Kiss Goblin

 Heh, what a silly name for a show. I'd randomly seen a clip on Facebook for this show & added it to my Viki list...when I noticed that the episodes are really short. Like, 12 minutes each or so. Which made me go Yay! because, while I'm enjoying the shows I'm in the middle of, I also kinda wanted to get through something, you know what I mean?

This is a 2020 series with actors that I've not really seen much, though the male lead looks very like someone else. Anyway, let me start over.

Ban Sook (played by Bae In Hyuk -- he's very new, having debuted in 2019 apparently) is a 160 year old Goblin (someday, I gotta look up exactly what that means in Korean mythology -- they are definitely otherworldly & have shown up in various other shows, but I don't feel like they exactly correspond to fairy tale creatures I am familiar with) and he wants nothing more than to become human. He doesn't want to be alone. So...he's gotta kiss 10 different people to gave an emotion from each, as set out by the Goblin Queen. 

Oh Yeon Ah (played by Jeon Hye Won) catches him kissing her best friend (after she saw him kissing another girl the night before) and is righteously angry. But she soon discovers his secret -- honestly, he's remarkably up front about who he is to her -- though she doesn't believe it until an exorcist (played by Jang Eui Su, who was apparently in A Gentleman's Dignity...a show I couldn't finish) shows up trying to kill him. Then she finds herself in the strange place of being his protector (a human shield, if you will) while Ban Sook is on his kissing mission.

As he gains emotions (anger, joy, compassion, emptiness, etc.) things get more complicated for both of them. Meanwhile, there's her ex-boyfriend (who is a supreme ass), a barista that's had a crush on her for 2 years, and perhaps a hidden relationship complication between the Goblin Queen and the exorcist. 

I'm half way through after this morning's exercise session and should be able to finish it off tomorrow. I have hope it will end well, though I can see that it might be one of those things where she's his 10th kiss (and after they've kissed, the girls forget everything about him, so it might be one of those things.) But, it's got a light feel about it, so I'm hoping it wraps up nicely.

Edit: Finished it. And it was exactly like I predicted it would be -- She's his 10th kiss (after they've declared that they'll have their "first day" after he's become human & they've figured out they like each other). She's even fine with it -- says, yo, dude, you're handsome & my type, just ask me out and make me fall in love with you again, you did it once, it'll work (which was refreshing, at least), but the additional wrinkle is that HE also loses all memory of being a goblin (and her). So then he's gonna leave the world instead, but the exorcist dude tries to attack her to get him to come back and Goblin dude goes medieval on him. 

Ultimately, they do kiss and a year later, they're in a class together and the Goblin Queen does a little nudge in the right direction by putting them together for a group project and you know it'll lead somewhere...

So, given what this was & the short episodes, I don't have any real complaints. I mean, there are some serious gaps as far as realistic world building: what, he just comes awake with no memory of ANYTHING & then poof he's in uni? And if he was erased from her memory completely, how does that work? Does she have, like, a month long gap because they were together constantly? And then there's the other people that he didn't kiss -- they would remember him. It's one of those things that you just can't think about too hard. 

That said, it was a nice little diversion. The actors were all good. Their chemistry was nice. It was satisfying, if predictable (to me, anyway...I saw a review where someone was talking about OMG the plot twist!! but nothing about this show surprised me at all. But that's okay. If it had been a full length series, I'd be annoyed. But they packed enough in for the time they had. 

Am I glad I watched it? Yeah, it was a nice bit of fluff. I enjoyed it. 

Love Guaranteed

 I'm not even sure why I'm writing this one up. I don't do a write up on most "normal" movies we watch. But it's D&D night and my character is currently dead as a doornail, so I don't have anything to do other that cheer the others on. So...I watched this last night. Hubby made it about half way through before he was snoring. 

It's got Rachael Leigh Cook (remember her from She's All That?) and Damon Wayans Jr. She's an upstanding lawyer who takes too many pro bono cases to be able to pay her employees, but they love her anyway. He's a physical therapist with a heart of gold and has been looking for love since his fiance jilted him. Basically, he's been on a 1000 dates and wants to sue a dating service called Love Guaranteed for breach of contract. She takes the case because...well, she needs to eat. 

