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!

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.

Baby It’s Over Outside
(일주일 만에 사랑할 순 없다 / Iljuil Mane Saranghal Sun Eobsda / You Can’t Fall In Love In Just A Week)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! I’m writing these reviews during my holidays, as it’s the longest period of free time I’ve had in a while. Anyways, it’s time to move into the second half of this fascinating anthology. I’m still not sure whether this is the fifth or the seventh episode (the order still confuses me 🫠), but I’ll say right off the bat that I watched it twice in a row. While I found it to be yet another really interesting episode with great cinematography and acting, a lot is left to interpretation. Even after rewatching it I still have a few things that don’t make sense to me or that I wish would’ve been explained better. What I did like about it was how completely different it was from the previous episodes, primarily because it didn’t deal with any of the themes surrounding technological development. It does, however, take a really fascinating spin on one of my favorite themes in existence: time travel. More specifically, a time loop.

SF8: Baby It’s Over Outside is either the fifth or seventh episode in the SF8 anthology. It has a duration of about 44 minutes and was directed by Ahn Gook Jin. It’s based on the short story ‘You Can’t Fall in Love in a Week’ by Kim Dong Shik.

This story takes place in 2020, and instead of a global pandemic the world is facing a different kind of crisis: a meteorite, heading for Earth, FAST. We’re not talking about weeks or months here – NASA has confirmed that the meteorite will strike Earth within a maximum of twenty days. What’s worse, an attempt to stop the meteorite from crashing into the surface by launching a missile to stop its course has tragically failed and the end-of-the-world countdown is set to seven days. One week left.
Amidst this situation, we are introduced to a rookie police officer named Kim Nam Woo (played by Lee David). He spent the last four years studying his butt off to become a police officer, only for doomsday to be announced after only a month of service. Now he doesn’t even remember why he wanted to become a police officer in the first place, and he feels like nothing he does even really matters anymore. His gut feeling has been telling him he’ll be alone at the end for as long as he remembers and the only ‘remarkable’ thing about him is that he has frequent instances of déjà vu, which he always just dismisses as coincidences and useless hunches.
Apart from his pessimistic outlook on his own life, Nam Woo isn’t a particularly clever or sharp police detective either. He’s quite lethargic and slow-witted, and he tends to get confused a lot (mostly because of the déjà vu). Whenever he seems to recognize someone or something he either brushes it off or takes the wrong conclusion. Something that frustrates him even more after the final week on Earth has been announced is that he suddenly seems to be surrounded by lovey-dovey couples, who clearly take the news’ message of ‘spending your last days with your loved ones’ quite literally. Instead of global panic or chaos, people generally choose to remain calm and spend their time together peacefully. It annoys Nam Woo to no end, and it only strengthens his frustration in being alone and spending his work hours on useless patrols.

There’s an interesting phenomenon that starts to emerge after the official doomsday-in-a-week announcement. All over the country, people start claiming that they possess ‘superpowers’. People start livestreaming and sharing their special talents with the rest of the country, and while the authorities are initially suspicious about the credibility of this phenomenon, it is actually proven that these superhumans are for real. In fact, NASA starts establishing a plan to work together with these superhumans to attempt another launch to stop the meteorite.
Nam Woo watches all these news reports on superhumans without a clear conviction – he feels neither connected to them nor does he completely dismiss the idea. That is, until he mistakenly arrests a girl when he’s on patrol – again out of a déjà vu moment as he swears he remembers her face from the wanted list. Turns out she isn’t, and she was just trying to get into someone’s house who she claims is a very capable superhuman who can help save the world. This person she’s looking for has another house up in the mountains, and Nam Woo is instructed to go with the girl.
Despite their continuously tense companionship, they start getting to know each other a bit better as they travel together.

Seeing as the original Korean title of this episode is ‘You Can’t Fall in Love in Just a Week’, one might guess that that’s actually what’ll happen to the two youngsters. In all honesty, the DramaWiki summary is very misleading as it says “a young man and woman choose romance in the face of the impending destruction of the Earth by a rogue comet”. Still, the hope or expectation that it does happen remains, and I think that’s one of the main themes (or tricks) of this episode.

As I mentioned in my introduction, this episode is the first one I’ve seen so far that didn’t depict a world that’s become highly dependent on a specific type of technology. It takes place in the year the series was released, 2020, so it’s not futuristic either. If I had to describe it I’d probably say it depicts an alternate universe version of 2020 – one with a destructive meteorite instead of Covid.
I found it quite remarkable how calm everyone remained in this crisis. It would probably be more realistic for mankind to completely freak out and cause global chaos in its final remaining days, but it was surprisingly powerful how everyone just seemed to accept their fate and agreed to peacefully spend their final moments with their loved ones. It also symbolized a kind of inevitability of some sort, like, everyone just understood that they weren’t able to do anything about it. If NASA and the superhumans could work something out, that’d be neat, but otherwise, this would just be it. It’s quite an impressive mindset to adopt, all the more when it’s adopted by every single person.

Let me talk a bit about our main characters before I move on to my comments on the rest of the story. As established, Nam Woo is quite the softy. I wouldn’t have taken him for a typical police officer, to be honest. He is soft-spoken, slow-witted, not very brave or fast, and he generally just has very little confidence in himself. His only ‘quirk’, as mentioned, is his proneness to déjà vu, but at the same time he’s too lethargic to even consider where that might come from. I think the fact that he never even stops to realize and fully think about what is happening to him is a very important aspect of his character, especially when we discover the truth about the whole situation he’s stuck in. He doesn’t even stop to think about why he can’t remember his reason for wanting to become a police officer, or why he can’t remember anything before this exhaustive studying from four years ago. He doesn’t stop to think about why he always has that frustrating and nagging feeling that he’ll always be alone, or where his déjà vus come from. As a main character, you could say that this makes him quite unreliable and even slightly annoying – after all, which main character doesn’t eventually decide to go in search of an explanation for something that’s been so consistently strange in their life? During his trip to the mountains while he’s accompanying this girl, he eventually realizes that he wants to stay with her. This is the first time we actually see him hold onto something, as he experiences what it’s like not to feel lonely for a change. Even if they don’t get that close within two days, the time he spends with the girl is still enough to make him decide he wants to stick it out with her. In the meantime, he tries to win her interest by creating a story about how his déjà vus are actually also superpowers, even though he’s not sure whether that’s actually true. In any case, it’s the first time he’s starting to realize that there might also be something inside him which causes these déjà vus, he’s finally starting to open up to the idea that he might be able to contribute something as well.

We actually never learn the girl’s name in the episode, but every drama source website I could find credits her as Shin Hye Hwa so I’ll just stick to that for convenience purposes. Shin Hye Hwa (played by Shin Eun Soo) is a remarkably stoic girl. She doesn’t appear to be very animated or cheerful and she mostly just keeps a pokerface whenever she’s with Nam Woo. We don’t find out a lot about her background, except for the fact that the person they’re trying to find was able to identify her superpower, and that she’s hesitant to reveal it because she finds it ’embarrassing and useless’. She does tell Nam Woo about the superhumans and how they’re divided into two groups: voluntary and involuntary. There are only a couple of voluntary superhumans who know their powers and how to use them, but there’s apparently a great number of involuntary superhumans, who either don’t even know they have powers, or who have been using their powers without being aware of it. We also see one involuntary superhuman on the news at some point who, when asked why he never revealed his power before, replies simply with that he always thought it was useless – this seems to be the overall tendency. Shin Hye Hwa only reveals her power to Nam Woo when they’re forced to spend the night at the person’s mountain lair while they wait for her to arrive, and here we come across a crucial piece of information – even though we don’t know it yet. Hye Hwa reveals that she has the ability to make the person she loves remember her forever. She hasn’t had a very good experience with this so far, as it rendered her unable to discover her mother’s Alzheimer’s until it was too late. Besides this revelation, she doesn’t particularly seem to warm up to Nam Woo as she doesn’t even care whether he goes back or not, but she also doesn’t mind him staying.

Linking their relationship back to the original episode’s title, ‘You Can’t Fall in Love in Just a Week’, this seems to be very fitting for the dynamic between Nam Woo and Hye Hwa. They’ve only just met and while it’s obvious Nam Woo is immediately interested in getting to know Hye Hwa better as she feeds on her company, it doesn’t seem likely that something will bloom between them in this short period of time.

When the person they’ve been waiting for, Mrs Yang (played by Hwang Jung Min) finally arrives back at the mountain house, she brings bad news with her – she just came from a gathering of superhumans, but what it came down to was that it was too late to collaborate with NASA as the meteorite had taken up speed. That same evening, the news reports that instead of taking five more days, the meteorite might actually hit the Earth as soon as tonight, and pieces of debris have already entered the atmosphere.
Just as doomsday officially starts, Mrs Yang casually offers to do a face reading on Nam Woo to determine whether he actually has a superpower or not – it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. However, this is the point where the real plot twist of the whole story is revealed. As it happens, Nam Woo does have a superpower and the déjà vus definitely are a part of it. Nam Woo is able to travel back in time to his earliest memory whenever he dies in an accident. Which means that, when he’s killed by the meteorite, he survives by going back in time. What’s more, it’s suggested that he’s already been through a lot of times, and this has caused his deteriorating memory. His earliest memory has become his training time four years back because he’s had to relive that period so many times he doesn’t remember anything before that, including his reason for wanting to become a police officer. So what if he and Hye Hwa combined powers? What if Hye Hwa would learn to love him (which, in this last minute scenario would have be solved by just kissing him) and this would cause Nam Woo to remember her even when he went back in time? They could work together in order to point out the approaching meteorite to NASA earlier! After all, the late discovery is what caused the inevitable situation, and the news keeps repeating how it could’ve been avoided if it had just been discovered earlier. They might actually be able to stop the end of the world within one more time loop! What a brilliant idea! That is… if only Hye Hwa could bring herself to kiss Nam Woo. Because that’s where it ends. Hye Hwa backs off at the last second before kissing him, apologizing to Mrs Yang that she can’t do it, the meteorite strikes, and we’re zipped back to four years earlier. Back to when Nam Woo is sweating in his little studio while studying for his police exams. Not only that, we find out that Hye Hwa lived just down the hall in the same apartment complex and they actually crossed paths there. Apart from a vague sign of recognition, Nam Woo doesn’t seem to make the link and disappears back into his room while Hye Hwa stares out of the window, facing the inevitable future of the approaching meteorite.

