+ - Much like in The Long Ballad, you pretty much need a map of characters and relatives to follow everything.
+ + There's clearly a lot of effort put into everything from communication rituals to the words used. Fight scenes are decent and satisfactory. Villains are dispatched quickly instead of lingering for many hours.
- - Half the show happens off screen, including resolving cases, finding clues, war expeditions, and the happy end. At the same time, so much inconsequential stuff is filmed. Some of it has a Reply-like slice of life quality to it, and additionally there are subplots that either go nowhere, or are resolved very suddenly with the involved characters never seen again. Some of the villains and their motivations are very far fetched. The writer's attempts at comedy virtually never hit the mark and semi-frequently cheapen the characters in unfortunate ways.
The "full" version can be 8 episodes of 30m length. About 1.5 minutes of very spoilery intro and 2.5 minutes of very spoilery outro, both btw somewhat identical, shorten it to 26 minutes actual runtime per episode. There's a 3h 18m single video release, I would assume it also has the entire content but I am not totally sure.
The Viki subtitles are better than the WeTV subtitles. The WeTV subtitles are better than the YouTube "Drama Box" subtitles.
The FL gets a bit less annoying after a while (or the viewer just gets used to it), but this is an overall much weaker drama than say The Killer Is Also Romantic & Butterflied Lover.
Something I really don't understand in the first episode(s):
Why does the swarm of butterfly slaves beeline for the female lead to kill her? She's not yet revived via irresistible unicorn blood, and if anything, she should appear as friendly/neutral to them as a fellow butterfly slave.
Starts out strong with vibes similar to a CW show (think casual teenage vampires, except there's no vampires here). Plenty of fluffy couple scenes, far more than in some 30 hour dramas. However, the 7h runtime only has about 4h of story, with some patches where nothing really happens. The drama is fairly pretty in 4K. The sound crew didn't have their best day: some sounds like footsteps are off/misplaced, and the effect they place on whispered monologues is horrible. At least there's no animal noises for jokes, except for the crossover cameo.
Speaking of that, you can find The Killer Is Also Romantic (2022) https://mydramalist.com/724971-the-killer-is-also-romantic content in episodes 4, 6, 12 (additionally, the use of kites, and the character of Mrs Hong, who however is barely recognizable personality-wise).
Intros and outros are very spoilery, but it's worth noting that there are three different intro sequences (every 7/8 episodes).
The ending isn't open in a way that leaves you offended that the writer is too lazy to finish their story. It's open in that there are several ways you can take it. And some are more like happy endings and others more like bad endings.
I’m so confused on the ending I felt like I might have skipped a few mins lol. The time jump was a mess., or…
Pick any: - ML survives, SML dies to Mokui pollen - ML survives, SML survives – both presumably through Mokui soup and three years of uhh accupuncture - ML dies to Mokui soup or Mokui pollen, SML dies to Mokui pollen (ML is MIA in the cave where he's supposed to be chained up, but someone arrives at the end of Ep 21; SML might have died as a butterfly slave while SFL was in a coma for more than a month)
- Ep 22 is entirely a dream of an unrealistic happiness, and FL wakes up to see ML alive - everything including Ep 22 is a dream / premonition, and FL wakes up to see ML at the start of the show, now with the knowledge to avoid some pitfalls [groundhog day story] - pretend Ep 21 doesn't happen, nobody else dies, happy end for all, etc - after a 3 years time skip, ML and SML are back and healed, and ('ghostly' ML and child appearance at the start of 22; FL waking up at the end of 22)
I've seen comments that SML and SFL are the Butterfly Lovers in this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Lovers But IMO for that SFL would have to die shortly after him, which wastes his sacrifice, and I did not see anything in the show indicating it.
It does feel like that there is a lot missing between 21 and 22 to give the story a clear & understandable ending.
Reasonably boring show with an underwhelming story for maybe 6-8 hours that moves at an often-glacial pace. This whole thing could have easily been cut by 10 hours. The backstory that keeps getting onion-peeled and flashback-dissected over and over again is simply boring and uneventful, and the way the flashbacks always add a few more seconds onto a scene the viewer is not even invested in gets really annoying really fast.
Every actor plays their role in the same way they always do. The romantic chemistry between the leads is about as sizzling as a glacier as well.
Lee Ha Nee is vaguely entertaining I guess. If you can't derive some joy from watching her face muscles, just stay far away from this show. Lee Sang Yoon just doesn't have a lot of relevance for much of the plot (while being on screen a lot). His performance feels a bit phoned in too, like he is on the verge of being too old to stand in front of a camera. Kim Chang Wan isn't in danger of doing anything original, but at least he's always pleasant to watch.
Jeon Gook Hwan must have played that role a dozen times. Na Young Hee isn't as annoying as in other shows where she's the evil chaebol mother/step-mother, but that's really the only good thing to say. The entire chaebol family bully Mi-na in a way that's merely tiring and repetitive for the viewer.
Bonus mention to the music that's either out of place (what's with the cyber-gaming theme of the intro and some OSTs?) or really boring.
For once, jumpy scenes are justified by the comic book world setting. The weird comic look they went for predominantly looks like uncomfortably AI upscaled video, unfortunately. I like the opening song sung by the ML.
