This review may contain spoilers
A hard watch overall
For those that like the genre, perhaps well watchable, while at episode 31 and surely watching it til the end, there are a few gruesome issues for me.
Episode 49 is where anything starts getting concluded, so if you can cope with 53 episodes in which most scenes only have the bad people and the rest is constant abuse without any long or good moments of "respite" or short "serenity" for the main characters, then this might be for you, only 49 episodes of constant doormat abuse without any kind of justice and a ML that never really defends her, with two exceptions that really do not matter for the story.
The male lead is a kind of nice guy who for the first 12 episodes mostly gaslights the female lead, whenever he does something remotely nice, he gaslights for that and coerces her constantly, some might find this cute, I do not, especially since he is such a weak person who let's anything happen to his love, never really protects her from any antagonist even until episode 31.
This is mostly handled with the usual "he's never there and she never tells him" trope, especially from episode 24 to 31 he constantly lets his mother and family walk all over her, without ever properly doing anything for her.
I personally have begun skipping a lot of scenes, because the absolute majority of all scenes are about the "evil" people doing evil things without any repercussion EVER, which seems to be a bit normal for MBC dramas.
The cast has some of my favorite actors, who act well as always (especially the two grannies) however the writing is overall rather mediocre, it is extremely predictable, uses the most common tropes.
I do hope it at least gets slightly better.
While skipping through the mud, I was moaning a lot and can't even put properly into words what kind of frustration it was, tho the worst frustration was not the skipping itself, but any moment where the skip wasn't instantly loaded because the extreme feeling of cringe that made me feel bodily ill got a massive extra dose of frustration whenever I couldn't instantly escape the for me almost unwatchable scenes of generic repetition from the most generic and common makjang tropes.
I absolutely hated the tempo, which the format (1 hour, 53 episodes) might create for some reason, however I have watched at least a dozen long running korean dramas where the tempo was quite perfect.
I think I just hate dramas that are 99% of episodes door mat destruction with a gaslighting, lying, manipulating male lead somehow depicted as "cute" and that then only give you a single or two episodes where everything is "fixed" "karmic justice" is dealt (while ignoring 9 out of 10 evil characters)
and overall that makes it very hard for me, with certain tropes I need them to be concluded quickly and not drag on for 20 or 50 episodes to be concluded in half an afterthought.
To add to this:
Whenever any of the children get abused by adults
The adults always go scot free, which is kind of infuriating because it is constantly used as a trope to drive the drama.
I also absolutely hate the main male character more than any of the evil people.
Just because he is such a weak person, who never defends her from the abuse she suffers.
Always stays silent when half a dozen to dozen people harass and abuse her, gaslights her in 9 out of 10 "romantic" scenes and it's just a lot.
Episode 49 is where anything starts getting concluded, so if you can cope with 53 episodes in which most scenes only have the bad people and the rest is constant abuse without any long or good moments of "respite" or short "serenity" for the main characters, then this might be for you, only 49 episodes of constant doormat abuse without any kind of justice and a ML that never really defends her, with two exceptions that really do not matter for the story.
The male lead is a kind of nice guy who for the first 12 episodes mostly gaslights the female lead, whenever he does something remotely nice, he gaslights for that and coerces her constantly, some might find this cute, I do not, especially since he is such a weak person who let's anything happen to his love, never really protects her from any antagonist even until episode 31.
This is mostly handled with the usual "he's never there and she never tells him" trope, especially from episode 24 to 31 he constantly lets his mother and family walk all over her, without ever properly doing anything for her.
I personally have begun skipping a lot of scenes, because the absolute majority of all scenes are about the "evil" people doing evil things without any repercussion EVER, which seems to be a bit normal for MBC dramas.
The cast has some of my favorite actors, who act well as always (especially the two grannies) however the writing is overall rather mediocre, it is extremely predictable, uses the most common tropes.
I do hope it at least gets slightly better.
While skipping through the mud, I was moaning a lot and can't even put properly into words what kind of frustration it was, tho the worst frustration was not the skipping itself, but any moment where the skip wasn't instantly loaded because the extreme feeling of cringe that made me feel bodily ill got a massive extra dose of frustration whenever I couldn't instantly escape the for me almost unwatchable scenes of generic repetition from the most generic and common makjang tropes.
I absolutely hated the tempo, which the format (1 hour, 53 episodes) might create for some reason, however I have watched at least a dozen long running korean dramas where the tempo was quite perfect.
I think I just hate dramas that are 99% of episodes door mat destruction with a gaslighting, lying, manipulating male lead somehow depicted as "cute" and that then only give you a single or two episodes where everything is "fixed" "karmic justice" is dealt (while ignoring 9 out of 10 evil characters)
and overall that makes it very hard for me, with certain tropes I need them to be concluded quickly and not drag on for 20 or 50 episodes to be concluded in half an afterthought.
To add to this:
Whenever any of the children get abused by adults
The adults always go scot free, which is kind of infuriating because it is constantly used as a trope to drive the drama.
I also absolutely hate the main male character more than any of the evil people.
Just because he is such a weak person, who never defends her from the abuse she suffers.
Always stays silent when half a dozen to dozen people harass and abuse her, gaslights her in 9 out of 10 "romantic" scenes and it's just a lot.
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