place they’d always think back on. I always love to see lots of green and mountains compared to typical busy city stories. One thing I always like about Chinese dramas is that their sets always look really neat and clean and they have a lot of beautiful shots of landscapes and skylines. They definitely used a lot of nice-looking sets, and I’m guessing there must have been a significant budget considering the story changed location so many times.
Another point that I’ve already mentioned is that I generally like stories that build over time, where you follow the characters through the years and see the times change, for example through the advancement of technology, the emergence of mobile phones, etcetera. I really loved that karaoke club manager that was always walking around with that unit of a portable phone, that was iconic.
I don’t know the exact time period in which this was set because at the end they were still using flip phones. I guess it must have been from the late 90s to the early 00s, then? I remember having a flip phone around 2004, so I’m guessing it must be around that period. While I generally like this kind of development, I did get confused with the time jumps. There wasn’t really an indication of when time had passed or how many years. I remember for example one time after Xiang Yuan had come to Guangzhou and Ye Bing Lin was like, ‘when I brought you here three years ago’ and I was like, wait, three years have passed already?! The time period between the late 90s and early 00s isn’t very extensive, so it actually seemed like they lived out an entire life in a couple of years. I would’ve liked to get a timeline that was just a little bit clearer.
One thing that also struck me as peculiar was the sporadic narration. Every so often, silent acting was filled in by a female narrator who would explain exactly what the character depicted on screen was thinking and feeling at that moment. It’s not that I minded it per se, but I felt like it wasn’t very consistent. Also, in many cases, it was a bit overkill as I could’ve guessed myself what was going through the character’s head. One time, I believe Bing Wen was making a worried expression and the voice would literally go, “Bing Wen was worried”, so yeah, it wasn’t always necessary. Admittedly, in a way it was nice to have it clarified in detail what the character was thinking, but it also took away from some nice silent emotional acting and it basically filled in spaces that otherwise would’ve allowed the viewers to interpret it by themselves with their own imagination. Also, as I mentioned before when Qian Ze and Bing Wen met for the first time, the narration basically ‘spoiled’ that this encounter would change their lives forever – only for Bing Wen to double-confirm this in the final episode by saying, ‘from the first time I saw you, I knew I would end up doing something like this’. Yeah, we knew that already, because the narration told us so. It just took the option of interpretation and surprise out of a couple of scenes, which was a shame.
Then, and for some reason I find that this always pops up in Chinese dramas in particular: the addition of foreign (aka non-Chinese) cast members. Qian Ze is sent to study abroad in London at some point, where he meets some friends. I don’t know why, but this one guy (I think his name was Blaire?) was for some reason dubbed over in English even though he was originally (probably) also speaking in English. What was also weird was that, when he came to visit Qian Ze in China later on, Qian Ze and Dong Ling were just talking in Chinese in front of him and to him and he was suddenly able to understand everything and even speak Chinese himself while he’d only just spoken in English with Qian Ze before 🤔. Kind of a weird inconsistency thing going on there.
I don’t even think this series used as much dubbing as Chinese dramas usually do, but for some reason, when speaking English, even the foreign cast members were dubbed over. Seriously, how hard is it to find someone who can speak English that doesn’t need to be dubbed over in more English? Now it just looked and sounded super unnatural. I remember there was this one guy at the pub (the one who got shot maybe) who talked in his normal (Irish?) accent without any additional dub, but for the rest… Even Qian Ze himself was dubbed over by himself when speaking in English. These things always seem to happen especially in scenes with foreign characters and it will always baffle me.
Speaking of that intense shooting scene at that bar in London, I’m also not sure what exactly that added. I assumed it was just something that Qian Ze and Dong Ling had to go through together that would maybe bring them closer (or that Dong Ling would keep using against Qian Ze to express how much they’d “been through together”), but other than that I felt like it was pretty much a shock value scene. I also didn’t understand why Qian Ze didn’t tell Xiang Yuan about it, because I’m pretty sure it would’ve shaken her up quite a bit and might’ve even prompted her to come visit him or something. I don’t know, this series was full of random dramatic scenes that didn’t really have much purpose once they were finished. To give another example of this, I specifically remember a scene in which an employee came running into the office, completely covered in blood. Apparently he’d crashed his car in a hurry because he needed to convey the good news that they’d won a bidding or something. Anyways, the whole office just started cheering and I was like, ‘okay so no one is going to acknowledge this guy is literally covered in blood?’ 🤨 Like, why was it necessary for this guy to make such a dramatic bloody entrance when they didn’t even pay any further attention to it? The scene just ended after he announced the good news and that was it. It was just weird to add such an unnecessary dramatic element to that scene.

In terms of my watching experience, it probably wasn’t the best either. I watched it on KissAsian with very poor quality subtitles, which would at parts even be omitted entirely, so I’m sure I missed stuff as well. What also bothered me in the case of this particular fansubbing was that the subtitles contained a lot of typos and spelling errors in the characters’ names and places. This was particularly frustrating because all the names were already so similar and this actually made it hard for me to follow sometimes. I mean, I also don’t know whose idea it was to name the company Jiang Yuan while the female lead’s name was Xiang Yuan, because this in itself already created errors in my brain. So yeah, not a great experience with the fansubs, but of course that stands separately from the series itself. It’s just everything combined that didn’t make it the most enjoyable watch experience for me, I suppose.

Finally, I just need to give a shoutout to Auntie 13, aka the Ara parrot 🦜that refused to move from the balcony of Dong Ling’s late parents’ terrace. It was nice to include that parrot and also have it talk. I love seeing animals that you don’t usually see, it was a nice variation from a pet dog or cat for a change.

Before I go on to the cast comments – I honestly don’t have much more to say about the series – I just want to make one last comment on the title. The English title of this show is ‘Love Under the Moon’, and I couldn’t find a conclusive translation of the original Chinese title apart from ‘The Moon Doesn’t Understand My Heart’. In any case, I don’t really know what the title refers to. If anyone who reads this has an idea, please comment below to let me know! I always like it when the title refers to an aspect that becomes clear throughout the story, but in this case I find the title kind of generic and it also doesn’t really add to my experience of the entire series.

I like going through cast comments of Chinese dramas because I don’t know many Chinese actors and I always like discovering new people.
To start with the main characters, I want to mention from the get-go that I really liked the pairing of co-stars Victoria Song and Ou Hao. I’ve seen comments saying that they didn’t feel any chemistry between them and their love for each other just felt dry, but I really want to disagree. On the contrary, I LIVED for their relationship. Just because they didn’t really have passionate make-out scenes or physically intimate scenes doesn’t mean love has to be dry. I personally found the way they displayed intimacy in such subtle ways very endearing. The way they held hands and arms, the way they smiled while looking into each other’s eyes, the (back) hugs and the way they cuddled up, the way Qian Ze always brushed a strand of Xiang Yuan’s hair out of her face… Those were all extremely sweet and heartwarming displays of affection, and I loved them. I think they had excellent chemistry in their scenes together, and they looked so natural in acting it out, even without the explicit physical intimacy. The only thing that slightly bothered me in the end was that their marriage was rushed in the sense that they got married to settle their assets for the company. I would’ve liked for them to get married without any worries.

I thought Victoria Song was a very nice casting choice for the character of Xiang Yuan, because she had that variety to her that made her appear to be such a mature person. I’d personally say she was a bit more serious than spontaneous, but she definitely balanced out Qian Ze’s whimsicality and in that aspect I thought they were a really nice match. Despite the fact that I didn’t agree with all of her actions, I also had to keep in mind that all she wanted was to just establish a future for herself and her family with her own hands. She could’ve definitely skyrocketed even faster if she’d taken up all of the opportunities that the Ye family presented her with, but she chose to make her own decisions and try to make it by herself even if that meant not spending all of her time with Qian Ze. That should also be rewarded as a gesture of maturity. I thought she balanced the different sides of Xiang Yuan – the one that wanted to be with Qian Ze and the one that knew that she’d had to go against his family in order to keep living her own life independently – very well. I see that there’s at least one other drama with her on my to watch list, and I might add more because it seems like she’s done several romantic comedies 😇.

Ou Hao is the actor I want to compliment the most in this section because I simply adored him. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a male lead act out his love for a woman so genuinely without ever losing his cool. He literally never became cringy and as he also didn’t have the appearance of a guy who’d lose his head over love, I loved the contrast he brought to the table. He portrayed such an endearing combination of boyish naivety and mischief and managed to gradually evolve that into a much more mature and thoughtful man. I honestly fell for him a little bit myself, haha. When I said earlier, ‘get yourself a man like Ye Qian Ze’ I was talking to myself 😂. I really liked his acting and I hope I get to see more of him in the future!

I could’ve sworn I recognized Sun Yi from something, but I haven’t seen anything with her. I think she did a good job as Dong Ling. I don’t want to vent my frustration towards the character onto her, haha. She did a good job portraying Dong Ling’s persistent nature in trying to get out of the ‘little girl/younger sister’ mould. I think that it’s safe to say that she, of all characters, had to work the hardest to be taken seriously, even within her family. I think that it was because she was ‘just a little girl’, that her aunt also didn’t take her crush on Qian Ze as seriously as she should have. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s uncommon for little girls to develop a crush on an older brother figure, especially if he displays as much protectiveness as Qian Ze. He really cared about Dong Ling as his little sister, and that’s all it would ever be. She should’ve been snapped out of her delusion much earlier. I think it literally took her up to almost 40 episodes before she was finally able to wish Xiang Yuan the best and officially backed off. Her character was probably dealt with in the least satisfying way, as a tool to save a company, so that was a bit of a bummer. But still I think the actress did a good job, particularly in how Dong Ling slowly but surely started to slip deeper into her delusional thoughts – I’m glad she managed to finally see the light in the end.

I know I haven’t talked that much about Ye Yun in my review, but I still want to acknowledge Xia Ning Jun in the cast comments. It seems like Love Under the Moon was only his second drama acting project. I kind of feared that Ye Yun would be forgotten as ‘the second son’ but I’m glad they also brought him to Guangzhou eventually and he managed to secure a proper career of his own. It was so funny to see his arrival at the Ye family house in comparison to when Qian Ze arrived – Ye Yun was super polite and kind even to the housekeeper while it took Qian Ze such a long time to even acknowledge his father’s new family as his own. Ye Yun was definitely a lot more pure and innocent than his older brother, but the two got along great and there wasn’t as much disagreement between the two of them as there was between Xiang Yuan and her younger sister, for example. I did find it a pity that he and Xiang Yao drifted apart though, but I guess it also proved that growing up together doesn’t guarantee a lifelong friendship. I liked how his role developed and how he, in his own way, became a useful asset to his family’s company even though he started his own business. I think Xia Ning Jun did a nice job playing such a contrastive younger brother to Qian Ze.

I honestly really liked Xiang Yao and I think Lin Tian Yuan did a very nice job creating her persona. I feel like her character going her own way away from her childhood family and finding her own happiness despite the fact that she couldn’t secure a lot of money was very meaningful in itself. I liked that there was at least one character who kind of ‘separated’ from the rest to find her own path and who really came to realize that she didn’t belong in the world of the wealthy Ye family. She may have gone through the most tribulations in terms of finding stability in her life, but she was always the most determined to pave her own way and I respect that about her. Just as with Ye Yun, I’m glad they kept her character in the story and fleshed her out more as an individual rather than keep her as ‘the younger sister’. I liked her performance!

I think Ding Yong Dai made a very fitting casting choice as Ye Bing Lin. I honestly came to like his character more and more throughout the story. In the beginning I couldn’t help but think he was this stingy guy who just cared about the succession of his company and didn’t even feel bad for leaving his wife to care for their two sons all on her own. The audacity of him to just turn up and claim custody over his eldest son while he hasn’t even bothered to come see him grow up. But in having Qian Ze over in Guangzhou I believe he also learned a lot and he proved to be a good person through his actions. He even started feeling bad for using Xiang Yuan to talk to Qian Ze when he wanted him to do something he knew his son would refuse. I also found his acting quite enjoyable, with the occasional funny expressions. He also had a really wise look in his eyes, if that makes sense. I liked how he shaped the character of Qian Ze’s father and how he remained optimistic and involved in the company even after he’d retired. I really liked his performance especially in the scene when he scolded Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan for not keeping him in the loop regarding the construction failure disaster. He was really good.

In hindsight I really liked Wen Zheng Rong’s performance as the step-mother as well. As I mentioned earlier in my review, in the beginning I feared that she might become this evil step-mother figure, but she visibly softened and became a much warmer person throughout the series. I especially loved her relationship with Dong Ling, she made it so obvious that she’d adopted her out of genuine care. I honestly found her performance during that phone call at the end 👌🏻STELLAR👌🏻. I think that was the most dramatic but also most sincere expressional acting I’ve seen out of her in this series. How she just started sobbing when Dong Ling told her she’d accepted the marriage proposal. She was literally a mother hearing that her daughter would get something she’d never wanted for her.
I also liked how the relationship between her and Bing Lin was emphasized, that he actually admitted that he was nothing without her eternal support. It was nice to get a bit of ‘inside’ information about their relationship that wasn’t specified in the series itself.

Li Chong Xiao honestly made me laugh a couple of times because his voice occasionally squeaked when he talked 😆. My issue with his character was that his transformation into a bad guy who knowingly did bad things only to spite some youngsters felt a bit forced to me. Sure, his annoyance with Qian Ze’s increasing influence in the company and how he kept feeling undermined by his own family was made blatantly clear throughout, but it just felt like in the end he started to lay it on a bit too thick that he was sick and tired of everything. Also, why did he end up going for Xiang Yuan? He intended to kidnap Xiang Yuan, not Qian Ze, but honestly what would’ve made the difference? He was annoyed by both of them, right? It was clear that he was pissed off at his whole family, brother included, so why take it out on Xiang Yuan of all people? I felt like he just got a bit lost in the end. In the beginning he seemed like a pretty nice guy, and he was also still on good terms with his ex-wife, which suggested he wasn’t an absolute monster. Anyways, I think the actor did a good job all in all.

As I mentioned, I really liked the character of Mao Zhi Jie, and the actor Bai Zhi Jie made all that possible. He just portrayed him as such a genuinely sweet and pure guy. I felt so bad watching him get played by everyone. I really didn’t like how everyone kept calling him ‘Fatty’, it’s just not a cute nickname. I’m really glad he managed to find someone who appreciated his good heart for what it was and he managed to become successful in his own way. I really liked his performance!

Wan Tong was another actress that I thought I might have seen before but I was wrong. I really liked her portrayal of Zhang Yue. She brought a very refreshing energy with her, even though she was only a supporting character. I think that, just as Qian Ze balanced Xiang Yuan out in her seriousness, she too may have been a good friend match for Xiang Yuan for the same reason. I liked that, despite her worryfree attitude and debatable college reputation she still came up on top and scored a rich guy and a good job. I liked how uncomplicated her character was, she just said whatever she felt and I appreciated that. She was a really nice casting choice for the role!

I’m not sure why Danson Tang is listed on top of the supporting characters list on both MDL and DramaWiki, because he wasn’t by far up there with the Ye family members and the most frequently recurring characters. 🤔 Anyways, I had mixed feelings about his character because of his weird lingering relationship with his ex. When he was introduced I was like, there he is, the ‘hot guy’ that’s going to stir up trouble, lol. When Xiang Yuan started working for him I even thought he might start coming on to her as well, but luckily he remained fairly loyal to Zhang Yue. I was just so confused by his deal with his ex and that kind of ruined his character for me, no matter how good his intentions were. Still, can’t blame the actor for the weird writing, of course.

I think that was it for all the characters and cast members I wanted to mention. As I said, this was a pretty tedious watch, it took me two months to get through it and the only thing that kept grabbing my attention was the #goals relationship between the main leads. I really lived for the love they shared, I got butterflies every scene they were together and when they were apart or had a disagreement I just yearned for them to make up again. As summarized by the final narration, it basically came down to the confirmation that, yes, these two must really share a very strong bond of love and trust with each other. Other than that, apart from some attempted scheming and jealousy, not a lot happened. The development of Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan’s relationship throughout periods of time apart and always coming back to each other was taken over by a very lengthy arc that only focussed on work and business and that’s when it kind of stopped grabbing my attention. The way I see it, they could’ve either made it shorter or paced it better so it wouldn’t all lead up to one final dramatic event in the final episode. Admittedly, in the beginning I was wondering if Qian Ze and Xiang Yuan would break up, even for just a little while, due to their differences in ambitions, and would then find their way back to each other again in the end. But even as it neared the end and it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen, it kept giving the confirmation of their love over and over again, until the point where I just thought, ‘i get it! their love is invincible!’ So yeah, as much as I loved their relationship and their unwavering love for each other, there could’ve been more to the story, and the supporting characters and minor additional storylines just didn’t really give me that. All in all, I’d say it’s a decent show, just way too long. If you have 48 episodes, you need to know how to pace it in order to keep the viewers’ concentration span high, and that just wasn’t adapted very well in this series, in my opinion.

I’m really curious as to what my next watch will be, the Wheel of Fortune shall speak again and hopefully it won’t take me too long to finish the next one!

Hopefully until 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.

Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu
(わたし、定時で帰ります / I’m Going Home At The Regular Time)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hiya! Didn’t expect me to squeeze in one last-minute review for January, did you? I certainly didn’t. But it definitely helped that I was finally able to finish all my work for my first semester and had some free time to complete this show in peace and relaxation. This is the second show that came out of my Wheel of Fortune app, and I was immediately excited about it. I remember seeing the trailer for this show in another Japanese drama and putting it on my list straight away. I also liked that my app immediately started mixing shows from different countries! No regrets so far. Anyways, regarding this show, it didn’t take me too long to finish it since it’s quite short – the average length of a Japanese drama – and I found it very interesting. Of course I’m going to elaborate on my thoughts in more detail in this review, but I just wanted to say beforehand that I thought this show did a really great job putting people’s varying views on work and work ethics in perspective. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised that this show came from Japan of all countries, since Japan is known for having such rigid policies when it comes to working and how much you’re supposed to devote yourself to a job or career. Even though I don’t live or work in Japan myself, this series actually gave me hope for more people out there that recognize what’s healthy and what isn’t, and are able to relate to work views that differ from their own.

Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu is a 10-episode Japanese drama series with episodes of each about an hour. The story focusses on Higashiyama Yui (played by Yoshitaka Yuriko), a full-time employee at Net Heroes, a company that specializes in creating and producing websites for other companies. Yui maintains a very specific work style in which she leaves exactly at 18:00, the official end of the 9-to-6 work day. As it’s so common for people to stay and work longer, this sets her apart from her co-workers, but everyone respects it because she has a very efficient work style and always manages to finish her tasks for the day on time. When she leaves at 18:00 sharp, Yui usually makes her way to her favorite nearby Chinese restaurant, Shanghai Diner, where the beer is half the usual price until 18:10. Besides leaving at the official time every day, Yui also frequently takes days off, as is recommended by the company. This way, she maintains a healthy balance between her work and private life – after all, she’s close to getting married to her boyfriend Suwa Takumi (played by Nakamaru Yuichi), and this enables her to keep enough time to spend with him. However, a challenge to her peaceful work-life balance appears when Yui’s ex-boyfriend Taneda Kotaro (played by Mukai Osamu) suddenly joins her team, accompanied by their new department head, Fukunaga Seiji (played by Yusuke Santamaria), who strongly encourages the team to put everything they have into their work, even if that means working overtime. His way of managing goes heavily against Yui’s morals, especially when he starts assigning the team to jobs that require almost impossible efforts for little to no company profit.
All in all, the series follows Yui as she gradually gets to know her co-workers a bit better and occasionally faces challenges in dealing with someone’s deviating work views. While the team goes through several clashes and obstacles they ultimately always manage to see eye to eye with one another and learn to respect each other’s different perspectives.

One main thing I liked about this show was that, from the first episode on, it had this ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ concept. I thought it was really powerful to start out with a team of people who all initially kind of judged each other for their respective work styles, but once push came to shove, you learned about everyone’s backgrounds and really came to understand where everyone was coming from. I think it was really characteristic of Yui to always try and find ways to relate to her co-workers. She always tried her best to understand their perspectives, even if she didn’t fully agree with them. I thought she was a really interesting character because she wasn’t even a busybody who got involved in other people’s business on purpose, but she was a very stable factor in the office and people were just drawn to her naturally. She became a safe person to every single co-worker because of her rational way of seeing things, and she always had a way of ultimately making them see reason with other perspectives as well.
I really admired Yui’s patience and ability to negotiate with everyone. I personally wouldn’t have been able to deal with some people, but she remained so professional, even when things started going against her values. Even when she started criticizing people, she never stopped working for what she herself believed in, and that always saved everything in the end.

If I had to summarize it, I’d say that the first half of the series highlights a couple of Yui’s co-workers and their specific circumstances and work ethics, and the second half becomes a bit more strained as they get this impossible project to work on which starts affecting several people’s lives outside of work, including Yui’s. I’d like to go about my review by first talking a bit about all the characters that get highlighted, and then move on to my own thoughts about the general topic of work ethics.

Let me start with our heroine, Yui. Through the first couple of episodes we find out what has made her so eager to avoid working overtime and letting work influence her private life. The thing is, Yui has had several experiences, not only personal but also with people around her, that have led her to believe too much work isn’t healthy. For starters, her own father has always been someone who put work before his family. He would leave family holidays earlier and always say that people should be devoted to their work above everything, not knowing that this attitude put a lot of worry onto his wife and daughter. When she was still with Kotaro, he was exactly the same, and this eventually resulted in him passing out from exhaustion and even saying that work was more important to him than their approaching marriage. Yui also had the personal experience of being so pressured at work that she even got into an accident. After going through all these experiences, she made up her mind on two things. First of all, she never wanted her life to get absorbed by work ever again, and second, she never wanted to be with someone who had the same work ethics as her father. She’d seen with her own eyes how overworking could physically break someone, and vowed to never get into that situation again. Shortly after she’d broken up with Kotaro, she got together with Takumi who, considerate as he was, made sure to always leave work on time and spend quality time with her. He acknowledged Yui’s needs and incorporated those needs into his own life, also because he genuinely wanted to. When we are first introduced to Yui, she seems to be in a good place, she’s happy in her relationship and her work, thanks to her healthy lifestyle.

The first person in Yui’s team to express disdain towards her work attitude is Mitani Kanako (played by Shishido Kavka). I’m going to refer to her as Mitani, as that’s the name she’s generally referred to in the show and it just feels weird to call her Kanako. Mitani is introduced as quite a rigid employee who holds very strict morals regarding the proper work attitude and she is someone who initially frowns upon Yui’s habit of leaving at 18:00 while the rest of the team continues to work. In the first episode, Net Heroes has just acquired three new young hires and Mitani is assigned to mentor one of them. However, she and her junior just can’t seem to see eye to eye and as they both aren’t initially able to understand each other, the new hire quickly quits, saying that she can’t deal with Mitani. Mitani tirelessly keeps working and asking for more responsibilities even when she comes to work sick.
What it comes down to is that Mitani, through personal negative experiences on the workfloor, has become way too fixated on doing everything right. She initially sees Yui’s work attitude as too casual, thinking that she doesn’t show proper responsibility in leaving before everybody else. However, after properly talking with Yui she comes to see that there are more ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle without getting hyperfixated on work and that it’s absolutely fine to take breaks and days off when you’re not feeling well. As she’d been going through a hard time at her previous workplace, she just developed a mindset that made her a bit too serious when it came to ‘doing things right’, which in her view included coming to work even if you weren’t feeling 100% well and continuing to work until everyone else went home.

