357. A Love So Beautiful 致我们单纯的小美好 (2017) Chinese

Hu Yi Tian, Shen Yue, Gao Zhi Ting, Wang Zi Wei, Sun Ning

Drama Rating: 6/10     Neck Score: A

I watched this one because of how much I loved Put Your Head On My Shoulder and that probably made it harder to like this one. It's the same basic plot, spunky girl/stoic genius, but this one should have been called "A Love so Frustrating" because it quickly became obvious that they both liked each other, but for some reason they still weren't getting together. It did make sense why, but that didn't make it any less frustrating. She's the typical spunky, artistic, but not any good at school, girl who is in love with her neighbor and is constantly following him. Her determination to win him over is the entire plot of the show. He is the stoic genius who is super handsome so everyone loves him, but he's got some severe emotional and trust issues, which means that her devotion to him is actually attractive to him, but he's got so many trust and abandonment issues that he's too scared to actually voice his feelings. He's also a tsundere, which is like a double whammy.


One thing the show did really well was developing friendships. It wasn't just about her chasing him, it was about how they grew their unlikely group of friends and supported each other, even when they were love rivals. The two male leads could go from being petty and jealous of each other to bending over backwards to help the other if their grandma was lost or some other issue happened. I think it was worth it just to watch the friends get together and help each other. They were always all running out of class to help each other in all the ridiculous drama, and even stoic genius boy wasn't above running after the friends to help too.

The most frustrating parts to watch were mostly because of bad luck. Stoic Genius Boy would actually do something nice that could end the drama faster, and it would be intercepted by someone, or something would happen and it wouldn't work out. Or more often, he would retreat back into his aloof pettiness when he would see the second male lead with her and would lash out and say something mean which would set them back farther. He was really good at saying harsh things, which made me not like him that much, but since they did establish his childhood trauma, you at least knew where it was coming from. But still, don't hurt our girl like that, you jerk. That couple just had bad luck in general, because they were super bad about talking about their feelings that lead to misunderstandings. Even when they got together that eventually caused them to break up. I guess that was realistic too.

I thought it was interesting how they created the dynamic with the second male lead. He was a swimmer, had a good sense of humor, and was devoted to her. He called her "boss" like she was the leader of a gang, but was so supportive of her. He clearly also had daddy issues, and his love language was definitely giving gifts, because he was so quick to buy things for her (she probably appreciated words of affirmation and quality time more). Basically he was the typical perfect second male lead who you could easily get SLS for, but I didn't get it at all. Which was extra weird, because it's not like I loved the male lead either. It's just that 100%, from the start, she was really clear with him that it was only platonic. There was absolutely no chance for him to ever win her over. I don't even know why the male lead ever got jealous, because to me there was only friends chemistry and nothing else, so much so that it was impossible for me to ship them romantically. It made it frustrating every time he would push and not give up, even after he promised her the last time he confessed that he would give up. I just thought it was interesting that she only had romantic chemistry with Stoic Genius Boy, but great friends chemistry with everyone else. But it did make the story work.

So it was frustrating that there was so much not talking about feelings and running away from feelings, and misunderstandings because of the not talking about feelings. It's not until people finally talk about their feelings that things get sorted out. I guess it was very satisfying seeing him be so clingy after he finally broke out of his comfort zone and admitted his feelings. I really think I might have liked this more if I didn't have a much more likable version of this story type in my previous drama choice.