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Cherry Blossoms after Winter korean drama review
Completed
Cherry Blossoms after Winter
0 people found this review helpful
by theikeofficial
Aug 12, 2023
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.5
Story 7.5
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 6.5
This review may contain spoilers

Very cute, but... (well done spoilers)

TL;DR - If you're wondering whether to watch this or not, I would still recommend you to do it, but be aware that it has some questionable elements.

Let's break down the story first. Actually, let's not do that since the writers already did that. By this I mean that the story is one of the things which I found pretty odd. The plot of the series is very simple. Two childhood friends who live in the same house avoided each other before they turn to lovers. A classical trope, which I'm here for. Where this falls flat (or, more accurately, odd) is in the delivery. There are just too many plot holes for this scenario to work. They've been living together for like 10 years, but they avoided each other the entire time? Sounds pretty unreasonable to me. In fact, not only did they avoid each other at home, but also in school, too? Up to the point where not a single soul knew they lived together? Not even the ML's best friends? I really had to suspend disbelief on this one (and many other things like this). Also, the subplots rarely made sense and some of the scenes felt really weird - to be precise, a lot of the times the story would jump from one situation to another without a thread connecting them. That being said, not all is bad. There's a decent amount of fluff which deepens their romance (before and after they get together), the story does progress beyond high-school, which was nice and kind of unusual to see, etc. The scenes that follow the main storyline do progress the plot, and the romance HIGHLY influences the character arcs, which I believe is the most important thing in the story.

Characters. MC is the cutest little bean for whom, even though he may be a tad too meek throughout the story, you really want to root for. A huge part of that I attribute to the actor's talent. I think his acting skill fascinated me the most. He does "grow up" into a more independent, mature adult, which is lovely to see. Also, this couldn't have been the case without the ML's love for him, which I think is the only way the romance should influence a character's growth. The ML is your standard popular guy in high school, who acts like he doesn't care for the MC, That is, until he learns that they will be separated after the MC turns 18 and leaves his house. He then jumps on the mission to befriend him (again?) and to cultivate a romantic relationship between them. We learn pretty early that he is in love with the MC, and he was really vocal about it, which was refreshing. I hate when the MLs brood for the entire series only to "reveal" they've been in love with the MC since forever. The ML also has a nice character arc, which is basically bonding with his mother (who he doesn't feel the real, motherly love from; which he kind of doesn't). Again, this transformation would not be possible without the MC supporting him. Now onto the negatives; it isn't all peachy, unfortunately. Pretty early they confess to each other and even kiss, but under the influence of alcohol, only for the MC to not remember it the next morning and for the ML to be furious about it. This results in ML literally assaulting MC, which I despised seeing. I cringed so hard, especially because MC was bullied in the school. Luckily (I guess?), ML immediately realised his wrongdoings and apologised, but it still left a bad taste. Also, the mother's "arc" was just not believable. She literally shipped them from the get-go, but when she learned about their relationship, she flips out, attacks them, and starts drinking heavily for literally no reason. Everything we've seen coming from her until that point could only lead us to believe she would accept them instantly. She literally saw them sleeping in the same bed together and was like "yass queens" only to tell how the world would not understand their love 3 minutes later. It didn't make sense, but, oh well.

Overall: Even though there are some shortcomings in the story and the characters, I really quite liked the rest of the show. The fluffy scenes are particularly well done and you would absolutely believe that these people love and care for each other. I like seeing them go from kinda-strangers in teenage-hood to lovers all the way into the adulthood, which I rarely see. I'm not sure if I want to rewatch it again, but I'm glad that I watched it this one time.
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