Honestly, after grasping the mavity of the situation and the fact that we’ve basically been dropped in the middle of a time loop with this episode, I’ve come to appreciate this story more and more. When I finished it the first time, all I could think of was how this was such an anticlimax and how much was left unexplained and unsolved. However, after rewatching it and taking a considerable amount of time to write this review, I’ve ended up rating this episode higher than I initially did because the idea of the possibilities this story hold is absolutely fascinating.
I don’t know if anyone who reads these reviews watches anime and happens to know the Haruhi Suzumiya series, but they would probably know the Endless Eight (∞) arc from the second season. This arc consists of eight episodes of the same week repeated over and over again until the main characters finally figure out what needs to be done in order to break the cycle, which is made even more problematic that they, much like Nam Woo, don’t retain any substantial memories from previous loops and only experience vague moments of déjà vu. Baby It’s Over Outside reminded me painfully much of this arc, and a part of me is glad that it doesn’t depict a continuous repetition of the same four years all over again. In hindsight I find it pretty cool that we’re only shown one time loop which does not succeed, but which does give us a first clue as to how the disaster may be avoided. The next step undeniably comes down to Hye Hwa getting over herself by kissing Nam Woo, because the story will only be able to progress once Nam Woo remembers Hye Hwa when he travels back in time.

I actually thought it was nice how this episode held onto the hope of survival. Not just when looking at how calm everyone remained and the consistent optimism of the news reporter (more about her later), but also in the very fact that it leaves the story unfinished. It literally leaves the possibility and hope of fixing the situation open, and we can only hope that Nam Woo and Hye Hwa ever reach the point of getting close enough within that one week to make it work. In fact, you could argue that there is a hint which shows that they were able to get at least a little bit closer in a previous loop. While staying the night at the mountain house, Nam Woo has a dream of Hye Hwa joining him on the veranda, and the way she talks to him in that dream, the way she lets her tears roll at the sight of possibly their last sunset, suggests that they may have actually grown closer in that loop. We can assume that this must have been a previous attempt as the next morning, Hye Hwa actually repeats the same line from his dream, only in a more detached way which only signified that they hadn’t grown that close yet. Of course, Nam Woo has no idea how to interpret his dream at this point, but it does lead him to feel like he might have some sort of predictive ability. At this point, it also seems like he’s more alert to his déjà vus when it concerns Hye Hwa or anything she says or does. All in all, I think it’s safe to say that after finishing this episode we can all answer the question Nam Woo asks himself “Why do I feel so frustrated?” when he’s debating whether to go back to Hye Hwa or to just go home. We’re all frustrated bro, we all are.

Honestly, how wry is it to realize how many times Nam Woo must’ve already gone through these same four years? His whole life and personality have been shaped by this time loop, he has literally lost all his memories from before the time loop started. Every single time he realizes he can actually play an important part in saving the world, and every single time he’s rejected by possibly the only girl who’ll ever be able to love him. Who knows how far he may have come in previous attempts? He may have actually gotten closer to Hye Hwa, he may have met other superhumans, he may have come one step closer every single time but just not close enough. I can only hope that they will be able to get to that point eventually. Despite my initial feeling of disappointment and anticlimax, I’ve now come to appreciate the structure of this episode’s story and how it actually only strengthens my hope in that they manage to solve the situation one day, rather than my disappointment of failing at it this specific time. It’s pretty genius when you think about it.

Which brings me to a couple of elements in the episode that really puzzled me. In hindsight, I feel like these events may have even played a part in previous attempts but were just not tackled in this particular loop.
First of all, when the seven-day countdown is first established, we see Nam Woo standing in his room with a gun in his hand. Now this could just as well have been the beginning of that particular day which goes on to him getting dressed for work, but a comment I read on one of my drama source websites gave me the idea that maybe this could also be a reference to a previous loop. After all, this scene is accompanied by a narration by Nam Woo that once again signifies how he’s always had ‘this strange feeling’ and how he always dismissed his premonitions as ‘useless hunches’. What if in one loop he actually decided to leave Hye Hwa at the mountain and went home and ended up taking his own life with that gun when confronted with the inevitable countdown? It might as well be another clue to how many times he’s repeated this cycle before.
Secondly, the discarded clothes in the gas station convenience store. During their journey to the mountains, Nam Woo stops at a gas station to tank and get some snacks. When he’s standing in the shop he finds that there’s no one there to help him. What’s even more strange as that only we as the viewers get to see a trail of discarded clothes that leads up to the cashier. Nam Woo doesn’t see this and his attention is quickly distracted by the sound of Hye Hwa leaving the car. But what’s with these clothes? It literally looks as if someone lost a piece of clothing every step of the way towards the cashier, because it builds up from outer clothing in the pathway to a piece of underpants on the cashier’s chair. The fact that this isn’t clarified and just left there as some piece of evidence (or not) puzzled me very much.
Thirdly, the thing in the gas station bathroom. Nam Woo realizes Hye Hwa left the car to go to the bathroom, and while he’s looking around to see where she went, he hears a scream and finds her outside the bathroom. She’s crouching down against the wall opposite the entrance, seemingly terrified of something inside. Nam Woo doesn’t spot anything inside, and Hye Hwa drags him away after one of the stall doors suddenly opens. However, as they disappear from sight, a cinematographic trick does give the impression that there’s something or someone inside. The final shot is taken from inside the bathroom, and it literally crawls down as if someone who’d been watching them from that top right corner was now coming down. Again, it’s not revealed what or who this is, what it was doing there and what Hye Hwa actually saw. We only see the story from Nam Woo’s point of view, which provides quite a restricted storyline. At least saving Hye Hwa and giving her a bandaid did contribute to her opening up to Nam Woo a little bit, but apart from that I find it hard to gauge what this scene was about. Could it have been the clothes-less cashier that had lost his mind and now hid away in the bathroom? What other forces were at play here? Not being able to find out what this part was about is one of the more bitter pills we have to swallow.

Finally, I want to mention the news anchor that’s predominantly featured throughout the story. This woman (played by Bae Hae Seon) is depicted several times while she gives updates on the meteorite situation. She’s also shown one time while she has a couple of superhuman guests and she confirms at least one of their powers. In the final update where she announces the meteorite’s debris can hit any moment, she’s adamant on stressing that she is positive that the situation can be solved, but the connection is interrupted – most likely because of the debris because we’ve just seen how pieces of it are already starting to cause explosions on the surface – and she’s not able to finish expressing her final hopeful wish. By the way, the way the connection was cut was pretty creepy, the way the channel suddenly started to switch and how the news anchor’s final scream (quite literally resembling the painting ‘The Scream’ by Edward Münch) was stretched over the screen before it turned black. I can’t help but wonder if there was something more to the news anchor. What if she actually knew more about the time loops and she was trying to reach Nam Woo or anyone else with her determined words about how she believed it wasn’t the end? I just felt like there was (or could be) more to her character, and if maybe in one loop she got (or would get) personally involved with Nam Woo and Hye Hwa, helping them out as they tried to save the world. This thought is only strengthened by the fact that in the opening sequence of the anthology that features short clips referring to each episode, Baby It’s Over Outside was depicted through a flickering TV screen on a barren wasteland with the meteorite in the background. The fact that the TV was specifically featured just makes me feel like there is something more to be explored there.

I have to admit I don’t really understand why the title of this episode was translated into English as ‘Baby It’s Over Outside’. I mean, I understand it refers to things ‘being over outside’ in the sense that the world is ending. It also features the scene where Nam Woo, Hye Hwa and Mrs Yang are standing outside the mountain house, watching as the sky starts to change color and the pieces of debris start to hit the Earth’s surface. But I still find it a bit of an odd English title. The Korean title of the episode and the short story it’s based on, ‘You Can’t Fall in Love in Just a Week’, makes more sense to me as it actually refers to a key part of the story: these two people have to fall in love or at least have some kind of physical intimacy within a week in order to save the planet. I don’t know, I don’t think ‘Baby It’s Over Outside’ really suits the tone of the story, and it also reminds me too much of the Christmas song ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ (good timing to watch this around Christmas, lol). I even saw someone write new lyrics to the song that included references to this episode, which was quite original.

Let’s move onto the cast comments! Again, we’re dealing with a very small core cast in this episode.

I’ve seen Lee David in several dramas before this, Who Are You: School 2015, Let’s Fight Ghost, Hotel Del Luna and Itaewon Class. I found him the perfect choice for Nam Woo. I loved how he managed pulling off such effortlessly comical acting through Nam Woo’s complete obliviousness what was going on around him. I’ve said this before, but most of the time people who take themselves really seriously and don’t even try to be funny end up becoming the most comical characters, more so than people who are clearly trying to be funny. I really felt for him, especially when the truth was revealed that he had been stuck in a time loop for who knows how long and that it was already starting to affect the way he lived his life. To be gradually consumed by repeating the same four years over and over again without truly noticing it and just slowly but surely losing sense of everything around you, it sounds like an awful punishment and I just hope for his sake that one day he’ll manage to get out of it. Seriously, how much must is have stung that Hye Hwa couldn’t even bring herself to touch him despite it being possibly the only way of saving the planet. Poor guy. He performed really well in this episode, he kept surprising me with his comical timing and he really showed me a side to his acting I hadn’t seen before.

I actually saw Shin Eun Soo for the first time quite recently, in Summer Strike. I thought she was a really refreshing choice for the role of Hye Hwa. I kind of liked how she remained a bit of a mystery and we didn’t really find out that much about her backstory. I’d like to think that, if we’d been let in on another attempt from another loop, we might have gotten to see a different side of her, or found out more about her. What other superhumans did she know? Did she go in search of Mrs Yang out of her own volition or did she go at the order of others? What truly went through her head when she learned the truth about Nam Woo’s power? I was curious to find out what she was doing at Nam Woo’s apartment complex four years earlier, was she also studying for something? What was her life like before she discovered her power and her mother passed away? I have so many questions about Hye Hwa that I would’ve loved to see answered. Anyhow, the mystery of her character greatly contributed to the mystifying feeling this episode gave me, especially when we see her in a fragment of Nam Woo’s dream which suggests that the two managed to get closer in at least one previous attempt. I’m curious to see more of her acting now!

