Interesting premise but too many plotholes in the world-building

This show was interesting at times and it dragged at others. It's only 6 episodes but somehow they managed to drag it at times and at others it felt rushed.
As other people have mentioned in their reviews there is a flaw in the world-building of the show. There are too many questions left unanswered in terms of how society works and what things are different, especially when it comes to reproduction and what kind of things they were doing to solve the problem of the decline in male population. It gave me the impression that nothing was being done science wise to try and understand why it was happening or how to solve it. I think at one point it's mentioned how they created artificial sperm or something of the sorts? It's just mentioned in passing but it's never explained. In a society like that you would think the few males would be exploited to no end as sperm donors, and would create issues of everyone eventually being related if the pool of men is that small. The artificial sperm would obviously solve this to a certain extent but then if they're capable of making artificial one, shouldn't they also be able to overcome the decline in born males? It brings the question if the problem then it's the mother carrying the child, in which case, and considering they can make artificial sperm, maybe make an artificial uterus? Anyway, I'm getting too much into this, the show just simply didn't care in explaining anything. Even if it had been complete fantasy and surreal, some kind of explanation would have been welcomed.
The premise in terms of the world and the plot itself is interesting but it lacks enough exploration. The lack of it would have been passable if all that had been a background element and the plot had revolved exclusively about the show and the FL's character participation in it, but it does involve the bigger issues into the plot and as such it's not satisfactory as it is.
The show part of it it's also quite a big plothole in itself. It's never really explained why it exists in the first place. It's not like it's giving anyone hopes or anything if also the women usually chosen to marry those men are from rich families. Why are they pushing the marriage thing onto those men? They should be forever donors lol it wouldn't really matter much who they marry as long as they contribute to the whole population lol It's said it's the 7th time the show happens, by this time the whole population already knows it's fixed if all women chosen are from rich families and it would have lost all spectators. Sure, the men themselves would be equally popular like celebrities, but no one would care to follow a show to see who they marry, it wouldn't be them so who cares?

Someone in the reviews said this was a trying to be somewhat of a mix between Squid Game and Hunger Games, and I totally agree. I haven't even watched Squid Game although I know more or less what is about and certainly this shares the looks. The music in the last episode when the female contestants are presented was very close to the Hunger Games one, it was blatantly similar.

Acting is generally ok, some of them are better than others. Characters wise, I feel a lot of them were quite superficial and we don't learn anything from many of them, or we learn one thing and that's just their whole vibe. Almond was an interesting character in his more grey area, but it was unsatisfactory how his motivations and decision at the end is not explored more. FL's character was ok in the very beginning, then it's too silly and cliché (girl that doesn't care much about her looks, it's a black hole eating and is clumsy and can't read the room) to then being a more mature towards the end. It was inconsistent and they could have avoided that cliché phase altogether. I'm generally not a fan of the troupe of childhood acquaintances to adult lovers, here it was worse that in other shows because it was pretty much instant as soon as they recognise each other, and their childhood experience together was very brief, or at least it's only shown in a very summarised way, what doesn't help their case either way. As it happens often I was more invested in the side love story and progression of Chanel and Max than the main characters, they were more unique and they had obstacles to overcome. Sure, it's not really explored enough, but for what it is, it was better in my opinion.

Things are kind of left there and then there is an "epilogue" 4 years later. It brings many questions, especially of those that were left behind. Then we have the classic evil laugh, almost, because the evil queen has found their location HOHOHO I mean, it's not like they were super secretive in their location, they're not even covered by woods or anything. I don't know... haha Either way, I don't know if they're doing a 2nd season of this or not, and if not, what a silly way to end it.

Despite all of this and other flaws it was surprisingly passable and entertaining in a general way????!!! How is this possible really??? Maybe it's because my expectations were quite low but I thought it would be worse. I think it being 6 episodes also helped it a lot in that respect. It didn't overstay its welcome much.
My rating goes for interesting idea and for the general entertainment it provided, surprisingly.
It's generally watchable but keep expectations quite low and don't question much of anything, otherwise your brain cells will combust, mine are certainly fried at the edges and I'll move on to something else immediately before I dwell too much into the details of this and I see the back of my head and steam out from my ears lol

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Cute moments but cliché, plot all over the place and an annoying FL

I really wanted to give this series a higher rating because it has such cute moments and the premise was interesting at first but especially in the way the writing went it's just not possible.

I'll start with the positives of this show that I liked and that make all the points it has for me. First of all I do think the best acting here was Chae Jong Hyeop and his character although cliché in many aspects was also a softie and I enjoyed his more quirky aspects. The premise of the story was interesting at first and it had enough material to keep going and make a good plot out of it, sadly this was not utilised, so I liked the premise in itself only. I also liked it was a story between a Japanese and Korean and the nuance it added, although in my opinion it could have been used more. I also liked the different environments and also the inclusion of a mention to the ainu, not something you see very often.

In things I didn't like the main ones are for sure the way the plot developed as well as the FL. The acting of FL was very stiff and amiss at times, it was a bit hard to watch but especially the way they decided to make the FL's character was.... UGH, where to even start. It's not only the fact she's immature in her reactions and way of doing things, it's the fact she's supposed to be in a position of responsibility as well. She spent the whole drama letting others do everything for her. Tae Oh is the one that has to push her to tell him she likes him, Hanaoka and Mahiro have to push her to do things during the series as well at different points. In the whole series she has basically done nothing, because even at the end when she finally decides to do something she took so long that someone else has already done it for her. She was a total flowerpot, sorry. Their "more intimate" moments were awkward, at some points I thought might as well Tae Oh be kissing a wall or something. She only put a bit of effort in the last kiss. Sure, I know many shows in Japan don't really kiss more than touching lip area so to speak, but I've seen it done with a lot more grace than hers.
I get it, the girl was rejected once in her teens because of her power, and she has a complex. Universe forbid she had worked it out herself in the more than 10 years since then. Her teen self and 30 year old self are the same I guess. It was just too unrealistic for my taste, but this was not even the worst of it. The worst was Tae Oh still interested in her even though she keeps the on-off game continuously. At some point towards the second half of the show I just wanted to slap her very hard, she was very irritating. This was aggravated by the fact their chemistry was just about and that they didn't match at all. I wished at points the FL had been the girl in the office that spoke some korean, she matched better with Tae Oh's vibe in my opinion.
Obviously at no point FL makes an effort to find out anything about her power or anything, I mean, I can't say much better of the author of the book. Everyone then meddles into the relationship because of a kids book a woman wrote without doing any research whatsoever, she didn't even know what her boyfriend died off? WHAT? haha Absolutely RIDICULOUS! Even when she's telling Hanaoka I kept thinking, ok, but what did the boyfriend die of? Where is the story that links it to her power? It obviously never came since it was all a joke. I had hopes there for a second when they introduced the myth in the ainu's folklore that it would actually have some decent plot for the part of her power, but not at all and it was very disappointing the way everything is solved. The cherry on top is showing Mahiro and the others doing the research so quickly so they can be together and then they don't do it in the end because all of a sudden it didn't matter anymore. Congratulations to the writer for getting paid for writing such a nonsense, it's an achievement.

