Reviews

Depressing

I found this drama to be a major disappointment. While many coming-of-age stories find beauty in growth, this one was unnecessarily depressing. The finale was particularly frustrating; seeing the core group of friends disconnect and move on in different directions felt like a betrayal of the audience's emotional investment. Instead of a satisfying conclusion, it offered a cold dose of reality that made the hours spent watching it feel like a total waste. If you are looking for a show that celebrates friendship, I would suggest skipping this one."🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🤭🥲🤭🤭🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🤭🥲🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

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Sweet

I really loved the male and female leads. The 1st half of the drama was definitely my favorite part. I also enjoyed the two side couples, who were friends of the leads. However, the 'adopted brother' relationship with the female lead felt really creepy to me.✿♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎❀❀❀❀❀♫♫♫♫♫◐◐◐◐◐◐✜✜✜✜✜✜✜✜✥✥❈✰✱✩✡︎✸𓃵𓃠𓃟𓃭𓃟♥︎♥︎❀𓃭𓅿❀𓆉♫✥𖠑ꪉ✈︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☽☽☽⁂⁂😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘💙💙💙💙💙💙❤️💙❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️💙💙❤️❤️❤️💙❤️❤️❤️💙💙💙💙❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️💙💙💙💙❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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I still don't understand the title

This kdrama showed me a lot of the things I missed about the industry: real people - real skin, pores, skin texture, beard stubble, beautiful and healthy, sun kissed golden skin; people throwing liquids at the FL; a hopelessly in love ML; a healthy dose of nonsense; the nonsense ring tones and a ridiculous keyboard tapping sounds; people looking sad and depressed, saying nothing for long periods of time, looking longingly at their surroundings.

It was fun and depressing, with a little sprinkle of nonsense and hope. Even if it was annoying at times, it was nice to see real people and a story that takes its time. The state of recent kdramas has me longing for simpler times and I guess that's why I watched this one.

Even if the beauty standards aren't as strict as today, they're still equating glasses and curly hair with ugliness, but I guess that's still universal, unfortunately. In this drama we see superficial "improvement" or more topical and stylistic ones, instead of the permanent ones we're seeing in today's kdramas. Most of today's kdramas seem like an advertising to the plastic surgery and cosmetics industry. It feels like they're telling us to apply new paint to an imperfect house because what matters is what we see on the outside. Anyway, this kdrama was refreshing because it was an escape of what the kdrama world is largely becoming.

It has been puzzling me for a while how there are so many dramas that deal with cancer. It's a very specific trope to KDramas, which is probably something that is very present in Korean society. Tropes and stereotypes exist for a reason. They might be reductive but are usually indicative of at least a trend. I found out not long ago that there is a correlation between the presence of military bases and the increase in cancer diagnosis. Correlation might not be causation but the probability of causation is very high.

I'll leave a few articles here that might bring light on this:
https://gijn.org/stories/investigating-toxic-military-bases-and-their-links-to-cancer/
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/unpublished-study-finds-elevated-cancer-rates-us-military-base-2023-11-10/
https://www.civilianexposure.org/military-bases-are-full-of-cancer-causing-compounds/

Besides being the highest polluter in the planet, the US military is poisoning the people around the world. They have 800+ military bases all over the globe and these are the ones they have in South Korea, they're a lot for such a small country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_installations_in_South_Korea
It doesn't matter that many of them are closed, the contamination remains in the soil. The uncountable amount of cancer patients we see in KDramas could be linked to that, since, in some way or another, kdramas reflect Korean reality. Maybe that would be something interesting to talk about in a kdrama but with such levels of pro-US propaganda I doubt anyone will ever do that.

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Came for the actress, stayed for… actually no, I left.

This isn’t a bad drama, and I can see exactly what it’s trying to do. The commentary on toxic fan culture, boundary‑crossing “supporters,” and the way the entertainment industry flips its loyalty the second an idol stops being profitable — all of that is valid, necessary, and honestly refreshing to see addressed so directly. Celebrities are humans, not emotional vending machines, and the show makes that point clearly.

