bubblefaerie
Montgomery, AL
While Lu Tian Xing was pretending to be Xiao Lu and both parts of him were falling in love with Tao Le Si, the show was full of cute and entertaining romantic comedy moments. But soon it became full of weepy, pity-party moments and those were less enjoyable. The biggest problem, however, was the aftermath of the reveal. They just couldn't figure out how something like a fake identity would end so they did a 180 into melodrama land and the only real evidence of that half of the show was the opening. With the shortened length, the ending felt rushed and there were small plot lines that got dropped.
For what they were given, I enjoyed the cast. Aaron Yan was good at the dual role and even into the later episodes. I did prefer some of the minor cast- Butler Fu was the best part of the show in the beginning and I was sad that his role diminished so much. Out of the supporting cast, I liked Miao Miao and Ting Wei. I kind of hated Gai Xian mostly because he came off as a creepy stalker. Personally, I think the standout in this show was Beatrice Fang as Huan Huan. Huan Huan was awful but she was supposed to be. The slow personality shift was really good.
I liked the music in the show, specifically the opening theme.
I just don't think I would watch Fall in Love With Me again. While I enjoyed the beginning of the show, nothing stood out as a scene I'd want to go back and rewatch.
Unfortunately, this show lost it's way. The first half and the second half didn't mesh well, making it feel like two completely different shows shoved together. It's sad because I liked it at first and then didn't like it so much anymore.
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The story is the same as the last version I watched and it didn't really have anything different going on. I did think it was paced well. I liked that we got to see more of high school before they went to college. I also liked that we got to see some of what happened after a lot of romantic comedies end. It was a little rushed at the end but they did cram in what probably would have been the beginning of a second season if they did those.
What I didn't like was all the fantasy sequences, especially at the beginning. As it tapered off, the few here and there were more tolerable.
I also thought that some of the scenes felt contrived. They just didn't seem to follow a natural progression and it seemed like they said "We have to get this in here" and just made a scene to fit the situation without much thought to the flow.
I liked Jung So Min as Oh Ha Ni. I think it's almost unfair to talk about how stalkery she was because the story itself depends on her being a stalker. What I did like about her was that, despite the fact that she kept coming back, she had the sense to at least be angry and/or upset by the way Baek Seung Jo treated her.
Kim Hyun Joong as Baek Seung Jo wasn't wonderful but he wasn't awful. He was a lot less cold and detached and more deliberately mean. At times he was kind of intolerable and did remind me a little of Lee Shin from Goong (which makes sense seeing they have the same directors) but was not nearly as awful a person. He would do this thing, too, where he walked away and smiled that I thought was cute.
I didn't like second lead at all. The relationship between Ha Ni and Bong Joon Gu was almost non-existent until it became necessary for there to be one. It never seemed like Ha Ni considered him a close friend and I didn't feel any chemistry between the actors. There was way more chemistry between him and Ha Ni's friend, especially Joo Ri. And if Ha Ni was stalking Seung Jo, then Joon Gu was a step away from locking her in a basement.
I enjoyed a lot of the secondary cast. The mother was really fun to watch. I also liked Kyung Soo.
Most of the music didn't register with me. Netflix didn't show the intro so I didn't even hear that song until later. I did like the song from Bye Bye Sea and enjoyed the band playing at the break.
I enjoyed Playful Kiss. It's hard not to compare this one with the other I've seen (Love in Tokyo) because there are things I liked better in this one and things I liked better in the other. But in the end, I liked this one just a little bit more because I liked Ha Ni more. The embarrassing moments that Ha Ni had were less ridiculous and I didn't feel the need to turn it off during those times. I don't know that I'd watch it again, but I enjoyed it while I was watching it.
And on a side note, I love that they did the bear endings.
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At 24 episodes, it's just too long.
I couldn't wait to go to the next episode through the first half. I found myself rooting for Chen Xin Yi to stand up for herself. I cried during the really dramatic parts. I wanted to punch Ji Cun Xi through the TV for being such a jerk.