Hanaoka was the most interesting of the secondary characters but he's underdeveloped as is everyone else. Onoda was interesting as a character but it's also kept very superficial. I didn't like much the acting or character of Mahiro, and it was so stupid when she's told of FL's power and she's scared. Anyone would have thought she had just been told that FL's was a mass murderer or something. Hanaoka learnt of it as an afterthought in the show and didn't think about it two seconds.
Iiyama acting and character is very bad in this show, probably the worst of them all. It's extremely exaggerated and I get it wants to be a bit comical but it's just plain bad and cringy. The main problem I have with him though, it's that early on he's already being introduced as the one that knows something, a bit mysterious under the good and comical façade, but turns out that it was only because he knew of the accident but the actual information about the power of hers is only discovered when FL does and just by reading the same damn children's book. Says a lot about his research skills? Who in their right mind, and even more a researcher, would read a children's book and meddle in someone's relationship because of it? Ridiculous...
The pace in this show was ok the first half but it drags the second half and it's time that could have been used to develop the plot so it wouldn't have been the mess it is.

If you want some cute moments and watch Chae Jong Hyeop being cute and the extremely dedicated boyfriend type then I would say go ahead, it's a good dose of sugar and sometimes you need those. Otherwise if you're interested in the plot I would say this is a miss and to avoid, and that's without even taking into consideration the amount of plotholes and questions it leaves you with. If you don't like annoying main character I would suggest to avoid this too, she was very frustrating to watch most of the time.

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What nonsense is this?

I seriously thought that they would actually focus on his journey and it would be more introspective but this, I just don't know what the point of it was.

I'm getting real tired of shows using Europe as a country, like if the differences between one country and another were at the level of between states in the US. It was very clearly not Brussels and it was annoying they were trying to sell me it was. I don't know, the ML could have actually gone to Budapest and the story could have been set there, but I guess it would sell less? Maybe many people don't know where Budapest is?
This movie was way more melodramatic than it needed to be, or at least the melodramatic bits needed to be in other moments not the ones chosen. At points it keeps dwelling on it but I just couldn't care, meanwhile things like the fact his mother's corpse was sold is mentioned a few times for shock value but doesn't have the emotional depth that other less interesting moments have, for example.
I started to roll my eyes when he kept finding locals and would get beaten up for the stupidest things, it was so unrealistic and even the lighting changes between those rough moments and the end of the movie. Now he made it I'm sure he won't bump into anyone that will beat him to nearly death... *logic not found*. Once ok, but he was beaten up so many times or pushed around like a pathetic box of potatoes too many times in a short time span to be realistic in my opinion.

As other reviewers have mentioned as well, that's not how the process for refugees works, not only in Belgium but also in other European countries. If they wanted more realistic melodrama they could have tackled for example that there has been cases of abuse and terrible conditions in refugee centres.

Then he finally has the court meeting and he just runs out because of the girl and somehow he still gets the refugee status? Excuse me? I guess he didn't even need to go in the first place then, "this court case could have been an email".

The female lead was a very unlikeable character and I still don't understand what her deal was. She was a spoiled brat. She clearly comes from a family with money and she rebels against the father because her mother passed and I guess she's against assisted death but it was not her decision anyway but the mother's? So she has a tantrum that gets her into trouble and that kind of life. I still don't understand why the gangsters would care so much about her in the end, and if they did to that extend they would have found her in whatever country she went to. Equally unrealistic is that she used drugs but didn't suffer the consequences of any of it.

The romance here could have been a side story and I thought it would, but as a main plot it's just not there. Their love doesn't grow in a realistic way nor it was realistic that he would risk so much for her. Two minutes prior he was telling her about the razor and how he and his mother were ready to end their lives than be deported, the next he's leaving the court to run after her even though, from his knowledge and perspective, he doesn't know what or if anything has happened to her. Also, call the police or something? I don't get it. He's the masochist type I guess, he didn't have enough hardships that he decided to put her baggage onto his shoulders too. Sorry but I don't think many people would do that for a fling. Sure, they say they love each other but I felt nothing other than "boy, you have a problem".

The "airport" at the end was the cherry on top, and the FL in that ending was quite puzzling until you remember that she has daddy's money I guess.

Acting is good but it can't save the mess it's the writing and the overall execution. I don't know how different the book might be but I'm zero interested after watching this movie I'm afraid.

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Great ML but everything else quite forgettable

I started to watch this drama because I like period dramas and I thought baduk at the centre of it might do for something refreshing, then I was captivated by the King's character, he was an all rounder and made for an interesting plot.

The king as a character and Jo Jung Suk's performance is what carried this drama for me and the reason it has the rating I give it, without him this drama would be so much worse, and if I had to rate the drama based only on him as a character it would get a 10. He's a very complete character and very engaging. It's such a shame that with such an amazing character and performance the rest of it was quite disappointing, especially anything involving the FL.

I like Shin Sae Kyeong and she has been the FL in a couple of dramas I rate very highly and I very much enjoyed. But being realistic I do think that she doesn't have a big range of acting skills and the roles she performs the best are those in which, I feel, she's playing characters that fit with her personality as a person or that she feels comfortable playing. Probably that's kind of the same reason why they took her for this one as the FL in this drama does share certain similar traits with characters she has played in the past. But there are a few things of her acting here that bugged me a lot, like the over stiffness and the constant eye moving to express what the rest of her face is not expressing. While I've seen her do this in other roles here it was very amplified. I don't know whether that was all her or the director was going for that and asked her to overuse it but at some point it started getting old and quite annoying.

Romance is also impacted by all this. ML is there, and his words and actions are clear and well acted and you feel the angst and the longing and all the feels. FL's on the other hand is just not there. So I enjoyed the romance part of this show, like everything else, because of ML, but it could have been so much better if FL had been at the same level.

When it comes to the writing I don't understand how we have such a good character in the king and such a miss in her. Most of the drama is just her contradicting the premise of her personality. She's supposed to be very intelligent, strategic and clever but she keeps making mistakes and becoming the damsel in distress.
The whole revenge plot was just plain BAD WRITING. She kept reaching bad conclusions, she kept asking the wrong questions, or not asking them and kept screwing everything up. Now, I could believe this as plausible and that a character like that can exist if the character hadn't been introduced as the opposite of that, and on the other hand if it was her alone it would have been more plausible, not with other people blindly involved in the revenge like it was the best plan and course of action.

Myung Ha was also quite frustrating and his whole plotline was quite pointless. It's dragged out for the sake of it by just making him not actively seeking information and justice but doing in a slow, second-hand way. Most of the drama he's annoying and towards the end he's just ok because by mellowing his personality they made him look ok now and made you forget all the things he did and said in the past and reduce it all to him being concerned about the Crown Prince. Disappointing.
Equally annoying was Lady Dong, although in this case her character was well developed and the actress did a good job at being the annoying piece of work she is. However, it was disappointing they were trying to make me like her at the end somehow, like if her behaviour was justified because she loved the king.

