love, for love's sake.

*the review does NOT contain major spoilers and is in my opinion fine to read before starting the show*

im so at loss for words its hard to even start writing this review (literally finished the show like 5 minutes ago) but regardless, ill try my best.

1. first of, the plot for this show is incredible. i was really afraid they wouldnt have enough budget or runtime to execute this story well, but i worried for nothing. the moment i watched episode 1 i knew that this show wouldnt disappoint me, and it didnt. the story was amazing, start to finish, and it was better than i could have ever imagined. the video game concept was so well done it almost made me feel like i was playing the game myself. continuing, due to the concept being done so well, every time something happened with the game it had me feeling a lot of emotions myself. especially in the scenes where we can see myungha in the black void, or the ones with the time running out or him having to make important decisions, those gave me the chills. really a surreal experience. another thing i loved is the lack of toxicity in this show. not a single time did i think "oh, this seems a bit wrong" or "there could have been a better way to resolve this" because even though secrets were kept, communication was also present, and all the main characters were absolute sweethearts. no unnecessary misunderstandings and all that. also a thing i want to mention is how i love how homophobia was dealt with in this show! usually i just prefer if they dont touch that topic at all, since most of the time in these shows it just ends up being "oh haha ur gay f**k u" and they do nothing to stop it, but i love how they approached it here with the characters defending themselves, snapping back at them and going "so what? whats wrong with it?". theres one scene that was super iconic but i wont spoil anything else. honestly i could say a lot about this show but this review is already getting long and ive only covered the story/plot part, so ill leave it at this.

tldr: they couldnt have done this plot better and i wouldnt change a thing about it.

2. the cinematography and overall quality of the show here was incredible!! no clue what kind of budget they had but whatever it was they did an amazing job with it. every single shot was stunning and the scenes were so pretty i couldnt stop myself from screenshotting every single episode, seriously its beautiful. i saw someone say this felt like watching a kdrama that just so happens to be a bl (since the quality of it is so good) and i definitely agree, this is in my opinion the best shot kbl yet. hoping the quality just goes up and up from here, although i doubt any kbl will be able to top lfls' cinematography, at least for the time being. a few of the shots also reminded me of the eighth sense (aka what used to be my no.1 kbl before lfls came to dethrone it) which is one of my favorite shows ever in terms of cinematography.

3. this is going to be very short but the acting was great. not a single character/actor was lacking. just incredible acting!

to sum it up, this show is absolutely beautiful, heartwarming, heartbreaking, fluffy, sad, bright yet dark all at once in the best way possible. theres not a single thing to complain about and this is hands down the best kbl i have ever watched (and i have watched almost every single one of them as of the time im writing this review). loved everything about it, the acting, the characters, the story, the quality, the cinematography, everything was incredible. all i can say is that this show is an absolute masterpiece that EVERYONE should watch. words simply cannot describe how good this show was.

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painting together is more romantic than flirting will ever be!

before i start i want to mention i have watched the movie version of this drama although i have heard that the scenes were the same and obviously people will read the reviews for the series rather than on the movie version so i will be writing my review here.

first off, as this is a 2021 kbl, dont expect a very high budget or show stopping cinematography. with the budget they had (which i assume isnt very big) they did a wonderful job. effects didnt look low quality enough to ruin any of the scenes, the drama was filmed nicely and i found the drama to be overall visually pleasing. the plot felt very new to me and i found it to be unique, though this was my first historical drama so there might be a bias here. the pacing and the development of their relationship felt a bit rushed/out of nowhere, but i cant complain too much since i absolutely adored them. in my completely honest opinion, the chemistry wasnt anything crazy at first and i was actually quite lost as to who the love interest is, but once it hit a certain point, i found their chemistry to be very good and i got very attached to them!

another thing is a lot of people say this drama is boring, which sure, it can be a bit boring or slow if ur looking for a lot of action or strong romance in the whole series. but i personally adored how light and cute this drama was and i didnt mind that not much was going on. especially in the second half of the show, i feel like their relationship was just so beautiful it totally made me forget about anything else happening. so yes, this might be a very light drama with not much going on, but their relationship, their words, and everything about them makes up for it!! and to me the drama was very interesting in the second half especially near the end but to avoid spoilers im gonna leave it at that!

if youre not looking for lot of action but a light romance with a very beautiful relationship between the characters this show is perfect for you!! it took me a while to get to it due to negative reviews, but now i regret not watching it earlier. genuinely a hidden gem!

tldr: real romance. super pretty. got me smiling. painting together is more romantic than flirting!

