Don’t Feel Bad if You’re Confused—You’re Not the Only One

Okay, so this might be a super unpopular opinion, but I didn’t enjoy Light Shop that much. Yes, some people think it’s a masterpiece, but for me, the world-building was clumsy, and it was hard to figure out the rules of the Light Shop.

From the start, the show felt more frustrating than intriguing. You’re unsure what you’re watching, and it’s difficult to distinguish between the three different worlds it tries to present. There’s so much going on that you barely have time to understand the characters. By the end, I felt mentally drained. It wasn’t scary or captivating—just a dark, irritating void. Even when you try to root for someone, the eventual explanations fall flat and fail to satisfy.

Kang Full seemed to aim for a blend of intrigue, mystery, and horror, and while the first four episodes came close to achieving this, the rest of the series spent too much time overexplaining. Yet, even with all the exposition, you’re still left with unanswered questions. To make sense of certain plot points, you might need to resort to Googling or reading comment sections. Even then, don’t expect clarity—you’ll likely still have lingering questions.

Watching the later episodes felt less like unraveling a complex narrative and more like being deliberately confused. The metaphor of light and darkness had the potential to be profound, but it came across as overly abstract and disconnected from the characters’ struggles. It left me wondering if the creators were trying too hard to be deep and symbolic at the expense of coherent storytelling.

For instance, when does your will to live really start? Is it when you enter the Light Shop, when you find your bulb, or when someone tells you to go back? These pivotal questions remain unclear, and the show’s failure to address them undermines the entire premise.

By the time I finished, I didn’t feel a sense of resolution—just relief that it was over. I wanted to care about the characters, to root for them, or at least understand their journeys, but the endless stream of unexplained rules, convoluted plot twists, and uneven pacing made that impossible.

I can see how some might view Light Shop as a bold artistic experiment, but to me, it felt like an overly ambitious mess. Perhaps it tried to do too much or simply wasn’t for me. Either way, be ready to embrace confusion and frustration.