Reviews

a good storyline and plot

to be honest. i would like to praise script writer who come out with that kind of storyline. aside of nudity and sex scenes. all the plot was clearly told us about the difference perspective from each of characters.

i could relate for both wife and mistress feeling very well. it's just that, after a few times of rewatching it. i still has lingeries feeling with questioning about how depth the husband feeling or love towards his mistress. i do believe, husband does love his wife so much from all perspective that shows in movie although he does cheat with someone's else. But that doesn't mean he doesn't love his wife or less care. he still has a lot of affection towards his wife.

it just, i feel pity towards mistress. from my perspective, even though he love her. but it's still could not surface the love he has towards his wife. i feel a bit disappointed when he doesn't has a firm stance about his child with his mistress. though they make the ML die frozen was a good way to end the stories. so, the main issue about which one he love the most or which one he will choose will stopped when he die.

i like the way, how they make the FL and mistress get to be a good friend and end up with a good way. getting along and handle their emotions maturely. although the mistress seem to be more emotional in the end cos of ML wanna severed their relationship. for me, it was logical for mistress to behaving like that, in her age and life experience.

both wife and mistress didn't act rashly also a good sign of mature and healthy way to educate viewers, to choose wisely if they were facing this kind of situation.

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Disappointing

The story started out great until about episode 17. The humor gave me endless laughs, the adventures of the main characters were fun to watch, and ML and FL had a lot of chemistry. The villains were compelling and gave us plenty of reasons to hate them. Then, the story went off the rails and started introducing new plotlines and characters who didn't need to be there. I normally don't like love triangles because they usually follow the same tropes and deviate from the plot. This show was no exception. Bai Xiaosheng (BX) was a fun and neutral character who should've stayed neutral. Suddenly, we had to watch multiple episodes involving a love triangle between BX, Tianyao and Yanhui because Tianyao and Yanhui had some tension in their relationship. There were better ways to get it resolved and to get Tianyao gain back Yanhui's trust, instead of sticking BX between them for several episodes. In the second half and towards the end, BX mostly disappeared from the plot making the entire love triangle angst completely pointless.

Even the chemistry between Tianyao and Yanhui became stale in the second half. They had no physical or even romantic chemistry although they were married. They kind of regressed from being a dynamic due to an old boring couple. When Tianyao protected her from any threat, she looked at him in surprise like he wasn't supposed to do it. Ya'll are married. Why are you surprised? Thankfully, or not, they finally shared a very chaste kiss in episode 38 after being married for how long? Pretty damn long,

An endless slew of minor characters and their stories, too many flash-backs, and fillers made the story progression very slow. An entire episode was dedicated to some weird demon capturing Tianyao so she could marry him just to be defeated and never seen again. We did not need to watch short lived romances between minor characters, who all died an episode later, or flashbacks from Yanhui's childhood in the Taoist sect. It was all boring and irrelevant. We also did not need to see Suying's sad romance with the general. There was nothing redeeming about her. She was a reprehensible person, so there was no point trying to make her even a little bit sympathetic.

The end boss was incredibly boring. He was a cookier cutter villain without any motivation or personality. He did bad things because villains do bad things, not because he had a compelling reason to be bad. Taoists were much more interesting and complex.

There were problems with the acting too. Zhou Ye was really cute as Yanhui who was lively, dynamic, and funny. Neo Hou was the opposite. This is the first drama I watched with him and I was completely unimpressed with his acting. He spent a huge amount of the time standing around and staring - forlorn staring, sad staring, observant staring, romantic staring, staring, staring, and more staring. In many scenes involving multiple characters, he just stood around and stared like a place holder. It seemed like the actor either needed more lines or the dialogue needed to be sped up. After some time, the constant staring became very noticeable. Tianyao was the main character with the plot revolving around him, but he looked like Yanhui's side kick most of the time.

Overall, I enjoyed the first half of the show because it was funny and engaging. Unfortunately, the story that started out as an interesting tale of redemption, forgiveness, and new beginnings turned into a constipated mess of stale plotlines and a crusade against a cliche villain. I am actually very disappointed with the way it turned out because it had such a great start.

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I was right there with them

I am a fan of Chinese pals in since the first one with
Hu Ge and Liu Yifei. I really like this one as well. I find the plot to be interesting and engaging. I feel like I was a part of the four main characters journey, and it was fun and sad to go along the ride with them. There’s no good without evil. The message of the story is to bring justice and peace to the world, and Tianhe did just that even though the consequences didn’t excuse him. I like the relationship and friendships between Tianhe, Lingsha, Mengli, and Ziying. They all have a strong bonds and will always be friends.

