Definition of meh
This drama is ok. The first episodes are engaging and definitely the best, but the last third of this show is pretty mediocre. Don't get me wrong, this was no great piece of cinematography, but at least it was entertaining in the beginning. The last few episodes felt like a chore to finish, though.The whole dynamics of the lead couple was fun at first, their bickering was enjoyable, but after the first half of the drama it started to become boring, speacially on Ling Long' part. Yan Qing did everything for her, albeit being annoying, but she never even tried to make ammends or forgive him, even though she forgave the girls who hated and humiliated her very fast. She never put any effort into their relationship and that bothered me. In fact, the romance is kinda forgotten along the way, wich leaves you with this contrived plot full of holes.
The plot's is not well thought out and the conflict could've easily been solved considering Ling Long's mom and Misa both knew everything that happened with the wolf heart and the Wolf King, but for some reason never said anything about it? I also expected some more explanation regarding the Wolf Tribe, but that never happened. At least, to Ling Long's benefit, she was a smart and resourceful fl throughout the whole drama, which is rare for female leads so there's that.
As for the acting, it's pretty weak and over-acted, specially on the male lead's part, and the CGI made me want to gouge my eyeballs out. There's some really slapstick comedy (often exaggerated), many cheesy scenes and the drama barely shows any seriousness in its tone, so if you don't like these things, definitely don't waste your time here. The story and pacing are good initially if you're looking for a light-hearted romcom and even if its quality decreases as the plot progresses, the reduced amount of episodes compared to other Chinese dramas still compensates for it a bit.
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A nice romance with an adorable male lead
My opinion is probably going to be biased as hell but I need to defend this drama.This is another show that talks about AI, which is a theme that opens possibilities to very deep discussions, but this drama avoids all that and sticks to a much simpler plot, something that I'm honestly grateful for cause they barely managed to come up with a decent, simple plot, nevermind if they tried to be fake deep about their messages. The show's not pretentious, it knows its strengths (romance) and sticks to them, so you also have to take it for what it is: a light, fluffy rom-com and that's what I am basing my score on.
The main couple is definitely the strongest part of this show and it's what keeps you watching it. As I said, the plot is nothing impressive, but the chemistry, romance and also Young Goo are the elements that allow you to look past its flaws. The robot is extremely endearing and lovable and will probably have you captivated from the start. He's super cute and his demeanor is heart fluttering. As the show goes on, he becomes even more adorable (if that's even possible), starting to develop emotions and resemble even more a human being and that's something I think this drama does well. Young Goo is an android and he suffers a lot of prejudice for that, even though he's probably better and more considerate than all of the humans in in the show.
Da Da was not the best character, I admit. She complains about her ex actions, but still treats Young Goo the same way Wang Joon used to treat her in the beginning. I also think the actress delivery was a bit stiff is some moments, but overall an average character.
Wang Joon was by far the worst part of the show. I didn't even hate the actual villain as much as I hated Wang Joon, that's how terrible he is. He is super entitled, egoistic and hypocritical. He couldn't bear the guilt that his distancing from Da Da was his own fault so he just blames Young Goo for all his problems instead. He's always minding other people's business and continues to pursue Da Da even after she shoots him down many times. When I rewatch this drama I always skip all the scenes Wang Joon is in.
Now onto the proper villain, Diana. She was interesting initially, but all her potential is wasted as the writers don't properly explore her background, they just mention it and that's it. Some supporting characters were good, such as Bo Won, Wang Joon's manager and Da Da's male co-worker/friend.
Towards the end, Absolute Boyfriend has some very bittersweet, heart-wrenching scenes that frankly took me by surprise since I wasn't expecting to feel so emotional by watching this drama. The actual ending, though, is a bit disappointing, I guess the writers wanted to leave it opened to interpretation.
Honestly I recommend this to any rom-com fan who wants a very cute and sweet romance story.
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Love Alarm or as I like to call it "Which dude can Jojo lead on for longer?"
