Cliches done right!

THIS is how you incorporate all the cliches without making them annoying. THIS is how you incorporate humor without making it loud and cringy. THIS is how you do the perfect rom-com.

Business Proposal felt like a throwback to early 2010 k-dramas and the golden age of romantic comedies, but it modernized it and fixed all the frustrating misunderstandings and miscommunications that made me tear my hair out back then.

I felt like the friendships were such an important part of this show from beginning to end and it made it that much better. The FLs and MLs are each so supportive of each other with their respective family situations, the coworkers are also such a supportive team, and it made the show that much more comforting to watch even when side characters came in to sabotage things as they usually do.

I admit that the ending is a little short and leaves some scenes and closure to be desired — but I understand that we only had twelve episodes and there probably wasn't much time to spend on some of the more interesting, non-romance subplots like backstories and family issues.

Nevertheless, if you're looking for something light-hearted and stress-free, this drama is the one.

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This was honestly a lot better than I expected it to be. I'm not a huge fan of the "they break up because of stupid misunderstanding and get back together later" plot and so I had been avoiding this, but I ended up really enjoying this one. I should've known the writer of ALSB and PYHOMS wouldn't let me down!

I'm usually a huge friends-to-lovers trope fan and even though I felt for the second lead in this drama, I actually didn't have SLS and I felt like the main lead was actually really soft and proactive, despite being indifferent to other people, he was always really nice to the female lead from the very start and it was refreshing to see a ML so upfront about his feelings to the FL and SFL.

I also have to say that Zhou Xiao is EXACTLY THE KIND OF FEMALE LEAD THAT I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR, and she's exactly the type of character I relate to — very independent, crazy with her friends, chill about most things, and unassuming when it comes to romance. In so many dramas the female ends up being ditzy when they fall in love and that never happened to ZX. She was super smart when it came to things OTHER than romance and even in a relationship she had so much of her own thinking and independence and focused on friendships.

The big plot point actually didn't bother me at all and I feel like the pacing was done really well. It wasn't blown up into a tragic sob story and was more of a "this is why things are the way they are." The build-up to it was there from the very first episode with his mom's phone calls. Still, I've never been a fan of time jumps and that was no different with this one — I felt like the characters were never the same afterwards.

Also, the sismance was really good! Honestly I could have seen more of it but it was super fun to see how they stood up for each other when romance fell through or when they needed help. It's kind of one reason that I loved the FL so much — she was still there for her friends even after getting in a relationship.

The family aspect was overall pretty good as well. The FL's dad annoyed me a little but ultimately I really liked the little tidbits of humor throughout the drama and how the different family dynamics worked.

I kind of wish that the SML had gotten a better plotline because he could've been a lot more in terms of his own character and not just "the sidekick," and the same could've been said for the studious roommate that never got her own sub-plot. Ultimately though, I really enjoyed this drama and honestly will now watch ANYTHING by this writer!

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Best kdrama of 2023

This is probably my favorite 2023 kdrama. It really just had me by the first episode, where we saw the childhood backstory of our two leads. It was heart-breaking but also beautiful seeing how they went from simple classmates who judged each other to two people who stood with each other against the world.

I was a little nervous going into this, since the premise of “a girl gets stranded on and island and wants to become a pop star when she returns to civilization” seems sort of like a goofy premise…but the first episode completely dispelled all my worries. There are stakes in this, for sure. There’s the familial abuse plot, which was what I was most invested in, and I really loved how we got a “found family” aspect amidst all of it.

I also just loved the dynamic between our characters after the time jump. You had our leads, who had amazing chemistry despite one of their identities being hidden. It’s really a testament to great acting and directing that most people started shipping them so early on. And despite a bumpy road at the start, they grew into a communicative, trusting relationship where you could see how much they wanted to protect each other. It’s really refreshing that how real and human all the characters seemed: they tried to stay kind but sometimes wavered out of fear and made selfish decisions, or it could be something as simple as they tried to lie but weren’t very good at it.

The side characters were all well-rounded as well. The second male lead had his own backstory and emotional growth — although I do think his part in the love triangle was unnecessary, but it was good that it wasn't blown out of proportion — and the family members also played their part in the story, with their own heart-warming backstory. It was beautiful. Even Ranjoo had her journey of becoming a singer and her fall from fame, which tied together with Mokha.

