This is a romance/mystery drama about people who have to deal with mental ilnesses, which is pretty interesting to watch, since this serie deals with this in a pretty mature way.

The acting of this drama is really great, unlike other drama the characters feel more realistic in their behaviour and acting. Music is nice and the general story and theme is pretty interesting.

Yet there are still some problems with this drama, if you are like me, having the second lead syndrome, wanting to watch this because you think you will finally get a less sexist, mature romance, then you might be a bit dissapointed. If you liked coffee prince or hana yori dango, then don't read any further, you'll definitly like this one, just go and watch it! : ), but if you are the kind of person who got red flag reactions when watching them, then you might also find this serie problematic.


One of the problems I had with this serie is that it still has the dominating male, while he is not as abusive as other male leads, there will be some scenes in it that gave me wtf reactions. There is also a side romance story,in which the male finally seems to get a spine, but then turns also in the typical dominating male, which the girl suddenly falls for. I've written down below some of the scenes which decreased the enjoyment I had wathing this show, I've removed the names to make it as less spoilerish as possible,











THIS MIGHT BE SLIGHTLY SPOILERISH, SO DON'T SCROLL BELOW, IF YOU REALLY DON'T WANT ANY SPOILERS!!!

The acting of this drama is really good, and the story and the characters feels more mature than other standard cliche drama's, but for me it went downhill after episode 9. Below are some of the things that destroyed the enjoyment of this show.

- female says she wants no sex on the trip. During the trip man gets suprised that she really meant this, saying that sex the ultimate act of love is, he acts angry and then leaves her. Later she goes to him, they make up and have sex. (ofcourse sex equals love cough cough*, what really would have been an atc of love is if he would've respected her boundaries, their relation is only a few months, and she has serious anxiety issues on intimacy, heck she even had problems with kissing)

- Male suddenly says that he goes out the house and live alone again and thinks that there is no problem with that, for it is because of work. I mean they have a serious relationship, they were living together, and the man suddenly says, "well, I'm going to live alone again for my work"... it is so bs, during the day he could just write at that place, and then just go home.

- female is seriously upset that her ex, who cheated on her, just comes into her house, because he works together with a roommate of hers. Nobody is understanding to her. The man the ex works with even screams at her saying that they otherwise would need to pay money somewhere... again bs they could have gone to the ex's house to talk about their work.

- There are two side characters, a male and a female, they divorced some years ago. The female tells her female friend that she finally realizes that her relationship with the male was 100% her fault (weird that she says this, but okay, it could be...). She says that her man wanted a child, but she secretly took contraceptives, she wanted to continue her career which would be impeded if she would get a child, at some point he found out and they divorced. Ofcourse what she did was wrong, but the fact that she thought that she could not be honest in her relationship already tells me that there was something already wrong in the relationship to begin with.

- Other side characters are a young man and female. In the beginning the girl practically uses him to get new stuff. I understand the female character, her mother left her at an early age, and she has a kind of absent father who fills the home with junk stuff. At some point the young man stops the relationship. I was like yay : D, he finally got some spine, he stops letting him being used. But then the story changes into the toxic idea "that if you save some person you'll get the girl". He helps her father, saying to him that he should not bring the junk home, but sell it to get some money... and suddenly the father actually does that, I am sure that the female character must have said it once in her life to her father, but that must not have impressed him, the young man magically fixed her father.
Then he gets angry at the girl for the fact that she talks bad about her father, he is still your parent afterall, she still should have respect for him... a father who has for a long time neglected her, he tells her how his own father kicked him out of the house, because of his mental ilness, but he still calls him every week to know how he is doing, if she still wants to have a relationship with him, she should say so before the count of three... (I would have rolled my eyes and walked away, but...), she looks at him in awe and says that she wants to be in a relationship with him. I understand that the young man's way of thinking, even though I disagree, what irked me the most was his counting down, like a parent to a child would do. The girl, while using other people, is pretty smart, if the man talked in a rational, equal way, it could've been the start of a mature relationship, yet instead we see how he acts to her like a parent to a child...

- In the end we see that the female protagonist gets pregnant, she's angry. The male protagonist pushed some weeks ago to have sex with her without a condom, which she actually didn't want to. When she tells him that she is pregnant, he silently walks out the room to the other male roommates. He tells them enthusiastingly that he becomes a father. They laugh happily. Female protagonist comes in, still angry. The male protagonist defends himself "But at that night she was so pretty"...(yeah right). The female starts to smile, and they laugh together. Later we hear that her study needs to be suspended two years. At the end the male protagonist jokely tells her to get another baby after this one. She tells him smilingly that she is angry at him, but at the end they still smile and kiss as if nothing has happened.


So this is still a better drama, than most cliche drama's, but everyone who says that this is such a 'mature' romance, they are lying, the cake does not exist, but it still has its sweet moments.

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This is a Japanese drama, about a young man who marries an older woman.
The woman dies, and the young man has to choose,
will he take care of the wife's three children, who are not biologically his own children?

