My title came off a little strong, so here’s the short answer: this drama is definitely amazing for a gay romance coming out of Korea, but has really poor editing that was consistently jarring and some loose ends.

Now here comes the long answer (starting with the good of course!):
I really do appreciate this drama because it made an effort to tell a genuine gay love story, and I would say they succeeded. I especially appreciated this effort because the homophobia of Korean society tends to encroach on the acting and direction of some other BL series I’ve seen.

From the script alone we already have a good starting point, but the actors definitely took this drama to the next level. Im Ji Sub and Oh Jun Taek were stellar lead actors. You could always tell how their characters felt just through an expression or exchange. The chemistry and tension between them was on point. You could always feel a tangible mutual romantic curiosity between the two of them. It never felt stiff or awkward, or like they were forcing themselves to “act gay.” The effort and care put in the acting and direction gave the romance an authentic feel.
The setting and story were both quite nice. The school setting felt realistic, and the surfing aspect worked with the story surprisingly well.

The main characters themselves were both interesting. I liked to learn more about them, and see them grow and change throughout the series. I wasn’t a fan of Eun Ji or her writing. It wouldn’t have hurt anyone if they put a little more effort into making her a little less of a one-dimensional villain archetype, but in the end she served her purpose.

Now for my main complaint, and the achilles heel of this entire show: the editing.

I wish I was being dramatic when I said the editing made me die a little on the inside. As someone in visual arts who has experience with video editing, I genuinely started to wonder about the vision from the director and editing team, or if there was an editing team and if they got paid. Possibly they were held at gunpoint to make some of the most questionable editing choices of all time. The look of the first two episodes was alright, but the editing lost its way at episode 3 and barely managed to find its way back by episode 8. The coloring and filters were too exaggerated and varied. It very rarely did anything to add to the mood or tone of the show. At worst it was very distracting and at best it was tumblr-esque and outdated.
To be fair, there were a handful of shots I thought looked lovely.

Now if you're someone who doesn’t care about the aesthetics of a show, there is still a reason to care about the quality of the editing. The transitions. This was where the editing really started to hinder the storytelling. It made the story convoluted and hard to follow. I often had to skip back to see if I missed something, only to realize I hadn’t missed anything at all. The transitions are really just that jarring. It didn’t help that they would often throw in random scenes without context and then move on with very little explanation.

Overall, I would still recommend this show and I think it is a step in a great direction for Korean BL dramas. The integrity of the story and characters holds up, even if the transitions and editing made me want to pull out my hair.
The story also leaves me wondering about the character’s futures. I felt that we missed out on some of the development of Jae Won that the story was hinting at. I’d like to know more about our main character’s families and backgrounds, which are still partially unexplained. I would definitely tune in for a season 2. I may even rewatch it eventually now that I’ve come to terms with the horrendous editing.