scenophile
This review may contain spoilers
I'm a sucker for high school / college dramas, but not ones that span a long time. So obviously I had mixed feelings about this before I even started. To be honest, I had gotten it all spoiled for me, and knowing that the ending was unsatisfying, I ended up skimming the entire drama.
If you asked me to describe this drama in one phrase, I'd scream "SECOND LEAD SYNDROME." Lu Zhi Ang was undoubtedly my favorite character, and it hurt knowing that he wouldn't get the main girl, when he was SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE MALE LEAD. And as much as I liked Yan Mo, I usually never quite like the second love interest as much, especially for a character I was so invested in. I never really cared about the main ship either—in fact, I've gotten a little tired of the "strong and silent" type of boy being the love interest, and I felt like Zhi Ang was just so much more lovable.
I still really liked the first half of this drama. If I wasn't someone who just HAS to finish everything till the end, I'd have stopped at the episode when they graduated college. Honestly, that's what I'd recommend too. Although the high school parts had some cliche plotlines (ex: cheating on a test), I still liked how pure it was.
The last 6 episodes were the worst. Everything was really random and extreme, and the sort of mellow and slice-of-life drama I'd been watching suddenly became a soap opera where everything went wrong without any good reason other than to make things tragic. I also HATED Qi Qi's character arc—she was another one of my favorite characters and she was completely ruined.
Also, I felt like there were so many unnecessary flashbacks. I swear I watched Yu Jian with Qing Tian's interactions a million times, and it was always the same scenes over and over again. There were also so many flashback montages for the main leads and for Zhi Ang and his mom, and they were always the same scenes. I also was lowkey weirded out by the flashbacks of how Xiao Si's parents fell in love: I wish they had gotten actual young actors instead of just doing things like putting the mom actor in a pink doll dress and giving her pigtails.
If you asked me to describe this drama in one phrase, I'd scream "SECOND LEAD SYNDROME." Lu Zhi Ang was undoubtedly my favorite character, and it hurt knowing that he wouldn't get the main girl, when he was SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE MALE LEAD. And as much as I liked Yan Mo, I usually never quite like the second love interest as much, especially for a character I was so invested in. I never really cared about the main ship either—in fact, I've gotten a little tired of the "strong and silent" type of boy being the love interest, and I felt like Zhi Ang was just so much more lovable.
I still really liked the first half of this drama. If I wasn't someone who just HAS to finish everything till the end, I'd have stopped at the episode when they graduated college. Honestly, that's what I'd recommend too. Although the high school parts had some cliche plotlines (ex: cheating on a test), I still liked how pure it was.
The last 6 episodes were the worst. Everything was really random and extreme, and the sort of mellow and slice-of-life drama I'd been watching suddenly became a soap opera where everything went wrong without any good reason other than to make things tragic. I also HATED Qi Qi's character arc—she was another one of my favorite characters and she was completely ruined.
Also, I felt like there were so many unnecessary flashbacks. I swear I watched Yu Jian with Qing Tian's interactions a million times, and it was always the same scenes over and over again. There were also so many flashback montages for the main leads and for Zhi Ang and his mom, and they were always the same scenes. I also was lowkey weirded out by the flashbacks of how Xiao Si's parents fell in love: I wish they had gotten actual young actors instead of just doing things like putting the mom actor in a pink doll dress and giving her pigtails.
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