Jugglers

Jugglers

7/10

Jugglers

Genre:                                                   Episodes: 16                                    Year: 2018

Romance

Comedy

Synopsis:

Jwa Yoon Yi works as a secretary and is dedicated to her job. After she is wrongfully accused of inappropriate behaviour, she is transferred to a new department with a new boss. Yoon Yi’s new boss, Nam Chi Won, is not interested in interpersonal relationships at work, and despises the fact that he now has a secretary. Chi Won wants to move back into the house he lived in as a child, and signs a rental agreement, even though Yoon Yi is the landlord’s daughter and lives on the first floor.

Cast:

Baek Jin Hee (Jwa Yoon Yi)

Daniel Choi (Nam Chi Won)

Kang Hye Jung (Wang Jung Ae)

Lee Won Geun (Hwangbo Yool)

Cha Joo Young (Ma Bo Na)

In Gyo Jin (Jo Sang Moo)

Jung Hye In (Park Kyung Rae)

Kim Chang Wan (Do Tae Geun)

Min Jin Woong (Woo Chang Soo)

Seo Eun Woo (Do Do Hee)

General Thoughts:

All in all ‘Jugglers’ is a fun little show that delivers exactly what it said it would- a simple, light-hearted office romance. There’s not really any high stakes, big betrayals, or dramatic reveals, but what the show does do, it does quite well.

Bring on the co-habitation hijinks

‘Jugglers’ takes on pretty standard rom-com trajectory with a pretty standard hate-to-love relationship at its core. There’s nothing revolutionary in the plot, but the drama takes a recipe that’s known to work well and flavours it with its own special details. While the main love-line was pretty common stuff (it was still cute though),

Growing together to make the office better

the show felt unique for its adorable second leads and its amusing, but not particularly threatening villains. The show was more about the developing relationship between its leads (and the second leads) and their small day-to-day victories than it was about some big obstacle to overcome. While that sounds almost a little plain and boring, sometimes it’s nice to watch a show that has no big, bad evil in it. There was enough story in Chi Won learning how to accept help from others and Yoon Yi learning how to give that help that there was no need to have some diabolical villain messing things up. Not to say that there weren’t any villains, as Yoon Yi’s first boss and Sang Moo could definitely be considered as such, but as they were mostly ineffectual and full of bluster rather than danger, it felt a little more low-key and natural. Thankfully office politics were kept out of the drama for the most part (because does anyone ever actually enjoy watching office politics?), and were only sprinkled through lightly when needed.

Do I care about office politics? Not. At. All.

There were hints of characters trying to get ahead of each other and use each other, but the majority of the drama focused on Chi Won and Yoon Yi simply trying to do their jobs well, regardless of what other people in the company were doing.

Sass and beautiful hands- he really is the whole package

Daniel Choi was just phenomenal as our leading man. In K-Dramaland I’ve seen bad-boy-sexy, cute-sexy, and sexy-sexy. I’ve seen dorky-cute and dorky-dorky, but I must say that I think Daniel Choi has delivered my first ever dorky-sexy. He started out pretty regularly dorky with his red pens and anti-social personality, but as his character started to care more and more about Yoon Yi and started stepping up to protect her, Daniel Choi really turned on his charms, yet still held onto his character's trademark dorkiness. I never knew a man quoting ‘One Piece’ in the middle of a verbal smackdown could be so steamy. Daniel Choi you are a complete magician. Unlike Chi Won, I found Yoon Yi a little harder to warm to. While Chi Won was dorky-sexy, Yoon Yi was kind of b*tchy-sweet. Which is a weird combo. I could see the character the writer was aiming for (something like Shin Min Ah in ‘Arang’ or Jeon Ji Hyun in ‘My Love from the Stars’)- sweet on the surface but with a sassy streak shown though disgruntled ramblings while others aren't listening.

I'm glad we got rid of that fake-ness real quick

Unfortunately with Yoon Yi I found that this dichotomy in her character felt more two-faced rather than funny and relatable. I thought this came from a teeny tiny weakness in Baek Jin Hee’s acting more so than a flaw in the way the character was written. Yoon Yi just felt a touch too sugar sweet when she had her secretary face on and a touch too arrogantly snarky behind the scenes. Her character became more balanced as the show progressed as we saw her working hard, doing her best, and most importantly falling for Chi Won.

This was one of the most awkward kisses I've ever seen- and I've seen a lot of awkward kisses

While I do think the leads fell in love rather rapidly, I didn’t mind too much that we whizzed through the initial crush stage, as it meant we got more of them being cute together and lost Yoon Yi’s few hints of nastiness.

