A Shoulder to Cry On (2023)

The BL Drama Was Alright

I thought the drama was alright. It wasn't a terrible, terrible, terrible drama. And it was boring. However, It's not the best Korean BL drama out there. It could have been better in certain aspects. By which I mean the acting and production value (audio) could have been better.
First-time actors Kim Jae Han and Shin Ye Chan's acting was decent. However, their acting was stiff at times, but other than that; their acting wasn't horrible. I think the main actors' chemistry was causal and pretty natural. The audio was inconsistent at times. As in, the audio was not at the same level.
With all that stuff said, the drama had a simple yet complex story.
The production value was naturalistic. The music was one of the best things about the drama. The music was great. One more thing, the last episode/season finale was fluffy. So anyone who watches the drama, you better prepare to die from fluff. Lol

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The sweetest and adorable series that you guys will need to watch!!

It has the best trope and the sweet cute interactions even though there is no kiss scene (i am a kiss scene addict) but it felt like there is no need of kiss scene here in every scene because they words and actions express everything and the chemistry is perfect they have spent over a year being together so of course the chemistry is good and the story is very good and unpredictable at some times and last ep was wholesome!!! The visuals of the actors are what we all need in our life i am not only talking about the main leads but even they friends look good. And it's ost is perfect ??. I tell every bl watcher to watch it, it's perfect.❤️

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a shoulder to cry on

I have watched a decent amount of kdrama bls, and this is a very creative one as a girl that loves school setting kdramas, and especially enemies to lovers, I loved this. but I hated yechan character at the start because I hate when people put the blame on someone for something they didn’t do for example trying to hurt taeyuns character sexualy. so that made me angry, and there were a lot of plus moments in this for example I loved the ear kiss at the end, and this kdrama also led me to find out that both of these boys are in a KPOP group called omega x and now this group is my entire life! Stan omega x ?

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Nice series but a bit lacking

I enjoyed the series but needs a lot of work. All felt one sided. Characters are fun and can be light hearted. It has a lot of toxic moments sadly. Horrible teachers and adults that clearly don't care who is right or wrong, students that don't get punished ever. The Series can feel annoying at times with the characters and direction. At time it all felt over done and other times it showed hardcore mental abuse and illness, don't know where to put your emotions making you like and then hate some characters. The series has some cute tender moments but very toxic at times relationship with friends and couple. The series had a lot of promising moments but then feels very rushed and at moments gaps are missing that don't help explain one moment of emotion to the next, can be a mess at times. Over all it's a nice series but lacks true story development. The real sad part was not even a kiss ?

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Everything about this was disappointing :(

I thought I would really enjoy this because 1) It involves sports (I LOVE SPORTS-THEMED SHOWS!) and 2) the rivals-to-lovers trope usually never fails to sizzle. In this series, both aspects managed to fall miserably flat.

Dayeol was a fairly bland character and I seriously struggled to connect to him in the earlier episodes.

The other character, Tae-hyun, was slightly more interesting. I appreciated that underlying his extroverted, playful behaviour is a tragic backstory. This provided more context and complexity to his character, but overall I didn’t really enjoy watching him.

Taehyun was way too much of an emotional trainwreck for me to root for the couple. There was also no satisfying resolution to their conflict, let alone meaningful character development. What a baffling happily-ever-after.

Full review: https://asianblreviews.wordpress.com/2023/04/26/a-shoulder-to-cry-on-2023-bl/

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Could have been amazing

TW: suicide, self-harm, homophobia, bullying

This is not a bad drama if you are mindful of all of its trigger warnings and tags. One of my biggest issues with this series is the lack of trigger warnings despite the semi-explicit depiction of self-harm and a very clear implication of suicide.

But let's talk about the good first.

I highly enjoy the friendship and the scenes of them just enjoying each other's company is so lovely to watch. Not all interactions are romantically charged and I highly appreciated that they got the chance to develop a solid friendship first before any romance develops. There are also a lot of emotionally raw moments between the two main leads which were so enchanting to see on screen.

I also appreciate the first time-skip. Any relationship that they develop between them in that high school period would be nothing less than traumatizing for both of them. It is clear that TaeHyun is not ready for any sort of emotional attachment due to his past trauma, and it was clear that he was going to project all of his emotional insecurities unto DaYeol if they became a couple at that point. I appreciate that after the 2-year time-skip, he had enough reflection time that he recognized his own emotional misgivings and kind of just promised to do better. He was emotionally aware enough that he is not ready for a relationship at that point but he will work towards it. That in itself is a huge character development from his initial selfishness.

Now let's talk about things that could have been done better:

1. Trigger warnings, as I mentioned previously.
2. Second time skip was so unnecessary. I wanted to actually see the effort that TaeHyun put into improving himself and winning DaYeol over, but instead we got another lazy writing in the form of time skip. Maybe it's the lack of budget or whatever, but if that was the case, then they should have properly divided the amount of highschool screentime and college screentime.
3. First episode was extremely hard to watch due to how malicious Won Kyung and Tae Hyun are. It was not harmless jokes, they actually accused DaYeol of SA. It was also disturbing how the adults handled the supposedly SA situation - they actually did not take it seriously at all, and the nurse was shown to be more homophobic than actually caring about a student being supposedly SA'd.
4. No real consequence to homophobia. I know this happens in the real world too but I have anger issues and I was itching to punch some bitches in this series.
5. I can't see the physical attraction between the two leads. I am completely fine with the lack of kissing or physical intimacy - my favourite BL of all time is The Untamed. However, there is just no tension or any signs of physical attraction at all between these two male leads.

I don't think I can every bring myself to rewatch this ever again even though it had some real cute moments.

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A little heavy handed with the trauma, but worth the watch

A solid show but has a rushed ending. I know that we shouldn't complain about the endings of BLs, but like I'm going to anyways. Don't mind a time skip, when it makes sense, and it really did in this show because Jo Tae Hyun needed to heal and grow independently before being in a committed relationship and we love characters that are self-aware, I just felt the chemistry was a little lacking when they actually "got together". The hotel...? scene was cute but I wished there had just been a little more. Don't mind that they didn't kiss, and it makes sense since the two main leads are in the same group, but I don't know how else to explain it, just wanted a little more from the ending.

Would 100% recommend though, especially to those who are new to BL or just Korean dramas in general. Solid acting, chemistry, and sad backstories (which we love and appreciate).

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just not what i thought it was

i was definitley mislead by tiktok to think that this is a genuine romance, but it really isn't. i really was just looking for a cute romance and even if this was that sometimes, the unsatisfying ending of it all being fake really left me wanting more. even if one of the characters does think its geniune, the other charachter was just playing him the whole time as a way to have fun. legit more psych than romance.
i thought the acting was actually pretty good, espeically beacause its done by idols and not actors.

honestly it wasn't that bad but really i was just mislead by the edits and i didn't end up liking what i got.

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A nice touch….

I liked this BL and the story line. I was unsure of it at first because most bls that kpop idols are in, kind of lack in plot but this one was different. It had a nice plot but at times it could be confusing or random. I love the main couple and I feel like for the actors to be new in the industry, they did a real nice job. I also love omega x, so I was really excited to watch this!! It definitely reached beyond my expectations and it was just so cute but deep at the same time. I loved the ending and I feel like overall it was a good bl. Definitely one of my favorites and I would recommend!!

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