I’ve seen Hwang Jung Min in several dramas before as well. She’s in Uncontrollably Fond, Queen of the Ring, Revolutionary Love, The Great Seducer and The Light in Your Eyes. I really liked her as Mrs Yang, especially when her personality was established a bit better as she found out about Nam Woo’s power. I loved how she kept peeking while the two were preparing to kiss, and how she went “HUH?!” when Hye Hwa was like “I’m sorry I can’t do it 😭”, lol. She brought a really fun energy to the story at the end.

Bae Hae Seon is one of those actresses that pop up in every single as a guest appearance. I know her from Jealousy Incarnate, While You Were Sleeping, Wok of Love, Come and Hug Me, Hotel Del Luna, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, Start-Up, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, Crash Course in Romance, and I’m undoubtedly going to see her again in several more of my watchlist items. I think she always has a surprisingly comical side to her acting, and I like how that side also came out through this role, even though she too took herself very seriously and it never actually became a comedy act. As I mentioned before, I can’t help but feel like her character had a bigger part to play in the story. They wouldn’t have featured so prominently if there wouldn’t be more to her, right? The way her eyes pierced into the camera every time and how it really felt like she was trying to reach people (Nam Woo?) made me feel like she may have even been aware of the time loop or at least knew that the planet could be saved. I may just be making this up, but for some reason I can’t shake the feeling that her character may have been more than just a news anchor reporting the situation updates. It was nice how she still remained a bit of an enigma as well.

I haven’t even described his character in this review, but can I just say how glad I was to see Kim Kang Hyun again? It feels like ages since I saw him in anything, although I can see from MDL that he’s been doing shows on a regular basis, lol. He played Nam Woo’s colleague at the police station who told him to go with Hye Hwa. I also thought it was funny that he mentioned that that’s how he met his wife, because he thought she looked familiar. Could that have meant that more people experienced the déjà vus in a lesser extent than Nam Woo? I don’t know, but it was nice to see him again. I’ve seen him before in My Love From Another Star, Doctors, Cinderella and the Four Knights, The Sound of Your Heart, Legend of the Blue Sea, Just Between Lovers and Go Go Waikiki, and I see I’m going to see him in more of my future watches as well. Can’t wait!

So yeah, this review took me a while to finish because I actually found my thoughts on it changing while I was writing it, lol. As much of an anticlimax it was when I first finished, the more I’ve started to appreciate the capricious nature of the story. As a lover of time travel tropes, I’ve seen a lot of stories where a time loop occurs, but I’ve never seen one that only depicts one failed attempt, and that’s kind of cool in itself. This is the only episode of the anthology so far which doesn’t have a completely finalized and satisfactory ending. I mean, The Prayer didn’t have a clear ending but it still felt more like an ending than this – Baby It’s Over Outside really doesn’t have a proper ending.
Honestly, with the ironic tone of this episode, I wouldn’t even be surprised if it wouldn’t end even after they save the world. What if they save the world and Nam Woo unexpectedly get into another accident and he has to do the whole thing again? Cruel as it may be, I can actually imagine things playing out this way, looking at the cruel way this episode ended. I don’t want to jinx anything, though! 🤞🏻

This time, I wasn’t able to discover any references that linked to the previous episodes, and in a way that was also quite refreshing. It really made me feel like this happened in a different universe from the rest. After all, the other episodes all took places in the distant future, and according to this episode, no future could even be established as long as they didn’t manage to discover the meteorite sooner. It’s interesting to think about, because somehow you’re led to believe every episode at least takes place, be it at different times, within the same universe. It explored a whole different type of science fiction and I loved it.

And here I thought I couldn’t possibly be even more excited to move on to the next episode! My next review will probably appear within the next couple of days as I’m holding off on my final assignments until the year has ended. I deserve a break, lol.

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.

Blink
(블링크 / Beullingkeu)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

I’m really on a roll with these reviews now that I’m checking off to-do items from my deadlines list! It also helped that this episode had a very simple and straightforward story, so I didn’t even feel like I had to watch it again.
In this fourth (or second, still not sure) chapter, rather than being provided with a specific social setting like in the previous episodes, we are simply introduced to a main character who’s trying to live her life in a world that’s not even that different from ours – one that’s increasingly starting to lean on the assistance of AI. Honestly, if I’d have to make a timeline I’d say this episode is the closest to ours when looking at where we are now. In this episode, we see the specific application of AI within a context of public order maintenance – the police force. After all, what if human officers start becoming physically unable to keep up with artificial developments?

SF8: Blink is either the second or fourth episode in the SF8 anthology. It has a duration of about 51 minutes and was directed by Han Ga Ram. It’s based on the short story ‘Baekjung’ by Kim Chang Gyu.

In a world that’s becoming more and more dependent on artificial intelligence and assistance, police detective Kim Ji Woo (played by Lee Shi Young) is single-handedly trying to prove she can do it alone. Ever since she lost her parents in a traffic accident that involved an automated driving system when she was a child, she has sworn not to depend on automated systems and AI again. Which is hard, seeing as the times are a-changing and she’s not even able to escape it during her work at the police force. As part of the police detective initiation, all officers have a chip implanted in them that provides them with multifunctional vision, allowing them to calculate faster routes and see in the dark. Ji Woo frequently gets reprimanded for going against the recommendations of her AI chip. She just refuses to accept that computers will be able to replace humans, even though she’s noticing that technology is catching up fast, no matter how smart she is or how much she trains. After she gets another warning at work for letting a suspect get away (guess the chip wasn’t good enough to spot that stun gun), her superiors tell her that they’ll let her mistake slide if she just agrees to do a test run with a newbie. She happily agrees, only to find out that she’s being paired up with an AI partner. “It’s only for a test run”, and if she’ll “please just bear with it” for as long as necessary. Involuntarily, Ji Woo starts investigating a new case with her new ‘partner’, who, for convenience reasons, takes the form of a young man under the name Seo Nang (Ha Joon). As he’s in Ji Woo’s head only she can see him, and the two start a rocky partnership as Ji Woo is adamant on not depending on his skills, useful as they may be. While they embark on the investigation of a young woman’s murder, Ji Woo ultimately finds out that, as much as she hates to admit it, she has no choice but to depend on Seo Nang’s assistance.

They find out that the murder victim had been part of a secret experiment conducted by the military which used cybernetic technology to enhance the skill and strength of certain test subjects. Besides this woman, one other man, Captain Baek Jung, underwent this experiment and he lost his mind and started going after any human being who had traces of AI in their system. First his co-test subject. And now, because of this ‘temporary test run’, Ji Woo is next on his list. It doesn’t take long for Baek Jung to locate Ji Woo and as she witnesses his powers firsthand, she realizes she has no other choice but to let Seo Nang deal with him. After an action-filled climax in which Seo Nang infiltrates Baek Jung’s head and beats the evil AI in his system, the story ends with the end of the test run – Seo Nang will be returned to the lab as a piece of data. In the very final scene, we see Ji Woo as she starts on a new case, and it’s revealed that she secretly stole Seo Nang back.

Out of the episodes I’ve seen so far, I think it’s safe to say Blink has the most straightforward story. There aren’t any plot twists or hidden truths, it’s simply about a woman who, while initially refusing to accept to work with AI, ultimately comes to accept what positive assistance it is able to bring to the world, especially in terms of providing security. The story has quite an optimistic message, in which the main character ends up changing her mindset regarding AI assistance. Considering the recurring theme of the ‘dark side of technology’, I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop, but in this story that didn’t happen. It was such a peaceful ending it almost gave me a false sense of security, haha.

Let’s talk a bit about the main characters.
As explained above, Ji Woo lost her parents in a traffic accident when they were driving in an automatic car and only Ji Woo survived. Her parents had set the automatic car’s settings to prioritize protecting Ji Woo in the backseat in case of an accident, and this sadly resulted in their deaths. Even though Ji Woo was protected by the system, naturally she could never see it as a blessing. Recognizing that AI was simple-minded like that, programmed to only ever do exactly as its told without being able to look beyond those settings, Ji Woo has always tried to avoid using the help of AI as much as possible. This can be seen most clearly from the way she insists on driving her own car – she refuses to let Seo Nang take automatic control over it. This also has a more direct link to her trauma, of course, as we see that she’s still plagued by nightmares about her parents’ deaths.
When she heads into the investigation with Seo Nang, she repeatedly ignores his suggestions and invitations to grant him access to speed the process in certain matters, such as conducting an on-the-spot forensic analysis of the victim’s body or physically taking down a group of drugdealing youngsters. As it happens, Ji Woo only resorts to granting Seo Nang access to her system when they’re in serious danger and she realizes she can’t take down the opponent on her own. After seeing what he’s capable of in terms of protecting her, she visibly warms up to Seo Nang and even regrets having to part from him when the test run is done.
From the way Ji Woo behaved, despite the fact that she had a more than valid reason to deny AI assistance in her life, it seemed to me like she’d also just become very stubborn in her convictions. It was like she was mostly denying the usefulness of AI to herself, even when she was very well aware of its convenience. I just couldn’t help but feel like she was desperately trying to hold on to her own worth as a human being in a world where everyone else had already completely succumbed to using AI. While that in itself was admirable, she still ended up surrendering to it in the end, and besides the fact that she got attached to Seo Nang as a partner who could lend his useful skills to her police work, I also can’t help but feel like she just wanted a companion. She’d been on her own for so long, not just in her life without a partner and seemingly no friends, but also in her stance against the integration of AI in everyday life.
It’s funny how the episode still has a bit of a fuzzy ending. Ji Woo seems happier than ever when she gets Seo Nang back as a partner, but we also can’t forget that this means that she’s also finally surrendered to the role that AI will continue to play in the world, which will undoubtedly go far and beyond what we already know.
I found it refreshing to have such a clear and transparent main character whose backstory was so defining for her behavior as an adult. It was more than easy to understand where she was coming from, but the typicality of this story really lay in the fact that everyone, even those who kept clinging onto the use of human skill, inevitably found no other choice than to succumb to the undeniable influence of AI technology.