She soon revises her opinion of him (thinking he was just after a payout). Honestly, both of them are impossibly too pure for this world. Everyone loves them. They're too perfect. That's probably the biggest strongpoint and weak point of the movie. They are impossible. They are completely unbelievable, but, of course, perfect for each other.

They take the case to court (Heather Graham features here as the bazillionaire space cadet new-age nonsense spouting owner of the dating service) and it comes down to hinging on them winning IF he doesn't admit he's fallen in love with his lawyer because, while he didn't meet her through the dating service, he met her BECAUSE of it. Cue dramatic courtroom confession. A non-altruistic change of heart of the owner, and yay, happily ever after.

So, it's okay. It's imminently predictable. It works at all only because Wayans is perfectly charming here. Cook is okay as well. I think I watched it mostly because I was interested to see them after not having seen either of them in so long. But it's not a great movie. It won't be a classic. I don't see myself re-watching it again. There's no great depth to it and every move is telegraphed -- which is, to be fair, okay if that's the kind of comfort food you're looking for.

The Garden of Words

 Oops, just realised I didn't write this up from ages ago. So hopefully I remember enough to give it a fair description. Awhile back (um, since we moved, but not within the last 2 months?) I watched the animated movie The Garden of Words. 

I didn't really know anything going into it. Literally, the blurb is "When a lonely teenager skips his morning lessons to sit in a lovely garden, he meets a mysterious older woman who shares his feelings of alienation." I was feeling a bit alien myself.

First off, let me just say that it's quite a lovely anime as far as the style and look. The colours, the rain, the style of it. It's pretty. It was written and directed by Makoto Shinkai.

It is, indeed, about a lonely teenager in Toyko. He's quite young -- 16? which is probably my only quibble at all because, at it's heart, it is a tale of romance and longing and belonging and the female lead is a much older woman (late 20s?). I can't give exact ages as it's been too long, but I did wish it had been him in his LAST year of high school instead of his first. 

He (dammit, I don't remember their names at all either) is a responsible kid; he's gotta be, because his mom seems a bit of a flake and his older brother is moving out to be with his girlfriend. He works a bunch of part time jobs and his dream is to make shoes. He feels school is rather useless and he looks forward to rainy days because on those days, he skips and goes to the park. It's there that he meets a mysterious older woman. 

Why is she there during work hours, nursing a beer and eating chocolate? She's quiet and non-threatening and they don't even exchange names, but they slowly learn about each other. They don't flirt; not at all, but they do take small comfort in each other. She encourages him with his shoe making. It's obvious that they are both hiding, just in different ways. They share a sense of illicit-ness in their rainy day meetings and bring joy to each other. A quiet joy--they are both outsiders and they form a bond that goes beyond that of strangers. She gives clues as to who/what she was, but not any that he particularly picks up on, which is why the reveal much later is such a shock to him.

You see, she was a teacher -- at his school, no less -- and some nasty upper year students had basically bullied and accused her of inappropriate relations with a student (which makes her relationship progression with the boy even more poignant) to the point that she'd had to take off of work. He finally finds out who she is when she returns to school. At this point, he is protective of her and even gets into a fight (that he loses) with the upperclassmen. 

There is a final confrontation where he declares his love and she attempts to reject it, feeling (rightfully enough) that it can't be appropriate for them--something, to be fair, she's known all along and has been fighting with whereas he's only had the sense of age as the elephant between them--but then she chases him and they share one embrace. That's not the start of the romance though; because they aren't in the same place. She goes off to reclaim her life, he continues on with school -- though a voiceover at the end hints at him hoping to meet up with her again when they are on more equal footing. 

I feel like I'm not giving this justice; it's a lovely, poetic and delicate anime and I'm just spouting facts. I wish I'd written it up right after watching it. I mean, I am a bit conflicted with the age difference, BUT this was one of the most realistic handlings of that I've seen. They feel very real; they struggle, they have depths of loneliness to them all out of proportion to the sparse dialogue of the film. It's very well done. It's...like a watercolour of emotion.  I am glad I watched it. 