What I liked about Mitani was that, although her character did go through a change after developing a closer bond with Yui and the rest of the team, she remained consistently rigid in her own way. She didn’t suddenly start acting differently, she just focussed her work fixation on other things, such as teamwork and maintaining a good bond with her co-workers without micromanaging everything. She also started joining Yui at Shanghai Diner more often. I think she was one of the characters whose perspective was positively affected by Yui and only managed to grow as a person and an employee. She may have seemed as one of the most unlikely people to move away from her rigid views, but I liked that she became a devoted employee and ally to Yui. I think that in her own way she even tried getting more friendly with her outside of work, which seemed like a big step for her to take.

Moving on, I’d like to talk about Shizugatake-senpai – I’m going to refer to her as Yae because it’s much easier to write. Shizugatake Yae (played by Uchida Yuki) used to be Yui’s senior when she first started at Net Heroes, and when she’s introduced in the story she just gave birth to twins. When she returns, she is determined to pick up just where she left off without getting any kind of different treatment just because she’s a working mom now. Her husband Yosuke (Tsubokura Yoshiyuki) – the greenest of flags by the way – took on paternity leave so Yae could return to work. However, her eagerness to return to work and take on as much as possible without prejudice counterproductively only causes her team to get more worried about her. Inevitably, an occasion arises where one of her babies gets sick and her husband isn’t able to take care of it by himself. This is where Yae gets confronted with how naturally challenging it is to combine motherhood with full-time employment.
It’s kind of weird to say but this was actually one of my favorite arcs, just because it was so twisted. I was already aware of the issue that many Japanese companies have regarding women who come back to work after giving birth and I guess that’s why it kind of hit differently. I’ve personally worked at a Japanese company where, sometime after I left, a female Japanese co-worker contacted me to vent about how she basically got fired when she announced that she would get married because she got pregnant. I remember her getting so angry about it, how she was just discarded like ‘well, then you’re of no further use to us’. Furthermore, as I was watching this show I was also reading a book that dealt with themes very similar to this. I just finished a chapter about a woman who was close to getting promoted to head editor of a magazine before she found out she was pregnant, and when she came back to work after giving birth she was told to work in the archiving and documentation department, and that it would be impossible for her to take her previous spot as the head editor position wouldn’t allow her to have her attention divided between work and childcare. It was almost painful to watch how Yae tried to convince everyone that her becoming a mother had nothing to do with her capabilities. The fact that she tried to avoid being treated like that inevitably only strengthened people’s doubts about her, and this only escalated with an increase in occurrences that actually forced her to go home to her family.
Honestly, I was just so glad that Yosuke was there and that he had Yae’s back the entire time. It would’ve become so messy if things would’ve gotten rocky between them. Even when he decided to spend some time in Kumamoto to take care of his mom, he didn’t even pressure Yae to come with him. When Yae ultimately decided to take a break and be with her family for a while, I couldn’t blame her, even if she left at such a crucial moment. Honestly, the project they were working on was a shitshow and it was already starting to affect the employees’ personal lives in a negative way as it was, so I was actually happy that she made that decision. And it was even better when she came back after things had settled down on her side and provided that much needed back-up in the end.

I really liked the relationship between Yae and Yui. You could tell they were really close and had learned to depend on each other a lot during their work together. It was really nice to see how they basically became each other’s confidantes. They probably shared the most of their personal lives with each other than with anyone else in the team, and still managed to maintain a strictly professional relationship on the workfloor. It was really nice to see how Yui’s mindset on her newly adapted work style had been inspired by Yae and how she managed to eventually give that same advice back to her when Yae started becoming more obsessive over proving her capabilities as a working mom. These two ladies together were just such a positive force in the office together, I really loved their friendship.

Another very interesting perspective on work came from the new hire that Yui was put in charge of, Kurusu Taito (played by Izumisawa Yuuki). I’m going to refer to him as Kurusu because that’s what he’s mainly referred to in the show. Kurusu is one of the three new hires introduced at the beginning of the story, and the only one who sticks around after the first episode. What I found interesting in general was the whole notion of how this show acknowledged a difference between the way experienced employees perceived work and the way the new hires did. For younger people, it’s way easier to just quit a job because you can’t get along with a co-worker or because the work is too bothersome. Similar to the other two new hires, Kurusu is initially depicted as someone who sighs ‘Maybe I should just quit…’ quite easily after facing a challenge at work. However, probably because he was assigned to Yui of all people, he’s not let off that easily and he is guided to face his own immaturity and inexperience.
I have to admit I got annoyed with Kurusu several times. Of course he was just a new hire so he lacked maturity in his work and development as an employee, but he initially tended to give up way too easily when something didn’t go his way. He wouldn’t acknowledge his own inexperience and it seemed like he thought everyone (especially Kotaro) was out to get him. He did eventually transform his envy of Kotaro into admiration and a desire to become as capable and reliable as him, but in my opinion he should’ve had a better notion of his own position from the start. Isn’t it normal that your seniors know how to gain a client’s trust better? Isn’t it normal that they can come up with more efficient solutions as a result of making their own mistakes when they first started out? I honestly didn’t really agree with Yui when she kept scolding Kotaro for not giving Kurusu a fair chance. Sure, Kotaro could’ve kept passing everything the client and designer team asked him to Kurusu and told them to only talk to him, but that wouldn’t have led to a good outcome because Kurusu barely knew what he was getting himself into. In my opinion the main issue lay with the fact that Kurusu needed to acknowledge that he still lacked a lot of experience. It was nice that he got assigned the director’s position for that one project, but without going the extra mile to fully grasp the client’s needs he really didn’t come off as very reliable. It was just annoying to see him go ‘okay, then I’ll just quit because you all trust Taneda-san more than me anyway’ every single time someone questioned him in some way.
What redeemed him for me was that, with Yui’s help, he too managed to see reason and acknowledge that Kotaro wasn’t ‘out to get him’. He also came to appreciate Kotaro for his skills and started aspiring to become like him. What did the trick for me in the end was the way Fukunaga started manipulating him and the others to work extra on that ridiculous project, because although Kurusu found his drift in the end, it wasn’t right how his naivety was taken advantage of only to make him work harder.

In terms of people like Kurusu in general, I found it interesting that this show also explored perspectives on the expectations of work. New hires probably go into a new job with certain expectations and ambitions that may be quite naive, and then quickly change their mind when it turns out to be different from what they’d envisioned. They might also make the easy decision to quit and look for something that’s more convenient, because getting hired somewhere else isn’t actually that hard – many companies are short on staff and eager to hire some new young blood. On the one hand you can see that as irresponsible and unprofessional, and I partially agree with that, especially when they don’t even give the job a proper chance and just give up at the slightest inconvenience. On the other hand I also feel like people should be allowed to quit a place where they instantly feel like they don’t fit. I’m glad that at least Kurusu got through his initial objections and ultimately realized this work did actually suit him. Nothing is easy in the beginning, everybody has to start from scratch and everyone develops their skills in their own pace. I think that’s really important to remember, especially before you quickly dismiss or judge someone for not being used to work in the same way as you are.

Another employee that’s highlighted and who ultimately changes his views on work is Azuma Tooru (played by Emoto Tokio). I’ll refer to him as Azuma since, again, that’s what he’s predominantly called throughout the show. Azuma is one of the web programmers in charge of the engineering and design of the websites, I believe. He’s depicted as a bit of an otaku, he has a couple of figurines on his desk and keeps a bit to himself. He’s initially highlighted because the team realizes he has been coming back to the office after clocking out to continue unpaid overtime, and he’s even revealed to be sleeping at the office. What I understood from his character was that he preferred to just be at the office because he didn’t have anything fun to do at home (plus he’s alone), but also that he basically just put in the bare minimum at work. He didn’t really have any ambition to grow within the company or anything like that, but that also stopped him from putting in more effort than necessary. He also lacked some serious people skills, especially when formally meeting with clients. His motivation is temporarily elevated when a new designer temp joins the team, Sakuramiya Ayana (Shimizu Kurumi) and because she’s both friendly to him and genuinely interested in the work he does, her determination in her work starts rubbing off on him and he even asks Yui to teach him her efficient work schedule.
I think Azuma’s issue was a bit less transparent than those of the other highlighted employees. I found it hard to pinpoint what exactly his problem was, other than that he pretty much used work (even unpaid overwork) to fill a gap of loneliness in his life. On the other hand it still didn’t motivate him to think bigger and strive to achieve more. I felt like I understood him on one ground, because I’ve personally had the experience at my last job at a Japanese company that I was pressured into having more ambitions whereas I was happy with just a regular office job. I didn’t want to have to strive to become a manager or something, I was satisfied with my skills as they were, and this ultimately got me fired because my motivation went down each time they pressured me into aiming higher. I did think that ultimately, Azuma became a better and more mature person and employee. He also started getting along better with the rest of the team and he even started judging things with a more critical eye while before he would’ve just done what he was told without thinking twice. He became a much more amiable person who was very easy to work with.

Alongside Azuma’s storyline, we are introduced to another one about the temp, Sakuramiya. I found this a pretty hard part to watch because the guys from that sports company were just so unpleasant. On the other hand, it only strengthened the credibility of this show to go so far as to introduce themes such as power- and sexual harassment on the workfloor. Sakuramiya was hired as a temp to Net Heroes because she had worked with that particular sports company before, but the guys from that company kept inviting her out on activities outside of work hours. Encouraged by Fukunaga, Sakuramiya decided to keep accepting their invitations, until one time it really starts feeling wrong to her. They invite her over to join them for some night jogging and then make her wear this new revealing running outfit for women and even film her while she’s wearing it. The worst thing is that they displayed a mix of power and sexual harassment because while they did tell her ‘You can say no if you don’t want to do it’, they still pressured her. They knew that she wasn’t in any position to say no to them. I hated how they kept doing all these things yet always had a way to turn it around by saying, ‘yeah but she did it out of her free will, we told her she could say no, she was having a great time🤷🏻‍♀️’. It also made my respect for Yui skyrocket because she just got SO angry and it was very unusual for her to get so wound up about something. I was really glad their company just collapsed into itself in the end when all these employees started confessing occurrences of power harassment that had been going on.

Apart from these highlighted characters, I also personally want to highlight the two team members who didn’t get a more elaborate storyline but who were still very important to the team: Kodama Takeshi (Kaji Masaki) and Norimoto Maki (Sasaki Shiho). They were both in charge of designing the websites. Even though their work consisted mostly of creating the final result and weren’t as much involved with the marketing, I thought that they were very well-established characters who asked the right questions and had critical comments at the right moments. Sometimes work teams in dramas are just made up out of people who are there working in the background and only depicted doing as they’re told, but it was nice to see that every single team member contributed to the work equally and had a proper antenna for when things were or weren’t going very well. I really liked the contribution these two characters in particular provided as supporting members of Yui’s team.

I think it’s finally time to talk about Kotaro and Fukunaga and I’m kind of going to discuss them jointly because their characters are pretty intricately connected. While we don’t get to see a lot of flashbacks from when Yui and Kotaro were still together, we do find out that at the time he exhausted himself to the extent of collapsing, Kotaro was working under Fukunaga. Shortly after he collapsed, Kotaro quit Fukunaga’s company (together with many others) and shortly after that, the company itself went bankrupt. I believe it was through some connections with the CEO of Net Heroes that Fukunaga got the opportunity to become the new department head. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure if Kotaro knew he was getting appointed besides Fukunaga again from the start, or that it came as a surprise to him on their first day. In any case, they have a working history together and Fukunaga never misses a chance to make Kotaro remember how he ‘abandoned’ him before. It makes it increasingly hard for Kotaro to go against him because he’s also known Fukunaga for a long time and is the only one in the team who makes an effort to stand up for him.
To be honest, Fukunaga gave me the ick from the start. The way he would make jokes and smile without any genuine cheer in his eyes just made me go 🚩🚩🚩 Seriously, what was this guy even doing in the office? He barely did anything himself and he only commented on other people’s work and judged them for making certain decisions. He kept guilt-tripping and manipulating people to work harder while he only kept accepting low-profit projects that would lose the company money. His audacity reached the top when he actually started guilt-tripping Yui about how Kotaro had quit his former company because of her. Like, this guy did not know how to keep his nose out of other people’s business. As soon as he felt that Kotaro might strike out on his own he basically threatened him not to ‘abandon’ him again. It was so petty and unprofessional, and it made him such an irresponsible boss. I’m glad at least Yui had the guts to make it clear that she didn’t like him and his way of working and encouraged the others to also think for themselves and tell her when they felt like something was off. The whole Hoshi Jirushi project was such a mess, honestly. The only good thing that happened in the end was that the company’s CEO changed to someone who also didn’t trust Fukunaga. I also really loved the moment when Net Heroes’ CEO left, the only high-up connection Fukunaga had to back him up. Even the CEO was done with his shit, lol. I remember laughing so hard at Fukunaga’s face when they announced he was leaving.
I think Fukunaga was probably the only character that I wasn’t able to relate to whatsoever, even after being given some insight into his backstory. I get that he sacrificed a lot for that previous company only to lose everything, but he definitely didn’t learn from his mistakes.
For Kotaro, I still find him a bit difficult to gauge. Everything we get to know about him is filtered through the perspectives of Yui and Fukunaga, and even until the end he never really reveals what his own true motive was for joining Net Heroes, and if it really was because of Yui. I get that he might still have had lingering feelings for her, as he also explicitly confessed that one time, but I also didn’t find him the type to follow her after they’d broken up. It was clear that they were both awkward when they were reunited and that they’d planned on not seeing each other again. I don’t know, I just find it hard to believe it was an action that came from his will to go after her again, it didn’t seem very Kotaro-like if you ask me. After all, at some point he’s even debating teaming up with a member of their rivalling company and striking out, even if that means he has to leave Fukunaga’s team again. So I really don’t think it was all about Yui. It was definitely nice to see them grow a little bit closer again throughout everything, though. But I was surprised that in the final episode, half a year after Yui broke up with Takumi, he was already suggesting they start living together, like what happened there? Did that mean they got back together or something? I honestly found that a bit weird, because even after they reconciled and Kotaro shared how he felt after Yui collapsed, I still didn’t particularly feel like they fell back in love with one another or anything. So yeah, that was a bit unclear to me at the end. Still, I did feel like Kotaro, despite still having the tendency to get absorbed in his work, did learn from his mistakes and being around Yui and other people who kept caring about how much he worked definitely had some impact on him.

One thing that contributed to Kotaro’s character development was the confrontation with his younger brother Shu (played by Sakurada Dori). When we meet him, Shu is unemployed and stays at home for the most part. We are initially introduced to him through Yui, as she still keeps in touch with him and he occasionally helps her with some background research on certain people and companies. Shu is the first person to warn her about Fukunaga before we even learn about what happened between Kotaro and Fukunaga. From what Shu tells Kurusu when he finds out the latter aspires to become just like his older brother, we learn that Shu also learned the hard way that it wasn’t healthy to adapt the same work style as Kotaro. In Shu’s case, it even almost led him to commit suicide. Contrarily, inspired by Yui, Shu took peace with taking a break from work to settle his thoughts and feelings, and this is what he’s been doing. I found the twist in his character a bit surprising, because he was initially introduced as a quite vulnerable character who even held some grudging feelings towards his older brother.
Kotaro ultimately learned to understand Shu’s feelings better, partially because of his dealings with Kurusu at work. He overhears Shu talking about his experience to Kurusu and Yui and then has to admit he never knew what his younger brother had been going through. Kotaro ultimately comes to acknowledge how much of an impact his way of working ended up having on the people closest to him and it was good to see how he and Shu got on better terms at the end of the series.
I was a bit confused about the purpose of Shu’s character in the beginning, admittedly. I was wondering why he was only written to provide Yui with some helpful outsider information and if that was really the only thing he was doing. But it helped to get his backstory because that put things into perspective for me a little bit. I think it was important to show the negative consequences Kotaro’s bad work habits had on his family, and especially people that looked up to him. In that way, they were able to avoid Kurusu from turning out like Shu. It was nice that Shu offered to talk directly with Kurusu about this, because that meant that he saw the danger of history repeating itself and immediately took action to personally make sure it didn’t. Through that he showed a surprisinly proactive side that I honestly hadn’t expected from him at the beginning.

I have to talk a little bit about Takumi, because he was a very important supporting character to Yui. Honestly, as much as he seemed like a green flag at the beginning, the feeling that he was eventually going to snap kept tugging at me for some reason. He seemed so overly okay and chill with everything, and he even communicated very openly with Yui about how he was still a bit uncomfortable with her and Kotaro working so closely together. I kind of hoped he’d stay that way, but when he snapped at her the first time I couldn’t help but go, ‘yep, there it is, I knew this was coming’. Like, I honestly don’t think Takumi was a bad person. He was super reflective and even took the blame of breaking off the engagement onto himself, although I don’t actually believe he cheated on her. The only link to anything between him and that senior was when she offered to accompany him to the cinema when Yui cancelled that one time, but there was literally no romantic tension between them. I honestly felt like it had more to do with his consistent insecurity towards Kotaro. I mean, he just found out that Kotaro had given her a piggyback ride home after she ran out when they’d had a fight. Instead of confronting her with that and making that the reason, I think he just went over everything in his head and realized he didn’t want to feel like this when he married Yui, no matter how many times she reassured him. The cheating just came way too out of the blue and Takumi wasn’t the kind of guy to do something like that in a drunken mood, he was very responsible.
I honestly quite liked the relationship between Yui and Takumi. They seemed really well-matched, even more so if you considered they worked for rivalling companies. They never discussed work and they always accepted it when the other had to cancel because they just trusted each other that much. I don’t think there was any doubt in Yui’s mind when it came to marrying Takumi, she even came after him because she couldn’t accept him breaking things off so easily. She really liked him and I don’t believe she had any lingering feelings towards Kotaro. It was unfortunate that something came between them, especially for Yui since this was the second engagement in a row that got broken off. But it was good to see that they managed to stay on friendly terms and went their separate ways without any drama.

I think I’ve now discussed all the main characters that were highlighted in this series, so I just want to make some final shoutouts to nice supporting characters.
First of all, Wang Dan, the owner of Shanghai Diner. On a linguistic side note, I know that the Japanese pronunciation of the characters 王丹 is ‘Ou Tan’, but everyone in the show pronounced it as Wan Tan and I personally know someone with the same surname which is written as ‘Wang’ in Chinese, so I’m going to write her name in the Chinese way as Wang Dan. Wang Dan (played by Eguchi Noriko) is the Chinese owner of Yui’s favorite after-work restaurant Shanghai Diner. When she’s not tending to customers she’s typically shown watching Japanese drama series behind the bar, and I really loved how she was just Team Yui all the way. The way she went at Kotaro for dumping Yui every time he came by, lol. She was a very loyal supporting factor in Yui’s life and she just wanted the best for her. I really loved that time when Yui fought with Takumi and just came straight to Shanghai Diner and hugged Wang Dan so tightly. You could tell how much of a comfort person and place Wang Dan and the restaurant had become to her. Wang Dan even came to deliver food to Net Heroes when Yui, Yae and Mitani stopped frequenting because of their overtime, saying that she was losing business because of their absence.
Having a specific go-to bar or restaurant is a typical element in many Japanese dramas, and I always really like it when shows have a place that the characters can frequent to unwind after finishing their daily work. Shanghai Diner became a really special place, and it was all the more fitting that they had their final celebratory dinner there after finishing the Hoshi Jirushi project.

Just to mention one more character before going on to my final thoughts on the main theme of the show, I just want to give a shoutout to Ishiguro Yoshihisa, nicknamed ‘Guro-san’. Guro-san (played by Kinoshita Takayuki) was this big intimidating-looking guy from administration who ended up being a lifesaver to Net Heroes when it came to the Hoshi Jirushi project. Apparently he was Yui and Yae’s boss before, and he was reliable enough to respond to Yui’s criticisms regarding the tight budget they were given by Hoshi Jirushi. Guro-san completely acknowledged Fukunaga’s shady business, and despite not being able to stop the budget from being approved (another pulled string from higher-up), he did end up jumping in to help Yui’s team during a weekend of overtime as he was so incredibly quick and thorough. I really liked that Yui at least had a reasonable guy like him on her side, and he was just a fun character in general. Honestly, anyone who saw through Fukunaga’s BS was on my good people list, but he actually went the extra mile to help Yui’s team out, so that made me respect him a lot.

Now that we’ve gone over all the important characters, I just want to give some personal comments on this show. On the whole, as I mentioned before, I was pleasantly surprised by how the writing of both the story and the characters showed such open-mindedness towards work ethics. It was extremely gratifying to see a Japanese drama series touch on this topic, because I feel like it isn’t talked about enough even though everyone knows how badly people in Japan are forced to work overtime. We all know the images of office employees passed out on the subway or even on the street. The fact that this topic was tackled this way and that it was screenwritten by two women (🙌🏻) was very satisfying.
As someone who personally has experience working for several different Japanese companies, there were a lot of relatable points that hit home for me. I may not have worked within Japan and the companies I worked for did to some extent adapt a European work style, but I still had to answer to and deal with the Japanese headquarters and there were definitely some very typical regulations to take into consideration. I also have a Japanese friend who frequently updates me on the power harassment and toxic environments they have personally experienced on the workfloor. From everyone close to me who’s worked at a Japanese company with a Japanese manager before, the stories are pretty much the same, and not in a particularly positive way. So yeah, it came as a very pleasant surprise that a Japanese drama depicted these familiar issues in this way. I found it very satisfying to see how all kinds of different perspectives were addressed. I think it’s safe to say that the main issue this drama managed to explore was the role of work in a person’s life, and especially what working meant to people. How important it is to maintain a proper balance between work and one’s private life, and how it is ultimately possible for everyone to work efficiently without overtime and still manage to get stuff done. Discovering this improved the work and life productivity levels of every single character in this show. It even comes full circle at the end, when Yui asks her team members what they thought the purpose of work was and they all gave different answers whereas her own answer was, ‘I don’t know’. You could say it’s a combination of every answer. People work for money and their company, but also for their families and for themselves. The most important thing I’m taking with me from this show comes from another brilliant comment of Yui’s: ‘I’m not here because of my company. My company is here because of me.’ It was just so inspiring to see her provide all her team members with the validation that they deserved and how, without getting nosy, she became such an important role model for everyone. It’s so special how some people manage to maintain such humility and are honestly not aware of how much impact their teachings have on others, and Yui was definitely one of those people.

The series was well-balanced throughout, nothing was rushed and the episodes were structured in a way that was very easy to follow. The acting was good, the characters were well established and there were some very powerful dialogues alongside the important themes that were explored.
I noticed that the English title wasn’t literally translated from the Japanese. I guess ‘teiji’ is a bit of a tricky term to translate and therefore people used a transposition to translate it as ‘I Will Not Work Overtime, Period!’, focussing more on the ‘no overtime’ association. While I personally find this translation of the title a bit too strong, I do get that it comes across as more of a statement, and might therefore be suitable as it’s basically Yui’s catchphrase.

It’s time for the cast comments! It was really nice to see a combination of familiar and unfamiliar faces in this series.