Seo Nang is the provided name for the first male option of the AI partner Ji Woo is teamed up with. As Ji Woo goes for the first general options we don’t see what other forms it is able to take. In any case, he takes the shape of a cheerful young guy who doesn’t let his stubborn partner’s adamant rejections dissuade him from contributing to the case they’re working on. Since Seo Nang is AI, I find it hard to gauge him as a ‘character’ because it’s hard to say whether he really had any motives. I do find it interesting that they chose to bring humans and AI even closer by actually giving the AI a human form to create an even more familiar feeling between it and its user. I bet that if Seo Nang had remained just a blue circle in the sky, it would’ve probably taken Ji Woo even longer to get used to working together and she’d never even start considering it as a living being. So I definitely feel like it helped that Seo Nang took a human form. Still, I can’t help but feel like there was something unpredictable about Seo Nang. The way he kept asking her for access and how he immediately started suggesting to use his abilities to kill Baek Jung? He might have actually taken advantage of Ji Woo’s trust and done something that was beyond her control. In the end he didn’t actually do anything to harm Ji Woo, he didn’t turn against her or anything but it still seemed to me as if he would’ve been able to. When he infiltrated Baek Jung’s mind and stood eye to eye with his evil AI there was a moment where I genuinely thought they’d suddenly team up together against Ji Woo or something. I was just waiting for something to go sideways. Even when they ended up defeating the guy together and they both kind of reluctantly said goodbye, the way he looked all smug and triumphant when it was revealed Ji Woo got him back at the end also made me feel like this had been his plan. I don’t know, maybe I’ve just become paranoid haha, it just seemed a bit odd to me not to have any kind of sense of impending danger or foreboding of evil in this episode.

While there didn’t seem to be any direct references to the episodes I’ve seen so far, I did pick up on a few things that made me think of events from the previous episodes, although they might just be my interpretations and associations. First of all, and I believe I talked about this in my review of Manxin, I thought it was a very powerful moment when Ji Woo came to the realization that, just because she had a bad experience with the preciseness of AI, it didn’t mean that the technology was a bad thing an sich. It just did exactly what it was told based on its user’s needs. Getting angry at a machine for not doing something it wasn’t programmed to do in the first place won’t get you anywhere. The way Ji Woo described how her parents had set the automatic driving system to protect her first also reminded me of the nursing robots in The Prayer, who were only programmed to protect the people they were assigned to and wouldn’t reach out to anyone else, whether they needed saving or not. Seo Nang only emphasized the importance of the user’s influence by saying that AI has no way of even materializing without humans. It’s so easy to talk about AI as if they’re a separate being that has the ability to control people, but we sometimes forget to remember that we are the ones that enabled AI in the first place. It’s all human-made and user-generated stuff. I think it was an interesting choice to create a story about the pure relationship of codependence that exists between humans and technology. Seo Nang would’ve just remained to be a shapeless piece of data if Ji Woo hadn’t gone back for him. Ji Woo chose to go back for him because she realized she preferred companionship, but she also could’ve just as easily decided to discard him as ‘just another piece of tech’. These themes of interdependence also featured dominantly in both The Prayer and Manxin. As a character, Ji Woo also reminded me a bit of Seon Ho in the sense that they both initially reject the technology that’s taking over the world but are at some point softened in their convictions through the realization it’s humans who give the technology purpose. The only link I could find to Joan’s Galaxy was the automatic cars.

By the way, something that puzzles me a little bit is the title of this episode, Blink. While the titles of the previous episodes were all quite self-explanatory, I’m actually not quite sure what this title refers to. I’m assuming it has something to do with the eyes or vision, so maybe it refers to the special abilities the chip enabled to enhance human sight? It did play a role in solving the story’s murder case, after all. But all in all I feel like it doesn’t necessarily indicate the most important message of the story. I could be wrong of course, because this title must’ve been chosen for a reason, but I just mean to say that it wasn’t as straightforwardly clear as the titles of the previous episodes I watched.
What I also find interesting is that the poster for this episode shows Ji Woo positioned in-between the two figures in front of her, eyeing them cautiously. The two figures featured in the front aren’t shown very clearly, we can make out Baek Jung’s face on the left, but it’s not clear who he’s trying to choke. From the scene, we can assume it’s Seo Nang, as the background of the shot features the setting in which their final fight takes place. However, this particular scene does not appear in the story. We never seen Seo Nang and Baek Jung physically fight in the warehouse in front of Ji Woo – their fight takes place in a Matrix-kind of setting within Baek Jung’s mind. So yeah, I just find it interesting they decided to frame the poster in this way.

This is probably gonna be my shortest review within this anthology so far, but then again, I also found this the most simple story. There wasn’t much to unravel in terms of hidden agendas or plot twists. The only thing that remains debatable is whether or not Seo Nang truly doesn’t have any malicious intentions, whether he put in so much effort to win Ji Woo’s trust because he wanted to be freed. I mean, if that ‘farewell gift’ he gave her wasn’t meant as a bribe I don’t know what it was. The whole AI partner thing was still in development, and we saw what the military’s experiment of combining human and AI strength led to, so it can’t be guaranteed to be completely risk-free. While I did find it pretty refreshing to have a story without too many complications, even one that featured a bit of a comical dynamic between the main leads, I still would’ve liked there to be a little bit of an edge. The absence of a hidden evil actually gave me a false sense of security, haha.

Let’s do some cast comments before wrapping up! By the way, I don’t know why, but I found it hard to find a complete casting list for this episode. I wanted to credit the guy who played Baek Jung since he was quite a character presence – I thought he’d be credited prominently since the original short story this episode is based on refers specifically to him (🤔) but I can’t find him in any of the casting lists from any of my go-to drama source websites, and the same goes for the murder victim and the majority of the drug youth gang.

I was so excited to see something with Lee Shi Young again, she’s one of my favorite actresses and it’s been a while since I saw her in anything. I know her from Boys Before Flowers, Playful Kiss, Wild Romance, Valid Love and Lookout. I still want to see Grid and Risky Romance as well. I think the role of police officer suits her very well since she’s actually in really good shape (those abs?? 😳). I always appreciate when an actors’ real-life skills and attributes are used in a drama, and it was a funny aspect that despite her diligent and regular workouts, Ji Woo still lost out to the agility and speed of an AI. I feel like within the short span of the episode we still got to see many different sides to Ji Woo’s character, the distraughtness caused by her nightmares, her hesitancy and skepticism towards accepting Seo Nang’s help, and eventually the dependency and that accepting smile. The struggle she went through to change her mindset was very realistic as well. For all we know she could’ve been fooled by Seo Nang, but we can’t really blame her for it because she did doubt him in the first place and only ended up trusting her own human (and therefore subjective) instincts. Her character may have been simple to gauge but I do think she brought a nice clarity to Ji Woo’s decisions with her acting.

Apparently I’ve seen Ha Joon before in Radio Romance and Arthdal Chronicles, but I don’t have a clear memory of him from there (I might have mentioned him in my reviews before, though). In any case, I liked his performance in this episode. He remained quite an enigma and it was never revealed what the risks of his technology could be, but my red flags did go up when he started asking Ji Woo to give him control to actually cause physical harm to people, whether it was those youngsters or Baek Jung. The mystery surrounding him made him an interesting character, though. It also strangely became a part of his charm that you couldn’t really gauge him. He made the perfect charming yet unpredictable partner. I was kind of curious to see a darker side to Seo Nang, but in one way the fact that he remained ‘harmless’ for the duration of the test run only to emerge from his constraints also seemed to indicate a certain ominousness. It would make sense if his character was supposed to symbolize the familiarity people are meant to experience when using AI, the sense that it’s there to help them and guide them (similar to the Manxin app). I found myself curious to discover how Seo Nang would start behavior after Ji Woo gave him full access.

All in all, it was another enjoyable episode. I liked that it brought an element of humor to the dynamic of the main leads, and they made an even more peculiar team than the lead characters in Manxin. It also included the highest level of action and fighting I’ve seen so far in this anthology. Like every chapter, it brought a new perspective on the use of technology and the relationship between people and artificial intelligence. I’ve seen a lot of comments saying they’d like a whole series of this, and I’d agree, even if it were just to confirm whether Seo Nang wouldn’t actually turn out to be an evil AI entity, lol. While it was enjoyable enough, I still feel like I would’ve liked a bit more edge. That’s just my personal opinion, and it doesn’t take away the fact that it was still a very interesting episode to watch.

Now that I’m halfway through the anthology I’m wondering whether or not I’ll actually be able to finish the whole anthology before the end of the year, haha. I’m going to do my best, but no promises. Looking forward to the remaining four episodes!

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.

Joan’s Galaxy
(우주인 조안 / Ujuin Joan / Astronaut Joan)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

It’s oddly satisfying to go through this anthology while I’m also working on my end of term deadlines – whenever I have a moment to spare I find myself continuing with it. I got some unexpected time to sneak in another episode and I started working on the review immediately after finishing it because again, the story turned out to be an absolute gem. To give a short summary of the setting of this episode: it’s 2046 and the world is covered in thick fine dust. The population has been divided into two categories of human: C (clean) and N (non-clean). These categories refer to the health differences between each person. Cs are people that were injected with antibodies at birth, which allows them a lifespan of a hundred years. Ns are people who did not have the chance or means to get vaccinated, and they have a lifespan of only thirty years.

SF8: Joan’s Galaxy is the third episode in the SF8 anthology. It has a duration of about 54 minutes and was directed by Lee Yoon Jung. It’s based on the short story ‘Astronaut Joanne’ by Kim Hyo In.

As the population has been distinctly divided into these two categories, it is to be expected that there is a clear difference in lifestyle between the people from both groups. This difference is mainly expressed through the way the people have adapted to the dire environmental conditions. Cs, although perfectly healthy, tend to be more cautious and fearful of the toxic particles in the air. They see getting soaked in the rain as something extremely risky, for example, and they make as little contact as possible with the outside air, wearing protective suits and masks and driving in automatic cars so they don’t have to touch anything. On the other hand, Ns seem to have a much more liberated lifestyle. Despite the ‘misfortune’ of their shortened lifespan, Ns tend to make the most of the time they have. As they are forced to become independent and plan their whole lives ahead from when they are teenagers, they find much more freedom and time to focus on things they enjoy doing. Ironically, the freedom of not having to worry about what will become of their future allows them to enjoy the little moments of their life more than Cs. As it happens, many talented and creative artists have sprung from N communities.