The rest of characters are basically background, they're ok, nothing to throw fireworks about except the kid that played the Crown Prince, he was great.
The queen dowager was always there but her arch was pretty anti-climactic in the end, nothing happened to her not it escalated much in any manner that would be interesting or significant enough for the plot.
Oh, and I almost forgot, special mention to Ja Geun Nyun (FL character's servant), she was annoying as hell, especially in the first half of the drama.

The end was a bit confusing (between the "I go, I don't go") and generally disappointing, and the last episode feels dragged and like they didn't know how to end it, like a kid dragging his feet leaving the park because he doesn't want to go back home. I definitely expected a bit more and a different ending. After all we saw in the drama I thought we deserved a better one for sure.
I'm also getting very tired of the time jump/one of main leads leaving just before ending it. It's been such a long time I haven't seen a drama where it felt justified to include something like this, especially not in the last episode when it's going to be resolved quickly and in an anticlimactic way. There was absolutely no point in making her go to the Qing, her father doesn't appear again and it's only there so they can meet in that tree to play baduk, what was also such a gamble she left the path/stopped for a break exactly there. There were so many options to end the story in a better way but it feels they chose the quickest to film and the laziest plot wise. Definitely could have been better and leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Overall I think this show is watchable mainly for the king as a character and Jo Jung Suk's performance but that's pretty much it, plot is generally average for a period drama apart from the king, and the revenge subplot is very bad writing.
I think this show had a lot of potential but I don't think it was exploited as good as it could have. The plots could have been a lot more epic or more engaging, more than a classic hide and seek between hero and villain. The romance could have been so much better as well if we had had a better performance of FL and more moments to explore it.
I think the king is a character worth watching, it's just a shame everything else in this drama needs to be watched as well just to get that, so I'm happy I watched this show for the enjoyment I got of that character but a shame it's attached to many other things I didn't enjoy and wouldn't want to rewatch.

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Repetitive, dragged and not funny

I feel the need to write this review to offer a bit of an alternative opinion to what seems to be the general consensus that this is a great drama.

I'm not sure what this was trying to be or what message is trying to convey. I didn't find it very entertaining either.
It started with an interesting premise but it went downhill very quickly.

One of my main problems with this drama are the plotholes. There is really no explanation on how things work, the main character is the one deciding what things are to be left or changed and we have to take it at face value. Who knows, maybe her friend Fuku-chan was actually not supposed to have a child, we'll never know. But that's the main problem, who decides what has to happen and what not, who decides what is good and what is bad. Maybe she saved her annoying teacher from being wrongly accused in the train situation but maybe later he killed his wife. We don't know, we just have to accept FL is somehow omnipotent and her choices are the best course of action. Somehow she also knows what to do or not to get shiny points for her next life.

It was generally passable until the friend Mari is also introduced as being in a repetition of her life, at that point I started to question if most people going by that logic are repeating lives or what are the rules on who is allowed and who isn't. Everything was already hold by a very fine thread but when the story line with the plane is introduced it was made so much worse. For starters why did they have to save all that people? They just decided so. Again, there is never an explanation on fate, morality or anything. One could argue that by them focusing all their energy and time to be pilots they missed making so many memories with the friends and enjoying life to the fullest, or that that plane crashing was meant to happen, or, and here it comes the biggest of them all, if the friends died in the plane, shouldn't they also be in their lives repetition or maybe they would have crossed the other door and reincarnated into something else in which case their deaths in the "repetition" timeline of the FL and Mari would be set to die no matter what since they wouldn't exist as humans or as themselves anymore. It's just never explained and it makes no sense.
The writers basically decided some people where allowed to be main characters, meaning people that could repeat their lives and the rest are just the puppets that follow a specific pattern.

If you have watched Groundhog Day (1993) and you enjoyed it you might like this, if you don't like a plot that pretty much repeats over and over I would say avoid this, it gets annoying, especially since the only repeated events in the life of the FL are the same ones EVERY single life with minor differences in general and a different career. It's a chore and the story is not so worth it. There are so many details in her career progression in each of her lives and what is the point? Especially the one where she's a producer.

I found it kind of stupid to go for the capitalistic stereotype of what is considered success when the FL only changes her career in each repetition and that somehow gives her different outcomes of what animal the guy in the desk tells her she's going to be in the next life. I guess we all should be doctors apparently. Equally stupid that something as silly as that guy disrupting the coming of age ceremony was full of comments about how he was going to be a microorganism in his next life. And it's not even the disrupting, is the fact of his aesthetics as well, it was very on the face of "if you don't dress society approved and behave how japanese society dictates you'll loose points at reincarnation", same kind of sentiment was shown when Mari says in her first life she was a gyaru for a while. Excuse me? If it had been done in a very funny way I could have taken this afterlife based on capitalistic success and japanese morals entertaining enough, but it falls way short of that.

It was also convenient that the four of them lived single their whole lives, I guess because the writers knew they wouldn't be able to handle the story if there were partners and children involved, so only the background characters were allowed that kind of progression.

I'm assuming part of the comedy in this show is supposed to be the way they accentuate the roundabouts of Japanese communication, I get it really, but I just simply didn't find it funny, I found it as frustrating as it is in real life.
This also brings me to the fact the FL was not really a very likeable person and there is not much of a change in her all throughout. Sure, she says at one point she started doing the things to be nice not for the points but it doesn't change the fact she's doing exactly the same things and we're not really being shown anything new.

Overall I can't recommend this drama, watching too much repetition already felt such a waste of time, it's only a comedy in the sense it's not a melodrama and the story isn't that engaging. Some might say it's ultimately a story of friendship and while yes partially it is, it's questionable when in most of the FL's repeated lives she didn't spent that much time with the friends (she even complains to them in one of them because they visit her too much) and it's not shown like she misses them that much in the timelines she chose to not have a relationship with them. For this reason as well, I really didn't care much for that ending and it didn't make sense either how they managed all to be reincarnated into the same thing considering they were only given one option every time? Works for cute effect I guess.

Music is fine, they clearly played with the nostalgia trip in that aspect a lot. But it felt like they wanted to precisely get some easy points for doing that. I recognised many of the songs and brought me back in time, but sorry, it's not enough to make this show good, I'll rather just go and listen to the music without watching this.

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Entertaining and good pace generally but frustrating FL and I wish for more growth

Overall it's an entertaining drama and acting is good.
Watching it now (2024) was certainly a nostalgia trip for me, I was shocked how similar their university campus was to mine. The cafeteria, the corridors, the classes, the material of the walls, pillars, railings... wow! It was bringing back so many memories.
The story was interesting in the beginning and I enjoyed the slice of life presented here, the relationships between the characters and the development of their friendship. It's not a very different or unique plot, it's very average but it doesn't make it less enjoyable.
One thing of the plot that was a bit more unrealistic was the coincidences when it comes to the ML knowing sign language and how many people around Sae seems to know it, learn it or pick it quite quickly, but could be worse.