The Tale of Nokdu

 All of the bandwidth was getting sucked up by hubby downloading something (& little dude playing something), so I couldn't get a signal at all to watch something. So I had to work with what I had downloaded from Netflix. Sigh. I do wish Viki had that option. I was hoping to do a Mystic Pop Up Bar episode, but it wouldn't renew for some reason, so I wound up watching the first episode of The Tale of Nokdu. 

This is one I'd been wanting to watch for a while anyway, so I'm not terribly fussed. 

Nok-Du (played by the lanky but delicate Jang Dong-Yoon) lives on a remote island with his father and brother. He's never been allowed to leave the island & it's obvious there's some story behind that (at a guess, he's the rightful king/prince). One day, they are attacked by a group of female assassins. Nok-du entrusts his father and brother to the care of the village and follows after the one that got away (wounded). He's a talented swordsman. 

He has a run-in with Dong Dong-Ju (played by Kim So-Hyun, who I've seen in Page Turner and Bring It On Ghost) while she is dressed as a man and trying to assassinate the king. Through various circumstances, Nokdu winds up having to dress as a woman to infiltrate a widow's village where he followed one of the assassins to. Dong-Ju, of course, is there as a kisaeng in training.

Now, a lot of the time, it's really unbelievable when characters dress up as the opposite sex, but I gotta say that Dong-Yoon can pull it off. He's tall, but he's pretty. I can buy him as a woman actually more than I can buy So-Hyun as a man; but at least Joseon men's dress is very concealing so you can see that she'd get away with it. 

There's a pretty good mix of action vs. comedy vs. drama and you can see where the romance is going. Fast-paced as well; nothing draggy about the first episode. Looks very promising.

Edit: Finished episode 3 and they just keep getting better so far. A bit confusing in that all of the old dudes have the same fake scraggly beards so it was a bit hard to tell them apart at first, but I think I've sorted it out now. I think little dude would even like it.

Edit: Finished 4 and I was briefly confused about what the heck was going on until I remembered stuff that had happened way back in the first episode that I'd forgotten about. Hey, it was back in November. I was getting a bit annoyed thinking, what are they doing?? But then now it all makes sense. I probably should have re-watched episode one before I re-started. 

Edit: Up through episode 9 now. I was wanting to start Mr. Queen because it looks absolutely ridiculous (and I like the leads), but I'm so far through this one that it made more sense to keep going without starting something new. Also, this one is really good. It has some of the best pacing of any of the Kdramas I have watched. The last couple of episodes have the first hint of oh, come on when Nok-du and Dong-ju keep running into the King while he's out dressed like a somewhat normal person & get to know him. One, it's way too convenient. Where are all his hangers-on? When he's going around the palace, he's followed by, like, a contingent. Am I really supposed to believe that he wanders around at all hours by himself? I can actually get why they don't recognise him as the King -- it's not like there are photographs or newspapers. But, yeah, it is all a bit convenient plot-wise.

On the other hand, it is interesting to see another side of the King. He's obviously not a good man -- he attempted to kill his newborn son after all (still no idea why or what it has to do with the date Nok-du was born) and apparently has killed other people in his quest to maintain power. But he does have some levels to him -- he's lonely, he's afraid, he felt betrayed by his father. He's not all evil, especially in his interactions with who he can only imagine are random strangers. And he seems to know that he's not the best king. But still, yeah, crap person.

Whereas Yul-mu has morphed from second lead nice/annoying dude to full on evil manipulator / schemer not afraid to kill entire villages full of women (not to mention the Grand Prince). He's actually a bit one-note now, though he does have a soft spot for Dong-ju...but, honestly, I don't think he'd hesitate to kill her either if (and when) she gets in his way. He's become the big bad of the show.

Anyway, still enjoying this one and have no serious complaints about it. And, like I said, the pacing is excellent.

Edit: Whew. Finally. Just two episodes to go. Everything's still good. Pacing, characterisation, etc. It is a bit wearying at this point because I kinda just want to get to the payoff now. Very tired of Yul-mu's posturing. Wanna slap the king. Wanna hug Nok-du and Dong-ju and make them talk to each other.

