I’ve watched a few high-school romance dramas in my time, but this is 100% my new favourite. The plot up until the last couple of episodes is totally unique from any of the others I’ve watched, with the whole premise of the characters being stuck in a romance comic creating interesting dynamics and challenges for the characters. Much of the plot I couldn’t predict, and there were a lot of surprising twists in the story that kept me wanting to watch more. I also loved the satire of a lot of the high-school romance cliches that I’d seen repeatedly through the “main characters” of the comic, as it made the show fun to watch even when things started to get serious. The past comic that they were in also added another layer of depth to the story by creating a mystery around who the characters really were.

For an initially light-hearted drama, the story also raised and explored a lot of questions surrounding fate and whether we have free will in a nuanced way. I might be looking a bit too deep into it, but to me the “writer” represents life, which gives us an unpredictable and sometimes unfair fate. While some are determined enough to be able to change their fate, often we’re unable to. I believe that the story ultimately tells us that while this may be the case, we can only make the most of the time we have and the moments we share with other people.

One of the other main reasons why I love this drama so much is Eun Dan Oh and Ha Ru’s relationship. In my opinion, it’s the best relationship I’ve seen depicted in a drama, and the chemistry between them made it feel so real. While I usually have bad second-lead syndrome (Seojun from true beauty cough) and tend to root for the second-lead, Ha Ru was so caring and their relationship was so adorable that I was rooting for them until the end. Even when I started to like Baek Gyeong, I couldn’t root for him as Eun Dan Oh and Ha Ru were each other’s perfect counterparts. He balanced out her big energy with his calm and gentle nature, and she brought out a more fun and cheerful side of him at the same time.

Eun Dan Oh is probably my favourite female lead that I’ve seen, as she was as assertive as she was bubbly, which was refreshing to see in the protagonist. She wasn’t perfect, and could often be self-centred, but was more relatable as a character for that reason, and was incredibly loveable anyway. Baek Gyeong’s character development throughout the story was executed really well, as I initially despised him, but came to sympathise with and even like his character by the end. Lee Do Hwa was also one of my favourite characters in the series, as I loved his sarcastic commentary on his stage character and his affection towards the others.

That being said, there are some issues with the show that I believe mean that it’s not 10 stars. There are a lot of things that occur that raise questions that are never answered, such as the green black hole that appears randomly. While I understand that not everything has to have an explanation, there were a lot of strange things such as that that I felt were unresolved by the end. Even the ending itself doesn’t feel very resolved, as they just end up in another comic book world, which makes it feel less satisfying. I also think that the story ironically becomes classic and mostly predictable by the end of the series, with Baek Gyeong being the exact same male second-lead that had initially been critiqued. Even Ha Ru disappearing again was predictable, as the same thing had happened multiple times already, and I could tell what the ending was going to be by that point. I also think that the “female lead” of the comic choosing the first lead over Lee Do Hwa was disappointing, as I believe that she had way more chemistry with Lee Do Hwa, and an opportunity to go against the cliche ending was missed.

So overall, I loved this show, and it has a special place in my heart as one of my favourite k-dramas. However, I can only give it 9 stars out of 10 as I felt that the plot started to falter by the end episodes