While at it, the OSTs are better than in most 15-30h dramas.
sigh, My happy ending would had the female lead's family rotting in jail. They have always been problematic in…
Can't agree at all. In TW, the ML essentially has to Rambo into the island warehouse to liberate the blackmail recording. In KR, to fill some screentime the FL's mother does a whole "I won't let them marry again because he might die" party and needs to be buttered up for half an eternity. The TH FL family members are harmless and almost nonexistent in my book.
Much like in The Long Ballad, you pretty much need a map of characters and relatives to follow everything.
+ +
There's clearly a lot of effort put into everything from communication rituals to the words used.
Fight scenes are decent and satisfactory.
Villains are dispatched quickly instead of lingering for many hours.
- -
Half the show happens off screen, including resolving cases, finding clues, war expeditions, and the happy end.
At the same time, so much inconsequential stuff is filmed. Some of it has a Reply-like slice of life quality to it, and additionally there are subplots that either go nowhere, or are resolved very suddenly with the involved characters never seen again.
Some of the villains and their motivations are very far fetched.
The writer's attempts at comedy virtually never hit the mark and semi-frequently cheapen the characters in unfortunate ways.
There's a 3h 18m single video release, I would assume it also has the entire content but I am not totally sure.
The Viki subtitles are better than the WeTV subtitles.
The WeTV subtitles are better than the YouTube "Drama Box" subtitles.
The FL gets a bit less annoying after a while (or the viewer just gets used to it), but this is an overall much weaker drama than say The Killer Is Also Romantic & Butterflied Lover.
The drama is fairly pretty in 4K.
The sound crew didn't have their best day: some sounds like footsteps are off/misplaced, and the effect they place on whispered monologues is horrible. At least there's no animal noises for jokes, except for the crossover cameo.
Speaking of that, you can find The Killer Is Also Romantic (2022) https://mydramalist.com/724971-the-killer-is-also-romantic content in episodes 4, 6, 12 (additionally, the use of kites, and the character of Mrs Hong, who however is barely recognizable personality-wise).
Intros and outros are very spoilery, but it's worth noting that there are three different intro sequences (every 7/8 episodes).
It's open in that there are several ways you can take it. And some are more like happy endings and others more like bad endings.
https://mydramalist.com/746597-butterflied-love#comment-18886799 or https://mydramalist.com/discussions/butterflied-love/109689-thoughts-on-the-ending-ending-spoilers
- ML survives, SML dies to Mokui pollen
- ML survives, SML survives – both presumably through Mokui soup and three years of uhh accupuncture
- ML dies to Mokui soup or Mokui pollen, SML dies to Mokui pollen
(ML is MIA in the cave where he's supposed to be chained up, but someone arrives at the end of Ep 21; SML might have died as a butterfly slave while SFL was in a coma for more than a month)
- Ep 22 is entirely a dream of an unrealistic happiness, and FL wakes up to see ML alive
- everything including Ep 22 is a dream / premonition, and FL wakes up to see ML at the start of the show, now with the knowledge to avoid some pitfalls [groundhog day story]
- pretend Ep 21 doesn't happen, nobody else dies, happy end for all, etc
- after a 3 years time skip, ML and SML are back and healed, and
('ghostly' ML and child appearance at the start of 22; FL waking up at the end of 22)
I've seen comments that SML and SFL are the Butterfly Lovers in this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Lovers
But IMO for that SFL would have to die shortly after him, which wastes his sacrifice, and I did not see anything in the show indicating it.
It does feel like that there is a lot missing between 21 and 22 to give the story a clear & understandable ending.
Is stuff like https://mydramalist.com/discussions/the-legends/41039-ending-re-edited-to-make-sense-ep-50-55 an attempt to fix the TV or an attempt to fix the DVD cut?
Every actor plays their role in the same way they always do. The romantic chemistry between the leads is about as sizzling as a glacier as well.
Lee Ha Nee is vaguely entertaining I guess. If you can't derive some joy from watching her face muscles, just stay far away from this show.
Lee Sang Yoon just doesn't have a lot of relevance for much of the plot (while being on screen a lot). His performance feels a bit phoned in too, like he is on the verge of being too old to stand in front of a camera.
Kim Chang Wan isn't in danger of doing anything original, but at least he's always pleasant to watch.
Jeon Gook Hwan must have played that role a dozen times.
Na Young Hee isn't as annoying as in other shows where she's the evil chaebol mother/step-mother, but that's really the only good thing to say.
The entire chaebol family bully Mi-na in a way that's merely tiring and repetitive for the viewer.
Bonus mention to the music that's either out of place (what's with the cyber-gaming theme of the intro and some OSTs?) or really boring.
The weird comic look they went for predominantly looks like uncomfortably AI upscaled video, unfortunately.
I like the opening song sung by the ML.
While at it, the OSTs are better than in most 15-30h dramas.
In TW, the ML essentially has to Rambo into the island warehouse to liberate the blackmail recording.
In KR, to fill some screentime the FL's mother does a whole "I won't let them marry again because he might die" party and needs to be buttered up for half an eternity.
The TH FL family members are harmless and almost nonexistent in my book.