I don't think I've ever seen a show with such lack of development as this one. Characters are falling in love in lass than an episode, which translates to like one day in the story and nothing has a proper explanation. Everything just feels very cheap and out of nowhere. Also, 90% of the time you won't even be able to understand the motivations behind the characters' choices, which makes them look stupid and hard to relate to.So you might be wondering why I didn't give a lower score to this drama. Well, in spite of its flaws, it's still entertaining. Even though Jojo and Sunoh's relationship comes out of thin air, they're still cute together and Sunoh is pretty supportive of Jojo. The plot sometimes touches really interesting aspects regarding the app and how it affects society and relationships and talks about sexuality, as well, but the writers don't really expand on these themes. The love triangle is surprisingly more developed in this than most dramas, since it shows Jojo interacting and having a good time with both leads to the point that it actually leaves you guessing who she'll end up with.
Jojo on the other hand is straight up a dumbass. I don't understand how the writers want us to sympathize with her for feeling sad and lonely when she was the one who did that to herself. Not to mention that she's a cheater and literally humiliated the guy she loved in front of the entire school and broke his heart for no reason at all.
All things considered it's not complete trash, but don't go in expecting too much.
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An average drama
I wasn't going to write a review initially, but seeing how this drama gets so much praise I decided to put my opinion out there to see if more people have a similar point of view.A word that describes this drama for me is lackluster. Everyone always complimented it so much I think my expectations were too high when I went into this. It's been a while since I saw so unfortunately I don't remember it all that well, but it was such an averege show that I can't be bothered to rewatch it just for this review.
The action scenes are good and the plot is good too for the most part, but it really lacked closure in some aspects. For an example, the show keeps teasing us about the reunion of the female lead with her mom, but when it happens they are not even shown interacting afterwards, it feels like fl just went "ha ha you're my mom, goodbye!".
My main gripe with this is Healer himself, tough. I'm sorry but he's nothing more than the stereotype of the brooding, misteryous dude scarred by the past. I guess I was too fed up with this type of lead by the time I watched this. The romance is also something that left me thoroughly disappointed. It was sparse and seemed to come out of nowhere. There was no build up to the relationship, which in return made it feel quite shallow.
All things considered, not a bad drama and if you like the archetype of character that Healer fits in you'll probably enjoy it, but I don't think it particularly warrants the praise it gets.
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The exhaustingly Long Ballad
A show that started out strong and as it progressed it became mediocre at best. Looking back, this drama had a lot of flaws from the beginning, but that I ignored since the story had so much potential that I hoped would be achieved, but oh boy... Honestly, don't let all the high scores in the reviews fool you, this show is not amazing, it's barely even good. In a lot of ways I think The Long Ballad is a very pretentious show. It promises this epic story and gripping romances, but it doesn't deliver ANY of them.The first half of this show is pretty good despite its flaws, but in the second half the pacing of the plot just takes a nosedive, becoming super boring, which makes the problems with the show become even more apparent. They simply prolong these side plotlines that don't add anything to the main plot and keep introducing characters that no one cares about.
Talking about charactes... I didn't care much about any in this story. Changge was a very promising FL, but she quickly fell flat for me. I like empowered female characters, but in her case everything just felt very cheap. She would just go to a place and do nothing and everyone there would go: "Well I don't even know you but I guess I'm gonna trust you blindly now and help you." Besides, just by warching her I soon noticed that the writers of this show don't know how to write smart characters. If you think about Changge's plans for more than 10 seconds you'll realize they make no sense at all. They just relied on convenience and luck and the only reason they worked is because she is the main character.
A'Sun was also kinda stereotypical. It doesn't help the fact that both his actor and Changge's actress can't actually act for shit. They were so stiff and unnatural, which reflected on their relationship cause they had little to no chemistry, even though I still persisted for some episodes to see more of them, but there's really not much to see about them as couple. I think the writers aimed for slowburn but hit underdevelopment instead. Regarding the other characters, most were either annoying or uninteresting. I think the only one worth mentioning here is Le Yan since she was the only one with a half-decent character arc. I still didn't find her character very compelling, though, because she was just the innocent and kind stereotypical female character and the writers definitely could've developed her way more, but they dropped the ball just like how they did with every other aspect of this drama.
