Alchemy of Souls Season 2: Light and Shadow (2022)

Disappointing story development. Pretty/handsome but underwhelming lead actress and actor.

Disappointing story development. Not too sure what's the point of having season 2 with only 10 episodes.
8 episodes are wasted to get Naksu to remember her past.
Felt like season 2 is just a major advertisement to promote Go Yoon Jung and how pretty she is.

Without a strong female lead like So min, Jae Wook's acting for season 2 is just boring and underwhelming compared to Min Hyun
 (Seo Yul) and Seung Ho (Go Won).

Let's not compare So min with Yoon Jung. So min is on another level. Yoon Jung's acting range has alot to catch up with Arin (Cho Yeon) and Hye Won (So Yi). Hye Won is just outstanding! For Yoon Jung, acting cute is not part of acting. But too bad, pretty faces are always pushed for leads irregardless of acting skills.

To sum up, the supporting casts were the ones who carried the show. Not forgetting the CG effects. Too bad, most viewers are carried away by the kissing scenes, Yoon Jung acting cute and boring story development. High ratings does not mean the story is good. I hope they will just give couple awards to Yoon Jung and Jae wook but please don't win any Best actress or Best actor please....it will not be convincing. Hope the supporting casts will win some awards.

Will forever remember how Alchemy of Soul's director capitalise on loyal fans from Season 1 to watch the underwhelming season 2.

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Season 1 to 2 transmigration falls flat

Those of us watching season 2 (S2) probably enjoyed season 1 (S1). S2 wasn't a bad season so much as it was a let down on expectations for continued enjoyment. Even worse, S2 had the effect of snuffing out some of the joy from watching S1.

S1 wasn't perfect. The villains were flat and dumb. But the romantic and comedic charm was strong and alleviated duller elements of the show. Park Jin and Kim Do Ju's romance, for example, was anticlimactic in S2 and that was emblematic of many other characters and relationships that lost charm; they passed their peak and weren't contributing much to the story development. For example, bad cook Park Jin was overdone and not advancing the story or providing effective relief; it felt tiresome. Because S2 failed to keep up the charm, the less rosy parts of the show that were previously easier to ignore were now visible and frustrating.

Heo Yeom, who was charming and well-acted in S1, suddenly felt irrelevant and flat in S2. The same happened for too many characters such as Master Lee, Park Dang Gu, Maidservant Kim, Heo Yoon Ok, and the list could keep going on. Am I to believe the actors collectively performed less than their capability? Could the directors have pulled more from the actors within what was sourced? Nah, it's definitely an issue of writing in S2. I recall being surprised how soon S2 was offered after S1 completion. Perhaps the writers did not have ample time to craft S2. Plot 'twists' felt forced, rushed, and not believable. Characters were not well developed. Sang Ho, for example, deserved development in S2 but received none. Lady Jin essentially stayed the same petty version of herself throughout. Some even regressed; Heo Yoon Ok had charm in S1 and is written to be hated in S2. Character potential was squandered in S2.

Go Youn Jung (GYJ) was very enjoyable as Naksu; she exceeded my expectations by a mile. The scene telling Jang Uk to "Drink Up" was perfect. But, I still found myself missing Jung So Min's Filthy Mu Deok, especially Mu Deok's varied interactions with multiple characters. GYJ's interaction was heavily restrained to Jang Uk in S2. With Naksu's amnesia, the character lost complexity and missed the drive that Mu Deok had (to regain powers and seek vengeance); GYJ Naksu's drive was to remember, which we the viewer know all about, turning mystery of outcome to unbearable waiting. Again, this is a problem of writing, not of the actors/directing. Both FL actresses did a tremendous job.

Let's remember that Master Lee was exterminating shifters despite being a shifter himself. Or that he could be hands on and in save-the-world mode or wander aimlessly and not care about anything. Master Lee's treatment captures the broader sense of inconsistent story material with characters flip flopping personality on short notice. When the story was focused on slice of life charm, such as the Crown Princes' pining for Filthy Mu Deok, bromance with Jang Uk, and cold/warm love of Black Turtle, etc., the show was at its best. When the story power creeped itself as an apocalyptic story, it didn't deliver well.

Oh well, Drink up!

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I'm angry that they made a second season!

I loved AOS #1 up through episode 19. Then they had to go the historic tragedy cliffhanger route to justify another season. So, I'll admit my review is based upon my feelings. PLUS, I felt the script really diminished Uk's love to "love the one you're with" and that irritated me no end.