When it comes to the characters I liked all of them in the beginning but I wish we got equal development of Keita as the others in the group, he was left more as a secondary character than anything and not much it's done with him sadly.
On the other hand, while I enjoyed the premise and start of Sae as a character, as the show progressed I grew more and more frustrated with her as well as her dynamic with Kai. Sae was very selfish and although she's called out on it multiple times by Kai (I applauded this) she really doesn't change. There is very little progression of her character in terms of personality and maturity. Kai is the naive nice guy that keeps chasing a girl that has too many issues that in my opinion should tackle before dragging him in and out of her life every time she has an outburst. Towards the later episodes it became annoying to watch and I was really hoping they wouldn't end up together, I thought it was the healthiest for both of them.
In my opinion they didn't work well as a couple nor they had that much chemistry to begin with, at points Kai seemed more her therapist than her love interest. Kai kept showing interest continuously for her, but she kept changing her thoughts for him constantly and many times she was just very stiff standing there doing nothing.
I liked more the secondary couple even though their story is not as deeply explored, but it was cute.

Sae's mother was also quite annoying to watch at times. In earlier episodes she was almost treating Sae as she was a guest in her house, saying things like that she could stay X amount of time longer in the house before becoming independent and so on. She came across as the detached mother that wants her kid out of the house as soon as they turn 18 (or university in this case). But then later on she's super clingy, wanting her to go to Germany with her, meddling between her and Kai and trying to marry her off to the guy she likes... It was weird and inconsistent and considering how selfish Sae was, the mother barely receives any of her rude answers or tantrums.

I enjoyed it for the most part because of the nostalgia, the friendships and most of the characters. It's an easy watch and I would recommend if you like slice of life.
The romance here it's not the fireworks/sparkles type if you're looking for that, it's a slower progression generally speaking.

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Overall an enjoyable ride with great acting and scenery but plot and some characters are amiss

I really struggled to decide on a rating for this show. Overall I liked it but there are a couple of things that irked me.

There are two main things I really liked in this drama, one of them was the scenery and photography with such beautiful landscapes. The other one was the acting. I think most of them did a great job, but I have to mention especially Ji Chang Wook, Kim Mi Kyung and Kim Do Eun, their characters and the way they portrayed them are of the best of the show for me.
The relationships between characters were very good and I liked the banter and funny bits in this show.

I like slice of life dramas so it's no surprise that I found the plot interesting and entertaining and I thought they generally did a good job in also including the sisters' story lines, although I do wish Jin Dal's story had gone in a different direction ultimately and didn't end up with her ex, but I give it a pass; and I wish they had dwelled more on Hae Dal's past as well as the present relationship with Gong Ji Chan. Other than that I do not have complains about the subplots in this drama, they were all entertaining. I wish I could say the same of the main plot but alas, I can't.

The main plot, this is what I consider the two story lines of main leads love story and the "scandal" of FL are unnecessarily unsatisfactory. I say "unnecessarily" because they had more than enough time to explore this in detail and have a more realistic and natural progression than the one they chose.
I didn't like how the conflict with Yong Pil's father was tackled and solved. If the change of that man had happened slowly from the start of the show and they had shown the change progressively it would have had a pass but as it is, that man didn't deserve redeeming in such a quick way. He was abusive both verbally and physically to both his son and the neighbours and it had been 20 years of the passing of the wife. He never had the excuse, but with the amount of time it had passed even less so. The man doesn't even stop to think twice about how his wife would feel at the way he was acting. I don't think he deserved forgiveness in the manner it was given considering how that plot line was developed. But I wish the story with Yong Pil's father was less melodramatic if it was going to be tackled like that. The show really made me despise him a lot, and I was very annoyed when it ended like that after all the drama. The script just decided to make him think in the end but realistically a man behaving like that doesn't change that easily or quickly, more so when everyone around him is enabling him and he's playing the victim. His sense of ego was way too big to see the light in that manner but of course we were running out of time in the drama so it had to be done quickly.

On the other hand, the plot with Eun Joo was also solved too quickly for my liking, especially when it was a major plot point in the story. This again should have been solved slowly throughout at least a couple or three episodes. I do also partially agree with some of the other comments here in the fact that FL should have been more active in the solving of the issue and that her character did suffer inconsistency throughout. At some points she was shown as independent and head-strong, and at others weak and very passive. There are a few instances in which I could see or agree with that passiveness, in a way in which when you're being attacked constantly it gets to a point you just want to avoid the drama and sit still and do nothing because you are just too fed up. But if they were going more for this idea I think it should have been done better in terms of execution. Her stance changed and was ambiguous at times so it could get a bit frustrating.
So I do think it was solved too quickly but I'm half half when it comes to the "how" it was solved. A part of me thinks it's realistic that we don't even see major consequences other than Eun Joo reading the new's article because life be that unfair in real life too, or because we can more or less imagine how it continues. But another part of me just wishes we had seen the consequences of her actions because she pissed me off so much lol

As usual, SML romantic interest tends to be very pointless and it's not exception here. He really added nothing to the story and had he been just another friend in the group it wouldn't have made any difference to the plot. Also although I do know people in the characters ages that hasn't had a relationship ever, I still think that having more than one character like that is a bit unrealistic. At least they should have mentioned them dating around but not settling or other things like that. Especially in the case of Sang Do I think it would have worked well. Oh, but you want Sang Do be interested in FL? Easy. Make him a divorced man for example, and he had a crush for her when young and when seeing her again he gets a bit of a crush back. I don't know, there are many ways. As it is, his story line was pretty absurd.

The ending is a bit, I don't know, I'm not disappointed but also not super happy and the cameo of whoever-that-woman-was was pointless. It reminded me of that pointless ending in "Behind Your Touch" with another cameo that added nothing to anything. I'm not going to lie I did wish FL had gone with ML to Switzerland. After being apart for so long I get it was not a deal-breaker to have a long distance relationship for some more time, but at the same time she being a photographer made so much easier in my eyes to move with him for a while and work from there. Either way, it was a cliché of one of the leads going away last second and it could have been avoided entirely, but oh well.

This drama doesn't portray the typical romcom love story with fireworks, so if you're looking for that kind of romance this might not be for you. It's a slow rekindling of a relationship in a more muted and realistic way. Sure, especially FL does act more like a fangirl with the butterflies at times but the progression is more subdued.

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Full of clichés and the looks of a rich style magazine

This show is for some reason very overhyped.
This drama was a chore to finish for me, but I'm the completitionist type and so I endured. Otherwise I would have dropped it around episode 4 or 5.

The plot in this show is laughable. It had potential as a premise if they had gone on a different direction but as it is, it's just pointless and it doesn't even bother in explaining how things work in the fantasy of this world. One of the main things that annoyed me so much is how they decided to include once again the super cliché of main leads knowing one another from previous life (hers that is) while completely ignoring the core christian believe that the whole series wants to portray. Nothing is really that explained anyway, even his powers as a demon are mentioned superficially. Actually, the fact he's a demon is just overall brushed over and it's a background prop to be used in some scenes. It could have been cool and more explored but it wasn't.