But the execution doesn’t always land. The scenes meant to highlight how dangerous obsessive fandom can be feel oddly muted, and the company’s reaction — treating criminal behavior like a PR hiccup — ends up more frustrating than impactful. The message is strong; the delivery wobbles.

The mystery element doesn’t help. When I can identify the killer before the story even settles, the suspense loses its footing. Predictability isn’t fatal, but it does make the viewing experience feel flatter than it should.

I’m not angry at the drama — just quietly stepping away before mild disappointment turns into irritation. I’ll give it a respectable score for the actress and the intention behind the commentary, but this isn’t something I need to push through.

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Absolutely atrocious!!

If I could give this series zero stars I would have given it zero stars! It says it's a series featuring four distinct stories; yet there's only two that had any, well anything! And I only seen three stories as the last story was 4 of those episodes and that's where it stops; episode 8. I probably would have been interested in the last one called "Blood Fighters" but that one never showed up so couldn't watch it and then this claims to be a BL anthology series, but I just saw one that way. This was very poorly written, very poorly executed, no real plots or stories, the acting was bad, felt incomplete and all in all; it was just really stupid to me.

I have no idea what "Make A Picture Production" was doing when they produced this, but it should have never been produced. It should have been named "This Should Never Have Been Produced As a Project For BL Fans" because it's so bad and I wonder why it wasn't completed. Now, I usually don't tell people not to watch something, but I'm telling you, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME! You'll regret it as I did and I'll never get that wasted time back.

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a STUNNING... SOULLESS drama...

Initial observations 🗯️🗯️
I don't know what but something in this drama is just not clicking for me.
I tried to watch it and reserve judgment but as I keep watching this feeling is just not going anywhere.

This drama is beautiful, there is no doubt about it. It's pretty clear they invested at lot of money and the only word I can think of is "STUNNING". Sets, makeup, costumes everything is gorgeous but something is missing. It feels hollow, devoided of any emotion.

I like the ml and FL. They are fantastic actors and the whole cast is on point. But to me it feels like watching a super model, visually stunning but without feeling any attraction to it.

PREMISE OF THE SHOW🗯️🗯️
The Queen of the spirit wordl is taking a break in the mortal realm. Out of luck she encounters a mortal general who possesses the key to her desires: he is able to exchange his human senses with the queen to let her experience the human way of living. Thanks to this pact they destiny intertwined.

RANT🗯️🗯️
I am going to list everything that made me go "meh".

∆ This spirit queen doesn't possess the "human senses"... Which is not true.
Sight? She can see.. she is just colorblind
Earing? She can hear perfectly fine, she is just deaf to music. (But plays music on battlefields for the dying)
At the beginning her reason to experience the human life looked silly. After a while we discover that she actually had a human mother which I guess can be linked to her desire to experience life like her. I don't know because I didn't make it that far.

∆ Talking about "mothers".. at the very beginning the drama introduces the queen as the only queen born directly as a spirit. Ok, to me that implies that she just "appeared" in the spirit world. Oh no.. later we find out that she had a human mother and a spirit dad I guess(?).

∆ Moving on to the ml. He is conceiving his identity. When his turn to explain his past comes, he says that he was born as Duan xi but later is kidnapped and another guy took his place. Ok... So... Then why are you still using your original name, everyone knows by that name and call the guy who was put in your place with a different name?

Maybe I am missing something or the subs were off.. but to me that whole thing is a mystery.
Unfortunately this drama is full of these "weird "things".

∆ Let's talk about the FL. To access the mortal world she has to "possess " a mortal body. When we are introduced to her she basically uses a body that looks like her exactly. Occasionally, the mortal body needs to rest but she is free to go around in her spirit form. Later in the drama we find out that she was actually possessing a body that looks nothing like her and she is now setting her free. Emm. What? Then why didn't the body you showed us before change its features everytime your spirit left it? I don't get it.

I am either too dumb or this drama is just confusing as fuck and not too well though out.

∆ Arthur Cheng is a mortal general who never experienced magic (as far as I know) but isn't a bit surprised when the FL reveals she is the queen of the spirit world. He is cool as it gets, even happy. Shouldn't you be at least.. surprised? A bit frightened?