As with #1, AOS#2 was well-filmed, though granted, a lot darker than the first one. Great CGI, beautiful music.

STORY: Repetitive, with more of the same from #1. How the evil guy, that everyone KNEW was evil, continued to get away with his evilness was just frustrating. My biggest beef was the way the romance was written. Uk fell in love with Cho Yeong before knowing that she was Naksu. That might have been fine if we had some sense that he was struggling with his feelings, considering that he was supposedly so in love with Naksu. I didn't get that impression at all, though. Also, I didn't particularly care for the way that Cho Yeong/Naksu was written. Her personality was just so completely different than Naksu, I didn't get a feeling for Naksu's strength at all. She just seemed clingy to me, coming up with excuses to be with and touch Uk.

ACTING: So good.
Lee Jae Wook as Uk. I was believing his mourning until he met Cho Yeong and then that went out the window. I don't know if he lost weight since the first season or if it was makeup, but his jawline was so sharp it could have cut glass. It was a good look for him. I also liked him wearing black throughout the drama. It was like he had "graduated" from colors to being serious in black.
Go Youn Jung as Naksu/Cho Yeong. She did a good job with the writing that she was given. She is absolutely gorgeous. I've not seen her in anything else I don't think, I'm going to need to check her filmography and watch her in something else.
Hwang Min as Seol Yul. He, again, was my favorite character in this show. He figured out she was Naksu pretty early on, and you really got the sense that he could just FEEL that it was her. He did such a wonderful job with his longing for her.
Shin Seung Ho as Go Won. We got to see a little more understated comedy from him this time around.

CHEMISTRY: The kisses were so good, but I didn't feel the chemistry between them. How is that possible?

I have to say, I'm not particularly caring for the current trend of making multiple seasons of a show, unless it's an exceptional show like Hospital Playlist. Otherwise, it feels like they are just milking the drama, causing a lot of draggy parts to extend the drama length.

Bottom line: If you like darkly filmed dramas with multiple good fight scenes, good CGI, and you really don't care about the romance anyway, give it a try.

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wow

You can be watching a drama written by two women in the year of 2022 and *still* be hit in the face with internalized misogyny.

Where were the prominent female characters without a romantic story arc?
Where were the female characters with their own epic battle scenes?
Where were the complicated friendships, bonds, and relationships between female characters?
Where were the women in the background? Female mages? More than one female doctor? Women in power that were not obsessed with their beauty?

And most importantly: where was the Naksu I was promised?

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This is not a continuation

I personaly liked part 2 somehow, not as much as part 1, but for me it was more like a historical romcom, a side story more than a continuation of AOS (that is what we were promised it would be) The chemistry was good, the acting was good, but the writting took another path from part 1 and the pace was slower.


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The first eps, Ig, it´s ok as a "kind of continuation or whatever" of what happened with mudeok when she was on the lake and how she became the one she is now and so but from then on they just keep dragging the amnesia and lovely dovey trope until almost the very end. On ep 6 they instroduce formaly a new problem they need to solve but it becomes a sub sub sub sub plot of the sub plot until ep 10 and answer to whatever you have doubts came mostly on the last ep too. At least they solved from part one Yul´s illness and I´m glad at least they did, but they took like two ep just for that only.

For me the biggest problem of this part was the amnesia trope cause they totaly changed Naksu´s personality and even when she recovered her memory she still didn´t feel like the Naksu we know (and that´s not the actress problem but writters and direction).

The body wasn´t the problem cause she has the same body sinse part 1 and that never stopped her from achiving what she wanted.
If you want to tell me she wanted to live a normal live you at leasthave to show me how she took that decision, and let´s pretend it was the case, there is an scent of who you are.

I mean I love romance I fuc**ng love romance, but this is not just a romantic drama, it is a GREAT part of it but never was the main focus. At least until part 2 happened.

If you tell me part 2 was another story I would take that but don´t tell me this is a continuation of part 1, cause not, it is not it.

I can´t say how much disappointed I am with the writters cause this is a story I cared so much for, and at the end I felt like they messed it up. I´m glad everyone had their happy ending but I will remember this as a cute side story and for me AOS end on ep 20.

For respect to the actors my rating is a 7/10.
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And just to say, I have the right to write a review bad or good about how I feel about a drama I spent hours watching, so if you think I should know your opinion or if you don´t agree, go and write a review too.

