Aurora
It’s okay... I guess?
If you are wanting to watch something shorter, with fantasy elements and pretty high production value, this is certainly a good show. But it’s also not much more than that.
First things first: this in comparison to Hotel del Luna and Mystic Pop-up bar. I’ve seen both hotel del luna and mystic pop-up bar, but this definitely has some things that set it apart. HDL and MPUB have more of an “unconditionally help good people with their wishes” vibe, but the witch’s diner is really a “this-for-that, every wish comes at a price, sometimes people make a mistake and end up regretting their wish because the price just wasn’t worth it” kind of thing, which was cool. But at the same time, it doesn’t really have that feel-good vibe going on, which I especially noticed while watching MPUB. Which is of course okay as well, if that’s not what you’re looking for at least.
As for the plot, it had a lot of potential that it just didn’t reach. I think it was a good idea not to make it 16 episodes, but it just got a bit too much at times for how short the show actually was. I honestly didn’t care about the characters. I forgot the witch existed half of the time, and shes literally a main character (not to mention, the whole reason the show exists). The relationships between the characters also just weren’t that great. Maybe it's because the characters felt boring to me, to begin with, but all the different relationships were pretty boring as well, with the exception of the mother-daughter bond between Jin and her mom (which was amazing). The wishes themselves also left no impact on me at all, because so little time was spend on them.
But it has nice set design, the clothes and make-up are pretty alright, the acting was okay and at least I didn’t spend 16 hours on it, you know? It’s a short watch, which made it enjoyable enough to not drop and give it a chance. I definitely don’t regret watching, but the lacklustre characters are the main reason the rewatch value is so low for me.
Sometimes the eating scenes really grossed me out as well due to all the sounds to the point where I had to skip them, but I guess if you’re into ASMR or the like, that won’t really cause a problem.
First things first: this in comparison to Hotel del Luna and Mystic Pop-up bar. I’ve seen both hotel del luna and mystic pop-up bar, but this definitely has some things that set it apart. HDL and MPUB have more of an “unconditionally help good people with their wishes” vibe, but the witch’s diner is really a “this-for-that, every wish comes at a price, sometimes people make a mistake and end up regretting their wish because the price just wasn’t worth it” kind of thing, which was cool. But at the same time, it doesn’t really have that feel-good vibe going on, which I especially noticed while watching MPUB. Which is of course okay as well, if that’s not what you’re looking for at least.
As for the plot, it had a lot of potential that it just didn’t reach. I think it was a good idea not to make it 16 episodes, but it just got a bit too much at times for how short the show actually was. I honestly didn’t care about the characters. I forgot the witch existed half of the time, and shes literally a main character (not to mention, the whole reason the show exists). The relationships between the characters also just weren’t that great. Maybe it's because the characters felt boring to me, to begin with, but all the different relationships were pretty boring as well, with the exception of the mother-daughter bond between Jin and her mom (which was amazing). The wishes themselves also left no impact on me at all, because so little time was spend on them.
But it has nice set design, the clothes and make-up are pretty alright, the acting was okay and at least I didn’t spend 16 hours on it, you know? It’s a short watch, which made it enjoyable enough to not drop and give it a chance. I definitely don’t regret watching, but the lacklustre characters are the main reason the rewatch value is so low for me.
Sometimes the eating scenes really grossed me out as well due to all the sounds to the point where I had to skip them, but I guess if you’re into ASMR or the like, that won’t really cause a problem.
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