Reviews

Small town drama misses the mark

This is a story about a small seaside village, two childhood sweethearts, and the male lead’s dreams of making it big in a singing competition. The story tries to be funny and heartfelt but falls short in the end with a convoluted message. The production aesthetic clearly gives off a low budget production vibe and many side characters overact at times. Male and female leads were fine but nothing more. Their styling throughout, even when the characters were supposed to be stylish, was just a bit off. Wang Youshuo sang all his songs so that was a plus although the OST is not that interesting. Wouldn’t recommend, unfortunately.

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Pawn off my horrible husband to my horrible best friend

I don’t know why but sometimes I just get a. Certain feeling while watching a drama. The kind where it’s one of a kind and soon to be irreplaceable. Now I’ve seen many drama with Park Min Young in it, and I love her. She’s so sweet of an actress and a visual, and is a very talented woman. I’m captivated by every performance, but now I’ve finally seen a drama of hers that really does her acting justice.

There have been glimpses in others. This drama just hits all the boxes, it’s funny, gripping, heartbreaking, and she’s put the work in. Hearing her story to get into the role got me to watch in the first place. I don’t know much about the other actors involved besides the second ML, who was in Welcome to Waikiki.. he is so hilarious.. go watch that.

So I’ve seen a lot of romantic comedies this year and have rated them well, but they slowly lose my interest all at once. This one just has so much to keep me watching. Revenge is something I love to see played out, a woman who is calculating and doesn’t get swept up by love. She’s got a motive here and with the first handful of episodes it’s already so satisfying to see her slowly chip away at a life she refuses to have.

I’ll go more into this when I can type on a computer. But for now I want to just recommend this drama. The ending ost for the last two eps is so so good and it’s just interesting ok. Believe me and watch.

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You should watch Hitorigurashi alone in your house

This show is executed really well; directing, editing, etc. The cinematography in particular is artful and skillful. Shots feel composed and designed to complement whatever is taking place in the story.

The scenarios are realistic enough, and the acting is nicely restrained. The main actress Tokiwa Takako is super believable throughout; makes it easy to immerse in the story.

The music feels of the time the show was made; a lot of moody soprano sax - almost Kenny-G-esque. I thought it suited the show nicely, but it's a style of music that might annoy some people.

I was really satisfied by the ending - open-ended, but suspenseful. The last shot/credits roll was very cool.

Also, the running fridge ambience... the way it's used throughout the show feels intentional, but I didn't pick up on the meaning.

Overall, the show strikes a nice balance between melodrama and reality.
A sophisticated and tasteful show! Easily the best J-Drama I've seen so far (out of the 20 or so I've seen at the time of writing this) :)

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How I Feel About This

I wish I started writing down my thoughts from ep 1 but here we go.
Don’t come for me, it’s just how I feel.

Ep 7 34 mins. Mew was spewing BS . If you watched it you’d know lol

Ep 8…I think I need to take manipulation lessons from Pleng. Cause what was that?

Ep 9 and I swear these “couples” are begging for scandal. Korn and knock , Bhu and the professor.

Ep 9 30 mins. It’s clear Farm doesn’t love himself. Cause how would you willingly want to stay with a player. Knowing so well he’s just using you for his extra horny days .
Can I just slap pleng through the screen ?

Ep 12 when Bright told Farm I have another surprise for you. I literally said it better not be a threesome and lo and behold it was ??. That guy is mad. He’s just plain mad ??. And did Farm just sit there and take that? What was he thinking? The fuck!!! Did he really go through with that four some?? Smh I’m done with that guy.

Final episode- I just feel like this series was dragged at some point. It’s just full of drama. Main couple just had few moments together.

Pleng was a witch

Knock was confused. Why would you believe your gf over your best friend you’ve know since forever? I guess he didn’t know him well enough.

Farm didn’t love himself enough and ended up turning into what he hated.

Korn at some point annoyed me, cause although he loved knock what they did wasn’t right. Even though knocks girlfriend is a witch lol.

Only character I sincerely loved was Yihwa. I hope I’m that type of friend and would love to have that type of friend too. Though I try to mind my business most of the time ?.

All in all the series was good. Will I watch Bad Romance or TWM s2? I don’t think so

Rewatch value- 4/10. I can’t go through that again.

I don’t mind checking out Ep 9 22:30 minutes tho lol

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I should have known from the poster alone that this will not be some great masterpiece. But did I expect this one to be? Certainly not. I’m just curious how such a large age-gap romance will play out on the screen.