Edit: Okay. Finished it! Yay! I'm not gonna re-hash any of the plot. Overall, it was a great show. The front end is a lot more "fun" than the last half (all the cross-dressing hijinks, etc.), though about half of the last show was pretty much pure fan-service (not in the R rated sense, but in the fluffiness sense) as you get to see their wedding and some happy moments with all the family. In fact, that might be the one weak point -- evil Yul-mu (I never did figure out how to spell his full princely name) knows they are alive and it is extremely out of character for him to leave them be (or let the Queen mother join them once he finally succeeds in his revolt 9 years later). I mean, yeah, I'm grateful because I like a happy ending. But would his character actually do that?

The one "twist" at the end is one I had thought they would have (where Yul-mu's birthday is the same as Nok-du's and so the king's prophecy referred to HIM rather than the king's son and therefore the king was an evil idiot for no good purpose) early on. I didn't expect them to leave it for the last episode. It had been very early on (before Yul-mu showed his true colours) that it was mentioned they shared a birthday. The bad thing about being a writer, I guess. I'd been waiting and waiting to see when they were going to reveal that to the king. 

Anyway, am I glad I watched it? Yes. Would I watch it again? Hm...maybe. After awhile. The last half was a bit grim with all the dying and whatnot. So...maybe once we're no longer in a pandemic? I did really love all the actors, including the side characters. There's really nothing wrong with this one at all. Really well done all the way around. Any weariness is more related to pandemic-world-on-fire-weariness than with the show itself. And I really need to look up Jang Dong-Yoon to see what else he's in.

Dash & Lily

 So, I was feeling kind of Christmas-y today and I didn't want to do a full hour exercising, so I thought I'd try out the first two episodes (just over 20 minutes each) of a show called Dash & Lily, based on a book by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn called Dash & Lily's Book of Dares. I'm not a huge fan of David. Don't get me wrong; I generally enjoy the books he writes (especially the ones with Rachel--like Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was also made into a movie). But I've met him a few times during conferences and conventions and he rubs me a bit the wrong way. It may just be the whole "you must be ON" during a conference thing, but he comes across as very stuck on himself and a bit fake and I suppose it stuck out because most of the people you meet in kidlit are truly just lovely and warm. But maybe he's lovely too. I'm sure he is to his friends. So, anyway, I decided to watch this in spite of that. 

Like his other books, this one is about those particularly jaded beasts known as NYC teenagers--the kind that go to Stuvie (or should). They are clever. Snarky. Well-read. Full of wit and independence. There is, honestly, probably no other city in the world that these rare creatures could live in. 

In this case, we have Dash, who is the very snarky and aptly-described "snarly" teen (played by a 24 year old). He hates Christmas. He's been burned by love. He fancies himself jaded. He thinks he wants to wallow in solitary confinement. His mom thinks he's staying with his dad. His dad thinks he's staying with his mom. He has one good friend (who's awesome) and an ex girlfriend that he can't forget (and is conveniently in town; I suspect she'll pop up at some point to cause some conflict). 

Then there's Lily (played by a 26 year old). She's an old soul in a teenager's body, more comfortable talking to adults than kids her age. She appears to have an endless collection of Christmas jumpers. She ADORES Christmas, but her family (for the first time ever during the holidays) is traveling and she's only got her adorable gay older brother (who has just embarked on a new romance) around. He encourages her to take a journal and set up a trail of clues / dares by leaving it in her favourite bookstore: The Strand.

Dash, of course, is the one that picks it up. At the end of episode two, they've traded it back and forth a few times and Dash in particular has been forced out of his comfort zone. He's not afraid to make a fool of himself, I'll say that for him. I imagine it will be Lily's turn soon. 

So. I gotta say that so far it's going exactly like I expected it would based on what I know of David and Rachel's books together. And I am enjoying it -- it's predictable but cute. Very charming. 

I like that Lily is half-Japanese (with the family to represent that). I love the gay older brother and yay for showing a nice-ish gay Asian couple (though, hey, he coulda met the guy somewhere *other* than Grindr, for heaven's sake). I like all the side characters -- the taciturn, unimpressed bookstore clerk saved as "Cousin Mark" in Lily's phone; the protective "Uncle" that plays a store Santa (that Dash winds up stealing a hat from in order to find out what Lily's name is), the best friend of Dash with the unlikely name of Boomer (if I'm remembering right). 

