I adored this drama. I thought it was so cute and it never failed to make me smile. It is the Seinfeld of
rom-coms. Nothing really happened, there were no evil mothers, long
lost loves coming back, nor amnesia, and yet the characters were able
to grow and develop and become complete and beautiful people at the end.
Having given myself a week so as to not gush all over this drama, I
can honestly say that I still feel like gushing. From beginning to end
it was one of my favorite dramas, it might even replace one of my top four or maybe I’ll just bend to the masses and make it a top five. Now,
I’m not blind to the shortcomings of the drama, but I loved this drama
so much I am able to gloss over the shortcomings like the ones I talk
about here, and the lack of romantic scenes. Now the lack of romantic
scenes is one of my personal gripes with kdramas but I’ll leave that for
another post.
For those who haven’t watched, you could go do that now, or for those
who haven’t made it to the finale, I must warn you there will be
spoilers.
The drama starts with what I think is one of the cutest openings I’ve
seen. We see our main female lead Go Dok Mi waking up from where she
had been asleep in a sleeping bag on the floor and then we see her spy
on her neighbor across the way and imitate his daily routine in a
completely cute, stalkery, creepy way.
Go Dok Mi is a modern day Rapunzel, she, however, is locked up in her tower by choice. She doesn't like to venture out into the outside world and wants to have a little interaction with others as humanly possible. Her little world is her apartment, the travel shows she watches on t.v., and the neighbor she spies on with her funky yellow binoculars. This little world is about to be turned upside down by the arrival of our male lead Enrique Geum.
Enrique is a game designer who is ruled by his inner child. He's as happy go lucky as it comes, talking a mile a minute, always smiling, and enjoying life or the polar opposite of Go Dok Mi. He arrives from Spain to play "cupid," and along the way he stumbles upon Dok Mi and decides that it is his responsibility to make sure she goes out and starts experiencing the real world. He may not have sequestered himself inside an apartment, but Enrique is just as lonely as Dok Mi except he hides it under a layer of laughter and words. The third side of our love triangle is Jin Rak. I have to admit that at first I wanted Dok Mi to end up with him because they are so similar, but as time went by I realized that with Jin Rak Dok Mi would never grow as a person. Where Enrique wants Dok Mi to go out and experience the real world, Jin Rak is content to have her continue to live in her own world; he just wants to be able to step into it with her. Which seems ahhh, how romantic, but really is just fear that holds him back and would hold her back as well.
I truthfully really did enjoy this drama I didn't fast forward through any of if which is nothing short of miraculous. I think the whole drama had a very mellow feel to it. It wasn't exciting or edge of your seat worry about what would happen next, and to me that was the beauty of it. I didn't have to worry about a big misunderstanding breaking up the main couple because believe it or not these characters actually talked to each other. There were no ungrounded accusations flying, no crying over hurt feelings and refusing to communicate clearly people said what they were thinking and what they felt, with the exception of Do Hwi, and that was a breath of fresh air. This drama was extremely entertaining, as I've come to expect from TVN. It was heartfelt with well rounded characters that drove the story forward without the contrived issues that other dramas throw at their main couple. And most importantly, this drama provided the mostly entertaining secondary pairing ever.
*Disclaimer: My view of this drama may be slightly skewed due to my long standing infatuation with Park Shin Hye and my new found gay girl crush on Yoon Shi Yoon.
They're adorable, right??
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I love all dramas equally, well
that was all right lie because truth be told I love Flower Boy Next Door(FBND)
more than all the rest. At the time I wrote that post, this one, I
already had twinges of favoritism toward FBND, but I tried to ignore it
because I was afraid of being disappointed. But now that the drama is
over, I can honestly say that I was not disappointed and I enjoyed every
single one of the sixteen episodes. They each added to the overall
drama and showcased the growth of the characters. Now, I’m not say that
this was the perfect drama, came close though, but it was a damn good
one. There being no such thing as perfect FBND did have a couple of flaws.
Such as Do Hwi, the whole issue with who the owner of the building was,
and the stalker panda hat girl/fanclub losers.
I never really gave a rat's ass about the whole building issue or who the owner was. I must admit that I kinda thought it was the security guard because he was just a little too involved in the what happened in the building with the demonstration and what not. I think I would have preferred if they fleshed out the relationship between the security guard and the older lady rather than spend any time with the mystery of the owner.
Although, I do see the importance of having Do Hwi as a character, she is the key to explaining why Dok Mi hides herself away, I think the last we should of seen of her is when she tried to hurt Dok Mi by inviting the scumbag teacher to her party. Since then she's just been wasting airtime that could have been taken up by one of my favorite side characters, Kim Seul-gi the webtoon editor.
The other waste of time and space was the whole panda hat girl stalker, fan club idiots. They truly served no purpose other than to give me a minute to go refill my water bottle. They just were not needed. I was kinda okay with the older stalker lady mostly because that developed into something that kinda sorta dealt with Enrique's work the game addiction angle, but the panda hat girl should have maybe had one appearance and that is stretching it. It was just not needed. Dok Mi had enough issues with Enrique leaving or even being able to ask him to stay without added the outside interference.