This drama is focused on our main ML, Tianhe’s and his journey to finds out about what happened in the past to his parents. It was interesting to find out that not always the demons starts the trouble, but it was the humans that got greedy and starts the war with the demons clan first. This story also teaches about being selfless and supports each other.

The ending was a bit sad because Lingsha passed away, and she didn’t find the cure to her illness. Her family members died early because her ancestors got punished for invading a sacred area. Her purpose was to find a cure for her and her family. Sadly, that didn’t happen.

Mengli - I like how she went from innocence to maturity. She went from a young lady to a strong sect leader woman. Each character all becomes stronger jj the end, and mature a lot.

It was a good Chinese Paladin 4!!! The cinematography, osts, and CGI were all good. Great castings!!!

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I anticipated this drama for a very long time and the only thing i can say in a short form is: it exceeded my expactations.

i love everything about this drama.
the ost: geez, its so catchy!
the acting: i love how every actor is acting with their whole body. the nuances were great. don't let you fool you from the first kiss. ;)
the plot - how it's unfolding episode per episode.
the humour: i am a sucker for sarcasm and goddamn, myung ha serves really well.
the characters - i hate love triangles, but love for loves sake serves from this day on my favourite love triangle, because all the characters are just absolutely likeable and endless adorable. loved myung has self-talks. but also yeo woon has such a golden personality. they all have their flaws, but it doesnt make them less likeable. at most even more relateable. i clicked with all the characters a lot and thats also the reason why i am that much emotionally connected to the drama. my eyes got teary all the time towards the ending.
the pacing: i wasnt bored at all. not a single second. i devoured every scene and rewinded all the time, to see some parts multiple times (it took me 14 hours to finish this show lmao)
the depth: yeah, you will realize pretty quickly that this show serves absolutely nice humour, but is also capeable of way more than just being funny.
the emotions.
everything.
i expected a light, fluffy, funny drama. i loved the game theme! i like transmigration and it sounded fun. but this drama is really not compareable to any other bl out there. its refreshing, new, innovative. it had me seated and i was so overwhelmed, because i got really excited and thrilled in a short time.
the ending was absolutely satisfying. for me, it wasnt predictable at all. i was so stunned multiple times through the show and that got me even more excited, because most of the dramas today are a bit boring, when it comes to this. they use the same old tropes over and over again and you already know what will happen. but love for loves sake surprised me multiple times and that made me sooo excited. its thrilling. and i couldnt imagine a better ending for this show. 0.5 stars reduced, because there are things about the plot, where i am not fully sure if i understood them correctly. if they would have made them more clear, it would be an easy 10/10
The wait was ABSOLUTELY worth it and i dont miss any second of the 14 hours, that it took me, to finish this drama.

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Best drama I’ve seen in months

I absolutely LOVED this drama- the story way amazing- I never got bored- ugh it was just amazing.

The premise of being stuck in a game is such a cool idea and I loved how in the later half of the drama they changed it up with the world getting corrupted and all the errors- kept the drama from getting boring and had me hooked till the end.

I’m not sure if I interpreted the ending correctly (please tell me your thoughts) but I loved what they did with it. In my head I saw the ending as he was dead and the whole time the „game world“ was heaven/a dream? And the senior he kept thinking about was god or an angel. I’m not religious by any means but that’s how I took the ending and I really did love it.

The romance was so adorable and the scene where they broke up had me in SHAMBLES. The actors were amazing, the story was amazing, everything was just amazing- I can’t praise this show enough.

If you are reading this I’m assuming you have seen the show (if not stop spoiling yourself) and I wonder if you enjoyed it as much as I did !!

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Short and sweet!

I loved this show through and through. The tsundere character trope is my favorite. Toki is such a green flag. The show really used these two to highlight a healthy line of communication and trust rather than the theatrics of jealousy.

My only complaints are:
-Sahara's former love interest got too much screen time.
-In the novel they are 16 & 24 and it appears they aged Toki up to 17/18, but then in the last episode they did a flash back with a little kid and Sahara to give us the we've met before, fate kind of trope. That really threw off the age gap and made it make zero sense. How would Toki go from that to a high school senior in a few years? 💀
-The rain confession flashback was shown too much.

Overall, if you're looking for a cute and short JBL and you're not up in arms about an age gap, I highly recommend this one!

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Amazing, well acted, soft but angsty drama

Not much that I can rave about without spoiling but if you’re a fan of Korean BL you really need to watch this as in my opinion it really tops a lot of them and stands up there with all the best. The acting and writing is natural and real, and the scenes come across emotional and not flat. You feel for every character and what they’re going through. The plot is also very unique and not something you usually see. Since the main character is in a “video game” all of his actions might have consequences or are done to avoid a certain consequence which was a unique element that added urgency. Anyways, the main couple also has amazing chemistry which is also important so you don’t need to worry about that. Just watch Love for Love’s sake you will NOT regret!! It’s super short and gets interesting near the end!!

