StrangeDerivation
Everything would have been awesome if not some issues that seriously interfered with my enjoyment of the show.
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This show feels too long. I've never imagined, i would say that about a series of 12 episodes, but Age of Youth has an extremely uneven tempo, where in the beginning it is excruciatingly slow and overextended. Adding the fact that the episodes are all over 1 hour long, it really tried my patience at times. And it's not like i didn't enjoy what was happening on screen but seeing some situations almost on repeat (like Kang Yi Na talking with older dude in the bar again and again, seeing Yoon Jin Myung sitting in that store without much happening and so on) didn't leave a very great impression to me.
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The show feels bloated with unnecessary dark and heavy drama which fails to feel genuine and realistic, because it's just too much of it stuffed in the later episodes. I like that all girls were treated almost equally, but i dislike the fact that 4 of 5 girls has some dark, heavy element or secret in their lives. It made it hard for me to suspend my disbelief. Some parts like the latter stuff with Jung Ye Eun's boyfriend, felt really poorly written and ridiculous, thus making supportive cast quite unimpressive compared to main five. That's why Song Ji Won felt like a superior character to me, because her parts weren't bloated with dark past or heavy drama. And i am not saying that characters shouldn't experience any hardships or can't have any past that haunts then, but when every character is like that it makes the show feel really unnatural.
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Other minor complaints:
First episode was too melodramatic. Creators didn't manage to introduce a new girl without a pool of tears.
The story about previous tenant was basically forgotten and never brought up again after the first episode, thus feeling like an afterthought.
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CONCLUSION
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Age of Youth is at its best, when it's just genuine slice of life show depicting simple, yet unique stories of 5 girls living together. Unfortunately it fails with its uneven pacing in the first half and lots of unnecessarily dark drama at the second half.
P.S. Extreme praise to Park Eun Bin for the depiction of Song Ji Won - extremely funny, well acted and lively character.
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So here clumsy girl meets a boy with a paper bag on his head and falls in love with him, because of his beautiful voice and kind heart. That's mostly it. The story is pretty weak and characters don't really add anything to it. The female lead is completely one-dimensional and boring. I also have a problem with how "man with a bag" was treated in the show. There was not enough growth in his character and the reason of wearing the bag all these years (years!!!, not months) was pretty weak. So basically the finale doesn't feel all that rewarding.
What's more - did we really needed these pointless love triangles in this show? It's like they didn't even had any good ideas how to realize the main character and the idea behind him, so instead they went with stupid romantic plot full of usual genre cliches. And you don't even need to mention pointless subplot about romantic challenges of heroine's best friend.
Though I am glad that producers at least went with 20 min. episodes, but even in this case they couldn't manage without putting unnecessary flashbacks in there. So what's left are cuteness and fluffiness that you are going to get from this show, but it is certainly not enough to keep it relevant for whole twelve episodes. There is also not enough comedy in the show to at least make the ride fun.
I also think, that the show could've gone with more realistic approach, focusing on more serious school problems, like bullying, lack of tolerance and etc. They could've at least mention these problems instead of depicting some unrealistically perfect school environment where "man with the bag" is being treated friendly and where only after few days everyone is completely fine with his behavior.
Technical aspects of the show are those of your usual romantic comedy. Acting is bearable, music has basically one good tune that is used everywhere, and visuals are nothing special, but i can give additional points for Sakurai Takahiro and his voice acting for "man with a bag". That basically was a reason why i tried this show.
There are not enough worthy aspects to this drama for me to recommend it. It's cute and fun in the beginning with a bit of depth added to the main character "man with a bag". But that is not enough to lift show's boring rom-com story, unsatisfying finale and bland cast of characters.
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