It's Okay to Not Be Okay (Netflix)

I almost decided not to watch this series just because the rating indicates not really significant in numbers of watchers in korea based on the statistics that can be found on asianwiki site. But then again, it is not a wise move to easily seeing things based on the numbers only, right? So, I gave it a try. It turns out that the series is so much better than the rumour I have gathered for the past few weeks. It has 16 episodes in total and I had watched 14 of them, the other 2 last episodes will be available this weekend. The experience of watching Korean drama through smartphone with Netflix is kinda good, in a way that we are already getting used to by the habit of being watching videos from youtube, so it is okay for me. Not to mention about the quality of the video, which is very clear, definition of high definition.

The story is about two brothers living together without their parents, later we learn that their parents are dead, the series did not mention about the father, because the scenes in their early childhood only visualizing how they live in the house with their mom as the single parent. The older brother has some sort of mental disorder, it is autism, and worsen by the traumatic experience being the witness when her mother was murdered by someone that he cannot remember the face, only the butterfly brooch. Sang-Tae has been living with fear and constant nightmare about that day for years, he cannot come in contact with living butterflies or drawing butterflies, even though he’s keen on drawing.

The younger brother, Gang-Tae, is a nurse in hospitals, I used plural forms because he tends to have this specific habit of changing jobs and moving places, always ended up getting job as caregiver in the hospital that dealing with or treating patients with mental illness. There is an author, Moon-Young, writing children books, but the stories are always about scary stuff, not as happy as regular fairy tales. She is also an orphan. Her mother had died when she was 12 just like how the two brothers lost theirs. But she still has a father, currently being hospitalized from 20 years ago, around the time the mother died, because the father actually murdered the mother because there was something going on. But I cannot tell you more than that because there are still two more episodes before the series ended. And the mother we previously thought already dead turns out to be not dead yet, but we’re not so sure yet. Just because it seems really impossible to survive from getting major bleeding on the head and getting moderately thrown into the deep-water while being wrapped in the sack.

The series is really brave to talk about the sensitive and not that popular issues, mental health, which is actually the extra point that the series has but not other series can come up with the same. In each episode, we will be introduced to the new knowledge about the types of mental problems because the story is pretty much has setting in the hospital. For examples, we get better ideas on how to approach someone with autism because of the older brother, how they see and respond the world differently. And the fact that how we need extra patient to face them, this is why Gang-Tae becomes really expression less person because he needs to keep up with daily task of taking care of his brother. Fortunately, he will change in the upcoming episodes, near the ending. This is actually how we should be shouting out and giving proper appreciation on how the little details, such as the minor expression shown by the actor can really depict the state of mind of the character perfectly. The sad smile and the happy smile are different. Other examples are like how someone can have addiction to liquor and that is a thing, or someone going anywhere naked because they are dying for attention, or how someone can ended-up have double personality as defensive mechanism related to the past traumatic events or what happened to the father of Moon-Young, losing all the memory because he felt bad, added up with the brain tumour.

And the series is suitable for those who are dreaming to be an author, like me, and probably you, because there is a character who is a writer here. I have watched quite a lot of other dramas that have a writer in them but every time they successfully to address the role astonishingly beautiful, the discrepancy. And my favourite part is how they discuss the fairy tales with the opposite, unpopular opinion about it, like how the story of beauty and the beast is actually about a girl falling in love with their kidnapper. And so many other examples but I cannot really recall, these facts actually everywhere on the internet. The other interesting plot is how someone can move on from her crush slowly but surely, Nam Ju-Ri can forget Gang-Tae and accepting Lee Sang-In that never give up on trying to persuade her every day.