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thedramanotes · 2 years ago

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The Great Misunderstanding Trope From Ye Olde K-dramas

Hello. So, I wanted to chat some more about this well known trope in Korean dramas from the 2000s and early 2010s.

Or if you ever picked up a romance novel from the eighties or nineties, this was one of the major tropes used there too.

I'm talking about the Great Misunderstanding trope.

Not that it ever went out of fashion exactly, but in the late 2000s, early 2010s, this had quite a resurgence and was used in pretty much every dramatic romance drama.

A drama that really exemplifies how dramatic this trope could get was secret from 2013, which had Ji Sung and Hwang Jung-eum.

There was a LOT of misunderstandings in that drama.

youtube

Now, typical of this trope is that the hero would be drawn towards the heroine despite believing the absolute worst of her. And the heroine would be in a situation where she can't clear up his misunderstanding for one reason or the other. Maybe she doesn't know that he believes the worst of her, or she's trying to protect somebody.

Maybe she's even trying to protect him.

And the hero's behavior gets really egregious, because on the one hand, he is terribly drawn to her almost helplessly. But on the other hand, he believes she is a really horrible human being. He's constantly experiencing inner turmoil because of her, and this crisis of feelings and beliefs makes him lash out at the heroine.

Since he believes the worst of her, his behavior towards her is the worst, and this is a key point of this trope.

The hero is constantly horrible to the heroine at this juncture of their relationship. While the heroine is either helpless to resist or hit back, or unwilling to hurt the hero in return.

Maybe because she's just a genuinely good person and she just has a high tolerance for pain, like Hwang Jung-eum in Secret or she is protecting him, like Han Ga-in in Moon Embracing the Sun, when she comes back into the life of the king and the king believes that she is an imposter sent to like mess with his head because she looks so much like his first love and throws her in the prison for three days where she doesn't even get like a drop of water.

And while she is barely alive, he's just going about his life feeling disturbed that the situation happened, but not really thinking about her condition. And of course then her character goes through several other trials, which he could have put a stop to and would have put a stop to if he knew that she was indeed his first love and not an imposter.

But, of course that would completely skip over this period where the heroine suffers at the hands of his enemies and he just lets it happen. But because of this period of suffering, the hero later on feels abject remorse towards the heroine. He is utterly guilt ridden because she had to suffer so much because of him.

And added to that aspect is the fact that she never hit back at him. She was never horrible to him in return. This heroine is usually extremely Gandhian in her approach to the hero, turning the other cheek and all that. She is virtue herself.

And once the hero realizes that about the heroine and he grovels at her feet and the she gets a moment to be like, "I don't hold anything against you, but I may need two years abroad to rethink life and to come back more deserving of you."

That's a whole other trope, but the point is that she gets a moment to sort of get the upper hand in the relationship. Now, this is an interesting aspect of this trope, this upper hand. The relationship dynamic between the hero and the heroine is such that the hero usually occupies a higher position in society.

He is richer, more powerful, maybe he's a celebrity. Either ways. He's in a different, entirely different strata than the heroine. And the heroine is really weak. Maybe she has been emotionally devastated by something that has happened in her life. She's definitely financially in a weaker position and probably also socially from a different class.

This huge class gap is one of the major reasons that this trope exists, and we'll come back to that in a second. The heroine starts the journey in this really weak position, but at the end of the story, the heroine is barely the hero's equal, and the way she becomes his "equal" is by getting the moral upper hand.

And the upper hand doesn't really put her in a higher position than him. It's not like for the rest of their life, they're going to have arguments and she'll bring up what he had done before and he'll be like, yes, you win every argument ever. No, that's not what the story is going for.

The story is making very sure we understand that the gap between them at the start of the story is so huge that the hero finally understanding the heroine's true virtues and how good she is, and that she had never done those awful things he believed of her and that she had suffered in silence while he tortured her - all of those things and the hero's guilt barely brings the hero up to be kind of his equal, at least equal enough that now they can have a relationship.

