So many epic dramas and epic drama moments I think my head is going to explode! Flower boys and school bullies and gambling con-men, oh my!
Mild spoilers for TWTB below…
I’ve been playing around with a post comparing and contrasting Flower Boy Ramyun Shop and Flower Boy Next Door (they were both helmed by the same PD) and how FBRS took the typical rom-com conventions and turned the dial up to eleven to give us a surreally fun story and FBND totally undermined those conventions to give us a mellow slice-of-life cleverly disguised as a rom-com… It’s still a work in progress (and may die before arrival as these things sometimes do) but it’s made for some fun drama-thinking.
ROMANCE!!
VS.
…romance…
I finished School 2013 (review to come) and indeed the bromance was epic. 
Both the sizzling one with the two students who’d experienced enough to practically be adults, and the adorable one with the three students who finally began walking the path to adulthood. It unfortunately meant the girls were left with only an episode or two — and no actual story-arcs. Which was too bad because the girl bullies could have been massively interesting if they’d been tackled.
The teachers’ storyline was fairly after-school-special. But Jang Na-ra and Choi Daniel have good screen presence and good chemistry, 
so they were always fun to watch even when their storyline got a little predictable. Plus, the drama was written to tackle the various issues affecting Korea’s high-schools, so I feel like it’s unfair to criticize them for doing what they’d set out to do. (Like complaining that a Rom-Com has too much romance.) It was definitely the students’ stories that pulled me in, though.
Here’s how I know I’ve fallen completely and totally for Oh Soo. My constant wail goes like this: “Would everyone please stop being so mean to the poor guy trying to scam a blind girl from her money?” 
Especially his team who’s supposed to have his back, only now I think they’ve turned a little toxic and they keep giving him the stink-eye whenever he looks happy. My worry is Hee-sun is a little too invested in keeping Soo guilt-ridden and therefore hers. And Jin-sung is invested because she’s invested. So the two of them are trapping Soo just like So-ra. Throwing him into an emotional jail to keep him with them, only in this case he agrees he’s guilty.
Or, have I drunk the Soo-kool-aid and lost my ability to judge? You’ll have to tell me.
Also, Moo-chul is Bad. Ass. I kind of wish he were a good guy just because of how he totally dismisses Boss Kim. (And I just had my mind recently blown when I found out he played the sweet husband in Naked Kitchen. Kim Tae-woo has just made my “actors that amaze me” list.)
Creating Volumes 
So the question about Oh Soo-kool-aid got me thinking and responding. The response ended up being so long that I thought it best to post it chez moi rather than take carry on for too long here. One especially pertinent passage:
“The main protagonist, the ‘hero’, of TWtWB is a cocky gambling playboy con-man presented to us by the storytellers (writer, director and actors) as an ethically (and morally) conflicted soul trapped by circumstances in a life bereft of love; a soul in need of, and eventually in search of, redemption. I think that this kind of storytelling done well very quickly gets us invested in the poor sunbae’s fate. I also think that our psychological investment makes us complicit in his actions (if not necessarily in his motives) and therefore all the more invested in his fate… ’tis a vicious cycle ‘ndeed!”
Gosh even THAT seems inordinately long. Anyway, thanks to your question, I was inspired to write some so please feel free to check out the whole response, context and all, on my blog.
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… sooo I write so seldom because when I set about to do so, thoughts tumble out of my head and slip past my fingers before I have a chance to actually type them (hence my guilt about typos)… Anywhoo, I posted a link earlier to a response I had to your question about unconditionally rooting for Oh Soo — an issue you have hinted at a few times in your posts — and then I went and read over and revised the post for clarity… it will look the same, but I hope it is more articulate than the earlier version was. Happy reading! 😉
Very happy reading indeed! 🙂 You’ve given me a lot of food for thought, thank you!
Ditto! 🙂