Well, the sinister but ill-timed sound track certainly was a letdown many times where I anticipated a stabbing or two to take place. So all that foreboding knife-wielding was really there just for show. Much like the various ASMR of gurgling and brushing of teeth were actually people just practicing oral hygiene and did not carry some sort of symbolism.

At one point, I even expected the romance between Shinobu and Chiaki to go south. And I am so okay with that, as they later both took on separate paths and lived without each other for years. But aside from Yuta the son, and maybe Okano the Magazine editor, the rest of the characters were frankly unlikeable. From the misogynistic ex-husband to Chiaki’s mother, both battling each other out for “The Worst Parent of the Decade” award.

Then, towards the end, where each of these characters started their own monologue to tell their own backstory, but more like an excuse for their shitty behavior, I almost lost it.

But like some other rubberneckers, I can’t help but be glued to the screen watching this train wreck of a romance go by.

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Good balance of humor and the serious things in life, full of focus on female friendship and family

I love the beginning and ending quarters for sure (the preciousness and wholesomeness and chaos and fun All on Overload and I'm here for it).

It's pretty quiet/laid-back/domestic/slice of life, not too intense, and I honestly would have been happier if Li Wei (FL) and Yin Zheng (ML) had more screen time together (yup, especially in that middle section, which felt a bit slower without them ^-^). But, as it is, this is a very female-friendships-centered plot, and not as much on the main couple's romance for most the show.

LOVE the delicacies and foods and aesthetics (so cozy and healing), very cute and sweet main ship, all the side ships are also either sweet or bickery spicy sweet. As far as romances go, it's a bit rare as it focuses on both parties in the relationship pretty much equally, which is lovely to witness.

As far as HEA happy endings go, this deserves a 10/10 for that.

Appreciate the story's main thematic (essentially) commentary on the whole harem/concubines situation - which also enabled me to feel and understand the inner court's women of historical times more. However, the plot felt a bit dragged on as it didn't offer quite as many twists or interesting things as I would have preferred in the middle section especially (who am I kidding though, I was likely suffering from pretty bad hangover from lack of Li Wei+Yin Zheng dose lol).

Also love the VERY diverse set of personalities and ships/couples, as well as their respective developments. I liked all of the (good :D) main AND supporting characters by the end!

Needless to say, all the acting's top notch. I've put more of Tian Xi Wei's and Bai Jing Ting's cdramas on my To Watch list because they're each such great main leads.

Good balance of humor and the serious things in life for sure. =) If you want a comfort watch full of (esp female, but also the brothers/princes/young lords) friendships and family, this is for you.

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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Just loved the plot and chemistry between lead actors. At first, I thought that Wang Anyu is not suited to be with lusi. But as time passes, I realized that he is one of the best ML of lusi. I hope that they can work again together.Love them both?........,........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................,...........................................................................................................

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Great plot

One of the best fiction I've watched. They are like superheroes, but human-like heroes, no one gets an advantage with their powers if they can't wield them properly, making it useless. From the first quarter of the episodes in the drama, there will be plot twists, and that's what hooked me because there's actually a deeper story than what initially appears.

Every main character has their own story, and the show dedicates respective episodes to each main character, making each one the protagonist. This somewhat bored me at some points, although the idea and storyline are good, my focus is on the main protagonist, so I searched for a lot of screen time for them.

I'm not entirely satisfied with the ending, it's not what I was hoping for. In my opinion, the ending happened too fast and was boring, considering how the plot started off so well.

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I enjoyed this rom-com more than I expected. Perhaps it may be because of its short run typical of Japanese drama that allows all the essence to be compact without being draggy., unlike the long and drawn out fifty-episodic offerings from other countries.

First, it shows the typical Japanese work culture where everyone is worked to the bone and doing overtime is common and even expected. Shikamori Umi is no stranger to this and continues to run around until she reaches a limit.

Second, the drama demonstrates that change is possible when Umi gets recruited as an intern at an agency, where a very different and refreshing work culture has been established.

Suzuki Airi is a natural, transitioning from a bare-faced, exhausted employee to a spritely, newly motivated worker who wants to try her best at everything, even over-extending herself sometimes. But she realizes that just fell back into the habit of over-pleasing others.