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Pandora's Box

Mariko and Shiino are two peas on a pod, as both had though upbringing and was in a toxic environment. Due to this, they were able to empathize, support each other, and form a strong bond. Her whole journey to uphold their "promise" of seeing the sea, reminded me of Pandora's Box (also due to Mariko's ashes being on a box). Her whole journey were full of despair, and bad luck just like what Pandora unleashed upon opening the box. As Pandora's Box had "Hope" amidst the foul, pain and darkness, her journey's conclusion also gave her Hope that served as will to carry on living for her beloved. It made me realize that through out her journey, there was Hope beside her.

This story, despite being common, was able to make me feel heavy and it made me remember that the world is indeed cruel, unfair, yet fair. Through out the movie, it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. It ran just right even if it only was 90 mins, it wasn't too fast nor too slow. The speed made sense, specially taking into consideration that this only happened for maybe 3 or 4 days.

Nagano Mei really pulled me on the story, she was able to really show the longing, loneliness, and confusion she felt from Mariko's passing. Most of Mei's project that I watched had her as someone that is innocent, and soft spoken and to see her shouting and talking with a sharp mouth was new for me. The delivery of her dialogues and monologues were one of the things that kept me engaged on the story. She is able to evoke despair and longing for her dear friend. Nao also doesn't fall short on her acting, I was feeling concerned like Shiino the whole time. Her delivery on the "It's all my fault" lines was so great that it felt like I needed to tell her thay she wasn't at fault and also say what Shiino said that the world was at fault for her demise.

The inserts had a hopeful feeling on it an example would be when Shiino had the answer for her question, "Where should we go?". Hope was scattered through out the film, even thought it isn't really that noticable. The ending song had the calm vibe on it, just like how droplets of water drip sound after a heavy rain.

It is a heavy film that can also make people's heart ache, a great film that is good to rewatch also but if you don't want to feel that again you can skip rewatching this. For me, I will pass on rewatching this because this movie is something that you can only see and feel once. Like having a feeling of "wanting to watch it for the first time again".

Overall, this is a heavy drama that easily captures the feeling of losing a person that is important to you. The story was pretty straightforward. The acting was what made this film a great watch. A big props to the director, original author, actors, staff that was able to make a film like this.

To watch this, you should be mentally ready as topics in this movie may be a trigger.

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Could have been better

I have seen the original Korean Drama W (2016) and its natural to make comparisons. The chemistry between the two leads in W (2016) is undeniable.

I was glad to come across The Next Stop W (2023) but its not very well-written or executed. Everything is a miss.
The lead actors didn't have much of a chemistry.
While the ML is attractive, he lacks the charm that Lee Jong Suk brings to the table.
The FL was fine, the script poorly written, trying to smash everything together, just rushing to the ending.

I believe this could have turned out better if the durations of the episodes were longer, and the script better written.

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Toki's expression are everything, also with a lot of running.

First and foremost, Toki is my favourite character. He is literally someone who just came out of a Manga. Episode 1 and 2 were my favourite. It was peak comedy.
While a lot of people might argue the fact that they don't like characters acting the same way it is in the manga. I personally love it. It is soo fun to see those unrealistic expressions and funny shouting and people around them acting normal.

Every character in the show were green flag (Except for the bullies). Even Sahara's ex Nekoto also didn't create much of a drama and just encouraged Sahara to confess to Toki.
However, I would have prefered some intense plot with the love triangle to add some jealousy and realisation. Anyway, for a lighthearted drama such it might have been too much.

The only thing I think was lacking in the drama was the chemistry between the leads. Some lovey moments and offcourse a better kiss could have solved this. But I also do understand that a lot of people are not comfortable with teacher student romance and Probably the directors decided to take the safe side.

It was fun to watch anyway, Japanese BL never disappoints.

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I cried. I laughed. I smiled. I enjoyed. And I fell in love.

This drama is absolutly wow. Like there is so much to say about this drama yet ther are no words found to describe this drama, because of how good it is. I would 100% recomend this drama to anyone. This drama was amaizing. From the start to the beggining to the end everything was soo pretty and so touching . (i even cried because of how pretty it was)
The storyline is so good, the actors behind the characters are also soo good.
I especially liked the message that was delivered in the drama. And i will definetly rewatch it.
And thanks to the drama i learned korean sign language.
The only thing stoping me from giving this drama a 10/ 10 is that there was no hug or intimacy at the end of the show.

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