リジーです

This drama wasn't in my radar, but it turns out to be pretty interesting. Yeah, interesting, but not that good. It has so many flaws and questionable things, but I love mystery, and they succeeded in making me curious. So this drama stars Keyakizaka46. This is the first time I heard about them. I don't follow girl groups generally, so I only know very few of them. I didn't even know this was a girl group's drama project. But after a few minutes in, I had some suspicions that they were idols. They looked like ones and their acting was pretty bad. So I looked it up. And yeah, I was right.

Since I can't organize my thoughts into paragraphs, here are my scattered thoughts after watching the first episode.

• I can't believe their first reaction when they saw their sensei not moving at all was just staring at him. And after one girl checked if he was still breathing and confirmed he was dead, and everyone was like "Really?", "Isn't he just sleeping", and they all said this casually. Even when they were all convinced he was dead, they still talked like nothing happened. Really though? No one freaks out? This is an all-girl school and nobody screams?


• Why does nobody call 911? I mean, the equivalent of 911 in Japan, but I forget what it is. Or at least, they can tell the other teachers. Instead, they hide the body, even from the teachers. What are they thinking???


• Stop touching the body. Do not move the body. Do not pull the knife out and put it back in even deeper than before. Do not take selfies with the body. Do not do anything. Why can't they just stay still? When the police finally come, they're all gonna be in so much trouble.


• They concluded it was a murder, not suicide, and decided to hide the body until they found the murderer. Why do they think this is a good idea? They can just inform the teachers/police and then try to find the murderer.


• That one girl who keeps taking selfies with the body and almost blows up the cover multiple times is so damn frustrating. Can't she use her brain for once?


• Every time the locker door opens and reveals the body, it always creeps me out. He's supposed to be dead, but looks like alive. That makes it extra creepy.


• The background music is so spooky. Sometimes too spooky.


• There were two teachers coming to classroom. There were times when the body was in their sights (before the girls could hide it), but they didn't see it. It just doesn't make any sense. How can they not see it? They were clearly looking at the same direction as the body.


• Who's that girl looking from the other side of the classroom? Why is she doing that creepy thing? The background music gotta chill a bit tho.

That's it, I guess. This is shorter than I expected, but the drama is only 25 min long. And they keep repeating the same thing over and over, like doing something to the body. So most of the time, I was just like "Seriously tho. Leave the body alone." I think this is gonna be one of those dramas that I criticize a lot, but will still watch it till the end. Because I'm curious to see how they're gonna resolve this. And will they all go to jail for hiding the body and messing with it? Well, for now, I just hope they'll stop doing stupid things starting from ep 2.

What a strong premiere week! Well, it's kinda expected. This is written by Song Jae Jung, who wrote Nine (which is the best written drama ever in my opinion) and Queen In-Hyun's Man (one of my favorites). Everyone who's seen those two dramas will agree with me that she's one of the best writers out there. But I'm not gonna lie. I was a little worried W wouldn't be up to my expectation, because the last drama she wrote (The Three Musketeers) wasn't that good. I'm glad she's back on track again. And the whole production team is so solid. Even though I'm not really familiar with the PD, I think the cinematography is pretty (although not as pretty as Uncontrollably Fond). And I definitely love the animation between manhwa and the real world. I think it's so cool. And I approve the choice of color palette. It's really pretty. It's kinda similar to One More Happy Ending, which also aired on MBC btw. Hmm... Is it a coincidence? Anyway, the color palette really pleases my eyes. I'm tired of seeing weird and/or washed out color palettes (yes tvN, especially you). So this is like an unexpected gift to me. And I just found out that the music director is the one from Signal! Whaaattttt? Signal is almost flawless in every aspect (writing, directing, acting, music, you name it), and it will most likely be the best drama of the year. I still remember how the background music gave me the chills during intense scenes. And they still nail it during serious and intense scenes in W. Lighter and funny scenes are pretty much the same in every drama, so I'm not gonna comment on that. But they did a great job overall. All of them. What a great writer/PD/music director combination!

When I first heard about the plot, I thought it was a bit similar to Heroes Reborn. There are two worlds, and somebody goes into another world (the world of a game in Heroes, and the world of a manhwa in W). Even though the stories are different, I can tell W is definitely better written. I love that Kang Cheol is a pretty unreal character, like he should be, because he's actually a character in a manhwa and doesn't exist in the real world. I mean, he used to be a world-class athlete, but after all of his family got murdered, he had to quit and also spent some time in jail. After he was proven innocent, he worked hard, and now he's a successful and super rich CEO. Pretty unreal (and dramatic), right? And I love that we get to know him with a voiceover from Yeon Joo, like a narrator doing an introduction of a character. It shows that Yeon Joo is the one in the real world, and Kang Cheol is just a manhwa character. And it actually makes something else great; Yeon Joo knows (almost) everything about Kang Cheol and the manhwa world. Well, it might be a little creepy, like when she accidentally confronted him about something he said about her, when she wasn't supposed to know about it, because she just read it in the manhwa. But I love that she unintentionally helps him understand himself by saying things she read in the manhwa. I'm sure that's one of the reasons why she's "the key to his life". As cheesy as it sounds, he didn't say it because he fell for her. She understands him more than himself. And she saved his life twice. And she will definitely keep saving him, especially from her dad. I agree with him that she will be the only one who can tell him the reason for his existence. We don't know yet what makes her dad wanna kill Kang Cheol, but I'm sure she won't let it happen. Not only because she's a fan of the manhwa and his character, she also thinks that Kang Cheol is a real person (therefore killing him would be a murder). I'm not sure myself if a manhwa character that comes to life isn't a real person, because it's certain that these characters begin to write the stories themselves, and the manhwa world is not under the writer's control anymore. And the ending of ep 2 kinda implies that Kang Cheol is becoming his own person. He escaped the accident that was drawn to kill him and became self-aware. He even asked "Who are you?" to the writer. So does that make him a real person? Maybe, I guess?

I love that this writer still keeps some of the things from her previous works. Like a strong, quirky female lead (like in Queen In-Hyun's Man). It's so nice seeing the heroine saving the hero, and not vice versa. And the whole sequence of her fast-forwarding to 2 months later was hilarious. Especially when she was in Kang Cheol's car, and of course the slap and kiss. I laughed so hard. Imagine being someone in the real world and reading her thought bubbles in the manhwa lol. And she's kinda like Kim Boong Do (also from Queen In-Hyun's Man). Despite being transported to a different world so suddenly, she can quickly get a grasp of how things work in the manhwa world, and knows what she needs to do. Oh, and she's only inside the manhwa world for 30 minutes. Just like the time-travel in Nine. I love it. This drama is off to a very great start. I hope it will stay awesome until the end.