Now I might be a little controversial here, but I think the manga styled animation used wasn't so bad, it was a nice alternative to create the scenes they probably didn't have the budget for, but the overuse of this technique also kinda took away the epic feeling and dramatic weight of certain scenes.
So, basically, The Long Ballad was the disappointement of the year for me. It doesn't deliver neither a good and intricate plot, nor good love stories, so I'd say if you have any standards at all definitely don't waste your time on this drama.
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Extremely annoying journey, nice ending (?)
I spent most of this drama hating Jojo for being a selfish bitch with a victim complex. It felt like the biggest problem of her life was that two good-looking guys liked her and she couldn't decide between them. Also she suffered about the shield when she could've literally solved that problem with a one minute explanation if she wanted to. I even empathized with Sunoh's mom, but not with Jojo, or at least not until the very last episode.I feel like I don't have much to say about this drama because most things I disliked about it were solved in the last episode. I think the ideal ending would've been Jojo ending up alone, though. But I was surprised at how satisfying most of the ending was. It still didn't exactly make up for 5 episodes of complete frustration.
I think that splitting up this drama in two seasons was a big mistake. A lot of the plot lines feel cramped and rushed, which reflects in many things, like how poorly the whole "Is Dukgu dead or not?" thing was handled. Dukgu also acted as if Love Alarm 2.0 was so much worse than the original, when in fact the first version of the app was just as harmful. Something else that didn't make sense to me was that explanation he gave, like the shield allowed Jojo to choose her crush? Like she literally chose to fall in love with Hyeyeong? Yeah, okay. That sounds more like a cheap excuse to justify Jojo and Hyeyeong ending up together, but whatever I guess.
One thing that was pretty good about this drama was the photography. There are some really stunning scenes, and the soundtrack has some nice music, as well. As mentioned before, the ending is quite nice cause it gives you a sensation of closure about most of the plots and relationships, with some great, bittersweet scenes that honestly saved this show for me.
So, basically, Love Alarm 2 is very infuriating, but it has some good aspects and to it. If you already watched the first season, I obviously recommend this one to see the conclusion and make your own opinion.
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A very pleasant and not-too-complicated historical drama
Moonlight Drawn by Clouds is very well-balanced. The story is not very complicated, but it's well executed. The acting is pretty good, too. Park Bo Gum is very charming in his delivery, the crown prince is totally swoon-worthy, being charismatic and kind, but also intelligent and harsher when needed. I was also impressed by Kim Yoo Jung's acting, considering she was very young when they shot this drama. Ra On was very likable, quirky and street smart, I just think her character was wasted towards the end, where she has little screen time and the crown prince overshadows her to the point I almost forgot about her. Also, considering who she trully was, they could've explored that so much more to make a great conflict, but unfortunately her heritage doesn't play that big of a role in the story.The main couple had a lot of chemistry and their scenes together are lovely to watch. I specially enjoy how the prince was ready to confess his feelings even before he knew Ra On was a woman. The ending, though, is kinda underwhelming. Still, I totally recommend this show to everyone, specially those who are not very familiar with historical dramas, since this one might be good to ease you into the genre.
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Only watch this if you love Suho
It's been a while since I watched this, but I still wanted to review it so bear with me.As an EXO-L, The only reason I finished this show was Junmyeon. To be frank it starts off well plot wise. All the mistery surrounding Yoo Chan and the woman he is looking for is quite grippping, but as soon as that subplot is over with the drama starts to go downhill fast. Also, I still don't understand why they focused so much on Tae Ra and that painter when that story led to basically nowhere. I thought the whole prosopagnosia thing and the fact that that the male lead could only recognise the female lead would be much more explored, too, especially romantically wise, but sadly it wasn't
The main characters are all terrible, to be honest. Tae Joo is a manipulative liar, while the first leads simply consist of tropes. Bo Ra is just so bland, your standard innocent and unrealistically nice k drama female protagonist, only showing some personality in the very last episode. Yoo Chan is also the rich asshole, scarred by the past. The sole reason I put up with an entire show of him being a jerk was because of Junmyeon's handsome face and charisma, although I must say his portrayal was quite awkward and overacted in many scenes.