The heroine comes up in the world, hero doesn't go down at all. He loses only one thing, and that is the right to look down on the heroine, and that is an important aspect of the Great misunderstanding because as you might have noticed till now, I have been specifically telling you about how the hero is the one doing the misunderstanding, the heroine is the one being misunderstood. This particular trope usually flows in this fixed direction. The genders are pretty much fixed.

Occasionally they try to flip it, but the dynamic immediately becomes weaker and the story isn't as interesting.

I'm sure the dramas of decades before this period also had the great misunderstanding used liberally, but it was used to an excessive amount during that period, the late 2000s, early 2010s.

And the reason for that was that the class difference was still quite huge. And women still had fewer opportunities. They were coming up, but they were not quite there yet. And you have to understand, Korean dramas were primarily written for middle aged women who were housewives and/or working. And for most of them, their economic strata was kind of fixed.

There wasn't really a lot of opportunity to come up in the world in the decade after that. Even though the real world wealth gap hasn't exactly decreased, but you must have noticed that dramas no longer tell the stories of really poor women and really rich men. They tell the stories of really rich men and women who are middle to upper class, but don't feel inferior to these rich men.

Their upbringings, even though there is definitely a difference in wealth, no longer makes the two feel like they are from different worlds in terms of the education they got, the exposure they have in the world.

So, from the heroine's perspective, the gap between the two of them doesn't seem so impossible to bridge anymore these days, but back then it was HUGE. The heroine wouldn't look at the hero and think, hey, that's a guy I want to date. The hero would look at the hero and be like, I am drawn to her, but I cannot date her.

We saw examples of this in, let's say in Secret Garden where Hyun Bin was drawn to Ha Ji-won's character. He pursued her, but not for a relationship. He just pursued her heedlessly, but then anytime she reciprocated, he would be the one to point out how much of a gap there is between the two of them and how they could never be a permanent thing.

He was willing to offer her the position of his mistress, but not his girlfriend.

Another Hyun Bin drama is, my name is Kim Sam-soon, where you also had elements of the great misunderstanding, but it was essentially that class divide that made Hyun Bin's character again look down on Kim Sun-ah. Who was poor, clumsy, supposedly overweight and definitely from a different world class-wise than Hyun Bin's character.

So the class divide really is ultimately the reason why the great misunderstanding trope existed.

But you didn't always need the great misunderstanding trope to exist in a story to talk about class. Like I just said my name is Kim Sam-soon and Secret Garden both did that really well.They actually faced the question of class divide and how two people from two different strata would overcome that.

Those stories were directly challenging the idea of the class divide.

The stories that employed the great misunderstanding didn't really want to directly talk about the class divide. They wanted to solve that problem, the problem of the woman being from a weaker section of society, and also just having like a weaker position within the relationship with the hero without really underlining what the problem was.

So why was the trope so popular at the time? Because the class divide existed in reality and the drama watching audiences wanted more stories about it. And this was a morality play where the virtuous heroine has to go through this traumatic trial by fire to prove herself.

But once she has proven herself, the hero can never doubt her again.

The hero would now forever be so grateful that she has forgiven him for his big mistake in not knowing how wonderful she is, that he will never abuse her, he will never mistrust her, he will never doubt her.

Once their love is affirmed in this way, she emerges, virtuous, victorious, and having secured the love of this man.

And if you haven't figured it out yet, the great misunderstanding trope ultimately is not about the hero being a jerk to the heroine. It's about the heroine going through a hero's journey. To finally land up in a place where she is powerful enough to be the hero's equal morally. This is a female empowerment fantasy.

This was all we wanted. We wanted the hero to acknowledge the heroine's goodness and never doubt her. And of course, we as the audience absolutely love this. We loved that the heroine was sort of the personification of goodness. She may be clumsy, she may be silly at times. She may make poor decisions. She may make us extremely frustrated because she refuses to tell the hero the truth, whatever the truth may be.

But ultimately, we absolutely love the fact that the hero, once he figured out how wrong he was, how terribly he had treated her, and how much he owes her, once that moment struck, that's when the real payoff would happen. And of course then we had dramas like Secret where they would use the great misunderstanding to create some of the steamiest moments between the hero and the heroine.

