Monday, March 4, 2013

Flower Boy Next Door Series Review

  I adored this drama.  I thought it was so cute and it never failed to make me smile.  It is the Seinfeld of rom-coms.  Nothing really happened, there were no evil mothers, long lost loves coming back, nor amnesia,  and yet the characters were able to grow and develop and become complete and beautiful people at the end.  Having given myself a week so as to not gush all over this drama, I can honestly say that I still feel like gushing.  From beginning to end it was one of my favorite dramas, it might even replace one of my top four or maybe I’ll just bend to the masses and make it a top five.  Now, I’m not blind to the shortcomings of the drama, but I loved this drama so much I am able to gloss over the shortcomings like the ones I talk about here, and the lack of romantic scenes.  Now the lack of romantic scenes is one of my personal gripes with kdramas but I’ll leave that for another post.
    For those who haven’t watched, you could go do that now, or for those who haven’t made it to the finale, I must warn you there will be spoilers.
  The drama starts with what I think is one of the cutest openings I’ve seen.  We see our main female lead Go Dok Mi waking up from where she had been asleep in a sleeping bag on the floor and then we see her spy on her neighbor across the way and imitate his daily routine in a completely cute, stalkery, creepy way.
  Go Dok Mi is a modern day Rapunzel, she, however, is locked up in her tower by choice.  She doesn't like to venture out into the outside world and wants to have a little interaction with others as humanly possible.  Her little world is her apartment, the travel shows she watches on t.v., and the neighbor she spies on with her funky yellow binoculars.  This little world is about to be turned upside down by the arrival of our male lead Enrique Geum.
Enrique is a game designer who is ruled by his inner child.  He's as happy go lucky as it comes, talking a mile a minute, always smiling, and enjoying life or the polar opposite of Go Dok Mi.  He arrives from Spain to play "cupid," and along the way he stumbles upon Dok Mi and decides that it is his responsibility to make sure she goes out and starts experiencing the real world.  He may not have sequestered himself inside an apartment, but Enrique is just as lonely as Dok Mi except he hides it under a layer of laughter and words.
The third side of our love triangle is Jin Rak.  I have to admit that at first I wanted Dok Mi to end up with him because they are so similar, but as time went by I realized that with Jin Rak Dok Mi would never grow as a person.  Where Enrique wants Dok Mi to go out and experience the real world, Jin Rak is content to have her continue to live in her own world; he just wants to be able to step into it with her.  Which seems ahhh, how romantic, but really is just fear that holds him back and would hold her back as well.
 I truthfully really did enjoy this drama I didn't fast forward through any of if which is nothing short of miraculous.  I think the whole drama had a very mellow feel to it.  It wasn't exciting or edge of your seat worry about what would happen next, and to me that was the beauty of it.  I didn't have to worry about a big misunderstanding breaking up the main couple because believe it or not these characters actually talked to each other.  There were no ungrounded accusations flying, no crying over hurt feelings and refusing to communicate clearly people said what they were thinking and what they felt, with the exception of Do Hwi, and that was a breath of fresh air.  
This drama was extremely entertaining, as I've come to expect from TVN.  It was heartfelt with well rounded characters that drove the story forward without the contrived issues  that other dramas throw at their main couple.  
And most importantly, this drama provided the mostly entertaining secondary pairing ever.

And the main couple wasn't so bad either.

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