I recently saw Yoshitaka Yuriko in Saiai, but I also know her from Tokyo Dogs, Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu and Tokyo Tarareba Musume. I really liked seeing her quirky and bright side again in this role, even though it was mixed with some stronger emotions. It was nice to see more emotional variety from her, it really shaped Yui as a character, seeing her get genuinely angry in the face of harassment while also seeing her genuinely enjoy her life outside of work. Honestly, I think Yui is a rolemodel to all of us in the way she decided not to let work influence her personal life and to create a healthy balance between the two. She had a really nice chemistry with her co-actors and I think she was a good fit for the role. She never became a passive or pathetic female lead character, she kept standing up for what she believed in and she went to incredible lengths to understand her fellow team mates. The fact that she even went over her own limit and got hurt only to find out what Kotaro must have felt like while working was pretty wild, but also very characteristic of her. I think she may have been one of the most empathic female leads I’ve seen in a series so far. I really liked seeing her as the main lead in this show.

It’s been a while since I saw Mukai Osamu appear in anything! Personal anecdote: I actually saw him in real life once and locked eyes with him through a train window, lol. He came to the city my university is in one time and I remember walking with my friend who also recognized him going, ‘wait isn’t that…’ Good times. Anyways! I’ve seen him appear before in Mei-chan no Shitsuji, Hotaru no Hikari 2 and last year in First Love: Hatsukoi, and in the movies Hanamizuki and Paradise Kiss. I think this might be the first time I’ve seen him in a role that wasn’t completely snobby, lol. I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel like I’ve seen him play a lot of confident and not always friendly guys. Anyways, seeing him as Kotaro was really nice because despite his consistent vagueness about how he was feeling, I think he portrayed a very wide variety of emotions through his face. It was nice seeing him as this guy who appeared to be super chill and aloof but at the same time needed to be rescued from his working ways just as much as everyone else. It was surprising how a guy like him could still let himself be tied down by a manipulative person like Fukunaga, but it did shape his character that he also had this vulnerable and fragile side to him. It was really nice to see him appear in this role.

So Nakamaru Yuichi is from KAT-TUN! I knew the name Nakamaru Yuichi rang a bell but my main associations with the group are Kamenashi Kazuya and Akanishi Jin so I didn’t actually know him, haha. I hadn’t seen anything with him before either, but I thought his portrayal of Takumi was very refreshing. In the beginning he was such a considerate and kind green flag of a boyfriend to Yui, it was very nice how chill he was always so comprehensive regarding her circumstances, even when they were dealing with wedding preparations and she’d get held up for example. As I said though, I did feel like it wasn’t going to last and it was a shame that he got so affected by Yui’s reunion with Kotaro. They could’ve made a very nice couple. Then again, having to hear his mother’s voice every so often would’ve freaked me the hell out, lol. Part of me is glad they didn’t show her reaction when they broke off the engagement. In any case, I still think Takumi was a good guy. He never intended to hurt Yui and the moment he felt like he couldn’t make her happy he put it on himself to break it off. He could’ve been a bit more honest about the true reason, but I never got the idea that he had any true malicious intent. He was very reflective of himself and he thought things through very thoroughly. In the end I guess they were better off separately. He did a nice job on this show, I liked how grounded and realistic he was.

I’ve seen Uchida Yuki before in a show called Naomi to Kanako and there’s at least one other Japanese drama with her on my list. She has such a genuinely warm and friendly face and smile. I think she was a perfect fit for the role of Yae, who’d just become a mother. I also really liked her relationship with her husband Yosuke from what we were shown. If ever there was a green flag of a husband, it was him. Seriously, the scene where he came home after she’d had to take care of the twins by herself all day and she knelt behind him and back-hugged him and he was like 😌 was so touching. Although I did find Yae quite frantic in the beginning when she basically begged people not to treat her any differently from before just because she’d given birth, it was so relatable and understandable why she did it. You could say how hard it was for her and how long it actually took her to allow herself to actually make time for her family. It was clear that that’s really what she wanted to do all along but she just didn’t let herself admit to it because she knew that she was only going to prove people right in their prejudice about her. I think for any woman who’s been in this position or who can imagine being put in this position, Yae is a very representational character. I really liked her performance in this series.

I’ve seen Yusuke Santamaria appear before in Higashino Keigo Mysteries and Tantei no Tantei, although I don’t really remember him from there (it’s been a very long time since I watched those shows). Anyways, I think he did a very good job of giving me the ick throughout the series, lol. I’ve had my fair share of bad bosses and managers, but Fukunaga definitely took the crown. It was almost unbelievable how a guy like him could’ve been promoted as a department head. There were many times in the show that I genuinely wondered what he even did during work hours while everyone else was working their butts off for his neglectable projects. I loved when Yui just gave it to him straight by saying ‘dude, stop manipulating other people to make up for your own incapability’ 💁🏻‍♀️. Although it was good to get a bit of insight about what he had been through himself, I still feel like he learned the least out of everyone. I didn’t find him a very sympathetic character, he was always pointing fingers at others and telling others to do stuff for him. If they’d go against him, he’d use something to manipulate or guilt-trip them into doing it anyway. The way he actually went to have face-to-face dinners with all the team members to tell them to take on all the extra tasks because Yui was getting married soon and they shouldn’t add to her work load 🙄 while he’d literally just gaslighted Yui into putting in extra effort and even working overtime not to add to Kotaro’s work load 🙄 and all the while he himself was just twirling his thumbs in the background. It was so satisfying when the new CEO from Hoshi Jirushi called him out on his BS. Anyways, back to the actor, lol. I guess here it also proved that the actor is doing a good job if they make you sincerely dislike their character, so well done to him!

I didn’t know Shishido Kavka from anything else, but she definitely made a very distinct character out of Mitani. Apart from her appearance and unique hairstyle it was nice how she just managed to adapt that whole rigidness into her movements as well. The way she would just glare at something and go, ‘What about it?’ was pretty funny. I was a bit scared that she might turn a little petty once she found out through Fukunaga that Yui was planning on getting married – it might have felt as if Yui hadn’t opened up to her enough to tell her that even though Mitani had been trying to become friends with her? – but luckily it didn’t go that way. Fukunaga just used it as a way to get Mitani to take on more work instead of Yui as well, just like he did with everyone else. I think once Mitani got closer to Yui after the first episode she became a much more likable character, and it was nice that she even started coming to Shanghai Diner after work herself. I think she portrayed a very interesting character as Mitani.

Apparently Izumisawa Yuuki appeared in an episode of Unnatural, but I don’t think I remember his character from there. He was one of the new faces that I encountered in this drama. I think he fit the role of Kurusu very well, and he certainly did a good job portraying the resentful frustrations towards Kotaro and anyone else who wouldn’t give him a chance to prove himself in a big project. In a way, his immaturity also made his character very realistic because I guess we can all relate to getting super excited to be put in charge of something big only to constantly be interrupted by your seniors on how you’re not doing it right. Although I was annoyed with him a couple of times, his behavior was very understandable. I mainly felt bad for him once he started getting manipulated by Fukunaga to work himself to the bone in order to prove his capability to Kotaro – that was just plain power harassment and taking advantage of his innocence. I’m glad he got to talk with Shu and it was a real show of character from his side that he properly listened and learned from what he was told. I also liked the junior-senior relationship between him and Yui, they had really good teamwork and it was heartwarming to see how much Yui wanted him to thrive in the team. He did a good job!

Apart from some appearances in Shinigami-kun and Dame na Watashi ni Koishite Kudasai which I don’t even remember him from, I see that Emoto Tokio has also appeared in a lot of movies, starting from 2006. I thought Azuma was a really nice character to have around in the series. He just brought a very chill energy and despite his lack of ambition it was nice to see that they gave him enough confidence in his own skills and they didn’t make him into a typical people-shy otaku as Japanese dramas sometimes tend to do. He had a very good supportive presence in the office and a good nose for shady things as well, even though he still needed to learn how to voice his critical opinions a bit better. I thought that the issue that his character was highlighted for was interesting because it wasn’t as linear as the others, there were some dualities to what he was going through and I thought that only made him more realistic as a character. I liked his performance!

The way I sqealed when Sakurada Dori came on screen! I really missed my baby. I’ve seen him so far in Good Morning Call, Koe Koi, Kirawareru Yuuki and Hana Nochi Hare. As I mentioned before, although I was a bit sceptical about Shu’s character at first because I wasn’t sure in what way he was going to contribute, I was ultimately glad to get some more backstory from him and how he even played a part in settling things between Kurusu and Kotaro. In the end he became an important asset in proving to Kotaro that he had really negatively influenced the people around him with his obsessive work behavior. He may not have gotten that much screentime in this show, but it was still nice to see him.

Finally, I want to give a major shoutout to Eguchi Noriko, who played Wang Dan. Watching her reminded me of Takahata Atsuko’s character in Naomi to Kanako, which was amazing. She really cracked me up with her Chinese accent 😆 especially since the only other character I’ve seen her play before this was the super frigid lady from Jimi ni Sugoi! It was a very funny contrast. Actually, that’s not completely true, I’ve also seen her play the abusive mother in Boku Dake ga Inai Machi and she also played a role in Kuragehime. In any case, this was a very fun side of her acting that I hadn’t seen before. I love how she can talk like that with such a straight face, she really has a surprising comical talent. I loved her character.

And with that we have come to the end of this review! I spent another day on it but it was much more relaxing to write than my previous watches. Sometimes I just love watching Japanese dramas since their stories are so straightforward and there’s not too much intricate drama involved. It was definitely a very refreshing show to watch after leaving the fantastical historical realm of Alchemy of Souls which I watched before this. I can’t help but feel like it was a necessary snap back to reality, even though I loved being in the world of magic for as long as I could.

I really liked this show and how realistically it depicted several contemporary issues that have been identified as problematic in Japan’s current society. These topics – of people that work themselves to death, people that are forced to stay after working hours merely to show responsibility to their co-workers, people that find their private lives influenced by their work and aren’t able to rest well because of it, people that are demoted at work simply for having a child and consequently being degraded in terms of capability – all need to be talked about, and even louder for the people in the back. It’s so important that these issues become known and it would be so great if there could be more companies like Net Heroes, where the CEO establishes a proper work ethic that prevents its employees from ever ending up collapsing due to excessive overwork. It is so important that people get to enjoy their lives outside of work and are enabled by their companies to take enough breaks to maintain their health and happiness. Sure, work is important, but it should never become someone’s entire life. Let’s try to decrease the number of people like Kotaro who feel like their lives account to nothing if they don’t have work. We need more happy and healthy people in the world!

Having said that, I’ll bid thee farewell and we’ll find out soon on which show my Wheel of Fortune lands next.

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.

Alchemy of Souls
(환혼 / Hwanhon)
MyDramaList rating: 8.0/10

Happy 2024 everyone! We’re kicking off the new year strongly with a two-season show that my newly employed Wheel of Fortune picked out (as I mentioned previously, I have decided to use an app to determine which dramas I watch this year). When the first spin landed on this one, it actually made me go, ‘Oh God’. 😆 To be honest, I learned about Alchemy of Souls in the period when it just came out and it was super hyped, so I knew it would be an extensive watch which would consequently make for a very challenging review. Boy, was I right to think so. You know you’re in trouble when the first episode immediately makes you go, ‘How the fudge am I going to write a review about this 🙉’. While I’m not going to complain too much – I decided to write reviews of my own accord, after all – and I definitely tried my best to make this a worthwhile read, this was without a doubt the most difficult review I’ve written so far. There are so many characters and storylines that are so intricately connected to one another, and the world-building is so vast and elaborate that I struggled a lot with how to structure this. This is the first review that actually took me almost a week to write. Even so, I like to think that it was worth the effort, because this show – and I’m not even exaggerating – literally blew me off my chair. Despite the fact that fantasy or historical (magical) fiction isn’t my go-to genre, this show got me in a chokehold from beginning to end. It made me go through ALL the feelings and it had me on the edge of my seat throughout the whole thing. From the acting to the casting to the soundtrack to the story-building and character- and plot development, I barely found anything in it that I didn’t like. I was actually sad when it was over and that alone puts it into my top ten watches.

I watched the two seasons in one go, but I already started writing this review after finishing the first season so I could establish the foundation of the main story beforehand – otherwise it probably would’ve taken me even longer to write the whole thing. It helped a lot that the second season followed the first one very consistently and referenced back to it a lot. Because of this consistency it really felt like an ongoing story rather than two separate ones, even though they focus on different plots. In order to keep it as concise as possible, I won’t go into too much detail about every single thing that happens – the people who read this will have probably watched the show themselves, after all. While every event that happens is equally important and I’m definitely going to pick out a few to build on in my analysis, I just feel like this review will never end if I elaborate on every single thing, because there’s just too much going on. I will first provide a summary and a historical timeline to list the things that are most important to understand the story’s premise, and then I will try to link the main characters to each other as much as possible in order to express my thoughts on all the character dynamics. Wish me luck!🥹🙏🏻

Let’s begin with a general summary: Alchemy of Souls is a Netflix K-Drama consisting of two parts, one of twenty episodes and one of ten. Each episode has a duration of about one hour and twenty minutes, making the whole thing quite lengthy. While the series is designed as a historical drama, it is set in a fictitious time and place that isn’t based on any true historical events. The main story takes place in the fictitious capital Daeho, a city that was built around a giant lake with magical properties, Lake Gyeongcheondaeho. The power of the lake has enabled the use of magic to become a common energy source in the capital. The people who were taught to use this energy and pass it on to the next generations of their families are called mages, and there’s even a special mage education center within the capital, called Songrim. I’m not entirely sure how to describe the energy source in itself, but when they showed how it was used to reinforce training and swordfighting I couldn’t help but think of the chakra energy from Naruto, as people’s ability to use it also depend on opening certain ‘gates’ in their body. In any case, this energy has been a normal phenomenon in Daeho ever since the main founding members of the most powerful mage families established it. It even forms the foundation of Daeho’s monarchy. The royal family, consisting of the King, Queen and Crown Prince, own numerous institutions and buildings that enable this energy to be monitored, studied and recorded in different ways, and they are supported by four representative mage families that all have different specializations and tasks in protecting the kingdom. This support and protection is needed more than anything because, naturally, there aren’t only good people in the world, and there isn’t only just one type of benevolent magical energy. There is also sorcery, dark magic, which is predominantly used by people acting on greed and evil intentions.
The most desired object targeted by every sorcerer is the ice stone. In the early ages, the leaders from the four families discovered this stone which basically bundled energy from all the elements including the sky. Apart from being the most powerful tool ever discovered, the ice stone also contained plenty of dark properties – it could be used to resurrect people from the dead and allowed for a specific dark spell called the alchemy of souls (title check, ayy). This spell enables a mage or sorcerer to shift their soul into another body, in most cases without consent of the other person. You could say it’s a very fantastical form of identity theft with the additional disadvantage that there’s no way back once it’s been executed. To protect the stone from ill-intended hands, the ice stone was hidden somewhere inside the capital by the founding members so no one could find it.

I’ll leave the premise of the story there for now to introduce a couple of important characters first, starting with the royal family and the four leading mage families. Just so you know, I’m going to credit a lot of actors, main and supporting, because I want to give everyone an equal shoutout.
To start with the royal family, it currently consists of King Go Soon (played by Choi Kwang Il), his wife Queen Seo Ha Seon (played by Kang Kyung Heon) and their son the Crown Prince Go Won (played by Shin Seung Ho). King Go Soon took the crown after the previous king, his older brother Go Sung (Park Byung Eun) passed away from a severe illness.
Serving the crown and kingdom, the four main mage families go by the names of Jin, Park, Seo and Jang. At the time of the story, each family has a twentysomething heir, and these four youngsters together are respectfully referred to as The Four Seasons.
As we can see from the Queen’s surname, the Seo family is directly linked to the royal family and therefore a very renowned and powerful mage family. Their official domain is called Seoho Fortress and is located outside of Daeho – we aren’t ever shown the place itself but it takes at least a ferry ride over Lake Gyeongcheondaeho to get there. The current heir of the Seo family who resides within Songrim is Seo Yool (played by Hwang Min Hyun), and he is the Queen’s nephew (his father is her brother). We never meet any of his direct family as they are back in Seoho Fortress, but his father, General Seo Il, is mentioned by name a couple of times. Yool also returns to Seoho Fortress at the end of season one.
Then there’s the Park family, and they are in direct charge of running Songrim – traditionally, the head of the Park family is also the leader of Songrim. Only those with access to Songrim can enter the various buildings dedicated to studying magical energy. The head of the Park family/head of Songrim at the beginning of the story is Park Jin (played by Yoo Joon Sang) and the Park family heir is his nephew, Park Dang Goo (played by Yoo In Soo).
I just want to elaborate a little bit on the various buildings within Songrim that frequently appear throughout the story. They are Cheonbugwan, Jeongjingak and Sejukwon. Cheonbugwan is an institution under the direct supervision of the royal family where constellations are monitored and recorded, where public order and ancestral rites are overseen and fortunes concerning the country are read (quoted from Wikipedia because I had to look it up🥲). Jeongjingak is the main educational center for the Songrim mages, and Sejukwon is the best medical institution in Daeho. The main acting physician at Sejukwon is Heo Yeom (played by Lee Do Kyung), who used to be a student of a respected master who was himself a student of Master Seo Gyung, the founding member of Daeho who initially found the ice stone. At some point during the series, Heo Yeom’s granddaughter Heo Yoon Ok (played by Hong Seo Hee) also comes to Daeho and starts helping out at Sejukwon.
Then there’s the Jin family, the only of the four families primarily led by women. The house has the tradition of a female leader and therefore the eldest daughter always becomes the family heiress. The Jin family holds exclusive access to the domain of Jinyowon, where all sorts of magical relics are stored, of both good and evil nature. Only a member of the Jin family can open the gates to Jinyowon. The current leader of the Jin family is Jin Ho Gyung (played by Park Eun Hye). Misfortune has it that her eldest daughter, Jin Boo Yeon, went missing when she was a child. Despite the fact that she was born blind, Boo Yeon had incredible divine and sensory powers, which would’ve made her an immensely powerful priestess and successful heiress to the Jin family. Convinced that her daughter must still be alive somewhere, Jin Ho Gyung has been looking for her for at least ten years at the start of the story, aided by her husband Jin Woo Tak (Joo Seok Tae). In the meantime, her second daughter Jin Cho Yeon (played by Choi Ye Won/Oh My Girl’s Arin) tries to do whatever she can to support her mother in her duties.
And then there’s the Jang family, which, despite its impressive status as a representative mage family, has the worst reputation out of all the four houses. At the beginning of the story, the head of the Jang family is also the leader of Cheonbugwan, and this gives him the title of Gwanju. However, Gwanju Jang Gang (Joo Sang Wook) disappeared not long after his beautiful wife Do Hwa (Bae Kang Hee) passed away after giving birth to their only son and heir. The last thing Jang Gang did before leaving was seal his son’s energy gate, ensuring that he would never be able to use his magic, and forbid everyone from ever opening this gate for him. Without telling anyone why, he abandoned his son, disappeared and hasn’t been seen for ten years. His son, Jang Wook (played by Lee Jae Wook) has grown up frustrated and feeling ostracized from his peers as he’s never been allowed to use magic. He’s gone through twelve different masters in the hope of finding someone who could help him open his energy gate, but to no avail so far.
Seo Yool, Park Dang Goo, Jin Cho Yeon and Jang Wook grew up together as childhood friends, and they are still quite close with each other. Yool, Dang Goo and Wook are still best friends to this day, Wook and Cho Yeon were even betrothed at some point before it fell through, and Dang Goo has always had a secret crush on Cho Yeon himself.

I hope everyone is still following it after this first introduction, because I can’t deny that my head was discombombulated by all the names of people and places. Not only are the names of the locations quite complicated to memorize, a lot of character names also resemble each other, so it took me a while before I had a clear picture of who was who and which person belonged to which family. I have to admit it also took me a while to distinguish Jin Ho Gyung from the Queen – my brain just kept insisting they were the same person, lol. Anyways, there’s still loads of other important characters to introduce – be prepared – but I thought it would be good to first establish the premise of the setting we’re introduced to when the story starts.

I’ve mentioned it already, but a very predominant aspect of the story stems from the use of dark magic, sorcery. Even in the capital of Daeho itself, there are countless greedy mages who’d just love to get their hands on the ice stone and use its powers to ensure the continuous success of their own families, even at the cost of their own family members – which is quite ironic, if you think about it.
The main villain in the story, who enables these greedy mages to achieve their dark desires, is a man called Jin Moo (played by Jo Jae Yoon). Jin Moo is the half brother of Jin Ho Gyung and therefore officially a member of the Jin family. However, as he was born out of wedlock as a result of Ho Gyung’s father’s affair, he was never fully acknowledged as a full-blood part of the Jin family. Still, he worked his way up to be the Gwanju’s right-hand man, Assistant Gwanju. He even became the acting Gwanju after Jang Gang’s disappearance.
Now, you have to admit that Jin Moo has maneuvered himself into a very clever position. He has an incredibly secure status and reputation as acting Gwanju, a whole team of followers and guards, and his ties to both the royal family and the Jin family enable him to pull lots of strings from all sides. Even though it could be said that he has been involved in every single calamity and tragedy that has happened in Daeho in at least the past ten years, he’s consistently gotten away with everything.
When he was acting under Gwanju Jang Gang and learned about the powers of the ice stone, Jin Moo became obsessed with it. After the stone was hidden away and the Gwanju disappeared, it took him several years to find out where it was hidden, and he even used his own half-niece Boo Yeon to track it down for him – only to discard her into the lake when she hesitated to give it to him. He then went on to help a mighty shaman called Shaman Choi (Shim So Young) who specialized in sorcery soul-shift with the Queen herself, creating a mole within the royal family. No one has ever managed to blow his cover because he established such a secure position between influential families. Even though Songrim, and mainly leader Park Jin, has been repeatedly suspicious of him, they’ve never had any concrete proof to show that he was up to no good.
Honestly, I had to hand it to him, because he was good. It was frustrating as heck how he kept wriggling his way out of situations and managed to redirect evidence that clearly pointed to him, but that only contributed to the fact that he really was that impressive of an opponent. Somehow he always managed to turn a situation to his will and redirect people’s suspicions of him to someone else. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a persistent villain and the fact that he got to stick around until the very end is pretty impressive in itself.
In any case, Jin Moo retrieved the ice stone from the lake and started using it for all the wrong reasons. He made Soul Ejectors through which he could perform the alchemy of souls and has been creating a sort of ever-rejuvenating army of respected mage family members who were all so blinded by greed that they didn’t hesitate to sacrifice their own younger family members for the cause. In other words, elderly representatives of mage families would agree to switch souls with their own children or other younger heirs from their family so that they could live on as young and powerful mages forever. This typically happened without the consent of the younger relatives, whose souls were cruelly trapped in elderly and in some cases even sickly or dying bodies, never able to live out their lives. In order to get rid of these ‘loose ends’, Jin Moo also controlled several assassins to clean up after the alchemy of souls had been performed.

I just want to establish a bit more information on soul shifters in particular. Whenever a mage shifts souls, they become a so-called soul shifter, but it doesn’t come without any after effects. After they’ve switched bodies using dark magic, this dark magic inevitably takes a toll on them. As Rumplestiltskin from Once Upon a Time would say, “All magic comes at a price”. The thing is, at some point soul shifters will start ‘running wild’, which means that they lose control over their actions and start going around killing people in search of human energy to feed on. Once a soul shifter starts running wild, patches of stone start to form on their skin, and they can only retain their human appearance when they suck energy from other people, preferably common folk. If they don’t manage to replenish their energy in time, soul shifters will ultimately petrify into stone completely and die. I’m not entirely sure what the most natural cause is that would make a soul shifter run wild, because I believe it doesn’t just happen automatically, but in any case Jin Moo also provided soul shifters that worked for him with new ‘energy sources’ to replenish their energy. On the other hand, he was also able to control soul shifters himself with a specific divination spell. He could manipulate soul shifters with a type of bell after he’s made them drink a special potion. As soon as they hear the sound of bells, they are basically hypnotized and lose control over their bodies.

