Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo

About: An aspiring Olympian female weightlifter and an amazingly talented male swimmer meet at their sports university.

Starring: 

• Lee Sung-kyung as Kim Bok-jo, weightlifter
• Nam Joo-hyuk as Jung Joon-hyung, swimmer
• Lee Jae-yoon as Jung Jae-yi, doctor
• Kyung Soo-jin as Song Shi-ho, gymnast

Genre: Coming-of-Age / Romance / Sports / Comedy

No of eps: 16        Release date: 16 Nov 2016

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤     ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♡ 

Recommended: If you like youth or slice-of-life or friends-turned-lovers dramas❣

Reasons for watching: I saw some super cute pictures and gifs accompanied by a lot of positive comments

Reasons to keep watching: The feels! I don’t remember the last time I got so invested in the characters themselves rather than the story or what’s happening to them. This means I replayed the cute scenes 10 times rather than just 3. It helped that my internet was slow so I had to keep buffering but if it was a bad drama that would just piss me off… more than it did.

Re-watch: I will! I don’t know when but I will! Edit: They started dating after the drama (were friends since modelling days though)❣❣❣ I NEED to watch it again now! 

Supporting Characters:

• Kang Ki-young as Kim Dae-ho, uncle
• Jota (MADTOWN) as Choi Tae-hoon ep.1 & 15
• Lee Jong-suk as customer ep.2, so hot, so cute
  • In reference to W he’s a shooter from uni & the uncle says he looks like a manhwa character
• Ji Soo as Bok-joo’s co-worker ep.11, again, so hot, so cute
• Seohyun (SNSD) as Hwan-hee, Jae-yi’s ex-girlfriend ep.12
• Kim Seul-gi as supermarket employee ep.15

There’s so many cute cameo’s!

Apparently it was in last place in it’s time slot. Why? It was so good. Ok I did research, the dramas airing at the same time were My Fair Lady (Oh My Geum-Bi) & Legend of the Blue Sea. I understand why it wouldn’t beat Legend of the Blue sea. It’s got Lee Min-ho and Jun Ji-hyun after all. But why didn’t it beat My Fair Lady? All the romance lovers would watch Legend of the Blue Sea is my guess. It just lost in viewership to My Fairy Lady, it was pretty close but it was so good! How was it last?

I didn’t want to watch this drama initially. If you’ve read my rant of Who Are You: School 2015 I hated Nam Joo-hyuk. So I hated him and that drama. The story also didn’t sound interesting. A weightlifter? How unattractive. A swimmer? Been there, done that. How are they going to provide me with hours of entertainment? Lee Sung-kyung is good but is she good enough for the main role? I’ve already said I hated Nam Joo-hyuk. It turned out to be an amazing drama! As I said above, I don’t remember the last time I got so invested in just the characters themselves. I think it may have been Signal’s detective from the past but he was kind of the third main character. I don’t know the last time I invested so much emotion into the romantic leads, I’m going to go with Reply 1988 maybe (but my ship didn’t get together!). I actually thought my heart was hardening from watching too many romantic dramas. Nope! It’s just that nothing’s been good enough to draw me in that much.

Edit: Since they started dating after starring together I’m wondering if Nam Joo-hyuk is that good of an actor to deserve the 9.5/10 I gave the drama or if it’s because he really loved her. I don’t know how to feel about this. I hope he is just that good of an actor.

It’s pretty impressive that I love this drama so much. I didn’t develop a crush on either Nam Joo-hyuk or Lee Sung-kyung yet I still loved them and the drama. I don’t think I’ve rated a romance only drama so highly without a crush on someone before. This is because it’s a slice-of-life type of romance drama which is actually my favourite genre. There’s so many feels but it’s not romantic feels and not intense feels.

I was also worried because when young actors are the main leads it’s usually not very good. (well Lee Sung-kyung’s not that young but she’s a new actress) Their skills tend to be lacking and so is the depth of the drama in general. Youth dramas are a test. If the drama is successful enough then they will go onto greater ones. It’s hard because I’m sure people want to make great youth dramas but they need relevant-aged actors to have the skills. I love youth dramas. I wish there were more and that they are all amazing.

