Reply 1988 - 4/10
Reply 1988 is a relaxing show that is meant to be enjoyed on an evening with tea. It is something to watch with friends and family as nothing serious happens, it's a slice of life really close to reality.
Slice of life is one of my favourite genres, but did I enjoy this show? Nope. Because this show is stagnant. It's a plateau where NOTHING HAPPENS. it starts off well, it had me captured for the first few episodes because it showed alot of social background of people's lives in 1988 then I became indifferent towards it in the middle and almost wanted to drop it. The ending was pretty nice too, but not for me to love the show or save my low ratings.
My strife with this show is its repetitive nature in terms of situations, jokes etc. It shows little to no growth, I also didn't have any emotional connection to most of the characters, I didn't hate them nor did I love them. Some characters I outrighted hated them for most of the show aka the female leads sister / bora.
Another thing is even if you miss one or 2 episodes or a few scenes literally u miss nothing. Most scenes are insignificant and so many fillers. Most scenes are meaningless and show some dumb things some character does that is apparently supposed to be funny, but I didn't enjoy it. we had a goat sound for all the funny scenes, it was a little annoying though I didn't hate it but it wasnt pleasant.
I want to compare this with another slice of life made by the same producer, that is hospital playlist. Hospital playlist shows lives of people in a hospital and it shows reality, doesn't repeat situations or jokes, it has very lovable characters unlike the frustrating ones in this one. It is extremely insightful to people's life while visiting hospitals and the staff. It is 100 times more wholesome than reply 1988. It has not made me lose interest and is always relaxing.
I would have enjoyed this show alot more if they showed a bit more about the social problems and setting at the time period of 1988. I felt like they showed more of the shows, singers, ads and celebrities popular at the time which I couldn't relate to as I'm not a korean person, but I understand why the koreans loved this show. It's probably one of the reasons why I didn't enjoy the show.
*spoilers BIG SPOILERS SKIP THIS IF YOURE WATCHING OR PLANNING TO WATCH OTHERWISE NO POINT* the love triangle was just sad. I hated the guy she ended up with. He's the most boring character I have ever seen in my life. He had no charms according to me. He is sleepy, tired and stressed all the time and playing his lousy game. Not very street smart either, he needs help tying his shoes? Really now? He's handsome but that's nowhere a reason to ship the two.The second lead was relatively more interesting and had some life in him but he is just a coward so idk but I did ship them more than the one she ended up with. Basically I dont ship her with anyone especially not with the male lead.
Also the fact that they dragged this show to 21 episodes for literally no reason made no sense to me. This show had nothing much to show that justified it to be so long.
Now to the positive aspects of the show that saved the dying rating. This show showed EVERY characters life, there were no side characters, everyone was main. This was nice! It showed everyone's problems, lifes and touched upon lives of older and younger alike.
The music of the show including osts and the old songs was IMPECCABLE. I learned way too many good old songs because of this show. This reason single handedly increased the ratings by 3.
I really dont recommend this show to be an ideal slice of life or in general to anyone, but there are tons of shooters for this show who seemed to have really enjoyed it, so i guess it's your choice as I'm part of the minority who didn't enjoy this high rated show.