I admit I cared a little less about this plot; don’t get me wrong, I LOVED all the songs — both actresses are so immensely talented and the songs are definitely new additions to my playlist — but the ickiness of the entertainment industry’s power struggles, rude fans, pushy reporters and press conferences…I think I would’ve been happier with less of it.

Overall, I still really loved this one. In addition to great characters and story, you can tell a lot of thought went into the cinematography and set design (I looked into an art print in one of the shots and it totally had symbolic meaning) and it really just added that much more to the atmosphere. Definitely recommend this one.

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Modern Day > Historical

I’m trying to review this without taking into account the horrible airing schedule this drama got, but it’s hard. So just to get it out of the way, I just want to say that the one-episode-a-week format (plus some skipped weeks) definitely did not do this drama any favors.

With that being said, while the airing schedule didn’t help, I think I fell out of love with this drama as it went on for several other reasons as well.

I think there was a really strong start and I was really invested in the story when it first started; the tension between Haena and Seowon was great as they cycled through the different relationship dynamics: unrequited love, Haena having to hide her secret, growing feelings, etc.

When the drama started covering the backstory behind Haena’s dog curse, I unfortunately realized that I just didn’t really care for the saeguk/historical subplot. The characters felt really distant and disconnected from our modern day characters, I felt no emotional connection to the “past lives” theme, and the reason for the curse itself was kind of anti-climactic (and yes, I felt the same way when I read the webtoon). Overall, I just enjoyed the more grounded, modern day plot better, and I didn’t really care for the side characters who were related to the backstory either.

As a result, I found the overall plot with the second lead intriguing until the actual reveal and watching it play out. I enjoyed the tension better than actually seeing what happened.

In terms of the amnesia arc, I don’t think it was super frustrating and I didn’t hate it, but amnesia is still one of my least favorite tropes simply because it feels random — we already know the story is never going to end with it, and the logistics of it very rarely make sense anyways.

Even with a few angsty arcs, on the subject of acting, I enjoyed many of these actors in other things but I don't really think this drama showcased any of their acting chops well enough, in part due to the feeling of low stakes, and in part due to the rom-com nature of the show.

Ultimately, I think you can say that this drama was paced well. Unlike many dramas, it doesn’t fall into the trap of leaving too many things unsolved at the last minute. Unfortunately, it seems to have the opposite issue where the last episode feels just like a filler episode because the main plot is already wrapped up, but overall it’s still a light-hearted, decent watch.

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Just like the first season, the second season continued with a very light-hearted and realistic slice-of-life vibe, but I still have to say that I loved the first season better.

There were a lot of heart-fluttering moments between Song-Yi and both male leads in the first season, which is why I had such a hard time struggling to decide which ship I was rooting for. I felt like the amount of those moments in the second season was really lacking and instead, the story focused more on family struggles and other stuff. While that's fine, I still felt like the balance could've been better, because I still feel like the progression of some relationships was a little choppy and left me a little unsatisfied.

Ga-Rin and Choi-Hun still felt a little like comic relief to me throughout the season, but I will admit that they grew a lot more on me.

There's still some things that I feel like were left unaddressed, like how in high school Tae-O was eavesdropping on Song-Yi but ran away before he heard her say she almost had a crush on him, or how Se-Hyun was using other people to do her work, things like that.

Overall, though, I really appreciate how realistic the show is. The fact that it's more like a coming-of-age story instead of having one conniving antagonist is honestly extremely refreshing, but if I were to rewatch scenes in the future, I'd probably head to Season 1 first.

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Comforting and fun, but has pacing issues

So I still enjoyed this quite a bit but definitely not as much as everyone else.

To start with the good things, it's definitely a really heart-warming and inspiring show about following your dreams, connecting with loved ones, and finding what sparks your happiness in life. Every single character ends up in a better place than where they started and for that reason alone I think this drama is worth the watch.

To nobody's surprise, my favorite plot in this story was the story of Cheong-ah and Yi-chan. It's so much more than a romance; it was also about the importance of communication and how people with hearing disabilities can stay connected to the rest of the world, and about how Yi-chan would learn to face the world again after losing his hearing, this time with more people who cared about him in his life. Or rather, it should've been more about the latter.

