JTBC is launching a series of web dramas this summer, and this one sounds right up my alley. It’s a time-slip romantic comedy called Somehow 18, about a young man who time-travels back to his hellish high school days in order to save his first love. Lee Yubi (Scholar Who Walks the Night) and Shinee’s Min-ho (Hwarang) have signed on to headline.
Min-ho stars as a bullied outsider, for whom high school was the worst part of his life. But he has a total reversal in adulthood, and grows up to become a chic, handsome orthopedic surgeon. He’ll end up traveling back in time to high school in order to save his first love, Lee Yubi, who committed suicide for reasons unknown. She’s described as a character who looks very innocent but is actually very bold and quirky. He owes her his life for saving him during his traumatic high school days, but she’s also a character with a lot of secrets.
It’s being called a “CPR romantic comedy,” and it sounds like a fun mix between Operation Proposal and the Byun Yo-han movie Will You Be There, and hopefully the movie 17 Again, which I love. A big part of the fun will be in watching the confident version of the hero relive high school the way he’d always dreamed—as the popular boy, and not the miserable outcast. A high school do-over sounds horrifying, but not if you’re armed with the life experience of being an adult, with the fancy makeover to boot. Save the girl and overcome your adolescent trauma—all in a day’s work, right?
JTBC will release their series of web dramas this August, beginning with Sooyoung and Lee Won-geun’s Someone You Might Know, followed by Somehow 18.