School 2021 (2021)

The Sweetest Slice of Life Drama

First off, it takes a lot for a show to keep me invested for 16 episodes; I do not complete most of the shows that I watch because I often lose interest, and, after a week of working hard, I often don't feel pushed to pick up a show again on the weekend when I have time to watch TV. I am still surprised this show kept me captivated for all of the 16 episodes. I kept coming back every weekend (it's the only time I can watch). Many people don't seem to like the show or appreciate it, so let me clarify who this show is meant for.

This show is meant for:
-People who like slice of life: Nothing much happens in this show; you just go about 4 teenagers living their lives at a vocational school. All four have dreams, and we witness them work hard to chase what they want in life.
-People who like to see relationships slowly unfold: This is especially true of the second couple. You see them become friends; and then you see them get closer to each other. You actually see them fall in love,and you understand why they fall in love with each other. This is the highlight of the show for me. There is no love at first sight or rushing of feelings here; both of the romances are sweet and portrayed with sensitivity.
-People who want to see relationships done well: There are no silly breakups; there is no toxic behavior or selfishness. You get to see 4 teenagers facing their feelings head on, acting on their feelings, and being respectful of each other's wants. I also loved that no one allowed their feelings to impact their dreams; both FLs stood by their guy; they were loyal and loving. That never impacted their attention to their futures, and I loved that. Your romantic relationships should never get in the way of your ability to make a future for yourself. The men were also very loving and respectful to the woman in their life. They never over-stepped or pushed, and they always respected what their girlfriend wanted.
-People who want to see characters develop: In the beginning, Youngjoo was a sullen kid, angry with everyone, and friendless. By the end, he admitted to his faults; he encouraged Seoyoung to chase her dreams; and he had a friend group who had his back. In the beginning, Seoyoung was single-minded about going to college. I loved her ambition, but she was the type to give up everything to achieve her dream. Now, she realizes that achieving one's dreams at the cost of someone else is not worth it. She can go to university without having to ruin an innocent family to do so. I love that they each brought out the best in each other. Individually, they are both better people now than when they started. I think this is what makes School 2021 special for me; they took everyday tropes, and they carried them out with sensitivity and nuance.

Do NOT watch this show if:
-You want action, drama, or anything complicated
-You want a plot that is new or creative in any way (this is a show where high schoolers act like high schoolers; you just see them go about their days.).

Not only was I charmed by the show; I would say it is one of my top 5 kdramas. You're really missing out if you don't watch it. Also, the first episode is a bit slow; give it 2 or 3 episodes before you judge.

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Not the KBS School series I know of.

It's good but it also bad; it'd pretty average. I have things to complain and I got things to praise about. To sum it up, the cons of this drama outweigh the pros and I couldn't avoid to notice them. Let's go.

School 2021 is the latest drama of the KBS School franchise which was meant to be School 2020 but covid19 caused the production to delay and they had to postpone. Although there were uncertainties about starting it in 2021 even but thankfully, they aired it, even so it now ends in 2022.

There is no solid plotline. It's simply is a mixture of many subplotsz keeping the romance plot at the center. Corruption reveal, friendship, bromance line, love triangle, family relationship, etc. are a part of the story. They probably wanted to make the highschool corruption the central plot but it was inconsistent and didn't work at all.

The key difference between previous dramas of the KBS School series and this one is that, the school isn't an ordinary one, rather a specialized skill-based school where students are trained in particular vocational curriculum. It actually could have been a better show if they had made a script about different aspects of such schools, but duh! The thing is, this script could have been any other highschool drama but it didn't fit the concept of the KBS franchise, it didn't have anything that we see in the School series.

Again, no solid plot and hence no steady development; the mixture of different element, makes the overall story messy. The first 2 episodes didn't make any impact as introductory pieces, it wasn't bad but not something to keep you on it. The next few episodes were smooth and gave off an impression of an average show, and I, somehow, wanted the show to retain the same quality till the end but even that was inconsistent. I admit, I somehow got myself emotionally attached till 6th just to get myself disappointed after that. I pushed myself to finish till the end, only because I am bad at giving up , otherwise I could not find a single reason to motivate me to keep watching. It went downhill in the 2nd half and the blame goes to the writers for getting lost within their own script.

