Meloholic (2017)

Meloholic is the type of drama where you can skip half of the episodes and you'd still be able to understand what happened.
Why? Because it's a bunch of clichés thrown together with an unoriginal serial murder mystery, a dangerous mental illness that is taken as a joke, and a ridiculous love story.

Story/Plot
Pfft. Is there even a plot/story? From the first episode, you'd probably be able to predict the ending scene. There was an absence of character development and twists.
Ye Ri's DID was unrealistic, and portrayed as some sort of jest. Every aspect of it made me roll my eyes to another dimension, particularly when she "transformed".
The characters were copies of each other: bland, dense and slow. Even the killer was inadequate.
I couldn't believe in Ye Ri and Eun Ho's love, there was no build up and it seemed forced.

Acting/Cast
I have never watched a drama with U-know and Kyung Soo Jin, but it's pretty obvious to me that Kyung Soo Jin did a better job. At least she was able to play two distinct personalities.  U-know could barely act out his one character.

Music
Didn't really pay attention to the music. Actually, the only time I did when Another Miss Oh's OST was playing at Ye Ri's cafe.

Rewatch Value
Um.. No. There's no reason to watch it in the first place.

Overall
Meloholic is the perfect drama to watch when you're looking to facepalm, roll your eyes and curse at utterly stupid characters that lack common sense.

No, but seriously. Find something better to watch.

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The opinions about this differ quite alot which is why I want to add my two cents as well. Because despite some quite low ratings - and by no means am I judging anybody since everyone has his own taste - this was a nice drama to pass time. It's not a masterpiece but it's also not a complete failure either even though it has some problems.

I'm always careful with dramas that put soul-switching/multiple personalities (or whatever you may call it) on their front page, and it depends on the writer's skill whether I will like it or not. I have not yet seen Kill Me, Heal Me (but I want to), so the only other drama I can compare this to is Hyde, Jekyll and Me which has also some diverse opinions. I don't want to scare anybody away from this drama just because he/she didn't like Hyde, Jekyll and Me. There are not much similarities, I only felt slightly reminded of it in the beginning.

At long range Meloholic has its own charm. It starts as a rom-com with a silly student who doesn't care to feel embarrassed while confessing his love for his girlfriend in front of everyone - with the most cringy method ever. Of course it leads to the guy getting dumped. After an incident he achieves the ability to read the minds of women by touching their hand - ONLY woman that is. Later on he meets this girl that seems so different from everyone else he's met over the last years (of course there is no other girl that wears her heart on her sleeve - therefore as we all know it doesn't need further explanation how and why the leads will fall in love, right?). Crucial point about this girl though: She has two personalities and therefore doesn't want to date anyone.

It sounds kinda like your default premise, doesn't it? Well, I won't deny that. And throughout the drama you won't find any unique tropes at all. It's the same chair with just another covering. Even the crime case that suddenly pops up out of nowhere is nothing new anymore. BUT it spiced up the story quite nicely.

It was well connected to the romance plot and moved the story forward. It subtly gained more weight until the right time was near for it to come to the fore. The more you got to know about it, the more thrilling it became. There were only two things that bothered me. It always looked like they wanted to hide the culprit until the story was ready to expose him. But it was pretty obvious who it was since early on. That attempt to hide him was too strong to be trustworthy. The second issue was the finale. Some nonsensical decisions took place that marred the otherwise well done crime.

Because of the additional crime theme the psychological part of the romance and personality aspects is kept short and superficial, so don't expect any deep analyses of dissociative identity disorder or telepathy.

If I had to mention something positive, it would be the comedy. Seriously, I'm quite picky with that one, but I liked it in this drama. Even though it was pretty daring sometimes (yeah, call me a prude but some of them went overboard), it made me laugh out loud other times. And even though it's being used in every drama by now, I still can't get enough of that whiny puppy sound they play whenever a character is showing his puppy eyes.

Okay, let's get to the cast.
Kyung Soo Jin. I love her - like forever. The first time I saw her in was Shark. She was already in her mid-twenties but played a high school girl with so much confidence that it made me remember her for future projects. It's so nice to see her play adult roles because she's capable of so many versatile characters which I just confirmed with this drama again. She is playing two very different personalities stuck in one body. Believe me, you don't recognize the previous personality when they are switching. She's pulling off that role so well that even though the script doesn't allow her to deepen the character, she still manages to breath life into Han Ye Ri/Han Joo Ri. If it wasn't for her, this drama might have become one of the few I would have dropped eventually.

Why? Because whereas there were other entertaining traits, the male lead was a huge turn off. I can't exactly outline what bugged me. His acting was really strange sometimes and it felt awkward to watch him. Especially the kisses. Even though they became a little better towards the end, it was still not enough to satisfy me. There were times when I thought that he looked too much like pervert, although half of it was intentional for the comedy. Maybe... another part of my annoyance might also have been his character. Except for breaking promises he made to his girl, the biggest failure he kept doing was holding her hand to check her thoughts - whether she does say what she thinks or is lying. That's the biggest betrayal of trust you could actually do. If you truly care for your girlfriend, you have to trust her. And if you can't help but to touch her (of course you won't be able to hold back at some point in a relationship), wear some goddamn gloves (even more so tell her about your ability).

Other than that - although it might sound like a contradiction - the leads did have chemistry. I enjoyed their lovey-dovey behavior at times. It was cheesy and exaggerated, but still kinda cute.

Choi Dae Chul, who is playing a university prof and the non-related Hyung of the male lead, is my personal highlight in this drama. He was a pleasure to the eyes and I was fancying over him throughout the whole show. Can he get a lead role in an awesome drama, please?

As I already mentioned before, the finale was a real letdown. It had inconsistencies, stupid decisions, default dialogues, convenient accidents, more stupid behavior and one of the most common drama clichés ever. Even the villain became low-carb food in the last minute.

While my review started out quite positive, it became rather critical mid-way. I have to admit that I'm quite torn about this drama, but I also enjoyed it in some way. If it weren't for Kyung Soo Jin and Choi Dae Chul, my rating would definitely be lower. Half of the show only worked because of those two. And the crime. And the comedy. And the subtle waving between those two genres.

It's hard to say whether to recommend this or not. If you're into the male lead, then you will probably enjoy this alot. If not... phew, you have to decide for yourself whether you can cope with the male lead and still enjoy the things I highlighted ;)

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