Mixed Feelings on Yuri

I was really excited to start this season knowing that there was a new character and an ensuing overarching plotline with them, and it was really cool to read the theories about how Nanno and Yuri each represented the different types of karma. After watching it, I still really liked the throughline, especially seeing more of Nanno's past and character development, but Yuri's character did not work well at all for me, even though I loved the episode about her backstory.

My main issue is that every single episode's arc seemed to come to a screeching halt every time Yuri stepped in. Nanno's actions actually almost always make sense, and the plot device of Yuri coming in to mess things up actually gets extremely tiring once its used for multiple episodes, one because Nanno's subplots don't seem to provide the same satisfaction, and two because Yuri honestly isn't charismatic enough for me to enjoy her random presence.

It's also so difficult to paint a clear picture of Yuri's personality and punishment method when she's only depicted as a fly in Nanno's orbit the entire time. I genuinely think we should've gotten an episode where we start seeing karma happen, then we find out the instigator is Yuri and not Nanno, and then we see the episode play out per her karmic methodology — this way we'd get a clearer idea of her worldview before she started officially clashing with Nanno, and her character would also be able to stand by herself more.

Overall, I still enjoyed this and I actually liked the topics it covered too — there's a lot less girl-on-girl hate in this one which was good to see. My favorite episodes are Pregnant, SOTUS, and maybe Yuri. When Season 3 drops, I will definitely still be tuning in, and I hope the newer characters are given more chances to shine without diminishing Nanno's impact.

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Didn't connect much to it

It was overall a pretty comforting watch overall, especially with the cooking theme. I loved that the sisterhood as well and seeing how each of them had a different dynamic with their father, but wish we saw more of it.

I'm honestly not sure if we got too much or too little of the romance subplots — I didn't see enough about it to really care about them, but I would have also preferred more family scenes. In general, I didn't connect to this film as much as I wanted — I really appreciated the father-daughter themes but felt more neutral about each of the romance plots.

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Good themes, okay ending

Suda Masaki's performance as Hiiragi Ibuki is by far the best part of this drama, and the mentor-mentee dynamic he had with every single one of his students was really great. I loved seeing how all the students went through a range of emotions as the drama progressed, from laughing at him at the start, to feeling betrayed, to finally starting to listen, trust, and look up to him.

The female lead is one of the students who definitely plays a larger role than her classmate counterparts, but still doesn't play a very active role throughout the show; with different episodes focusing on different students, sometimes she feels fully sidelined. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but it definitely feels like there's just one main character.

I think the individual themes in the show are really strong, especially when there is a main focus on a student for each lesson, but I'm personally not a huge fan of the final message, of the "killers" being internet bullies. While I understand the message of thinking before you type and not hiding behind a screen, I also feel like Mr. Hiiragi speaking to "the general public" not only doesn't have the same emotional impact, but also feels so broad that his perfect plan starts to feel a little leaky, especially when I think the same lesson of "think before you act" was already given earlier specifically to the class of students, and it worked better then.

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Moments of silence

To nobody's surprise, my favorite scene is absolutely the reunion scene; it's also an amazing example of effective silence, because the film absolutely took its time and you could feel the characters' disbelief and nostalgia with every passing second. That was when the wave of emotions finally hit.

This is a warm movie (ironically) with a relatively simple plot. I don't know if it has to be as long as it was, especially since a lot of the screentime was given to the daughter and her boyfriend, who were cute but didn't really feel relevant compared to the mother-daughter relationship.

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A pretty little bow

Giving this a half-star higher than what I gave the original drama, simply because as a compilation of epilogue scenes, there was not nearly the same amount of frustration that the original gave me.

This was a good watch and I actually do think that it should've been included in the original, which had an ending that felt sort of abrupt. This wrapped everything up nicely. I was impressed with how the special even managed to address the side characters' stories. After this, it confirmed for me that my two favorite characters and favorite relationship was Sun Zeyi and and Shu Wen.

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For CQL Fans

Between Fatal Journey and The Living Dead, this is definitely the better spin-off movie, but it's still missing some cohesion. I watched this mostly because I wanted to see Nie Huaisang's perspective as he started his grand plan, but the story really focuses instead on the actual ancestral tomb incident and the jump to the mastermind prequel is really sudden and feels tacked on at the end.

I think Nie Mingjue is the most true to his character in this movie, and it was wonderful seeing the relationship between the brothers, but on the other hand...Nie Huaisang actually feels kind of out of character. He was always characterized as someone who didn't want to take on responsibility and just wanted to enjoy life — until he was forced to act. There were several moments here where he became really courageous and outspoken about justice and it just didn't really feel like him.