As a master of manipulation, one of the main people Jin Moo has been tricking for years is his own half-sister, Jin Ho Gyung. While she believes that Jin Moo has been aiding her and her husband all this time in finding Boo Yeon, she has no idea that he was the one responsible for her disappearance in the first place. She’s also not aware that neither he nor her own husband actually plan on retrieving Boo Yeon’s real body. Jin Woo Tak might seem like a loving father looking for his eldest daughter, but he’s actually in cohorts with Jin Moo. He’s also not Boo Yeon’s biological father, only Cho Yeon’s, so I guess that made it easier for him. In truth, Jin Moo and Jin Woo Tak have been going around looking for a blind girl that they could pose off as Boo Yeon, going so far as to even put a bloodworm in her that contains the Jin family blood so she’d be able to open Jinyowon to prove it. The only reason they are looking for someone to take Boo Yeon’s place, even if it’s not the real girl herself, is because the Queen (aka the evil shaman lady in the Queen’s body) needs to soul-shift soon, and an heiress/high priestess of Jinyowon would do very nicely as a vessel. What ties Jin Woo Tak to this case is that he is actually Shaman Choi’s brother. Like I said, alles ist miteinander verbunden.

Apart from manipulating people within his own circle, Jin Moo has been responsible for a lot of other misfortune and tragedy, and even actively contributed to the demise of several families.
One of the families that fell victim to his evil plans was the Cho family. Cho Choong (Yoon Seo Hyun) was a respected constellation recording mage who worked at Cheonbugwan, and he was also a close friend of Gwanju Jang Gang. However, because he witnessed a certain constellation on the night Jang Gang’s son was born, Jin Moo made him run wild (probably with the potion) and caused him to murder his entire family. The only survivor of this familicide was Cho Choong’s young daughter Cho Yeong (Goo Yoo Jung). Jin Moo took the child under his wing and promised her he’d help her avenge her family. In the next ten years, he trained her into becoming an assassin who would kill all loose-end soul shifters for him, cutting off everyone who would be able to spread the word that they were forced out of their own bodies and that Jin Moo was the mastermind behind it all. The saddest thing is that Cho Yeong never knew the true intentions of the man she served – she grew up thinking she was doing this with the ultimate goal of avenging her family. She was unknowingly manipulated by Jin Moo her entire life.
After growing up and gaining an infamous reputation as an assassin, Cho Yeong (now played by Go Yoon Jung) started going by the name Nak Soo, which apparently is some kind of reference to her ability to slice people’s heads off very smoothly. Nak Soo became one of the most infamous enemies to Songrim, and her name instilled fear in everyone who knew about her.

We are first introduced to the incredibly skilled assassin Nak Soo in the first episode, where she gets hurt in a fight with Songrim’s leader Park Jin. In an attempt to escape, she manages to perform the alchemy of souls on a blind girl (👀) she encounters at an inn. When a soul shifting succeeds, it typically leaves a blue mark near the heart. However, when Nak Soo opens her eyes in the new body she now occupies, not only does she realize she can see, but she also doesn’t find the blue mark on her new skin. For some reason, the blue mark has chosen to settle within her eyes, which is uncommon. My first guess was that it recognized the girl’s blindness and enabled her vision by settling there. I read another interesting theory on Tumblr that explored a more metaphorical reason, namely that the heart and the eyes are both gateways to the soul, and since the blind girl didn’t have the eye gateway, Nak Soo’s soul shifting mark chose to settle there. The true reason for this unusual transfer of the blue mark is never explained in the series.
In any case, the soul shifting allows Nak Soo to escape from the Songrim soldiers and she takes on the new identity of the not-blind-anymore girl, Moo Deok (from this point on played by Jung So Min). After she makes her way into the capital and decides to hide at the brothel Chwiseonru, she runs into Jang Wook.
As we know, Jang Wook has been looking for a master who can help him open his energy gate. The rumors about Nak Soo escaping, soul shifting and probably heading for the capital have reached Daeho by then, and it takes Jang Wook a surprisingly short time to figure out that Moo Deok must be Nak Soo. He deducts this after seeing the blue mark in her eyes. Shortly after meeting and confirming who they each are, Jang Wook and Moo Deok strike a deal: Nak Soo will become Wook’s new training master and help him open his energy gate, and Moo Deok will become his personal maid who follows him everywhere and does everything he tells her to. This immediately creates a very interesting dynamic between the two, as they constantly have to switch between the position of master/servant/pupil. It becomes even more complicated when they start developing romantic feelings for each other.

Honestly, while I was writing this review it reminded me of how I felt when reviewing Arthdal Chronicles – I had no idea where to begin because each newly introduced story or piece of information stemmed from another and it just kept on branching out. Just when I thought I’d covered a part, a new episode would uncover another mountain of new information and it just made me go 🤯🤯🤯. The world-building and historical background establishment of all the characters and the places was so elaborate that finding a starting point was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I thought that if I’d just establish a historical timeline of the important events that preceded the events depicted in the story, it would be easy to follow, but I still found it very difficult. I’ll probably make repeated mentions of how difficult it was to write this throughout the review, lol.

Besides the relationship between Wook and Moo Deok/Nak Soo, there are countless other storylines playing out simultaneously. We learn a lot about all the different families, their respective histories and secrets, relationships and rivalries form, secrets are uncovered and people’s true natures (or should I say souls 👀) come to light. All of these storylines are balanced equally, yet none of them distract from the main narrative. The way this series manages to balance all the storylines at the same time without ever losing sight of the main plot is incredible. The writing is genius and I don’t remember a single scene or dialogue that wasn’t significant to the story or development of a certain character.
Another rare thing is that I genuinely liked every single character. Even the bad guys were so well constructed; I actually understood where Jin Moo came from with his actions – even though I rejected them completely, of course. I also really loved the dynamics between all of the characters. Every story and character is intricately connected to each other, but the series’ build-up establishes all ties very clearly throughout. With every episode we learn more about the bigger picture through bite-sized and accessible chunks of audiovisual information, and this made it very easy to follow.

There are a couple of general things that I found interesting about this series. First of all, they put a lot of emotional burden on the viewer by providing us with a lot of information that the characters themselves aren’t aware of. I literally felt like I was forced to sit on a side bench to watch everything unfold in front of me, knowing everything that was going on, and not being able to help or tell anyone what they needed to know. While it was amusing at times, especially if there was at least one person who knew the truth about something, most times it was extremely frustrating. Especially because a lot of important information habitually ended up with the wrong people, and others were purposely kept a secret from the person it was related to. For example, while it remains a mystery to the majority of characters throughout the story, we as viewers learn the truth about why Wook’s father sealed his gate of energy and disappeared from the get-go. We learn that the late King soul-shifted into Jang Gang’s body to go after his wife and that Wook was therefore conceived through the alchemy of souls. We learn that Boo Yeon’s birth was enabled with the power of the ice stone. We learn that Cho Choong and his family were brutally silenced after witnessing the King’s Star in the sky on the night Wook was born so they would never be able to tell anyone that Wook was actually the son of the late King. We learn that Moo Deok is actually the long-lost Boo Yeon. There were a lot of these revelations that just made me go ‘OMG’ ‘ARE YOU SERIOUS?!’ ‘NAHHH BRO’ 🙈🙉🙊 Admittedly, it definitely contributed to the building of suspense and thrill in the story, but it was just agonizing that these revelations weren’t conveyed to the right people straightaway. On the other hand, I cannot even begin to describe the relief that I would feel when a piece of information finally reached the right person, lol. When Yool finally found out about Nak Soo’s soul in season two, for example, it literally made me go, ‘🙏🏻FINALLY THANK YOU🙏🏻’.
There were two cases I remember where I thought someone shouldn’t have gotten involved after learning some pieces of information. The first one was So Yi. So Yi (played by Seo Hye Won) was originally a swindler girl from the same village Boo Yeon ended up in, and she knew her as Moo Deok when she was living there. It’s said that So Yi ran off with all her belongings after Moo Deok’s grandmother (the lady who raised her) passed away, thereby disabling Moo Deok/Boo Yeon from finding her real family. She even took her eye mask with the Jin family crest on it, although she didn’t know what it symbolized. At some point halfway through the first season, So Yi enters the capital and goes looking for Moo Deok while pretending to be blind herself. However, she gets herself into quite a predicament when Jin Moo’s people pluck her from the street as a potential fill-in for Boo Yeon. Quickly blowing her blindness cover, So Yi begs Jin Moo to let her live and tells him she’ll do anything she can to pose off as the Jin family’s eldest daughter. She is the first (and initially only person) who makes the connection between Moo Deok and the Jin family – the first person to realize that Moo Deok is actually Jin Boo Yeon.
Honestly, while I get that it added thrill to the story to have someone who knew Moo Deok from the village she grew up in as an additional exposing factor, I have to admit I initially found So Yi a bit of a disruptive element. She literally came out of nowhere and got involved in things she wasn’t meant to get involved in. I still don’t really understand what her intentions were, because it first seemed like she was just trying to survive but then she started getting greedy for that Jin family life, not knowing that she was only meant as a new vessel for Shaman Choi’s soul. The fact that she willingly went along with fooling so many people, including a desperate mother who just wanted her daughter back, still makes me wonder about her motivations. Of course, she’d had a rough upbringing, hadn’t known much warmth or genuine kindness, and she found herself in a very dire situation. On the other hand, it also becomes clear from her attitude towards Seo Yool that she tends to be extremely touched by people that do show her kindness. Seo Yool once saves her from some thugs and gives her his umbrella to use as a cane (she’s pretending to be blind at that time) and she never once forgets about that. She even ultimately sacrifices herself for him in the second season, where she’s also the first ‘outsider’ person to realize that the new Boo Yeon must be Nak Soo, because she knew that Moo Deok was the real Boo Yeon. In any case, my point is that while she had a lot of important information, So Yi wasn’t the right person to keep that knowledge. She could only use it to threaten or bribe someone here and there, but she kept it a secret from the people it actually related to and that was frustrating sometimes.
I was also a bit frustrated by Heo Yoon Ok in the second season. I had no issues with her in season one, because even though she liked Wook she never got petty towards Moo Deok when she found out they were together, but for some reason she got really petty with Boo Yeon in season two, and it didn’t suit her. When she went and read the letter Seo Yool had left in which he revealed that Nak Soo’s soul was inside Boo Yeon, she just figured she had the right to expose her with that revealing potion and I was like, girl, mêle-toi de tes affaires, tu veux! I don’t know if it really was just jealousy because Boo Yeon was married to Wook, but it was a pretty low move and that information was just not meant for her. It didn’t specifically do her any harm per se, but it just wasn’t any of her business, especially since she chose to use the information to pull such a move.

Another positive thing about the series was that people kept picking up on things so quickly. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I watched a show where characters were so sharp in picking up bad vibes. I really appreciated that everybody constantly kept their eyes and ears open and it never took ages for someone to realize something was amiss. I also liked the occasional revelations that they were actually a step ahead of the bad guys, for example when it was confirmed that the Crown Prince had been on Wook’s side rather than Jin Moo’s all along or when they were able to save the important people after the Operation Fire Bird in season two. Sometimes I was genuinely surprised by how quickly they picked stuff up, for example when Wook realized the Queen had to be a soul shifter. There were cases where I thought it would probably take a while to figure it out, but I was very grateful that everything fell into place so quickly. It just sped up the progress and nothing was needlessly dragged out.

I really want to start on my character analysis since I think I’ve established enough of the story’s setting by now. What I’ll say from the bat is that it’s been a while since I genuinely loved the entire cast of characters in a show. Seriously, there was not a single storyline that was boring or less interesting than the other. Whether it switched from a training session between Wook and Nak Soo to the budding romance between Dang Goo and Cho Yeon, or from the squibbling between Park Jin and Maidservant Kim to Master Lee sharing wisdom with some kids or Jin Moo concocting new plans, I enjoyed every single storyline. It’s been a while since I watched something in which I genuinely enjoyed whatever scene came on.

First of all, my baby Jang Wook. This guy really got my heart aching like no other. He was a real tragic hero, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of Naruto as he was cursed before he was even born and then basically ostracized as he had to grow up with all sorts of nasty rumors regarding his real parents. People told him he was the result of his mother’s love affair and that he didn’t belong in Songrim. Despite his parentless upbringing he was still fortunate enough to be raised by Maidservant Kim (played by Oh Na Ra) who had been loyal to the Gwanju’s family for years. She raised him with all the love she had and they developed a true mother-son-like bond. Even though he didn’t get the chance to develop his energy the same way his friends did, Wook always remained optimistic and determined. He refused to give up because he just knew he belonged in Songrim and was meant for more. I really loved his character development throughout the story and the two seasons.
When we are first introduced to him, we immediately see his playful side as he hangs out with his friends and how he bickers with Park Jin. Sure, there are grudges and things that aren’t fair, but he didn’t let those define his life and that was remarkable about him from the start. When he meets Moo Deok/Nak Soo for the first time I loved how he just started flirting with her blatantly, suppressing grins when he noticed she was flustered and acting bashful when she did something nice for him. His pure energy stood in such contrast with hers, but it worked so well. I think it was so interesting to have them constantly change status from pupil to master and master to servant. There was never a dull moment between them, not through their bickering or the serious training, and the emotional moments in-between only became more powerful because they reflected the true nature of their usual hot-and-cold dynamic. From the moment he met her he knew he couldn’t do without her, and it might have taken Nak Soo a bit longer to acknowledge it, but in the end she was actually prepared to give up her regained powers to remain by his side as Moo Deok and that said something. Especially if you look at how she initially kept threatening him that she would either kill him or abandon him as soon as she got her powers back.
I think that Wook’s transformation in the second season followed the tragic events of the first season’s finale very naturally. He became a different person after losing Moo Deok, and it was really sad to see how he kept pushing Boo Yeon away because he just wouldn’t let himself go through it again. To think that he was looking for a way to extract the powers of the ice stone that had resurrected him because he thought he could only find peace and quiet in death stood in such stark contrast with how he was introduced in season one, so full of life and vitality and determination to live up to his full potential. I have to say that there were definitely cases where he treated Boo Yeon harshly that made me go, ‘bro… that’s too much, man’, but on the other hand I could never fully blame him for being like that because he had been living in the dead cold for three years, he was plagued by wraiths every night and barely slept, constantly terrorized by the memories of cruelly losing the love of his life. He was living in a hell and I could very well imagine why he’d be hesitant to let some perky strange girl claiming she could save and protect him into his life. I think the transition he went through that resulted in him finally admitting his feelings for Boo Yeon was very credibly written, and very well acted out. I just couldn’t help but want to hug him, because he was put into cruel situation after cruel situation. He had never seen Nak Soo’s real face before so he didn’t recognize her, he didn’t acknowledge Boo Yeon’s returning memories as her own, and then when he finally found out it was her, he was told that her soul would disappear soon anyway. When Master Lee was like, ‘you know, what’s even worse is that he’d actually be able to preserve Nak Soo’s soul over Boo Yeon’s with the ice stone’s powers’, I was like ‘noooo don’t make him make that decision, that’s even worse 😭😭’ He went through so much shit only to find out that his birth wasn’t even supposed to happen and he lost his entire family and the love of his life because of that cursed alchemy of souls spell. He deserved so much better but he held himself so strongly throughout it all. He never became pathetic or weak, sometimes he inevitably crumbled but he stood through it and that was incredible. Jang Wook is definitely one of the most impressive male lead characters I’ve seen in a K-Drama so far.

Moving on to Nak Soo, as established she was also done real dirty by Jin Moo. Not only did he basically kill her entire family, he then manipulated and used her for his own gain only to abandon her when she ‘lost purpose’ and then in the end he came back to control her into attacking her own friends and even killing her fiancé. The fact that we as viewers (along with Wook) learn of Nak Soo’s twisted fate before she did just created a whole new layer of empathy for her character, all the more because she wasn’t aware of this fact herself.
What’s interesting is that, while Nak Soo goes through four different identities throughout the story (Cho Yeong, Nak Soo, Moo Deok and Jin Boo Yeon), we only ever really get to know Nak Soo. We never learn what Cho Yeong, Moo Deok and Boo Yeon were like. I found it funny that, when she and Wook finally got married by Master Lee in the final episode, Master Lee was like, ‘hold up girl, you got four names, under which one do you want to get married, exactly?’😆 I just thought it was very original to introduce a main character via an appearance and body that wasn’t their own, because that means the viewer basically gets to know them while they are also getting to know themselves, or their new selves, at least. I definitely feel like Nak Soo got to know herself because of Wook and everything she went through in Daeho. Without the events in the story she’d never have found out what truly happened to her family and that she’d been used as a pawn in Jin Moo’s plans all along.
When it comes to Nak Soo the assassin, it is clear from the start that she’s very confident in her own skills, she considers herself to be very high up in the mage ranks (with good reason). This elevated image that she has of herself stands in very stark contrast with the persona she creates for Moo Deok, who is expected to kiss the dust under everyone’s feet. After she soul-shifts, Nak Soo realizes quickly that she now only has access to her new body’s physical abilities, which means that she doesn’t have any of her own strength, power, stamina or speed. However, she still finds a way to train Wook and while she’s not personally able to show him how it’s done, she still manages to motivate him enough to work twice as hard and he makes very rapid progress. Which is impressive, because she certainly doesn’t go easy on him. She literally starts out by poisoning him so that Songrim is forced to open his energy gate in order to let him heal. He gets to keep his powers, and this only speeds up his training process even more.

I just want to establish the different kinds of stages that Wook has to go through, the levels of energy control that need to be reached before one is able to become an accepted member of Songrim. Once a mage’s gate of energy has been opened, the first step in learning to control it is reaching Jipsu, the ability to gather the energy of water. Following this step, there’s Ryusu, which includes learning how to gain energy from the flow of water through skill and breathing techniques. Then, there’s Chisu, the ability to control the energy in the atmosphere, and this typically takes years to master. Finally, the last and highest level of power is reached when mastering Hwansu, and this level is barely reachable as only the most powerful mages conquer it. It’s the level a mage needs to be at to perform sorcery such as the alchemy of souls.

Their training takes place in Danhyanggook, and this is where Nak Soo herself trained for years to become an assassin when she still served Danju (Jin Moo), the man who had ‘saved’ her from her familicide. They find a quiet cabin to stay at for the time being, and it turns out that the cabin belongs to Master Lee Cheol (played by Im Cheol Soo), Heo Yeom’s former master and former pupil of Master Seo Gyung, the founding member who first discovered the ice stone. He looks way younger than Heo Yeom, and this is later funnily explained as that Heo Yeom burned his master’s body after believing he had died while meditating, while in truth he had just reached Hwansu and his soul had temporarily driven outside of his body. As his body was being burned, Master Lee’s soul had no choice but to settle in the tiny body of a child that had died on the street, and that’s why he’s now a lot younger than his own student. Seriously, the flashback scene in which the little kid went at Heo Yeom for burning his body was hilarious.
Accompanied by a dog that holds one of Jinyowon’s relics that’s able to identify soul shifters (Gwigu), Master Lee Cheol is immediately able to see that Moo Deok is occupied by a very powerful soul shifter, but he chooses to let her go when he sees the special bond between her and Wook. He becomes an asset in Wook’s training and starts making more frequent appearances in the capital as the story unfolds.
To be fair, Wook struggles a lot throughout his training. While his overall progress is very quick for someone who only recently had his gate of energy opened, his lack of earlier training and control of skill poses many challenges. Still, Nak Soo doesn’t easily give up on her pupil and helps him reach Ryusu by additionally teaching him Tansu, which is a type of advanced swordsmanship that Nak Soo herself is infamous for.
As Moo Deok, Nak Soo takes on a quirky and cheeky persona who’s not shy to snap back at people and speak her mind. She manages to sneak into Wook’s life so smoothly that no one stops to think about how she suddenly turned up, or even make the link that he started developing his skills from the moment she appeared by his side. Because everyone believes Nak Soo is dead at this point – her body has been burned on a pyre by then – Moo Deok is pretty free to do as she pleases as long as no one finds out she’s the one teaching Wook. Luckily they also have Master Lee to point to when someone asks about Wook’s training, but most of his progress is made when Master Lee is away, so they can’t be too obvious about it.
Despite her attempts to lay low, it doesn’t take long for Moo Deok to also catch the attention of Crown Prince Go Won. Wook has to defeat the Crown Prince in a duel to complete his training, and as a result Moo Deok also has multiple run-ins with him. Despite his aloof nature the Crown Prince develops a certain fondness of her. You could even say he starts liking her and becomes a bit envious of the relationship between her and Wook when he realizes how deeply they are connected.

As much as I loved the slowburn between Wook and Moo Deok/Nak Soo, and how they didn’t just develop feelings but also genuine respect, trust and loyalty for each other, I couldn’t help but feel that their love was ultimately cursed. It’s really sad if you think about it: both their lives were ruined from the get-go because of the alchemy of souls. Both Wook’s birth and Nak Soo’s familicide wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Jin Moo’s involvement with the alchemy of souls. Wook’s birth even led to Nak Soo’s familicide. The fact that they met under these circumstances is both miraculous and tragic, because it’d always stand between them no matter what. Furthermore, you could say their relationship is quite messy because Wook basically falls in love with someone who is trapped inside someone else’s body. So who is he really in love with then? Moo Deok, Boo Yeon or Nak Soo? The same thing happens in the second season, when Boo Yeon’s body is restored with Nak Soo’s original appearance, and their souls are basically cohabiting within one body. It’s all very complicated and it just made me feel very sorry for Wook, because he just didn’t seem to get a chance to fall in love with Nak Soo while she was completely herself. There was always something standing in the way of them sharing a carefree future together, and that constantly clouded over them. Fortunately, this was finally enabled at the end of the second season, as Boo Yeon allows Nak Soo to return to Wook’s side after they finally defeat the Fire Bird, but it definitely had me anxious for the majority of the story.
Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed the build-up in the relationship between Wook and Nak Soo. While Nak Soo is kind of hot-and-cold in contrast to Wook, who makes his affection towards her clear from the start, she simply isn’t able to suppress her feelings for him. I loved how naturally they both eventually accepted this, how at some point they both just went, ‘huh, I guess I’m really in love with this person’. It happened so naturally and I really enjoyed watching it unfold. It all came together so nicely and I was rooting for them the entire way.

There are so many beautiful and significant moments in the development of their relationship, and I loved how they kept referring back to those in the second season. Wook remembered everything Nak Soo had ever said to him and was immediately able to recognize it when people said similar things. Also the yin-and-yang jade bird egg straps, the story about the bird on top of the tall tree and how she always bought the honey biscuits he liked so much… There were a lot of little things that had such an important meaning between the two of them and that was really nice. It really shapes a couple when they get to have inside jokes and objects that link them together. Not to mention the KISSING SCENES 😳🫣🔥Take note directors, this is what I mean by a properly executed explosion of passion as the result of a slowburn romance.