Don´t come at me saying I´m a hater for not liking the things the same way you do.

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Nothing really worked out this season

(some spoilers, but you’re better off not watching anyway.)

I really liked the first season but it admittedly fell down a bit at the end, then this season was extremely convoluted from episode 1. I constantly felt that the things that happened in the plot happened not because it made sense but because the writers were trying to force the story in a certain direction. For example, Naksu's face returns to her original despite being in Jin buyeon's body because the face must match the soul? Something like that. And she loses all her memories? The real reason is that the writers just wanted this long, convoluted saga of Naksu and Jang-uk not recognizing each other. Another example, the King and the unanimous assembly have this really stupid plan to use the firebird to create another ice stone. The only reason they’re on board with Jin Mu is because they want the ice stone’s power, despite the immense destruction the plan will cause. Strangely, these people have not made any preparations on how they would survive that destruction themselves…and they completely trust Jin Mu to share the power of the ice stone for no reason at all, he’s so obviously untrustworthy.

I also felt that the made female lead was not nearly as compelling as in the first season. It’s partly because her role is bad. She comes across all lovey dovey and cute. Unlike Jung so-min's unreadable poker face and sense of confidence, she often has a brooding somber expression. This is excusable at first but when she regains her memories you’d expect some return to her other, way more engaging personality. She’s simply not as cool as a character too, going from secret manipulator in the first season to needy damsel in distress in S2. Even when she does something brave like go to the Gwido prison to retrieve the Jinyowan token, she needs to be rescued by jang Uk. Another reviewer called this misogynistic, which it is, but for me it’s just a massive disappointment that all the badassery I expected to come out later never did— Naksu wasn’t even involved in the final fight and firebird scene! It’s ok to frustrate viewers for some time if there’s a good payoff later, but that payoff never comes.

Most other characters didn’t have an important role either. The crown prince makes the king step down. There’s no reason I guess that he had to do this when he did, ostensibly he could have done it anytime, way before or way after the firebird stuff and completely unrelated. The other characters help to fight chunbugweon mages but it doesn’t really matter since Jang uk confronts Jin Mu alone anyway, who by the way, dies a pretty anticlimactic death that didn’t feel like he got full justice for what he did to Naksu in S1.

The same issues that were in S1 were just as bad if not worse in S2–belaboring sidecharacter romantic subplots I don’t really care about and having many scenes that don’t really advance the plot but just reaffirm feelings or tell us things we already know. But in S2 there was no compelling plot to make up for it.

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Only loyalty kept me watching until the end . . .

With the writers taking zero risks, and turning the main female character into a 'mary sue' empty shell of her former self, there's really nothing to recommend.

Three scenes only stand out in my mind: Jang Uk storming up to the Jin Matriarch and getting the tracker taken out of Jin Bu Yeun, Seo Yul attempting to save So Yi, and any scene with Prince Go Won and his turtle.

Otherwise there was little chemistry between leads, everyone just kind of ran around for 10 episodes. The music was nothing too outstanding, and the rewatch value is nil.

It was just incredibly disappointing on all fronts, and I was grimly watching just to see whether the main couple ends up dying or not. We need more sci fi/fantasy epic romance, I'm all for it. But, to do an epic romance, you have to be willing to take risks, and this second season takes none.

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Hope Dies Last

Even though, sometimes, the first season of a drama doesn’t give you what you want, when a second season is announced, there's always hope for things to get better. As one of the persons who was disappointed by the first season of Alchemy of Souls, but still full of hope & curiosity, I've given AoS's second season a chance, to see what more this story had to offer.


~~S1 vs S2 ~~

World & Rules

In my review of AoS S1 I have written "in AoS the rules/grounds of body sifting are very interesting yet the concept of it somehow lacked". Well, in AoS S2 the rules/grounds of the whole world's structure just lacked.

The world doesn't follow a predetermined setting,a natural flow. In S2 new rules/abilities are constantly added and the only reason behind their existence is because somehow the plot had to move forwards. It's not a bad thing to create rules that help the plot out, but you can't excuse everything that happens because "it's magic" or "it's a fantasy drama not based in reality". Even in fantasy stories there should be grounded and have limitations and everything that's done should have a reasoning behind it.

Winner: S1 The world setting was way better there.

Pace

AoS S2 consists of 10 episodes which is the half amount of the S1 episodes and this helped the drama's pace a lot. S2 has a lot fewer filler scenes than S1 so it's more focused on the story which is actually a good advantage. Generally though, I had to say that the S2's individual pace as a drama wasn't perfect, just not as problematic.

