Eleison

Was any of the music from the 1st season reused in the 2nd?

The friendship is fun to watch and Hyun Wook steals the show (while Ji Hoon is good, too, his character is just a little less endearing since he's pricklier). It's not so much the violence that turned me off (though it IS violent) but the lack of realism. What kind of school would allow that kind of violence to just go on completely unaddressed? Teachers nowhere to be found during these long, drawn out, brutal fights? And they just get slapped on the hand for it and move on. 😬 I could roll with the plausibility of the fights outside the school a bit more, but why on earth don't these darn boys get help from the police sooner? It just felt like this made up fantasy world where adults just go "Wah Wah Wah" like in Peanuts and do nothing else useful.

The "Reply" dramas are weirdly edgier than most dramas in random ways (Reply 1997 turned me off for this reason and honestly it's just not as good, though the Busan accents were fun to hear, and they're not featured in Kdramas much)), but despite that, Reply 1988 in particular really delivers.

I'll admit, the first 1/3 of this drama was SO slow and boring for me (the episodes are up to an hour and a half!! Too long 😭). I kept thinking, "What on earth makes everyone love this?" It took me forever to start caring about the characters (the main female lead was too ditzy and flighty for me at first) and acclimate to the weird goat bleats that characterize the comedic moments, but slowly the characters grew on me as I watched them grow (the comaradarie of the main 5 friends was so heartwarming!). At some point, around Episode 5, I became hooked. It does have such a nostalgic quality to it, and the last 15 minutes or so gave one of the biggest gut punches I've ever felt at the end of a drama. I never weep watching Kdramas (maybe once in a blue moon I'll shed a tear), but at the end of this drama, I was sobbing.

This drama doesn't try to say the past was better or that we should or would want to return to it, but at the same time it breaks your heart to see what was lost (and can never be had again) once time moves forward. It just makes you ache with sadness when it's over.

If I could describe this drama in one word, it would be "nostalgia." As Deok Sun says as she narrates the ending voiceover, we can never really "go back"; we can return and "come home" but what happened in the past can never be replicated or experienced in the same way again, and that makes us ache and pine for it when the memories are good and sweet. I think it's particularly true when we think back on a good childhood. A childhood filled with family, a strong community of friends and neighbors, and safe places to fail and mess up, and learn from those mistakes so we can leave Neverland behind and embrace adulthood and the future with boldness.

Highly recommend!

I know, this one is still one of my favorites. I love the themes about choosing love over hate. And my favorite scene is when the ML makes the choice to not follow the villain down the path of revenge and hate (and when he asks the 2ML to save them! 😭) even when the ML knows the person he loves most in the world could have been hurt by him. Ah, so good! My favorite part to rewatch!

Great way of putting it!

The other Schools are much better than 2021! 2013 and 2017 in particular.

I always recommend it to anyone who I hear likes/watches Kdramas, though! I haven't met a single person who disliked it. :)

This same screenwriter did "Dream High" over ten years ago and even though it's definitely a bit dated and has a heavy music emphasis, it's a solid drama (it also launched some now-huge actors into stardom). Her other dramas after Dream High did even better, and she's an extremely consistent screenwriter. If you see her other works on MDL, not one had a rating below 8.1 and she even has several above 8.5; very few screenwriters of Kdramas have such a good track record (maybe the screenwriter for Heirs (though she can be hit and miss, honestly), Hospital Playlist/the Reply series and CLOY). While You Were Sleeping by her is probably my all-time favorite drama. I'm definitely going to give it a shot!

Way to see the cup half full! 😊

Please do join us! 😅

The people releasing this drama are shooting themselves in the foot; their airing schedule is so bad, that it's making people complain about the schedule to the point where their justified howls to high heaven are overshadowing their enjoyment of the drama. 😂

NOTE: I'm talking about myself, too, when I describe the chorus of howls, cause this schedule is nonense!

In Episode 16 (of the 30 minute episodes). Robot Nam Shin is so cute, and Seo Kang Joon plays him so well!! I am a bit confused by how compassionate and balanced Nam Shin's programming is. He prioritizes people and their needs and wants good things for them. That said, I feel like the rules given to him by his programmer would reflect the goodness of the programmer, too. But the mother doesn't seem to be a good enough person to program someone as lovely as Nam Shin. That's the only part I really find unrealistic in the premise (you know, minus the whole robot passing for a human and all 😋).

I think all the characters so far are endearing, though the mom is not hitting a chord with me quite as much as the others. Seung Woo is doing a great job (I really loved him in Moment At Eighteen and was shocked to find it was basically his debut); can't wait to see his acting chops unfold. I like that the mains (minus grandma and a few other supporting actors) are a lot of new or overshadowed faces from other dramas who are getting time in the limelight. This IS very goofy and even slapstick at times, more so than I remembered from the original, but when I thought about it more, the original WAS also very goofy at times. I remember skipping all the gangster scenes and Min hyuk's employee scenes because they were too cringey acting-wise. Even though I loved the original, I also remember getting emotional whiplash from the shift in tone from slapstick gangsters to the uber serious serial kidnapper/creepo plot. We'll see how I hold up with the humor in this one moving forward. So far, cute and enjoyable. :)

Yeah, it seems completely illogical to draw it out for SO LONG. It's only 14 episodes, too.

I think she's also embarrassed and too self-conscious to explain the curse. 😏

Yes, all the lead up to the misunderstanding WAS cute! He was definitely trying to do right by her (though he was struggling to read the cues she was sending that were screaming, "Beat it, kid. Stop following me!" 😅). And he couldn't have known she'd turn into a human the next day; he probably stayed in the room to make sure she didn't run off or something. I also loved how earlier he rattled off the names of the troublemakers to uncle and uncle treated him like any other student and didn't blow his cover. They were on each other's side and both looking out for Hae Na. 😏 I bet uncle and nephew will continue to have cute scenes together! They remind me of the brothers' cute interactions in While You Were Sleeping.

But when her coworker finds her on his nephew's bed (and when said nephew also happens to be HER student)... nope, nope, nope. Don't know how you talk yourself off that ledge without telling the truth... 😳 😱 I can see this sort of misunderstanding being a perfectly innocent teacher's worst nightmare.

Haha, yes! It has to be stretched out for maximum view time. 😏 And the misunderstandings and poor communication can sometimes be interesting and entertaining, but if it's not finessed properly it's just frustrating. 😅

I loved that the ML's attempt at the classic Kdrama arm grab was an epic fail. 😅 And his humiliated expression after getting yanked back towards her instead (accompanied by the cutesy sounds) was priceless.

Yes, definitely agree some scenes were too long!