Sicerely, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, maybe only if you're and EXO-L and a hardcore Suho stan, otherwise this drama is a big waste of time.
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Good romance, bad plot
The drama has a nice premise but the pacing of the story and the way it's developed are not the best. The first few episodes are a bit difficult to sit through, then it gets better and then the story goes downhill once more. To me, the best part of the drama was the romance, which was unfortunately underdeveloped and constantly pushed aside by the mediocre political scheming plot.The acting of both leads is a bit stiff initially, but they grow more into their characters as the show progresses. The ml is swoon-worthy and although he showed he wanted to be a nice, smart king, he made very rash decisions sometimes, while some other deductions of his seem to come from nowhere. Eun Bo starts off interesting, some type of street smart, feisty woman, but toward the end the writers really dumbed her down and made her character insufferable. She was constantly being chased and kidnapped and never put up a fight, she was basically dead weight.
There's a lot that goes unexplained, like how the king survived a bullet to the head (the scene where he gets shot is very lame so I can't really tell if the bullet went through his brain or not) or how/why he got those profetic dreams, which were just a cheap plot device really. The ending is very meh and rushed and I was also frustrated at how the Kim family, who commited many crimes, including help plotting to dethrone the king, got such light punishments for their crimes.
The supponting cast is ok, Wal is definitely the highlight being a nice comedy-relief. The costumes are beautiful, but then again the ones in all historycal dramas I've watched are. It has some nice scores in the OST, though. Frankly, I only finished the show cause I wanted to see more of the lead couple and it's their sparse but angsty and dramatic scenes that allowed me to look past the flaws of the plot. If you plan to watch this, go with low excpectations and persist through the beginning, then you'll probably be able to finish it.
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Interesting in the beginning, but soon looses traction
This show had plenty of potential but it just fell flat for me. The story is rather simple, but interesting enough, the problem is that the drama has too many episodes, in my opinion. The lack of twists and the simplicity of the premise ruin the pacing of the story because the writers had to stretch it out through 32 episodes, causing the actual important plot points to take too long to happen.At least if they had the romance developing in the background this show wouldn't feel boring, but that was not the case. The relationship simply consisted of Nok Du pining after the female lead, who was way too spiteful and egoistic to care for him, making Nok Du basically her doormat, it was just annoying.
I still see the potential of this show, so I can understand how some people enjoy it. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but if you really want to see it, do it without very high expectations.
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A car crash that I can't look away from
I've been wanting to watch a Chinese drama for quite some time and I just picked this one cause it was pretty famous. When I saw it was an adaptation of the same story of Boys Over Flowers I was ready to just give up right then and there, cause that drama is terrible and super problematic, but I didn't have any other thing to watch so I just gave it a chance and it's not as bad as I thought?Honestly there were very few scenes of bullying that got me super irritated and where very unnecessary. Shancai and Si mostly just bickered back and forth and that was entertaining enough and created the tension needed. The writers could've just made the initial misunderstanding and made the both leads argue a lot and dislike each other. There was no need for Si to humiliate her in public or harass her, but since those scenes were scarce I managed to look past them and not drop this drama.
Aside problematic stuff, this drama has many issues. The story is pretty ordinary and full of clichés. You can tell the writers ran out of creativity to stretch the plot for 49 episodes cause they repeat the same plot line at least four times. I was just glad there was no amnesia plot in the end because I think I wouldn't be able to bear that.
Since there were so many episodes the drama could've explored the supporting characters much better than in Korean dramas, but they just ended up shoving characters that no one cares about in the story and making boring ships instead. Also the characters in this drama are always doing terrible stuff, never apologize and somehow are forgiven anyway.
