#and i hope we do see a little more than just hye jin & shi eun

[ginkamon]

Life stinks, that’s why. People stink, too. I wish everyone would just die, but unless the world ends that won’t happen. I want to forget everything, but I can’t unless I slam my head somewhere and get amnesia. But, if I dance, it’s damn tiring. Then I can’t think about anything else.

[draaamasoda]

JUST DANCE

Here I am again. And while I do want to catch up with the dramas I’ve been watching-hello Spring turns to Spring-life has been demanding too much of me lately, in the meantime I’ll do another review!

So here it is: Just Dance, or Dance Sports Girls, this little drama was one of my favourites last year, granted that I started watching dramas last year. The reason is because I didn’t expect it to be *that* good, I thought it would be about girls who like to dance and have fun and whatnot. But, I was mistaken, and I’m glad that this drama piqued my interest.

Short summary: the drama revoves around Kim Shi Eun, she lives in a small town whose main source of labor comes from ship building. She has big dreams, and she figures a way to achieve them: the dance sport club in her school. At the same time that Shi Eun joins the club other members decide to take dance sport and that’s when we have  the group of misfits that’ll lead the drama.  It’s based on a documentary of the same name.

So first, what stood out for me was the lack of focus in romance in the drama, sure, there is a love story and it’s developed through the series, but it’s never the central part of the drama. While I like romance dramas like anybody else, it felt refreshing to watch something where the focus wasn’t as much on the love story as it is on the other parts of the drama. Just Dance is mainly a coming of age drama, falling in love is just a little part of growing.

The show takes a lot of time focusing on the relationships between the club members, how they bond and the friendship that ensues, sure, they have arguments, but it’s all part of becoming adults. While Shi Eun is the main character the show also focus on Park Hye Jin, she’s the troublemaker, so to speak, but we, as spectators, learn about her backstory, and learn that she’s that way because the circumstances around her affected the way she relates to others. The other main characters are, Lee Ye Ji, Yang Na Young, Kim Do Yeon, Kim Young Ji and the only male lead Kwon Seung Chan.

The drama tells the story of this group of teens and how the fight to take their lives into their own hands. Sure, Shi Eun is the main character among them and it’s her story the one who leads the plot, but we also get a grip around what the others are up to and see them more as “characters” rather than cardboard roles that are there just to fill screentime. One of the things I disliked about the drama was its shortness, it runs for 16 35 minute episodes, surely there isn’t enough time to cover Shi Eun’s story and properly tell each characters story. To me Hye Jin’s story feels incomplete somehow, it ended so abruptly that I felt a bittersweet taste, I guess it helped give the realistic vibe to the story, but it was way too rushed. As a watcher I came to deeply care for her and to end her journey like that felt wrong.

And here’s the thing, while I said that there isn’t a deep focus on the romance, a huge part of Shi Eun’s story is about her dad’s death and the trial. It affects both her mom and Seung Chan’s dad, and it certainly is the reason why the relationship between Shi Eun and her mom have turned that way. Don’t get me wrong, that plot is important, but given the short run of the show it felt unbalanced how it took a lot of time of the drama. Also, the way they ended that plot felt rushed, and some characters didn’t have enough time to talkk about what really happened. That’s why the ending of the drama felt specially out of place, it’s definitely nice to see the conclusion of the story but it comes out of nowhere and as quickly as it happens it goes. There are many things that make you wonder “how is this gonna work in the end?” “so what now?” and so on.

I read in diffenrent places how some people seemed to dislike the drama due to the main character, how she’s a very dislikeable main. But I actually felt it was a good switch, we have a deeply troubled teenager who just doesn’t know how to sort things, doesn’t know how to express her feelings and is really immature, the whole point of the drama is to show her growth. Most of the characters have big flaws, and everyone seems to be in some sort of gray area. The only character who isn’t really a grayish character is Lee Kyu Ho, he’s the teacher in charge of the dance sport club. He truly cares for the girls in the club and his main goal is to help them find a place where they feel they belong and where they feel safe. Since the story is told from the girl’s point of view they show how they really see him as a positive figure in their lives. The message they give him and how the explain the meaning of the club to them really moved me, it truly is a warm moment and gives the show a warm vibe.

The show is realistic in how it portrays the difficulties of finishing school and having to become an adult, while one is just really a teenager. The stories of the characters are realistic what they aspire, their expectations, their problems And how they deal with the hardships. At times it punched me in the gut but at the end it gave me a hopeful feeling.