My Shy Boss

All the credit for why this works goes to Woo-jin Yeon's portrayal of social anxiety and the lack of empathy he receives from the employees demanding empathy from him. No spoilers, there are characters who I utterly loathed from square one, and others who just reflect accurately societies lack of compassion and self centeredness. Just when I want to throttle the unforgiving for their spite, I am rooting for Hwan-gi's courage.

If you can make it passed the first 5 episodes, it finally becomes a pretty watchable show. I don't know what else to say except that I'm glad I didn't give up on it. It was hard to keep going in the beginning. Korea seems to kind of glamorize suicide which I wish they wouldn't. It's a problem. There are much better ways to handle things rather than suicide. Anyway, once I struggled past the first 5 episodes, I found that it was worth watching the rest to the end. Please try.

This show starts out very slow and even annoying. By the end of the third episode I was about ready to give it the boot. But I stuck with it and warmed up to it as the series went along.

This isn't the best K-drama ever, but it gets better with each episode. It's been said the final two episodes are unnecessary filler, but I didn't find that to be so. Those episodes tied up some strings and were well-done.

While there's something to be said for a show that deals with extreme shyness, at the beginning this series carries that concept to the extreme. How many times can a guy trip all over himself to avoid letting someone look him in the eye?. Fortunately after the 3rd or 4th episode that becomes less slapstick and more emotional in nature. The entire series remains under-keyed, but it has highlights and enough emotional and plot-twist intrigue to build interest as it goes along.

Just be aware that you may have to suffer through three or four episodes of "annoying" before the show even starts to get to the meat of the plot, and nearly halfway through before the series really gets down to the direction it's going.

As a side-thought: Do all these K-drama shows pick exactly two songs for the entire series? I got so sick of "Memories" and "Kiss My Lips" by the end of this series. I enjoy this genre in genral. I've sat through several longish series glued to the screen and once binged-watched a 45-episode series in 5 days. So it's easy to get hooked on K-com / K-drama. I wasn't so much glued to this one as "tolerant" of it, and in the end was glad I stuck with it. This doesn't seem to be as "binge-worthy" as other shows I've seen, but is still worth the watch.

Out of hundreds of k-dramas I've watched this is one of my absolute favourites. Having been in a bit of a drama slump, this has snapped me right out of it. Such an underrated show. The ratings for this series was pretty low and I somehow understand that the subject matter was risky to begin with. A show with a socially anxious hero is probably not something that the usual viewer would easily tune into. And his character climb was always going start at a pretty low point. So the first few episodes would be a little hard to digest. But within a few episodes I was properly smitten. Also, the dialogue was so plain and natural. Not the pretentious type where they spew sonnets that you have to wrack your brains to understand what the hell wisdom they are trying to convey. The funny parts were truly funny and cute and all the actors were excellent in both the comedic and dramatic scenes. The chemistry between the main leads were swoon worthy. I know there were some problems at the start of the series and there was a change in direction, but please do yourself a favour and watch this show. Totally worth it. Plus it's now available on Netflix. Yay! 20/10

As someone who is introverted and is socially anxious it was really great to see this represented and I think this is what this drama did well in the way it is written and in the actors portrayal. The main male lead is very relateable to me and the development of his character is enjoyable to watch. However there are some problems with this show that really ruin that plot and the premise of the series. For one, there are some very problematic behaviours from many of the other characters in the show that really don't get challenged or addressed properly which did make some parts very difficult to watch. Also, towards the end of the series it feels like more and more drama and 'twists' are being added for drama sake or to drag it out for a few more episodes. It makes some of the events leading up to this just feel like a waste of time and also leaves a few confusing gaps in the plot that could have been resolved without needless extra drama. There are themes around mental health- suicide and self harm but I feel that these were not handled well at all in this drama- not well represented and kind of skimmed over. At parts the drama switches very quickly from dark and serious plot points and themes to overly lighthearted romance/ comedy which can make it difficult to be invested in the story when this happens. This series could have been much better of the focus had stuck with the main character and his development instead of drawing away from this with a storyline and characters that are muddled, problematic and not well enough explored. I know it's a drama but I would have liked to have seen a little less drama.