Happy Merry Ending (2023)

Needed more time

As was mentioned in a few other reviews, this show packed a lot into a short amount of time. They could have done so much more with the storyline and adaptation to give this story so much more breathing room.

First and foremost, what we know is the ML, Seung Jun can't seem to open up and suffers from PTSD, but we don't know exactly why yet. To be honest, we never *truly* find out. We get a hint of it when Seung Jun gets drunk and we learn it had something to do with a past relationship of some sort. Since this is a BL, we can make the assumption it was with a past relationship with a man, which we further learn when Joo Won shows back up in Seung Jun's life. Even then we don't truly know the depth, only know that he betrayed him and seemed to be using him. The pushiness of the second ML, Jae Hyun, makes it difficult for Seung Jun to open up and it's obvious there are moments where he seems to be comparing Jae Hyun to Joo Won.

Then there is the best friend/neighbor who is *obviously* in love with Seung Jun, but quietly takes a backseat because he knows of the trauma from his past and is there to support him. It's implied that the two are FWB, though you can also argue that they are simply cuddle buddies with Ho Yeon wanting it to be more than that.

To be honest, I had little to no interest in the romance of the two leads. Perhaps it is because I am biased toward Kim Kyu Jong, who played Joo Won so deliciously narcissistic, creepy, and downright nasty. But I was far more interested in his character and the history with Seung Jun. I've seen Kyu Jong in other things and he has such range that I see so many hating on Joo Won (rightfully so) and yet knowing more of him, it makes me proud to follow him because he is one of the sweetest people. I hope people hate just the character and look for other things he has done, plus his music as both a solo artist and with SS501/Double S 301, because his talent is phenomenal.

I think this show could have done so much better if they had done it as either a longer web series or a full series. I am fine with the episodes being short in time, but there needed to be more than 8 episodes. We never really got any history of Jae Hyun, we never got to know or see the struggles of Ho Yeon being in his position as someone who obviously loved Seung Jun but was relegated to only the bestie.

I feel that this show could have been fleshed out so much more for us to see much more of Seung Jun's past with Joo Won, including understanding why Joo Won suddenly came back into his life and wanted to be with him. Was it a case of Joo Won only using him as a plaything? Did he see Seung Jun as his "property" and when Jae Hyun arrived on the scene and he saw he could potentially move on, he couldn't handle it? Just what exactly DID Joo Won do to Seung Jun, other than obviously being manipulative and a cheater to cause him to have the level of PTSD that he did that he needed medication? As it "reads" right now, Seung Jun comes off as extremely weak IMO. I wanted to see those scenes more than I wanted to see the two male leads "falling in love".

I had no real investment in Jae Hyun because we knew nothing about him. Except for apparently owning a cafe, we had no backstory for him. While I am all for a love-at-first-sight type of story (I'm a romantic), this one fell short because of how little time the show had to tell its story.

Ultimately, I will probably watch the episodes that Kyu Jong was in again, because I watched this series for him, but otherwise, I would probably not rewatch this often. I hope in the future, when it comes to web series like this, that production companies/writers consider expanding the episodes to have more of them if they want to keep them short to keep people's attention. Complex stories like this need more time to grow and breathe so so much story isn't squished into so little time. It does a disservice to the story and the characters because this could have been such a compelling drama otherwise.

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I was happy and merry when it finally ended

This surely was… something. At this point, I’m used to many KBLs feeling somewhat insta-lovey. The much shorter format in comparison to Thai BLs (for example) kinda has that side effect. And despite me being understanding of that, this one just felt too insta-lovey for me, even for KBL standard. I was not invested in the relationship of the main characters at all, because there was no build up. They met, talked like twice or three times, and suddenly both were apparently madly in love. I say 'apparently’, because the romantic chemistry between the actors was lacking a lot in my opinion, so that didn’t really help with buying the love part. I wasn’t awwing or smiling at any of their cute moments, because I simply didn’t care about their relationship. And that’s pretty bad for a show that is centred around the romance. When they kissed I was confused, because there was nothing really leading up to it. Both main characters are grown men, so I get that a kiss isn’t as heavily built up to as in a high school romance, where it’s the characters’ first kiss. But at least give me something that makes it feel earned.