It seems like most criticism of the plot surrounds the last episode being rushed (which I do agree with) — we get the big accident, some hugging and deep talks, and then jump back to the present day, all without any interaction between Yi-chan and Cheong-ah, who should've been the most important person in his life and the one who would've most understood what he was going through.

Which brings me to the biggest issue I had with this: pacing. Eun-gyeol's main goal to prevent his father's accident and stop him from losing his hearing goes all the way up to ~episode 15, while he also tries to get his parents together and Yi-chan still chases after Se-kyung until about episode 11. I was definitely getting really tired of the same plot points by this point and could start to see the ending coming.

By these episodes I felt like it was pretty obvious that the accident was not going to be prevented because one, it would've gone against the ethos of the show — Yichan does not have to hear for his life to be good, and to let his son follow his dream of playing music — and two, there was just not enough time to explore a brand new timeline by that point.

I really think they should've had the accident happen earlier and shown just a little bit more of the aftermath and interaction between Yi-chan and Cheong-ah and everyone else; I understand the counterpoint of not needing to show it because we've already seen Yi-chan's development and can infer how the future would change, but for me it would have been preferable to see this over a faux love triangle plot that started to get really repetitive, and then wait for Eun-gyeol's perspective shift to happen as late as the 15th episode.

The side characters were fine — I liked them as a whole but only a few of them had interesting subplots. And antagonistic side characters like Cheong-ah's brother seem to come in and out of the show when it was convenient. Eun-ho was a side character I expected to be a main character and I still wish he had gotten more screentime, whether it was with Eun-gyeol or with the parents.

Overall, none of this is a deal breaker by any means, and I still really enjoyed this drama throughout and would say it's worth watching. It's light-hearted and cozy, but I would be lying if I didn't say it stopped being plot-driven and started fizzling out for me.

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Perfect, except the ending

I was completely captivated by this drama from the very beginning — the plot of two people both in the darkest time of their lives finding each other and healing is always so beautiful, and I think Last Twilight sets it up perfectly. You can see very easily how Mokh and Day’s clashes actually bring out honesty and clarity for each other, and the theme of acceptance and treating people with disabilities as equals are both really powerful. I also just love the fact that there aren’t any villains; everyone, even the side characters, have their subplots, their motivations, and their development.

And there’s the beautiful episode 9 ending scene, which really stole my heart and made me shed tears. It was one of the most cathartic moments I’ve ever watched and the OST, particularly the main theme by William, perfectly ties everything together emotionally.

I continued enjoying the show until the penultimate episode and I was immeasurably disappointed to be hit with the last-minute break-up trope, and even more disappointed that the reasoning behind the break-up was something that had come up in the story before but had never been an issue. It felt way too fast and out of left field.

And then the final episode came and my jaw dropped when we were suddenly hit with a three year time jump. It’s another one of my least favorite tropes, and it just feels so many things had changed in the lives of our main characters and yet we were supposed to also believe that they didn’t change that much and were able to pick up exactly where they left off without extended conversations about what kind of people they had become. We got a little bit of them addressing their situations, but I felt like the “I’m sorry for feeling pity for you” resolution felt really shallow and didn’t at all capture how much depth was in their relationship before.

There were also additional plot developments that felt so random and rushed — such as Day getting his eyesight back at the last minute. There’s the argument that it’s okay because he’s already grown to accept himself either way, but it still felt really disingenuous to the disability theme to show that he needed his eyesight back for it to be considered a happy ending. Part of this is also just because it all happened so fast it felt thrown in.

I felt like I really emotionally checked out for that last episode — there was just such a huge gap between who I was seeing on screen and the characters I’d grown to love from the previous episodes. For me, that’s the consequence of time-skips, and I’m sad because this was on its way to becoming one of my favorites before it.

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SO MUCH POTENTIAL in terms of the premise, but everything else was just so BAD and shallow.

