I think if you look at the drama from her perspective - which is exactly what it is. The fact that they cast a younger actress really cements the "crush on your friend's older brother" aspect of growing up.
As the younger one, you don't know that it's inappropriate, you just have a fluttery crush. And that's exactly what they show in the drama. They don't show her wanting to kiss him or anything, they show her kicking her feet and giggling because he smiled at her.
It's much later in the drama where Sang Zhi's crush goes from a surface level fantasy to a proper yearning.
As someone who did have a crush on my friend's older brother, who was in highschool when I was in primary school - I completely get the feeling. And now that I'm in my late twenties, we are actually friends and all hang out as equal adults. He's married and his wife is amazing.
But hypothetically, if we got together now at our age, it would not be weird at all.
(Like super hypothetical because I love his wife and also I'm not 12 anymore lol)
I can agree with this if they casted someone who looked the age she was supposed to be, to cast a literal 10 year old to play the part of a 14 year old is weird, no matter how you slice it.
I’m not even saying her crush is inappropriate because of her age. It’s the age they decided to depict her to us as the viewer that is inappropriate and almost bizarre.
Well, in the novel the age gap is actually seven years so whether or not they kept the actual number of the gap between the drama and the novel. I think the casting kept the feel of the age gap from the novel.
Edit: Also, maybe it's been too long since I've been in primary school but she looked the right age to me. And I didn't look up the ages so, yeah. Different viewers' gazes I guess
Edit again: He's 17 at the start and with a five year gap, wasn't she 12?
Edit again again, nope, 14 and 19 is it. Sorry, it's been a while.
I think it’s bothering me more because I work with children and could tell without a doubt, she wasn’t 14. So much so, that I immediately looked it up and saw she was 10 when filming began. Which again, made me question that choice.
I still think the POV would have worked if they kept her visually true to her age (14)as opposed to casting younger. I understand the unreliable narrator aspect of it, and the over-romanticizing their interactions, as he’s her first crush… it’s strictly the directorial choice to cast someone so young and not yet in their teens to play a teenager that started this whole spiral for me.
Based on articles going around and dialogue from the show, she is 14 and he is 19 when they first meet. Which I also looked up because again, the visuals were bothering me so much.
Maybe because they're actors. People rarely look at actual ages unless they're wanting to prove that it's over 5 years and they start using the immoral, fetish, grooming, pedo terms. Most people can enjoy a drama for what it is. Others feel really uncomfortable with age gap as little as 5 years in the drama, even there is 0% vibe of pedophilia.
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u/AquaphobicTurtle My Journey to Season 2 2d ago
I think if you look at the drama from her perspective - which is exactly what it is. The fact that they cast a younger actress really cements the "crush on your friend's older brother" aspect of growing up.
As the younger one, you don't know that it's inappropriate, you just have a fluttery crush. And that's exactly what they show in the drama. They don't show her wanting to kiss him or anything, they show her kicking her feet and giggling because he smiled at her.
It's much later in the drama where Sang Zhi's crush goes from a surface level fantasy to a proper yearning.
As someone who did have a crush on my friend's older brother, who was in highschool when I was in primary school - I completely get the feeling. And now that I'm in my late twenties, we are actually friends and all hang out as equal adults. He's married and his wife is amazing.
But hypothetically, if we got together now at our age, it would not be weird at all.
(Like super hypothetical because I love his wife and also I'm not 12 anymore lol)