You keep using that word - I do not think it means what you think it means

After dropping "my little happiness" having watched just 4/28 because of the toxic nature of what it portrayed as romantic, I decided to give the next C drama romcom on my watchlist 8/26. I dropped it for the same reasons that I dropped "my little happiness". I understand the tsundere trope - the cold emotionally distant male lead who bullies and hurts the female lead because inside he's a kindergarten kid yanking the ponytail of the girl he's got a crush on. I don't love the trope, but I understand it. I can put up with it too if the bullying behaviour is not rewarded. If the tsundere male lead first has to learn and appreciate that he is being a jerk and modify his behaviour before the female lead develops romantic feelings for him, I'm fine with that. It is, if you like, a redemption arc - people can change and positive character change should be rewarded.

What I loathe is when calculating, controlling and bullying behaviour is rewarded by having the female lead "fall in love" with the bully not AFTER he changes his behaviour but despite or possibly even BECAUSE OF his manipulative mistreatment of her. That is exactly what happened in the first quarter of this drama, and that's why I dropped it. He systematically abused his power and authority over her, singled her out for consistently malicious treatment, and denigrated her competence. The result of this mistreatment? She developed feelings for him. BARF!

Another really troubling element of this trope, one that was very clearly on display and this drama is that the one thing women are not allowed to be is - competent.


The female lead left a good job in Beijing because of standing up for herself and refusing to be abused. She comes to a smaller town, where her resume and skills should make her an automatic hire, but the first quarter of the drama shows the male lead to breaking her down and painting her as consistently incompetent until she admits that she is in fact incompetent and needs the male lead to clean up her mess. This is a really, REALLY toxic message, and its almost universal in 9/10 Chinese romcoms. There is nothing remotely romantic cute or appealing about this often repeated message in C drama romcoms. I hate dubbed dramas, so it's really saying something that as bad as the dubbing was in this drama (and it was AWFUL), it was the very least of my problems with it. I am pleased that that I stuck it out for more than 1/4 of its entire length in order to make a fair assessment of just how misogynistic, chauvinistic and regressive its message really was. The quest for non-toxic chocolate box romances goes on.

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Fake amnesia gets the girl?

Apparently, the moral of this story is that a woman who wants to succeed on her own terms and not be owned by her boyfriend will end finding the love of her life in the form of a man who fakes amnesia and drags her to court all in an attempt to woo and win her. And that was just the first quarter of the Drama, as much as I could stomach. The ML was such a slimy loach in the bizarre and outlandish way he set out to win the woman he allegedly fell for at first sight that I checked the final episode to confirm if ihs douchebaggery succeeded. It did, which made me VERY glad that I did not try to wade through all 46 episodes, but settled for 12, enough to see one of the worst first quarters of any Drama I've started and more than enough to realise I couldn't take anymore

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He's just a git

I really WANTED to like this Drama, but after 4/11 more than a third done, I had to drop it. I found the male lead character utterly unsympathetic. The synopsis described him as socially ill at ease, but he came across as just a plain garden variety git, so obsessed with the importance of his art that he actually viewed himself as being the centre of everyone else's universe, regardless of his lectures about equality. Throw in a "date and break up on my command" premise that was too ott for me even as a fan of offbeat J romocoms, and this one went in the bin, with no regrets.

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Only for masochists

Here are three ways to spend time that are INFINITELY more fun than watching this Drama:

Floss a lion's mouth.

Handwash an angry cat.

Listen to 60 hours of traditional Chinese opera sung off-key.