∆the general is trained as a killer. He murdered countless people as part of his training but one day a random man tells him" hey, the weather looks nice today" and he leaves the assassin world because that conversation changed his mind😒

∆ the general is a skilled assassin but he is still a human, right? Wrong. Because he volunteers to infiltrate the enemy camp and fight hundreds of men alone. You can be skilled as much as you want but that was just ridiculous.

∆ plot armor: there is never a real sense of danger in this drama which leads to no stakes. You never worry about the protagonists because they will always win no matter the circumstances. The Queen loses her powers and is about to die? Don't worry, the general is around the corner.
Hundred of men are about to kill the general? Who cares. He can single handedly kill them all.

∆ romance: I think this is the weakest part of the drama. To be honest I never found them believable.

At the beginning dilraba is this cool , ruthless queen willing to torture and murder when necessary but when she meets this general she basically makes empty treats to him all the time without any consequences. I get that she later is willing to protect him but even when a "punishment" is expected she never follows through.

He on the other hand is the one being "threatened" but after 2 second starts talking about love.

That surprised me quite a bit. It felt out of place because they didn't quite built that romantic energy yet. It felt weird.

After that moment he is so enamoured with this woman that it becomes ridiculous.
Especially when they arrive in the spirit underworld he switches from cold general to an annoying puppy. He seems a totally different character and she feels like his mom.

I never felt the "tension" between them. She feels like an aunt and he looks like an energetic baby.

∆ the episodes in the underworld are so far the most boring ones. They basically spend the time measuring "dicks" because the right hand and the general both are in love with the queen.

∆ while we watch the "void" episodes , what we saw that far never gets mentioned. The emperor, the power struggle, the other generals, conflict with the enemy, the little brother (really sweet actor). They never get mentioned or shown.

That's all I gathered from episode 1 to 18.
I think I might be dropping this drama because even though I am fine suspending my "disbelief", when stuff doesn't make sense with an internal logic , I just cannot enjoy it.

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Enjoyable Short Drama

I enjoyed this short drama and thought it was one of the better ones I've watched. The female lead was presented as very childish but she was "almost 18". With that age, the story was still very sexualized as they were jade waste demons who had to "be" with their chosen man that they give a love worm too on every full moon. There was good chemistry and implied intimacy but infact they didn't even kiss a lot. Just very close proximity and hand holding. Overall, I enjoyed the story and acting. However the Mango TV English sub translation was really bad. If you are looking for an entertaining shirt drama with some good chemistry, check it out. But, be prepared ahead supposed to be young. However, I didn't feel like the actual age of the actors were a problem. Enjoy!

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From the Filming, to the Writing, to the characters to the story - Perfect!

My Rating: 10/10

I haven’t enjoyed a drama this much in a long time.

What really stood out is how unique the overall blend of genres is. It’s not just a romance or an idol drama — it seamlessly weaves together mystery, crime, legal elements, and a grounded look at idol life. That combination alone makes it feel fresh, but what elevates it even further is the execution.

The filming was absolutely stunning. I even looked up who the director was, Lee Gwang Young, the acting and filming were top level. I will be excited to see her other works. There’s a clear artistic vision behind how this drama was shot. Certain scenes — like the nature shots or even simple moments inside Maeng Se-na’s home — felt intentionally composed in a way that made everything look elevated without feeling artificial. It never felt overly filtered or unrealistic, just… expertly captured. Like a photographer who knows exactly how to frame a subject to make it look its best.

It’s the kind of cinematography that makes you notice the direction, not just the story. I actually found myself wanting to look up the director afterward just to see what else they’ve done — and that doesn’t happen often.

I also really appreciated the more grounded portrayal of the industry. Through Do Ra-ik’s experience, the drama doesn’t just show the glamorous side of fame, but also the pressure, lack of privacy, and emotional toll that comes with it. If you’ve seen other works in this space, you can tell there’s a clear interest in showing the reality behind celebrity life rather than just the fantasy. It has elements that reminded me of the Indie film "Time to Be Strong" which I saw on a Delta flight and wish was widely available. These types of films, that show the less glamorous aspects of fame, are important to validate the experience many that choose these paths go through.

