TV Show Talk : Kiss Goblin

 Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay on the new post, because college has been killing me honestly, but finally I got a little bit of time to sit down and write a blog post. So on this tv show talk, I'll be talking about a Korean webdrama titled "Kiss Goblin"

SPOILER ALERT : if you haven't seen the drama ofc

Kiss Goblin is about a goblin named Bansuk who wanted to be a human and in order to be a human he must kiss 10 human female and learn every emotion that each female has before and during the kiss, and the female that he kissed won't have any memory of Bansuk or the kiss. But he had to avoid an exorcist whose duty is to protect humans and killing goblins who were always seen as the bad guy.

Then enter the female lead, Oh Yeona who's a college student that saw Bansuk kissing 2 different girls each night and one of them was also her close friend. Felt like she needed to confront Bansuk about it, the problem got more complicated as she was thrown into Bansuk's conflict with the exorcist when she protected him from being killed by the exorcist and Yeona offered other form of protection in a form of living together with her so that she can keep an eye on him closely in exchange for Bansuk doing all the house chores that Yeona had.

So yeah, that was a little summary of the plot. Overall I think it's your typical romance fantasy drama as goblin seems to be a recurring Korean folklore that became popular when the drama Goblin (I honestly forgot the official title was) released, but it's cute, it has some aspects that I do like and also some aspects that made me raised my eyebrows, because just why would you do that? It doesn't go well with the story. Without further a do, let's talk about it in detail.

First, I wanna talk about the things that I actually like and just 'meh' from the drama. Let's talk about the webdrama for, with the plot that actually quite simple and short, webdrama is the best choice for the storyline. I couldn't imagine this storyline, without any customization to it, being presented in other forms like a typical 16 episodes on TV drama or even a 90 - 180 minutes movie. Because the storyline is pretty simple, the conflict isn't that "wow" I think, but again it's a good thing to watch if you want to have a break from watching something quite "heavy" and requires a lot of your emotion. 

Now, let's actually talk about the story itself, a goblin that wants to be a human but they have to kiss 10 different and learn about human emotions that was depicted by the person they were kissing. It's kind of absurd, I mean there should be another way of them to be a human but, again, it's a webdrama, they needed something pretty simple yet intriguing for the viewers so that they will watch it when it's on their youtube page. 

But honestly, for me, that part of the story wasn't the reason why I was hooked to it and started watching the drama. It was because of the "living together"/co-habitating trope that was brought into the story halfway the webdrama being uploaded. Co-habitating is one of my favorite trope in fictional works, whether it's a drama, a movie, a novel, a fanfiction, I always enjoy a little touch of people being put in a situation that makes them has to be civil with eachother at least. I remember that it was the 6th episode of the webdrama that was recommended to me through youtube, and they have a very smart way of wording in the title and the thumbnail that again made me hooked and binge watched the whole 6 episodes that was already uploaded. It was such a great stress reliever I liked it.

The acting of the casts were good. I was so head over heels over Bansuk like, I wanted to have him in my life, though sometimes he could be a little too oblivious but of course it's because he was still learning to be a human, so it's all fine and forgiven. The female lead, Yeona was also pretty good, I mean if I don't have anything that irked me that I remember about her acting, so it should be pretty good. 

Now we're gonna talk about something that just gave me "meh" reaction when I watched Kiss Goblin. Starting from the conflicts and the drama. One of the conflict there was your usual love triangle story, with Yeona having a male friend that she already knew for years and then he confessed her feelings for her. It could've been prolonged into like half of the episode, probably in between the one year Bansuk started being a human and until he met Yeona again. It could be around that time, they could be "involved" or however you called it, but when Bansuk came back, Yeona would questioned about her actual feelings then went back to Bansuk (did I just go with the True Beauty ending there? Yes). it would add the angst and the conflict I think. 

Another part that I wanted to be explored more is The Goblin Queen's past. If I'm not mistaken, she was in love with the exorcist back when she also wanted to be a human but there was a plot twist which was the last person that they had to kiss was the person that they loved and they will forget about each other after the kiss. I want more context on that, on the queen's past I mean. Like were they dating? Or was it a one sided love from the queen's side. What was their social status, was the queen an actual royal? Was the exorcist a royal or maybe a part of the palace's guard. There are so many things that they could've explained in like 5 minutes. 

The ending was okay for me like with the plot twist of both parties, the goblin and the human will forget about each other after they kissed, it was, it was okay. But I did hope that Bansuk will somehow remember Yeona because it wasn't consistent to the whole principles of the human being the only one who forgot about the whole kissing. Maybe, maybe they wanted to go for the clean slate, blank canvas route and I get why they do it.

Now, for the aspect of the webdrama that I just don't get and made me went "Why?" is the whole Bansuk vs the exorcist. I do get the part why the exorcist was there, because he had to protect humans from goblins and brought balance to both goblin and human realms respectively. But if the goblin doesn't cause any havoc or danger, should the exorcist just leave them be? Also, why did the exorcist was hesitant to attack Bansuk when Yeona is around? Like typically, logically, Yeona wouldn't be much of a problem and obstacle for the exorcist to attack, or just leave them be. Yeona had said that she was okay and felt safe with Bansuk. Honestly, he could've gone, either respectfully leave them be and never disturb again or just strike right at the moment. I don't know he could've just shove Yeona to the side softly then attack Bansuk or something. 

That brought us to my least favorite thing about the webdrama. Tht fight scene. Oh my God it was pretty cringey to watch. But good thing I could stand them and laugh a little bit about it. 

Anyway, overall it was a pretty light webdrama, like I said earlier, you can watch it when you want a break from "heavy" dramas and just fresh and light drama to watch. Pretty good introduction to the world of webdrama. I'm giving it a 7.5/10. It's good, but there are some aspects of it that I do think could've been done better.

That's all for this post of TV Show Talk. See you on the next post!