Winner:S2 ? Well...

Story & Development

Having the characters and their relationships already set, the 10 episode-length S2 of AoS is ready to set another thing: the story. But jokes on you! S2 spends most of its time resetting the relationship between the two main characters while it didn't develop the core of the story until the last 2 episodes. In all the other episodes, the things that move the plot forward didn't have as much screen time.

As in S1, the villains were on the background plotting once again and doing nothing. The other relationships between all the other characters are already known from S1 and they made, from time to time, guest appearances in episodes , just to remind that they also exist in the story but they don't evolve further (except some exceptions).


To sum up, S2 was static. The only hot topic was the recreation of the main character's relationship and not what was actually happening in the world of the drama. The reason why this was bad is because it somehow made AoS S2 look like an individual drama that was inspired by AoS S1... Maybe a FanFic??

Winner: Tie. Both seasons lacked in story development and only move forward the very last minute


~~Cancel Writing~~

AoS's story has a very big disadvantage, and will call this problem "cancel writing". It means, when something that is written in the story is canceled by future events, for example, a character is represented to be very strong, but never one in the story was. A character has a curse that can't be broken, but it actually did, with the most easy way possible etc... This is bothering because the events that made you happy or sad and gave an emotional value to the story, got canceled, just like they didn't even happen.

In addition to that, I felt like the writers didn't dare to move the story a little bit further, so that everyone in fandom could be satisfied. Story-unrelated example, when a beloved character stays good and flawless, so that none of the fans is hurt because of their beloved ones behavior.

The above can make the drama boring, because you know that the story is not gonna pass a certain point and pull out something unpredictable and even if an event disturbs the story's waters, it will get canceled. As a result to this, everything in AoS ended as a bit cliche and not out of the box drama.



~~Overall~~

To say something positive about AoS, in both seasons, there were some things that I really enjoyed. In S1, I enjoyed the characters' interactions, the lore of the world. In S2, I appreciated the action scenes and the production behind this drama a lot more. AoS is generally a very well-made drama and no one can say otherwise.

The story had many possibilities to be good, and some of its parts were actually really good. I thought many times that if some things would turn out otherwise, AoS would be excellent in my eyes, but it wasn't. AoS's story never reached its full potential.


In the end, hope dies last, but dies


And just like that, as far as the story is concerned, AoS ends up as something I wouldn't recommend watching.

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LEGENDARY

Not gonna lie, this drama, from script, direction, and acting, up to CGI and editing, was just legendary. But how did this become legendary? This season continues the story where it was left off in the 1st season, which I rated 9.5. So, why did I rate this 8.5 instead?


To be honest, the first season is far superior to this one, and the reason this season has become so successful is clearly due to the first season. Let's look why:

First of all, this lacked the punch of the 1st Part. The 1st Part introduced us to a whole new world, and much time was used to build the lore and the details. This kept us engaged and interested. However, nothing much happened in Part 2, in general. Everything was established in the 1st seasonitself,f and this 2nd part didn't have much twists and turns like the 1st.


The pace of the story was another problem. This problem had been there in the 1st season an well. The starting episodes were amazing, but somehow, after some episodes, it felt like the story was moving downhill. The plot was, like, not moving at all. But they picked up the momentum in the later episodes, nonetheless. Honestly, they could have done the whole drama, I mean, part 1 and 2 together, In just 15 or 20 eps.


This is another issue I've had since the first season. They promised us strong, witty, smart, and brave female characters. However, all we got were sidekicks. Let's take a look at the main female characters in the story:

1. First of all, Naksu/Cho Yeong- I really wanted to see her fighting with her sword again. I wanted her to be like how she had been as Mu Doek. Don't get me wrong, I honestly loved how they separated the real Cho Yeong from the Naksu that Jin Mu created. All I wanted was for her to be as sharp-witted and as quick-witted as her older self. That Naksu was more interesting than the present Cho Yeong. In Part 2, Naksu seemed to be reduced to a one-dimensional, not-that-witty, not-that-smart person who was really only meant to host Jin Bu Yeon's priestess powers and to mend Uk's broken heart.

2. Jin Bu Yeon/Jin Seol Ran - She seemed like just a background character, appearing here and there. She was a character with much potential, but sadly, it was wasted. I would have loved to know more about the time when she was Seol Ran, how she went through what they call the Great Chaos, and all. Also, it was entioned in almost all episodes about how powerful she is. But, pity that we didn't even get a glimpse of it.