I really needed more of this side couple!

It might just be them wearing the same fashion but it’s so cute how much they wear non-super-obvious couple clothes. They have all these matching colour outfits.

They are an adorable couple! I love them so much! I ship them so much! I want a sequel of cuteness! Also all the friendship goals! The bromances and fromances(?) Everyone’s so cute! SWAG!

Asian (manga & dramas) ‘tomboys’ are normally not consistent with what I would consider a tomboy as well as other attributes outside a ‘feminine girl’.
E.g. a short manga I read where in middle school she was a sports person of some kind. A martial artist? Boxing? I just remember her complaining that boys didn’t want her because she was too muscular. So she wants a boyfriend in high school, of course that’s the goal in life. She finally finds a guy to date but then some other guy decides to rape her in a store room at school, of course. She’s being restrained (barely), she just sobs silently, whimpering, dangling from the rapist (however he was holding her). Where’s the tomboy attributes? The strength she’s trying to hide? Fieriness? Confrontation? The fight that should be ingrained in her very being if she’s “so muscular boys don’t want [her].” Anything! Verbal or physical! But no, she whimpers and dangles waiting for a boy to come in and save the day. Typical manga. It’s frustrating. I still remember it even though it was just 4 chapters, even though it’s been years.
Long eg but my point was this drama is consistent! I’m not saying there is a set tomboy way and that all tomboys are the same but they set up her character and they stuck to it. AS STORIES SHOULD BE! Inconsistency pisses me off so much. Don’t be a writer if you can’t set up your character! Fire inconsistent writers! Fire them all!  Yang Hee-seung (Weightlifting Fairy writer) you show them how it’s done! Teach them all how to set up a character! We have enough crappy pathetic females in the fictional world. Where are the real women?

♥ ♥ ♥ How he looks at her ♥ ♥ ♥

Rant: In episode three’s restaurant scene, Kim Bok-joo’s drunk friend pissed me off. The friend keeps whacking the guy sitting behind her and instead of getting her to sit where she won’t disturb anyone or just paying and leaving they let her keep being rowdy until she finally ends up pouring her beer all over the guy. Yet still think an apology will cut it. Teenagers! Maybe if she hadn’t spent the last 10 minutes pissing him off he would’ve accepted it but at this point it’s stupid and terrible. Then Kim Bok-joo gets mad over his insults and says he should just accept their apology. Sure. Hypocrite. Of course his insults were irrelevant and mean but the drunk friend was in the wrong and Kim Bok-joo and the other friend should’ve left either the table or restaurant as soon as the drunk one started to get rowdy.

♥ ♥ ♥ How he looks at her ♥ ♥ ♥

I also hate when main characters think they can be all pissy to their friends for some super minor problem. Like Kim Bok-joo not having the money to meet the guy she spontaneous “fell in love” with. Don’t take your emotions out on other people especially when they are so minor. Again, teenagers! I’m sure she makes it up to them in other ways but since she’s the main character we see her flaws a lot more.

Another thing I was mad at. When the adults were discussing weight classes in episode 4. They were discussing if Bok-joo should raise her weight class from 58 to 63. There is no way she’s 58 if she was truly muscular. She’s tall, strong, heaps of muscle and a bit of a tummy is her character description but 58?? No way. I would say around 70 at least. Have you seen the viral before and after pictures of a woman who went from 182 to 181 pounds (82kg)? (https://www.instagram.com/p/BN-TGe3gsi1/) The difference in pictures was massive and impressive. So based on that Bok-joo should be around 80kg. Is Yang Hee-seung (Weightlifting Fairy writer) even female? Is she one of those tiny ignorant females? It reminds me of all the K-pop idols where their ideal girl is 46-50kgs. That’s like 5% of the female population. I don’t think I was that light since I was 13. Ew.

Yes! She initiated a kiss! Female power!

Conclusion: Great drama! I want more, beautiful, youth dramas! I went from hating Nam Joo-hyuk to, well, not loving him but being open to his future activities. All the best for Lee Sung-kyung too. I will watch this drama again! It’s so cute and happy!

One more: How he looks at her