Gong Ki Joon (Kim Yo Han) is basically a looser but got character development and his acting improves with episode though it stayed pretty average till the end. Jin Ji Won (Jo Yi Hyun) is a determined and hardworking girl but very typical and outdated of a classical Kdrama FL though her acting is up to par. Jung Young Joo (Choo Young Woo) is a terrible actor and he never improves, adding to it, his character in the drama was such needless and stupid one; he deserves minor roles and not SML.

Special mention to the SFL Kang Seo Young (Hwang Bo Reum Byul) who despite the least experience did the best among the younger cast. Not just her character was was a potential strong FL, she did a splendid role in playing it.

Ji Ho Sung (Kim Kang Min) and Go Eun Bi (Seo Hee Sun) are the 3rd couple with shoddy backgrounds and stupid plots.

Lee Kang Hoon, Park In Hwan, Kim Gyu Sun, Lee Ji Ha, Kim Min Sang, Jo Seung Yun, Kim Soo Jin... are some of the very good actors in this drama but it's such a waste of their talent and time as they didn't have the scope to showcase their skills. The overall acting department, hence, is a big turn off and another reason to drop this.

Kim Min Tae PD a comparatively lesser experienced director but the only 2 dramas he produced before this were actually moderately good shows, Idk what went wrong with the direction here. The screenplay and it's organization were one of the major disadvantages. The pacing is equally messed; both unnecessarily slow and fast at times. I didn't know about Dong Hee Sun jakkanim and I can't really judge from her previous work since I haven't seen any of the 3 movies created by her. But judging the script of this drama, I am sure she had a difficult time writing a drama script, which is a lot different from a movie script.

There are plots of many types which needed a lot better execution but those rather ended up being puzzled. The distribution of plots and elements should have been fairly distributed but they're rather dispersed unmannerly. They either concentrate one subplot too much or forget about that completely. Same goes for the characters, who, in fact, have no solid dynamics to back their personalities. There is no impressive character development either. Simply put, so many unnecessary subplots and so many unnecessary characters.

OSTs are moderately good but not really memorable. I liked "Way to you" by Rosanna the most of all, followed by "Recently" by uri Yohan. "Dream on" by Na Go Eun is the only track that matched the drama, others are mostly romantic songs, and very unrelated to the drama. "Absently" by SWAN and "Can't help loving you" by OMG Mimi are tracks with the vibes of classic Kdrama OSTs.

Things I liked...
# The 2nd Female lead's acting... She was the only one among the younger cast who could act and not just acted, but did very well. In fact her character was the only one with amazingly painted arches; the only reason I went through the ending.

# The love triangle here isn't a mess. It doesn't last long, or turn into a toxic pull and push game between the main cast.

# The first Male lead wasn't very flashy unlike other highschool Kdramas where the FFL is some sorta genius who can do everything; the one here was a loser and we saw a character development for him with each episode though it wasn't really impressive.

Things I disliked...
I have a long list :3

# the 1st Female lead needed more exposure bcs she was supposed to lead the show. I didn't completely dislike the character but it needed some background and a character development method.

# There were relatively less school scenes for a "School" series drama and that too the school scenes were very unappealing.

# There are way too many characters than needed. Not just in School series, also in almost all highschool dramas, there are many students in the supporting characters, but here, there were less than 10 students directly involved whereas others were absolute fillers with 0 contribution to the story.

# Honestly, no romance could have been okay given the genre but I don't really complain about it's existence. The thing that made me off was the overal plot of both the couples. In terms of chemistry, the 2nd lead couples were better but neither of them were really good.

# The mixture of lots of plotlines was a bad decision and in the end, they were missing out on the development of each of the plots on a great deal.

# The not so cool "boys let's punch and make it up" kinda bromance did cut off some points.

#The stupid and entirely unnecessary plot for the 3rd lead couple s, which absurdly funny and could have been avoided.