The plot was really lacking, first of all. This writer did that romcom + thriller thing in SWDBS, and I LOVED that, but the conspiracy plot in this one was simply underwhelming. Firstly, it was introduced early on, disappeared for a few episodes, and really came to the forefront maybe in episode 10-ish. It was resolved SUPER quickly and unsatisfyingly, and what I thought would really be the climax basically turned into a plot device to make the romance angsty. Even the sort of science/medical plot points were really shallow and had no real explanation or reason to them, and they seemed to just be there so the main characters would be separated by SOMETHING.

Speaking of the romance — I really did not feel any chemistry between the main characters at all. They’re both super high-profile actors who I know can do AMAZING things, but honestly from this drama you couldn’t tell. The first kiss was sudden and awkwardly forced, and I really didn’t even know they liked each other until they were like LET’S DATE. The romance was over-the-top cheesy in so many scenes, showing basically what happens when you use cliches and use them badly.

The entire drama was over-the-top, especially in terms of humor. SWDBS had this too, but the main leads saved the drama with their cuteness. In this one, the “humor” was everywhere, and it was loud and obnoxious. Both the leads’ families were basically there to either cry or react over-dramatically, and as a result I hated basically ALL the family members. The only one I loved was Nam Tae, and I felt like his character and the relationship he had with Miran had so much unexplored potential. The same could be said for Byung-Sim, or Miran’s ex-boyfriend, and her two best friends who I loved as teenagers but HATED as adults.

And Na Hayoung. Dear god, Don’t even get me started on her. She really had no role other than to be an annoying pining ex who would remind everyone that time passed. I’m going to cut this section short by saying that basically all the characters except Nam Tae was BAD.

The one thing I’d say that this show had going for it was that the OST was pretty good, but the show itself was so bad I think it might’ve tainted the songs for me.

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Another unnecessary mystery

Out of all the dramas recently that randomly inserted a mystery/thriller subplot (Cheer Up, Crash Course in Romance), I think this one disappointed me the most. I loved the premise of reunited rivals, and the theme of mental health is one that always tugs at the heartstrings without fail.

Instead, I feel like this drama used the mystery as a plot device instead of learning how to develop its characters by themselves, and the mystery itself turned out to be underwhelming anyways. Instead of both our main characters having to deal with life just going wrong sometimes, there was a villain to blame. Everything became a very cliche drama plot, particularly that one already-very-memed trope that I can’t believe they did in 2024.

In terms of the slice-of-life and humor aspect…it worked until it didn’t. I’m actually not a huge fan of this type of “goofy” humor anyways, but at the start it actually worked in the drama’s favor by not treating depression like a life-ending, horrible thing. Over time however, it started feeling like the drama gave up on serious moments in order to have humor.

As the drama progressed, however, it became pretty clear that they didn’t know how to move the plot forwards in organic ways. It became super repetitive with the characters drinking every episode (and yes social media has already called out the fact that they’re not supposed to be drinking while on medication!), and side characters constantly leaking information by accident. Both just feel like really lazy ways to get the characters to talk.

Now — the romance. This is what I was looking forward to the most, but it wasn’t really written in an interesting way. There’s a sort of tension that rivals-to-lovers promises, but with Haneul and Jeongwoo it all felt too easy. Aside from a few reminiscing scenes, the fact that they were rivals ended up having little impact on the plot or their romance.

Even with so much focus on the mystery, it still felt pretty underwhelming. The motivations are weak, there’s no tension in it, it ends really early, leaving you wondering what the rest of the drama is even going to be about.

In terms of the mental health theme, I also just think it ended up not being very deep. There were some well-written moments where it talked about burnout, the stigma of antidepressants, parental expectations, or toxic workplace culture, but the drama never took it one step further and gave it the seriousness it deserved. There were moments where toxic positivity was treated as a funny moment instead of describing its dangers, for example, or how the FL’s brother was a bum and it was mostly played for laughs when it really just felt frustrating since the family theme could have been fleshed out more.

Overall, I know our leads our top-notch actors, though this drama doesn’t really show it. The comfort vibes are like, three-quarters of the way there — it could’ve been helped out by much, much better writing.

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Different time loop, same heartbreak

This movie is a sequel in the sense that it uses characters that are already beloved — and for that I did love it. It was beautiful to see Huang Yu Xuan and Li Zi Wei fall in love again, and my heart broke again for the tragedies that they had to go through.

