Based on these teasers, OCN’s second venture outside of its standard fare of crime thrillers and into the happier world of rom-coms, Meloholic, looks quite cute. There’s a touch of fantasy in the show as well, with a mind-reading hero in DBSK’s Yunho (Records of a Night Watchman) and two personalities inhabiting Kyung Su-jin’s (Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-ju) character. Also, I missed the part where Han Joo-wan joined the cast, but I’m very happy to see him back so soon after School 2017.
The first teaser shows us that Yunho’s character, Yoo Eun-ho, wasn’t born with his supernatural abilities, but rather through a terrifying incident: On a rainy night in Seoul, a bespectacled Eun-ho gets hit in the back of the head with a brick by a masked man, then gets struck by a lightning bolt as he lies prone on the ground. Yikes, what are the chances of that happening? But he survives, obviously, and becomes the most popular guy at his university, only to turn down every girl who confesses with a cool, “Sorry, I don’t date.”
His character teaser tells us why, as an exasperated friend asks why he doesn’t have a girlfriend, to which Eun-ho replies with one of the downsides to reading people’s minds. He asks his friend to imagine being able to hear his girlfriend’s thoughts while making out, which turns into a sobering scene when one girl thinks, “This is boring.” Ouch. Touch seems to be the means through which Eun-ho hears others’ thoughts, which would explain his poster’s rather eyebrow-raising copy, “Let me touch you just once!”
Kyung Su-jin is pulling double duty in Meloholic, playing the innocent Han Ye-ri and the sexually assertive Han Joo-ri. Ye-ri has sadly never managed to really date anyone, because, according to her character teaser, “As soon as other people find out I’m the subject of someone’s love, a hidden monster inside comes out.” Joo-ri does sound like a bit of a handful, pushing Eun-ho up against a wall to make out—at school, mind you—and constantly inviting him over to her house and her bed. I did a little facepalm out of mortification on Ye-ri’s behalf when Joo-ri asks Eunho who he prefers “doing it” with.
Aw, I do wonder whether her other personality is a rather extreme defense mechanism against getting hurt by men, though. The copy on her two posters, one for each personality, reads, “I’m crazy, do you still like me?” and, “See? Your love only goes that far…” But at least Eun-ho can literally see that Ye-ri isn’t crazy, but actually struggling to contain her other personality, via his supernatural mind-reading abilities. In the second teaser, he narrates that he can see it all: “What a good and sincere person you are.” Oh, this could be quite an adorable romance, if done well.
I’m actually a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see Han Joo-wan in any of the teasers, though we do have a poster for him. There’s not much information about his character, but I wonder how much he knows about the main leads’ secrets, because the copy in his character poster says, “Sometimes, reality is more like fiction than fiction itself.” Hm, I’ll be interested to find out how he factors into the show, either as a rival in love, or something more benign or sinister.
Meloholic will premiere in a little over a week, on November 6, in OCN’s Monday-Tuesday slot.