I came here for Yohan as he's a sweetheart to me. Plus I was excited to watch a drama of School series after 3 (4) years. Another reason that had my anticipations up was the fact that it was delayed a lot. But all my expectations have been crushed and I am left disappointed by the results. I don't at all mind average dramas and okay with a drama not having typical stuffs but it should be a decent watch, which School 2021 wasn't. Even if you don't compare it to previous dramas of the series, this one as a light drama by itself is a failure. I have seen better light themed shows to give this a pass.

Overally, it's pretty average, in fact below average in terms of production values, acting and more importantly, the the entire outcome. I wonder why this show was even made. They should have skipped the entire script or made another highschool drama bcs KBS School franchise is a different thing in whole together and it's a shame this drama let the essence down. I am disappointed and I will suggest you to drop it without even starting.

P. S. Gave it 6.0 only because it's not very bad and I think I am being generous.

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Bears the "School" in its title, but not really a "School franchise"

Let's start with the only good thing in this drama - ACTING.
Some of the main actors definitely needs improvement in the first few episodes, and they really did improved throughout the series. Hwang Bo Reum Byeol caught my attention since the beginning, and she has the most solid acting among all young actors. Next to her is Jo Yi Hyun, and I also saw Yoon Yi Reh's potential. The others did a little bit below average to average, but I think it's okay, and most of them have potential too tbh.

Now, for the STORY.
The plot is meh... they used common tropes used in the School series but ended up ruining it. Still, it's not bad but it's below average compared to it's predecessors (2013-2017; I haven't watched the OG School 1 to 4). It seems like the writers didn't know what they wanted to focus on (I'll write more about this in a bit) . At the end, the students shouted "passion" so I think that's the main theme, yet passion was barely shown in this drama. The characters and subplots were poorly written despite having a lot of potential. It 's kinda slow-paced for me, yet they inserted a lot of unnecessary drama in the end, so it feels rushed. It was like a rollercoaster which slowly goes up then suddenly went down very fast.

The next two paragraphs are still connected to the story, but this is more on about the drama being PART OF THE SCHOOL FRANCHISE, YET DOESN'T FEEL LIKE ONE.

As I have said, a lot of actors, characters, and subplot have potential, yet it seems like the writers didn't know what to do with it. The story was okay for me at first but I can't really feel that it is "School" 2021. After I finished watching all the episodes, I realized that the distribution of subplots was their problem. See, in the past (2013-2017), they tackled different school issues and distributed it to different characters. There's at least 8 characters whose story was shown, and the others serves as crowd, yet they still humanized them in a way. In this drama, they only have 6 students who are main characters if I am not mistaken, but the writers chose to give most subplots to only 4 students (Ki Joon, Young Joo, Seo Young, Ji Won) and the stories of Ho Sung and Eun Bi were not even explored that much. I think they want to fit a lot of stories unto the main casts (but failed to explore it) to make them appeal more to the viewers, but I really don't think I was able to connect with them that much (this sentence may be more subjective than the rest of what I wrote here since I am now a graduating college student, and I watched the past 3 franchise when I was in high school).

Another thing is that, they barely showed the main characters in the classroom which is very unusual for a School franchise. Yes, the workshop is also a classroom, but it is more of a 'club' than 'class', which was stated in the drama (I know).. I think they were in school a lot (didn't they??) but I didn't really felt it. I don't know why, but School 2021 is just like any other teen-romance drama set in school, but it isn't a "School" series. Sorry, but I can't help to compare because it is part of the franchise, so at least it should have the same vibes (if not format) with the past series...

Though, this is still a pretty good watch if you want a filler drama. If you are not a fan of the School franchise, you might enjoy this more (though I don't generalize, just my opinion) because it still shows things that you can ponder upon. I hope everything that I wrote made sense. Thank you for reading!!!

Initial Rating: 8.5/10
FINAL RATING: 7.0/10

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This was a great series!