Also, I've heard that Chinese dramas are dubbed over for some reason and that gave me a major whiplash. The dubbing is so artificial that initially I couldn't focus while watching, but I eventually got used to it. I guess another thing that I got used to was the poor acting in this. Seriously, almost all actors do a mediocre job in this, although I think I could give some credit to Dylan Wang and Shen Yue. I don't know about her, but I'd heard Dylan was still a fairly new actor and that Daoming Si was his first major role and I can say that he compensated his lack of experience with a very natural chemistry with the other actors and a lot of charisma. Many times him and Shen Yue seemed to be legit having fun while acting and I appreciate that. He also made me grow fond of Si, whom I hated in the beginning so props to him.
The music is also meh. I feel like most times the songs they used didn't really feel like were fit for the scenes, however I really loved River by Bishop Briggs.
I liked Shancai in the beginning, she actually stood up for herself, but with time she just became the bland and annoying female lead, like what happens with "strong" FLs in most dramas so I wasn't surprised. She was constantly meddling other people's business and I have to say she was probably the worst girlfriend I've seen in dramaland. She put little to no effort in her relationship for the majority of the runtime of this drama. I never thought I'd sympathize with Si so much, but the dude moved heaven and hell to be with her while most times she just brushed him off or started joking about it. And the worst thing is that the other characters acted as if it was Si's fault for not being persistent enough, when he was confessing and getting rejected/ignored right and left to the point I was convinced he had no self-respect left. Honestly, most of the time I was unsure if Si's friends (specially Lei) were trying to help him or sabotage him.
The last couple of episodes were super underwhelming and full of unnecessary flashbacks. That wedding scene was one of the biggest "????????" moments I've had while watching dramas. I think the writers should've just erased all of the flashbacks and just focused in showing more of Sancai and Si.
Nonetheless, watching Shancai and Si's love story was pretty entertaining and for the most part of this show I was totally hooked. As I said they have a lot of chemistry and they have a nice balance of fluffy, romantic scenes (although some are TOO cheesy) and angsty scenes. Even though Meteor Garden wasn't the best technically, it's still worth it if you have nothing else to watch and are in the mood for some romance.
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Generic fantasy combined with generic romance
When I started this drama, I didn't have great expectations, I just hoped for a good love story, unfortunately I didn't get even that, although this show has its good moments. Honestly it was difficult to rate it because it's not terrible but it's also quite forgettable.The first few episodes were my favorites. I liked to see more about Korean mithology, however the drama doesn't dive too deep into the lore and uses fantasy more as a set up. The plot is quite far-fatched and honestly straight up dumb at some points. Characters were either holding information out or simply choosing to do things the hard way. The problem when you have such powerful beings as characters in your story is that you need the conflict to be a match to their powers and very high stakes, otherwise it would be too easy for them to solve it. This is one of the biggest problems of this show to me. You have gumihos and literal gods, but sometimes it's like the writers conveniently forget about how almighty these beings are in order to not end much of the conflict in this story in lass than a minute. I myself thought of at least two ways where they could've ended the Imoogi in a much easier way, but we need some drama in the last episodes, I guess.
The characters are pretty interesting. They are the driving force of this drama, even when they mess up the plot the characters are what keeps you entertained. Rang was definitely the character with my favorite arc (although the ending given to him was atrocious and downright lazy writing) in this whole thing, even when I was bored out of my mind with the main couple, his relationship with Yeon was what made me watch this until the end.
Talking about the main couple, oh boy what a disappointment. This was a set up to what should be an epic and heart-wrenching love story, but the execution was just piss poor. It's not the actors fault, since the acting here is overall pretty good. I think the writers just relied too much on the fact that Yeon has waited for Ji Ah for 600 years and that they are star-crossed lovers that they didn't even bother developing the relationship between the two leads in the present. I never skip scenes in dramas, but since I was close to finishing it I skipped almost all of the main couple interactions in the last 4 episodes just to see what would happen to all the other characters. All of that "I will sacrifice myself for you!" back and forth between the leads was extremely tedious, as well. To be fair I agreed completely with the Samdocheon guardian lady, they should've just killed Ji Ah or at least acted a bit faster on their plan, cause some good thousands of innocents died since they just sat with their heads up their asses instead of putting an end to the Imoogi as soon as possible.