Both main characters did have a bit of personality at the start, something that made them more individual, but this is dropped very early on as soon as they start being together, they become baseline neutral with nothing unique. Their quirks are completely dropped . Rich girl meets rich boy and they fall in love, how refreshing. She also becomes damsel in distress and he's your average "bad boy" that is actually not bad but that it gives him the edge to be appealing to viewers. Whether he was bad or not it's not really explored, because except for a couple of grey area situations the show always wants to portray him as good.
In other clichés we also have here, we include two forgettable side characters that are interested in the main two (and mid show they were almost unbearable, especially Jin Ga Young).

All scenes and environments are very fabricated as if taken from a photo-shoot of the actors for a fashion magazine, and so it happens in outdoors scenes too, the little magical details are very on the face put there purposely, some little fireflies, some bubbles, some water droplets...etc.
This also brings me to the fashion. The whole show is basically a catwalk for upper fashion trends and their hair and makeup is always ˖⁺‧₊˚✦perfect˖⁺‧₊˚✦ Not even when they are in bed there is a hair out of place nor they stain the bed sheets despite having a cake of makeup on.

Continuing with the clichés we also have the funny side character couple that while it made me chuckle a couple of occasions and overall I think they were better than the main couple, some others it crossed the line too much into second-hand-embarrassment territory.
Side characters are just very superficial and add nothing to the story nor we learn much from them either despite sometimes having longer scenes than they should for that amount of pointless dialogue. This is the case of all office workers for example as well as some of the family members of FL.
The villains here are very cliché and their motives are just plain bad, and they all had itchy rashes because... they're sooo *evil*. There is a bit of a motive for their actions but then towards the end it crosses the line of absurdity. The cherry on top was main villain falling from that tower and surviving, eyes rolling I saw stars✧˖°

Some of the moments with more tension, like for example that moment between the end of episode 15 and beginning of 16 are solved in such an anticlimatic and fast way that you wonder why they even bothered. Clearly the whole idea of this drama was creating those ˖⁺‧₊˚✦perfect˖⁺‧₊˚✦ moments where they hug, kiss or look at each other and they filled the rest of the episodes with things in-between so it looked like something. But it seems they didn't even manage enough fillers to do this since after the beginning of episode 16 when they already solved the main issue they still had so many minutes to fill the episode with little bits of secondary characters that no one cares about because the plot didn't care for them before anyway. Also, Jin Ga Young spent half the series saying she was going but didn't lol and then when actually something interesting happens to her in the last episode that could have been explored as a small side plot and it's just left there. What the actual hell is this writing lol

There is not really a discussion on anything obviously, like morality for example. At one point FL is taken aback by the reality of the ML's work as a demon, but then it's brushed off because the script said so and because they have the lame excuse he saved her mother when she was pregnant with FL. It was as weak of a plot point as expected.
The most interesting character in this show is God, but obviously is a background character just so she could save him in the end. I liked the detail of her hat.

Overall I think that while there are shows that can be entertaining and use some clichés, this one almost was playing a bingo to see how many of them they could include in this show. For me personally what makes this one worse than some other shows that also use clichés is that overuse of very crafted scenes, fashion and hair/makeup that make everything look so much more fake rather than fantastical. Even their more intimate moments are just so on the face "we're doing this now" that it was taking me out of it and I didn't find it cute. This is paired with the fact I didn't think the main actors had that much chemistry and specifically ML actor was so stiff at times.

Something else that I found extremely annoying in this show are the recap scenes. Sometimes you would have a recap of scenes two minutes after some of the scenes in that recap had happened. This was so overused that I started skipping them. As I said, they simply didn't have enough material for this show and they reused as many scenes as they could as recaps of cute moments between characters or to reminisce about some character.
Product placement is also quite on the face many times.

Music is also very annoying, they reuse the same couple of songs continuously to no end. Also the song that one of the bad guys in the beginning was using and that becomes a trigger for FL, who in their right mind would say to their partner "now it's our song". Like, excuse me sir? just because you say now it's our song it doesn't mean the trauma is going to disappear. But here it does because script said so. I didn't suffer what FL had and yet every time that song appeared again it was irksome to me as a viewer so imagine someone that has nearly died and associates that song with a psycho. I would knock my boyfriend's head with a saucepan if he told me that song is "our" song now. No thanks!!


If you want to watch because of the ML, or you don't mind extremely thin plot and very fabricated everything then you might enjoy this. If you care about plot AVOID this, it's not worth the time I assure you. If you care about certain level of realisticness even in fantastical settings then avoid this too, there are no explanations for almost anything and the main focus is put in the main leads intimate moments and them walking from one place to another in ˖⁺‧₊˚✦perfect˖⁺‧₊˚✦ fashion.

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Directionless plot, slow, use of tropes and the classic ignorance of how a teen behaves

Before starting this drama I was already skeptical about the deserted island setting. I feel it's something that can't really work much as a plot device if the story is set in modern times, and this show didn't prove me wrong.
Mostly we have to take this whole story as pure fantasy, but even in the constraints of plausibility in a fantastical world, here there are things that simply don't work and that are just left as plotholes and the rest is just a collection of unrealistic situations that will make you facepalm very hard or that you'll have to brush off to move on with the story.

I find with this series there is a lack of a focus in the plot. Sure, we have a FL and the plot seems to follow her from the start mostly, only that it gets sidetracked multiple times along the way and ultimately feels like her story line didn't progress much nor it made much the impact it could have. The abusive father of ML is the only constant linear plot line in this show, even though if still with a dose of unrealistic-ness and quite dragged.

The start was good and overall it was so much more interesting and I was more invested in the story line in the beginning. I think this is mostly as well because I thought the young actors did such a better job at the characters than the older ones. I don't understand why it's a constant issue that if someone older plays like they're stuck in their teen years mentally they have to do some weird overacting that it's just immensely cringe. Don't they remember their teen years? This is becoming a new trope I absolutely despise.
What was the point of her being stuck in that island anyway? This is only used as a plot device in a couple of occasions as flashbacks and any other setting could have been used anyway. It's a small part of the plot and I don't think adds anything. She should be so much more mature precisely because of her life experiences in that island but as it's mentioned in the show itself, she's childish like that because she didn't continue her education.... excuse me what?

The love story in this show is quite anticlimactic and the "love triangle" if it can even be called that, it's unnecessary as always.
A lot of the plot points are just like that because the script said so, otherwise they make no sense, like Ki-ho hiding his identity to her knowing she's looking for him, like so much could have been avoided if he had told her straight away and told her the situation and to keep it secret. It's just so silly. Also he goes from that to then wanting her to be famous like all of a sudden he doesn't care anymore.

The biggest middle chunk of the show the attention is mostly on Ran Joo's character more than the FL, to the point the whole premise of her career as a singer is put to the side. At this point I lost most of the interest I still had for the story. Ran Joo's character is not bad but it's not great either and if I was supposed to feel sorry for her I didn't because her situation could be so much worse, especially when compared with the Kang family whose dynamics, by the way, were of the best of the show.