Her coworkers, her new boss and especially Kazao, and even Hina manifest ideas that shape Umi’s worldview, in that working hard is commendable, but also is taking time for yourself. The cast was supportive of Umi’s endeavors and she finally learns to be independent.

This drama was delightful and gratifying. Also neat was the trivial fact that three of the male actors in this show were in other BL dramas that I’ve watched. I did not even recognize Izuka Kenta in that whatchamacallit hairstyle.

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That was a BIG disappointment!

I gave it a go, as I loved SI1&SI2 - how could the producers put this as season three?!
Nothing worked for me.
Cast - largely boring and shallow characters - both women and men. In previous years we had a great mix of ages, professions and personalities. This time on women’s side these was team Miss Korea vs one basketball player (who were the rest of the men again?)
Location - in season 1&2 the participants had much more space - I appreciate it’s the inferno but turning it into Bog Brother is not very interesting for me. The hotel was not that nice as the ones before - had a tiny tab and they had to eat around a coffee table…something just didn’t add up..
Stories - generally very bitty; the only story I kind of liked was cafe owner&young model. The basketball player triangle was centre of all proceedings out of desperation for me - I’m sure that should there have been more interesting men characters, this would have not happened! He was portrayed as shallow, unconvincing and unreliable man - what got omitted from the edits that is SO charming about you?!
I’m not sure if the editing was bad or this season was generally just boring, but there was no much really interesting relationships. For the first time I actually rewarded forward a programme just to see key moments..and these extremely long pauses - who needs that many and that long?!
The best thing - although painful to watch sometimes - was the studio team who was commenting..
Bring them back!

What a disappointment!

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Unpopular Opinon

I like this one, I think it was very cute and enjoyable. I like a simple "fall in love at first sight" type of series. I read a few reviews saying that this series was boring and I mean, it had a few slow moments but I don't think I would classify it as boring. Then again, I like the slower-paced series and fast, quick-action-packed ones. I think it just takes a certain taste to enjoy the more calmer series. I enjoyed seeing the "Call Me By Your Name" posters around both the coffee shop and Yi's home. Maybe that was a major selling point for me because that is my favorite movie of all time and it has 3 characters from "Tin Tem Jai" and that's another one of my favorite BLs. This series had a charm to it, it reminded me of "Light On Me" from Korea, which is one of my favorite BLs, it almost gave me that innocent feel except with a little more spice.

All the characters were just adorable, I loved Jean, Chan Chao, and Pavel's character. I did like Benz and Pavel together in this series, some said that they didn't have chemistry together but I think they were sweet together. Though, after watching "Pit Babe' I can't imagine Pavel with anyone other than Pooh but for the time being, Benz and Pavel were cute. I like seeing Pavel in a cutesy role, I love him in Pit Babe but there's something about him being in a series where he's always smiling is just so good to me. I don't know why but the whole Yi & Pleng scene where they "broke up" with each other, made me all teary-eyed, I love that Tanwa was there to comfort Yi. I like Jean and Thitnuea together.

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good series but only 4 episodes

Watched this series only because Plan was in it as the lead. There are no subtitles. The basic plot was fairly clear, but some of it was hard to understand. Ten's (Plan) father dies, he goes to stay with an uncle (?) who has a daughter. The daughter treats Ten horribly and her parents do not scold her. She deserves a whupped ass. Then for no apparent reason the daughter has a complete change of attitude and becomes friendly to Ten. Then Ten moves back to his own house (his father's house). Between 1 and 4 men in their thirties (uncles or friends of his father) move into Ten's house at different times and cause trouble for Ten. One in particular is a nuisance, then suddenly he too has a change of attitude and becomes serious about his responsibility to Ten. At the end Ten treats him as a substitute father. There are only 4 episodes, not 10. Or at least ony 4 are on YT and the end of the 4th episode looked like a happy ending for the whole series.

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If the audience is used to short dramas, it will find that, although A Love Journal is a SUPER fast miniseries, it is really entertaining. It is even surprising that, in such a short time, the drama resolves the business aspects in a satisfactorily way and the lead couple has very good romantic chemistry. The leading lady works for a rival company and keeps that fact from her husband which gives way to the appearance of an antagonist from her company. The leads have met before in their high school days and seemed to have developed a nice friendship on that time. Even though the second leading couple doesn’t have the best romantic development, it is cute to see them together as the drama nears its ending. The drama starts as a marriage of convenience but, during the cohabitation, they gradually fell in love with each other. It also has a very nice ending, enjoy it!

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