Here’s three examples for what I mean with "too insta-lovey“ for anyone who hasn’t watched the show, and is considering investing their time (Do yourself a favour and just don’t):
1 - The two main characters meet for the first time at a wedding, where one of them is the singer and the other the pianist. The pianist doesn’t actually work for the company, he just served as a replacement for the usual pianist. A woman that works there (don’t remember her name, there’s too many side-characters for such a short series) asks him to join their company, which the pianist declines, since he’s already the CEO at a café. Suddenly, the other main character shows up. Piano man is so in awe of the singer’s handsome face, that he’s just like "Never mind, actually, I do wanna join the company!“ This grown man just made a decision about a job, based on the handsomeness of his colleague, no consideration of what this would mean for his apparently already tight schedule with a popular café to handle. I sure hope he doesn’t do this every time he meets a handsome person, or he’s switching jobs on a weekly basis.
2 - That same evening, they have dinner with their co-workers. Piano man and handsome singer exchange a few sentences, then handsome singer gets drunk and piano man is helping him get home. The next day, piano man repeatedly texts handsome singer, asking him if he’s okay and saying that he’s worried. Sure, he might just be a naturally empathetic person. But any non-BL-lead would just let it be at that, if the other person doesn’t respond. But when handsome singer doesn’t respond, piano man actually goes to the academy where he works as a vocal coach. They met ONCE and this dude is already borderline stalking him. My mind was yelling 'Run while you still can!‘ Piano man kept having such tendencies throughout the whole show, showing up at handsome singer’s house when he didn’t respond to him. Which seemed to happen frequently. It just felt pretty iffy to me. If someone acts like this after you spent a couple of hours together, I don’t want to know how they’ll act once you’re actually dating…
3 - After having met ONCE, piano man was telling two friends about handsome singer. They said that they hardly recognized him, because he was apparently so head over heels AFTER HAVING KNOWN THIS GUY FOR ONLY ONE NIGHT!!!! Piano man said he also doesn’t recognize himself. On top of that, he was for some reason convinced that handsome singer had his walls up high, and that he was gonna climb over them and win his heart. I don’t mind characters not giving up easily. But the issue is that piano man had no way of even knowing that handsome singer had his walls up. He does, but piano man doesn’t know anything about him at this point. So how does he assume handsome singer has his walls up, and not that maybe he simply has no interest in getting to know him? Your guess is as good as mine.

I could excuse some of these behaviours if this were a show about two high school students. Teens tend to make rash decisions and fall in love much faster, thinking a crush equals true love. But we’re talking about two adult men, who I assume are at least in their late twenties, more likely even in their early thirties. I understand that you can be attracted to someone on first sight, but this wasn’t just attraction, it was love that apparently can develop within seconds if you live in a BL, because who needs shared experiences and a genuine emotional connection, right?

I also took a big issue with the villain of the show, which is (like in many BLs) handsome singer’s ex boyfriend. (At least I think they were dating, but it’s never quite clear. Blame the writing for that, not me.) I did actually like their history. Handsome singer wanting to debut as an idol and having a relationship with the CEO (again, not sure if back then he was the CEO or just an employee, proving how great the writing in this is once again) actually makes for an interesting concept to explore. The problem is that their past was more interesting than the present day relationship of handsome singer, and that’s not great. Besides that, the villain felt like a caricature. He was so overtly evil that it was almost laughable. And also, he was an idiot. He acted like an asshole in front of handsome singer, trying to blackmail him and pretty much stalking and terrorising him. I thought that clearly, this was just about him being evil and having fun toying with handsome singer. Apparently however, all this was an attempt at winning back the love of handsome singer. Wow. Great plan, buddy. I know you’re a disgusting person, but if you try to win someone back, maybe try not to be disgusting in front of them? It made no sense. Also, the villain then just disappeared into thin air, giving no resolution to this storyline.