Gong Ki-Joon and Jin Ji-Won (Kim Yoo-Han and Jo Yi-Hyun) really had a good chemistry on screen and off screen. Love the two couples who really gave a good show to this drama. I also love some character developments in being arrogant, straigh-forward, mean, and many more. Thanked God I did not watched the other School's series except Who are You: School 2015 which is also a good series too! I really love the chemistry of the two couples which are the ml and fl lead (Gong Ki-Joon and Jin Ji-Won) and second lead couple (Jung Young Joo and Kang Seo Young). There were cliché scenes which are not that really cliché for me. This drama really tells me about achieving your dreams, the sad moments in our life that we might encounter, moments that we might get to regret things, and many more as this drama really explains how our youth today experience many things to encounter in the future as a teenager. Overall, this drama is really good and how I love this drama gave me good expectations. Recommended to beginners, and also good for binge watch too! Looking forward to the cast's future projects too! (especially the Kim Yoo-Han and Jo Yi-Hyun ;) )

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Potential to be great but final product was just average

There were so much content that was evident in this drama. The writers could've focus on the lives of the 6 students (our lead characters) but yet, this failed because they showed a lot about the school director's corruption on everything. Me personally, this is what ruined the drama for me. You could easily take this out and wouldn't even realize it was supposed to be in this drama. What makes matter worse is we don't even see the bad guys get punished for their bad deeds and there were so many screentime of the evil characters.

The plot/story details were poorly presented in my opinion due to this corruption, but I will have to say, there was content that should've been more focus on. Besides the building of the romance between the 3 couples, I wanted to see more of the process of a mending relationship between Ki Joon and Young Joo, not an instant, I hate you but all the sudden we're best friends again, how about Ji won struggle of career choice due to her mom's disapproval and the struggle of having doubts of her career choice. The content for Seo Young could've been her turning from a cold, hard hearted girl, due to being abandon by her parents when she was young, to someone who finds what love really is (from Young Joo) and begin to acknowledge others and make friends. Eun Bi's story of pursuing an idol career was going in the right direction until the last several episodes, where it lost direction. Ho Sung persistent crush on Eun Bi was okay but it would've been more understanding to me if we would've saw the story of his first love and what lead to the break up (even show us why did he have a son, as this drama showed randomly). I wanted to understand who his character was and what attracted him to Eun Bi but the writers failed to mention this. There are a lot more content that was evident but wasn't presented well or at all but I'll just leave it at this.


I like the cast overall. There were a few moments here and there where their acting seemed a bit strange to me, maybe it was the scene itself, but it was watchable. It's just that there were side characters that didn't get much attention all the sudden is mentioned in the very last episode and that was weird for me because there weren't much details about them other than we see them hanging around here and there.

The osts were okay. Good to listen to during certain scenes but not memorable for me or wanting to add it to my music playlist.

Definitely not a rewatch. One time deal for me.

Overall, it's a good cast so I would say watch it if you like the cast and have nothing else to watch for the time being. It's not a bad drama per say but I do have a lot of frustration knowing what direction this drama could've went but didn't.

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SUPERNATURAL FEELING WHILE WATCHING THIS SERIES, U GET DISTRACTED AT 7 MINUTE OF EACH EPISODE......

"Dream on, Dream on"- the only 1 ost of this series and i like its feel. Have u watched some shows which dissapoint little to make impression at first, i think this is 1 of them. Honestly i didn't even remembered the names of main character till 4th episode, but as it went i became part of them, lol. Story- There are 4 main characters Gong ki joon, jin ji won, jung young joo, kang seo young. Besides them sudden couple Ho sung and Go eunbi. The 4 main characters are in LOVE SQUARE at first. They eventually realize feelings for their real partners but give quite feelings of friendship. Hosung and Go eunbi are just for entertainment purpose only. Between this story many small stories weave. As school is background of this series , the story of school corruption is present. Acting- main characters did their job pretty well. Director casted both couples as same, i mean gong ki joon and ji ji won are pretty much similar as character and + they look identical their hairstyle to eyes are similar to me, lol. Young joo and kang seo young are similar in their behavior , both are daring, dashing and cold. This is the best part of series for me. So should u watch them- Yup, just give it a try if u are a college student just like me and want to relate this series with u.

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Heart warming and healing show with amazing cast.

This show was a nice refreshing change from normal over the top kdramas and made me smile each episode. It has everything you want from a school drama and i would totally recommend watching!


