OK, after watching the whole thing, there were some stupid and/or implausible moments, as there are in almost every drama, but overall it was a fun and engaging watch, and I really liked the final episode, which didn't drag out the conflicts and dramatics with last-minute nonsense but instead took its time giving every character proper closure. It's so rare to find a drama whose last episode doesn't feel rushed or incoherent but simply lets you spend time with the characters and the fallout from their actions, and shows you what their lives are going to be like from now on.
And I didn't expect it, but I was pleasantly surprised that the drama turned out to be a romance. The romantic subplot never fully took over the narrative, but it was there from start to finish and especially in the final episode, which worked out pretty well. It ended on a nice note.
It was one-sided, but Yuzu felt bad for using him.
I interpreted their scenes to show that Yuzu probably liked him back but decided against pursuing him because she felt it would be inappropriate and reckless (because she initially sought him out under false pretences and felt guilty about that, because of the difference in their socioeconomic circumstances, because his mother had already intimidated Yuzu and was crazy enough to have her own son tracked, because she thought he had a girlfriend, because they were technically step-siblings and his mother had ruined her life, etc.—all valid reasons IMO!), And then Shinji turned out to have started the fire 14 years ago and that added a whole new layer of emotional complication/indebtedness/guilt to their relationship.
But they did exchange texts cheering each other on in the final minutes of the drama, and their siblings are living together/will get married, which will give Yuzu and Shinji opportunities to see each other in the future, and their mothers decided to move on from the whole mess and make peace with each other, plus Makiko ended up divorcing that deadbeat too, which makes their family connection less creepy. So I choose to believe that if Yuzu and Shinji still have feelings for each other in a couple of years, the obstacles to their relationship will seem less significant and their pain will have eased enough to allow them to get together, maybe. I think there's a good chance!
I'm on episode 4 and there are a lot of fun things about this drama so far. Makiko's insanely creepy treatment of Kiichi, Kiichi's transformation from a kind teenage heartthrob into a violent hikikomori, the shockingly absent father and how unjustly he took everything from his daughters, including his name, and gave it to his stepsons, the general air of campness... If this was a kdrama, it would be much more conventional and boring in tone, but melo and thriller jdramas are good at knowing when they need to go crazy instead of trying to be 'realistic' or 'good.'
This is a very small detail, but I love how adult Anzu's style when she is at home actually resembles that of her child self (e.g. the dorky glasses and unfeminine tracksuits she wears, which link her to her past self), but when she's undercover as Shizuka she looks and comports herself like a totally different person. They styled her character really well in all three of these environments to make it all fit together.
She pisses me off so much. Like fine, I get that she had a valid reason to be terrified of her husband and his family, SURE. But she's just such a weak and annoying person! She demands to know everything about her adult daughter's life and to be able to dictate her daughter's every decision, yet at the same time she requires constant care, careful handling and appeasement/accommodation as if she's the child in their relationship. Pick a lane, lady! And stop lying about everything and screaming at your child to "stop" or "cut it out" like you're the victim when she asks completely valid questions about her own background.
lmao what? She pursues him the entire time. How is she a coward?
So what? He pointed out that the obstacles that ended their relationship in the past are still in place, which is valid. She doesn't have a step-by-step plan to leave her family to be with him yet since they haven't seen each other in 10 years and he keeps pushing her away, but she knows she still likes him and wants to be around him however she can. As they get closer, they'll gradually come to rely on each other and confirm their commitment to being together. That's normal and doesn't make her a "coward."
lmao what? She pursues him the entire time. How is she a coward?
Right, she grew up in a household where her place and her adoptive parents' love were conditional on good behaviour, she suffers from depression and she's always had her life planned out for her, and still she tries her best to get closer to Song Yan from the moment she meets him again. Yes, she doesn't quite have a long-term plan yet and doesn't know how far she's prepared to go to be with him because she hasn't seen him in 10 years and he keeps pushing her away, but it's clear to the audience that the pull between Xu Qin and Song Yan is impossible to fight and they'll figure things out gradually as they get closer.
