What Dramas Did I Finish This Week?

Hello and welcome back! These are the dramas I finished this week. If you're interested in previous reviews, click here and if you want to see a list of my Favorite Asian OTPs and Ships, click here!

KDRAMA

FINISHED Dali And The Cocky Prince (16/16): As a young boy, Moo Hak grew up in the market as a peddler. Although he is ignorant, he is strong-willed and knows how to make money. He is now the managing director of Dondon F and B, a global restaurant chain that his family started as a small gamjatang diner. However, he isn't dignified and only cares about money. He meets Da Li, the only daughter and child of an upper-class family who runs an art gallery. She has a profound deep knowledge of things. She gets faced with bankruptcy due to her father's sudden death and begins a hard life. Moo Hak and Da Li start a relationship as a creditor and debtor over the art gallery. Will these two polar opposites understand each other and fall in love?

So this was an interesting show to experience cause I went on a whole rollercoaster in terms of how I felt about it. I started out really interested in it given that it stars two actors that I adore but ended up finding the first few episodes too much for my taste. Moo Hak was too bumbly for my taste and Da Li was a naive damsel even though we were meant to believe that they were a business genius and super intelligent respectively. As the show went on though I started to find that the character traits we were told they had started to shine more and more and what really grabbed me was when the two started dating. I loved that not only did the two have great chemistry but they weren't afraid to take the normal steps in a relationship. They slept together without the antics and they gave each other nicknames rather than sticking with the polite addresses like so many other drama couples do. I especially loved what a complete fanboy Moo Hak was for Da Li in so much that he would melt anytime she did anything sweet. I also really loved that they really didn't keep secrets from one another so the mystery could be solved together! Speaking of, I really loved the mystery of Da Li's dad's death and what was going on with the gallery but more than Tae Jin was such a terrifying villain!! On the whole this show was a blast and a half to watch and I'd definitely say that if you didn't hate the first two or so episodes then it's worth sticking around to see it improve! 9.5 / 10

FINISHED One The Woman (16/16): Yeon Joo is an elite prosecutor who started from the bottom. Although known as the best in corruption investigations for the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office, she suffers amnesia after a car crash when chasing a suspect. As she wakes, she finds herself being Kang Mi Na, the daughter-in-law of the conglomerate Hanju Group. Before her disappearance, Mi Na was a troublemaker born out of wedlock. Now sitting in her position, Yeon Joo is not able to hide her rough and outspoken nature. She then meets Seung Wook, a conglomerate who visits his first love Mi Na to reveal the truth of his father’s death. Will Yeon Joo and Mi Na be able to regain their lost memories in this mystery and succeed in true love?

This show is one of those reasons why I always try to force myself to check out every new kdrama that airs regardless of whether the synopsis makes it sound good cause once in a while I find true gems that I would regret to miss out on if I had stuck to my original gut feeling!! Like I almost always hate stories with chaebols and I almost always hate stories with double roles aka where one character pretends to be another but this show ended up leaning extremely heavily towards the humor so none of my usual problems stuck out! I loved what a complete badass Yeon Joo was whether she had amnesia or not because she was competent as hell and refused to allow anyone to walk over her. I was a bit torn over whether I had SLS or not given that the second lead was so cute but I also liked Seung Wook and his relationship with Yeon Joo so in the end I was down with the romance! The revenge plot was fun to watch as well and I liked the way we kept peeling layers to see more and more of the evil in Hangju. 9 / 10

CDRAMA

FINISHED Wisher (12/12): The start and end of everything stems from an app called Wisher. Wisher appeared on the mobile phones of a group of college students out of the blue, and as long as they made a wish to it and completed a simple randomly assigned task, the wish would be realized. These young people can't stand the temptation, and just like signing a contract with the devil, they become dominoes under the control of desire. Middle-aged reporter Naduo, as well as young people such as Lu Li and Qiu Wendong, began to confront the forces behind Wisher.

Sooooo how in the hell did I finish this show? I mean seriously guys this show was a hot mess from it's characters to it's plot!! I went into it thinking that maybe I'd get a drama like Futmalls which I absolutely adored with its balance of sci-fi and mystery with hints of romance. Unfortunately while this show had all of the previously mentioned points, it could not balance them for the life of this show. The sci-fi aspect of an app that grants wishes was so cool and I liked the idea that it was more like Nerve than Futmalls with how it gave people things by forcing them to do something in turn and that seemingly meaningless tasks ended up snowballing into big things like murder but then we turned away from that to watch Wendong slowly lose his mind over something I didn't even understand. I also really liked the romance between Lu Li and Wendong even if I thought they went from enemies to friends to lovers a bit too quickly but then that was thrown out the window with Wendong becoming the villain! On that same note the mystery was so poorly drawn out and I really didn't care for Naduo and how wishy washy he was over everything. Honestly I'd say skip this show unless you're really desperate. 5 / 10

JDRAMA

FINISHED Douse Mou Nigerarenai (9/9): Nodakura Naho has been longing for an ordinary life as an office lady, but she couldn’t seem to get a job offer. In order to make ends meet, for the time being, she decides to interview for a part-time job at a design company called Solo Design Office. On her way there, Naho encounters a man and a woman having a lover’s quarrel. In order to shake off the woman, the man grabs Naho, who just happens to be there, and says she’s his new girlfriend. Naho gets angry and instinctively pushes him away. When she later arrives at Solo Design Office for her interview, she realizes that the man she had met earlier is in fact the company’s president Sakisaka Takumi. Despite all that happened, Naho somehow gets hired and starts working as a part-timer at the company

I don't have too many words for this show other than the fact that it was cute as all hell. The premise is very typical of a drama where we have a male lead who hides the pain of lost love and a tragic past behind his playboy veneer and a sweet female lead who lights up his world with her sincerity. Most of the time I roll my eyes at stuff like this but once in a while a show with this premise hits at the perfect time and I find myself finding it cute rather than irritating. Can you guess which category this show fits into? It's pure fluff and nonsense and yet I looked forward to each episode that aired. I did think that Naho fell for Takumi a bit quicker than I would have liked cause then we had so many awkward episodes after she basically confessed to him but at the same time because the show didn't pull the trigger on them until the end we didn't have any breakup nonsense. The side characters were all pretty pointless but I didn't mind cause it was the chemistry between our leads that I enjoyed most. 8.5 / 10

TWDRAMA

FINISHED Drunken To Love You (30/30): Two strangers, both proposed marriage to their respective girl/boyfriend, were rejected on the same day. They decided that the best way to deal with the rejection was to get drunk, real drunk. During the 24 hours of their crazy drunkenness, these two stranger became fast friends and got married... to each other. When they finally sobered up, they embarked on a mission to undo every crazy thing they did while they were drunk and prayed that their girl/boyfriend don't find out.

So I started this show not knowing that it was actually one of the many Fated To Love You adaptations which honestly was a good thing cause I don't know if I would have watched it knowing which would have been terrible on my part based on how much I adored this show! See the thing is that I tried both the Korean and Chinese versions but I could never get into how soap opera-y they were. Like one of my absolute least favorite tropes are the evil in-laws so I was so relieved to find out there wasn't any of that here! I loved that our main couple became friends almost right away so their bickering was more playful than hurtful and I loved that there was no real bad guy in this show. The exes weren't monsters and it was totally believable why they acted like they did. I loved the chemistry between our leads and I loved that there was no real breakups to be had cause surprise they actually talked to each other. I do admit the ending was a little much with Jie Xiu's mom's fall and then finding Xiao Ru's mom but I could ignore it cause it went by so quickly. On the whole I'd give this season a 9 / 10!

xoxo Allie