Lai Kuanlin, Zhao Jinmai, Wang Runze, Chai Wei
Drama Rating: 8/10 Neck Score: A+
While I really like the high school to college dramas, they are all pretty formulaic. The male lead is always smart and popular, the female lead is awkward and has bad grades. Maybe she is openly chasing him, maybe it's a secret crush. Sometimes the male lead is a nice smart guy, sometimes he's a jerk. There will usually be a goofy friend or two who will make up the secondary couple. I swear there is usually a chubby best friend too. A third of the drama will be in high school and then it will reset in college, where suddenly the evil second leads will appear. I said reset because there was enough angst in high school to assume that they would just immediately get together in college, but because of second leads, misunderstandings, etc., it will instead drag out for forever and I usually get impatient. The male lead will always be the troop leader in the military training episodes, and will secretly help the female lead. A Little Thing Called First Love is no exception to this formula. But that doesn't mean it's not good in it's own right. It was very charming, and had just enough differences from this formula to make it more than worth it. And besides, I really do like this genre, so bring on those high school crushes.
So first off, Liang Younian is a nice guy. He's smart, but also soft and caring. Maybe even a little too self-sacrificing. If he has one problem, it's that he's not fully aware of his own feelings and even worse at properly expressing them. Xia Miaomiao was an adorable and likable character the whole time. But the bad foundation and teeth were a bit too much. However, I really liked how instead of a sudden make over, they had Xia Miaomiao "slowly" improve herself and get rid of the terrible "ugly" styling. I say "slowly" because while it took many episodes between each small improvement, the time to actually make the improvement was unrealistically short. It felt like it took only a week for her braces to magically fix her teeth, a day for her to recover from Lasik, and maybe 2 days for her product placement sunscreen to give her the perfect ivory complexion. At least her hairstyle gradually changed from poodle to perfectly straight so it wasn't a huge statement against curly hair. It seemed to be more to show her aging rather than attractiveness.
So, my biggest complain, if any, is that it was dragged out to be 36 episodes when it could have been 20 and fine with me. They had built the attraction up so early, the chemistry was so thick I was ready for them to be dating by like episode 18. And then it didn't happen for forever. And we found out that even though he's like doing that "staring because she's too close thing" and being shocked at her touching his hand, etc., and then he think's she's just a little sister? I guess he's supposed to be the logical type who isn't good at figuring out his feels. Whatever. It really wasn't that bad, the problem was that when I was watching I think I was stressed about something and just not in a patient mood to have a romance dragged out that long. It was a drama remake of a movie, and maybe that's why it felt extra drawn out. I dunno. I just took a mini break and got in the right patient, slow burn, mindset.
So, it was a nice take on this classic genre, because I literally liked everyone in it. No one was a jerk (except a minor character or two) and people made improvements, and it wasn't just about the romance (although 98% was) but there were self-improvement goals in there too. It's definitely one of the better dramas in this genre. Just be ready for the slow burn. Sloooooooow burn.