Let’s talk a bit more about Crown Prince Go Won. I think it’s safe to say that in terms of character development, this guy is one of the highest on the list. He is initially introduced as a bit of a jerk, but as he gradually gets attached to Moo Deok and starts noticing weird behavior within his own family, he ultimately becomes one of Wook’s biggest allies. I was really happy that he was open-minded enough to actually see for himself that his mother was acting weird and that his father started succumbing to greed more and more. In his situation, it must’ve been incredibly risky to openly go against his own parents, the King and Queen, but he did it anyway. He may have held some personal grudges against Wook, but at least he came clean about it in the end, he was honest about his feelings and he ended up on Wook’s side because everything about the way his parents behaved just felt instinctively wrong to him. Despite the fact that he wasn’t aware of a whole lot of things, the fact that his antenna picked up on this was very helpful.
Ultimately, I have to say the Crown Prince became one of my favorite characters, maybe even my favorite character. I just loved how his personality would switch from self-important and dominant to flustered and flabbergasted. He really cracked me up at times and I LIVED for the love-hate bromance that formed between him and Wook. The scene where the yin-and-yang jade eggs brought them together and they were embarrassed by how excited they had felt 😂. And his relationship with that turtle in season two 😭🙏🏻 I just KNEW that when Jin Moo told him he’d gotten rid of it because it was ‘a sign of weakness’, he wouldn’t let it go, and then when Wook asked him later why he chose to cut ties with Jin Moo he was like, ‘because he got rid of my turtle’ I was like I KNEW IT! I KNEW HE WASN’T GOING TO LET THE TURTLE THING GO 😂. That was iconic and probably my favorite part of the second season, lol. I’m just going to screenshot it here so it won’t ever be forgotten. The Crown Prince and his turtle, a better love story than Twilight.

I really liked his role, and how he, as the only one in his family apparently, was able to reflect on his own feelings of greed and pettiness in order to become a better person and stand on the right side of history. He was a really nice supporting character to have around, someone the leads could always rely on for help. I have to admit I was really scared that Jin Moo would suddenly decide to kill him or switch souls with him or something. Luckily he remained safe and finally became King in the final episode, so all was well.

Moving on to the Crown Prince’s cousin, Seo Yool can be seen as the gentle and good-looking second male lead of the series. While there isn’t really a typical love triangle in the story, there does seem to be some lingering tension between him and Nak Soo in the beginning. As it happens, they met before in Danhyanggook when they were both still teens, and befriended each other in secret. Yool never found out who she was, and as soon as she found out he was linked to the four families she cut ties with him and disappeared. However, it’s clear that they both still remember their friendship from that time and never completely let go of their fond feelings for each other. Yool initially realizes his friend must be Nak Soo when they examine her body in Cheonbugwan and find a bird-shaped bird whistle she’s wearing. Yool gave this whistle to his friend before she disappeared, so it doesn’t take him long to realize they must be the same person. The whistle passes between Yool and Moo Deok a couple of times and it continues to play a symbolic part in their relationship throughout the story.
The loyalty and friendship between Yool and Wook never wavers and I really loved that Wook, despite the fact that he became so gloomy in season two, continued to show a genuine happy expression whenever he saw Yool. I just generally loved the friendship between Yool, Dang Goo and Wook, the scenes where they were playing around together and joked about Park Jin’s awful cooking skills were so funny.
Throughout the story, Yool is also the person who figures out the most pieces of information by himself. He tended to also keep things to himself until he had fully investigated the bigger picture, and although I think it was smart of him to first check what was going on before sharing loose pieces of information with everyone else, there were also things he deliberately kept to himself, such as the knowledge that Moo Deok was Nak Soo, or in season two that he was slowly dying inside from that bloodworm So Yi gave him. While his character’s personality remained quite consistent during the two seasons, I do like to think he got a different twinkle in his eyes in part two. He seemed to have become a bit more determined and zesty while trying to keep his mysterious illness hidden and I honestly liked seeing that side of him (although the reason was awful, of course).
His relationship (if that’s the right term for it) with So Yi was quite peculiar. I think it proved Yool’s good nature that, despite the fact that he didn’t reciprocate the feelings she had for him, he still cared about her enough that he didn’t want her to die for him. He still considered her putting that bloodworm into his bloodstream to save his life as a good deed, regardless of what it ultimately did to him. The scene where she died afer refusing to tell who she’d given the bloodworm to and he came to fight Jin Moo’s men to the point of completely collapsing himself was really intense. I was convinced they wouldn’t let Yool die because he was Yool (no further reason needed), but it was still a very thrilling part of the second season.

Speaking of Dang Goo, I really loved him as well. He may not have gotten as involved in the whole Nak Soo business as his friends, but I honestly think it was for the better, because he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret for very long. Dang Goo was an absolute cinnamon roll and I loved his romance with Cho Yeon, they were so incredibly adorable together. I was terrified that Moo Deok would actually kill them when she was hypnotized. Honestly, that whole scene where they confronted her after she killed Cho Yeon’s father I was just yelling at my screen that they needed to run away because they didn’t have enough clarity of the situation to understand that Moo Deok wasn’t herself and she would actually kill them without hesitation.
I thought it was funny that Dang Goo’s hair was dyed blond in season one, it was such a ‘modern’ element that you normally don’t see in historical dramas. The fact that he changed his hair color back to black in the second season seemed to signal his maturity most of all. He had become the new leader of Songrim after Park Jin had stepped down, which meant that he got new responsibilities and couldn’t afford to play around anymore. It was so typical of him that he showed such growth and maturity in how he carried himself around Songrim but still teared up as soon as he saw Cho Yeon again after three years. He loved her so much 😭😭.

To be honest, I had mixed feelings about Cho Yeon for a while. Maybe it was because her mother liked isolating the Jin family from Songrim, but as one of The Four Seasons she didn’t seem as close with the others as the three guys were. I was kind of curious to know more about what exactly the history between her and Wook was, because it did seem like she fancied him and still wanted to go through with marrying him before she realized she was falling for Dang Goo.
She also pulled some immature stuff, such as putting the blame for breaking the yin-and-yang jade on Moo Deok and refusing to provide Moo Deok with an alibi when the latter was literally being framed for murder, only because she didn’t want to admit that they’d seen each other at a shabby place where she went to get tickets to a magic show for her and Dang Goo. On the one hand I guess it was admirable of her to stand by her family no matter what and always obey her mother, but she had to admit at some point that bad things were happening and her mother was being unreasonable. She kept letting go of Dang Goo’s hand in favor of her own family, and I just wished she’d been a bit more defiant for what she herself believed to be right. When she actually blamed Dang Goo for not protecting her father from being killed by Moo Deok when they finally saw each other again after three years, I was like ‘nahh girl… don’t even go there’. I just hope that was her trying to act cold in front of her guards, because she did come back to him pretty soon afterwards.

One thing I found peculiar was that, while there was no hesitation in creating some incredibly passionate kissing scenes between Wook and Nak Soo, the relationship between Dang Goo and Cho Yeon remained quite innocent and pure. Even after they confirmed they’d actually slept with each other, they pretty much remained 😳🫢 and they didn’t even get a proper kissing scene even though their relationship progressed much faster and steadily than the main leads’. I wonder why they only gave the real ‘hot’ intimacy scenes to the leads and brushed the other romantic relationships off as something more innocent or comical.

I’ll say a bit about Jin Ho Gyung as well because she’s a pretty important character in the story. I can’t really say that I liked her character per se, but just as with all characters, I still understood where she was coming from. She was just an over-protective mother who lost her eldest (and admittedly, probably favorite) daughter after barely being able to give birth to her, and then she finds out her own brother and husband have been betraying her for ten years while taking advantage of her desperation to find her child. It’s an unforgivable thing to take advantage of someone’s desperation like that, but it just goes to show that Jin Moo really didn’t care about anything but his own gain. After being betrayed by so many close people, I could understand how isolated she must’ve felt. Her main priority was to protect Jinyowon, her birthright and the legacy of her family. At some point she didn’t even let people in whom she must’ve known where trustworthy, purely because she didn’t want to allow herself to trust anyone outside her own closed circle of family anymore. In the end she was even prepared to give her life while trying to stop Jinyowon from collapsing, because that was the most important thing to her, not to get herself to safety. You can’t deny that the dedication of this woman to protect what she was born to was remarkable, even though it made her quite cold to people who were really on her side. Then again, as I said, I could also understood it from her side.

Next up are two other favorite characters, Park Jin and Maidservant Kim. Just in general, I loved that they gave all the solemn-looking male characters like the Crown Prince, Park Jin and Master Lee such lovely and unexpected quirky sides. They really made the show for me.
After being introduced to Park Jin for the first time and seeing how strict he was to Wook and how he kept refusing him entrance to Songrim, it came as such a relief to see him express how he really felt about the whole situation. Whenever he spoke with Wook privately, suddenly this concerned father figure came out who only wanted to keep him safe. I truly believed he wanted to open Wook’s energy gate and let him into Songrim more than anything, but Gwanju Jang Gang had personally made him swear to never do so and he just couldn’t afford to break that promise because he assumed it was for Wook’s own safety.
I loved how he continued to be such a loyal figure in Wook’s life, no matter his strictness and policy to stick to Songrim’s rules, Wook could always come to him with his suspicions and he always took them seriously. He was probably the first person who started suspecting Jin Moo and kept looking for ways to bust him in his actions. I really loved the dynamic between Park Jin and Wook, how they really were a team. After that whole ordeal where one of the Queen’s soul-shifter eunuchs suddenly turned up after Wook and Moo Deok witnessed him turn into stone and Park Jin scolded him for causing such a fuss about nothing, they went outside and Park Jin was like, ‘I know you weren’t lying’. Like, just having a person like that around who would always believe him and have his back was so important, and Park Jin was that person to him.
The moments through which I grew to love him the most were when he was with Maidservant Kim, because they were the best couple ever. All his quirks and silly sides came out when he was with her, and I loved how they kept going back and forth in trying to confirm their feelings for each other. How he would get sulky when thinking she was seeing Master Lee or that she hadn’t meant certain things he had interpreted as signals added so much to the likability of his character. He was the best guy. In season two he became a bit more of a comic relief character since he picked up energy-induced cooking and produced one bad-tasting dish after the other. But he remained so loyal and strong until the end, and it almost physically killed me when he was ‘killed’ during the Fire Bird incident.

🌟ALL HAIL MAIDSERVANT KIM🌟 Seriously, this woman was the GOAT. Not only in how she was literally the best mother figure Wook could ever have wished for, but also because she held such genuine empathy and loyalty towards the people around her in general. I loved her to bits. She was such a bright presence in any situation, she loved and cared so much for Wook and she wished him all the best in the world. Her personality was so refreshing and it just put a smile on my face whenever she appeared on screen. I loved her real-talk sessions with Park Jin and how she constantly reprimanded him for being so slow-witted. It felt like they had known each other for a very long time and the fact that she was part of the Jang family’s household staff didn’t stand in the way of how she was allowed to speak to the family leaders. She was such a great addition to the cast of characters, always there to provide support even though she was kept out of the darker plots of the story (which I’m actually thankful for).
Her relationship with Park Jin was so incredibly precious. When they finally confirmed their feelings for each other (which she had to spell out for him because he still thought she was pining for Master Lee, lol) they were such a cute couple. I really loved how their relationship developed in the second season.

What I mentioned about Dang Goo’s and Cho Yeon’s relationship earlier, about how they were such a solid couple yet didn’t get a kissing scene like the main leads’, the same went for this couple, and I found this a real pity because again, I LIVED for their relationship. I really had hoped they would at least share one beautiful on-screen kiss, but they only did like the funny ‘sweep-you-of-your-feet’ kiss with their faces hidden from view and that was a bit of a bummer, haha. It just made me wonder why none of the other couples were allowed a proper on-screen kiss. I get that they saved the passionate make-out sessions for the main leads, but I just found it a pity that none of the other established couples who were just as precious and adorable and meant to be together got to properly touch lips on screen.

One thing I still don’t condone is that they actually made us witness the deaths of these two people. Not only that, they actually manifested a situation that they jokingly talked about ever since the beginning of the series. They constantly talked about who Maidservant Kim would save first if Wook and Park Jin would be drowning at the same time, for example, but also about whether Park Jin would be able to seal a door forever if Maidservant Kim was still inside, if it meant saving the world or some other very important cause. THE FACT THAT THEY ACTUALLY PUT THEM IN THAT SITUATION. The fact that they actually made Park Jin seal Maidservant Kim inside Jinyowon to stop all the relics from escaping was just CRUEL. To actually make us viewers go through that, watching him die after putting her engagement ring on his pinky finger (I’m still not okay) only to then just pull a uno reverse and be like, ‘JOKE, they’re actually okay’…. that was BRUTAL. That was pure shock value and I don’t condone it. TO THIS DAY. 🤌🏻🤌🏻 Of course I was ecstatic that they were all still alive, but I just didn’t see the meaning in putting us through the entire depiction of them dying like that and then just undoing it. That didn’t sit right with me, they really shouldn’t play with our feelings like that 😭.

As I said, Master Lee was another one of those characters who seemed so self-important and impressive as a formidable mage and master, and then he was given such an adorable side when he fell in love with Maidservant Kim. It was the sweetest thing ever. Of course he didn’t stand a chance against Park Jin, but I loved how he just walked around wearing the scarf she gave him. The way he actually went gross-sobbing in the mountains after finding out Park Jin and Maidservant Kim had confirmed their feelings for each other 🥹🥹 I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy.
Besides that, he was the kind of character that just made me go ‘YES MASTER LEE IS HERE’ whenever the city was in trouble. He was the person to have around in times of turmoil because he just saw through everyone and everything. Seriously, thank the heavens for Master Lee, he was such a great character.
I also loved how he rooted for the relationship between Wook and Nak Soo so much. I think he really made their story come full circle when he established that they may have seemed cursed but actually were meant to be together, as their names literally meant ‘light’ and ‘shadow’, and Nak Soo would be the shadow driving the darkness away from Wook’s light. It was so fitting that he was the one to marry them. He was also one of my favorite characters, I really liked what he brought to the story.

Another genuinely good character that I liked was physician Heo Yeom. He may not have been the most perceptive person or someone who picked up on things very quickly by himself, but he always remained true to Park Jin and Songrim, and he had a really nice energy. The way he just went 🤷🏻‍♂️ when he had to open Wook’s energy gate made me feel like he didn’t mind doing it at all after all this time. I also really loved his dynamic with Master Lee, how he was such an affectionate student and always went ‘Master~🥰’ when he turned up, haha. It was also funny how he would just go 😏😏 when it was suggested that someone liked someone, or when Park Jin was slow to pick up Maidservant Kim’s signals, for example. With the way things were, I was just grateful that Wook had so many allies in Songrim, and Heo Yeom was definitely one of them. I’m really glad he didn’t get caught in the crossfire during any of the events and he always kept a safe distance from Jin Moo, but he was always there to support Wook and Park Jin.

I’ve talked about her a little bit before, but I’ll just mention her again here. At some point, Heo Yeom’s granddaughter Heo Yoon Ok came down to Daeho from a place called Wol Fortress – I’m not entirely sure what this place is but Maidservant Kim allegedly also grew up there – to help out at Sejukwon. She arrived with her loyal maid Soon Yi (Jung Ji Ahn) and upon her arrival she immediately had an encounter with Wook, in which he saved her from a soul shifter that was running wild. It didn’t take long for her to fall for him, especially after she got to treat him at Sejukwon shortly afterwards.
The thing is, I liked her initially because even when she found out Wook wasn’t into her, she never became bitter towards Moo Deok for being the recipient of his affection instead of her. Honestly, I found it a bit peculiar that she did go at Boo Yeon in the second season. I thought it would’ve been much more natural for someone of her status to express disdain towards a servant girl like Moo Deok than someone of similar status like Boo Yeon. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Wook/Moo Deok was already happening when she came round and she wasn’t able to do anything about it, whereas Boo Yeon pretty much appeared out of nowhere and they were suddenly married within a day. Maybe that triggered a sense of unfairness, like ‘I didn’t even get a chance while I’ve known him for longer and where the heck did she even come from?’ Still, I didn’t really like how Yoon Ok acted around Boo Yeon, because it just seemed like she was being petty out of jealousy. That was a bit of a bummer since she’d seemed really cool before in season one.

As we’re on it, I’ll also say some more about So Yi, because I did find her an interesting character. She may have been one of my lesser favorite characters, but I still like to believe that she had a good heart deep down. I think she would’ve been a really good ally to the ‘good side’ had she not been ensnared by Jin Moo’s manipulation. Actually, when she was pretending to still have the bloodworm she already had the chance to play both sides, but she chose to just be a gangster that went around extorting people for money, which was kind of a shame. I totally expected her to sacrifice herself for Yool at some point, that was going to happen beyond any question. She still managed to stick it out for a while, though.
I kept feeling sorry for her in the beginning because she simply shouldn’t have gotten involved in the whole ‘fake Boo Yeon’ scheme. I don’t know what she would’ve done otherwise though, maybe she would’ve outed Moo Deok in a different way, so at least that was avoided. Still, it’s just sad that she got herself into this mess, and she was very much out of her depth once she got stuck in it. Even the thing with the bloodworm, it’s kind of ironic that she actually ended up killing Yool by trying to save his life. Of course she’d been sending him the medicine, but that deed in itself, no matter how well-intended, was also an ill-considered plan that eventually just led to more misery. I would’ve liked to see a more caring and empathic side of her that wasn’t limited to Seo Yool. I still believe she could’ve been a pretty useful asset to Wook’s side.

I’ve already talked about Jin Moo, but he’s such a major character that I have to devote a bit of character analysis to him. What I found interesting about him is that throughout the story, you can see his greed get stronger and stronger. When we’re first introduced to him he wasn’t nearly as far gone as he was at the end of the second season, during Operation Fire Bird. He completely lost it after he finally shifted souls himself for the first time. Before that, he was also greedy but he was way more patient and willing to let his plans gradually play out until he could finally get what he wanted. That’s how it felt to me, anyway. So in a way, despite the fact that his character remained quite stagnant in how slowly he took things, he did develop as well. It was frustrating, but the fact that he continued to wriggle his way out of things and managed to avoid getting caught really made him the ultimate villain. I still can’t believe he let Moo Deok run wild only to use it to redirect the attention from his own responsibility in it, but he did pull it off and that was impressive. I’d rather not use too many positive or complimenting words for him, but I can’t help that I was impressed by how well his plans worked out.
The only thing, and this also has to do with my mixed feelings about the ending of season two, is that the way he spiralled during the Fire Bird thing kind of accelerated without warning. Like, it was way too easy to lure him into Gwido, so I kind of predicted that he would be saved last minute and then all hell would break loose. If they weren’t rushing the ending, I honestly think they wouldn’t have written his ending like that. I just thought the way he ultimately went down wasn’t very like him, he would’ve thought things through way better than that. Anyways, he eventually perished when the Fire Bird was released, according to his own plan. The image of his snakey face manically laughing through the flames will haunt me for a while longer. 🥲

I won’t talk about too many other bad guys, but I just wanted to mention the Queen/Shaman Choi since I also plan to make some cast comments about these two. I’m not entirely sure how or when they managed to get Shaman Choi to shift souls with the Queen, but it must’ve happened a while ago because if I remember correctly, Jin Moo is already shown having secret meetings with the Queen from the beginning of the story. When it was revealed that the Queen was also a soul shifter, I remember that I really felt how dangerous the whole situation was. It was like, with that revelation, it suddenly dawned on me that basically anyone could be a soul shifter, even people who seemed trustworthy. Luckily it didn’t reach as far as Songrim or the inner circle of the main leads, but it still became quite a plot twist when the Queen was revealed to be on the dark side.
I was actually quite surprised when Dang Goo and Cho Yeon busted Cho Yeon’s dad from visiting Shaman Choi’s body that held the Queen’s soul and he didn’t attack them. I’d imagined he would do something, even though Cho Yeon was his daughter, but I guess he did at least love her enough to let it go and he brought the shaman’s body to the castle. That whole scene where they confronted the Queen and Jin Woo Tak ended up stabbing himself and all that, was pretty intense. It was really sad that the Queen wasn’t able to return to her own body. To be honest I don’t even remember what exactly happened with the Queen’s body but in any case she couldn’t return to it.
What I didn’t expect was that the Queen would basically turn into Shaman Choi in terms of bitterness and jealousy in season two. In the second season, the Queen is still stuck in the shaman’s body and she actually starts pining for a younger and more beautiful woman’s body. She becomes pretty much like Shaman Choi herself, desiring the power of the ice stone to shift souls so she can regain youthfulness and vitality. It’s kind of cruel that she never knew that she held the solution to that wish within herself all this time, and Jin Moo ended up taking it out of her to save himself in the end. While I pitied the Queen, she too became mad with greed and bitterness in the end, just like her husband the King, so I didn’t actually feel that bad for what ultimately happened to her. Admittedly, she was another victim of the alchemy of souls who just couldn’t live with what was done to her but she kept trusting Jin Moo, even though he was the one responsible. I didn’t really understand that.

One side character that I haven’t talked about in my analysis but still want to give a shoutout to is Joo Wol (played by Park So Jin), the owner of Chwiseonru. She may have just been a supporting figure who occasionally helped Moo Deok out with conveying information, but I think that she definitely contributed more than that. She took Moo Deok into the brothel despite her blindness and she kept in touch with her even after she started serving Wook at Songrim. While she later told Boo Yeon she wouldn’t say she and Moo Deok had been friends, I definitely think she cared for her. She was a really nice side character to have as a kind of ‘outsider’ source, and she was always on the right side of things. I liked her character.

Something else I haven’t really discussed earlier is the return of Jang Gang. He actually comes back to Daeho at some point at the end of the first season, and he even has a run-in with Wook, although the latter doesn’t recognize him. It was good of him to come back at that moment, even if it was just to reveal the truth and his own involvement in the whole thing surrounding Wook’s birth. He owed him at least that. It was a shame they didn’t get a proper moment in which he could personally explain it to Wook, but this was the least he could do. In a way, he also became a victim of the alchemy of souls and I don’t think he actually rejected Wook as his son in the sense that he blamed him for everything, I just think he was mostly ashamed of himself that he allowed this to happen. He closed Wook’s energy gate purely to make sure something like that would never happen to his family again and I couldn’t fully blame him for that.

Can I just say that both seasons’ finales gave me major Scarlet Heart Ryeo vibes? At some point there was this moment of peacefulness that just felt like a fake sense of security, for example when Wook and Moo Deok got engaged. I just got the feeling everything would suddenly fall apart overnight, and I mean… you could say I was right 🥲. It was just so cruel because they simply just let their guard down where Jin Moo was concerned. Moo Deok wasn’t aware of the bell divination at that point, so she didn’t immediately associate the bell sound with any real danger. I was holding my heart when she was hypnotized because I kept on hoping that she’d snap out of it. Seeing our main character, our heroine who we’d come to love and feel for throughout the whole series, who’d finally broken free of the chains that bound her to the life of a manipulated assassin just lose control like that was really scary.
If there’s one scene that’ll probably keep haunting me, it’s the one where she briefly regained consciousness after stabbing Wook through the heart. The way she slowly realized what was happening and what she’d done was absolutely heartbreaking. The way she just went, ‘Did I do this? Oh my God, I did this’ and just broke down crying while he intertwined his fingers with hers that were already starting to petrify 💔💔 The only good thing about that was that at least she could let Wook know that she hadn’t done it out of her own volition, and he never came to believe that she actually turned on him overnight. For the rest it was incredibly cruel and painful, and what made it even worse was that right after that, she was snapped back into the bell divination and just left him there to escape the Songrim guards. The way Park Jin softly patted Wook to see if he was still responding while calling his name so desperately only continued to kill me inside.
In the second season, the Scarlet Heart Ryeo vibes returned with Operation Fire Bird, when Jin Moo managed to soul-shift into Yool’s uncle just before he withered away and went on a rampage. Honestly, how did the King and the entire Unanimous Assembly suddenly think it was a good idea to burn the whole world down just so they could get to the ice stone? It didn’t make any sense. It was kind of funny how every other person just went, ‘do you seriously even expect anything to be left after you release the Fire Bird, you idiots?!’ 🙃 And then of course there was the whole thing in which they just ‘offed’ Jin Ho Gyung, Maidservant Kim and Park Jin – before pranking us all. The shock value of even suggesting to kill off several important characters at the very end of the last episode just made me relive Scarlet Heart Ryeo and I didn’t care for it one bit, lol. I’m glad that Boo Yeon came into her full powers at just the right moment to save them and Master Lee turned up to heal Park Jin just in time, but it really made me go through some feels I rather wouldn’t have had.