At this point, I would’ve probably rated the series a 4. It was bad and uninteresting, but not offensively so. But then they did a goddamn time-skip and that dropped my rating to a 2. You see, piano man came to save handsome singer from the hands of his evil ex. Handsome man then was being a douchebag towards piano man, telling him to leave him alone. This isn’t a problem in itself. Clearly, handsome singer had been severely hurt in the past, and was dealing with a lot of issues internally. Actually, this was the only point in the show where I got at least a little invested. I was curious about how handsome singer would overcome his demons, in order to be with piano man. And how piano man would handle the rejection. Of course, we got to see none of that, because they skipped ahead one year in time. I dislike time jumps in general, but this one was just horrible. It felt like such a cheap way of escaping resolving the conflict they had set up. Instead of meaningful character development, they let time heal it all. To me, this jus proves how the writers of this show weren’t capable of handling anything.

So, we skip ahead one year, and time magically fixed every issue. Handsome singer miraculously has overcome his severe panic disorder, because he was so eager to eventually sing in front of piano man without sunglasses on. Because that’s totally how mental illness works, yep. Not only that, but he also finally got to debut as a singer, and of course, his debut song was one huge success that climbed up on the charts like it’s nothing. Because that’s totally how the music industry works, yep. (I mean, it could’ve happened, but it feels extremely unlikely.) Of course, after all this time and being rejected in a really hurtful way, piano man immediately runs to handsome singer when he sees that he’s holding a concert. And of course he takes him back like nothing happened, and like they actually had established a meaningful relationship between the two of them. That one kiss they had must’ve been really good to warrant such behaviour, damn.

Also, how many times are we gonna do the jealous best friend who has a secret crush on the main character trope in KBLs? It’s getting really old at this point. That being said, the best friend character was actually the only character I was rooting for. Not that he had a properly developed personality or anything. He only existed as a shoulder for handsome singer to cry on, and as his emotional trashcan. However, he was caring and put handsome singer’s feelings above his own, which made him the most likeable character in this entire thing. The bar was very low. I actually thought they should’ve ended up together instead, since they at least had some sort of emotional connection. Instead, this storyline too led nowhere and we never got any resolution for the best friend character. So I'll just assume handsome singer will forget all about him in the heat of his new relationship, because he totally feels like the kind of person to do that. I hope the best friend finds someone better who's actually interested in his feelings too, rather than only using him to cry about his own.

The music in the show was pretty good. One of the main characters is a singer after all, so you’d hope so. But I noticed something weird about the background music. While oftentimes it was nice and fitting, sometimes it felt like a very odd and out of place. At least two times, there was a background music playing that sounded kinda like it was supposed to be in a western movie (western as in a cowboy movie, not the western film industry). I was so confused. But maybe that’s just me not getting a reference or something.

As for the positives… There were some moments of decent comedy. Such as when handsome singer blew his nose on a bunch of napkins and then drunkenly handed them to piano man. That got a chuckle out of me. The acting was solid. Not mind-blowing, but solid performances. Their montage of cute moments at the end was nice, it’s just that I didn’t care about their relationship at all, so even that didn’t get a smile out of me. Honestly, the best thing about this show was when it was finally over.

This has got to be one of the worst KBLs I’ve seen, and I’ve seen many. I cannot recommend this to anyone. If it weren’t so short, I would’ve dropped this half-way through, and I’m definitely never rewatching it. If you’re looking for a KBL about the music industry and a singer, I recommend Wish You: Your Melody From My Heart instead. Not that that one’s perfect, but it’s much better executed and a lot cuter, with actual chemistry.

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A drama to forget.

I wasn't going to write a review because there's nothing to say but since I dislike one of the main leads and only write reviews in that case, here I am. Spoilers because I will most likely rant about him.

The story follows Seungjun who has severe anxiety and a trauma caused by his first love, which results in him pushing people away. His best friend, Hoyeon, is the only person he's close to. Enters Jaehyun who is interested in Seungjun and starts to pursue him, Quite literally. He shows up at his work place whenever he doesn't reply to his texts. Shows up at his house... Surprised he didn't put a tracker on his phone and kidnapped him. Oh wait, he did kidnap him once :)

Anyway, I don't like Jaehyun, he's really just a stalker who constantly ignores the fact that he makes Seungjun uncomfortable, so I just couldn't get into the romance side of the plot. I just can't root for someone who doesn't respect the boundaries of someone he's supposed to love.