I think overall for a short drama it didn't have a clear idea of what it wanted to focus on, there were multiple subplots and the execution of them was not done in the best way, the story progressed in chunks of focusing on one thing or another what I get why they did it that way but it just added more to the unrealistc-ness of it all. Moreover, some of the characters would also keep changing from one side to the other what would do or undo the plot as it goes. The worst of all of this is that it makes you lose interest as it changes because most plot lines become very dragged as a result. Points for having so many story lines and characters at the same time and somehow still manage to make it boring.
There were a few conversations between characters that were engaging and I shared their sentiments but most of the others were very uninteresting and added nothing to the story or character development.
FL is cringe, ML is background character, couldn't care for Ran Joo, second ML (Woo Hak) has more screen time than the first and yet his personal story goes really nowhere (and he had more chemistry with FL too), and I have no idea why Lee Seo Joon is considered main character, he spent the series going in circles. Kang parents were great and I wish we got more of Mo Rae since she seemed somewhat interesting.

No more amnesia trope PLEASE. I'm so done with it, let's just leave it back in the past where it should remain. It was annoying at the time and it's even more annoying now.
This is also labelled as "comedy" here but I really don't know why, there are zero comedy moments unless people laughs at FL accent and "teen" attitude what it's actually insulting because it perpetuates this idea that certain accents/dialects mean the person is ignorant and dumb, she even somewhat drops it in the last episode, because now she's a *proper singer*... meh.

I debated giving this a 5 because I've seen worse and it had some nice moments, but writing this review and thinking about the series really stopped me. It is watchable if there is nothing else to watch and some of the songs were nice but I generally can't recommend. It doesn't know what it wants to be and manages to do everything half way in a dragged and boring way.

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Basic entertainment

For those that have watched the anime, you'll be disappointed. For those that haven't, it's entertaining enough if you go with low expectations.
I'm somewhere in-between. I watched the anime growing up but I was never a massive fan of it, I generally found this type of anime where fights take episodes to be a basic ok but not much more for me. I liked the world building the most. But alas, I felt the nostalgia and I didn't have anything else to watch at the moment so I decided to check it out.

I don't understand though why they decided to even make this series if they were only going to bother making 5 episodes. It's a case of if you don't have really the budget maybe don't butcher a series with thousands of fans?

I had low expectations since from the trailer it felt cheap and because usually live actions are always pretty bad compared with the original material. It happens here too as expected.
Some of the costuming, and especially the wigs, are cheap and made it look worse than it could have been. CGI was about passable. If CGI has to be immaculate for you then I would say give this a miss.
Acting was ok at some points, at others it was not great, with actors being just standing there expressionless.
Characters are very underdeveloped, I guess can't be asked more for a 5 episode series but it still was disappointing nonetheless. I also think overall it would have been better in my opinion if they had a retro feeling to the whole thing and had more accurate hair to the anime.

Points go because is generally cohesive and the story flows despite the gaps in it and in the characters development, because the action/fighting is entertaining enough and because it's generally passable as a whole.

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A waste of time.

I can't recommend, it's a total waste of time.
I'm not sure what it was trying to be but manages to do nothing right or interesting enough, and acting is generally quite forced and over the top. Only FL was better and her character was probably the most interesting of the bunch but they don't dwell much in the characters themselves. ML wanted to be a butler because he likes to serve? what? haha I'm sorry, it was lame, it would have been more believable that he said something about wanting to travel, see other places in the world or even learn other languages.

The movie is boring, slow (for what is the plot) and the writing is bad. It's difficult to make a movie in a single location and for it to be engaging and entertaining enough, they didn't succeed at all in this movie.
Sub-plots are brought to the front and back depending on what is convenient to the point they feel forgotten (like the murder "mystery"). The "mystery" is one of those that seems obvious but then it's revealed to not be what you thought just for shock value and where they didn't take you along the journey at all, completely pointless. It wasn't even shocking as a reveal though, because they didn't make me care at all about anything in this movie. The crime here it's calling this thing a suspense, romantic, mystery or amateur detective movie. It's just a mush of nothingness in my opinion.

There obviously are also unresolved questions at the end of the movie, like what happened to the mother of the kid, what happened with the will in the end, what happened to the son and wife of the man that died, they might not have ultimately killed him but they were accomplices of murder in a way and of trying to falsify a will. Why are the two kids dancing happy in the end? There is just no answers.
Also, I'm sorry but that's not kissing. If they're going to make the actors "kiss" like that might as well just not have any kissing scenes, it was weird and cringy to watch.
FL arrives in the cruise with absolutely nothing, yet she manages to have a different outfit daily.

If it had been fun and entertaining I could tolerate some of the other negative aspects of this but it really wasn't, it was a chore to finish.

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Intriguing at first but becomes average

The best thing about this drama is the acting, it's very good in general and Nam Joo Hyuk does a very good job as main character. I did also enjoy some of the music, it was certainly more up my alley. That's all for me.

Contrary to other people I didn't think this drama was fast paced, in fact I thought it was slow, going in circles sometimes, and I got bored at times and found myself doing other things while watching. The plot is quite cliché in my opinion and except for maybe around three characters the rest were very one-dimensional, especially the bad guys. We don't learn much about anyone anyway, so it's quite superficial and it didn't make me connect with any of them, not even the ML. I also liked Choi Mi Ryeo and Cho Kang Ok as characters but I so wish we had gotten so much more insight into them, I didn't learn much at all about them. The dynamics of ML with his classmates could have also been deeper, but because it wasn't what happened in the end of the drama made me feel nothing. It felt even the writers/director knew this though, because it's treated as very secondary, something that happened in the background.

I'm ok with anti-hero stories, I do generally prefer them over hero ones, but it's not new nor fresh, and cases of corruption at all levels have been done many times as well. I don't think this drama brings that much new to the table that wasn't there, so I was not awed by it and I thought it was average. It's still watchable, especially if you like action thrillers, but it's not a masterpiece by any means.
Echoing what another user said, the fighting choreography was not bad but the way it was filmed adds no tension and didn't do any favours to the overall fighting dynamics, at times I felt I was missing the good bits, camera in and out... quite chaotic in my opinion.
I don't think they achieve enough in terms of discourse, there isn't any depth in the corruption itself either, nor in its politics, or the police involvement. Obviously there is no real debate about the police as an institution, despite the ML being both in and out of it. I haven't read the original material and it makes me wonder if there was a lot more of that that was cut out of the story.

Recommended to those that like action thrillers, it's entertaining enough but keep your expectations low to mid level.

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Dragged, plotholes and a downgrade from previous season.

I really liked the first season of Arthdal Chronicles, found it entertaining, the lore was interesting and it kept a very decent pace considering the length of its episodes.
I had seen the change of actors and I was slightly skeptical just simply because I was not sure if the characters would be able to keep the consistency they had being different actors. This was partially true.
I like both Lee Joon Gi and Shin Sae Kyeong but after watching the season I'm still left like I'm not quite sure how I feel about them in the roles. For the most part I think Lee Joon Gi did a good job as Eunseom but I was not feeling it with Saya. This could be totally the fault of the writing though so I do not blame him for it entirely. Samely, I felt Shin Sae Kyeong did a good job for the most part but the character felt very unemotional and superficial compared to the characterization I remember from the first season, again, it might not be her fault, but it's how I felt it.