During the second half, I'd have to force myself to move forward sometimes when everything happened so predictably in an unoriginal way. While I rooted for Chen Xin Yi in the first half, I couldn't get behind her in the second half. Ji Cun Xi did change... from jerk to stupid. I also thought that they dropped the ball on some external nemeses that were set up in the first half.
In the end, I didn't really care if they ever got together. I would have preferred that she pick Dylan, though I didn't feel that he was developed enough for me to really care about him either. I just felt that Xin Yi spent enough time with him that she should have given him a chance.
I did like the cast, especially the secondary cast. I loved Xin Yi's family and thought that all the actors had great comic timing.
Truthfully, I only remember one song, Wo de Kuai Le, from the whole drama because I tend to skip intros and previews. It was one that I thought was cheesy at first but I grew to really like it as time went on.
Even though I liked Fated to Love You, I don't think I'd ever watch it again. The biggest reason is that the show was just way too long with uneven story-telling. When it was dramatic, it was so dramatic. When it was comedy, it was practically slap-stick. There was rarely a good mix of the two. I did like the general plot for the drama, though, so I will probably watch the upcoming Korean remake with the hope that they will cut a lot of the unnecessary junk and make it shorter.
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I did enjoy it mostly but I would find myself in the groove of watching and suddenly Kotoko did something ridiculous and embarrassing. I would have to turn it off. Towards the middle, it just got to be too much. But I've been trying to finish dramas that I've started so I decided to push through. Once the show reached the last 4 or 5 episodes, it lost some of the silliness and I liked it more.
Miki Honoka is really young compared to the rest of the main cast and it showed quite often. Even the girls that were her friends, who are only slightly older, felt more mature than she did. Maybe that's because she made strange, dramatic faces throughout most of the show. It seemed like she was someone's younger sister rather than their classmate. Still, she managed to portray the obsessive one-sided love of a dim girl very well.
Furukawa Yuki did a good job with the emotionless Naoki.
I really liked Yamada Yuki as Kinnosuke, though I didn't really feel for him as the second lead until more than halfway through. I did like that he didn't sit around pining in secret but he was also pushy and that sometimes got annoying.
The music was kind of blah to me. I didn't love the opening or closing songs and I can't recall any music during the episodes.
I don't really see myself watching this drama again. If I was so inclined, I might watch the last 2 or 3 episodes only.
Overall, I didn't love this drama. It had way too much embarrassment going on for me to truly get into it. But I ended up liking it well enough and do plan of watching the sequel.
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I think Love in Okinawa highlights how young Miki Honoka is. A character at some point says something about thinking she was a junior high student and I think that sums it up. Miki Honoka is not a mature teen and I have hard time believing that she is supposed to be married and in the area of 20.
Furukawa Yuki was still as emotionless as he was in season 1. The real issue for him is showing any emotion when it calls for it.
I enjoyed the incognito parents and brother for the bit they were in it.
There was also a guest appearance by the cast of the Taiwanese drama, Fabulous Boys. I didn't mind it but it was just so random.
I wish that this special had just been part of the regular series. As a stand-alone, the irritating parts stood out more. It highlighted how thoughtless Naoki is and how wimpy Kotoko is. Overall, though, it was on par with the first season and I like it about the same.
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I really liked this. Ha Ni is just as cute as she was in the main series but without the stalker element. Seung Jo really improved as a character for me. I didn't love him before because he never really seemed to love Ha Ni even after he did. In this, you could see it.
We also got to see the mother, brother and friends, which I liked. I was fine with the lack of Joon Gu because I didn't like him at all in the main series.
These mini episodes actually made me like the main series a little more. I don't think they needed to be longer than the 10-12 minutes that they were. They just needed to have more of them. While I couldn't really see watching the main series again, I can see myself watching these again sometime.
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