I will not lie, I didn't have the foggiest of clues what I was in for when I pressed play. I did not know a single actor that made the main cast. I had not seen a commercial and thus was fully reliant on the MDL description, which we all know how that can be, cough cough. And the main reason I was giving it a try was I was having some side effects from my Covid vaccine shot and wanted to watch something sweet, easy, and fun as I dealt with fatigue, headaches, and general under-the-weather-ness.

I was lead here from the recommendations area under "True Beauty", and while I have mixed feelings on that drama (You can read my review of it as well) it was generally a show that fit the easy bill I just described. Thus I took my second shot of the day and gave this a chance.

Now a little about me, I am a bit of a fan of META works. I like the idea of deconstructing the constructs of a media's design. I feel it says a lot about us, as the audience, in what the world has come to expect, want, and generally accept as entertainment or art. It says a lot about art itself and how we manufacture it, mass supply it, and the shallowness that most works have become in being a product for consumption over something of true intrinsic value. I also like that META works also many times reveal the flaws of their own designs, the flaws of the genres of their creation, and the true gulf of distance that exists between media and the real world or characters versus people.

However, many META works end up succumbing to their own genres archetypes, become judgemental of the works they or critiquing, or end up just simply not entertaining and instead get lost inside their own deconstruction. You can have excellent works such as Stranger than Fiction, fun enough jaunts like The Man Who Defied the World of BL, or horrible monstrosities like Why R U. So its always a mixed bag on what you are going to get.

Extraordinary You surprised, and though I wouldn't put it in the ethos of Adaptation or Stranger than Fiction. It is very much on the stronger side of the genre, especially poignant considering it hides itself in the school yard female manga romance Kpop fiction genre. It had, honestly, a lot working against it. Does it pull everything off, no it doesn't, but it succeeds much much more than it fails.

Our main heroine Dan Ho, (Kim Hye Yoon) is an awesome character that looses her way. In one of my main gripes that keep this from being the best of the best, is that her character becomes sidelined in her own story. At the start she is energetic, driven, strong, funny, and determined. She awakens others from "the matrix" of their existence, brings characters from the obscure background of the comic world to the forefront and gives them identities and names, and is determined to take control of her own story. However, somewhere in the middle of this, she becomes a damsel accepting of her fated death at the hands of a heart defect, whose survival hinges on the actions of the two men in love with her.

How did that happen?

Our two Male leads Ha Ru (Rowoon) and Baek Gyung (Lee Jae Wook) are nothing if not polar opposites of each other as they try to be the leading man to our self realized lady. Ha Ru is a beautiful nothing who has no point to existing other than to fill the frame of a scene or an empty desk in a classroom. While Gyung is an arrogant 'it boy" who is one of a triumvirate in the school known as A3 ( I believe a tongue and cheek reference to Boys Over Flowers or Thailand's soon to be released remake F4, I haven't seen either.) a wealthy ruling all male elite team. He is also the predetermined fiancee of our heroine.

Early on this set-up is more than winning. Dan Ho scoffs at the ridiculousness of the school hierarchy, she quickly sees the toxicity of her betrothed and the relationship shes forced to endure, and curses the heavens, I mean writer, for the set-up of her heart condition. Change must happen, even if it takes every last bit of strength she has in her.

When the blond dyed Dried Squid Fairy (Lee Tae Ri) enters the fray as he flags our Heroine as a fellow self-realized character, the story's true META begins to take hold. He enlightens our lead, in what is a short but funny repeating gag when most who gain their ego's think themself the protagonist, that she is only an extra in this comic. She is there, to be nothing more than figure for use to ensure the main couple find eternal love. We begin to see how high school romances are designed. We get the bullies, the villains, the heartthrobs, the nobody's and the tragically expendable. We learn how each role is meant to interact, the basic arch they will all take, and the beats that are formulaic paint-by-numbers of what makes these cliched romances that are churned out non-stop, especially by Korea.

The story spends ample time here and always comes back to visit these tropes again, one of the greatest strngths is how it deconstructs the comics main Cinderella heroine and has her come to terms with the truths of her own character, throughout its runtime. But the real glory comes with how Extraordinary You begins to manipulate this META and the players of it. We learn rules that govern this world even when the players or not on a drawn panel or in the "shadow" versus on "stage." As more awaken we see characters confused that they are even the same when they are controlling themselves "shadow" as when they are controlled by the story "on stage." While other's personalities completely transform as if two different people. Some like their stories and want them to continue, while others, like our heroine, will give their last dying breath to change their fated path.

We begin to get emotional scars as we watch characters forced to do and say things against their will because the writer wants it so. We watch as hardship after hardship are placed upon extras by "the writer" to the point of cruelty just for the sake of the stories drama or to ensure the main couple fall into each others arms. And finally, as our core team learns a way of tricking the story to change what is happening "on stage" we learn the punishment for such interference as others are put in harms way or forced to do the stages biding instead. Ultimately characters become erased, redrawn, and the stories path becomes unknown.

If you came here just for the romance, you likely will not leave as happy as I did. It isn't that the romance isn't fun, lovely, or even beautiful, it is. It isn't that the romance doesn't drive the entire tale, it does. It is just, that the romance doesn't shine brighter than the interesting world around it. Watching these characters trying to beat their own creator (if you don't get God references by this point I don't know what to tell you.), trying to make their own choices and walk their own paths (a look at Societies conformity, expected societal roles and behaviors) and come to terms with the fact that this isn't their first story together (Yep, I'm spoiling that bomb to let you know reincarnation, karma, fate or Buddhist ideas get treated here as well) becomes far more exciting to me than the simple "we love each other and will endure it all" story. The tapestry that gets woven here is quite intricate and continuously ropes in more ideas to explore.

Just as the romance begins to get stale, someone or something is changed. You think someone is evil, then good, then no evil. Some you think are good you then are sure are evil, and then become neither. You get to venture into and entire world set into Joseon times, and see the tropey vying for the throne story that exists there. While a few characters do end up being pretty pointless, and you trying to understand where they will eventually fall was fruitless, spending time with at least one of them was always a joy anyway. And when the story starts to close in on itself, and the writer starts wrapping up all the characters and places, making them disappear into the abyss of story-less-ness (The Nothing from The Never Ending Story comes to mind), at least one actually made me choke up a bit as they go off into the unknown.

In the end it is bittersweet, beautiful, poignant, and annoying all in one my friends. It soars high and also hits turbulence. The big bad gets off Scott-free and easy, in what again goats my anger and continues to be a running problem I find in Kdramas. This story even deconstructs how romances have the audience, shippers, and friends rooting for, forgiving, and overlooking toxic characters, behavior and situations just for the sake of story and romance. It shows us how when characters subjected to these relationships are given free will they immediately try and get away as no sane individual would really want this now matter how hot, rich, or popular the men might be even though these stories keep telling us otherwise. Yet, then the show ultimately forgives these same characters at the drop of a hat with no ramifications.

Again, this isn't a perfect journey and thus not getting a perfect score. But it is much better than it I thought it would be, and by far one of the strongest stories I have yet to come across in Kdrama even if it falls victim to some of the tropes it highlights and lives in the candy coated world of high school made for teenage girls and their Kpop boy fantasies. For a high school romance it is exceptional, for an adult romance its okay, and for a critical META analysis of the world it exists, its pretty damn strong with a nice dose of unexpected originality. 9.0/A/4 1/2-Stars. Definitely one of the best of its genre.