Actually, doing all 3 together would STILL be way more fun than watching this Drama. I started it, and FFd through it to the mind-numbing end, for Wang Ji Hye and Hahm Eun Jung. Ms Hahm's storyline even had promise as a single Mum falling for a single Dad. But there's zero credible character development in this Drama. Horrible characters (75%) are REALLY horrible, until suddenly they're not, around the 80 episode mark. Ditto the useless sad sack dishrag art teacher, who actually remains hopeless well past episode 100. The last 20 episodes give clear proof that it's not only the VIEWERS' brains that get turned to mush by prolonged exposure to this drivel, it happened to the WRITER too. Save yourself pain and stupefied frustration and skip this one

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Hurts so good

This Drama was WAY outside my usual preference and I watched it for two reasons: Reason Nr 1 - Mitsushima;and Reason Nr 2 - Hikari . Together they spell AWESOME. She just blew me away in this, a stunning display of her acting prowess. She was ably backed up by a phenomenal performance from Suzuki Rio playing her daughter.

There were no bad performances in this Drama but the Hikari-Rio pair OWNED it 100% The core storyline was a bit predictable, especially the 2 key plot points involving Shiori in both the tragedy and the reddemption, and the side story of the doctor and her husband divorcing felt a bit like filler. Despite that, I'm still giving it 10/10 for the sheer rw emotional power exerted by the great acting. The park bench conversation between the 2 sisters early in the final episode had me bawling like a baby, and impressed me with the understated intelligece of the dialogue. As is so often the case with Dramas whose dialogue wows me, I was left wnodering "if the subs were this powerful, what must it be like in Japanese?" As a hardcore died in the wool brony, I urge anyone who wants to see how truly GREAT acting can make the ordinary extraordinary, WATCH THIS.

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Petite and perfect

My first Lee Na Young Drama was "Romance is a Bonus Book" I rated that 5.5/10, meaning that for me it was mehdiocre and at best underwhelming. THIS one could not have been more different. Everything about this Drama was outstanding, including Ms. Lee's great performance.

The episode lengths were perfect too. Any longer and they would have sagged, shorter and the opportunity to let the puases sink in would have been lost. The cast was ASTONISHING - getting Han Ye Ri was awesome, but then to see that tyhe Drama drew Shim Eun Kyung back to Korea after years of focusing on Japan was chef's kiss. That's a clear tribute to the writing too, which was exceptional. The clinching proof of that for me was the final episode when I was surprised to find my eyes actively leaking. BRAVA!

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Very sweet, very funny, and VERY SMART

This Drama was superb. Laugh out loud in so many places, but with real heart too. Most importantly, it was intelligent. Everything that happened made sense in its world. Characters behaved in ways that were credible for them, noone said or did anything stupidly out of character and there were no facepalm moments when the Drama caved to tropes to the lasting detriment of the show.

The acting was as good as the writing. As much as I loved the leads, and the always excellent Park Jin Joo, I think the character/actor pairing that best encapsulated what made this such a remarkable show was Roh Jeong Eui's NJ. The character was fascinating, not at all a typical 2FL, and not a typical idol character either. Ms Roh delivered her part superbly, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for her in future.

The intelligence of the writing was also shown by the way it kept me guessing about the ending right into the final episode. Not only was it not clear how it would end, what was even more remarkable was that HOWEVER it ended, the ending would have felt right. I would not have felt cheated, frustrated or disappointed by whatever end transpired. Bravissimo!

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Powerfully thought-provoking and topical, but...

This was a very interesting Drama. The main message, about the distortion and manipulation of information was very important and relevant. The acting was stellar- ESPECIALLY Koshiba Fuka. Bizarrely, MDL lists hers as a 'support role' when her character was central and pivotal. And her acting was stunning. My wife was not watching this one but after she watched a few minutes of one episode, she commented on Ms Koshiba's performance. Very much looking forward to checking out more of her work.

The Drama did have some annoying flaws though, and the biggest was again related to the character Koshiba Fuka played. The villain of the Drama not only never once showed any shred of remorse or regret for what they did to her, but they also never even explained "why her". The related flaw is that the way that the Drama kept trying to push the idea that there as some sort of moral ambiguity about the villain's actions, as if they were potentially understandable and defensible. This continued right into the start of the final episode and BUGGED THE HELL out of me.. The villain really was just that, a bad person, selfish, angry, deceitful and uncaring. There was no justification or excuse for their actions, and the extreme lengths the Drama went to trying to suggest otherwise nearly made me score this as low as a 6 or 7. Only the resolution of the 'trigger' storyline between Koshiba Fuka's character and that played by Matsuda Ryuhei saved it, earning a 7.75 on my personal database.