Besides the two main categories C and N, there are also subcategories. For example, there are NCCs (non-clean but clean). This group consists of Ns who strive to extend their lifespan by acting like they are Cs. They wear special purifying suits and try to blend into C communities.
There’s also a mention made of TNs (total non-clean), which seems to refer to Ns who are beyond any possible chance of extending their life spans, for example people who have an illness on top of their lack of antibodies.

It is within this societal setting that we are introduced to Yi Oh (played by Choi Sung Eun). Her parents are both scholars (her father is a biological researcher and her mother a college professor) and it’s established that she has quite a wealthy background. Coming from a family of consistent Cs, Yi Oh has grown up under the impression she was vaccinated as a baby and lived her life for 26 years believing she was a C. Imagine her shock when she got some very serious news a month earlier. As it happens, her doctor discovered Yi Oh had a tumor, and when checking her records it was revealed that she actually didn’t get any antibodies when she was born. Her antibodies were accidentally given to another baby – an N baby who wasn’t even qualified to receive it. To sum it up: Yi Oh finds out that, despite spending 26 years believing she was a C, she’s actually been an N all her life.
While Yi Oh tries to wrap her head around this, her mother remains very firm: no one has to know. They keep it a secret that Yi Oh is a C by making her wear an NCC purifying suit that will hopefully retain her current health levels and keep the tumor’s growth stagnant (it has yet to become malignant). Whenever she’s asked why she’s wearing an N-type protective suit, Yi Oh just has to say her mom is making her wear it for safety just in case.

So basically, at the beginning of the episode’s story, Yi Oh is an N pretending to be a C. She’s not allowed to share her secret or talk about it with anyone except her adamant mother. She can’t even tell her good friend Kyung (Yoon Jung Hoon), who is an N himself. Through her newfound interest in Ns and their way of life as she starts identifying with them more and more, Yi Oh starts to develop an interest in the only other N girl in her college class: Shin Jo An (played by Kim Bo Ra). Initially, it seems like Yi Oh wants to get closer to her in order to find a kindred spirit – after all, Jo An is the only girl her age she knows who’s also an N. Yi Oh eventually finds herself sharing her secret with Jo An, and Jo An agrees to help her find the N that received her antibodies in her place.

As they gradually become closer, Jo An continuously inspires Yi Oh with her determined mindset and carefree way of living. Despite the fact that she’s accepted she only has about three more years to live, Jo An shows incredible determination and goes after all her dreams without regrets. For example, she’s been applying for a job at the Aerospace Research Institute while they’ve never hired an N person before. She doesn’t even mind that she won’t actually be able to work there, but she just doesn’t leave any chance open to at least try, because it’ll be better than never even taking the first step. When Yi Oh reveals that she’s been hired by the Institute and admits she feels guilty about it towards Jo An, Jo An doesn’t even mind and is just as excited for her as she would’ve been if she’d gotten in herself.
As she starts hanging out with Jo An and gets attached to her more and more, Yi Oh gradually begins to accept her new identity as an N more and more as well, much to the dismay of her mother. She starts coming home after dark, starts wearing skin-revealing clothes and even deliberately gets soaked in the rain once. Her mother is extremely worried, especially when she receives the news that Yi Oh’s tumor has officially become malignant.

At some point during their search for the N who got Yi Oh’s antibodies, Yi Oh and Jo An visibly start to see how there’s so much more to the time they’re spending together than just that mission. It even starts to look as if they’re developing more than just friendly feelings for each other – a certain intimacy rises between them as they keep spending time together. On the day that they’re supposed to do a presentation in class together, Yi Oh doesn’t turn up as she has to undergo surgery for her tumor. She hasn’t told Jo An about this, as she fears she might not survive the surgery and she’d rather just quietly disappear instead of having to say goodbye. The real reason for this – the real reason for EVERYTHING – is revealed in the final scene of the episode, which takes place a year after Yi Oh’s surgery. As Yi Oh is recovering from her surgery (she survived, yay!) she’s zapping the TV when she suddenly comes across Jo An, who has been apparently been hired by the Aerospace Research Institute. As we see Yi Oh smile fondly at Jo An on the screen, we are shown through flashbacks how the real reason she approached Jo An in the first place came to be, and then everything suddenly makes even more sense. The day Yi Oh heard the shocking news, she was immediately given the information on the N baby who got her antibodies, and much to her surprise, it was someone she knew. It was Shin Jo An.

To be honest, I had a feeling from the start that it was Jo An who got Yi Oh’s antibodies. I just found myself thinking that could very well be the case, but since they made this whole deal about finding the person, I still kept an open mind in case it wasn’t what I thought. Even though I wasn’t that surprised by the revelation that it was indeed Jo An, the way in which it was revealed that Yi Oh had really known this all along and that her objective in approaching Jo An had been out of genuine compassion and interest to see the person with her antibodies live a fruitful life – that just got me all 😭😭😭. As soon as it was revealed I just knew I had to watch it again with that knowledge, and that gave the scenes between them and the endearing way Yi Oh looks at Jo An from the start such a heartwarming twist I’m glad I did it.
I’m not even lying when I say that this was the first episode in this anthology that actually made me cry at the end. Even while knowing Yi Oh did it out of pure compassion towards Jo An, I still believe that she didn’t actually expect her feelings for her to grow like that. There was still an element that hadn’t been part of the plan, but even so they both accepted it so naturally and warmly. I actually got butterflies during the observatory scene when they did the pulse experiment 😳, heck, that made my heart beat faster! 🦋 The way Yi Oh was like, “I can see the stars” 😭 and Jo An was like, “Me too” 😭. I loved that their relationship was made into something so pure and natural. There was no doubt or hesitation in either of them to just be together and enjoy life together. It was absolutely beautiful.

Let me elaborate on the two main characters in a bit more detail. I don’t know if it was just Jo An’s interpretation of Yi Oh’s name or if it was really the case, but I liked the planetary reference that Yi Oh was named after the planet Io, one of Jupiter’s fifth moon. I thought it was a nice little wink to the girls’ interest in space as well. We meet Yi Oh as quite a privileged girl, she’s from a wealthy family and has never had to worry about anything. Naturally, it’s only after her doctor’s announcement that she starts navigating between the life she’s lived so far (as a C) and the life she might now have to start living (as an N). Without knowing her true objective in approaching Jo An from the start, it might be seen as a bit snobby of her to just pat the only N person around on the back and be like, ‘hey, I’m going to have to live like you now, tell me all there is to know about being an N’. However, what’s so typical about Yi Oh is that she’s extremely compassionate and humble towards Jo An from the start. She doesn’t mean to offend or bother her in any way, and is just extremely relieved when Jo An accepts her. Watching the episode with the knowledge of Yi Oh’s objective, there’s not a single moment where I thought she was lying to Jo An or owed her an explanation. It was genuinely out of the goodness of her heart that she wanted to see with her own eyes how Jo An would live on to live out her full potential. From the start, there was never any sense of bitterness or betrayal that Jo An had ‘stolen’ her antibodies or anything (just saying, we know people get like that in K-Dramas 🤷🏻‍♀️). Whereas her mother may have demanded a compensation, Yi Oh actually found it in her to be genuinely happy for the N baby that got the chance to live. I feel like she didn’t even mean to actually get involved in Jo An’s life, as we can see from the beginning it’s obvious she’s content with just looking at her from afar. When she finds herself drawn to Jo An’s presence more and more it also becomes a bit sad in a way, because now she also knows that it will hurt even more to say goodbye to her. I think that’s why she ultimately decides to not tell her about the surgery and just quietly disappear from her life rather than tell her the truth. Although it was sad that they couldn’t stay together, it did ultimately allow Yi Oh to see for herself how Jo An got admitted to her dream job, and she went back to square one by fondly watching her from a distance. The way she was just so happy for her, even if she didn’t get to personally be a part of her life, that’s true love goals.

As the story is framed through Yi Oh’s perspective, we only see Jo An through her narrative as well. We don’t get to see any scenes of just Jo An, except maybe the one where she turns up alone at the presentation. Just like the majority of the people we see in the N-community (by the way did anyone else notice N-Town actually stood for Noble Town?🤔 I wonder if it was abbreviated to N-Town to give it a more derogative association for being a community of Ns😓). In any case, we see Jo An’s little ways of enjoying life through the way she smiles at the smell of the coffee she sells at her café and the way she gets excited about new adventures. Her lifestyle is representative of what Yi Oh is told about Ns when she visits N-Town for the first time: while knowing she won’t be able to live for much longer, Jo An doesn’t skip a chance to run after anything she’s interested in. Even if she can’t pursue her dreams, she might as well go as far as she can to give it a try before her time runs out. I loved how the difference in lifestyle the two girls grew up in were expressed in such subtle ways. For example, at one point they’re having a beer together after talking to the final person they thought could be the one who got Yi Oh’s antibodies, and while Yi Oh comments her beer tastes bitter, Jo An comments “I think it’s refreshing.” Not much later in that same scene, Yi Oh says “Don’t you think living becomes more bitter the more you know?” to which Jo An replies, “No. I like learning new things every day.” Comments like this just proved that, despite their differences, Jo An continuously managed to show Yi Oh a positive new outlook on life. The two girls were drawn to each other so naturally and this made their different lifestyles fit into each other in such a matter-of-factly way that it seemed like they were meant to be together. Whether they were soulmates or kindred spirits or twin flames or whatever you want to call it, these two were simply bound together by something much greater than those swapped antibodies.

Speaking of their relationship, I couldn’t help but identify some specific events that just made me believe those were the moments they fell in love with each other. I mean, they’d been close from the start, but there were certain events within their times together that jumped out to me and just made me go ‘LOOK AT THOSE HEART-SHAPED EYES’ 🤭🤭🤭. For Yi Oh, I definitely feel like it was the part where Jo An was singing to her. The way her face changed as she was watching her, as if she was suddenly realizing her true feelings for Jo An. You could just feel something shift in their energy everytime they shared an intimate moment. The pulse experiment was probably the most defining moment for the both of them. I don’t know about you, but don’t tell me I’m the only one who translated “I can see the stars” as “I love you” in their head. I feel like it started with Yi Oh, even from the scenes in which she was checking out Jo An’s ankles when she was walking up the stairs (I interpreted it as that she was watching her ankles, lol). When the subtle touches and displays of public affection through lying on each other’s lap and stroking each other’s hair became more apparent it seemed to me like they were officially on the same page.

