This post contains spoilers and I know y’all watched this one by now

Another Kim Tae Ri masterpiece has come and stolen our hearts. This show was so popular and I’m sure all kdrama lovers have watched it by now so I don’t need to go into too much detail about the plot. In a nutshell, it’s about a high school student, Na Hee Do (Kim Tae Ri) who is determined to become the best fencer. During the IMF crisis in Korea the fencing program at Hee Do’s school was cancelled and she did everything in her power to transfer to a school that had a fencing program. She meets Baek Yi Jin (Nam Joo Hyuk), who is in his early twenties and going through a very different IMF experience than Hee Do. His family was once well off and lost everything. His father wanted to make sure his family was safe and filed for divorce and all of them dispersed.

I know, I know…. everyone hated the ending but I loved it. It was a perfect beautiful ending for a perfect beautiful love story. Let’s get into why…

Na Hee Do was very lucky was relatively unscathed by the IMF crisis in comparison to Baek Yi Jin and her soon to be rival and bestie, Ko Yu Rim (Bona). This kept her attitude and spirits up and this also made her a little bratty at times. she didn’t always appear to have a realistic grasp of what was going on around her but she was never cruel to anyone. She always had a positive outlook on life and did not let anyone stop her from becoming the best fencer. Yi Jin needed this positivity during such a hard to in his life and probably would not have survived it without her.

Yu Rim’s family was poor and had a hard time making ends meet. Despite this, her parents did everything she could make sure she didn’t feel this way. Her parents were always loving and she was always close with them. Her mother was constantly fixing her gloves since they couldn’t afford to buy her a new one. Her experience of the IMF was also traumatic and steered into the fencing for Russia in the end.

Even though Hee Do didn’t have the same financial issues as Yu Rim and Yi Jin, she lacked the love and acknowledgement from her mother that she so desperately wanted. Her mother always seemed to put her career first and missed her own husband’s funeral. Now most people would think that she was a “see you next Tuesday” but this was the 90s in patriarchal South Korea and they could fire her at any moment. Her mother always put herself first even if this meant missing some of the most important events in Hee Do’s childhood. She wanted to be the best reporter and she was. As a single mother in a profession where youth was more important than skill, she had to survive. The best part is she passed this sense of self love and confidence to Hee Do and she never apologized for picking herself. It was clear that Hee Do didn’t see it or appreciate it at the time but those were the most important traits she inherited from her mother.

Let’s get to the most important part…

As someone who watched kdramas since the early 90s, the one thing I hated the most was the woman falling for the asshole. This theme has been consistent in most Kdramas. Only recently writers have started putting in strong female leads. This whole theme of a kind sweet woman changing a man or bringing out their kind and loving side. This sends the wrong message to women and makes men believe that woman can be treated like shit and still stick around. Even as a teen growing up in the 90s I knew this was a solid formula for a toxic relationship and it never ends well.

Yi Jin was a kind person and treated Hee Do with respect and waited for her to be an adult before responding to her confession. They had a beautiful friendship for a long time before they got together. They were each other’s first love and enjoyed their time together. Their relationship was full of love and happiness. It was an intense happiness that is usually at its height during youth.

Why did such a beautiful, loving relationship come to a screeching halt after 16 episodes? Because both Yi Jin and Hee Do chose themselves. Their intense love for each other was unmatched to how much they love themselves. Yi Jin took a job in New York and he should have! It was a huge opportunity for him and his career, especially since he did not have a university degree. He had also changed as a person by this time. Hee Do did not want to go through the same thing she went through with her mom. She didn’t choose her mom but she could choose her husband.

The last time Yi Jin tied her shoe laces for her killed me. It was his last gesture of affection for her during their final good bye. The ending still made me happy. It was a beautiful, well made, perfect show. Go ahead, fight me on this.

This show has everything. The characters were perfectly casted and had fantastic chemistry together. Kim Tae Ri is an amazing actress and I couldn’t believe how well she played this immature teenager. She is about 4 years older than Nam Joo Hyuk but who could tell? I would definitely put this show on par with Reply 1988. I loved Search www plug at the end. Strong women, meaningful friendships, and a healthy relationship is the new standard for kdramas. Let’s keep the asshole chaebols and a minimum!

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