ExtraOrdinary You

Overall Rating: A
Subtitles: I liked these subs! I watched this one with my husband who speaks and understands 0 Korean and he didn’t have trouble following or understanding anything.
Brief Synopsis: Side characters in a comic become self-aware and set out on a quest to change their fates. Watch it on Viki here.

**Full show spoilers below the image. If you do not wish to be spoiled, do not proceed**

Ending Type: This had as happy an ending as you could expect from a show about self-aware comic book characters. They only exist within the stories and worlds they’re written in, and eventually those stories come to an end. Luckily we established that the writer likes to write the same characters over and over again in different stories, so at the end we got to see Haru and Dan Oh find each other in their new story and remember each other pretty much right away. How cute!
So in that way yes, a happy ending. In another way, all of the characters were brought into a new story, most without their memories or self-awareness, so that was sad. Also I don’t think Baek Kyung was in the new world.
Characters:
Eun Dan Oh (Kim Hye Yoon)
Haru (Rowoon)
Baek Kyung (Lee Jae Wook)
Yeo Joo Da (Lee Na Eun)
Lee Do Hwa (Jung Gun Joo)
Oh Nam Joo (Kim Young Dae)
Jinmiche (Lee Tae Ri)
Full review:
I know this review is coming out in mid-2020, but I actually watched this in 2019 and it was a highlight of 2019 for me. Just a purely delightful and clever show.
The premise is that characters in a romance comic begin to become self-aware and two of them (the comic’s second female lead Eun Dan Oh and the comic’s secondary love interest Lee Do Hwa) decide they’re going to figure out the rules of existing as characters in the comic world and change their fates. Eun Dan Oh is a character with a chronic illness who wants to be able to live, and Lee Do hwa is the secondary love interest who wants to get the girl. With the help of Haru, a truly extraneous comic book character with no lines or official role in the comic, they are able to begin changing the pre-determined script.
This was incredibly clever and delightful from moment one, using the premise as a way to poke fun at classic K Drama tropes while also utilizing them to the story’s benefit. The switches between the scripted stories and the organic moments between scenes was incredibly well done and showcased the acting chops of the ensemble cast.
This show got me into Lee Jae Wook, who plays Eun Dan Oh’s finance (they are in HS but ok!) who is an absolute jerkface and treats her terribly, but scripted Dan Oh adores him (self-aware Dan Oh DOES NOT). However as he gains self-awareness it turns out he actually does have feelings for her, and this drives his character to straddle the line between the story’s main antagonist and a beloved character with a small but heartfelt redemption arc.
The writing of the story was absolutely on point and had exactly the right amount of emotional thrust. The entire story felt like a setup for the ending, as we first discover that these characters all existed before in another story by the author so we can expect them to come back again, and both Haru and Dan Oh died during the story and had to go through the process of re-awakening and remembering each other, which they did. The ending, then, was not much of a surprise, since we already knew that they would be written again and would find a way to remember each other again.
It’s a sweet take on the rebirth romance concepts, where instead of finding and remembering each other in each new life they do it in each new story they’re written into.
On that note, this romance was absolutely sweet and wonderful and I loved it a lot. Honestly the Baek Kyung storyline was also done incredibly well, and there was a hot minute there where I would have been happy regardless of who she ended up with.
Overall this show should be praised for its clever and fresh writing, the incredible ensemble cast, and the fun way it played with its own genre. I’m a big fan.
High Points: The characters and the writing and acting. So good.
Low Points: I think my only complaint is that the chef character seemed to know a lot without explanation, which was helpful to the characters but kind of didn’t work within the context of the story. It’s a very, very minor complaint though.