I actually started this Drama for Matsuda Ryuhei, having been impressed by his performance in Quartet, and he did not disappoint. His character was nuanced and interesting and his delivery note perfect. The character of the other 'lead' played by Matsuyama Kienichi otoh was another irritant. Not simply because he was an unlikeable egotistical prat, but because he was really stupid while thinking himself clever. I count this as a flaw in the writing because the Drama's central arc only lasted as long as it did due to that character's boneheaded unwillingness to do all the things he believed himself to be good at. It was a strain on credibility that he could have accomplished what he had in the back story if he was as stubbornly stupid as he was in the story.

So overall, 7.75/10 for me was just right - recognising and rewarding a powerful and timely message delivered by several great performances, but with flaws that meant I did not enjoy the experience enough to give it 8 or more.

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So good, I'd marry it

Wow! After I finished watching this, I sat for a long time in front of its entry on my personal Drama database thinking, "should I give it 9.5, or mayber 9.75?" In the end, I couldn't think of any substantive reason not to give it a 10, so I did.

The Drama was already at a solid 9 heading into the final episode, but the way it totally nailed the landing earned it the upgrade. The outcome of the defining conflict was wonderfully suprising in its low key realism. The writer(s) clearly grokked the principle of less is more - no implausible last second revelations yielding a fairyland win that defied belief. One reviewer said they felt the key villain didn't get enough payback for their actions, but here again I think the Drama excelled. Yes, I wanted, REALLY wanted the utterly vile human being to get their full comeuppance, but the route the Drama chose was no free pass for their crimes, that's for sure.

That part of the storyline was the central plot arc, but the other reason this Drama is another rare 10 for me is the amazing friendship between the 3 male leads. Bromance is an overused word, but this Drama showed possibly the best I've ever seen "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" - the perfect description of this trio. They were natural, credible and inseparable, prepared to do anything for each other. Their interactions generated laugh out loud moments, and real emotional reactions too. Superb.

Finaly, a tribute to the astonishing skills of Cho Seung Woo. I last saw him in Forest of Secrets 1 & 2, and watching him display a wide range of real human emotions in this Drama left me in awe of his performance in those two Dramas where he showed absolutely no emotion at all.

I'm now nearly halfway through my 11th year of watching East Asian Dramas. That I completed 100 inside the first 9 months, and have taken 9 YEARS to complete another 300 shows that Drama watching is like prospecting - you have to filter tons of dross to find the gems. But when you do, the hit it gives you is indescribable. Divorce Attorney Shin, is the latest, and onbe of the fines, of the gems I've found.

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Hīkari hits another homer

This was my first Asian Drama after a break of a year or so, and what a winner! I watched it for the beautiful and talented Mitsushima Hikari, and she did not disappoint. Her performance was superb, especially the complex, nuances of the relationship between her character and her character's son. The growth and healing of THAT relationship was almost the "second couple" of the story, a love story in its own right.

Of course, it was the reconnection with the eponymous First Love that made the Drama the sweet and beautiful experience that it was, and rather than try to dissect or analyse it, I will just say, "watch it - right to the VERY end', as other reviewers have noted.

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A basic formula, competently executed

This was not high art, but it was an example of a tried and true formula being executed competently. It was predictable, of course, the only slight surprise for me being that someone I was convinced would show up, DIDN'T turn up at the end. But there's nothing wrong with a well-used recipe where you know what to expect.

The leads did their job well, and I was especially delighted to see Yoon So Yi again. There were a few little niggles naturally, where the level of suspension of disbelief required was risibly high, but that's the definition of makjang, so they didn't detract TOO much from what was overall a fun watch

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