I do think this was good fanservice and as a huge fan of CQL it made me happy to see everyone again (even (especially) the villains).

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The TENSION

This is by far the most mature BL I've ever watched and it was absolutely beautiful. The skinship simultaneously feels the most natural and the most tension-filled, and the angst is just immaculate. The kiss scenes are few and far between but when they happened it truly felt like the entire world stood still.

I know Teh got a lot of flak for the way he acted but I forgive him for all of it; instead, this drama really depicted the fear and pressure of a teenager trying to find himself and coming to terms with his sexuality — it made the story all the more heart-wrenching. And Oh-aew is just perfection.

The friend group and side characters get just enough screentime; they're obviously not the main focus but they add so much to the drama's feeling of youth and nostalgia.

There's still some parts of this that feel really dramatic, or some developments where I wish we could've spent more time on to explain why the leads or fighting, but I understand that it's just a side effect of only having five episodes. Overall, I don't mind the pacing at all because I think this drama did everything else right, including just having absolute gorgeous cinematography.

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A very good plot with decent social commentary

Okay, before I get crucified for the 6.5, I still did enjoy this. The three leads were fantastic, the social commentary was good, and as a lover of all time-related media, it was really exciting to see how everything was tied together.

But I think my expectations may have been a little too high.

While the first episode did grab my attention with the mystery and tension it instilled, the pacing slowed down afterwards. I was most interested in the points where the stories were personal — the first case, the kidnapping reveal, and the overarching disappearance of Lee Jae-Han. While the social commentary was decent and well-written, it really does just scratch the surface and kind of just iterates the same commentary about corruption and power. As a result, I enjoyed the other cases but think they could've been shortened, which would have given us more screentime for the main plot about Lee Jae-Han and more importantly, more time to wrap up the story.

With that being said, I think my favorite part of time travel and time manipulation stories are moments where you get to see alternate timelines, and I don't think the show ever explored the possibilities to its fullest potential, opting instead for small changes. Instead, they did that common kdrama thing where they have the big plot point happen in the penultimate episode. It was only until the 15th episode where I finally saw what I wanted to see, and I didn't get nearly enough time with it.

Now, with THAT being said, the ending. I found myself, unfortunately, watching the clock the entire last episode, wondering how they would be able to wrap it up in the little amount of time left. As the minutes ticked by I started dreading that they wouldn't be able to. And yep — the ending unfortunately left a lot to be desired.

Ultimately, I didn't really emotionally connect to this story as much as I wanted, though I still definitely give the actors and writers all their flowers. Like I said, the three leads were great, but I didn't really feel the sense of camaraderie between the entire team (which I loved in other dramas like Tunnel and Life on Mars), and as someone who cares a lot about endings, it feels less like an "open ending that lets viewers use their imagination" and more like the show was missing an episode.

Overall, still a good watch, and if they do a second season, I'd be completely down for it.

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Mystery > Romance

This drama's strong suit is definitely its story, doing a great job tying together subplots and side characters, and also changing the timeline just enough to keep it interesting. This is one of those rare cases where I actually cared much more about the mystery than the romance.

I really enjoyed seeing how the main leads would take advantage of their time slip, while also needing to hide such a sticky situation from the other people in their lives. It made for a lot of good humor. The best moments, however, are when they do succeed at changing the timeline and end up having to deal with the consequences of the butterfly effect.

The male lead was also great; he was intelligent and straightforward, and he felt like a driving force for the plot much more than the female lead did. The acting was also fantastic — you could tell which Ke Zhen Yu was on screen simply from his micro-expressions and how he carried himself.

On the other hand, I didn't really care that much for the female lead, who was often misguided in her stubbornness, making it frustrating to watch.

I also think the ending leaves some more to be desired; there are some character interactions I wanted that I didn't get, and I felt like the climax and the fallout from it didn't get enough screentime or explanation. I think I just wanted more time for everyone and everything to come clean.

Overall, this was an okay watch. I was interested but not captivated, and the budget/visuals look low. The best part, though, is the story for sure.

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Wish it was longer

Review is for the Special Edition. The way I feel about this one is similar to how I felt about the first one — everything about the leads is great (the chemistry, the tension, the banter) except for how much time we actually got to spend with them. I'm glad the misunderstanding wasn't dragged out, but it also made it feel like drama for the sake of drama between the two seasons. I also thought the side characters' story was decent, but once again, there were so few episodes that I would've preferred getting more of the main leads instead.