In terms of comparing the two seasons, I’d have to say I liked the first one better than the second. While the second still had me in a chokehold because I just wanted Boo Yeon to remember everything and Wook to realize it was his true love in front of him, there were a couple of things, mostly nearing the end, that I found a bit less than in season one. This isn’t a major criticism, just my opinion, but it did feel to me as if they rushed the ending a bit. While they had been building up to the lake ritual with the Fire Bird throughout the second season, it felt like they suddenly really rushed through it in the final episode, even adding in all those shock value fake deaths before they went ‘One Year Later: everyone was happy and all is right with the world! 😄’ and it just made me go, ‘uhh, okay but my heart is not keeping up with this sudden transition 🥲’. It just felt a little bit forced to me, like they suddenly realized they only had one episode left and were like, ‘oh darn, we still gotta turn it into a happy ending’. So yeah, the ending felt a bit unnatural compared to the rest of the show.
On the other hand, no matter how painful it was, I thought the first season’s finale was phenomenal. It was a properly thrilling and cruel finale which still ended on a hopeful note when Wook was resurrected with the powers of the ice stone and Moo Deok’s body was recovered from the river by Jinyowon last-minute. It was very impactful and despite being mortified with what just happened I remember finding it a really awesome way to end the first season.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this series from beginning to end. It grabbed me from the get-go and didn’t let me go until Wook and Nak Soo were finally officially together. I think it was a very good decision to make this a two-part story that was divided by some years in-between, because it made the transition of the characters from season one to two very realistic. I loved the characters and the world-building actually made me feel like I was there and I didn’t want to leave. I really got attached to Daeho and it’s been a while since I felt so immersed in a story. The cast, the acting, the writing, the soundtrack, everything was spot on. I really, really loved it.

To say a bit more about the soundtrack, I’m definitely going to look up a bunch of songs because the OST gave me goosebumps. When they brought Scars Leave Beautiful Traces by Car, the garden back in the second season I was like YESSSS 🙏🏻 It’s such a banger and it made me yell along every single time.
Seriously, “I will stand here strong ijaeneun I’m never falling down” forever. 🤟🏻
Also, in terms of the title, while Alchemy of Souls is a very clear reference to a significant subject of the story, I can’t help but find it interesting that they chose to name the show after something that ruined most characters’ lives, lol. It feels kind of sadistic, almost 😂. On the other hand, you could also give it a positive twist and say that while the alchemy of souls founded the premise of everyone’s misery, it also enabled the main leads to meet and develop a new destiny, just like how Master Lee changed their cursed love into fate at the end. The fact that it can be perceived as a double-edged sword is very fitting for this series in itself, so I don’t have any particular issue with it.

I can’t believe I made it to this point after several days of rewriting stuff, but we’re finally at the cast comment section! I already said it, but let me just emphasize again how much I loved the entire cast of this series. There were both familiar and unfamiliar faces that showed greatly varying sides to their acting, and I can’t wait to share my notes on a couple of them!

I recently saw Lee Jae Wook as the second male lead in Extraordinary You, but I already knew he was in Alchemy of Souls at the time. It was very interesting to see him in this main lead role, and I think he performed Jang Wook very well. Despite his quite stoic face, I thought he did an amazing job expressing himself through his expressions, and he had great chemistry with his co-stars. It was really refreshing to see him as Wook after his grumpy jerk role in Extraordinary You, lol. It was nice to see him let loose and have fun in this show. He also had great chemistry with both of the female leads in each season. The romance scenes were so incredibly endearing and touching, and the kissing scenes were absolute fire. He just made me want to hug him because people had done him so wrong from the moment he was born. He deserved to be happy and loved, and it was all the more fitting that he found someone who would literally become the shadow to his light. I really liked him in this series and I hope to see more of him in future dramas!

While I’ve seen a couple of shows with Jung So Min, I believe this is the first time I’ve seen her in a historical drama. I first got to know her from Mischievous Kiss, and after that I’ve seen her in The Sound of Your Heart, Because This is My First Life, and from some cameos in What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? and Abyss. I really love Jung So Min, so I was happy to see a full drama with her as the main lead again. I was even kind of hoping that she’d make another appearance in season two – I kind of expected that Boo Yeon’s body, which came to look like Nak Soo because of Nak Soo’s soul, might turn back into Boo Yeon’s original body after Nak Soo’s soul would disappear. I guess I just missed seeing her and Lee Jae Wook together because they had such great chemistry, haha. Anyways, I really liked seeing her in a role that I hadn’t seen her in before, and it was funny to see how she managed to switch between Nak Soo and Moo Deok so effortlessly. I really miss seeing her in dramas, so I hope I get to see her in something else again!

I’ve only seen Go Yoon Jung in one minor role before in He is Psychometric and she appeared in one episode of The School Nurse Files. This was the first time I’ve seen her in a main lead role. I really liked how consistent this show was in its casting, because it sometimes happens that they suddenly change an actor who played someone in the first season to another one in the second season. But at least they remained consistent with Nak Soo, even though she only appeared briefly in the beginning of season one and some flashbacks. Boo Yeon was such a cinnamon roll 🥹 She was just drawn to Wook instinctively (I wonder why 🙃) and I could almost feel in my body how she was constantly being pushed and pulled by him. The way she kept going from 😀 to 😟 as he kept giving her signals and then disappointed her again broke my heart. I just wanted her to regain her memories so badly… 😩🙏🏻 I thought it was really cool how, as soon as she remembered who she was, she went back to Nak Soo’s persona from the first season so smoothly. Like, I could actually recognize the way Nak Soo acted towards Wook when she was Moo Deok in the way Go Yoon Jung portrayed it and that was really nice. She also had great chemistry with Lee Jae Wook, seriously, I can’t stop thinking about those kissing scenes, lol. 🙈🙈 They made a really nice match together. I hope I’ll be able to see more drama appearances of her in the future!

Now that I check MDL I see that I’ve seen Shin Seung Ho before in Love Alarm, where he was the FL’s ex-boyfriend. I would’ve never recognized him from there. But I’ll definitely recognize him now, because now he’ll forever be the Crown Prince. Honestly, I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like to see him in a modern-day drama after seeing him in this show, haha. I think I can definitely say that the Crown Prince was my favorite character of this series. He just caught me off guard with his unexpected silliness! I think it was a great casting decision to choose him, he embodied a really distinct princely air, and that’s probably what made it impossible for me to recognize him from Love Alarm. I actually remember the character he played there, but I just can’t picture his face on him because I can only see him as the Crown Prince now. 😆 Anyways, I really liked his character and the way he took himself so seriously in the funny scenes only made him even more funny to me. He really worked his way into my heart, I can’t explain it any other way. He and his turtle, forever.

I knew that Hwang Min Hyun was a former idol turned actor and that he belonged to the group NU’EST. I saw him in Produce 101 through which he won a place in the temporary group Wanna One, but I hadn’t seen him act in a drama before. I’m definitely going to watch his newest drama My Lovely Liar where he stars alongside my girl Kim So Hyun, but for now this is the only thing I’ve seen him in so far. I think he was probably the best casting choice for Yool, just in terms of his vibe. It was nice that even though he seemed quite frail and mild, Seo Yool really had a lot of power in him and his character never became boring. I also loved that they gave him the quirk of losing his way when he got flustered, lol. He’s very good at keeping a poker face but it was also clear when he was making a joke. I liked his performance and I hope he gets to do more acting projects in the future.

Not me discovering that I actually saw Yoo In Soo in a couple of other series before – I honestly don’t remember him from anything else. He was in Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, School 2017, While You Were Sleeping, My ID is Gangnam Beauty, Gyeryong Fairytale and Love Alarm. I’m definitely going to remember him now that I’ve seen his performance as Dang Goo. As I said in my analysis, I loved his character. He was the sweetest guy and I’m so grateful he never got fatally caught in any crossfire. I just wanted him to be happy with Cho Yeon. 🙏🏻 Dang Goo was the best friend to Wook and Yool and I loved that he was never too proud to show his emotions. You need at least one guy like that in the friend group. I really hope I get to see him in more dramas in the future, because I already miss his energy. 🥹

I knew there had to be a link with Oh My Girl! in the show when they started playing a traditional version of ‘Non-stop’ at Chwiseonru at some point. 😆 I think Arin did a really nice job as Cho Yeon. It was nice that she wasn’t 100% a ‘good girl’ either. When she was introduced as the ‘spring’ of The Four Seasons we’re led to expect that she’s the embodiment of purity and innocence, so it was kind of a nice twist that she also had a sly streak in her, even if that only stemmed from immaturity. Nobody is perfect, right? I really liked how quickly her feelings for Wook switched to Dang Goo though, because I kind of feared that they would make him out to be the guy who kept getting rejected over his more handsome friends or something. Luckily his feelings reached her immediately and I’ll keep saying it but they were so freaking adorable together. They had really cute chemistry. Maybe the fact that they didn’t get a full-on kissing scene like the main leads had something to do with the fact that she’s an idol and it would be kind of controversial to her image or something? I don’t know, but I still find it a pity. Their romance basically only happened off-screen and then they’d just come in with hints that suggested they’d already slept together and stuff. In any case, I liked her performance and I think she fitted the role of Cho Yeon very well.

I haven’t seen Park Eun Hye in anything else before which is kind of surprising because she seemed like such a familiar face, I was convinced I must have seen her in a mother-role or something before. Anyways, I have to credit Jin Ho Gyung because her role seemed to keep growing throughout the story. I found it kind of ironic that the Jin family ended up having a hand in most of the secrets that were being kept hidden within Daeho. The person who wanted the least to do with Songrim and their magical energy ended up being the person who had personally been involved with the ice stone’s powers in the past. Ho Gyung had a lot of skeletons in her closet, but she was also a mother stricken with grief by the disappearance of her daughter. I just couldn’t forget that whenever I found myself judging her for something. She was just desperate for her family name to survive in order to retain control over Jinyowon, and little else mattered to her. She may not have made all the right decisions, but she was dealing with things the way she was taught and sometimes people get stuck in their ways due to their upbringing. I did have to give it to her that she deserved better than a half brother and husband who literally fooled with her a fake daughter just so she would keep Songrim at bay. In hindsight I just find her a very sad and wronged woman. I think the actress portrayed the balance in Jin Ho Gyung’s torment very realistically, she made her into a truly conflicted human being and that was impressive.

If there was anyone I expected to know from another series, it was Yoo Joon Sang, but I haven’t seen him in anything before! Why does he look so familiar? I really loved his portrayal of Park Jin, he really won my heart with his acting. I already miss his silly wide-eyed smile, haha. Seriously, Park Jin and Maidservant Kim were Wook’s real parents and you can’t make me think differently. He portrayed the conflictedness of Park Jin regarding the treatment of Wook’s energy so well and balanced it with a quirky side streak to show what a good-hearted man he really was. He was one of the best supporting characters in this series to me, I honestly can’t imagine what anyone’s life would’ve been like without Park Jin in it. That’s why it scared me so much when I thought they’d actually killed him off 🙃 (still not okay). But yeah, I really loved his performance and I really hope I’ll get to see him appear in more shows!

It honestly wouldn’t have surprised me if Oh Na Ra was an announcer. I don’t even understand fluent Korean but it just sounded to me as if she had such clean diction and articulation – I could easily picture her on the evening news, lol. For some reason my first impression of her was that she would do great in an announcer role, lol. But yeah, speaking of favorite supporting characters, Maidservant Kim is also without a doubt in my top five. I really loved the comical element she brought to her already vibrant personality. Watching her go about her day just makes you happy and she just made me want to give her a big hug. As we don’t get a specific historical background of her character, we can only speculate how much she’s seen throughout the years and how long she’s been serving the Jang family and supported them through so many things. I think a lot became clear from how she and Jang Gang greeted each other when he finally returned, and the warmth in his voice when he saw her after so long must have meant she’d always been an immense asset to the family. I just loved her as Wook’s interim mother. It made me tear up a bit when she told Wook he’d always been like a son to her and he was like, ‘I feel the same way’ 🥹. Their relationship was so precious. I really, really loved her performance in this show and I hope I get to see her shine again.

I’ve only seen Im Cheol Soo before in Crash Landing on You, where I remember he was the insurance guy who refused to give up on finding Se Ri. It was really cool to see him as Master Lee in this show, he became an unexpected gem of a favorite character to me. I just loved how they gave him such an endearing and flustered side underneath that almighty mage master exterior. I also liked that they actually explained why he looked so young, because that flashback was hilarious. His acting presence and energy was so different from his role in Crash Landing on You, and I can only thank the casting directors for giving him the chance to show this side of his acting to us. He really grew on me, and I kept hoping he’d turn up to fix everything. I even felt bad for him when he was indirectly rejected by Maidservant Kim, even though I knew he hadn’t stood a chance. It was nice to see an emotional side of him, even if it became kind of a comical thing. I guess he should’ve just kept drinking his chastity tea. 😆 I really liked his performance in this show and I’m definitely going to remember him from this role.

I was really glad to see Lee Do Kyung in this role because I’ve only ever seen him in grumpy guy roles before! It was very nice to see him move around and talk to people as such a bright and lively character. I’ve seen him in Arthdal Chronicles, Dali and the Cocky Prince and I also remember him from Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I honestly believe this is the first time I’ve seen him play a genuinely good-natured character, lol. I liked that Heo Yeom had a bit of a comical presence within Songrim, despite his renowned status as Daeho’s best physician. He brought a very refreshing energy to the story, even though he himself refrained from getting involved with Jin Moo and Cheonbugwan too much. He was a very loyal friend and ally to Songrim and the Park family, and he always provided help where he could. He may have been quite eccentric for an old man, but he was always there and I also love how much he cared about Wook, Yool and Dang Goo. I really liked to see him as this character in this series, he showed me a new side to his acting, which I always appreciate.

I only know Hong Seo Hee from her performance in The Sound of Magic, where she played the younger version of the magician’s friend. In hindsight I kind of wished she would’ve gotten a clearer purpose in the story, because I think it’s a waste to just mention her as a girl who happened to have a one-sided crush on Wook. What I did respect about her was that she retained her dignity as a physician. No matter how petty she got towards Boo Yeon in season two, there was no danger of her actually physically harming her out of jealousy. She really just worried about Wook a lot, and I can’t fully blame her for getting suspicious of every new strange person that suddenly made their way into his life, especially after what happened to Moo Deok. It was nice to hear that she was allegedly seeing someone in the one-year-later time jump, because at least that meant that she was moving on and setting out to find her own happiness. I really liked her in the first season, I just think she deserved a more stand-alone purpose as a character, because she could’ve definitely pulled that off.

It’s kind of wild to think that the actress who plays So Yi is the same person as the ‘YOU KNOW I HAVE NO CHINGU’ lady from A Business Proposal, lol. I’ve also seen Seo Hye Won before in True Beauty and Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and most recently in Nevertheless,. I found her an interesting choice for the role of So Yi. I’ve already established my mixed feelings about the character and her motivations, but I was actually quite impressed by her immersed acting in this role, especially when she had to endure all of Jin Moo’s tortures in order to become Jin Boo Yeon. She showed a very wide emotional range and gave me completely different vibes from what I was used to, so that was really cool. It was a surprise to see her appear in this drama – I also never saw her in a historical drama before – but I think she acted out the role very well. I’m sure I’m going to see her in lots of dramas to come!

When I think of Jo Jae Yoon, I’m mostly reminded of all the comical roles I’ve seen him in, so guess my surprise seeing him as Jin Moo, the most seriously evil villain ever. I was positively surprised by the genuine malice he managed to exude. Dramas I’ve seen him in before include The Master’s Sun, Descendants of the Sun, Fantastic and most recently Wok of Love. He really impressed me with his portrayal of Jin Moo, although I sometimes couldn’t help cringe a little at his typical smirks and the way he made his upper lip tremble when he was angry, lol. As far as I can remember I’ve only ever seen him in roles where he was a hard-headed, stubborn stingy guy that was only out for creating trouble, but his performance in this series – and I mean this in the most respectful way – finally made me take him seriously. I feel like he tends to be the kind of actor who tries to be funny, which often results in him getting a bit cringy, but here I was 100% intimidated by him. I’m really glad he got the opportunity to play a role like this and show that he is more than just a comical actor who often gets type-casted in the same kinds of roles. Despite the fact that Jin Moo frustrated the heck out of me to the extent I sometimes couldn’t even look at his smug face for too long, I thought he was very fitting for this role and he really outdid himself, from my perspective. Consider me impressed!

I just wanted to mention Kang Kyung Heon and Shim So Young as a pair here because I wanted to compliment the acting of the Queen and Shaman Choi. Seriously, they really let themselves go in expressing their madness. When the Queen started manically laughing as she was exposed, it sent literal shivers down my spine. I really wanted to compliment these two actresses for their explosive acting, lol. I recently saw Kang Kyung Heon in Birth of a Beauty where she was one of the sisters-in-law (the sheer difference in acting with her role in this show, lol). I hadn’t seen Shim So Young in anything before, but I was also very impressed with the intensity of her acting. She really brought out the desperation and greed of the Queen who was stuck in an elderly shaman’s body, and she became proper scary at some point. I thought they both acted out their roles really well.

Apparently I’ve only seen Park So Jin before in a minor role in The King: Eternal Monarch, but I don’t clearly remember her from that. She has such a familiar face, though. 🤔 Anyways, I really liked Joo Wol’s character. She might have stayed primarily in the background, but she still contributed a lot behind the scenes. I liked how she became Moo Deok’s go-to person whenever she needed to get away from Wook for a while. I think she gave herself way less credit in terms of how much she contributed to Nak Soo’s new life as Moo Deok, and I’m just happy she never got to see So Yi’s real face when she came to Chwiseonru that one time – the fact that she missed her actually saved her life. I thought she was a really nice familiar presence in the story, and I thought she needed to be properly credited, both as a character and an actress.

And then for the final shoutout, Joo Sang Wook as Jang Gang! I was really surprised to see him in this drama, also because I’d never seen him in a historical drama before but also because his vibe was so different from what I’ve seen of him so far. I’ve seen him in Birth of a Beauty, Fantastic and Fates and Furies. As my most recent association with him is his role in Birth of a Beauty, his role in Alchemy of Souls couldn’t have stood in starker contrast. It honestly felt like he was a different person, he even had a different sort of look in his eye. He seemed really focussed and immersed in the role, compared to the goofy style of acting I’ve seen him perform before. I thought it was really cool to see such an unexpected new side of him, and to still see him in contemporary dramas. It just feels like he doesn’t really appear in that many series these days, or I’m just missing out, lol. In any case, I really liked seeing him make an appearance in this series.

We’ve finally reached the end of this monster review! I’m not even kidding when I say that I spent almost a week on it. I’ve never spent that much time on a review before, but I kept struggling to find a way to include all the important information without getting too lengthy. There’s just so much to this drama, I haven’t been able to cover every single person and event that plays a significant role, but I’ll leave it at this since I’ve covered the majority of what I wanted to say about it.
I really, genuinely, thoroughly enjoyed watching this show. It exceeded my expectations (if I had any) and it proved that, despite it not being my go-to genre, magical themes in series can still work their way into my heart. Except for a few things with regards to some characters and the ending of the second season, I honestly don’t have much to criticize on. It really took me on a journey to this world and I feel like I was actually a part of it. Part of me didn’t even want it to end, because then I’d had to say goodbye to all these wonderful characters that I’d grown to love so much. Of course, all good things come to an end, and this show is no exception. I’m really grateful for this watching experience.

What a way to start the new year! I’m super excited about the next show that’ll come out of my Wheel of Fortune. Let’s hope it doesn’t start spitting out multi-season shows one after another now, because once my new semester starts I won’t have as much watching and writing time as I happened to have when I was finishing this, lol. In any case, I hope I was able to make this a worthwhile review, I had fun writing it – once I finally managed to decide on a structure 🙃.
While I hope I can start on a new show as soon as possible, it will probably take me some time to officially bid this one farewell. It has a special place in my heart now.

I’ll be back with a new review, who knows when!
Keep an eye out for it 😉

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.

Empty Body
( 인간 증명 / Ingan Jeungmyeong / Human Proof)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

We’ve reached the final episode of this anthology! It’s been a wild ride and I probably wouldn’t have been able to finish all eight episodes within this short time span if I’d still had a lot of deadlines, so I’m grateful for that. It would’ve been fine if I hadn’t been able to finish them all before the end of the year, but it still gives me a satisfying feeling that I’ll be able to close off the year by finishing another series in time. This final episode ties in very neatly with the overall vibe of the series and I personally found it a very fitting conclusion for the anthology as a whole. It also made me repeatedly think of other episodes while I was watching it. It’s interesting because my overall feeling of the second half was that the stories started to stray from the ones from the first half in terms of theme, setting and focus, but this one really took me back to how I felt while watching the first couple of episodes. I had to watch this episode more than once as well because there is very little dialogue and you have to interpret a lot from the images and the silences, but I think I gained a good enough understanding of it now.

SF8: Empty Body is the eighth and final episode in the SF8 anthology. It has a duration of about 53 minutes and was directed by Kim Eui Seok. It’s based on the short story ‘Five Stages of Independence’ by Iruka.

Set in another ‘near future’ context, this story introduces us to probably the most groundbreaking scientific development of all: we have become able to bring people back from the dead. Through a research project from TRS (we know that name) it has become possible to reassemble and revive a deceased person by using robotic parts and reconnecting their brain to an AI system. In summary, we can bring back the dead – as androids.
The main story of this episode focusses on a woman called Ga Hye Ra (played by Moon So Ri) who has recently lost her son Kim Young In (played by Jang Yoo Sang) in a car accident. Besides his life he also lost most of his body, but doctors were able to revive part of his brain. A year after the accident Hye Ra built a robot in her son’s likeness and volunteered for the TRS research project through which they were able to connect her son’s brain to an AI-system, enabling the android (A-796) to wake up. After the initial relief and gratitude Hye Ra felt through getting her son back, after some time she started noticing a change in his behavior. He became gloomy and seemed to have lost the light in his eyes. This understandably worried Hye Ra and she decided to run another test to make sure Young In was doing okay. Through this test, it was revealed that what had remained of her son’s consciousness had been deleted from the system. They can’t determine for sure when this happened and for how long Young In had been gone, but it’s suspected that A-796 is responsible for it. As a result, the android has been arrested and put behind bars, awaing a trial.
If it isn’t already hard enough for Hye Ra to deal with her son’s loss twice while being faced with an android that constantly reminds her of him, A-796 itself also keeps going back and forth in its testimony. While it first refuses to admit that Young In has been destroyed and that he’s still himself, it then admits that he deleted him from the system because Young In asked him to, and finally claims to have deleted Young In from the system deliberately because what remained of his life was pathetic and it wanted to get back at humans for denying and dismissing its existence and consciousness as a machine.
Going through several stages of grief and processing her loss (which I assume the title of the original short story refers to), Hye Ra ultimately realizes that what she needs to process is not the fact that A-796 ‘murdered’ her son, but the fact that her son might have actually tried to commit suicide.