I'm sure I'll finish it. I just don't think it is going to surprise me. I feel like I've seen it before (Nick & Norah, Naomi & Ely), just set in a different season. I don't mean to sound snarky. I guess I just like to be surprised a little. But, we'll see! Maybe it will! And hey, I need some eggnog!

Edit: I finished it. It was okay. I wanted to like it more. Or, I wanted to hate it more. I landed somewhere in the middle. It was probably supposed to make me feel all warm and fuzzy, but I felt more frustrated. I wasn't even really rooting for them to get together. Was it that they were all ridiculously privileged and unapproachable? Was it that they feel doomed to me as a couple? That neither one of them really deserves the other? I don't know. Was it that every bit of it felt too familiar? I really don't know. Maybe it's just that I watched it at the end of 2020, one of the worst years ever.

Caution, Hazardous Wife

 I'm not sure why I decided to try a new show over the weekend while exercising. Maybe because I'll Go to You When the Weather is Nice is such a slow-paced thing? I'd had Caution, Hazardous Wife on the Viki list for a bit and it looked like it would be cheerful and funny and/or silly. 

And...well, it kinda was. And not. Basically, the lead character, Nami Isayama (played by Haruka Ayase) was an orphan who grew up in a lonely fashion and lived a rough life as a spy. She finally decides she's had enough and fakes her own death. All she wants is a "normal" life, though she's not really sure what that is. Husband, kids, taking care of the house. 

She soon lands a husband -- love at first sight -- at a blind dating event. They marry and she quits her job and becomes a housewife. But after 6 months or so, not everything is as perfect as she'd hoped. 1) She's kinda bored, 2) She's a terrible cook, 3) Her new fellow housewife friends have warned her about signs that the marriage isn't going so well (i.e. he's going out to eat more, they aren't getting busy at night as much...) and she's concerned about that.

She and her new friends, played by Ryoko Hirosue (looks familiar, but can't place her) and Tsubasa Honda (who I'd seen in the live action Full Metal Alchemist) decide to take a cooking class together. There, they meet another lady and Nami immediately senses something is off.

So. Yeah. The lady is a victim of domestic violence. Her husband is a serious serial abuser. So. The majority of the first episode is them trying to help her the "housewife" way (i.e. being there for her, trying to back her up even when the husband lies, etc.) but then that fails and Nami ultimately takes matters (more violently) into her own hands. 

Not exactly funny. Or silly. 

They're showing him beating the lady with an orange wrapped in a towel. Then, when she tries to tell him she wants a divorce, he freaking stabs her and then threatens to let her bleed out unless she begs for help.

So. Yeah. 

And, ultimately, dude didn't get what he deserved (JAIL or DEATH) -- Nami just made him divorce the lady and give her the house and leave town. 

So...

I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling about this one. I'd be willing to give another episode a go, but it's definitely not the FLUFF I thought I was signing up for. It was apparently made into a movie as well (same lead actors) that is set after the end of the drama series (and the husband isn't the IT CEO he claimed to be?). 

Weirdly, Haruka looks like the Japanese version of Jennifer Garner. I mean, disturbingly. Or Jennifer Garner looks like the American version of Haruka Ayase. Not always, but enough that they could just about be body doubles for each other. Especially from Garner's Alias days. Not a thing that affected my enjoyment of the show or anything. Just a weirdness. 

Acting-wise, it was okay but a bit awkward. The leads were decent. The two housewife friends were so-so, especially the one I'd seen in something before. She's just very obviously acting in some scenes. I don't remember that from the movie I saw her in, but it was a live action for an anime, so...

Eh, so I guess I'm a bit 50/50 on this one. I might give it another go, but in a while and when I'm in the mood for something like this (i.e. probably not during a pandemic...). It has potential though. I mean, I do love some ass-kicking. I just wasn't expecting the graphic domestic violence.