This movie is not, however, really a "sequel" in the sense that the story from the drama is continuing; while the drama's occurrences are canon and ARE mentioned, I felt like it was almost negligible — it was treated more like a prologue, which was honestly kind of disappointing for me because I was hoping that the existing story from the drama and its loose ends would be addressed.

Instead, this movie seemed to introduce a whole new plot (a whole new time loop) — which was A LOT. I almost feel like this could've been an entire season 2 and we would've gotten much needed time with the plot and the characters who were now pretty different people from the ones we knew in the original series.

Nevertheless, as someone who absolutely loves the characters I still cried and laughed and felt butterflies along with them, and while the new plot was definitely just as mind-boggling and tear-inducing, there were just questions that I wish were answered, memories I wish were retrieved, and conversations and confrontations I wish they had.

One thing that this movie absolutely did right, however, is give Wang Quan Sheng his deserved backstory and screentime. WQS was a character that was painfully neglected in the drama despite having one of the most impactful stories, and he never had his story told until now. It was heart-wrenching and possibly one of my favorite parts of the entire film.

All-in-all, this movie just isn't what I expected and I wanted a teensy bit more from it. And yet...yes, I still cried throughout the entire thing. Yes, my brain hurts like hell trying to figure the timeline out. Yes, you should watch it.

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Let me preface this by saying that I had just watched Playful Kiss before this, so watching ANOTHER ditzy main female character immediately after already grated on my nerves. Then the first episode had such weirdly fast-forwarded cinematography that I got motion sickness. Yet, I decided to power through.

I have no words to describe how problematic this was, from the relationship itself, to the way gender and racial stereotypes were portrayed.

Let me start with the quickest: there was a scene where the characters are in the UK, having fun with a lot of white people. Suddenly, they run into some gangsters, who just happen to be the only black people in the show so far. The racism couldn't be more obvious.

Second of all, the way that traditional roles are reinforced in this are subtle, but alarming. There's so much talk about how a woman is still worth marrying if she's infertile, and to me this topic was never addressed sufficiently. There's also a lot of romanticizing of "woman sacrifices career to be a wife." I'm overall really unhappy about the way women are portrayed in this drama—they're either gold-diggers, gossipers, dependent and overthinking, obsessed with a boy, or obsessed with fulfilling the perfect child-bearing wife role. There was honestly not one strong woman role I was happy with.

I hated the main male character. Aside from my superficially saying that he visually does nothing for me, I just thought his personality was one of the most boring and bland I've ever watched. Firstly, he has some creepy and stalkerish tendencies, and I'm sure a lot of things he did as a boss to his employee could be seen as an abuse of power. As the show went on, he honestly got worse (as a boyfriend)—he never seemed to try and see things from Shan Shan's perspective, and he became increasingly controlling. He kept trying to use his money to get her things without her knowing—as if he didn't trust her to make her own life decisions. He kept so many secrets and justified them saying it was for her own good. And worst of all, he completely disregarded her career and kept saying things like "that's my decision" and "it's not up for discussion" when it was supposed to be HER DECISION in the first place,

Add to that the fact that C-Dramas do this weird thing where they make the main characters initiate skinship and pair it with slow-mo and romantic music BEFORE I even had any reason to ship them, and all I got was a boss doing weird physical things to his employee when the extent of their relationship was him watching her eat through his office window.

I honestly wasn't a huge fan of Shan Shan either. This has something to do with the way the drama was filmed, but half of the entire show is her whining in internal monologues. So much of this show is advanced by Shan Shan "accidentally overhearing something," then overthinking it in a lengthy internal monologue while she pouts externally. As cute as she is at some points, I got SO tired of hearing her voice. MOST of the sub-plots are brought about because she needs validation from Feng Teng about their relationship, or that she needs to do something to "be good enough for him." And nobody ever tried to convince her otherwise, or argue that she was good enough. As the show went on, she also started standing up for herself less and less, and I almost ripped my hair out hoping that she'd say something about making her own life decisions, but she never did.

Overall, this was a tiring and dragging plot, filled with lots and lots of problems. The only character I never got TOO annoyed with might be Zheng Qi, who seems thirty times more fun to be around than the boring male lead.

