A solid drama

Overall, this is a solid, enjoyable drama that I would recommend to anyone who likes romances where one person is human and the other is not. I'm really impatient and only fast forwarded a little and I finished the show, but it had some issues.

Cast: This was my favorite thing about the show. The cast was excellent, especially Seo Kang Joon and Lee Joon Hyuk. SKJ really killed the 2 performances of Nam Shin 3 and human Nam Shin. You could see in his mannerisms, expressions and even how he walked exactly who was who. LJH had great chemistry with him which was remarkably different whether SKJ was playing NS3 or human NS. The other members of the cast were great too, although some of the characters were a little flat, I still think they all did a good job.

Writing: The unfortunately was my least favorite part of the show. It wasn't terrible, but there were 2 big issues that stood out for me. First, the pacing was way off, especially at the end of the show. There were times when it felt too rushed and other times where it dragged too much and it felt like it would be pretty simple to fix just by moving around when things happened. Second, the female characters where not super well written. They mostly came off as annoying and one dimensional, which is a real shame. The male characters were much better which is unfortunately a common issue.

Music: Was fine, didn't stand out.

Rewatch Value: I might rewatch it someday but I think the rewatch value is just ok.

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Give this great short drama a try!

Short version: It is definitely worth watching! I really enjoyed it despite its flaws and I watched it all in one sitting. I definitely recommend it if you like stories about characters growing to become better people.

More specific things (no spoilers):

The story: I did feel this was one weakness as some things were a little rushed, which is a common problem with short dramas, and maybe just a little unrealistic. If it had been a few episodes longer, I think it would have been even better. BUT it was not nearly as bad as other short dramas I've seen and overall it was a much more emotional and complex story than I was expecting. I very nearly cried while watching it, which is not common for me while watching short dramas, and a big part of that is because of the next section...

The acting: another common issue with short dramas is that the acting tends to be... well, not the best. Which is understandable because the actors are usually young and less experienced, but it can be a bit of a problem. However, the young actors in this (Kim Do Hoon and Kim Hwan Hee) were excellent and I'll be paying attention to their future projects after seeing them in this! They've been in a few things and I bet as they get older, they'll be rising stars in kdramaland. They had great chemistry and the story particularly gave Kim Hwan Hee a chance to shine with some more emotional scenes. Some people might find it a little hard to root for the FL because she's a troubled youth who does some bad things (character development is a big part of the story, so don't worry), but I thought Kim Hwan Hee made the character really easy to sympathize with and I was rooting for things to turn out well for her.

The music: Ok so I don't even know if this drama has its own OSTs, but what it does have is a ton of super cool songs by artists like Blur, Billy Idol, and even Chaka Khan if I'm not mistaken (as well as others)! It felt really unique for a kdrama and really elevated the mood for me. I think even if you don't know the songs, you'll enjoy the music and how it matches the FL a lot.

So in conclusion, while the drama does have a few small flaws, it's a really good short watch and has a lot more good things than bad. I really recommend it! Please don't be put off by the score (7.8 at the time of writing this) and just give it a try!

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Watch it for the romance and the leads (but basically nothing else)

This is a fairly good drama! The spoiler free specifics are below but here is my verdict on the drama: it's quite good, but suffers from some big issues with the writing of the plot and the secondary characters. However, the acting and romance are the strongest parts, so if you're watching for the leads or the romance aspect, I still think you would like it. But don't expect a super smart story behind that romance. I still made it all the way to the end and that's an endorsement in itself, but I would not recommend it to everyone.

The GOOD:
The acting! All the main cast, especially the 2 leads but also the second ML and FL did a great job. Even when scenes didn't make sense, they still managed to sell the emotions well.
The music: it was nice, it fit the scenes and there were a few good songs that I came to like. I think ballad lovers will appreciate the music more than me.
The romance: the romance is that forbidden love, slow burn type of thing and that was the only thing I enjoyed all the way through about the story. If you are watching for the romance, I don't think you will be dissatisfied. There are also some very nice kiss scenes haha thank you, Joo Ji Hoon.
The FL and ML characters: I saw some people complaining on recaps that the writer made the FL a damsel in distress and so annoying, but thankfully, that was only halfway through her character arc. I think she came out the other end of the story as a strong character even if she was kind of whimpering in the middle parts. I thought she and the ML were easily the best written characters, leagues above the second ML and FL because they were written much more consistently and had much more believable character arcs.

The BAD:
The story: it had a lot of potential and was super addictive for the first half because it felt like the writers were dropping a lot of interesting hints about the underlying story, but then a lot of stuff didn't seem to matter. The story did get wrapped up fairly cleanly, but a lot of it felt pretty weak and the last 4 episodes were pretty disappointing in some ways.
The villain: despite the great performance, the writing of the villain was so dumb... like his motivation for his entire life's revenge was just....... dumb. Plus things at the end pretty much got worked out because he started acting really stupid.
The second FL: I didn't actually hate her ending, I thought it made sense... But it was like the first thing she did that made sense in the entirety of the drama. Her character was so wishy washy, one day she's trying to protect the ML, the next she's a villain... it's like the writers didn't know what they wanted to do with her, so they just tried something new every episode. And again, I'm not trying to fault the actress, because she was really good! But the character was not.
Rewatch value: that's hard for me because I don't rewatch things usually, but I think this one doesn't have a lot of rewatch value even for people who usually do.

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This is a drama that lives up to the hype. I think around episode 5 or 6 was where I started crying every episode, but in a good way. I felt so attached to all the characters and I felt personally invested in their stories.

The character development in this drama is top notch. And I don't just mean the leads and the second couple, I mean every side character got at least a little development too. There were some tropes in the story (that I didn't mind), but when it came to tropes in characterization, there was pretty much nothing. I was especially impressed by the female characters, since they often get shafted in favor of the female lead, but there were no one dimensional evil exes or MILs. All the characters had realistic and understandable motivations. There were a couple I wish we got to learn a little more about, but even the villain's motivations were touched on in a way that made me feel very sad for them.

There are only a couple songs in the OST that I would recognize and listen to again, which is why I took a half point off, but overall the music complemented the show well and I have friends who would give it a perfect 10.

In some ways, it's a typical melodrama romance, but it's also practically perfectly executed, so I would still recommend it to anyone who might not usually like romance or melodrama.

The setting is also very interesting and even though I don't know personally, I've read that North Korean defectors were very impressed by the show's accuracy (except the romance but we should all know that level of romance is kind of unrealistic anywhere lol). The most interesting thing about the show for me was that it made me realize that I don't really think about the people of North Korea very often, I just think about the country's government. I think it did a great job of humanizing the North Korean characters while still not glossing over hardships that face people there.

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I haven't been able to find anything that I love as much as Goblin. Literally the only complaint I can think of is that the story drags a little bit when I wanted more elsewhere, so I wish that time was used a little better, but it's really only a criticism when compared to itself because the story is mostly amazing and well paced.

Other than that, I can't think of anything I would change. The acting is amazing, the styling and cinematography is gorgeous, and the OST is hands down my favorite of any drama.

Don't let the age gap freak you out, it serves a metaphorical purpose in the story (the motif of the seasons) and we as the viewers know that no one is being taken advantage of.

This is one of those shows I have to stop myself from comparing every other show to, because if I did, very few things would measure up.

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