What an enthralling drama!

Devil Judge was an entertaining drama that dealt with topics revolving around corruption, justice, fairness, law, revenge, politics, greed, and morally gray characters.

Judge Yo Han is a true to the bone anti-hero you want to root for but also can't help but doubt his intentions and methods. Watching this drama, you are bound to skirt the lines between wanting to achieve justice while preserving your morals and wanting to abandon those morals for the sake of justice/seeing all corrupt people burn. I truly found this drama entertaining because it made me really question what I would do if I were in Yo Han's or Ga On's shoes and that made me relate/understand their motivations and actions, despite them being different. Ga On and Yo Han were on different ends of the spectrum, morally speaking, so you get to see both perspectives in the drama. Yo Han is a morally gray character who does whatever he deems appropriate for the overall sake of justice(more like his personal revenge story imo), while Ga On is a character that has a firm belief in what is wrong vs right and acts in a way that does not stray from the law and his beliefs.

The most entertaining part of this drama was watching the Live Court proceedings and wondering just what innovative method Yo Han will inflict as punishment on the criminals. As the drama goes on, I went into the mindset of thinking the show took place in a dystopian society, as that's the only way I could see any of what was going on as believable. The whole concept behind the Live Courts just felt very Black Mirror, and was really fun to watch, but also towards the ending, started to feel a bit too over the top.

My interest was peaked from episode 1 and I couldn't stop watching. While I had frustrations with character decisions, Ga On mainly, I still enjoyed the show for the most part. The main cast also did a great job. We all know JiSung is amazing so nothing more to note there. I was also very satisfied with Cha Gyung Hee's actress, and Chairwoman Sun Ah's actress (although the latter sometimes did have too much of an airy voice (?) Lmao but I believe that was more of a character trait, than an acting issue). Other actors were okay, but only 1 really took away from the experience for me and it was Juk Chang's actor. My displeasure is probably more due to the way the character was written itself but I also just didn't like the actor's acting. It was a minor role that turned into more of a bigger role towards the end of the drama so I likely feel more annoyed about it than I normally would.

There's a little bit of romance in this between Ga On and his police officer best friend, but it is not the focus. I actually thought their relationship was cute and approved it because their story makes sense as they both have supported eo since they were teens. Before watching this drama, I was familiar with it due to having watched multiple clips on Youtube where it was inferred there was a BL story between Yo Han and Ga On. But honestly, after watching the drama, their relationship felt more like bromance/family than anything else. Sad, I know (there were moments where you can sorta feel Yo Han is into Ga On, but they were too little and short for me to really focus on, so I just enjoyed the drama as is and didn't think about the possible BL undertones after a point).

Overall, it's a really fun series. I had a great time watching and getting to know the characters, especially Yo Han. The overall plot was good too just a bit too exaggerated/over the top for my taste.