Seriously, Ji Sung and Hwang Jung-eum had the most messed up dynamic in that story, and yet it's like seared in my brain. That was crack.

Now, something else to keep in mind is that the great misunderstanding has been used in modern day romances quite liberally as well. But this - what is used these days - is the great misunderstanding lite.

Like, you have Our Beloved Summer where the hero doesn't actually know why the heroine had broken up with him and sort of misunderstands her intentions, and then years later finally figures out why she was forced to break up with him at that point.

Or you have Love Is For suckers, where the heroine realizes that the hero has feelings for her, but she's still feeling conflicted. And she also knows that another woman deeply loves the hero and she doesn't want to come between them. So, she lets the hero misunderstand her, which creates a chasm between the two of them.

So you do have these instances of misunderstanding. It's not that dramatic because there really is no great payoff. There is no groveling hero. There is no guilt. There is no internal misery. There is no irresistible attraction that is constantly pulling the hero and hero in together. And they are just dying inside because they can't be together.

It's not that dramatic anymore. It's simpler.

Which on the one hand is a good thing. It's a good thing, but it also makes for less memorable stories.

I was trying really hard to think of more instances where the misunderstanding lite trope has been used in dramas recently, and I know there have been tons.

I just don't remember because, it was not that interesting. I just think, if you have to use that trope, it's maybe worth it to go full fledged, like modernize it, make the woman less of a dish rag or flip genders, but really commit to the trope. Don't just use it as this one throwaway thing that happens for two episodes.

That is a waste of a trope that could genuinely create a lot of heat and trauma, but also, I'm sure in the hands of good writers create moments where the hero and heroine could really talk about their differences - whether it's moral, ethical, political, religious, economic, or a clash of egos - actually get into the depths of why the two of them felt so torn asunder despite being attracted to each other.

I am sure we can modernize it and still keep the drama aspect of it.

It doesn't have to be this morality tale that requires the woman to be a saint. So that she could just barely be equal to the spoiled rich hero.

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This essay was originally published as a video on The Drama Note YouTube Channel.

#misunderstanding trope #old kdramas #kdrama scenes #kdrama tropes #secret garden #ji sung #secret 2013 #hwang jung-eum #hyun bin #kim sun ah #my lovely sam soon #the moon embracing the sun #kim soo hyun #han ga in #kdrama nostalgia #our beloved summer #hero misunderstands the heroine

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dykealloy · 7 months ago

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Rec list please ✍️🏻

(with tropes and just a smidge of reason why the media is recommended <- both very optional of course)

oh boy. okay. Confession time, I've watched a ridiculous number of shows out of east Asia so this is a good opportunity to share some faves from recent memory. If there's going to be one running through-line with these recs it's that I love character-driven narratives which explore interesting interpersonal relationships (socio-cultural commentary is a plus).

In no ranked order, here's my top ten:

Hamster running the emotional gamut wheel (well-written stories about grief, closure and family)

Move to Heaven (2021) Korea, 10 episodes, Netflix Summary: Han Geu-ru is an autistic 20-year-old who works for his father’s business “Move To Heaven”, a company that specializes in crime scene cleanup, where they collect and arrange items left by the deceased and deliver them to the bereaved family. When Geu-ru's father dies, his guardianship passes to his uncle, ex-convict and underground MMA fighter Cho Sang-gu. Per the father's will, Sang-gu must care for and work with Geu-ru for three months to gain full guardianship and claim the inheritance. Eying money, Sang-gu agrees to the conditions and moves in.

This show knows exactly what it is and executes with excellent writing and characterisation. While it does have an overarching narrative, Move to Heaven is structured so that you're exploring a different person's story each episode, so it has a lot of flexibility to explore themes of grief and closure through different lives and relationships, and when I tell you this show can hit emotional beats... (<- may or may not have cried through most episodes on my first watch-through. Emotional terrorism). These stories are really beautifully portrayed and though there are effective comedic beats, there's this clear authenticity in not needing to undercut or distance oneself from the vulnerability of the subject matter.