Wannabe Challenge

So I haven't posted about any otome for a while, probably because I've been more or less treading water with them. Still playing Mr. Love Queen's Choice, but I haven't actually advanced past chapter 17 even though there are now apparently over 20 chapters and they've even been divided into volumes...basically, I've just been doing the daily tasks. Obey Me I am playing just sporadically. I would actually really LOVE to play through my comfort app -- Mystic Messenger -- but I don't have the kind of time it takes to devote to it (especially the late night chats and phone calls) right now. Gotta get little man up at 6 AM for school. 

BUT I randomly decided to join an otome group on Facebook because it popped up. And that brought a new game to my attention called Wannabe Challenge. Which, okay, I detest the name. BUT it's a Korean made game (like Mystic Messenger) and it uses some of the same voice actors (Jang Kim! Zen!). So that right there was enough to make me download it.

Gameplay-wise...it's more similar to Mr. Love than anything else. There are cards to collect and it looks like there's an avatar to dress up. A gacha to get cards. Not in love with that. BUT the interface is clean and seems easy to use. Storyline reasonably engaging (so far -- I'm still in the first chapter) though a bit young feeling. Basically, you're a 21 year old model who seems to feel (maybe rightly...hard to say) that she's had bad luck all her life and that her mother (who used to be a top model) doesn't love her. However, there's some past lives kind of thing because 3 goblins and 1 otherworldly fox-ish dude are connected to her and now that she's 21, they've come to find her in the real world. 

The guys are Taehee (dark hair), Biho (red hair), Hansol (blondie), Yooha (silvery-haired fox dude). So far they all seem like cinnamon roll sweetness. There are apparently texts, phone calls, and Instagram-y posts where you can interact with them. There are choices you make in the story sections that do seem to change their feelings for you, but no idea yet whether or not it's a true game mechanic (as in Mystic Messenger where you can try and pick a route) or if it's like in Mr. Love where you're kinda a four-timing dilettante. I'm guessing it's probably the latter, given the rest of the app, but I have hope it's more like a traditional otome.

The Wannabe thing -- essentially, it's supposed to be an app like Instagram. And she's trying to win a competition on it to become more self sufficient? Honestly, I'm not totally sure what's up with her other than that she wants to move out from her mom's place but things with her job suck? Though there's hints that's got some otherworldly root cause. I mean, dude, her boss's name is Sloth. WTF. Though, maybe it's the perspective of age, but if she weren't so freaking negative and bleh about life, maybe it would be better...(in a nutshell, not totally loving the MC so far--the MC in Mr. Love is written sort of purposefully dumb and naive, while this one seems like a Debby Downer O Woe is Me. Both are a bit annoying.).

Like Mr. Love, the "story" missions are alternated with task missions; in this case, photoshoots. You can upgrade the cards and the "camera" you use to take the shots. Looks a bit grind-y as you collect items when you do the photoshoots that are then used to upgrade the cards. 

Basically...yeah...I'm totally playing this to hear the voice actors. It's got Zen and 707. The story bits with the voice acting are actually quite long, which is both a good and bad thing. Like I mentioned above, I've not got loads of time at the moment to play (er...I should actually be doing something else right now other than writing this up...) so I am moving very, very slowly through this one. Like, maybe 4 missions a day at the moment? Which is probably okay, I suppose. But you want to be able to have a chunk of time to sit down, because you actually want to listen to the VAs and not skip through it...

There's a bunch of stuff I haven't unlocked yet as I haven't made it out of the first chapter, including the dress up stuff. So I'll report back later. 

But, hey, kudos to an otome app where the girl actually HAS EYES. Though, man, I can't wait until I can change her out of her short shorts outfit. It's ridiculous. I don't even like avatar dress up things but I am too old to look at the MC in that outfit. It makes me cringe. Put some clothes on, girl! The dudes are all wearing winter coats and you're walking around like Daisy Duke! FFS!

I'll Go to You When the Weather is Nice aka When the Weather is Fine

 The literal translation of this one is actually If the Weather Is Good, I’ll Find You, which I kind of like. Anyway, I'd finished the Flower Boy Next Door and I did a few exercise sessions with the Isekai Izakaya (which I really am enjoying), but I thought it would be nice to do another drama. And...you know, I really like Mystic Pop Up Bar...BUT I think I've figured out why I haven't watched an episode in months even though I'm about half way through. I know it's about to head into the angst-y arc. And it's a somewhat formulaic show where every episode features a "problem" that they solve. And a fair amount of those problems feature dead people. Because, you know, heck, half the cast is supposed to be dead. And while the show itself is fairly funny, I just literally can't take any darkness right now. I just really want ALL THE FLUFF. 

