Legend of the Blue Sea was a great 2016 drama that helped cement that year as a classic maker in the kdrama community. I really enjoyed how fun and cute it was. Why then did I give it a relatively low score? For the simple reason that I did not like our main couple.

I was wholly unconvinced of the romance between Joon Jae and Shim Chung. Shim Chung was the main reason for my feeling this way. She was very naive, inexperienced, and a little dumb. Her childlike wonder with the world fit well for a literal fish out of water but was a bad match for the cynicism of Joon Jae. Joon Jae probably needed to be paired with someone less jaded than himself but the gap between his understanding of the world, his experiences, and his past and Chung's respectively were too great a distance to overcome through love. They had nothing in common. Even as she learned more about the human world she stayed very innocent and naive and their energy or way of thinking never seemed to match. I would have liked to see them each with someone more able to understand them and what they see in others and the world around them.

I will say I loved the version of this couple from the past. Dam Ryung and Seo Hwa had everything I felt Joon Jae and Shim Chung were lacking. They had a better understanding of each other and were both more alike than not. Because Dam Ryung lacked Joon Jae's cynicism and Seo Hwa lacked Shim Chung's naivety they were able to meet in the middle. They made a great couple and I wish their modern counterparts were more like them.

I also adored Tae Oh and Cha Shi Ah as a secondary couple. They outshone the main couple for me and I loved every minute they were on screen together.

Overall this was a fun lighthearted drama and was hilarious at the best of times, but the main couple simply did not do it for me. Had they been a better match I would have undoubtedly scored this drama higher.