Geu-ru and his uncle (Sang-gu) add a lot of needed levity, with Geu-ru's need for consistent, structured, methodical routines constantly clashing with Sang-gu's chaotic and combative approach to life. Sang-gu's character arc (though predictable) is just so satisfying. It's kinda hilarious seeing Geu-ru (and his father by extension) inadvertently poke more and more holes in Sang-gu's initial plan of "take the money and run" the deeper he incorporates himself into the space and purpose that his brother once took up, and it's very heartwarming to see these polar opposites slowly develop a respect and appreciation for one another.

Tropes: reluctant to responsible parental figure, tear-jerker

Oh No! Here Comes Trouble (2023) Taiwan, 12 episodes, GTV and iQIYI Summary: Pu Yi-yong was a typical 17-year-old student with a passion for drawing and a hereditary talent for calligraphy. After he wakes up from a bus accident that claimed his father's life and left him in a coma for two years, a 19-year-old Yi-yong must now find his place in the world again. This becomes more complicated when spirits begin approaching him and asking for his help.

This show actually has a lot of similarities to Move to Heaven e.g. exploring different side-stories each episode, focus on victims forgotten by society (the lonely, the homeless, the outcasts and the minorities), themes of grief and closure, polar opposite characters learning to work together, breaking me emotionally at some point. But Oh No! Here Comes Trouble differs in tone (distinct directing style), quirky humour (Taiwanese comedic style is just different and I love it in this show) and presentation (urban fantasy/mystery).

Yi-yong might be one of my all time favourite characters in media. From the outset he presents as this classic, one-dimensional, grumpy delinquent teen (e.g. resting-bitch-face syndrome, scrappy mullet, academically behind, no social grace and a tendency to accidentally hit people in the face with softballs). As fun as that is, the more you watch, the more this show challenges these assumptions. Yi-yong's mum (also an A+ character, god I love her) is a hairdresser, and often uses Yi-yong as her stylistic guinea pig. Yi-yong's not super intelligent, but he's compassionate (albeit at times reluctantly so). He really listens when people talk to him, whether they're trying to comfort him, give him advice, or asking him for assistance (though he often questions and expresses frustrations about his own ability to help other people). There's a humble gentleness to him.

Yi-yong was already struggling to juggle his dreams of becoming a comic artist with the practicalities of his life before he fell into a coma, then he woke up two years later, having completely missed the perceived "pivotal juncture" associated with the transition from youth to adulthood. Time moved on, and so have his peers, leaving an almost 20-year-old Yi-yong lost at sea with no paddle, no map and grieving the loss of his father. And now he has supernatural beings approaching him and insisting that he is the key to settling their unfinished business. To Yi-yong (and to popular east-asian social standards), Yi-yong is a loser. He's academically unintelligent, has no clear aspirations or discipline or future prospects, his family is far from wealthy, he's got zero social status, smarts or rank. Yi-yong is just as much of a forgotten outcast to society as these spirits are.

He does eventually get assistance in the form of Chen Chuying - a junior police officer (helping substantially with the mystery investigation side of things) and Cao Guangyan - former one-sided rival schoolmate and current med student who coincidentally moves next door (initially maintains the outsider perspective of Yi-yong as a hooligan until they get to know each other a little better, by which point Guangyan is already helping Yi-yong get back on his feet) who form a very well-rounded, loveable cast.

I wish I could talk more about this show, I am very fond of it. Please do watch it and if anyone wants to discuss it my dms are open.

Tropes: ragtag trio of idiots, urban fantasy, mystery, tear-jerker, reluctant hero

Get your pussy up get your money up (life is giving lemons and survival is the name of the game)

Honourable mentions here: Yeon Sang-ho popped off with Train to Busan in 2016 and South Korea has been throwing bangers into one of my favourite genre pools ever since. If you're interested in more zombie series I would strongly recommend checking out All of Us are Dead (2022), Happiness (2021), Sweet Home (2020) and Kingdom (2019).