The ending was also just a big ???????????? I always thought people were supposed to reincarnate as a baby and then grow up, living all the stages of their life, but apparently not? They were just reincarnating people as straight up adults and children right and left for the sake of forcing a happy ending. Not to mention how the writers just gave up at the very last scene and simply wrote whatever the hell came to their heads.
To sum it up, this drama has its ups and downs, It had potential and some scenes, specially certain ones between Rang and Yeon (in my opinion) were quite emotional. The cast tries their best, and while you can have some enjoyment out of it, Tale of the Nine-Tailed doesn't pull through and just fades into a limbo along with many other generic fantasy dramas.
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Incredibly frustrating midway, but it all ends well
Overall, the drama is a pretty decent rom-com, but some things along the way made the ride a bit difficult. First, I think the show focused way too much on the Haneul-Jimin-Rosa nucleus when they aren't even the main couple. Their story just kept repeating itself after a certain point and this really took a toll on the pacing of the drama. They could've devoted the screen time not just to the main couple but to other side characters, such as Mokjin and Young, Minho and his sister, etc.Now onto the charcaters, Young is really nice and down to earth, Mokjin is okay, even though being a psychology major doesn't stop him from believing all sorts fo pseudo-science and occultism. Moonjoong is just detestable and the fact that he pretends to be a nice guy initially just makes him even more of a scumbag. At least his ending is decent, unlike Rosa. She does all sorts of despicable things and yet she faces little to no consenquences adn there's also that half-assed redemption last minute. Yidam is a very desposable character, also he felt really meddling and was all up Jimin's personal space even though he just met her.
Minho is a cutiepie and deserves the world. I think Jaehyun did amazing for his first acting role, obviously he can improve in certain aspects, but I never felt his acting was overshadowed by the rest of the cast. On the other hand, what I felt about Jooah fluctuated a lot during the drama. Initially I liked her, her relationship with Minho felt very natural, but she was way too childish sometimes. I know it's her first love, but she is probably already in her twenties, she just came off as really naive. Besides, the whole plot regarding her deciding to be a sports MC just felt really stupid. It's ok to feel lost during college and not knowing wich career path to choose, but deciding your profeesion based on something a guy you've known for a week told you even though you didn't even like sports until like 2 days ago just feels really idiotic. She didn't even know anything about this field and what it entails, again making her seem more like a twelve year old.
Besides that, Jooah was really cruel to Minho when he confessed. If she wanted to reject him, she could've been nice about it, but instead she invalidated his feelings and acted like he had a psychotic episode or something like that. And then she just acted like he didn't exist, I mean shoudn't she be like that towards Moonjoong instead?
Jimin on the other hand is one of the most annoying characters in this. She was just a goody-two-shoes with a martyr complex and as the drama went on and the way she treated Haneul was terrible. Sis can't take accountability for things to save her own life. Haneul was indeed wrong to lie to her, but so was she. Instead of admiting she was also to blame, Jimin borderline gaslighted Ha Neul into thinking it was all his fault because he couldn't read her mind and just did what she asked him to. Sis you just dig your own grave by shoving your boyfriend onto Rosa and never stating you were uncomfrotable with it. Honestly Jimin can die alone I don't care.
Regarding the whole Dear.M revelation, I actually liked it. It was quite funny and made Dear.M seem like a criminal mastermind, but at least it was refreshing and unexpected, and also resonated with the core of the drama. I also wished the main couple got together sooner, but the ending was overall satisfying and the interaction between the characters (except Jimin-Rosa-Haneul) throughout made this worth watching and I'm just glad to have been able to finally seen this show.
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Well damn
I had grat expectations for this one and it didn't disappoint. The story is pretty good and the premise definitely draws you in. I think the main couple has a very different dynamic than most of what you see in dramas, which feels very refreshing. I like how they made Naksu waver untill the very end to finally make her choice between love and power, it makes her choice feel earned. I was afraid they'd ruin her character by instantly making her switch sides and just become a nice girl, but fortunately this didn't happen. Her skill and power were still kinda underused, though.I also appreciate Jang Uk a lot. Behind his petty boy façade there was a very earnest and courageous character with whom was really easy to empathise. I enjoyed how the writers made him actually train and put in some hard work instead of him just miraculously getting his powers all the time.
