This review may contain spoilers
Typical Wish Fulfillment Drama filled with Cliches.
Love Scenery has a pretty cute premise: a famous singer unknowingly becomes gaming partners with a college student who happens to already be one of her fans. The whole thing gives me very old-school shoujo vibes, with an extremely idealized male lead, fate constantly pushing two people together, and an overall fluffy, easygoing romance. At least compared to a lot of older shoujo, the ML is also genuinely nice instead of being toxic for half the story.
My biggest problem is how artificial the romance feels. I don't mind coincidences at all, especially at the beginning of a story like this. One person is a celebrity and the other is a random college student, so obviously the writer needs something to bring them together. But this show just keeps doing it over and over again.
They're on the same flight. Their completely unrelated events happen at the same hotel. They independently go to the same internet café and somehow end up in the same row. The ML even happens to live in the exact dorm room the FL used to live in and sleeps in her old bed. They met each other years ago. They have a friend who is close to both of them. After a while, fate stops being cute because you can practically see the writer moving these two people next to each other.
And the annoying thing is that the show eventually doesn't even need to do this anymore. They're already gaming partners. They're texting each other. They're interested in each other. They have a mutual friend. At that point, just let their own decisions bring them closer instead of constantly having the universe do it for them.
The gaming was probably my biggest disappointment. I actually like watching dramas built around games. Falling Into Your Smile and The King's Avatar made me interested in the games themselves, even though they're obviously fictionalized. Here, the game barely feels like it has actual mechanics. Here the characters can fight, grapple, hold each other, flirt, do ridiculous physical moves, basically whatever the current scene needs them to do. It feels less like a videogame and more like a virtual world where the writers can make the avatars kiss, fight, flirt, or do whatever whenever they feel like it.
And even ignoring the unrealism, the gaming scenes just weren't that fun to watch. I can forgive a fake videogame for being unrealistic if watching people play it is entertaining. Here I mostly found myself waiting for those scenes to end because the action most of the time was just FL screwing up ML being the hero.
The FL being terrible at games also gets taken way too far. She doesn't just suck at the game. Sometimes she acts genuinely terrified of dying, hides instead of fighting, and behaves like something is actually going to happen to her if her character dies. It's supposed to be cute, but it started feeling ridiculous pretty quickly.
Then there's the ML, who is basically wish fulfillment in human form. He's a genius student, elite gamer, insanely popular streamer, musician, great basketball player, ridiculously perceptive, and apparently good at whatever else the episode needs that day.
Again, an idealized ML isn't automatically a problem. This is a fluffy romance. Go wild. My problem is how hard the show keeps trying to prove that he's amazing at everything.
Some of the CS/genius scenes were especially funny to me. There are scenes using extremely basic CS and machine-learning concepts to show how intelligent he is. At one point, two students doing supposedly important academic research are struggling with an overfitting model, and he basically looks at it and suggests reducing the number of iterations. They're amazed that they didn't think of it. Like what is that its like asking a mechanic who my car does not start and the mechanic is like oh did you check the battery?
The second male lead was another problem entirely. He's interested in a woman who barely talks to him and repeatedly avoids him whenever he approaches her. Somehow his response isn't to take the hint but to become even more persistent. The point where I was completely done with him was when he learned she was filming a variety show in another province, flew there despite still having his own acting job to finish, found her show, sat in the audience thinking something like "baby, I'm here," and then had to fly back the same day.
They've barely even had a conversation.
Like that shii is just plain old CREPPY
There were still things I liked. The basic premise is cute. The acting is not that bad. The show is light and easygoing. The ML is actually pleasant instead of being the usual cold, controlling jerk. And I liked the whole gaming partner turning out to be my Idol mystery case and him figuring that out was fun.
The romance wasn't strong enough yet to make me stop caring, the gaming wasn't entertaining enough to carry it, and the secondary romance was actively making the show worse for me.
My biggest problem is how artificial the romance feels. I don't mind coincidences at all, especially at the beginning of a story like this. One person is a celebrity and the other is a random college student, so obviously the writer needs something to bring them together. But this show just keeps doing it over and over again.
They're on the same flight. Their completely unrelated events happen at the same hotel. They independently go to the same internet café and somehow end up in the same row. The ML even happens to live in the exact dorm room the FL used to live in and sleeps in her old bed. They met each other years ago. They have a friend who is close to both of them. After a while, fate stops being cute because you can practically see the writer moving these two people next to each other.
And the annoying thing is that the show eventually doesn't even need to do this anymore. They're already gaming partners. They're texting each other. They're interested in each other. They have a mutual friend. At that point, just let their own decisions bring them closer instead of constantly having the universe do it for them.
The gaming was probably my biggest disappointment. I actually like watching dramas built around games. Falling Into Your Smile and The King's Avatar made me interested in the games themselves, even though they're obviously fictionalized. Here, the game barely feels like it has actual mechanics. Here the characters can fight, grapple, hold each other, flirt, do ridiculous physical moves, basically whatever the current scene needs them to do. It feels less like a videogame and more like a virtual world where the writers can make the avatars kiss, fight, flirt, or do whatever whenever they feel like it.
And even ignoring the unrealism, the gaming scenes just weren't that fun to watch. I can forgive a fake videogame for being unrealistic if watching people play it is entertaining. Here I mostly found myself waiting for those scenes to end because the action most of the time was just FL screwing up ML being the hero.
The FL being terrible at games also gets taken way too far. She doesn't just suck at the game. Sometimes she acts genuinely terrified of dying, hides instead of fighting, and behaves like something is actually going to happen to her if her character dies. It's supposed to be cute, but it started feeling ridiculous pretty quickly.
Then there's the ML, who is basically wish fulfillment in human form. He's a genius student, elite gamer, insanely popular streamer, musician, great basketball player, ridiculously perceptive, and apparently good at whatever else the episode needs that day.
Again, an idealized ML isn't automatically a problem. This is a fluffy romance. Go wild. My problem is how hard the show keeps trying to prove that he's amazing at everything.
Some of the CS/genius scenes were especially funny to me. There are scenes using extremely basic CS and machine-learning concepts to show how intelligent he is. At one point, two students doing supposedly important academic research are struggling with an overfitting model, and he basically looks at it and suggests reducing the number of iterations. They're amazed that they didn't think of it. Like what is that its like asking a mechanic who my car does not start and the mechanic is like oh did you check the battery?
The second male lead was another problem entirely. He's interested in a woman who barely talks to him and repeatedly avoids him whenever he approaches her. Somehow his response isn't to take the hint but to become even more persistent. The point where I was completely done with him was when he learned she was filming a variety show in another province, flew there despite still having his own acting job to finish, found her show, sat in the audience thinking something like "baby, I'm here," and then had to fly back the same day.
They've barely even had a conversation.
Like that shii is just plain old CREPPY
There were still things I liked. The basic premise is cute. The acting is not that bad. The show is light and easygoing. The ML is actually pleasant instead of being the usual cold, controlling jerk. And I liked the whole gaming partner turning out to be my Idol mystery case and him figuring that out was fun.
The romance wasn't strong enough yet to make me stop caring, the gaming wasn't entertaining enough to carry it, and the secondary romance was actively making the show worse for me.
Was this review helpful to you?