The earliest suggestion of suicide is mentioned in one of the first scenes, when Hye Ra is being questioned by a police detective. He asks her about the car accident, and when she says that despite many possible explanations they never managed to find what caused it, he asks if suicide was included as a possibility as well. To this, Hye Ra literally says, “He was okay the day before. I’d like to think there was a defect in the car.” Also, when asked if she ever thought to talk to Young In about the reason for the accident after he was revived, she just says that she thought about asking him but decided not to because the question lost its meaning to her after she got him back. As she processes her grief and finally faces the facts of the story she’s built around Young In’s accident, she gradually starts opening her mind to the possibility that she may not have known about her son’s feelings all that well from the start.

I think this episode did a very good job in subtly weaving pieces of truth and doubt throughout the story. While Hye Ra starts out very determined about her truth and what happened, the conversations and confrontations she has with the android throughout the story clearly make her doubt herself. She makes a very clear transition from condemning the android to reflecting on her own responsibility to actually trying to accept A-796 at the end.

While I believe that the main stages of understanding are established through every single conversation Hye Ra and A-796 have together, there’s a lot of in-between stages as well, and I have to admit I didn’t understand all of them. I just kind of brushed everything off as an indicator that Hye Ra was processing her grief in different ways but there are definitely a couple of scenes that puzzled me.
For one, the scenes where it seemed like Young In’s ghost was hanging around the house. I mean, Hye Ra does have an encounter with her son’s ghost at the end, which is what makes her decide to try and accept A-796, but it was still a bit vague to me. There’s a scene where Hye Ra wakes up in the middle of the night and she hears sounds and even goes, “Young In, is that you?” What was with the tap water starting to pour, the door opening and the light going out? Was that actually his ghost?
Furthermore, I still don’t understand what her dinner guests were referring to when they kept saying they could see something outside. I’m guessing they weren’t just talking about the moon.
There’s also a scene in which Hye Ra talks to the empty chair in front of her as if she actually sees her son sitting there. It’s more than just talking to herself, the look in her eyes and the way she directs her words really seem to suggest she’s talking to someone opposite her that we can’t see. Things like this also made me question Hye Ra’s own mental state a little, because who was to say if she wasn’t starting to see things? I find that I’m still kind of justifying it as that those were all parts of her grieving process, because it didn’t seem like she actually had any mental issues at the end when she took A-796 back in.

I mentioned in the introduction that there was a lot left to interpretation. Many things aren’t actually put into words and there are a lot of silences that add to the grim vibe of the episode as a whole. However, I couldn’t help but think that the dialogues that were included were exceptionally powerful, and that also went for the monologues.
As mentioned before I believe that a new phase in Hye Ra’s grief was established through every conversation she had with A-796. After their first conversation in one of the first scenes of the episode in which A-796 keeps claiming that he is Young In and even starts guilt-tripping his mother for doubting him, Hye Ra actually starts doubting herself. We see her ask the police detective directly afterwards if there’s a possibility to do another double-check, and if there could be an error in the test results.
After their next meeting during the trial, where three other people including A-796’s defense attorney are present and the android starts saying that he killed Young In because he looked down on him and what remained of his life, Hye Ra seems to realize a deeper truth about A-796. She doesn’t get mad at it, it’s more like she sees right through it as if she knows it’s lying and it actually helps her to let go of Young In a bit faster, as is revealed to her dinner guests not much later.
Their third conversation is another private one, and this takes place at home, when Hye Ra has taken A-796 back in after having the final encounter with Young In’s ghost. Here, A-796 provides her with the final confirmation of why it deleted Young In, and the fact that Young In hadn’t even wanted to be revived in the first place. This is a very powerful dialogue as it officially confronts Hye Ra with the fact that she has indeed created a more convenient story around her son’s tragic accident, and she was never able to find it in herself to acknowledge that her son might’ve wanted to end his own life.
Their final conversation about the discussion regarding whether or not to change A-796’s face and wipe his memory to allow him to live on as Hye Ra’s son without being a constant reminder of Young In, finally leads to Hye Ra’s acceptance towards the fact that she can’t run away from the truth anymore. In her final lines she admits that they will just stay like this, A-796 will continue to look like Young In and they’ll keep fighting about it, they’ll have good and bad days, but that’s what their life will be like from now on.
I personally found it a really powerful ending because it was gave a pretty satisfying closure to the episode. Through A-796’s persuasion, Hye Ra finally dealt with her remaining traces of grief. Even if she was already able to let go of Young In, I still felt like her agreeing to take A-796 in on the condition to change its appearance so it wouldn’t remind her of Young In anymore was still a sign of running away, or at least avoiding having to face the truth about her son again. A-796 had mentioned that the memories and pain it had shared with Young In had become a part of it, and it didn’t want to be turned into something else just so Hye Ra would be able to deal with it more easily. They both lost a part of themselves through Young In’s death and deletion, and it wasn’t fair to just reset A-796 so only Hye Ra would get to keep those memories.

The relativity of the term ‘selfish’ also became quite a main thing in this episode. Hye Ra describes A-796 as such several times, to scold it for making her go through this, and she even says it to her son’s ghost when he appears to her. On the other hand, I thought there were several instances in which Hye Ra also displayed very selfish behavior. I mean, fair enough, A-796 was just a machine so you could say it didn’t have any right to decide on anything, but its human-like sentiments were undeniable. Hye Ra was the best example of someone who kept dismissing its relevance because it was a machine, she never acknowledged that it could have wishes of its own. Until the very end she keeps claiming that, as Young In’s mother, she has more ownership over his body and so she gets to decide what happens to him.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel that it was very mature of her to put in effort to actually understand and accept A-796’s point of view and acknowledge that, during the time of their merge, there must have been things her son and the android talked about that she didn’t know of. She definitely showed great reflective skills, and I appreciated that about her, all the more since she was able to develop them while she was already dealing with a lot of other confusing feelings regarding Young In’s death.

We only find out part of the truth of Young In’s real feelings through a short flashback that A-796 shares exclusively with its attorney (played by Ryu Abel). In this flashback we could see the revived Young In as he was seemingly having a conversation with A-796 in his head. It’s not like you hear two voices, and it’s more like a one-sided conversation so it’s a bit hard to grasp, but it eventually ends with Young In saying, “I will tell you how disappointed I am in this life of mine.” This information was allegedly submitted as evidence to the court, as the attorney establishes that the words Young In used proved his pessimistic emotional state and should therefore suffice as evidence.
All in all, I think the trial scene was my favorite scene of the whole episode. It was so interesting to go back and forth between Hye Ra’s reflections regarding her own responsibility in what happened to her son after they revived him, the attorney’s defense towards A-796 in how it only did its best to execute what humans had programmed it for and A-796’s sudden confession of its resentful feelings towards humans. This scene alone proved that there were so many different sides to the story, and yet no one would truly know the truth because none of the involved parties were 100% reliable. The only person who knew what truly happened was Young In, and with him gone all the other parties just ended up speculating. One could say that A-796 would know the truth since he executed the deletion, but there’s also something to be said about the android’s credibility as it also states three different truths throughout the story. We as viewers aren’t witness to the moment Young In gets deleted, not even in the flashback, so it’s basically left to our interpretation of what went down and who should be blamed for what. Should there even be any blame placed on someone? It created a really interesting discussion.

As mentioned before this episode made me feel the same way I did when watching the first couple of episodes in the anthology, and maybe that’s also why I found a couple of references and links to earlier stories. First of all, I think it’s safe to say that the manufacturing company TRS is definitely a main recurring thing, and it also links to many messy situations when it comes to its android business. It’s also the manufacturer of the caretaker robots from The Prayer, and it was mentioned in Joan’s Galaxy as the manufacturer of the purifying suits as well. As soon as there was a mention of a TRS research project I was like, “right, we could’ve guessed TRS had something to do with the malfunctioning android”, lol.
I also found it typical how the function of A-796 was described not only as a way to support Young In to live on as he did before but also to lessen Hye Ra’s sense of loss. That reminded me of how the caretaker robots were all equipped with the same face as the patients’ guardians, to both give the patient a sense of familiarity and to lessen the caretaking duties of the human guardians.
Much like Gan Ho Joong, A-796 was assigned to support and help a specific ‘patient’ and ended up ‘killing’ him because it thought that was what it had to do in order to help him. It was programmed by humans to oblige to its ‘patient’s’ will. In the meantime, again much like Gan Ho Joong, it developed certain human-like sentiments towards its ‘patient’. Furthermore, it actually started questioning certain actions that were only attributed to humans. I remember how in The Prayer, Sister Sabina kept telling Gan Ho Joong that it wasn’t supposed to kill a human or even pray to God, as that was something that ‘only humans’ were allowed to do. In a sense, A-796 also acknowledged that people generally didn’t give it recognition as an entity with a will of its own, and that’s why it allegedly decided to develop a will in order to prove them wrong.
Another reference I found was the TRS research project in itself. It’s described as connecting the human brain to an AI-system. This sounded remarkably familiar to the military experiment from Blink, which caused Captain Baek Jung to lose his mind. Didn’t that experiment strive to enhance human skills by adding cybernetic technology to their DNA or something? I know there was no mention of the TRS name in Blink and it might just be a coincidence but it still reminded me of it.
Lastly, and this has only happened in one other episode so far, but two actors that made an appearance in this episode also appeared in Manxin. Seeing as they both were completely different people these guest appearances have kind of confirmed for me that the stories must be taking place in alternative universes or something, but I still found it interesting. I also found it funny that, although the guy who played Ga Ram in Manxin was a plastic surgeon in Empty Body, he still made a reference to fortune-telling by advising about how changing A-796’s face might bring more luck.
Which brings me to another link that’s not specific to this particular episode, but I just realized that apart from the fortune-telling app in Manxin and this casual mention of face reading, Mrs Yang from Baby It’s Over Outside also performed face readings before she became a superhuman spotter. Might be just another coincidence, but I’m living for these overlapping details, lol.

So yeah, all in all I think this episode’s story was pretty clear and it had a pretty satisfying ending, but it still took me a long time to write this review. I ended up watching the episode three times because even though I thought I understood, I kept blanking out about the details as I was writing.
It was another very well-structured and well-written episode with great cinematography and acting, but I have to admit that it didn’t jump out to me as much as other episodes. I think it also has to do with the slow pacing and the overall grim vibe of the episode. The main characters were all very low in their energy as well and while I know that’s to be expected of a story with grief and loss as its main theme, it did give it a bit of a dreary element. It was a nice addition to at least have Hye Ra come to her senses and confront her own flaws at the end, that made me appreciate her character a lot more.

By the way, I find the divergence in story titles quite interesting. The short story it’s based on is called ‘Five Stages of Independence’, which I assume refers to the stages that Hye Ra goes to in order to eventually manage to live on independently without Young In. But in the episode title we also see a slight difference in meaning. The English title Empy Body quite literally seems to refer to A-796, or at least the body that Young In was deleted from. But the Korean title of the episode literally translates to ‘Human Proof’, and this is more puzzling because it seems to refer to one of the deeper themes of the story. After all, what defines a human in relation to a machine that starts copying human behavior? We’ve seen several depictions of machines that start acting like humans from different motivations (the app Manxin, Gan Ho Joong, even Seo Nang), and while some of them are deliberately granted human-like properties, others are condemned for trying to act like humans. After all, humans are the ones who shape technology, not the other way around, even when the technology is quite literally shaped into a form that reflects a similarity to human beings. It’s all quite intricate and complicated, the relationship between humans and machines. They’re interdependent but they also seem to thwart each other, and this seems to be a major recurring theme throughout this anthology. I don’t actually have an explanation for the title ‘Human Proof’ myself, but I just wanted to point out that I found it interesting that it made another reference to the ceaselessly complicated relationship between human and machine. Because what would actually serve as human proof if it isn’t the ability to judge situations and make decisions based on observations and compassion?

Let’s move on to the cast comments, shall we?

I’ve only seen Moon So Ri in a few other things before such as Legend of the Blue Sea, but I remember her more clearly from The School Nurse Files, which I watched this year. I think she gave a stellar performances. The way she delivered her lines in combination with her facial expressions that continuously expressed Hye Ra’s struggles so vividly was amazing. I remember one instance where she was asking A-796 which ‘part’ of Young In’s body he wanted to keep and she closed her eyes for a moment in the middle of the sentence to indicate how messed up it was that she was even talking about it (at least that’s how I interpreted it), but it just showed such deep understanding of the role and Hye Ra’s feelings that I couldn’t help notice it. I wonder if the script suggested that or if she really came up with that intermission herself throughout her interpretation. In any case, she performed amazingly. I really liked that, despite the fact that we only get to see a relatively cold and detached side of her, she still managed to express all those different emotions and stages of grief so clearly. I also appreciated how she still just decided to accept the android and keep it in her life because she finally acknowledged its own will and wishes. She really grew as a character thanks to Moon So Ri’s performance. Very, very good.

I see that Jang Yoo Sang was in EXO Next Door but it’s been ages since I watched that so I don’t remember him from there. There are a few of his dramas on my watchlist though, so I think I’ll see him again. I’m definitely curious to see him in a more lively role now, haha. I found his performance of A-796 very impressive. I always wonder how people go about playing androids, because he was definitely much more human-like in his movements than for example Gan Ho Joong. In any case, I really liked his acting, especially in the trial scene. It was nice to see him express more emotion in contrast to his usual sad poker face. I’m definitely curious to see more sides of his acting now!

I remember Ryu Abel from her performance in Run On, and she also appeared in My Mister. It was nice seeing another familiar face in this episode, and she definitely made an interesting contributing as the attorney who defended A-796. I also found it interesting that A-796 immediately shared the truth about Young In’s deletion with her while it had been trying to convince Hye Ra that it was actually Young In briefly before that. I wondered about the attorney, to be honest, haha. Was she specifically employed for android cases? The fact that android even got their own designated attorneys in court seemed like quite a judicial development. I thought that she delivered a nice performance despite the short duration of her appearance.

And with that, I have reached the end of this review, and consequently of this anthology. It was a very interesting experience to watch eight episodes in a row like this. It’s actually made me want to watch more drama specials, so who knows what will be added to the list in the future.
For now, I’m not sure what I’m going to watch next, but it’ll probably have to wait until next year because no matter how fun this drama review package was, it has tired me out like you wouldn’t believe, haha. I’m just going to be taking a break until I start my next show, which will be a secret for all of us as I’m going to follow the theme of this anthology and let an app determine my watch order for next year.

I wish everyone a very Happy New Year, and I’m personally looking forward to a lot more interesting watches and new discoveries in 2024.

See you next year! 😀
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 Virtually
(증강콩깍지 / Jeunggangkkongggakji / Augmented Bean Pod)
MyDramaList rating: 6.0/10

Moving straight on to the next episode of this anthology! Can I just mention how much I appreciate the diversity of the themes that are explored throughout all these episodes? It’s so interesting to dive into a new world in each and every story and the variation between lighter and darker themes is also very nice. For example, I would not have expected this episode after the intensely psychological nightmare that was White Crow. Before I started this episode I was expecting something along the lines of the Black Mirror episode ‘Hang The DJ’, as it was about people getting stuck in an online dating simulation. It turned out to be quite different and while it was refreshing to have a romantic comedy episode in-between all the darker and heavier and more emotional stuff, I do have to say that this was the weakest episode for me so far. It lacked depth and I also didn’t really feel a real chemistry between the two main actors, even though they were supposed to be the most established couple in this anthology so far.

SF8: Love Virtually is either the sixth or seventh episode in the SF8 anthology. It has a duration of about 42 minutes (the shortest of all the episodes) and was directed by Oh Gi Hwan.

We’re in the near future and, similar to Manxin, the world has fallen under the spell of an app. This time it’s not a fortune-telling app but a virtual dating app, called Love Virtually. People can log in to this app using a small patch on their temple, and in the simulation they can choose whatever face they like, not only for themselves but also for the person they’d like to meet. It’s announced at the beginning of the episode that Love Virtually has already brought about around 15 million couples, and the number of couples that met through the app greatly outnumbers the ones that met in real-life. The same goes for our main couple, who has met on the app and has now reached their 100-day anniversary. Seo Min Joon, aliased Leonardo (played by Choi Si Won) and Han Ji Won, aliased Giselle (played by Uee/Kim Yoo Jin) are just about to celebrate their 100th day anniversary with the long-awaited first kiss, when the app’s server suddenly crashes. They’re not the only ones who are bummed about the system error – it becomes alarmingly clear how many people have actually become dependent on the app when people actually start vandalizing the company’s building.
Among the disappointment of not being able to meet, the idea eventually arises to meet up in real life. The only issue with this is that both Min Joon and Ji Won don’t actually use their real faces in Love Virtually, and they’re worried about whether the other person will accept them for who they really are.

The first interesting thing to be acknowledged here is that, while people normally make themselves look more attractive and glamorous through dating apps and would rather worry about not looking good enough to the other person in real life, here we see two lead characters who worry about the exact opposite. As it happens, they’ve both had plastic surgery in real life, but their avatars in Love Virtually look like they did before their surgery. They’ve actually come to love each other the way they were before changing their faces, and they’re worried that their more attractive appearance will scare the other away when they meet in real life. They actually regret getting AI plastic surgery done because they ended up looking more attractive than they wanted and now they both keep getting approached by people who are only attracted to them because of their looks. Also, because so many people got plastic surgery through the same program, there’s a ton load of people walking around that look exactly the same. I thought this was pretty interesting to create such an upside-down view of Korean beauty standards. While plastic surgery is generally perceived as an upgrade, in this story it’s actually seen as something that only creates superficial beauty while the lead characters are specifically looking for something that goes beyond love based on visual attraction. You could say it actually poked fun at the concept of plastic surgery, and specifically on how it can basically make everyone look the same by basing the surgeries on a specific beauty standard.

What’s also funny is that people have become so dependent on using Love Virtually that they’ve actually become super awkward at flirting in real life. We see that it’s become a trend for people to approach others they find attractive on the streets and ask them for their Love Virtually IDs with one-liners such as, “what is your favorite shape?” or “what color pops into your head when you see a banana?” because the Love Virtually logo is a yellow square. Seriously, the guys who kept approaching Ji Won with bananas cracked me up, it was so random. In any case, since online dating has become the norm for the majority of the population, people don’t even stop to think about seeing each other in real life anymore.
It also takes Min Joon and Ji Won a while to decide whether to meet up in real life or not. This miscommunication was pretty similar to a regular one, where the woman kept wondering why the man wasn’t making the first move and the man kept thinking that it shouldn’t always be up the man to invite the woman. Anyways, they eventually agree to meet up, and while initially both thinking of showing up with their Leonardo and Giselle appearances, they both ultimately choose to just meet them as they look now. I thought this was a good decision because it would take away the pretense and they would inevitably find out that they both have the exact same issue where they actually look more attractive in real life but don’t necessarily experience that as a good thing.

However, Love Virtually’s server is miraculously restored just when Min Joon and Ji Won are about to meet, and while Ji Won has made up her mind to meet him the way she is, Min Joon succumbs to his worries and grabs the app’s restoration as a chance to meet Giselle online instead, that way he won’t have to worry. In doing this, he stands her up, and in their first online meeting after that Giselle breaks up with him because she feels like he isn’t ready to actually face up to their relationship in real life. I personally also felt like it was a weak moment of Min Joon to decide to run out of there and meet back on Love Virtually. After all, the meeting up in real life wasn’t only an alternative for the app, it would also signify an important step in their relationship in the real world. I guess they both had different views on that and Min Joon did just see it as an alternative. Then again, this was something that strengthened me in feeling like Min Joon wasn’t actually 100% down for making their relationship a real thing yet.

After both trying to date other people in real life, they keep getting disappointed by the superficiality of their partners that only care about their looks. They can’t keep denying how much they miss each other and decide to meet up after all, which results in a bit of a ‘which version of you do I actually like more’ situation, but they ultimately decide to keep seeing each other in the real world instead of the virtual one.

Although I do think one of the main themes was that Min Joon and Ji Won were two of the few people who were actually looking for something real in a world dominated by virtual love, I couldn’t help but feel like there was also an element of constant avoidance of real feelings in this episode. This could be seen for example through the effect that everyone kept silencing each other when they were about to utter the words ‘I love you’. The way the same lines were repeated throughout several scenes also became a bit unoriginal to me, and at some point I even started thinking they were still in the simulation and those were just standard lines generated by the system. I get that it can sometimes be cute when a line from the beginning is repeated at the end, but it didn’t really work that well here in my opinion, it just made it a bit sappy. As I mentioned, the way Min Joon immediately fell back on Love Virtually despite the fact that he was about to meet his ‘great love’ in real life for the first time also made me feel like he was avoiding the reality of the situation for as long as he could. Even when they eventually ended up together, it just didn’t feel like it was completely genuine and heartfelt to the core.

At the end of the episode, the narration explains that ‘it’s not about where you meet, it’s about whether you really care for each other’, and while that’s a nice thing to say, I didn’t actually feel it that strongly from this story. It seemed to solely refer to the fact that it was good of the main couple to start dating in real life even though they met through an app, which I think is the case for many a couple in current times as well. I don’t know, it didn’t really make me go, ‘Oh, that’s actually a pretty genius inference, I hadn’t thought of that!’ like so many of the previous episodes did. I’d say it was a bit too straightforward and that caused it to become a bit too typical and cheesy, which didn’t really seem to match the overall tone of the anthology.

Besides Min Joon and Ji Won, the only two predominantly featured characters are their typical friends or sidekicks and while I liked their contribution to the story it did really strengthen the rom-com-level of this episode to have one sidekick of the same gender for each lead character, especially since they also ended up together. Goo Sung Tae (Ahn Se Ha) and Tak Soo Jin (Kim Han Na) were the typical less visually attractive sidekicks who always got ignored while their more attractive friend kept getting asked out. All that was established about their friendships was that they’d known the lead characters from before their plastic surgeries and were therefore able to judge them based on their transformations. More than that wasn’t revealed about how they’d met or what their history together was, except for the fact they seemed to work together (even the type of work they did wasn’t revealed). Whenever they offered themselves as an alternative when Min Joon and Ji Won rejected an invitation, the inviter would always give them the cold shoulder and walk away. While it was definitely cute that they ended up together, it was incredibly predictable and it also took away some variety because it only created two couples that consisted of people who were exactly the same.

All in all, while it was nice to have a lighter and more comical rom-com of an episode in-between the darker and edgier stories, I didn’t really feel that excited while watching it. I’m also not exactly sure what the message was, because even if it wanted to convey how real-life connection and honesty was better than virtual love, it was complicated and more confusing by the fact that they’d actually developed the more genuine connection through the virtual reality and meeting in real life made things more awkward. I agree that it doesn’t matter where you meet as long as you develop a true connection, but that’s true in any type of relationship and I wouldn’t have actually gotten that from this story in particular.