A Shop for Killers (2024) Korea, 8 episodes, Netflix Summary: Jeong Ji-An tragically loses her parents as a young girl. Her reserved and mysterious estranged uncle, Jeong Jinman, acts as her sole guardian and care-taker, raising her with tough love and a survivalist mindset until she leaves for university. One day, Jung Ji-An hears that her uncle has suddenly passed away, and returns home, where she learns the truth behind her uncle's business and by extension, her past.

Ji-An is locked inside a building with no communication with the outside world, nowhere to go, and with assassins after her head (not ideal). Unbeknownst to Ji-An though, her late uncle Jinman prepared a thorough defense system for this very event, setting her up with home-terf advantage and a very dangerous fortress against this army.

Ji-An and Jinman's story is told mainly through flashbacks as Ji-An attempts to survive the raid on their home. Their dynamic is definitely a repeat of the stoic, initially cold father-figure type "I am neither your mum or your dad, and I can never be" to the orphan child that we've been seeing more recently of late. I'm not mad about it. It's a good formula. I won't go into the type of person Jinman is, or the nature of his work/business. Going in blind and slowly figuring this out with Ji-An was a big plus in terms of the viewing experience for me.

Tropes: reluctant parental figure, home alone antics

D.P. (2021) Korea, 12 episodes, Netflix Summary: Ahn Junho is enlisted to serve in the South Korean Army as part of his national service obligations. He eventually goes to the Army's Military Police. While getting used to life in the MP, Junho's street smarts lands him in the D.P. (Deserter Pursuit) unit. Junho is assigned with Corporeal Han Hoyeol to capture deserters, revealing the painful reality endured by each enlistee during their compulsory duty.

imo D.P.'s is at its most enjoyable when Junho and Hoyeol are working as detectives with limited time and resources. Hoyeol's presence especially adds needed levity. He's like the show's own eccentric little court jester (at least until season 2, where he becomes the show's own tortured little court jester). You don't know how much you're missing Hanyeol until he shows up and you're finally given some space to breathe.

This show's gotten a lot of praise for its realistic social commentary around the vicious cycle of bullying, hazing practices, corruption and abuse within the South Korean military. It's well written and fast-paced, and it definitely doesn't pull its punches. I probably wouldn't recommend this show were it not for the quality of its writing, its ability to balance the depressing subject matter with pockets of dark comedy and everyone's favourite dynamic duo Junho and Han Hoyeol. All the content warnings for this one.

Tropes: ptsd, abuse, brotherhood, idk man straight up not having a good time

Weak Hero Class (2022) Korea, 8 episodes, Viki Summary: Straight-A student and loner Yoon Sieun utilizes his wits and tools to defend himself from a boys school full of shit-heads. He slowly warms up to Ahn Sooho, the school's strongest fighter, and Oh Beomseuk, the new transfer Student.

Sieun is here to answer the age-old philosophical question: "Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you just want to go apeshit?" Even though Sieun is physically lacking, he's very capable of baring his teeth and using his smarts to fight like hell. It's so cathartic to finally see a short, weak, bullied protagonist willing to go violently feral upon provocation.

This show's tone can get pretty dark and surprisingly violent. The true core behind why a lot of people love this show is Sieun and Sooho's friendship. Sieun starts off as a grumpy, glaring, withdrawn hermit with no interest in anything that isn't studying (honestly idk how Sieun keeps finding himself in these situations like. All the kid ever wanted was to hit the books). I won't spoil too much, but watching as Sooho slowly peels away that protective shell Sieun encases around himself is a thing of beauty. I strongly recommend you give the first episode a go (free on youtube).

Tropes: angst, bromance, badass bookworm, adults are useless, abusive parents

Detectives smashing you over the head repeatedly with gay subtext (not explicitly gay but if you have a brain and any semblance of a gaydar that thing is going to be going off like a geiger counter next to the elephant foot)

The Devil judge (2021) Korea, 16 episodes, Netflix and Viki Summary: Set in a dystopian version of present-day South Korea, the world is bereft of law and order and the court justice process has become like a reality tv show. Head Trial Judge Kang Yohan mercilessly punishes the guilty and corrupt, earning him the "Devil Judge" monicker. As bitter rivalry takes shape between Yohan and the highly ambitious Jung Sun-ah, who has risen from poverty to become a corporate social responsibility foundation director. Into this turbulent world enter two childhood friends on a mission for true justice and determined to discover the secret Yohan is hiding: rookie judge Kim Gaon and detective Yoon Su-hyun.