On top of that, the pacing and storytelling keep you engaged the entire time. There’s always something unfolding — whether it’s the legal case, the mystery, or the developing relationship — so it never feels slow or dragged out. Kim Da Rin, the screenwriter did an amazing job and I also looked up her other works. If what I saw was accurate this may be her first but I will be paying attention if she does more, because this was an amazing show with great writing.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this and would absolutely watch it again. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys:


Romance
Idol dramas
Mystery/crime
Or especially a strong blend of all of the above

⚠️ Spoilers

This drama did an incredible job keeping me guessing.

From the beginning, I was sure Do Ra-ik wasn’t actually guilty. But beyond that, it constantly shifted where suspicion landed. At first, it really seemed like Choi Jae-hee (the bandmate who was always angry with him and had just fought with him) could be responsible. For a good portion of the show, that felt like the most obvious answer.

Then after Jae-hee's accident, that theory started to fall apart, and attention shifted elsewhere. For a while, it really felt like the truth might lie with someone closer to the situation — possibly even someone unexpected like a female character involved in the case.

At one point, it even made you question whether someone like Lee Young-bin could be behind it all, or if there would be a twist involving someone who seemed neutral — like the “peacemaker” type within the group. That constant shifting is what made the mystery so engaging. It never felt predictable.

Another standout element was how the show handled fan culture.

The obsessive fans around Do Ra-ik were uncomfortable to watch — but in a very real way. The lack of boundaries, the constant surveillance, the physical closeness without consent… it all felt grounded in reality. Anyone who has dealt with that kind of behavior (even on a smaller scale) would recognize how unsettling it is.

One particular fan’s behavior bordered on cringe, Se-na, but it also made more sense once her backstory was revealed — especially the fact that Do Ra-ik had played a role in saving her life. That added a layer of understanding without excusing the behavior.

The relationship between Maeng Se-na and Do Ra-ik was something I really loved. There is a slight gray area with professional ethics early on, since she is initially connected to him in a professional capacity, but the dynamic shifts naturally over time. Much of the emotional progression comes after that boundary is no longer in place, which makes it feel more acceptable and organic.

I also really enjoyed the subplot involving Maeng Se-na’s tenant/friend. His investigative skills were impressive, and the backstory of how she helped pull him out of a life of crime was genuinely heartwarming. It added another layer to her character and showed her impact on others beyond the main storyline.

Now… Do Ra-ik’s mother.

She was honestly a difficult character to watch. The idea that she essentially pushed him into the industry at a young age and shaped his entire life around that choice is hard to ignore. The drama does attempt to frame it later in a more positive light — suggesting recognition of his talent — but it definitely takes some narrative stretching to make her actions feel justified. That’s something I’ve noticed comes up often in Korean dramas, but here it stood out more.

Also — the hairstyles in the early days 😄I understand they were trying to make the group look younger, and early K-pop styles were definitely… a choice. It worked for the timeline, but it was still noticeable.

As for the romance — I loved them. Completely.

The only very minor disappointment for me was the ending. While we clearly see that Maeng Se-na and Do Ra-ik are together and happy, I would have loved to see a proposal. It felt like the story was right there, ready for that final step, and it just stopped short.

It’s a small thing, but I really wanted to see how he would ask — what that moment would look like. Ending without it felt just slightly incomplete for such a strong relationship.

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You had a mission, Korea.

That's why Japanese dramas are more profound, that's why the original was so successful with audiences and critics, while in the original they don't end up together and she doesn't easily overcome her traumas (which is logical), the Korean version has a happy ending and completely removed the logic of the Japanese drama idea that could have adapted well in this version.
And the killer???? My God, they changed the bartender and chose the most predictable character possible to be the killer.
And I didn't find anything special in the couple's chemistry. Park Min-young's acting was apathetic, without any expression, forced crying scenes, and Wi Ha-joon managed to come across well, the only positive point.
Unfortunately, it's going to be a very forgettable remake....

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