I finished youth of may about 25 minutes ago and I just need to write a real review to let this off my chest.

I loved it so much. I genuinely love every thing about this drama. There's not one single thing I wanna complain about. Of course there are things that hurt, and that annoyed me, but that's the whole point.


The fact that Myeong Hee dies, the character who literally caused the least trouble and who just wanted to study in Germany and heal people, is just so painful but also so real. The fact that so many people around her survived and she couldn't , breaks me. I genuinely got so attached to her character, the way that she was with others, her humour, her outfits, her smile, i fell in love with all of her character and then she died... all alone, on the ground, bleeding out with no one beside her.


I also love how this drama taught me how quickly you can love someone. They only knew each other for a few weeks but they loved each other in such a pure, innocent way. I just loved seeing them together, they simply make sense.

It's a historical drama, so I never expected a happy ending. Honestly, I would've been almost mad if they had given us a happy ending cause this is something that truly happened, and sugar coating it by making all of the main characters live happily would just be... disrespectful to me?I don't know but i definitely liked it. Truth is she probably wouldn't regret dying, because she did manage to save her brother (who btw, must have horrible abandonment issues since both his father and sister said they would "come back", just to save him).

There are small things that were so well written, like the way Hwang Hee Tae's little brother gets shot in the leg (indirectly by his father i guess we can say), like his father literally taking his son's dreams away of running. We first see him with his fancy shoes making Myeong Hee's brother jealous, and now here he is, bleeding on the ground to save his sister (wearing those shoes).

Soo Ryeon's brother also realises just how stupid he's been for trying to hold his sister back. She had empathy and understood altruism from the start but some people, like her family, need to be thrown into the real world to understand that they're living on a cloud while everyone is in pain. Indirectly because of them and their actions.

Even the fact that Hwang Hee tae's father never truly gets punished is good writing to me. Sure he gets his position taken away and loses his family but he never lives through as much pain as the people he hurt with his own two hands. He's a monster who, in a way, gets away with it. Just like in real life.

Hwang Hee tae watching the music competition on the tv, crying in the cafe while handing out missing person flyers was so painful. He would have been on that stage if he had never met Myeong hee. Then in the graveyard, he looks up at a plane, just like Myeong hee might've gotten on a plane to Germany if she had never met him. Her father wouldn't have died either probably. yet so many other people would have died instead, because they saved them in the hospital.
I'm also proud of Hwang Hee Tae for partly keeping myeong hee alive by becoming a brave doctor, the same way she was a brave nurse. She's the one who pushed him to get over his fear of hurting people. And the parallel of him helping the nurse just like when he first saw myung hee.. it stung. then again everything in this drama did.

I also love how they switched the actors at the end, the way that the writers knew that seeing the older actors crying wouldn't hurt as much. Seeing young doctor hwang hee tae finding out that her body has been found was the peak of my crying session.

Anyway this was so so so unorganized sorry, it's more of a rant than a review. But i truly just love this drama, and I don't think I'll ever forget it. It was so beautifully written, the actors did an amazing job, the scenery was beautiful (the spring 1980s vibe made me feel warm and fuzzy), the OST was beautiful as well (my personal favourite is Starry night, thank god they didn't play it at the end cause i would've cried even more i think).
i started watching the drama right when the first episode aired (i was excited cause lee do hyun is my favourite actor) and i've been so attached to it since then. I'm sad it's over and I'll miss the characters a lot.
thank you for making me sob. I'll watch it again when I've healed.