The Devil Judge tackles the concept of the anti-hero (battling evil with evil) and questions why these figures are idolized by the public. It also challenges the naive faith in the rule of law and whether or not the established systems should be upheld or not. The screenwriter has however made it very clear that he focused way more on the relationship between the characters than conveying his own message and boy oh boy is that reflected in whatever Yohan and Gaon have got going on (serious come-hither eyes, gratuitous physical touch, themes of power, justice and corruption, Yohan pressing Gaon up against the nearest hard surface on at least four separate occasions, etc.).

Kang Yohan, the titular anti-hero/main protagonist operates within a failed state and a corrupted judiciary. To a certain extent he knows the self-destructive path he walks is doomed to fail, but to right the system and take revenge, he's on the lookout for a someone that can out him as the Devil and become the messiah that Yohan himself cannot be. It does come off as very "anime" at times (theatrical presentation, tragic backstories, bad writing when it comes to women, naive characters and overly dramatic tone) but hey, if you have very few qualms with that, chances are you're going to have a blast.

Also the OST for this show absolutely fucks. It has no right being this good. Jung Se Rin really popped off. I have Enemy of Truth as a staple in a lot of my playlists.

Tropes: idealist vs jerkass pragmatist, anti-hero/vigilante, whump

The Worst of Evil (2023) Korea, 12 episodes Summary: Set in the 1990s, a former DJ starts selling a new powerful drug. Since the police know little about its origin, rural police officer Park Junmo is assigned to go undercover and infiltrate the criminal empire responsible for the drug trade between Korea, Japan, and China. Junmo later discovers that his wife, Yoo Euijung, also a detective, has volunteered to participate in this dangerous mission and seems to have a past with the underground drug king (and Junmo's boss), Jung Gicheul. The deeper Junmo entrenches himself as Gicheul's subordinate, the more unrecognisable he becomes to those closest to him.

Junmo could have let Gicheul die or slip away like several times in a row, indicates he has zero idea why he does this, then says the line verbatim "I look up to him and I like him and my body follows my heart". What am I supposed to take away from this. This show has everything. Early 90s homoerotic cigarette lighting, sodomy, incredible cinematography, betrayal, close-ups of Junmo's bloody face squished up against Gicheul's thigh. There's some scenes where Junmo is looking at both his wife and Gicheul framed in the same shot like the goddamn camera is daring you to question who he is more jealous of. My biggest complaint is that there was quite literally no need for a wife-stealing plot - the most compelling, messiest gay situationship was right there for the taking.

In episode 9 post-gang war hallway-slaughter, a blood-soaked Junmo hops up onto a table on all fours with a knife between his teeth, locks eyes with Gicheul then proceeds to slash a man's achilles tendon and if you listen closely enough you'll hear me in the background screaming YOU HAVE BECOME HIS DOG. 10/10 watch this show.

Tropes: mafia, undercover, bodyguard, make him worse, devotion and loyalty gone bad gone nuclear, maybe if they fucked nasty about it we wouldnt be in this mess

Beyond evil (2021) would also go here and has similar vibes to the above two, but I personally don't have much to say about it. Unhinged slutty old man, gay stuff going on over there, etc, etc. Citrinekay sums it up nicely here. Guardian (2018) would probably also go here. Definitely check these out if you enjoy/like the sound of these shows.

Lighthearted fun romance (I am not escaping the lesbian fujoshi accusations)

Cherry Magic (2020) Japan, 12 episodes Summary: Adachi is a salaryman with low confidence and a tendency for self-deprecation, resulting in him often acting awkward around others, not being sure how to assert himself in the workplace, and constantly comparing himself to the company's golden boy - Kurosawa. Things become further complicated when Adachi finds out after his thirtieth birthday that he has suddenly gained the magical power to hear people's thoughts if he touches them. Adachi struggles with his newfound touch telepathy when he accidentally discovers Kurosawa is in love with him.

