I was super disappointed with this drama. I know for a lot of people who started kdramas and aren't korean, this was their first drama sometimes even their first asian drama. I started with watching jdramas first and then moved on to kdrams and watched Coffee Prince for my first drama. So, I came into this with a lot of expectations. I liked Lee Minho in City Hunter and I loved Hana Yori Dango (the original Jap version) with Matsumoto Jun and Inoue Mao. Some might say I feel in love with the japanese version and won't accept an alternate but that's not true. I recently tried this again (some 11-12 yrs later) to make sure it wasn't because it was right after I watched the jap ver. I still don't like it. I also recently saw F4 the Thai remake. It was sooo good. I loved Bright and Tu and Win and Prim and Dew. So this is not me being obsessed with the Japa ver. and rejecting the other remakes. I even liked the Cdrama ver with Dylan Wang and Shen Yue (Meteore Garden 2018) But this was just so super weird. WTF did they do?

After watching Hana Yori Dango and I expected intense chemistry between the leads since the characters (Tsukasa and Tsukushi) have this intense explosive dynamic between them. I have also read the manga this is based on and was expecting more. To me Lee Minho and Gu hye seon were weirdly awkward in the romantic scenes. Gu Hye seon appeared too old to pay Geun Jan Di a high school student. Kim Hyun Joon looked baby-faced next to her. Her signature kick in the face wasn't as BAMF in this and her priming looked weird, like she was trying to make it look cute.

Lee Minho with Domyoji's signature curls looked super weird. But Dylan Wangs curls looked weird too. But they seem more in sync with the characters than Lee Minho's where they were too put together and not really like curls. And part of it was straight.

For things that might redeem this drama, I have to say the plot since it is based on one of my fav Japanese mangas.

The one thing that was awesome in this dramas was the side characters. I loved Kim Bum and Kim So Eun. Their interactions were really cute. This is what made me like Kim Bum, though it took almost a decade after this for him to really shine. I also enjoyed the boys' interactions with each other.