There where other good characters, I have to say, though, I am a bit disappointed with the female mages. They were very few and the only interesting and I guess likable (?) one was Naksu. The healer was boring, the daughter of the Jin family was completely useless and the mother was an annoying dumb bitch. A character I am still very conflicted about is the prince. I don't really like what the writers did to him, I felt he was having a nice development untill the writers pushed him in the complete opposite direction and that just left me dumbfounded. I guess I'll have to wait untill the next season comes out to see how this will play out.
The costumes and styling of the cast were super nice, the acting on the most part was amazing (specially the leads), you could really tell the actors had great chemistry among them. I guess the pacing is ok, sometimes it seems a little draggy, but nothing that ruins the viewing experience. The plot is pretty good, but the worldbuilding could be more solid. Sometimes the show just takes some ground-breaking magic and magical info out of nowhere. Other things happen a lot out of convenience and at certain points the magical system and lore feel convoluted and confusing. But these flaws didn't bother me THAT much as the drama just has a way of keeping you hooked and I also think they balenced well the more serious and action packed moments, with some romance, some dorky and funny bits and sprinkles of drama.
I have to say, I truelly like the last episode, the writers made some bold choices and the ending was pretty epic, very well-suited for a season finale, it makes you want to see the next season immediately. So yeah, although it has some minor negative points, this drama was great and definitely worth the watch, anxiously awaiting the next season!
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Done before, but we still love it
There's not much to say about this drama, honestly (I say, as I write an essay about it). It's your classic rom-com format with a bunch of clichés thrown in it and, yet, it's difficult to dislike this drama. It's not revolutionary by any means, but it's still a nice love story, with endearing characters and, well, I think clichés are so famous and utilized for a reason. They just work, and combined with the lighthearted plot, it becomes a very easy watch.Ever since I saw Ahn Hyoseop in The Abyss I liked him and decided to follow his career more closely. All I can say is that I was not disappointed. He and the other actors are good in their performances and have good chemistry with one another. Aside from the main couple (which I obviously loved), I really enjoyed seeing the friendship between Hari and Youngseo. Finally a good female friendship where there's no rivalry between them. They are sweet and truely support each other. I guess I can say the same about Taemoo and Sunghoon, since in a lot of dramas two dudes end their friendship beacuse they like the same woman or something like that. In fact, this drama feels very refreshing since there's not really love triangles and a lot of the misunderstandings are solved quickly, without that usual unnecessary drag.
Another smart choice was actually making the drama with only 12 episodes. Unlike even other romance shows, this drama didn't really have a secondary plot or something else developing in the background. It was basically solely focused on the relationships between the characters, so they really had no material to make a full 16 episode show. Still, there were a few episodes after the main couples gets together that feel a bit boring, but they gain traction again towards the end.
There were also a few other things that bothered me a bit. I think some characters and subplots didn't receive proper closure, such as Youngseo's cousin and the whole thing with Yoora and Minwoo. Besides that, the ending itself was kinda disappointing. Taemoo and Hari did everything to not have to get separated and stay together, just for them to get separated anyway in the end. Not to mention the time skip, which just feel so overdone and lazy at this point.
There's also some other minor neative points in this show, although they're very common in dramas in general, like women waiting for the man to take the initiative and seek them first, cringy CGI, rejection portayed not as a "no", but as a "try a bit harder and I might say yes", or the RIDICULOUS amount of alcohol people consume in dramas. This one, in particular, I feel like happened at least once per episode and there was constantly someone getting drunk in the story. Please can we just stop condoning unhealthy habits like this or playing it off as cute or as a joke?
Still, I digress, because I think these negative points were pretty minor, specially in comparison with the positive ones. The only people who, I think, should not watch Business Proposal are the ones who either hate rom-coms or clichés. Otherwise, this drama will probably pleasy the majority of the public.
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