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one of the most underappreciated masterpiece kdramas ever released

minor spoilers, tagged just in case.

as happy as i am to see people LOVING this show on mdl, unfortunately that is not the case for a lot of people outside of this platform, which to me frankly is very surprising. keep in mind its been around a year since ive watched it, so this review might not be the best but i still wanted to write something for one of my favorite shows. first off, this show is very underappreciated. and i mean VERY much. the only times ive seen people bring it up was to call it boring or slow, which kind of breaks my heart. the show isn't for everyone that's for sure, and it is kind of slow, but it's such an experience. the whole thing is a cinematic masterpiece with absolutely mind-blowing cinematography. the story isn't the most extraordinary out there, but it's done extremely well. the story is basically about a girl (ahyi), a high schooler, who lives alone with her smaller sister due to family problems and of course there's the classic "being in debt" part of the plot too. she is a top student though, therefore she wants to grow up as soon as possible so she can solve it all out by getting a stable job. on the other hand we have the magician (rieul) who did not want to grow up. he wishes he could be a child again. he's a mysterious but warm-hearted guy who performs magic at an abandoned amusement park. one day ahyi meets rieul and tldr; he comforts her, she starts believing in magic, etc etc. the show is very emotional, heartfelt, and is very important to me. I'm also a person who wishes he could stay a kid forever, so i find rieul's character very comforting and relatable. i think due to the way my childhood was, this show means even more to me. every single second of this show felt magical, from beginning to end. the ending was a bit bittersweet, but i think that's what made the show even better. never did it feel rushed or low quality. i think with what they had, they executed it perfectly. it's very high budget (at least to me) and the plot wasn't disappointing to me neither. and of course, acting was great. but let's talk about the most important part of the drama (since its a musical) which is of course the ost. i can not explain in words how amazing the soundtrack for this drama is. every single song/track is very well made and high quality and every song is just beautiful. immediate 10/10 for the music. the only reason i would say the rewatch value isnt the best is genuinely because you just dont need to rewatch this drama. it leaves such a strong impression on you that i feel like rewatching it would just take away from the initial feeling u had when watching it for the first time. its one of those shows that you wish you could watch for the first time again because rewatching it doesn't feel the same. its also one of the shows that concluded perfectly. i truly hope it doesnt get another season because i feel like it could lowkey ruin the whole thing. if you feel like watching something a bit different from the usual kdrama plots, please give this drama a chance! its beautiful and it wont disappoint. but dont watch this if you're not into slower dramas with not much violence/romance. there is quite a bit of violence in the show, but it's not the main plot. so if youre planning to watch it just for the violence part it might not satisfy you. i mostly recommend this to very sentimental people like myself.

tldr: this drama is truly amazing. go watch it. it will make you cry.

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there's no reviews so you know i had to drop one

well hello! this is my first time writing a review. this isnt gonna be a full on long serious review since, well, this isnt a very long serious show either. if you're here i assume you know what the show is, but if not - this is jaejoong's silly youtube show where - to summon it up - they invite guests, make jaejoong guess who it is and then they sit down and have a talk while he cooks. its a very fun to watch show. im sure that even if you aren't very familiar with jaejoong you would still enjoy it. hes a silly funny guy and the way he interacts with guests is very comforting, entertaining and heartwarming all at the same time. you can tell the guests are always very comfortable around him which makes the show very fun to watch! it's also very genuine and i feel like it's way less ... censored? as in there's not as much filtering when it comes to talking compared to other shows similar to this one. talking about careers, past groups, companies, its all allowed here. this show is one of the reasons of why i got more interested in jaejoong as an individual, he's a very likeable person and i got attached immediately. if you ever need something to watch while sipping on coffee or eating lunch, this show is definitely great to watch while doing that. i recommend it a lot to everyone, but especially to those who are interested in hearing about backstories and stories from the past of the guests (as well as jaejoong himself), to those who are interested in the entertainment industry, and those who are a fan of talk (like podcasts) in general. its a very nice show. oh! and jaejoong is hilarious so be prepared to laugh a lot :) absolutely nothing to complain about. if you're already reading this check out his music too! he has a diverse discography and it's really good. final rating 10/10

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where do i even begin..

okay so. watched this all in one go 2 days ago so hopefully i still remember enough to write a good enough review.

the show is about 2 idols who form a new kpop duo. you have eden who's a complete rookie and new to all of this and jihoon who's a senior idol that will now be redebuting in the said duo. everything is great and then we find out that the duo will use business gay performance as their main concept to attract more fans (spoiler alert it worked).