3. Maidservent Kim - She had no powers whatsoever. She had been just a mother figure for Uk and a love interest for Park Jin, right from the start to the end. But I did love her, nevertheless.

4. Jin Cho Yeon - She was introduced as one of the Jin clan, with great powers, but we didn't actually get to see even one scene where she was using her powers usefully. Again, she was reduced to just a love interest for Dang Gu.

5. Jin Ho Kyung - Again, another character with great powers. In the end, she couldn't even protect her fortress. I know she was ageing and eventually losing her powers, but when Park Jin didn't have any problems while ageing, why does she?

6. Heo Yoon Ok - Okay, I didn't like her. She wasn't said to have great powers, but what made me dislike her was that she was overcome with jealousy half of the time, going after Uk and attempting to separate him and Naksu in both the 1st and 2nd parts. And her happy ending was jsut seeing someone.

7. So Yi - She was another great character with great potential. I really liked her character. She is one of the strongest female characters in the entire series, in my opinion, whose potential got wasted. She could have been developed into a GREAT character. But...

This drama would have been even better if the FLs were as strong as they were said to be. Now, that's all about the female characters. Let's talk about other problems.


They dragged out the amnesia plot for too long. This is one of those common, clichéd plot lines that I hate. But, if executed well, it could become a masterpiece too. Sadly, this wasn't the case with AoS Part 2. They could have either made Naksu remember it earlier, or made Uk realise that it was Naksu all along. And, when they did realise it, it felt really underwhelming.


I really hated to believe that Uk had finally forgotten about his Naksu/Mu Doek and moved on to fall in love with another woman. I know it was her all along, but I just didn't like the feel of it. That ruined the whole point of this romance, for me.


Underwhelming villain characters - this was one of the main things that bothered me. The villains, especially Jin Mu, all had proper goals and objectives and plans to achieve them, but I felt like they were all acting behind the scenes. I would have liked them to be utilised more and build more tension between them and the heroes. Towards the end, Jin Mu seemed reduced to one of those cartoonish villain charactes with just an evil smile and no brains.


Now, enough with the bad points. Let's start with the good points that make this drama stand out from the rest;

The chemistry:

1. The Crown Prince and the Turtle: We can't help but love the Crown Prince. He was the best character in the entire series for me, and I was rooting for him until the very end. He and our MVP Turtle were truly the best duo in the entire series!

2. Crown Prince and Jang Uk - I really really loved the dynamics between Crown Prince and Ukkie, in the 1st as well as 2nd part. Even though it cannot be considered as a real bromance, I loved it, and I would watch an entire series with just them without any complaint.


The comic relief - I laughed hard enough watching this to add comedy as one of its genres. Those scenes were like breaths of fresh air in an intense plot line.


I loved how they explained the meaning of the title. Jang Uk being the light that protects Cho Yeong and Her being the sadow, embrassing him. It was so endearing!


Acting - DO I NEED TO SAY MORE?? The perforance of the cast was impeccably beautiful. I was initially quite disappointed in the replacement of Jung So Min with Go Yoon Jung, but after the first two episodes, I was convinced that she deserved the role. She really is a gifted actress with great potential. Even though she didin't quite manage to catch So Min's charm, she was great in her own accord.

Jae Wook's performance shook me to the core. He was a new actor to me, and I haven't seen any of his earlier works, but this drama alone is enough for me to make him a part of my list of favourite actors.

I had seen Shin Seoung Ho in A-Teen before, but I didn't even realise it! I figured this out recently, and I'm blown! I hope he gets more great characters like this in the future so that he can showcase his great talent! He really does have an acting genre in him!

All the others did a good job as well. Out of the supporting cast, the one who stands out is Do Sang Woo, who played Yul's uncle. His last scenes as Jin Mu, after the Alchemy of Souls were mind blowing. He nailed it. He really did give off the original Jin Mu's vibes!


Music - The music score and OSTs used in the drama were perfect! It gives us the right vibe for every scenes. Some of the OSTs are still on my Spotify favourites list.


Lastly, I enjoyed most part of it. Even with the slow pace, this is a good watch, nevertheless. I would surely recommend this drama to people who love fantasy and heartbreaking romance, original plot lines, amazing cast and chemistry, etc. This drama is legendary and will live on in my memory.