The acting of this drama is pretty bad, and the script was not written well either,
there are a lot of cheesy lines at which I rolled my eyes.
But for some reason I kept watching the drama,
for the underlying theme of this drama was very heartwarming: being there for your family.

The main character is gentle, respecting and very caring to others.
He is not your typical dominating male lead who is verbal abusive or/and has possesive issues.
It was nice watching him try to become a better parent to the children.
Also the other characters have their charm and a nice backstory.

The main problem I have with this drama is the ending,
without spoiling I can say that the ending really dissapointed me,
it contradicted the whole theme of the drama: caring for your family.
The end message was that to be a good parent you first have to make a career,
even if it means that you have to give up your family.
I feel a bit disgusted that the children in the drama are used to promote this message.
this is why I do not recommend this drama, or just watch not the full drama.

After the scene were the young man rejects the job offer to work abroad,
questioning the meaning of success, he says that success without being able to be there for your family is meaningless.
Stop there, this should have been the end of the drama.

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If you want to have a non-toxic romance, with a female lead that is actually funny, watch this!

In summary:
This is currently my favourite romance drama, which says a lot, because I generally have an issue with most romantic dramas (e.g. coffee prince, it's okay that's love) .
It is kinda a parody of historical romances, and therefore more light-hearted than other historical dramas,
at the same time it does have some real tragic drama in it.
The female lead is really funny and she has great chemistry with the male lead, they have really sweet scenes together.
The ending is confusing; however it does make you interested in wanting to know more.


----------------- Longer version ----------------
I usually find most drama's not that fun, because they in general romanticise toxic behaviour (over dominating male lead, being too possesive, and/or a female lead which acts too much like a child, underdog behaviour). However, in this drama I found the interaction between the ml and fl very sweet. The male lead is really caring, in a not too overly possesive way. Ofcourse, the ml is in the beginning a bit cold, however, he actually has good reasons... like actually good reasons, not some cop-out 'boohoo I have a bad childhood, so I am justified to be a creepy jerk' reason.

The female lead is really fun to watch, she is actually funny (unlike ashes of love) and really goes into her character. She has to play having two souls into one body, and she really pulls it off. I think in general all actors fit their roles well, they have a certain likeability factor, which makes it fun to watch them.

The story is not super complex, but is well written. After every episode I wanted to see the next one, I cannot remember it having any fillers, every scene builds on to the next one. The ending is confusing though, but it had some interesting potential for follow-up seasons.

I really wish for more romance dramas like this one, but I have not found them yet.

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The drama seems to do everything above average well.
The acting is good. The music was good, especially the ending song "ride on time".
The story is pretty interesting, focusing on a life of a pilot.
I also found the characters to be written well, especially the main love interest, who has a backbone,
is serious about her work, critical, and not a people pleaser in anyway.

Yet I did not like the drama, it felt like a drudge to watch it.
It felt for me to much like a general shounen plot,
the main lead wants to be captain but is opposed by his boss Captain Koda,
and has to undergo several trials to test if his determination is strong enough to become a captain.

There also a more emotional story underlying the serie,
but to be honest I did not really feel it.
While I found the backstory of the love interest pretty good, coming to terms with her own fears,
I found the backstory of Captain Koda not believable, I do not understand why it was such a traumatic experience,
he feels responsible for something what really is not his fault, and I really do not understand why he had to break up with his girlfriend.

The ending of the drama also dissapointing,
they could have given it a mature ending about dreams and reality,
instead it ends like a typical shounen plot.

If you want to watch something with a deep message then do not watch this,
instead I recommend watching The Wind Rises (ghibli).

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Sad, my heart longs for that which is no more...

The episodes 1 to 5 are really great, I think they are even better than the first season of the Eternal Love.
The plot is confusing, but at the same time interesting.
The male lead is really fun to watch, even more playful and emotionally conflicted than in the first season.
The female lead also plays well, having some really funny scenes. They again have great chemistry together.
All actors played really well, especially Richards Wang. He played suprisingly well, making me want to see more of him.

However, after episode 5 it all goes downhill. I kept watching hoping that it would become better again, but it didn't.
Suddenly I wondered where the chemistry of the fl and ml had gone. The male lead did not feel charming and caring anymore, instead he became quite possesive in a not fun way. All complex emotions he once had were gone.
The female lead did not feel that funny anymore either. The romance was gone. No, forceful kissing does not equal romance.

Suddenly there are a lot of fillers, that have no relevance to the plot, and are not funny either.
The female lead starts to have superficial feministic monologues, which are just not fun, and starts to promote a 9 to 5 hour workhour, because....? It is like they suddenly changed to another scriptwriter, who does not understand what made the previous season (and the first 5 episodes) so fun to watch.

I recommend watching the first 5 episodes, because they are really good. But everything after... just makes me sad...

p.s. The eternal love seems to be heavily inspired by Scarlet Heart (I've seen only a few episodes, but they are very similar). Scarlet Heart seems to be a more complex version of eternal love, so you might try that one instead.

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