For the most part I think the worst downgrade in this season was the writing and plot in general. There were a few problems I found in the cinematography as well (like the weird blur at times) but I can give those a pass. The plot though, it was absolutely dragged to fill episodes to get to the minimum. Back and forth constantly to then a rushed ending that could have been gradually done in a couple or three episodes instead of condensed in one. There were very weird plotholes and bad execution. For example, there is that time when Tagon wounds Yangcha and Tanya has a mini conversation with him and I guess Tagon was waiting in the background looking at the watch and waiting for them to have their moment or something... That was not the only instance of something similar happening and it was very sloppy.
The plot was not as solid as the first season, I guess they couldn't keep Tagon in the grey area anymore because otherwise it wouldn't make of him the pure classic evil to be dethroned, but I thought it was cliché and overall generally boring. His relationship with Taealha was weird as well, one second they were going to kill each other and then they're ok the next, there was not enough insight into it to understand fully how they could be normal when two seconds prior she was going to stab him or something.
I think they had enough time to do a decent prologue instead of an open ended hint to a possible next season that who knows if it will happen. Also what happened with the prophecy that said about the three of them together? I was kind of confused really because the ending suggests something very different, and I was disappointed that they were taking Saya in that direction, repetitive? boring? cliché? I don't know, I liked the first season because it was a bit fresh but in this one they were falling into very repetitive stereotypes. Saya was a very interesting character but in this one I couldn't care less about him.
Then you have characters that appear suddenly at some point and it's like major reveal but you're like "what's the point of you being here now", like most of the momo tribe for example, ones save the day and die, the others appear only in the last episode.
I kind of wish also they had gone in a more mysticism way at some point, not so much what they did with the gods and Aramun and all that that got repetitive real quick, but I would have liked to see a lot more of the neanthals living in nature for example. I remember more of that and a lot more lore in the first season as well.
Apart from the couple of neanthals that I always liked to see, in this one I generally liked Yangcha and Nunbyeol as characters the most.
The acting was generally good, there were moments that were cool, characters that I liked, production was generally decent enough and I'm ultimately happy I could see this story to more or less an end.
I'll rewatch the first season at some point but I probably won't bother with this one.

It's watchable and if you have watched the first one and want to know how it continues then this is for you. If you haven't watched the first season I would avoid this one since it's a downgrade, writing is worse, it's slow and not much really happens when you strip it from their back and forth. Go watch the first one instead.

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Funny, entertaining and cool characters but writing went downhill with the crime

Up to the latest episodes this would have been a 9 for me, I was loving it, it was funny and light and had an interesting plot and characters. There were a couple of things of why it wouldn't have made it a 10 for me but overall I was impressed and very pleased with how funny it was and how it was developing, that is until they started unravelling the crime storyline.

The mystery and crime in this show was interesting at the beginning and they did an ok job playing with the audience making you doubt if who you thought was the killer was correct. Personally as the episodes went I had it more and more clear so I was not surprised by the reveal and, although it was expected, not going to lie I was a bit disappointed at the same time because how his character was tackled.
The problem for me in the last few episodes is that they created multiple plotholes in the story and basically the writing went downhill, as well as how they decided to tackle the obstacles at hand. For most part of the show the premise has been that if a person had eyes closed FL couldn't see anything, but only in the last episodes it's revealed that actually she can hear in those blackout points, then it makes you wonder how she didn't hear anything the previous time she touched the killer, it made no sense. Sunglasses were an ok touch, but depending on where he was wearing them in the night you could have still seen flashes of lights in the distance or anything that would have made anyone suspicious and would have given away what they were using a lot earlier on. And this brings me then to, when they're chasing him in the last episode and knowing he was going to take the boat the next day, apply the same formula? Look for him in the night, desguise yourself and wear sunglasses?
The last episode is also made worse by:
- If she could hear there was absolutely no point in taking the killer out of the police station.
- She didn't even try to find Ok Hee with the information she had, it was not that difficult and she had a starting point, sweep the area with the police force and I'm sure they would have found her.
- Ok Hee Squad and Yong Myeong arrive to the area and keeps saying there is nothing around, but you could even see in the background there were some buildings so maybe stop asking and look around?
- Completely unbelievable the killer was able to take Ok Hee all the way there with his eyes closed. They spent half a show saying how it was impossible and there must have been a way, then he does it with his eyes closed like no problem for the final?
- ML and FL somehow manage to beat that group of people (super unrealistic to be able to beat all guys coming at you at once, but luckly they were doing like in videogames and only coming in one to three at a time...) and then after somehow they wait for a very long scene doing nothing other than touching their painful bodies in the background. No one tries to scape, not even the boss and ML/FL don't call the police...
- Earlier in the series I did think that this group of thugs would appear again at some point earlier in the story but they only brought them back for that? It was weak.
- The scene at the end with the prison was unnecesary and really added nothing, it felt dragged.
- What happened to the killer? Apparently he can even open doors and get other information to do anything he wants, how is he going to be contained in prison? Doubt the prison would believe he has powers and they need to do special arrangements for him. It's never tackled or explained, as are not the consequences of the actions of FL and ML in the last episode when essentially they go against the policemen in charge of the case, same when all of Ok Hee squad appears with the motorbikes and stop the policemen from moving.
- At times they were interacting with the killer in a manner that it felt they didn't even hold grudges against him.
A lot of plotholes were also caused by characters just playing dumb for the sake of the script, especially FL and SML. And I'm still wondering what happened to the cow, she had the most powers so maybe she's floating in space at this point... haha

This brings me to the characters. Generally I liked everyone except for FL, she was annoying many times, the classic dumb damsel in distress that puts everyone in danger and then blames others. At some points I was frustrated not going to lie.
Contrary to what I think is the general opinion I was not a fan of SML, his personality was pretty much made to keep you guessing and to be honest it's no wonder everyone thought it could be him, he was not clear and didn't give explanations, he was kept mysterious in that sense just for the sake of it. Who runs behind someone with a knife in hand and without even shouting or saying something? Who in their right mind knows who is the killer and still lives with him and doesn't go straight to the police? Why trying to tell her instead? The killer said he was smart, I think maybe he was intelligent but not smart., except for the message in arabic, that was smart but what are also the chances that FL would have touched the killer's butt then and not two months later? The plot said it would happen I guess, it was such a gamble.
The killer is ok for the most part, but I didn't personally like that the justification for his actions is pretty much that he's a psychopath doing things for fun. It's not the first kdrama I've watch that uses the same justification and I find it lazy, it's like creating the ultimate villain that is that way because yes. There is no real explanation to any of the murders and it did make me feel a bit dumb because throughout the series I kept trying to make connections between them and I think there were options to make the connection among them in one way or another. Instead it's just because they were there and maybe a couple because they rubbed him the wrong way a bit. I was wondering why he was obsessed with using that specific knife too, but there is no explanation. It's ok-ish I guess but not satisfactory to me.

