MidnightReader

ACTING: I found a couple of the actors acting to feel very by-the-book, but it honestly didn't bother me; they still did a good job. I particularly liked JJ's acting; I found his energy and facial expressions (especially his smile) to be perfect for a comedy series. This isn't a comedy series, so we didn't get much of that side of him, but you get a good judge of his acting from seeing this and the more serious side that he has for the majority of the show. I'd only seen JJ in "I saw you in my dream" and "The Next Prince" previously and I found his acting very stiff in "I saw you in my dream" which was understandable for his first role, and we honestly didn't get enough of him in "The Next Prince" but based on what little I did see I can tell he's really improved. On a side note, I love it when JJ speaks English, something about it is really cute. JJ & Net really know how to cry.

OST: Was pretty & not overbearing. They went with the mood really well, and the lyrics often matched what was happening in the story or between the characters.

PRODUCTION: Very well done. My only complaint is that there were some moments where we were just staring or rotating around the characters when we could have just moved on, and there are way too many moments where the characters are just standing in silence for too long. Even when we are getting internal dialogue from Nakun, the silence stretches long enough to be awkward.

PLOT: As time-traveling stories go, I think this is one of my favorites. I like how it worked. I do think they spent a little too much time trying to explain it as if it could logically be explained, but it was also nice to hear some of the different viewpoints. Normally, I'm really disappointed when the characters in a series have to investigate something because it feels like they either aren't doing enough or they are overlooking the obvious, which makes them look stupid. Not in this series. I liked it, and the historical setting (which I normally don't like) made it better. I liked that gathering information and proof was harder than it is today, where literally everything can leave a paper trail or video evidence. I also liked that Nakun was noticing the small details; he was really trying to Detective Conan this shit.

ROMANCE/CHEMISTRY: I liked both couples, but the chemistry wasn't anything explosive. For Nakun and Phop, it felt like a natural progression, but with Jom and Kaew, it felt very reserved, which I guess fits with the time period. For Thee and Pun, it didn't make me feel anything at all, and that's probably because we don't really see their progression from passive to interested. Besides My Stobborn, this is the first time I've been interested in the NC scenes.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT: Made no sense, but I found it funny.

SPOILERS:

I'm so used to the main character traveling through time mentally that it was a bit shocking that Nakun physically traveled clothes, jewelry, and all. It makes sense because Klao is dead and there's no living body for him to enter, and honestly, I think I prefer this because it's like Klao's death was the trigger for the time travel. It reminds me a little of Two Worlds, where they can only travel if the other world's version of themselves is dead. I'm assuming that age matters as well, but it was never brought up in all the explanations they were giving us, so I'm not sure.

When Nakun is randomly sent back to the present day, we spend a lot more time mourning than I expected. I love that we got to see everyone in the past mourning for Klao/Nakun, whereas a lot of series would just move on to them meeting again in the future and living happily ever after. We get to see Phop find Klao's body and then slowly waste away till he dies. I do wish we had gotten to know how long after Nakun returns to the past that it took. Nakun is given time (no idea how much) to heal and become more mentally stable after he returns before he meets Phop again. I did tear up a couple of times seeing both Nakun and Phop become so lifeless. Nakun at least had hope that Phop was alive and that he just had to find him, whereas Phop found Klao's body.

I was upset about them just missing each other because it's so overused, but it's probably in the novel as well.

(I may read the novel, actually.)

I also REALLY love that Phop used a wishing stone to wish to be reincarnated near Klao with all of his memories. He got his memories back on his 20th birthday as well, around a year before Nakun traveled back in time, and it was interesting to see him put the pieces together and then set things up for his trip to the past.

Nakun gets his ring back! It's apparently Phop's family heirloom, which I found interesting.

I would have liked to have seen more of their time together inbetween them meeting again and their marriage, but this is me wanting too much, and I'm aware of that. The "wedding," if it can be called that, was literally just an announcement and signing the paperwork, which they somehow made sweet.

What was the bracelet about? What did it actually do, if anything? We see it vibrate or something a couple of times in the first episode, and then it literally does nothing. Did I miss something? If I did, please, someone explain it to me because I was watching for this darn bracelet to do something or mean something in every episode, only for it to amount to nothing. Now that I think about it, this is the thing that annoyed me the most out of the series, and I thought all the scenes with the mom went on WAY too long, especially the one where Nakun realizes that she's the reincarnation of Klao's father. Why did we have to rotate around them, hugging for so long?

A couple of annoying things aside, I really loved this show.