The fact Xu Qin has realistic concerns and behaviour doesn't make her weak or a coward. Honestly, when people say things like this about the female leads they don't like it smacks of misogyny.
it might be just me but every modern jdrama I watched seem to have this teaching condescending tone, like something…
That's an interesting way of putting it. I've also observed that unless they're trashy manga adaptations (which can be very fun in their own way), most recent romantic jdramas try to insert some wholesome life lesson and lack passion. It's quite the shift from the 2000s style of jdramas that gave us emotionally raw and dramatic romances like Long Vacation, Nagareboshi, Pride, etc.
Episode eight is all tears and it's beautiful the Bromance between Bin Bin and Yang Yang is one of the best brotherhood…
I think the way he left was actually pretty good for him. He would have stayed on for another year and wrecked his relationship with his long-suffering fiancée otherwise. Now he can spend more time with her and his parents.
One example how messed up MangoTV subs are,VIU subs- "so why did you two break up?"MGTV subs-" why did you break…
They have some dramas that are actually pretty good, notably The White Castle and Letter from the Cloud, that they’ve already “subbed” with complete gibberish and no one else wants to bother subbing them even though the existing subs are unintelligible. It’s infuriating how they claim dramas for international distribution and all they do is ensure they’ll never be translated.
I love me an angsty romantic sageuk about unhappy aristocrats. The last one we got was what, Bossam? Does Bloody Heart count? There was too much boring palace bullshit in that one, and obviously The Red Sleeve was all about boring palace bullshit and the romance didn't appeal to me. Everything else has been in the 'fusion sageuk' genre that sugarcoats historical fiction, makes the characters too childish or modern and puts a pink filter on everything.
Anyway, a proud woman humbled by misfortune and a cold schemer who gets his plans wrecked by love? COUNT ME IN. I'm not even gonna complain when the ML inevitably turns out to be a secret prince.
First ep - they made xu qin more easy going than in the book, her depression is not so obvious yet.song yan is…
I'm still on episode 1, but I have to say I like this Xu Qin a lot more. I understand her characterisation in the webnovel is a frank depiction of a person with depression and various other reasons to be unhappy, and that's fine with me, but her singleminded obsession with Song Yan when she's so unwell falls on the side of concerning rather than romantic for me. I can enjoy their interactions more (which is after all the goal of the story, which is a romance rather than a more elevated psychological novel that might leave you with conflicted feelings about the leads' relationship on purpose) when she's got her life together a bit more and isn't, like, stuck in an endless dissociative episode. I hope the drama will give her some friends too because she's so terribly isolated in the webnovel that it feels she has absolutely nothing going on in her life except for trying to get back together with SY. She's a shell of a person basically, and I don't think a relationship is enough to fix that.
1 
And I didn't expect it, but I was pleasantly surprised that the drama turned out to be a romance. The romantic subplot never fully took over the narrative, but it was there from start to finish and especially in the final episode, which worked out pretty well. It ended on a nice note.
But they did exchange texts cheering each other on in the final minutes of the drama, and their siblings are living together/will get married, which will give Yuzu and Shinji opportunities to see each other in the future, and their mothers decided to move on from the whole mess and make peace with each other, plus Makiko ended up divorcing that deadbeat too, which makes their family connection less creepy. So I choose to believe that if Yuzu and Shinji still have feelings for each other in a couple of years, the obstacles to their relationship will seem less significant and their pain will have eased enough to allow them to get together, maybe. I think there's a good chance!
This is a very small detail, but I love how adult Anzu's style when she is at home actually resembles that of her child self (e.g. the dorky glasses and unfeminine tracksuits she wears, which link her to her past self), but when she's undercover as Shizuka she looks and comports herself like a totally different person. They styled her character really well in all three of these environments to make it all fit together.
The fact Xu Qin has realistic concerns and behaviour doesn't make her weak or a coward. Honestly, when people say things like this about the female leads they don't like it smacks of misogyny.
Anyway, a proud woman humbled by misfortune and a cold schemer who gets his plans wrecked by love? COUNT ME IN. I'm not even gonna complain when the ML inevitably turns out to be a secret prince.