I loved the comedy here, so many moments of laugh and fun, the references to 25/21 had me rolling. I also liked ML despite his flaws and I thought Ok Hee was so much fun with her squad and Kim Yong Myeong calling her eonni in that hilarious way. I did miss him in later episodes, he just disappeared once they put the comedy a lot more to the side.

I'm debating really if they should have chosen a different path for this series, in the sense that they could have kept the mystery and even crime (maybe not a serial killing but smaller cases?) and kept the comedy and lightheartedness all throughout the series. Even at the end when they bring it back for closure it felt a bit weird after all the crime and drama, I was not feeling it so much as the earlier episodes.

Overall I would recommend the series, it's entertaining and funny for the majority of the episodes. If you're looking for a romcom or romance focused series this is not it. It's not that there isn't romance, it's just not the main or secondary plot points of this show. FL likes SML but it's kept light, ML likes FL but it's kept light (although I have to say I enjoyed very much the way he would look her at times and the hints here and there, it was cute). Secondary characters like other secondary characters and their relationships are mostly in a comedy way, what it's fun romance that I enjoyed.

Not sure I would rewatch it, I would rewatch maybe until around episode 12 for the comedy, but I wouldn't rewatch after that.

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Very dragged and uninteresting. This could have easily been a movie.

I think the drama had an ok concept that was made so much worse by the execution/writing of that concept. The original idea was probably two pages long and basically the rest is a massive uninteresting filler.
I've just finished watching it and if you asked me to explain what happened in X or Y episode I wouldn't be able to, because there is so much nothingness that it automatically got erased from my mind as soon as I watched it.

I think one of the main problems is that they decided to make FL and her younger self complete opposites and under a very specific set of circumstances with the accident so it's not something many people will relate to. I could feel connected to the lost present time FL but not to her younger self nor the dynamic they had going on later. If there had been more introspection into the first part of FL's character I would have found it more interesting. I also still don't understand how having her past self there helped her to get anything she managed to get. Her younger self is selfish, spoiled and kind of annoying. The dynamic they have later of mother-daughter also I think made it quite a lot worse because by their actions and words they pretty much worked as such and made you even believe it at times and personally it's not how I would treat my younger self... but then again, my younger self was not that childish nor it was that different to how I'm now so I think the relationship would probably be more like we're sisters or something in those lines, what I think kinda makes more sense and probably would be more true to most people, especially considering her younger self was 17, not a 6 year old.

To this we add an overabundant amount of scenes of side characters that add nothing to the main story nor are they that interesting. FL's sister appears multiple times yet I don't know much about her, also she was quite bad in the beginning yet later is just sweeped under the rug. Anthony's scenes bored me sooooo much, I don't understand what the point of him being there was. It was just a filler since his story was not even that related to hers, not even in the end. I kept thinking there was going to be some connection that justified him there but there wasn't. I don't think his story was bad per se, it's just that it's not worth 16 episodes of a few scenes per each one. He's main character but why???? He really adds nothing to the story. His arc could have been done in like one episode and done.

I always find it unrealistic when a main character starts working in a place and turns out they knew someone in there from the past, like how small is your city? Here it's not only the best friend, but also Anthony and Han Yoo Hyun. Too many coincidences and, at least when it comes to Han Yoo Hyun specifically, very sloppy reasoning.

I enjoyed the character of Han Yoo Hyun but it was very forced how his father kept him out of the business because "he's not interested" but wouldn't even give him a chance when he was the one showing an interest, it was just pushed again just to drag the story more until the last episodes. It also got tiring he kept calling FL "old woman" even when they were closer.

There is no romance here and it's only in episode 14 that Ban Ha Ni mentions having butterflies when interacting with Han Yoo Hyun... so you're just told because scenes we had none and maybe we got a few looks from him that let me know he likes her and him saying it to Anthony, but her to him? zero! She looks like a rock in that sense the whole series, even at the end when they say they're together, the chemistry is zero and I'm again being told and not shown (that kiss was appalling, especially for people in their 30s, what was that!!!!??? hahahaha). This show shouldn't be classified as a romance, it's not.
This brings me to the fact that had they focused a lot more in the romance throughout the series they would have had enough extra content to not have to have so many fillers of people walking here and there, or talking very slowly about uninteresting things and so on.
The main plot is, well, very sloppy. It was ok and interesting in the beginning but it's kind of forgotten for most of the series till the later episodes that it's brought back. Once they know what the mobile phone message with the days meant and they were doing nothing I started rolling my eyes, especially considering I was already fed up with the show at that point. They look at the phone and see D-7, they panic for 5 minutes and then they have some nice meal and go somewhere and then they show D-6, and then panic again and two seconds later they're eating beef. It was so difficult to take this seriously. Also the father gives that criptic message through the old phone "quickly quickly, you're running out of time", but considering where she had to go in the end to go back that it's nowhere related to anything she would have been able to know on her own and "quickly quickly" but the dream message was only received one day before the expire date. Bad writing, that's all.
I'm going to nitpick here as well because I was also rolling my eyes at the whole dream/past sequence, you're in a field of dead grass and you find a lily of the valley there eventhough they mostly grow in woodland, humid shaded areas? I was laughing, even more when in the tunnel sequence they find one and they're holding it with the hands (it's very toxic and can produce rashes) until I realised it was a plastic one, what fair enough, but I mean, there was no reason whatsoever really that it couldn't have been another flower the one picked for the whole idea instead of a lily of the valley...
This also brings me to how utterly useless that phychic was, I get they wanted to make the quirk of him being a modern one what was fine, but he would give half messages even when he knew what was happening. You can't tell people something is very serious and life and death and urgent and at the same time withhold information... he only appears twice in the show eventhough at one point he says to FL that he'll be looking for a way to make her past self back, next scene he appears that matter is not discussed.
Not sure why this is also labelled as a comedy, I only laughed once, and that is when Sung Woo is giving some food to past Ban Ha Ni and his mother, FL's sister, has a go at him. It did make me chuckle, but other than that I didn't find anything funny.

The whole drama in the company was ok but kind of cliché and I don't like how they dealt with ML's aunt in the end, she's kind of forgiven and it's not only what she has done with the company but the fact that her son never addresses the way she treats Oh Ji Eun. She had been said horrible things multiple times and yet nothing happens. In fact I don't even know the point in terms of plot of Oh Ji Eun getting pregnant since we didn't even know until that second that she had been trying nor she has a change of character at any time that makes her stronger or more confident or stopping taking that kind of treatment from her mother-in-law.

Points go for FL having freckles and having scenes when later on she has started using makeup for work but she's still shown with the freckles at times when she's supposed to not be wearing makeup, I thought it was a realistic touch I appreciated.

Overall is just boring and dragging and writing is not great. The message is there but you don't need that many episodes to tell it.
Considering as well that there isn't really a progression in terms of work, romance or much else of anything, this could have prefectly worked as a movie and it still would have given the same message.

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