I think I might actually be in love with you

Lee Won Geun completely stole my heart in this drama as the immature, naive, but insanely adorable boss. I’ve seen him in ‘Mystery Queen’ and boy does this man do puppy characters well. Usually I get bit bored when actors play the same character- but I am so on board for seeing more of Lee Won Geun’s beautifully innocent smiles. His relationship with Jung Ae was super sweet, and I adored how well they complimented each other. The lonely child in Yool needed someone to love him and take his side and look after him like a mother, and that’s exactly what Jung Ae did. Jung Ae herself needed someone she could help. After being dumped by her husband for his secret other family and always being cold-shouldered by her son, Jung Ae really needed to feel like she was making a difference and being useful to someone. Not only did the two help each other out in their work environment, but they both provided the steady emotional support that they’d been craving.

I know I'm in love with this story-line

While I was totally keen on the two characters having a romantic relationship, I could see how some viewers might find that a bit unnecessary, and to that end I'm okay with the series ending with Jung Ae and Yool having a very close friendship.

Protecting Yool's puppy heart

I’m free to imagine them realising they love each other and forming one big happy family, but those who don’t want to see that don’t have to. I’ve only known Kang Hye Jung as Haru’s Mum on ‘Return of Superman’, so I was pretty excited to see her act in something. I thought she did pretty well with not making Jung Ae seem to pathetic- which was a definite possibility going in. She gave Jung Ae just the right amount of pitifulness with just the right amount of backbone. While I thought a bit more development of the other office workers would have been nice, at the end of the day, I didn’t mind that we spent majority of our time with the four leads either. One thing I do wish the show had done was to make Kyung Rae a bit more involved in the story. We had these four friends, and Kyung Rae seemed like one of the more interesting ones, and yet it was her story that never got fleshed out. I wanted to know the hows and whys of her quitting being a secretary and to be honest, I just wanted more screen time for her.

Scene stealer of the year

Jung Hye In is pretty darn charismatic and I loved her pixie haircut so much that I’m dying for someone to make a cross-dressing K-Drama with her as the star. Please K-Drama gods? Pretty please?

What Was Great:

Nice and Cute:

Everything in this drama is pretty easy-breezy with a nice flurry of cuteness. Chi Won and Yoon Yi were so sweet when they were together, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciated their lack of noble idiocy.

I do enjoy a stress-free drama for when I'm feeling stressed

For a while there it seemed like every step in the story was trying to force one of the two into some form of noble idiocy- and yet they both managed to avoid this fate at every turn. Rather than separation for the sake of separation, Chi Won and Yoon Yi talked things through thoroughly and agreed on a course of action. Even when they weren't working in the same office or living in the same house,

There was even a bromance with bonus couple outfits

they remained a team and didn’t let anyone stand in the way of their relationship. Not only does that make for more sweet moments in the drama, but it also prevented me from becoming overly annoyed with either of the leads. They were always working to be better together and strived to move forwards without taking any great leaps backwards in their relationship. It was delightfully refreshing. Yool was of course insanely adorable all on his own and rapidly became my favourite character. There’s no one or two things about him that were wonderful- it was the combination of him paired with Lee Won Geun that was just magical. Another reason that this show was so sweet and fluffy is that the villains were given very moderate amounts of screen time. They were always present enough that they remained a source of tension, but I never felt like we were spending too much time with them. Why would we focus on the bad guys when there’s so much cute going on between the leads?

What Wasn’t:

Redemptions for All:

As a rather horrifically unforgiving person, I don’t tend to enjoy when K-Drama villains are given glowing redemption arcs. Especially when it feels like they’ve just been thrown in at the last minute.

What can I say- loving forgiveness just isn't my style

From the get go I knew that Bo Na was going to turn bad (girl just looks shady) and then change back onto Yoon Yi’s side. I was prepared for it, but I still didn’t love it when it came around. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was interesting on so many levels to have Bo Na betray Yoon Yi- all the jealousy was great.

They ruined it for themselves

It was the stupid ways the show tried to save her character that really annoyed me. Her father is mute so that justifies her being a total b*tch and throwing her friend under the bus at work? Yeah, nah. It’s just not cool. Bo Na doesn’t even have to grovel or apologise that much in order for Yoon Yi to forgive her. Yeah, I know that Yoon Yi was being the bigger person here and that we should all probably learn from her shining example- but what the hell, Bo Na nearly got her fired and could have ruined her relationship. That’s some pretty serous stuff to just have swept under the rug. Sang Moo’s redemption arc (or should I say redemption scene) was a bit more out of the blue. Suddenly he as a dying mother and he used to be a good boss and Bo Na actually likes him? Like, where did all of this come from? If we’d have had a bit more of these moments sprinkled throughout the show rather than mashed in at the end I would have been more comfortable about Sang Moo’s redemption, and been more interested in his character as a whole. As it was, his sudden goodness felt a bit unwarranted and unwanted.

Recommend?

If you like office romance (cuz I know a lot of people don’t) this is a cute and easy watch.

It was relaxing and fun