Story Line
The basic story is students just trying to get through their high school experience and dealing with issues that come along with growing up. It is a nice simple story with romance, bromance and even some deeper topics like idol training and becoming a young parent. It was a refreshing show that didn't make me worry or get upset with any of the choices that were made and ended on a happy note which is always something i love. The main and side couples were sweet and made me smile with their growing romance and friendship that was delivered over the show. There was no breaking up, drama, lack of communication and overall just a perfect simple and sweet storyline which made me happy every week the episodes came out. It developed and showed deep topics well and handled them in a respectful way which was a really nice change. Over it's a cute school drama that i recommend if you need a feel good, mood maker drama that leaves you smiling.

Cast
I think the cast did a perfect job at portraying the characters and really made the show. For most of the main cast having this drama as their first big time job they did an amazing job and made me fall in love with each induvial aspect of their characters. For Kim Yo Han being an idol he did a perfect job acting and made me cry and fall in love with him all at the same time, so big well done to him. The rest of the cast did an amazing with the main couple and side characters all playing their roles extremely well. 10/10 for the cast and especially loved Choo Young Woo and was very impressed with his acting since this is his second acting role.

Overall
I loved this drama with all it's aspects and would suggest to everyone to watch it if they are needing a simple cute and sweet drama that will lighting up your day.

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Not Worth My 4 Years Waiting

This is a huge disappointment of school series ever, IMO this must be the one with lowest budget(?) For the storyline it's just a general/average story, the only thing that not much applied in a series before maybe only the field of wood engineer and the plot of the SML's brother case.

I found the character, background, family interaction, environment, conflicts, and love story with SFL of SML were much more interesting than the main. I can say I stay more for second couple.

I love the chemistry between each couple so much, it's just a pity the storyline of this series not written well enough for them.

As for the OST, I love the closing theme song. Dreamer, dreamer~~~

Since I'm not type of rewatching any, I won't rewatch this series. And ..., I don't think it's interesting enough to be rewatched.

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Decency maintained!

Hello blushing sweeties!

"You don't have to be the best in everything you do. What's important is whether you're truly happy doing whatever you do."

"Skills matter but storytelling overtakes skills."

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Also, every action has a hidden reason too."

These are the three messages that I am gonna take away with me from the school drama 'School 2021'.
You see, I have watched many school dramas but I must say this drama has some decency in it. The drama throws light on how students can do better if they are doing what they love and not studying for the sake of studying or meditating in front of the books for hours. It shows how vocational curriculum (skill-based) is equally important as the regular curriculum and sometimes can even teach good values to the students because you don't end mugging things up instead experience first hand and get the work done then and there like carpentry: the focus in the drama. So to begin with, I loved the concept, it's something different.

But....but the light they throw on these points is a dim light...haha. They should have thrown a brighter one. The above mentioned points are not clearly and completely delivered in the drama. In between it keeps loosing its essence with other plots such as bribery, corruption, friendship, romance, bromance, love triangle, family, fear of losing powers, injustice, betrayal and many more. The focus of the show should have been on dreaming about your dream, working hard to make it happen, facing difficulties and fallbacks during the process, how you overcome them, how your dream converts into your life goal and finally achieving your set goal with all the supporting actors and sub plots. But this simple flow was distorted since their focus from 'this' changed to revealing 'corruptions happening in a school background' which is also very necessary to address but hey! scriptwriter you shouldn't forget why you started writing this drama. In short the focus got dissolved.

Unlike other school dramas, where there are a lot of lovey-dovey, cheesy and super romantic scenes, School 2021 maintained the decency by keeping in mind that they are just 18 years old, though there were subtle acceptable romance and flirting between the leads.

Moving on to the 'acting' of the actors. Kim Yo Han as Gong Ki Joon (ML) was perfectly casted as his face, his body, his expressions everything suited his character. Not to mention his little (little) pouts and cute puppy faces flashing in between was adorable. Jo Yi Hyun as Jin Ji Won also very well managed to be the small bomb that blasts big with fairly good acting, though I couldn't handle her aegyo as it was a little too much for my brain to digest. Choo Young Woo as Jung Yeong Joo should have come out of the 'cold and quiet boy' shell and delivered even more varied expressions (tho that was his character, he could have thought of some other creative ways to bring out even more emotions because acting is done not only with face but the whole body). Anyways, that guy has potential in him.
Hwang Bo ReumByeol as Kang Seo Yeong who kept her body very stiff throughout cleverly used her beautiful face muscles only to deliver all the emotions. It had an x factor to it so it didn't look bland as Jung Yeong Joo's acting.
Plus the third couple's (Ji Ho Sung and Go Eun Bi ) aegyo was also way beyond the limit and at some places unnecessary.