All in all, it can be said that in the short time the two girls spent together, they both learned the most important lesson of all, and I also think this is the main message of the story. It doesn’t matter how much time you have, as long as you spend it doing things you love, as long as you find fleeting moments of beauty of joy that will last a lifetime because they make up something that will actually continue to live for a lifetime: a memory. I think Jo An truly realized this as she was trying to give the presentation by herself, and I wouldn’t even be surprised if that was the moment she actually realized Yi Oh’s truth as well. But I think it was predominantly that she realized Yi Oh wouldn’t be coming back, and she was okay with it because she would always remember their time together. The times they ran and laughed together, when Yi Oh stroked her hair as she lay her head in her lap, when she felt her pulse at the observatory and when they got soaked in the rain together. I think the most important thing was that they both peacefully accepted that they couldn’t be together and still managed to think about their times together with a fond smile. As Yi Oh says in her final line while she’s crying tears of happiness seeing Jo An living her dream, despite the accidental nature of the swapped antibodies-incident, “it’s the most valuable gift I can give.”

When Jo An appeared on Yi Oh’s TV screen and talked about her work at the Institute so far, I couldn’t help but think of what she told Yi Oh when they were in the observary. “Whenever I call your name, I’ll think of the vast universe. Io, the closest moon to Jupiter, and the fourth largest in the solar system.” It just hit me for some reason that she probably thought of this a lot after she got hired at the Aerospace Institute. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Before I move on to the final part of my review, I just want to say a little bit more about Kyung, Yi Oh’s friend. He doesn’t appear that much in the story, but I still want to mention him because he is the person who ultimately remains at Yi Oh’s side after her surgery, and it turns out he was in on way more than was initially revealed. As it happens, Kyung is training to be a doctor, and he is the person who passes the information about the identity of the person who got her antibodies onto Yi Oh. It was also during Kyung’s mom’s funeral that Yi Oh encountered the name Lee Hyun Soo, the person she told Jo An was the one who got her antibodies. Kyung is also the person who persuades Yi Oh to undergo the surgery. Yi Oh initially doesn’t want to waste the little time she has left on receiving treatment, but Kyung tells her that her condition isn’t hopeless and there’s still a chance she might live. All in all, Kyung is basically the person that ‘introduces’ Yi Oh to Jo An, so I’m grateful to him, haha.
To be honest, I first was exactly. I first thought he was Yi Oh’s brother because she once mentioned him in the same breath as her mom and dad, but then how was it that she went to his mom’s funeral? I only found out through MDL that he was ‘Yi Oh’s friend’. Not that it mattered too much, but their relationship could’ve been defined a little bit more clearly in my opinion.

Now that I’ve discussed the main story as a whole, I like to reflect a bit on any overlaps in the episodes I’ve seen so far. This episode was probably the farthest from the previous two so far. I found only one direct reference, as Kyung mentions that they got the purifying suits from TRS, which was also the company that manufactured the nursing robots in The Prayer. Apart from that, there was also a clear presence of capitalism that played a big part in separating the two human categories from one another. Only people with financial stability were able to afford antibodies and all the necessary equipment to live safely as a C. Without those means, you were basically marked as being ‘unlucky’ enough to be an N. It just reminded me of how the differences in financial status also contributed greatly to what type of robot people could afford in The Prayer. It just seems like TRS plays a major role in the capitalism of this anthology. What I find interesting to think about on the other hand is that, as this episode clearly proves, having less financial stability and security doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to live a miserable life. It was proven to be quite the opposite, actually. Ns were overall much happier in life than Cs. I couldn’t help but make a link to Jeong In from The Prayer, someone with enough financial stability to afford a higher level robot but who was still absolutely miserable. I think the message we can take from these two episodes combined is that wealth, although undoubtedly a convenient privilege, is definitely not a defining factor to live a happy life.
Other than this, there were no returning actors or other direct references or links to the previous two episodes I watched. Still, it continues to remind me of Black Mirror, even when it just makes one mention of something that appeared in another chapter of this anthology.

By the way, and I’m only just noticing this, I like how the title of this episode refers to more than just a direct reference to a main character in the show. The Prayer and Manxin both have pretty self-explanatory names, even in Korean. The Prayer‘s Korean title refers directly to the main character Gan Ho Joong, and Manxin refers to, well, the app Manxin. I love how this episode is called ‘Jo An’s Galaxy’. The Korean title translates to something like, ‘Astronaut Joan’ or ‘Cosmic Joan’ – in any case all versions of the title refer to Jo An, even though we follow the whole story through Yi Oh’s perspective. Yi Oh is the one in the astronaut suit, as can be seen from the poster, yet the title of astronaut is assigned to Jo An.
Honestly, I’d like to think that Yi Oh was the one who named this episode 🥰. I can only assume that the story got this title because it all ultimately turns out to be about Jo An’s life, the one she manages to extend beyond her expectations because she unknowingly received Yi Oh’s antibodies. Jo An is the one who managed to get the job at the Aerospace station so she’s the one who ‘goes to space’.
I just found it interesting since as far as I can see all the episodes of the anthology have pretty straight-forward titles, and this was the first one that had a more suggestive and even symbolic meaning, one that you wouldn’t understand if you hadn’t seen the episode and grasped its true message.

Let’s do some very quick cast comments!

I kept thinking what I recognized Choi Sung Eun from, but then I realized she’s the female lead from The Sound of Magic! I really loved her performance in this episode. She exuded such genuine warmth and compassion and I loved her chemistry with Kim Bo Ra as well. It was nice seeing her in a completely different setting. She hasn’t even done that many acting projects yet, mostly movies, and TSoM is still her most recent drama appearance. It’s nice to see actors that aren’t that big yet get casted in interesting projects like this anthology, because it just gives me the feeling that specific directors are still recognizing their talent and potential. I hope she’ll get more roles in the future, because she definitely has much to offer! I’m curious to see more of her acting now.

I’ve seen Kim Bo Ra in a couple of things before, like Who Are You: School 2015, Her Private Life and Busted, and I also have a couple more series on my watchlist that she stars in. My most recent memory of her is from HPL, where she was kind of a brat haha, so it was nice to see her portray such a pure and bright character with such an addictive zest life. The role suited her very well and I really love what she did with it. The chemistry between her and Choi Sung Eun seemed so natural and effortless as well. I’m also glad I got to see some more variety in her acting, not just in the heart-throbbing scenes but also when she started crying during her presentation when it hit her she was probably not going to see Yi Oh again – her acting was clean yet powerful. I’m really excited to see more drama appearances of her!

I hadn’t seen Yoon Jung Hoon in anything else before, but I see he’s been in a whole bunch of dramas ever since 2018. I think I’ll see him in some other series in the future. Anyways, I liked that Kyung was such a solid person in Yi Oh’s life. I felt bad because she had to keep the secret of her being an N from all her friends at college, and while it seemed like she was keeping it a secret from Kyung in the beginning as well, I’m glad she ended up telling him. If it hadn’t been for him, Yi Oh probably wouldn’t have gotten the surgery and then she might not have gotten the chance to see Jo An on television a year later. We owe a lot to Kyung, so he can’t remain unmentioned. I hope I’ll get to see him in more different projects!

All in all, I loved how this episode again was completely different from the previous two I watched. I also loved how it again created such an original environment and setting for the story to take place in. So far worldbuilding seems to be this anthology’s strong suit! Besides the interesting setting, this story ranked high in my ratings because it gave yet another beautiful spin on a seemingly dire situation, and it was so refreshing to see two young people make the most out of their (believed) shortened lifespans. It was truly a love story of a kind I haven’t seen before that often. The fact that it ended in a separation that was more beautiful and heartwarming than it was sad or painful only added to its originality and charm. I truly enjoyed watching this, it actually made me think more about the fleetingness of life and how important it is to enjoy the small moments rather than worry about the big picture. Creating such a clear division between Cs and Ns and then go on to explore which category was actually the most happy one, and whether it was actually about the categories in the first place, was really powerful. The story, the themes and the message only complimented the acting and the cinematography. I loved it.

My excitement to move on to the next episode has only been increasing with every single chapter I watch, and I’m again incredibly curious to the next story.

See you soon!

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.

Manxin
(만신 / Manshin / Ten Thousand Deities)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

This second (or fourth? 🤔 I’m a bit confused about the order) episode of the anthology takes place in a society that got dominated by the introduction of a fortune telling program called Manxin. The name is derived from the word manshin 万神, which literally means ‘ten thousand deities’ and therefore suggests a higher power. The program started out as an innocent horoscope app, but it gradually managed to gain the status of a prophecizing service with a 96.3% accuracy rate. Currently, the majority of people have started planning their entire lives around their daily Manxin horoscopes and only ever follow what the app tells them to do. This has in turn led to severe psychological issues, high levels of lethargy and low levels of productivity among people. No one even bothers to look beyond Manxin’s daily prophecies anymore, and everyone is so dependent on having the app that it’s become hard to imagine living an unpredictable life.

SF8: Manxin is either the second or fourth episode in the SF8 anthology. It has a duration of about 53 minutes and was directed by Noh Deok.

Among the countless people that use Manxin to predict every single day of their lives, lone ranger To Seon Ho (played by Lee Yeon Hee) is a rare exception. She’s never even installed the app and doesn’t intend to, not after what happened to her younger sister. Her younger sister used to be a true Manxin addict who completely based her life on its predictions and prophecies. One night, she had a horrific accident in which she fell into a massive sinkhole in the middle of a highway. Seon Ho, knowing that her sister would’ve never voluntarily gone to a place like that, is convinced that Manxin is to blame for her sister’s accident. The app must have told her something that made her go to that place at that time. Maybe it even told her to jump into the sinkhole, who knows. No one does. But Seon Ho strives to find out what happened and that’s why she’s gone in search of Manxin’s developer. She wants to get to the app’s server in order to retrieve her sister’s app data to find out what Manxin told her that day.
When we meet Seon Ho for the first time, she has just managed to obtain some intel on a certain Kim In Hong, a guy who she believes to be Manxin’s original developer. When she looks for him at the sermon of a community that’s completely devoted to Manxin and even prays to it as a God, she catches the eye of one of the speakers, Jung Ga Ram (played by Lee Dong Hwi). Seeing the big star on the back of Seon Ho’s jacket, he believes her to be the ‘Northern Star’ that Manxin prophesized to him as the guide that would lead him to his Lord. Despite their completely different attitudes towards the app, the unusual duo embarks on an adventure together in order to get to the bottom of Manxin, starting by tracking down this Kim In Hong, who inconveniently was not present at that particular sermon.