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RELEASE THE SOLJIWAN CUT

The first half of this drama was actually really promising — I liked the idea of an unconventional relationship, of a drama that actually discusses toxicity, a lesbian slow burn, etc. Not to mention how beautiful the cinematography was. The second half of this drama, however, seems rushed and full of typical cliches, but without any of the build-up. There was a typical love triangle with a really annoying and irrelevant second lead, and there was a side couple that was even more irrelevant.

Still though, there were some side couples that were great and I wish the drama dedicated more time to them.

But I just gotta say that Soljiwan carried this show. HARD. They were the perfect longtime friends-to-lovers and the yearning and just healthiness of the relationship was so beautiful. I wish so much that the drama had been braver with showing their scenes and had just dedicated more time to them because they were the best part of the drama hands down, and all the stars of my rating is for them.

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Low stakes and oversaturation of characters

Before going into this, it was already pretty clear that Strong Woman DBS, which had one of the most iconic kdrama couples ever, was a difficult act to follow. I'm going to try and get all the comparisons out of the way first. While I wasn't a HUGE fan of the humor in SWDBS, it knew well enough to take serious moments seriously, and everything else was strong enough to make up for it; I loved the leads and the murder plot was thrilling and high-stakes. This drama has the same issue with its humor, but its other aspects are either weak or worse.

The humor just isn't my style at all. There's a lot of physical humor and over-acting; it might be fine if it was only used in select moments, but I felt like it permeated every second of drama, even big fight scenes and what should've been tense moments with antagonists. Overall it made the entire tone of the drama seem kind of off — as if nothing actually mattered because it was all for laughs.

The drug plot felt low-stakes not just because of the tone, but also just because of the way it was written. I don't think anyone going into this drama should expect any profound commentary on drugs or class issues in South Korea. The drama seems to try every once in a while with an offhanded comment, but it really doesn't go much deeper and it's even self-contradictory sometimes. There's parts where they touch upon it, but they also make its lead a "good billionaire" because she's kind with her money and because she pulled herself up by her bootstraps. It felt contradictory to any commentary, just so viewers could get some #girlboss moments.

In terms of characters — I'm not a fan of ensembles to begin with and this drama is a good example of why. It felt like there were so many characters and so many subplots that none of them got enough screentime to be complete, and less important subplots took over more engaging ones. The drama spent SO MUCH screentime on the grandmother's romance, which felt slapstick and unserious, while Namsoon and Heeshik's screentime began to dwindle. And as the drama went on it felt like more and more antagonists were getting introduced as random side characters, and because they served no purpose other than to trigger plot points and had no backstory or personality, they began to blur into each other.

The only antagonist that really had a good story was the villain Ryu Shi-O, but my bigger issue with him plays into my low-stakes criticism. He was just...a bad villain. He has physical abilities, sure, but his plans, goals, and motivations weren't that clear, and most of all I just can't believe that he couldn't piece together anything our protagonists were planning when they were being so obvious about it. I mean...Namsoon's acting...

With so many things going on, romantic lines didn't have enough screentime for good development. I'd already mentioned not caring about the grandmother's romance, and while Namsoon/Heeshik were the best in the show, it felt like they didn't really go deeper than both of them being cute.

Honestly, I think there's an audience for this somewhere out there — maybe someone who likes quirkiness and shenanigans — but it's not me. I'm giving this a 2 (and not a 1) just because it didn't utterly infuriate me as much as me just not really caring.

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Healthy but underwhelming

First off, I just wanted to say that I did like the progression of the romance in the middle of the drama, and overall the relationship between the leads was really healthy and fun to watch. They were both busy with work but understood, trusted, and respected each other.

With that being said, I did feel the same criticism I felt for Love O2O, which is that the main characters sometimes just felt too perfect and too loved by everyone. Problems resolved themselves, and overall it just made the plot a little boring sometimes.

I also wish we saw more side characters — It felt like many of them just appeared and disappeared a few episodes later, without explanation. They didn't really have roles or personality aside from their associations with the main leads or just people working in the same industry. I wasn't that interested in their careers that much, though JJ's was a little more interesting to follow than YT.

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