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard!? (Yes that is the full title, Japan you are killing me) is very sweet and wholesome and the humour hits and I believe in Kurosawa Yuichi supremacy. I know self-deprecating characters can be a downer for some people but Adachi comes off as very relatable and seeing him slowly gain more confidence in himself and his abilities is heartwarming. Great serotonin-booster. If you find this show's premise interesting there's a high likelihood you will enjoy it.

I didn't care so much for the second couple but if you're like me it's easy to skip through these scenes (you won't be missing anything).

Tropes: office romance, telepathy, pining

Semantic Error (2022) Korea, 8 episodes, Viki and Netflix (region-dependent) Summary: Cho Sangwoo is the epitome of an inflexible and strict rule-abiding person. When talented graphic design major Jaeyoung discovers Sangwoo is the cause for his delayed university graduation, he sets out to take revenge (by becoming Sangwoo's biggest, brightest daily annoyance). Jaeyoung finds himself in hot water when he inadvertently develops a crush, and junior computer science major Sangwoo is about to encounter some serious errors in his usual programming.

This is a classic polar opposites attract story, with Jaeyoung the loud, extroverted, brash foil to Sangwoo's reserved, withdrawn, morally black-and-white, logic-first persona. As much fun as it is to see Sangwoo's ordered world thrown into chaos, it's equally enjoyable to witness Jaeyoung jump from being obsessively committed to annoying Sangwoo, to being whipped for him (and the subsequent difficulties this causes for Jaeyoung - a popular, attractive, talented, bi artist used to getting his way - in trying to pursue a highly irritated and emotionally closed-off Sangwoo, who is being challenged with a side of himself he hasn't had to grapple with up until now). Also Jaeyoung has an incredibly hot lesbian best friend which was great. for me specifically.

An entertaining, cohesive story with great actors who have fantastic chemistry. What more can you ask for?

Tropes: enemies to lovers, opposites attract, university, pulling pigtails

Old Fashion Cupcake (2022) Japan, 5 episodes Summary: At the critical juncture of a mid-life crisis, Nozue, a 39-year-old office worker, is stuck in the dull, mundane grind of wake, work, sleep. But due to his age, he's convinced he's well past the point he can take risks by trying something new. As such, he continues to decline promotions at his job and romantic advances from potential partners. He confides one day in his 29-year-old subordinate, Togawa, making an off-hand comment about a desire to be like a young girl - capable of feeling excitement and joy in life again. In an attempt to inspire him to move forward, Togawa suggests an "anti-aging experiment" and the two of them go on a journey together to help Nozue feel young again.

First things first - a large portion of Togawa's proposed "ant-aging technique" involves frequenting dessert cafes and restaurants that are catered towards a younger female demographic and fuck me the food in this show always looks so goddamn good.

The boss/employee thing might turn people away from giving this a shot but what I really love about this show is that despite being Nozue's subordinate (and younger than him - which is a bigger deal in Japan), Togawa is extremely blunt and unafraid to tell Nozue exactly what he thinks (so long as Togawa believes it will ultimately benefit Nozue in the long run), and it's very clear that he does this because he has a strong sense of respect for Nozue (and because spoilers - Togawa is so down bad for his boss like okay boy DAMN. Go get your esoteric old man). This show is also great at conveying emotion and inner conflict without dialogue (I've enjoyed coming back for a re-watch and picking up on little nuisances in Togawa and Nozue's behaviour that I missed the first time around).

Overall this is a very cute, very wholesome coming of age/queerness story that reminds you that it's never too late to pursue what interests you, try something new, and enjoy life while you're at it.

Tropes: fingers in his mouth friday, pining, age gap, office romance, food as a love language

That's it! If you want more recs from a genre hit up my inbox, I had a fun time pulling this together and have many more in the chamber where that came from.