I just want to mention upfront that I thought it was really cool how different this episode was in contrast to the previous one I watched. It instantly made me excited to see the other episodes. Contrary to The Prayer, I thought the storyline and character development in Manxin was very straightforward and the ending had a pretty satisfying closure element to it. It wasn’t in the least abstract or suggestive, and it didn’t leave any references open for interpretation.
What I mean with ‘straightforwardedness’ of the storyline is that the story is very linear and easy to follow. It clearly establishes a setting in which a certain phenomenon is occurring and how this has influenced the lives of the people for a considerable time period (seven years, to be exact). Within this clear setting, we are introduced to two main characters who each have a certain experience or association with the app that causes them to either participate in the hype or not. Against all odds, these two characters team up to locate the source of the phenomenon for their own reasons. They manage to find a key person but ultimately encounter a dead end. There’s a classic moment of surrender and hopelessness before they eventually find their way back to their initial motivation. The story ends with a confrontation between the main characters and the person behind the phenomenon, and the issue is presented of whether or not to stop the phenomenon.
Interestingly, rather than a classic ending of the MCs putting an end to the phenomenon and restoring order to the world, Manxin presents a rather unique twist to its ending: rather than being disabled by the human ‘heroes’, the app makes its own decision to remain flawed and harmless. Rather than developing into an Almighty computer system that would quite literally dominate the human race (as classic evil computers do, looking at you, HAL) Manxin ironically decides it prefers to stay close to ‘humanity’ by maintaining an ‘imperfect’ system that gradually returns the need for personal action to people’s lives. The episode has a pretty satisfying ending, even though the majority of the people in the story don’t know that yet. No one ends up getting hurt, no one is under threat of being dominated by a computer system, all’s well that ends well.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into our two main characters.
Seon Ho is initially introduced as quite a stoic person. Until her motives for wanting to find Manxin’s server are revealed, it just seems as if she’s the only one in her vicinity who refuses to become a slave of technology and is more interested in finding out who is behind this app. Besides the very first scene in which she stands at the edge of the sinkhole, we only find out who Seon Ho is and what the sinkhole symbolizes when the story about her younger sister is revealed. Fuelled by her conviction that Manxin must have been responsible for her sister’s death – it’s so easy to blame machines for misfortune, after all – Seon Ho merely wants to get the confirmation from the app’s system to fully shape her bias towards it. Considering this conviction, it is not surprising to see how shaken she gets when she eventually finds out Manxin actually wasn’t responsible for anything at all. In fact, her sister had deleted the app a week before her accident, seemingly to take active action against her addiction to it. In addition, she’d been preparing a special birthday cake for Seon Ho, but stopped responding to the bakery’s service messages around the time it was ready for pick-up. Seon Ho finds out the truth when the repair store finally manages to retrieve her sister’s damaged phone’s data and is able to verify that the Manxin app is not installed on it. This is the only scene where we see an emotional side from Seon Ho, as she breaks down crying while listening to her sister’s last spoken messages directed at the ordering service that was preparing Seon Ho’s birthday cake.

We first meet Ga Ram at the sermon, where he’s giving a testimony of his dedication to Manxin and where he describes the prophecy he received about the Northern Star that would appear to him that day to guide him to his Lord. He takes a very easy chance on Seon Ho, even after realizing she’s strongly against the app. Initially, it’s probably because of his conviction that Seon Ho is indeed this prophecized ‘Northern Star’ that he sticks by her, all the more when he gets repetitive messages that only seem to confirm this.
Ga Ram’s personal reason for believing so strongly in Manxin is that he perceives it as ‘his savior’. Before he encountered Manxin, he was in a really bad place and this even caused him to jump off a building. The Manxin message he received right before jumping said something about a ‘dove of good luck’ being on its way. When he jumped, his fall was broken by a truck filled with bags containing soft plush toys that just happened to drive by at that moment, and as he opened his eyes a swarm of pigeons (or doves, I guess) flew up before his eyes. That was the moment he just knew that Manxin was real and that’s when he started worshipping it.

What’s interesting is that, following the linear storyline of finding out who’s behind Manxin and who or what is truly responsible for Seon Ho’s sister accident, both the main characters gradually start becoming more and more reflective in their opinions about the app along the way. While starting out on different sides of the spectrum – Seon Ho as the only person who defies Manxin and Ga Ram as someone who worships it – they ultimately start relating to each other’s perspectives as they each discover different sides to their own truths. For example, Seon Ho eventually does take a chance on the app after finding out that it was really just an unfortunate accident that killed her sister, and Ga Ram also starts accepting the way things are more. What I liked was that, despite their differences, there was never any serious tension between the two in terms of conviction. Apart from one specific clash moment, Seon Ho never actively tried to convince Ga Ram of the app’s flaws, and Ga Ram never tried to convert Seon Ho. They both stated their own opinions, and they accepted each other’s perspectives while maintaining their own. Honestly, if we could all just live like that, it would’ve been a much less crazy world.

When Seon Ho and Ga Ram manage to find and corner Kim In Hong (played by Seo Hyun Woo) in his hotel room, In Hong admits that while he is the original developer of the first model of Manxin, he hasn’t been involved in any of the developments that have made the app to what it is today. He was approached by someone in the very early ages of his creation, when the accuracy rate was still very low, and that person requested all his intellectual property to merge Manxin into a danger-warning program. As In Hong has no clue who that person might be and all the financial things were handled through cash and digital contracts, there is no way of tracing the transaction back to anyone either. Despite the fact that the original idea of Manxin was his, In Hong has completely washed his hands off anything that connects him to it, and has instead become just another slave to the technology. He listens to the app’s predictions just like everyone else, and he even became a part of the same community religion that Ga Ram belongs to, holding testimonies for it. While he initially also tries to push Seon Ho and Ga Ram away as he doesn’t want to get involved, he does provide them with a useful hint and even offers to go with them – until he unfortunately slips in his own bathroom and hits his head (I assume, as it’s not exactly shown how he falls, but in any case he doesn’t survive it).

The only real clash of convictions between Seon Ho and Ga Ram occurs in the scene after they’ve witnessed Kim In Hong’s death. While Seon Ho keeps saying it was an accident – and we’re indeed challenged to question it because we’ve seen with our own eyes that they asked the cleaning lady to leave before she could finish the bathroom, causing the floor to remain slippery – Ga Ram keeps saying that it all happened because they forced In Hong to ignore his Manxin message (which urged him to stay inside or else he’d meet with bad luck). Here, for the first time, Ga Ram uses his faith in Manxin to make Seon Ho see the truth about herself – that she’s only scared of using Manxin because she fears that it’ll see through her because she does believe that it works. In response, Seon Ho breaks Ga Ram’s phone.
The two split up when Seon Ho gets a call from the repair shop that her sister’s phone data has been recovered, and she leaves Ga Ram behind in the neighborhood where a package containing parts for Manxin’s next update is supposed to be delivered (the last piece of information Kim In Hong shared with them).

Ga Ram’s words take a while to get through to Seon Ho. It’s only after she’s discovered what actually happened to her sister and her talk with the phone repair guy that she suddenly realizes her life is in her own hands, whether she chooses to install Manxin or not, and she decides to go back and look for Ga Ram.
Speaking of the phone repair guy (played by Yoon Gyung Ho), I think what he said to Seon Ho before she decides to finally install Manxin was very important. Despite the fact that Manxin was predicting people’s lives, there was still the possibility to go against it, and in that way it still enabled human choice. Most people just went along with anything it said because it was the safe option, but it never truly disabled people from going their own way and choosing their own path. Manxin only served the purpose of ‘guiding’ people by providing them with one possible option. This notion causes Seon Ho to finally install the app, and the first message she gets is: “If you feel as though you’ve hit a dead end, it means you are almost at your destination”. Which is proven to be true, as it’s revealed when she finally meets the developer that the whole part of town she’d been driving through was basically part of Manxin, or at least of the place through where all of Manxin’s date was being collected and generated.

The truth about Manxin is revealed when Seon Ho and Ga Ram finally meet the developer, an elderly man named Lee Chi Ham (played by Nam Myung Ryeol). It is here that they find out about Manxin’s self-developed idolization of human behavior, and that it’s actually started creating prophecies addressed to itself. This tendency is proved even more strongly when the software ultimately rejects the Big Update, which would’ve either created a huge magnetic field that would’ve turned the app into an ‘Almighty’ entity (something that Seon Ho strongly opposed) or would’ve destroyed it completely (something that Ga Ram strongly opposed). As the two yell their own arguments for both these possibilities (loved this back-and-forth dialogue, by the way), they suddenly make the developer realize that Manxin would be perfectly able to make its own choice, as if it actually were a human being. As a result – and I’m thinking it might have actually been aware of Seon Ho’s and Ga Ram’s arguments – Manxin decides that it wishes to retain a human-like status rather than an Almighty one. It would retain its daily fortunes but simultaneously adapt a 50/50 accuracy rate to keep encouraging people to make their own choices.

The episode ends with a refreshing ‘new start’ kind of feeling in which Seon Ho and Ga Ram both get rid of Manxin for good while around them a new world unfolds, as was originally predicted by Manxin at the beginning of the episode, but it’s a different world than anticipated. This new world would have to start getting used to the new 50% accuracy rate and stimulate people to take control of their own lives again.
My favorite part at the end was the narration of several news reports about people showing discontent towards the declined accuracy rate of the app, while “meanwhile, the employment rate and economic growth rates are on the rise for a change. Experts are saying it’s only a temporary phenomenon caused by the public’s fear of the uncertainty of the future.” That cracked me up – I thought it was the perfect way to end the episode on a humorous but hopeful note.