right off the bat i want to mention that eden's character was completely different in the drama! i have read a bit of the web comic and he's way sweeter, more thoughtful, more respectful and NOT homophobic in the drama version. very glad to see they removed his whole homophobia arc thing since it was kinda annoying lol. another thing i want to mention is that their relationship felt way more natural and genuine in the drama too. i honestly haven't read more than like a few chapters so i don't know how the relationship really fully unveiled in the web comic but i felt like it was very nice in the drama and since eden actually liked jihoon from the start it just felt more wholesome and cute in this version (liked as in going from platonic to later romantic, not romantic from the beginning. at least i think.). going back to the homophobic eden thing - i was lowkey anticipating seeing mill say "YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE ME A HOMOSEXUAL?" just for the laughs but im very happy to see they instead made him say "i just dont think homosexuality should be a concept" (also this lowkey felt like shade towards all the people who accuse ooo of queerbaiting and using queerness as a concept for profit LOL lowkey wondering if it was intentional or not)

the story rating is quite low and I'll be discussing why that is next. me personally, i really do not mind the whole business gay performance plot of the show. actually i find it quite funny since well.. this does actually happen probably way more than we think. gay fanservice is nothing new. BUT! there's a but. i personally dont think this was the best plot choice for a group who HAS been accused of "queerbaiting" and using lgbtq+ themes for money. if this show is somehow your introduction to onlyoneof please realize that this show is not accurate to reality at all and is just fiction.. onlyoneof have talked very openly about how their mvs potray queer relationships and they are very open about their love and support for the lgbtq+ community.. they are doing it for the representation please dont be fooled by this show LOL.

continuing, this isn't really the only problem with the show. the show is actually really silly and cute but hyunbin's character was just NASTY. both him and that woman, whoever she even was. i get that there needs to be some evil character in a show for it to be more interesting or whatever, but hyunbin's character is just a bit too much in my opinion. he's a manipulative, toxic and just really awful character. the fact he's basically the reason why BOTH of the main leads were sa'd is just absolutely horrible. he's an absolutely insane man and not in a good way but at least props to kyubin for playing the role quite well (and i feel bad he had to play such a character at the same time)

just a warning: the sa scene is in episode 6 i believe. or at least the "worse" sa scene with eden. its quite bad so if u get triggered by that please do skip it! it doesnt add much to the plot. the second one is with jihoon and in that one the girl just kind of lays on top of him while hyunbin takes a photo. the one with eden is veryy iffy though it goes further than that and he tries to push her away multiple times and its just... yeah skip it if it triggers you. its quite uncomfortable to watch.

moving on to things i did like!! the budget, as low as it was, didn't make the series awful! i was terrified it would look like a 2020 kbl with a 5 dollar budget but apart from the intro and the special effects - it was not bad! at least not as bad as i expected it to be. another thing i liked was how much promo onlyoneof actually got in the actual show! from playing their songs to showing their mvs etc. the boys actually did an amazing job at acting considering it was their first time too! obviously not top notch acting but good enough for kbl standards. as i mentioned before kyubin played his role well and another member i really wanna praise is wookjin! he was a natural at this and none of his acting ever felt awkward or stiff to me! all the other members also did a great job! (although the one scene where yoojung (jay) spoke in english absolutely took me out. personally though it was so comedic to me i think it just made it even better. not sure if they were aiming for comedic or if that was supposed to be genuine acting.. either way it's great we love you yoojung). the relationship between the male leads was also just sooo silly and wholesome i loved it so much. the skinship didn't feel awkward at all either, including the kiss. i liked the pacing of the show as well although the ending felt slightly rushed but not bad enough to make me feel disappointed.

you might ask - geez. if the story isnt even that good why is the rewatch and overall rating so high? well to be completely honest - its because i just enjoyed myself. i laughed, i smiled, i was shocked, watching it was an experience. and obviously the whole show is filled with onlyoneof who just so happens to be one of my favourite groups which just added to that. i would rewatch it because i love mill and nine's chemistry. i would rewatch it because i found the show extremely funny in a way. i would rewatch it because its entertaining. i would rewatch it because its a silly, wholesome and fun show with really fun characters (except hyunbin). objectively is it good? well no its not amazing but subjectively i just loved it. will skip the sa scene(s) if i rewatch though for sure.


tldr: very funny. wholesome. cute. amazing chemistry between leads. but has some iffy scenes and the overall plot isnt amazing. not the best writing either. very entertaining though.

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short sweet drama about gender and queerness

this is a really nice short drama about gender and sex as well as queerness. the lgbtq+ representation in this show was very nice, and while i can't speak for the intersex rep specifically since i am not intersex, it seemed like it was done quite well from an outside view. they dealt with things like questioning your gender, not identifying with gender at all, questioning your sexuality etc in this show, and i feel like that's not something u see often. it's short but definitely worth a watch. i personally really felt seen while watching this show when it came to the gender questioning. i also feel like im just myself. gender is unnecessary. really sweet drama i would recommend!

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