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A shorter oddly more draggy sequel, that traded epicness for romance

A deeply flawed yet highly entertaining ride this drama has been.
☆DISCLAIMER☆
This review is only to those who have watched season 1 and season 2.
I will be discussing each aspect of my rating separately.

Story and writing:
The story, in terms of the fantasy and lore, unfortunately suffered a lot this season.
Season 2 hits off with a flash forward 3 years after the end of S1, we are shown quite a lot of clumsily put-together flashbacks to explain to, or rather mystify, the viewer as to what exactly took place after the death of the FL in S1's finale, and even after we manage to satisfy ourselves with the explanation given to us, we are still dealt some comically mystifying and convenienty mashed up rules to the magic involved in order to satisfy the needs of the plot and make it move forward.
To elaborate further;
Much of the rules, if they were ever properly explained didn't make much sense and left one *rolling eyes* mumbling okeeeeey!. We also come accross a couple of contradicting aspects and sudden power shifts like healing powers etc, that in hindsight leaves one wondering why they were never utilized prior. Also seeminly highly wise and powerful characters would constantly be changing their explanation of how the magic behind soul shifting works, and even worse things just ultimately transpire in a totally different manner. other times powerful side characters (park jin, seo yul, master lee) would mysteriously vanish at the most critical moments only to suddenly reappear after sh*t had already hit the fan to stand around and discuss it. A lot of these minor frustrations add up to make one feel like the writers were giving themselves enough viable cards and options to wriggle their way out of any tight spots that come up, all thanks to the highly sophisticated and complicated world that they themselves created in the first place.

Among the other smaller gripes that I had with the story writing, was how everything was built in a way that ensured our main leads were brought together, and despite that being a common trope of many a rom-com plot in K-dramaland, it still felt forced and too convenient, I guess one just has to accept the "they are destined to be together" card and simply roll with it.
But what I hated above all was creating emotional dying scenes and even holding a funeral, just for it all to turn out to be fake, only for the sake of creating a cheap cliffhanger. It made me just wish they were actually dead. I don't mind the suspense with a grievously wounded lead like Seo Yul, but to fake deaths, that was such a sick move by the writers. Also in my humble opinion, you can create an epic saga about good fighting evil with the good prevailing, while still showing sacrifices and deaths on the good side, not every single character has to survive physically to be considered a happy ending. Just saying.

The pacing was not one of the best apsects about S1, but still overall it was highly enjoyable. But season2 easily outdid its predecessor in bumpy pacing, with 2/3 of the drama wasted running in circles of ( missed hints>confusions>angst>break up>making up>and back to more missed hints ). Although watching the two re-fall in love from scratch honestly felt fun to watch, the romance plot line just took comparatively too much run time for its own good, it reached a point where it felt clichéd and dragging I just wanted the big reveal to happen already (and when it finally did oh boy was it lackluster), and it also took away much needed time from the core issues at hand that needed to be addressed to insure a proper closure, those issues were only given less than a third of the running time, leaving us with 2 last episodes that are too rushed, one almost feels like gasping for air watching them, and with sudden shifts between scenes feeling like whiplashes. We are promised a grand and epic battle, only for it to end in mere minutes with every one watching at the sides in a safe environment and Jang Uk doing all the work. Honestly, nothing made much sense with that fire bird plot, evil plotting wise or how it was handled (if it is destined to hatch then let us hatch it earlier duh!)

the characters:
Our all so mighty ML who is supposedly feared by even the greatest of mages thanks to the power of the ice stone, was somehow rendered into a middle schooler both in emotions and inconsistency. Still his journey climbing up from the dark pit he had thrown himself into at the beginning, and how the FL helped warm and light up his world was endearing and heartfelt.
The bigger problem though was our FL, who was, even by her own words, foolish and weak especially during the first half of the drama. She had the face of Naksu (for reasons that made not much sense to begin with) so I would assume that most viewers were like me in hoping that she would regain her powers and we would finally be graced with more scenes of our bad-ass FL for a change , a prospect that was dangled in front of our eyes since the character was introduced S1ep01, but alas, we only ever witness a shrivel of Naksu in character, and even Jin Bu Yeon's powers are only ever displayed briefly. There were a couple of instances where I thought there had been an ample opportunity for the writers to choose to show her stand up and defend herself, to be deserving of the powerful souls that lies within her, like when after regaining her memories she decided to face Jin Mu, the man behind her madness and death in S1, and chose to dive into a treacherous place for the sake of beating him. I thought surely then she will somehow survive and come out on her own (after all we know that among the remaining powers left within her is the ability to cast away evil writhes and spirits), but God forbid no! they still chose to create an unbelievable sequence (involving coming up with the idea that she is the reincarnation of an old powerful mage) just in order to make the ML be the hero of the day and save the damsel in distress. Even in the final scenes of the finale, they totally had the chance to show that Naksu, whose soul had been spared the owner of the body, was working on regaining her long lost prowess. But no! The exact opposite, She adamantly expresses her absolute wish NOT to train, and to stay completely dependent on the ML. That was just disappointing tbh.