I was interested to see how SJ would deal with his "first love" and overcome his anxiety but I guess I'll have to keep wondering since all that happens off screen. That actually makes me mad more than the love interest being a creep because it's just disrespectful to the viewers. Whatever happens after the time skip (...) doesn't feel earned since we don't actually see SJ deal with his issues.

I liked the best friend though. I do wonder why this wasn't explored more since he was the only one who actually respected SJ. He's also the one who is by his side while he works through his issues (off screen) so that was definitely a more interesting relationship.

The acting was a bit flat but not bad, just lacking in my opinion. The actor who plays Hoyeon was better but also didn't have much to do, unfortunately.

The music was alright, which is good since this was made obviously to promote the ML's singing... Not really my kind of music but he has a beautiful voice.

Overall, I don't think much happened, and what could have been interesting (the ML's anxiety, the idol being threatened by creep number 2, the relationship between SJ and HY) was barely explored in the end. We also don't know anything about JH, he's kind of just there to be the love interest and him being a creep definitely made it impossible to enjoy for me. 4/10.

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Que voz linda! Nada mais que isso?

Como quase na maioria dos bls coreanos, existem personagens pouco desenvolvidas. Antes de tudo, devo dizer que a história não é lá a melhor coisa do mundo, apesar de transparecer problemas mentais e até mesmo a existência de um perseguidor, que se diz apaixonado pelo protagonista.

Não tenho muito a dizer sobre esta história. O enredo é mal desenvolvido devido ao curto tempo de episódio. Por exemplo o protagonista Seung Jun apresenta uma voz bonita e apenas isso, porque quando foca nos traumas e problemas mentais, isso é só introduzido, mas nunca desenvolvido, quase num flash, sabemos que ele conseguiu ultrapassar.

Jae Hyun é uma personagem que aparentemente se apaixona á primeira vista e rapidamente ronda o Seung Jun. A prinicípio é desconfortável, já que ele não tem muito o senso do respeito e do espaço privado.

Sobre o melhor amigo de Seung Jun, eu não o achei assim uma personagem que seja um grande suporte para o protagonista, já que algumas vezes ele estava com o prota e de maneira rápida ele era retirado de cena. E não entendi muito a tentativa falha de triangulo amoroso. Porque se o melhor amigo amasse Seung Jun, penso que ele seria mais presente e até se possível confessaria o seu amor. Na verdade eu queria que ele ficasse junto com a sua aluna.

Uma coisa que me incomodou foi o vilão, esse que não se sabia se amava mesmo o prota. Não sei o porquê da sua existência... humm a não ser para enfatizar e mostrar ao protagonista que deveria ter medo ou até mesmo algum ataque de pânico. O que deu a entender que por vezes o roteirista esquecia que ele tinha algum trauma, ele só os tinha quando convinha.

O final nem adocico nem azedo o bl, eu até me questionei o porquê do beijo final. Penso que não adentou muito á história. Para aqueles que gostam de falar em química, penso que eles não tiveram, na minha opinião eles só tiveram momentos bonitos.

Esta série é só recomendável, para quem quer ver uma história rasa, que não dá muitas explicações nem desenvolvem as personagens. As músicas são o melhor deste bl, sem dúvida.

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I really understand that the drama has short episodes and there are few of them, which makes it impossible to do a very extensive plot, but it definitely could have been done better. Why is there a toxic and stalking ex-boyfriend in the drama, who caused the main character to be traumatized, if this topic is not developed at all? We don't get a chance to see how Seung Jun handles the situation because all the explanations take place off-screen. And then we suddenly get a happy ending. It's obvious that the story was mentioned only to make Jae Hyun a hero. Instead, everything was happening too fast, making him a stalker. Also in the drama, there were far too many additional characters who contributed absolutely nothing to the story.

If you decide to watch this drama, keep in mind that it's just a time filler and you'll quickly forget about it.