But anyways, I enjoyed watching this drama as it didn't include scenes like for example having the ML to be a part of the super famous bully team in school, the FL being the target of the bully team, the extraordinarily clever ML who manages to score straight As without even having a scene of him studying through the drama, the parents being super unaware of what their children are doing, food gulping scenes (thank god they didn't focus on 'having food'...the heck), alcohol drinking scenes, unnecessary kiss scenes, unnecessary embarrassment scenes between main leads and overly (overly) sympathetic scenes.

The climax made me cry! In short, if you're looking for a less complex, sunny and a heart-warming school drama. This is it!

Ah, jinjja, eottokhe? eottokheee? How can I end this review without singing the famous title track of this drama:

Dream on...Dream on...Dream on!

Thankyou for reading my review.
Have a good day/night!

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I came here for the drama of students but give me the drama of adults.

After several delays and problems occurred before the official release, I really waited for so long just to watch this one since I am a big fan of KBS’ school series. I have a love-and-hate feedback about the show since it was different from the previous shows but also the reason why the show doesn’t have a definite impact on me.

The first half of School 2021 was really a great one but they failed to be consistent on maintaining the satisfying ambiance of watching the show after the last few episodes. From unexpected plot twists from the beginning to the typical classic plot in the ending, the downfall. Also, the story of the side couple overshadowed the story of the main couple. They don’t even have the proper chemistry needed in the story. I can’t feel anything except seeing two actors trying their best to create chemistry but failed to do so. I am really happy to see Yohan’s acting skill improved during this show but I can’t feel that he is the main character. Kang Se Yeon’s character was more likely deserving to be the main character compared to the others.

On the other hand, Kang Min playing the role of Ho Sung was really cringe. His character here is the most annoying one in terms of acting. I just feel that it doesn’t fit him. The same with his on-screen couple Eun Bi. The way she smiles was really awkward most of the time. I was really looking forward to her role since she has the same name from my favorite school series in 2015, yet her acting doesn’t give justice to her role.

The thing I hate the most is that the story revolves around the world of adults. It was a never-ending struggle of students facing their life involving the adults as the villain. Yes, it happens in real life but I am expecting more youthful struggles involving the interpersonal and intrapersonal relationship of the students.

Anyways, it was good enough for a School series but I expected more than from what they gave me. Some student characters have interesting stories but they tend to focus more on the issue of the annoying adults trying to ruin the life of the students for their selfish reasons. The OST “Dream On” contributes additional points in my score review since I really like the song.

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The series is a comfort drama.

I beg to disagree with other people saying that this drama isn't good. The series is actually GOOD! Maybe you just expect it to be like "School 2015" which set the high standard and best KBS School series ever. But for me this drama is too good as it's own. Doesn't need to be more fancy like what you saw on other rom-com kdrama. It has it's new flavor for me cause it's really rare to find a drama that features an architect/construction story in kdrama plus it keeps getting interesting every episode.

About the cast, I really like how they chose the cast! ❤️ The chemistry between them was the first reason why I keep getting interested to the series. At first I just want to watch it because of Jo Yihyun after All of us are dead then it's getting interesting after the first episode. And this drama become my comfort. It doesn't have that big plot that will make your head tilt like what happened on School 2015 🤣 but it's just gave me a lot of butterfly in my stomach.

I agree that the acting of some actors at first few episodes need to improve but they improved afterwards! I can see the progress later on especially to the main leads.

Lastly, the things that lack about this drama I guess is the promotion? It doesn't get the attention it deserves. But still I hope people would try to watch it cause for sure you'll gonna love it! You'll get interested about carpentry too!

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