As for much of the side characters, they were mostly just that, side kicks stored on a shelf only picked up and utilized for conveniency's sake or to provide some elements of humor and immediately shelved back thereafter.
while I really liked how the crown prince was portrayed here and was somewhat satisfied that his character was thankfully one of the ones that witnessed a redemption, I can not still get over the fact that he left Jin Mu to become gwanju after all his evil deeds in S1.
Seo yul, felt bland as ever for the most part, but on a positive note his brooding sad expression here perfectly matched his lone wolf life in this season more than the previous one. The only instance were I felt emotionally connected to him was in the plot concering So I , which I honestly was moved and brought to tears by.
Jin Mu this season was too comical of a villain, he was powerless and totally dependent on his minions and other higher ups to realize his evil master plan (which was utterly stupid to begin with)

The acting
Superb on the most part.
A lot of people were turned off and disappointed by the FL casting. story-wise aside, I have to say I found her acting to be very good, especially in the second half when she had started to regain parts of her memory as Naksu. I also strangely felt more romantic chemistry in this season than season 1 (which made me feel kind of torn up), maybe owing to more physical intimacy and kiss scenes, dunno.
Seo yul was a nice cool dude but I have to admit I found the actor's portrayal to be a bit lacking, and how the character was written this season didn't help either.

I can't say I didn't enjoy this drama both seasons, but to be honest, I am of the belief that if there had been less filler plots in both seasons, both could have then been made to fit nicely into a 20 episodes format drama. Then I think with such high-end CGI and great casting, this could have easily been one of a kind classic.

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I couldn't get myself to adjust to this storyline

I had such a love/hate relationship with this show... Season 1 was a dream come true in the sense that it had fantasy, magic, action, romance and comedy - pretty much everything that I like in a story. All the characters were well-developed, the plot was engaging and the overall vibe was so surreal. I loved it. Felt like I was there going through the journey Jang Uk had.

And then season 2 aired. Although I loved JSM as Mudeoki in season 1, I wasn't too distraught over the change of actress. But then I started season 2 and I felt my excitement and interest wane episode by episode. Almost every other scene made me wonder about its relevance to the story - the plot was murky and didn't hold up to the standard season 1 had set. I was expecting l would only have to adjust to a new actress but imagine my surprise at finding out that they had changed the character, the love story and the very thing I liked about the romance.

I will just highlight the issues I found in the romance in s2:

Amnesia: Adding this overused trope in a fantasy show that had previously established itself as a unique show, was such a disappointment. There are so many ways they could've shown the soul connection without having either of the characters go through memory loss. Ugh. This felt very fanfic level writing to me.

Jang Uk: I love this guy. He was such a fun character in s1 and to see him turn into a serious/darker version of himself was sad but also very much needed for the show. But why make him fall for Bu-Yeon so quickly? It just felt like insta-love to me. One of the best things about Jang Uk/Mudeoki in s1 was how they ended up having feelings for eachother because of going through trials and problems together. That's how their bond formed. To see all that erased in the new season, and them falling in love over proximity, marriage and shared kisses and a disservice to their own story. It was a little unbelieving for me how Jang Uk was heartbroken for three years and it only took him a few days to fall in love again with another person. Kissing her etc also felt like a an infidelity, I don't know, it felt a little weird, because he thought she was someone else and didn't care if it was Naksu or not and to think that he had already forgotten about Naksu and I didn't like that feeling so I felt uncomfortable about watching.

Soul connection: Again, this felt like a cop-out from the writers. You can show soulmates in a story without it being so surface level. I would have loved it if they had actually gotten to know eachother better, and then fallen in love. Anything that would be more believable because gosh I SO wanted to ship these two.

Their visuals were so good but because of the reasons above, I just couldn't adjust to this storyline and hence.

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