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очень сжато, но можно пофантазировать

Мне понравилось. И я знаю, что понравится это не всем, а единицам. Первое - это конечно, что после много прекрасных работ с начала года от KBL. Еще, что это мини-дорама и смотрят ее в основном "по быстрому". Но я смотрела как всегда слишком внимательно, да плюс поднятие таких тем как проблемы с психическим здоровьем, манипуляции.... Все так близко. Понравилось выбранный зал для свадеб, прекрасные уютные кафе и выбор правильного освещения в домах под момент (когда депрессия все тускло и мрачно, когда наступает пора спокойствия - дом светел и ярок). Так же понравилось, что лекарства можно заменить милыми моментами, открываясь людям которые хотят вам помощь. Единственный маааленький минус - это как раз из-за малого времени получилось сильно сжато. Более раскрытую историю прошлого. Более понятные отношения с другом, который явно влюблен в главного героя. В остальном, прекрасно проделанная работа. Если брать Ким Кю Джона - зная его диапазон ролей, сыграл отлично. При всей моей любви к нему, я ненавидела его всей душой и хотелось просто :бип: Сон Тхэ и Дон Вон, ну этих ребят я знаю хоть и меньше Кю Джона, но рада была видеть и слышать их потрясающий вокал и очень интересные осты, текст которых наполнял живот бабочками, а сердце теплом. заключительная сцена - я взвизгнула и потом смеялась со своей реакции. Хорошо. Обязательно пересмотрю.

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TYPICAL ROMANCE BL

Is it just me ? but why do the characters of KBL always looks good in the ending part? i almost wanna give this drama a 10 !
okay, so the only things that is special in this drama is the cast and the romance the leads have and nothing more.
I kind of find the story too cliche' that why does it always have to be like the leads have a past lover that affect them so much emotionally? wouldn't it be better if there are no rival or no third party but the love story alone ?
this couple should've had more chance in elaborating their story.
i don't like the 1 year have past part, it is not realistic to me, like so many things can happen in a year , I thing they should've made it like after 6 or 7 months , I think that is enough for the lead to be successful and meet again,
but anyways it is not about the beginning nor in the half but it is about the ending , and they got me there ! the episode 8 suddenly became so romantic that I really felt the love story, that is why I have mentioned in the beginning that the leads romance is special in this drama, It is indeed a Happy Merry Ending and a romantic one.
Ps. the Pianist guy looks really good, he should star in more drama in the future !

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At least the ending is happy

I’m not sure if this is good or bad, so I will settle for average. I wasn’t hooked during its earlier episodes but suddenly felt okay after watching the last few episodes. The story isn’t as great as it could be. I feel like they can offer more but for any reason, they choose to play safe as a form of their production-satisfaction.

Byun Sung Tae is the one who brought me to the show. At first glance at the promotional poster, I noticed the familiarity of this man and realized that he also participated in Produce X 101 which I supported during its airing period. Seeing him as the main character of a BL show is actually pretty good since his beautiful face fits the standard visuals of K-BLs. An additional benefit is that he can act and sing in a neutral tone, and I actually liked it.

I guess the biggest downfall of the story is the messy characterization of the Casanova ex-boyfriend (who isn’t handsome at all) and the unrequited love of the male best friend. These two characters offer mixed emotions and unnecessary drama at some point.

For some reason, the drama itself managed to survive by uplifting and focusing on the romantic progress of the main couple without having the supporting characters create walls between their relationship and solely focusing on the emotions of the two main characters.

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Fatally Boring.

Negatives:

-they took the suspense too far
-they threw in every trope under the sun (to list them all would require the spoiler tag)
-they rushed the last episode, no in fact they rushed every episode
- there was not enough time to tell the story in a fluid way
- the main leads did not have chemistry at all - it was uncomfortable to watch.

Positives:
-the ending song was beautiful a k-ballad sang and produced really well
-the visuals were on point
- I also enjoyed the height difference
- FINALLY and VERY GOOD - no dead fish KISS!!

I do not recommend unless if you are dead bored with absolutely nothing else to watch.

Watch at own risk!

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