This review is highly personal, but to the effect of how personal My Mister was to its two leads, and to the characters surrounding them, I can only extend the same.

There are so many things I want to say about 나의 아저씨. I want to say thank you to the writers for believing in the resilience to find what makes one happy and not walk along streets without sighing every few steps what makes us wake up each morning to get into our clothes. What makes us smile and say thank you and think we are good.

When I was in my freshman year of college, my first semester, I was in the lowest place. What got me out wasn't people. It wasn't my family, the few real friends I had, or even the faint dream I had been conjuring, which is now my foremost motivator. It was anime. It was the illusory friendships and the strength of "nakama" found in a silly adventure starting from a barrel. But what it really was, and what I've realized steadily with the kinds of shows and stories I draw to, is a semblance of the real, human closeness that to this day I hesitate to extend to my siblings, much less my friends. I realized that first year that I couldn't open up to others which remains key to my identity, which in the past few years I expressed more in writing or other artistic works I would share with others.

In this sense I related most strongly with Park Dong-hoon, although I am not well into any career nor married, I don't really talk to people when I have problems. I hold it in, and try to resolve it on my own. Occasional stories empower me such as this one, and the most significant preceding, Lucifer. Stories tell relationships and conversations between old friends. 나의 아저씨 is a "Korean drama" then in the truest sense of the word. I have not seen a work on the screen, while still young to it, as close to common and familial Korean manners of interaction, from the many Koreans I interacted with during my childhood and through today. 나의 아저씨 is not your standard "K-drama" although it is intensely emotional, incredibly emotional, one of the most emotionally powerful works of television I have seen ever since I started watching these pretenses. I don't think I've seen my eyes as red as they were, looking at myself in the mirror, after the last episode. That of course is a personal sharing and many K-dramas are emotional, that is what they are known to be. But this is different. How do these three people act as if they've known each other for over forty years as brothers? It's not too easy to describe their mannerisms well but as a Korean who grew up with a Korean brother, while these three were in their forties, I saw it. I saw it when their mother, a halmoni, reprimanded them and made their box lunches; my mother did the same for my education all until college. The screenplay more broadly was, especially for the drama, impactful, realistic in the manner of Korean speech, heartfelt, memorable, and grounded. There were many moments throughout where, sensitized as I have been to the tropes of storytelling, I had certain expectations, and they were simply ignored for a more realistic or compelling to-character decision and event. I am almost surprised that the land of Korean drama has works such as these, from my limited exposure, and particularly for why I even watched this one in the first place - IU, or her real name, Lee Ji-eun, my favorite artist.

I sampled some of the first episode of Hotel Del Luna and didn't much like what I saw of IU's character there. I started 나의 아저씨 and pretty quickly saw that Lee Ji-eun is, well, a pretty good actress, way better than I expected, perhaps I bent too much into her singing voice than her acting voice. While of course this was not watching a part of Lee Ji-eun's life, but a character she portrayed, some aspects are shared, such as her childhood being raised by her grandmother. I thus felt not only watching the character of Lee Ji-an, but also a part of Lee Ji-eun, whom I only knew as IU; I feel like she put a great part of herself into her performance. Having listened to her discography in release order prior to 나의 아저씨 and reading about her career, I saw some of what she put of herself in her music, in 나의 아저씨. An artist-to-person experience that I feel honored to have watched. One could say that this entire series is about waiting for IU to smile; and while certainly that is the case, there are many other things. Lee Ji-an is closed off to others for parts of her past, and doesn't trust others; doesn't think she's necessarily a "good person." Park Dong-hoon isn't happy as a general manager at a large corporation, and doesn't tell his family and friends what he's feeling. It is when these two meet, amidst the political machinations of the corporation, that spring a subtle, particular, special, under-explored relationship. The word "ajeossi" (아저씨) is not quite "mister" as it's used in America; it's not even the way the girl sees the older man in Goblin, which plays for a potential romance between the two, which is not the case here; or the anime After the Rain. While as with the Goblin who plays a "guardian" role, here the two grow to simply need each other in their lives. Do I have someone in my life that keeps me strong? and when I couldn't really think of anybody, I cried. Another way to put 나의 아저씨 is that of two depressed, miserable people who comfort each other in their shared pity. More broadly, "My Mister" is about being happy; and about how you can learn how, from those who keep you strong, those who tell you, "fighting," those who know you, really know you, so that no matter what you do, they don't care. The extent to which you see the characters on 나의 아저씨 be unhappy about their lives is significant; pretty much everyone hates themselves. But they keep living. A group of friends from a town who live together for forty years, is still living there, and they're OK.

행복하자. Let's be happy. It's not an easy thing to do but I hope you find someone who can encourage you to get there. I hope I do.