And, at this point, I've probably given up on Good Casting and probably also Sweet Munchies, even though I've also made it halfway through both. The one because you know who the bad guys are so there's no real plot tension and the spies are just...so freaking incompetent. And Sweet Munchies because I don't really like how they're handling the whole "pretending to be gay thing" and you know people are gonna get hurt.

Anyway. Back to this show. I'd been hearing for ages how it was slow but sweet. And it's got Park Min Young from What's Wrong with Secretary Kim. And the male lead runs a bookstore. What's not to like about that? 

So, Hae Won (also another bonus that the female lead character has one of my favourite Korean names), played by Park Min Young, is a cellist. She's been teaching in Seoul but has come back to her small home town to stay with her aunt. She's a bit disillusioned with life after some of her experiences in the big city (horrible students with overbearing parents, an unsupportive and unscrupulous boss and probably some other things we haven't even seen yet) and has come back with her tail between her legs and some hidden anger. 

Her aunt, Sim Myung-Joo, (played by a sunglasses wearing Jin Hee-Kyung) runs a dilapidated inn, though Hae is surprised to learn she's in the process of shutting it down. There's obviously some weird history between them (or maybe to do with Hae's mom?). Not really sure what's going on there yet.

And then there's Eun Seob, played by Seo Kang Joon, the bookstore owner who had attended high school with Hae. He's had a crush on her forever and while he tries to play it cool, he's a bit of a flailing mess. Everything I've read about this one is that it's very s-l-o-w paced and I can already see that. The episodes are an hour long and everything, including the artisan-ish coffee making, is slow and methodical. A bit of staring into the void, as it were. 

There's also about a billion other characters mentioned on AsianWiki (some of whom I've seen in other things before). His family, her family, people they went to school with, and then a bunch of others that I have no clue how they fit it.

After the first episode, I can say that it seems like a warm cup of tea on a winter's day, with slow tendrils of steam rising into the air. I think it's going to be good. I like the leads (while I haven't seen Kang Joon in anything but clips, he's in a fair few of the ones I have on my to-watch-list). Park Min Young so far is a bit blank faced and emotionless, but I think that's more of her character trying to not make ripples in the world around her. Quite liking Eun Seob. I like it when the guys flail a bit. And, you know, bookstore.

Looking forward to continuing on, though I wouldn't say it has HOOKED me yet. It definitely has a slow burn kind of feeling.

Edit: Watched episode 2 today. It is a very quiet show, though on the other hand, it's already bringing out some of the past drama. Apparently the reason Hae was living with her aunt in high school was that her mother killer her husband (presumably her dad) and went to prison (!?). And the one friend she'd made, Kim Bo Yeong, let that slip to the other girls & they had a falling out and present-day Bo Yeong wants to talk with Hae about their "misunderstanding". 

Loved the book club scene. It was very sweet. Honestly, I wouldn't even mind if this show really didn't have much drama and it was just the book club and the slow making/drinking of coffee and the two leads slowly getting to know each other. I'd be okay with that. Don't think that's gonna happen, but I can hope.

Edit: Yeah, okay, going slowly through this one. I'm up through episode 8 now? Which means I'm halfway. And they're finally sort of getting together. But given how many episodes are left and the whole O woe, we have so much past trauma, I have the distinct worry that it's gonna get a lot worse before it ends up okay. Besides her whole "my mother killed my father and I was bullied for it," now it looks like his mom is not really his mom (guessing maybe aunt?) and something bad happened to his mom or she abandoned him before dying and it all has to do something with the cabin up in the mountains? And so he's got the whole I'm not worthy thing going on.

So, eh, I dunno. In general, I like all the characters. It's slow going for everyone though. And it isn't nearly as fluffy or happy or warm as I'd had hope for. But I do think I'll finish it. Just slowly.

As an aside, I did like the characters enough that I made them in my Sims game. Wherein they are loads happier.