Before I move on to the cast comments, I just wanted to make a mention of the Korean title of this episode. In both episodes, the title refers directly to the name of the app, similar to Manxin, but the Korean name of the app is actually ‘JeungKkong’, which is an abbreviation of the titular phrase ‘Jeunggangkkongggakji’, which in turn literally translates to ‘Augmented Bean Pod’. It took me a moment to realize it referred directly to the logo of the app, which shows a heart made out of two bean pods. I guess it’s a play on the expression ‘two peas in a pod’ or something? Anyways, I thought it was quite quirky to name a virtual dating app after beans, lol. The English title initially made me think of a play on the movie ‘Love Actually’. Is it just me who feels like they could’ve thought of something more original for the English title?

It’s cast comment time! Like every episode in this anthology, this will be the shortest section of the review since the key cast doesn’t include more than four people.

Of course I know Si Won from Super Junior and I’ve seen him in several dramas before, such as Oh! My Lady, Skip Beat!, She Was Pretty and Revolutionary Love. There’s a few more things on my list that he appears in. While I generally like his acting and the way he always brings a welcome comical element to his characters, I couldn’t help but feel like his portrayal of Min Joon lacked sincerity. As I mentioned before I didn’t feel a lot of chemistry between him and the female lead, which was a pity because this is the most blatant portrayal of a romantic love story this anthology that has appeared in this anthology so far. I wish there could’ve been a bit more to his character and personality that would’ve made me warm up to him more. In stark contrast with the previous episodes, especially White Crow, the psyches of the characters weren’t even discussed, and the way everything was only portrayed from the outside without much depth only added to the shallow tone of the episode. Which is a pity, because I’ve seen Si Won perform much better and I know there is more to his acting. Still, it was nice to see him appear in this anthology and I’m looking forward to the other series on my list that he’ll appear in.

I’ve seen Uee/Kim Yoo Jin before in You’re Beautiful, My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, High Society, Manhole, and she also made a guest appearance in She Was Pretty, apparently. In any case, she’s a familiar face and it was nice to see her in a more comical role than I’ve seen her in so far. Still, I had the same issue with her performance as with Si Won’s in the sense that I felt like I only ever saw the outside of their relationship, and there wasn’t any depiction of the depth and genuinety of their feelings for each other. Although I definitely felt like Ji Won was more determined to make it work in real life than Min Joon, I still found it hard to keep up with what both of them were really thinking and in the end I wasn’t even that thrilled at their first real kiss either. Again, I know that Uee is capable of much more, and it’s not like her or Si Won’s acting was bad in this episode, but it just didn’t really grab me that much. I still liked seeing her in this episode, and I’m curious to other shows that she appears in that I’ll watch in the future because she always seems to pop up when I least expect it, haha.

I’ve said this many times before about Ahn Se Ha, and it only adds to the stereotypicalness of this episode that it was again the case here, but he’s always typically cast as an ‘unattractive guy’. He’s an amazing actor and I always find it a pity that he gets typecasted like that. I’m always happy to see him whenever he appears in shows, and so far I’ve seen him in God’s Gift: 14 Days, She Was Pretty (it’s like a reunion!), High-end Crush, W – Two Worlds, Moonlight Drawn By Clouds, 20th Century Boy and Girl, I’m Not a Robot, 100 Day Husband, Abyss, Nevertheless, and Dali and the Cocky Prince. I’m sure I’m going to see him in a lot more shows that are on my list, because he’s also one of those actors who just makes appearances everywhere. His role as Min Joon’s stereotypical unattractive sidekick was not very original, but he still made something out of it. I honestly thought he and Si Won had better chemistry than Si Won and Uee. 🥲

I didn’t recognize Kim Han Na from anything, but I see she appeared in The Third Charm and there’s a couple of more dramas on my watchlist that she appears in, so I’m curious to see more of her in the future. Her character was basically the same as Sung Tae for Min Joon – she was Ji Won’s standard sidekick who were typically depicted talking and walking together during lunch breaks. I didn’t really have much to go on apart from that, honestly. The only individuality she was given was the fact that she and Sung Tae ended up going their separate way while leaving the lead characters to their own devices in fixing their relationship situation. I wish there would’ve been a bit more elaboration on the friendship between Soo Jin and Ji Won (and Sung Tae and Min Joon for that matter). Again, I don’t mean to say that her acting was bad, it was just that her character (as everyone else’s) didn’t really leave that much of a special impression. I hope she’ll leave a more memorable impression in the next thing I see her in!

So yeah, I think this might be one of my shortest reviews of this anthology and it was also the only one I was able to finish within a couple of hours. Of course, in an anthology there’s bound to be an episode that you like a bit less than others, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it was bad. I just found that it didn’t link as much to the tone of the other episodes, and also the repetition of the app-concept which we’d already seen in Manxin just didn’t make it jump out as much as other storylines. I kept waiting for a plot twist or darker edge to the story that didn’t appear and in the end I wasn’t really sure what exactly the overall message could have been. I think my main issue with it is that the feeling of watching something scifi that took place in a more futuristic world was the least apparent in this episode. Of course, we’ve seen other stories that were set in the near future and didn’t really show a complete different world or setting, but it was even less apparent than in the other near future episodes. It could’ve just been a regular romantic comedy in the style of Love Alarm, but that didn’t necessarily include any science fiction elements other than one specific virtual reality app. So yeah, that was a bit of a pity. Still, it was refreshing to watch and it definitely made for a nice breather after the intense story from White Crow, haha.

I’m actually going to make it before the end of the year, guys! I’m going straight with the final episode and I’ll probably be able to finish the initial page with all the reviews on it in a couple of days. I’m very excited for the final episode, because the preview already gave me the feeling that it would be a bit more dark and somber in theme.

See you soon! 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.

White Crow
(하얀까마귀 / Hayankkamagwi)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

Hiya! Let’s move on to the next episode of this anthology, shall we? When I initially saw the summary for this I was expecting something with a bit more of a horror element in it, and my mind immediately went to the Black Mirror episode ‘Playtest’, in which a guy gets stuck in a VR-horror game experiment. My expectations were right in the sense that this was definitely the scariest episode of this anthology so far, but it also had a very psychological layer to it, in which we are continuously set on the wrong track when it comes to determining the lead character’s truth. I think that after The Prayer, this was also the most symbolic episode so far, as it didn’t just include various nightmarish abstract scenarios but also used several references to Greek mythology. What’s also interesting to note is that, rather than focussing on the worldbuilding or the technology that’s used in the story, this episode is a more character-based one as it focusses predominantly on the lead character’s psyche and trauma.

SF8: White Crow is either the fifth or seventh episode in the SF8 anthology. It has a duration of about 58 minutes (the longest of all the episodes) and was directed by Jang Cheol Soo. It’s based on the short story ‘Please Save Coronis’ by Park Ji Hye.

The year is 2026 and Jang Joon Oh, also known as Juno (played by Ahn Hee Yeon/EXID’s Hani) is a popular video game live streamer with a fanbase of around 800,000 followers. One evening, her live stream ends on a less cheerful note as someone claiming to be a former classmate of Juno suddenly pops up and starts spreading rumors about how Juno supposedly did all sorts of nasty stuff in high school and eventually committed suicide in high school as a result of escalated bullying. Juno tries to calm the increasingly escalating comments by claiming those were all false rumors and she never lied, but this outburst ends up creating a controversy which hits her reputation hard.
Some time after this ‘scandal’, Juno has a chance to redeem herself by making a comeback on the first-anniversary special broadcast of WGN (World Game Entertainment) that introduces a new immersive VR-game through which players will have to overcome their psychological trauma. While her producer keeps telling her to make a big hit and secure that comeback, Juno becomes agitated when she finds out last-minute that she won’t be able to communicate with the viewers this time, contrary to what she’s used to. She also overhears two technician guys mutter something about ‘not being done’ before they’re shooed off the stage. In any case, Juno goes on and prepares to enter the game, for which she needs to lie down in the white chair that is depicted on the poster above.

The game, which is called ‘Inside Of Mind 2’ (and is apparently even more immersive version 1), takes the player through a remarkable simulation of their own fear and personal trauma, which they have to overcome in order to clear the game. Honestly, as soon as it said ‘Your Trauma Becomes Your Game’ outside the building it took place in, my mind immediately went 🚩🚩🚩 I mean, what good could possibly come from a VR-game that visualizes your personal trauma and uses it against you? Who’d actually want to play that? I certainly wouldn’t. But Juno is desperate to win back the hearts of the fans who dropped her and takes the step, with the confidence that nothing will possibly be able to scare her that much. Especially because of the carefree and bright vibe of the show set around it and the examples given through the hosts’ not-so-scary experiences of the game, Juno thinks she’ll do just fine.
However, as we may expect, it turns out Juno is severely underestimating the game – and her own mind. Of course, the game simulates the setting and the NPCs based on the player’s own memory of their trauma, so everything that appears in the game is in Juno’s head.
After connecting to the game, she wakes up in her old high school building, the one that was previously mentioned earlier by that former classmate – where she allegedly committed suicide because of escalated bullying. As a matter of fact, she’s returned to 2018, eight years prior, the year the whole ordeal went down.

After being confronted with the Jang Joon Oh from the past (played by Lee Se Hee) and the bullying she had to endure, Juno’s first mission is to ‘Find Baek Ah Young’. The obstacle: all her classmates faces are blurred. Still, it wouldn’t be so hard if she could just find the right name tag. Or so one would think. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that, whenever she takes too long to complete a mission, the students and staff that are initially not aware of her presence will turn against her, and their faces take the form of red-eyed black crows. After dying twice in a row, she’s able to contact her producer outside of the game, but he tells her she’s already been in there for three hours and has already failed the first stage more than ten times. Her producer only urges her to just move on, they will edit it so that it’ll be like she cleared Stage 1 and she just needs to ace this otherwise she’ll never redeem her reputation.

From here on out, however, the depictions of what happened between Jang Joon Oh and Baek Ah Young start intriguing Juno more than clearing the game missions and she becomes more interested in following the characters to get a clear picture of what went down. It seems to have something to do with the two girls getting trouble for allegedly copying each other’s essay and someone lied about it. Juno ultimately ends up face-to-face with Baek Ah Young, and while she sticks her name tag on her – as was her mission – Ah Young simultaneously stabs her with a piece of glass, after which her face is finally revealed. Juno is standing eye-to-eye with her own younger self.

From here on out, the story changes drastically, as we find out Juno is not actually who she’s been saying she was all this time. While we already got a slightly pretentious impression of her from the way she interacted with her followers and forced out tears when talking about animal cruelty, this revelation opened a whole new truth. Juno turns out to be Baek Ah Young, not Jang Joon Oh. When they were in high school the two were friends. Joon Oh came from a wealthy family but never let it get to her head – she was very innocent and kind, and Ah Young strived to be like her as much as possible, starting with copying the way she looked. At some point, people even started calling them the twins because they looked so similar. However, that admiration gradually turned to jealousy, and jealousy can do very nasty things. As a matter of fact, she was the one who started spreading the false rumors about Joon Oh that ultimately drove her to jump off a roof.
Juno is suddenly approached by the NPC of her school teacher Ms Shin (played by Shin So Yool), who tells her that she’s not in the game anymore – this is all happening inside her head. During the scene where she faced her younger self, a fire broke out at the broadcasting station which caused the VR-game to overload and Juno to lose consciousness. Three months have already passed and she’s currently in a vegetative state. The only thing that can save her now is going through the entire game from scratch and admit that she’s actually Baek Ah Young and that she lied about everything. Being honest about what she did will save her, so what is she waiting for?

Just to give a bit more information on the teacher: she’s initially depicted as a really strict lady who always carries a sharp metal ruler around. This ruler is actually what kills Juno the first time she tries to clear Stage 1, as she walks into the teacher and gets stabbed by it. Not only does she carry it around, she makes a habit of hitting it against the table when she’s making a point or demanding attention. Furthermore, this teacher is the one who questioned the two girls on who copied whose essay. When the game crashes, she appears as an NPC in a more stylized outfit, claiming that the doctors and engineers sent her into Juno’s unconscious mind to get her out of there. She’s basically just there to get her to admit that she’s Ah Young and provides her with her final way out: saving Joon Oh.

However, as it turns out, this isn’t a simple task for Juno. Even when she’s given several chances to stop Joon Oh from jumping and admitting to her lies, she just can’t bring herself to do it. She’s completely convinced herself that she did nothing wrong and that she truly is Joon Oh – Ah Young is the one who jumped, and she never lied about anything. When we discover this truth about our protagonist, it creates a really interesting twist in the story. The lead character who we’ve been following and emphathizing with so far actually turns out to be the villain and the bully. We actually get to see a flashback of what exactly happened between the two girls in high school. However, even after having seen that and seemingly feeling bad about it (she actually utters the words ‘She died because of me’), when she’s given one final chance to save her friend Juno still refuses to admit her wrongdoings. That is, she apologizes and tells her it’s all her fault, but then goes on to say, “But if I must tell the truth and live as the liar Baek Ah Young for the rest of my life, I’d rather die as Jang Joon Oh and have people pity me.” After which she throws herself out of a window. When Joon Oh goes to look out of it, we see a big white crow lying on the ground where Juno has fallen, which is then scorched black by a lightning beam. The last sound we hear is the hospital machine signifying a flatline.

So besides the science fiction aspect of this episode which indicates that it takes place in the near future and deals with advanced immersive game technology, this story focusses more on its lead character’s psyche than any of the previous episodes has. I found it incredibly interesting how the story, which started out so seemingly straightforward, got such a twist which revealed the true nature of Juno. It was strangely refreshing to have a main character that was actually a pathological liar who couldn’t even recognize herself for who she used to be anymore. I mean, we could’ve noticed it through a couple of things. First of all, her facial expressions during the first scene when that former classmate listed all the false rumors and the way she was defending ‘herself’: it didn’t particularly seem like she took it to heart as personally as she would’ve probably done if it was really about her old self. Secondly, when she’s first placed inside the game and she sees how her classmates bully Joon Oh, she reprimands them for treating her like that and the way she talks to them was also kind of weird if you’d think she was standing up for herself. As soon as she faced young Joon Oh I thought it was strange how there didn’t seem to be any kind of personal connection or a ‘oh my god it’s me’ realization in her expressions. I also found it interesting how she reacted to the first mission ‘Find Ah Young’, because she said the name Ah Young with such unfamiliarity, and started looking for her as if she genuinely didn’t remember her. I think all these clues just showed how much she’s been brainwashing herself, maybe out of a sort of hidden guilt that she vowed never ever to admit to anyone. Through the flashbacks we see that Joon Oh asked her multiple times why she did those things, she gave her many chances to own up to what she did, but she always kept denying she lied about anything.

I have to admit that this was the first time during this anthology that I genuinely got annoyed with the lead character. Not even necessarily because she kept lying, but because she just couldn’t seem to realize the important issue at hand. I got impatient with her when she didn’t just move on with the game (seriously, she had at least five opportunities to stuck that name tag on!) and even after understanding what was happening and what she had to do to get out alive, she still couldn’t bring herself to do it. I mean, in hindsight, she wouldn’t even have had to publically admit she was Ah Young when she woke from her coma. All she had to do was to utter the truth within the neverending game inside her mind, right? Anyways, I guess that once she finally admitted it to herself, she couldn’t even bear the idea of living with that truth herself after she’d wake up. It was a very original and interesting character psyche and I liked that that’s what gave the episode the darkest edge, even more so than the horror elements in the game (which admittedly were PROPER scary). Turns out, the human mind can be an even darker and scarier place than a horror video game, and that definitely puts things in perspective.

Also, I just want to mention that in hindsight, I don’t actually think Joon Oh unalived herself because of the bullying. Of course, I don’t want to take away the effect the bullying may have had on her decision, because it definitely didn’t make things better, but I honestly think it had more to do with the fact that Ah Young betrayed her, and consequently with the fact that she lost Ah Young as a friend. I mean, it would make sense when looking at the final scene of Joon Oh jumping after which Juno is seen crying and finally admits that she died because of her – Joon Oh jumped after Ah Young confirmed that she wasn’t her friend anymore, and that seemed to be the final blow that (quite literally) pushed her over the edge.

Let me just address the symbolism used in this episode. As someone who loves Greek mythology I definitely liked getting a reference to that. First of all, the name Juno. Of course it was derived from Joon Oh’s name, and it’s also the signature she put under all her drawings in Roman alphabet. Interestingly, Ah Young ends up using Juno as a ‘stage name’ while referring to herself as ‘the game queen’. The queen aspect here refers to the fact that Juno is the Roman name or alias for the Greek goddess Hera – our first link to Greek mythology. Secondly, the most direct reference to the episode’s title is made when the homeroom teacher starts telling a story from Greek mythology about how crows got their black color. The story goes as follows:

“Crows were originally Apollo’s messengers and had beautiful white feathers. One day, one of these white crows came back late with a message because it wasn’t focussed on its task. When Apollo asked why it was late, the crow covered up its mistake by lying that Apollo’s wife Coronis had an affair. Apollo believed the crow and killed his wife for being unfaithful. However, he only finds out the crow lied after killing her. Apollo then got very angry, burned the crow to death, it’s white feathers scorned black by the fire. Thereafter, all crows were cursed to have only black feathers.“

The teacher then adds, “Why do you think the crow lied to him? Didn’t it know a higher power such as Apollo would find out the truth? The crow simply didn’t want to be hated. But as a result, an innocent woman got killed.” I think we can all agree that this story is a direct reference to the relationship between Ah Young and Joon Oh. Ah Young was the lying crow who didn’t want to be hated and therefore started spreading false lies about Joon Oh. After all, these lies caused Joon Oh to die, a direct link to what happened to Coronis. The short story this episode is based on is titled ‘Please Save Coronis’, so we can determine that Joon Oh is meant to symbolize her. In any case, Ah Young’s lies were never found out because she kept covering them up and only after choosing to die rather than come out with the truth, we see her, literally depicted as that white crow, getting punished by Apollo. I mean, she’s even wearing a pure white outfit which gets scorched to black in the final scene, so how literal is that? It even gives the classmates who turned into black crows during the game a different layer, because it wasn’t just a scary picture, they were actually the other crows that turned black after what Ah Young did to Joon Oh, so that was really cool and clever symbolism.

I think that, after The Prayer, this episode definitely had the most obvious link to a mythological story, and in this case I was able to follow it with much more ease. Despite my dislike of horror stories, I was still fascinated while watching it because it took such an unpredictable twist in the lead character’s psyche. I also thought it was powerful to introduce this severe trauma psychology simulation within the context of a hyped setting of game entertainment and making it about a pathologically lying online celebrity who just wanted to make a comeback. If you look at where Juno got as a BJ (which I had to look up because apparently it’s a Korean term for Broadcasting Jockey – a live streamer on a broadcasting platform), it can be said that she really went to great lengths to protect her own truth. As the teacher also says, ‘Most celebrities would just lay low for a while after they made a mistake’, but that’s the point: Juno has basically brainwashed herself into forgetting she was Ah Young the liar out of her guilt surrounding the real Joon Oh’s death. If I remember correctly, depictions of this kind of twisted psychology also appeared in What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? and Kill Me, Heal Me. In both of these series there was a character who had done or witnessed something bad but then adapted some sort of coping mechanism that made them believe that they were the ones who underwent that bad experience themselves. I think something like that must have occurred in Ah Young’s mind as well, that completely taking on Juno’s identity was her coping mechanism of taking as much distance as possible from her truth as Ah Young. Interesting stuff.

Let’s move on to the cast comments!

So Ahn Hee Yeon or Hani is a member of the idol group EXID. Admittedly, I’ve heard of the name and I’ve seen her in two shows before (The Producers and Busted), but neither of those appearances made as big of an impression as her performance in White Crow did. I thought she was really good. It was really interesting to try and gauge her as a character after finding out she wasn’t who she’d been pretending to be, and there was an element of frustration in the fact that she couldn’t even admit to herself who she really was. She created an incredibly troubled and struggling character, and even after it was revealed that she was actually a bully, I still couldn’t help feel for her a little bit, mostly because of how she ended up coping with that secret. It just gave her a really sad layer, which in turn reminded me of another Black Mirror episode, ‘White Bear’, which I now realize is very similar in title as well. The BM episode also features a woman who initially invokes sympathy as she seems to get randomly terrorized by people everywhere she goes, only to find out that she’s a murderer who’s been sentenced to undergo daily psychological punishment as her memory gets wiped at the end of every day. In a way, Juno is punished for her wrongdoings by this game (guided by her own mind) while she doesn’t even remember what she’s done to deserve it. I think she portrayed the emotions Juno went through while going through this terrifying rollercoaster very well. I also thought the transformation she went through in terms of appearance from teen Ah Young to adult Juno was really well done, she really seemed like two different people!

I thought Lee Se Hee looked familiar to me but I don’t actually think I recognize her from anything. I see that she appeared in the movie Midnight Runners, but I don’t remember her from there either. Anyways, she portrayed teen Joon Oh with a lot of integrity and genuinity. It was undeniable that she was the honest victim of the situation, but what was the wryest thing was that she actually gave Ah Young so many chances to confess. She asked her time and time again to admit it was her, she gave her the chance to be honest, and I honestly think the reason she ultimately jumped had to do more with Ah Young’s betrayal than the fact that her classmates bullied her over some false rumors. This was also proven by how Joon Oh reacted to seeing the adult Ah Young appear in front of her in that last scene. She didn’t get angry at her, and I honestly think she would’ve forgiven her. She also seemed genuinely shocked and saddened to see Juno jump out of the window, and to see the white crow lying on the ground below. I think her performance was really good, also in terms of emotional acting. I’m curious to see more of her in the future.

I found the character of Ms Shin very interesting, and Shin So Yool did a really good job in maintaining that enigmatic vibe, even after she turned into an NPC that was guide Juno through the game and get her to wake up. I guess that she used to be famous for always carrying a metal ruler around, but it was freaky how the object actually became a weapon in the game simulation. I mean, Juno is stabbed by it when she bumps into the teacher during her first attempt to clear Stage 1. It made me think of the book ‘The Midnight Library’ by Matt Haig, where a significant supporting character in one’s life would become their final guide in choosing a way out of purgatory. In a way, the game became Juno’s purgatory as she got stuck there, in-between reality and virtual reality. In any case, I found the teacher character very mysterious and interesting, even though she was just used a ‘tool’ to make Juno wake up both literally and symbolically. Because she remained so stoic and maintained such a pokerface, I could never really gauge the character or whether she was actually concerned about her students. It may have been nice to get a little bit more information on her. Still, she was an interesting character.

So yeah, I think that out of all the episodes I’ve watched so far, this was the most psychological one and the least technological one. While the advanced game technology undoubtedly played a big part in making Juno face her fears (and ghosts) I still missed a more direct link to the science fiction theme. Besides the references to a classical story I also didn’t discover any other links or references to the previous episodes, it really stood on its own as an independent story. It was a very interesting choice to focus on a problematic and unreliable lead character instead of the specific worldbuilding around it. I noticed that this also took place in a less distant future, 2026. I wonder if there’s a specific timeline between the episodes that these stories follow or that they’re actually meant to all be seen separately.

Anyways, it was another interesting episode. Horror is not my favorite genre, but I was able to watch it without getting nightmares, luckily. I believe the next one will have a lighter note as it focusses on virtual love and dating, so I’m very curious to move on. I might actually finish this before the end of the year, y’all! 😀

See you soon!

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