I took some time today to reflect on my feelings towards Record of Youth. Often times I’ll finish a drama and have it all figured out and my opinions will be easily formed. With ROY however I felt like the aspects I disliked the most weren’t necessarily a bad writing choice and this is what I’ll say: the plot is not for everybody, the story is not exactly likable as a whole and it’ll be challenging to watch by the end, but it is realistic.
We have very interesting complex characters since episode one, unfortunately I felt like the plot focused a lot in conflicts and problems of the main (male) characters when it could’ve easily developed the amazing cast acting skills and their roles. It was specially disappointing to see how little we had from Park So Dam’s character when her part had so much to offer, in this case the writer is to blame.
Many situations could’ve been solved quickly and were dragged for an unnecessary amount of time, such a valuable time that could’ve made this reach a better overall result.
I won’t drag this review much longer. As pros we have many interesting subjects approached in the drama, a steady first half, an amazing cast, all love goes to Park Bo Gum as Sa Hye Jun and his grandpa, all love really. As a con we get many choices from characters that will feel awful, unnecessary and even annoying (which can be seen as a realistic point from the plot in a different perspective), we get much less character development than we needed and the final half of the drama is not the best.
Where you go from here is up to you.