1
ShanTeaTime
Buffalo, NY
This review may contain spoilers
Give This Series All Of The Messi Love It Deserves!
So I stumbled upon this series from Tik Tok actually lol. That sentence sounds so cringy, but it's true. Somebody had posted a clip of the show which was the car splashing scene between Bok Joo and Joon Hyung, I was dying from laughter. So I looked into more clips and knew I had to watch this series! The series is set up as this quirky and funny romantic comedy with sports mixed in, but it's actually much more than that. It's heartfelt, overwhelmingly sweet, explores serious topics and is incredibly bingable.
We've got 4 primary characters in this show. Bok Joo, Joon Hyung, Shi Ho and Jae Yi. There's other side characters as well, like the sadly sick dad and hot wise uncle who were tops as well. But these 4 are the main focus. All are really solid characters with interesting stories, but my favorites were Bok Joo, Joon Hyung and Shi Ho because of how layered they really are. Bok Joo is our MC and she's great. As a viewer you really root for her success, shes strong, sweet and hilarious. Very adorable. She can be shy but doesn't let it hold her back too much unlike a lot of other K-drama female leads that I've seen. Joon Hyung at first took some time to get used to. I didn't like how he called Bok Joo "fatty" at first and he was came off as quite arrogant. However, in episode 3 he completely redeemed himself punching those gross bar guys out. His plot points were mainly around swimming, mom problems and love interest for Bok Joo. I will say, these two had fantastic chemistry (Bok Joo & Joon Hyung) like seriously it hurt my face how much I loved these two and was grinning like an idiot whenever they interacted. I'm pretty sure these 2 actors are pretty close in real life (possibly dating) so makes sense!
Joon's mom arch though got me, his poor little heart dealing with his aunt and uncle replacing his mom. Ugh! This actor (Nam Joo Hyuk) was my favorite, he was really good at conveying various emotional ranges. Also he's freaking gorgeous, tall and his style was killer. There was a line later on in the series where he's like "try me out!" to Bok Joo and I took this very inappropriately. I meannnn I'm willing to take a ride lmao, totally not the context of the scene AT ALL but who can blame me? Moving onto my other top character, Shi Ho. I really liked that she wasn't just a crazy ex-girlfriend or a jerk. She's actually really cute and I felt for her deeply in this series. Sure she let jealousy and longing get the best of her in situations because she thinks everything can go back to before, but it can't. I actually became concerned for her character in this series! She was so unwell with the sleeping pills, eating disorder and clear depression going on. It was heartbreaking to see, but done really well. By the way, gotta show the love for the fact that the show discussed mental health and counseling in this. All of it was much appreciated, and shown from various male and female perspectives. Huge claps to that!
The whole older brother/actually cousin with Jae Yi could've been super stale, but it wasn't surprisingly. It was actually pretty funny and concluded well. Some of the more romantically fueled scenes that I enjoyed and stuck out to me were when Joon Hyung goes all out trying to date Bok Joo. Conquering his fear of heights, using his jacket to warm her hands, 2 straws in the cup, So freaking sweet. As well as the scene where Bok Joo is finally like "I like you too! I don't wanna return you!" and then there's just an onslaught of them kissing each other. So fu***** cute I can't. I have to say, the series is really well-shot too there's some really pretty shots of Korea in this. And I loved the soundtrack/music played throughout. There were times when Kpop was played in the background and I freaked out because I recognized it.
The only issues I had with this series were pretty minimal. The teachers specifically annoyed me in this occasionally. Mostly because I didn't really care about that plot point, but also you don't EVER hit students ever or treat them poorly. I don't care if they are going against "rules or regulations" or whatever. You can be frustrated with a student potentially throwing away their potential away, but come on! Also telling students from gymnastics to basically starve themselves. Wtf. Either way, when this series was coming to an end I legit got teary eyes. I didn't want it to end and I miss the characters already!
We've got 4 primary characters in this show. Bok Joo, Joon Hyung, Shi Ho and Jae Yi. There's other side characters as well, like the sadly sick dad and hot wise uncle who were tops as well. But these 4 are the main focus. All are really solid characters with interesting stories, but my favorites were Bok Joo, Joon Hyung and Shi Ho because of how layered they really are. Bok Joo is our MC and she's great. As a viewer you really root for her success, shes strong, sweet and hilarious. Very adorable. She can be shy but doesn't let it hold her back too much unlike a lot of other K-drama female leads that I've seen. Joon Hyung at first took some time to get used to. I didn't like how he called Bok Joo "fatty" at first and he was came off as quite arrogant. However, in episode 3 he completely redeemed himself punching those gross bar guys out. His plot points were mainly around swimming, mom problems and love interest for Bok Joo. I will say, these two had fantastic chemistry (Bok Joo & Joon Hyung) like seriously it hurt my face how much I loved these two and was grinning like an idiot whenever they interacted. I'm pretty sure these 2 actors are pretty close in real life (possibly dating) so makes sense!
Joon's mom arch though got me, his poor little heart dealing with his aunt and uncle replacing his mom. Ugh! This actor (Nam Joo Hyuk) was my favorite, he was really good at conveying various emotional ranges. Also he's freaking gorgeous, tall and his style was killer. There was a line later on in the series where he's like "try me out!" to Bok Joo and I took this very inappropriately. I meannnn I'm willing to take a ride lmao, totally not the context of the scene AT ALL but who can blame me? Moving onto my other top character, Shi Ho. I really liked that she wasn't just a crazy ex-girlfriend or a jerk. She's actually really cute and I felt for her deeply in this series. Sure she let jealousy and longing get the best of her in situations because she thinks everything can go back to before, but it can't. I actually became concerned for her character in this series! She was so unwell with the sleeping pills, eating disorder and clear depression going on. It was heartbreaking to see, but done really well. By the way, gotta show the love for the fact that the show discussed mental health and counseling in this. All of it was much appreciated, and shown from various male and female perspectives. Huge claps to that!
The whole older brother/actually cousin with Jae Yi could've been super stale, but it wasn't surprisingly. It was actually pretty funny and concluded well. Some of the more romantically fueled scenes that I enjoyed and stuck out to me were when Joon Hyung goes all out trying to date Bok Joo. Conquering his fear of heights, using his jacket to warm her hands, 2 straws in the cup, So freaking sweet. As well as the scene where Bok Joo is finally like "I like you too! I don't wanna return you!" and then there's just an onslaught of them kissing each other. So fu***** cute I can't. I have to say, the series is really well-shot too there's some really pretty shots of Korea in this. And I loved the soundtrack/music played throughout. There were times when Kpop was played in the background and I freaked out because I recognized it.
The only issues I had with this series were pretty minimal. The teachers specifically annoyed me in this occasionally. Mostly because I didn't really care about that plot point, but also you don't EVER hit students ever or treat them poorly. I don't care if they are going against "rules or regulations" or whatever. You can be frustrated with a student potentially throwing away their potential away, but come on! Also telling students from gymnastics to basically starve themselves. Wtf. Either way, when this series was coming to an end I legit got teary eyes. I didn't want it to end and I miss the characters already!
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