Honestly, I’m always quite fascinated by stories about forms of technology that impact people’s lives a lot, because it feels like it’s partially a depiction of reality (we’re all part of a world that’s become a slave of technology) and partially a warning to what this technology can have in the long run. It actually reminded me of the Joalarm app from Love Alarm. That may have been a dating app, but it also took away the thrill and unpredictability of the chase in people’s love lives and only decreased the amount of independent action needed to look past the possibilities the app provided. Humans and machines have become such an interrelated thing and I’m always fascinated by how people manage to convey that correlation through visual images. I feel like the relationship between humans and machines/technology will be the main recurring theme within this anthology. Within the two episodes I’ve watched so far, this relationship was depicted in a really powerful way. It’s just so relatable to see how we’ve become so dependent on technology in our daily (social) lives and work, we’ve accepted it almost as a part of us, but as soon as it starts acting up or makes a mistake, we immediately tend to get angry, blame it for everything and want to throw it out the window. I’ve made this point in The Prayer and I also found it applicable in this episode, especially when looking at the final scene. As soon as Manxin becomes less reliable, people start complaining. It’s always our first reaction to point at the machine that’s not working properly before we stop to think about what we could’ve done ourselves to fix things without using technological tools in the first place.

I discovered a couple of links between The Prayer and Manxin, and I find it kind of exciting that I don’t even know whether it is the makers’ intention to create these links, but I have the feeling it was.
First of all, it can be said that in Manxin, technology has been given some sort of influence in matters of life and death. While it may not have been the intention with which the technology was made, people have literally started using Manxin’s predictions as if their lives depended on it (look at Kim In Hong and where that got him). Then, the association with faith as introduced through Ga Ram. How typical is it that we are introduced to a more extreme group of Manxin followers who pray to the system in the same place where they also pray to Jesus? It only proved, just like in The Prayer, that people typically need something to worship so as not to feel completely lost.
Secondly, and this was one of the most direct links, the guy who worked at phone repair shop was played by the same actor as Choi Jeong Gil’s husband in The Prayer. It remains to be seen whether he’ll appear in more episodes and if it’s even supposed to be the same guy or they just thought it’d be convenient to use the same actor, but something tells me this anthology won’t just do things without a reason.
I also found it interesting to see more references to literary and philosophical sources.
Whereas The Prayer made references to Biblical stories such as Cain and Abel and quoted a poem, Manxin‘s first spoken line quotes Voltaire in his definition of destiny as something that both guides and derides us. I just find it very interesting to see how these stories try to make sense of a future with advanced technological developments while simultaneously referring to traditional human sources. I wonder if this will be a recurring thing in the next episodes as well.

I want to say a bit more about the concept of ‘destiny’ as it’s presented in this episode. We all know that destiny is a very popular element in (K-)dramas, and it’s often used to prove some sort of fateful connection between the two main leads. However, some stories choose to take a different stance regarding the topic by creating stories that emphasize human’s reliance on it. Love Alarm presents a very similar stance to Manxin by using an app to predict a part of people’s lives to the extent that people don’t even think about putting in additional effort anymore, but it also reminded me of for example About Time, in which the main character had the ability to see how much time people had left before they’d die. It played with the idea whether people would actually become more in control of their lives if they’d know what was coming to them. In Manxin, the influence of the app actually caused people to live only by their horoscopes and not even take any chances to stray beyond that out of fear that something bad would happen if they’d ‘disobey’ the app (even though the app didn’t actually forbid anything). You could say that, all the more when its accuracy dropped at the end, the app proved how scared people generally were of the unpredictable. We get so busy in life we don’t even stop to think about being scared of not knowing what tomorrow brings, but the introduction of this app and the way it enabled these predictions made people aware of how convenient it would actually be to not live in fear of the unknown future at all. They only took the chance because the possibility presented itself to them, even though they may not have even stopped to think about it before the app was introduced. I find that pretty fascinating, how just the introduction of a new idea that no one ever thought about before can suddenly influence the entire human race like that. It’s both interesting and alarming. Manxin actually changed people’s concept of destiny by turning it into something that strengthened people’s fear of and unpredictable future rather than its originally mysterious and even romantic association. Manxin was created as a helpline that ‘generously guided you through’ your life, but it seems like no one even stopped to realize that it wasn’t stated anywhere that this meant they didn’t have free will anymore. It’s just so typical how people tend to go along with the safest option as soon as it presents itself and start seeing it as the only possible option. It was the people themselves that started constraining themselves. It was never Manxin’s intention to limit people’s choices. We can blame it on the addictiveness of technology all we want, but in the end it’s really about how we as users decide to use it.

Was it just me thinking that there was a point of relevance in Seon Ho’s rare last name? When she introduces herself to Ga Ram for the first time he remarks that he didn’t know the last name ‘To’ existed and she admits that it’s the rarest last name in Korea. As I’m hesitant to believe anything in this anthology was added in without a reason, I couldn’t help but think that it might have had a specific meaning. I couldn’t figure out what it could link to, except maybe that she seemed to be the only ‘exception’ to the system because she didn’t use Manxin. I wonder if there was another reason for giving her such a rare last name, because it wasn’t mentioned again after that one mention and it didn’t specifically play a role in the rest of the story either.

Another symbol that I’m sure has a hidden meaning but I’m probably too daft to figure it out is the dove. As we learn through the story, Ga Ram claims he was saved by Manxin when it showed him a dove after he failed to kill himself, which he attributed as visual proof to the app’s message that ‘the dove of good luck would come for him’. Besides that, we see doves around Ga Ram a couple of times. When Seon Ho and Ga Ram are waiting outside the hotel In Hong is staying at as they’re waiting for him to come out, Ga Ram is sitting on some steps and there’s a bunch of doves at his feet.
When Seon Ho ends up at Lee Chi Ham’s hideout when she’s tracking down Ga Ram, there are doves in the hallway just outside the door (which was strange because it was this dark maze of tunnels, it wasn’t a typical place for a bunch of doves to chill). Again, there wasn’t any further clarification about it, but I found it interesting that it seemed like they’d actually started following Ga Ram around after his Manxin-awakening or something.

Time for some cast comments! This episode had even less characters than the previous one, so this probably won’t be a very long section.

It was really funny to see Lee Yeon Hee as such a different character type than I was used to. I’ve seen her so far in Reunited Worlds and The Package, but I’ve never seen her in such an edgy role before. Not just in appearance but also in behavior, as Seon Ho was definitely a tough cookie. I honestly wouldn’t have even considered her for a role like this based on my prior reference of her acting, but I think she pulled it off surprisingly well. I liked that, despite her toughness, she never became unlikable. The way she immediately accepted Ga Ram as a companion and never let her own feelings regarding Manxin stand in the way of their teamwork even if she didn’t agree with his convictions made her a naturally kind person. I liked seeing a different side of her acting. I like that it’s always series specials like this that bring out unexpected sides of actors I thought I knew.

I’d never seen Lee Dong Hwi in anything before. I think what I liked most about his character is that, despite his devoted belief in Manxin, he wasn’t a completely mindless slave to technology. I think it was because he’d experienced going from a non-believer to a believer, and that’s why he was able to acknowledge both sides of the issue. While maintaining true to his faith he still chose to follow Seon Ho, he still accepted her despite the fact that her convictions went against his. He may have originally been introduced as a bit of a silly, comical character, but he definitely know what was going on around him, and he was able to make a really reflective observation about Seon Ho, which I thought was pretty amazing, especially since they didn’t even know each other that long. He portrayed Ga Ram in a very likable and relatable way.

Nam Myung Ryeol is a very familiar face in K-Drama. I’ve seen him in Coffee Prince, Sungkyunkwan Scandal, The Master’s Sun, Doctor Stranger, Blood, High Society, Shopping King Louie and Circle. It would’ve been very predictable if Lee Chi Ham had been an actual evil scientist who wanted to take control of all human life using Manxin or something like that, but I found it refreshing that he was just an elderly man who simply accepted whatever Manxin chose for itself. The way he was smiling when he realized that Manxin had completed the ‘update’ even though it was actually more of a ‘downgrade’ in terms of accuracy rate, also made me feel like he may have even been relieved himself that the program didn’t assume that Almighty status it was originally meant for. He seemed relieved to me, at least. While I get that it was the point that he remained a bit mysterious, I would’ve liked to get a bit more information about where he came from and how he managed to discover the Manxin prototype In Hong was working on. Also, as In Hong was still receiving updates of the packages containing parts as they were shipped, I was wondering whether there was actually some secret remaining link between Chi Ham and In Hong. Anyways, I was relieved that his character turned out not to have any malicious intentions with Manxin. I guess everyone in charge actually really wanted the app to remain just an app.

Apparently Seo Hyun Woo was in My Mister, but I don’t remember him from there. I found it really typical that In Hong, despite being the original developer of the groundbreaking Manxin app, had deliberately chosen to stay away from it, even while going on to anxiously use it himself. From what he said when Seon Ho was threatening him, it seemed like the app became so widespread that he lost confidence in claiming his involvement in its creation. He mentioned that the name Manxin, which referred to ten-thousand deities, aka a literal higher power, became too pressuring for him to associate himself with, as he was just a poor guy living in a suburb when he started making it, someone who was nowhere near a higher being. I guess In Hong’s character, despite having been involved in Manxin’s creation, was used as an example to show how people constrained themselves, but also to prove the ambiguity surrounding Manxin. After all, was it really just a coincidental accident that he slipped on the wet bathroom floor, or did Manxin actually manage to predict it? Even when he was dying, he got a new message saying, “You’re in a life-and-death situation.” How coincidental could that truly be? It remains a mystery.

All in all, I found this another very interesting episode. Just like with the previous one, I watched it twice in order to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’m guessing that’s going to be my tactic for the remaining episodes as well. The reason this got a slightly higher rating than the previous one has nothing to do with the quality of the stories, as I was equally fascinated by both episodes. It’s purely because of the accessibility of the story and its characters. The first episode contained a lot of references I wasn’t able to understand, and this episode was slightly easier for me to watch, that’s all.
I’m very excited for the next episodes, so far it really does feel like I’m watching Black Mirror and it’s only reminding me of how much I enjoy these kinds of stories, as they’re both enjoyable to watch but also contain a powerful and very relatable message for the future. Especially in our current society, we have already become so dependent on apps and machines, and it feels good to have the risks and warnings of advanced technology pointed out to me. It makes me more aware and conscious of the technology I personally use and how relative the whole idea of ‘dependency on technology’ is.

I’ll be back soon enough with my third entry for this review package and I can’t wait to discover more overlapping and diverging themes between the episodes. Stay tuned!