Ultimately, I still think I prefer season 1 over 2 for its innocence the campus setting, but this is still a satisfying ending to the story, and the OST is beautiful.

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Wish it was longer

The way I feel about this one is similar to how I felt about the first one — everything about the leads is great (the chemistry, the tension, the banter) except for how much time we actually got to spend with them. I'm glad the misunderstanding wasn't dragged out, but it also made it feel like drama for the sake of drama between the two seasons. I also thought the side characters' story was decent, but once again, there were so few episodes that I would've preferred getting more of the main leads instead.

Ultimately, I still think I prefer season 1 over 2 for its innocence the campus setting, but this is still a satisfying ending to the story, and the OST is beautiful.

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A sequel that goes through the motions

I didn't realize until I started watching that this isn't REALLY a direct sequel — it sort of takes place in an alternate universe where a lot of things are similar but not exactly the same, including the game that they played.

With that being said, I felt like the drama found itself in a really confusing position between being a standalone and a sequel. You can't really watch this one without watching the first season because you'd miss out on a lot of fun references and be way more confused about what exactly the backstory is, but if you HAD watched the first one already, this drama felt very repetitive and watered down.

I don't really care much about the switch from e-sports to robotics and I think it definitely did get more interesting, but I don't feel the stakes much, mostly because S1 focused more on the story element and S2 focuses more on the romantic element.

Still, the plot did grow on me over time; the first 10 or so episodes were really hard to get through because I didn't care for the characters (who all felt different) or the romance.

I really didn't like the romance in the beginning of the drama. While I always enjoy a little bit of one-sided pining from my male leads, it felt very random to start the story with him idolizing her to that extent without having interacted with her directly. It made a lot of the so-called romantic scenes feel unearned. At the start, feel similarly with the second lead couple — their beginning felt very out-of-the-blue and it was like they didn't know each other at all and the relationships somehow got serious.

The drama gets a little better after we get through those and the leads start interacting more, and I really do like how there were not many misunderstandings or annoying side characters.

There is, however, one scene that I just have to talk about. After the leads are already together, there's one moment where the ML becomes rough and drags the FL into a car out of insecurity and jealousy. It's played off like a misunderstanding because she didn't know what was happening, but NOTHING excuses how much force he used. It was a little out-of-character but regardless of that, it was terrifying and was probably the worst part of the show.

In terms of the characters, they also feel watered down compared to the original, especially because there were a lot of actor swaps. Some grew on me, like Wang Hao and Mi Shao Fei, but I really couldn't reconcile the Appledog in this with the one in the first season. She was mature and intimidating there, and with the new actress being shorter and more bubbly and smiley, Appledog felt like a completely different character. It really felt like the casting director and the writers didn't know how to write a romance drama with the original dynamic and instead reverted to the easy formula of quiet ML/bright FL.

In conclusion, I really think this drama got better and was a light-hearted low-stakes watch, though it's far longer than it has to be. It ends on a high note, and I personally enjoyed how the FL was shown as capable (and compared to the first one, very non-cringy) but I feel like most people who loved the first one would be disappointed.

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A badass FL and the perfect balance of thriller & romance

I went into this one kind of nervous — I thought it would be pretty soapy and I'm not a huge fan of dramas about catfights between rich people.

BUT. Wow. I was so impressed right off the bat with the FL's personality. She's strong, straightforward, and stubborn, and most importantly is proud of who she is and stands up for it. It was so refreshing, and the drama did an amazing job of making her still seem human and flawed, susceptible to temptations. I couldn't have asked for a better protagonist or a better actress; Park Gyu-young absolutely KILLED it.

I also found that this was just the perfect balance between thriller/mystery and romance. Their scenes fit seamlessly into the plot and of course they're the scenes I'll always go back to rewatch.

Plot-wise, this was just so bingeable. There are annoying side characters but they never overwhelm the plot (or our main lead), and they're actually given each given a bit of backstory as well, which also never seemed out-of-place.

I do think there was a trade-off to be made with the 12 (instead of 16) episode format. On one hand I really loved the fast pacing, but I also wish we had a little more time to handle the final conflict/mystery. There are some more confrontations and reunions I wish we got, some more conversations I wish we saw. But it's small potatoes in the grand scheme of just how much I actually enjoyed watching this show.

Overall, I'm still really impressed with how they wrapped up the ending. It's immensely satisfying but I wouldn't be opposed to a season 2 considering the suspicious final cameo we got...;)

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