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No Gain, No Love korean drama review
Completed
No Gain, No Love
3 people found this review helpful
by gabrielle
11 days ago
12 of 12 episodes seen
Completed 1
Overall 8.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

Too much, Too little

Overall, I really liked the show, but as others have mention, the second half really lowers it's rating for me as it felt really rushed. There's both too much they try to explore and more they could've explored. It really could have benefited from more episodes.

Mainly if we wanted to have 3 story lines, we needed more episodes to allow for deeper exploration of each one. While I enjoyed the side stories, the left no room for us to see the main romance, let alone flesh out the other two. They leave us with no time to accept anything and immediately jump from one life event to the next with little time to enjoy the in between or see the little natural parts of life.

The humor was good and has some Easter eggs for connoisseurs of the genre (both the k dramas and web comics). It also has few nuggets of wisdom that, while having so many can come off as preachy, flowed really well into the story.

I did enjoy the polyamory / open relationship bit as representation is always a good, but was sad to see that it ended up becoming a point conflict, especially one that can cause a poor outlook on that kind of relationship. I would understand if it was just the "I didn't wanted to tell you because I knew how you'd react," but the pregnancy part would have done well to be explored through a separate story where it could be the main focus and allow for the nuance and communication needed for such a complicated topic.

(Minor problem: I've seen a few dramas that do the "if they take off their glasses, they're hot," and watching both this drama and another 2024 drama back to back with this a pseudo plot point, really bothers me. I wear glasses and it frustrates me that it's typically seen as unflattering. Once the glasses are no longer needed drive a point, they're switched for contacts but with no explanation why someone, who we have only seen wear glasses before, suddenly only wears contacts. Even a cutaway to a paper stating that part of the deal with working at this company is dressing a certain way including wearing contacts and him sighing or him at the mirror going to put them on but remembering how the FL thought he was attractive without them and switching to the contacts would have really made it feel more natural.)

All in all, I'm glad I watched it but did feel unsatisfied.
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