Rewatched: Extra-Ordinary You (어쩌다 발견한 하루)
어쩌다 발견한 하루 – eojjeoda balgyeonhan halu – A Day Found By Chance
Extra-Ordinary You is one of those dramas I can always go back to. Whether I need a laugh, a cry, or a nice little romance. What’s crazy is I had never planned to watch it at first. High School dramas, romances specifically, tended to always be a miss for me. Obviously, there are always exceptions to the rules. Extra-Ordinary You is one of those exceptions.
I want to preface this with I am usually not a rewatch drama type of girlie. There are very few I will go back to. Does that mean I don’t enjoy the one I don’t rewatch? Absolutely not. But sometimes once is the perfect amount.
Back to your regularly scheduled Rewatching.
Extra-Ordinary You follows Eun Dan-O (Kim Hye-Yoon) a high school student in an elite private school with her betrothed Baek Kyung (Lee Jae-Wook) and his group of friends known as A3. While she chases him like a puppy, he has no interest in her, in fact he seems to absolutely hate her. While she deals with his lack of interest and her health problems she starts to notice lapses in time, and an odd sound every time a lapse happens.
That’s when she finds out that she is actually a character in a 만화 (manhwa – Korean comics/print cartoons). Not only does she find out she is a character, she isn’t even the main character but a secondary with a short time to live due to the health problems. She is determined to change her fate and during one attempt she tumbles down the stairs but a the strong back of a mysterious someone saved her. She searches for the owner of the back and finds a tall handsome young man (Rowoon), who has no name. She believes he is the answer to changing her story and as their relationship grows she finally gives him the name Haru. From there the story really becomes a whirlwind and sweeps Dan-O and Haru into the wild world of the 만화 stage and their life off stage.
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT!
The reason I usually tended to skip high school romances dramas was that they tend to be very young. Which I mean, obviously, they’re high school romances. I am not their demographic and that’s all good. But I decided to give this one a go because, if I’m being honest, I am a big Rowoon fan. I had seen him in Click Your Heart which was a choose your own path drama to promote SF9 before they debuted. In fact, they weren’t even SF9 at that point.
Anyway, Rowoon. Big fan.
While Rowoon was what brought me to attempt the drama, the reason I stayed was the story itself. The way they poked fun at high school dramas and 만화’s but still showed the appreciation for the storytelling was lighthearted, comical, and still heartwarming. The mocking of tropes like: the rich boy and the scholarship girl are the leads who start as him being a bully towards her but soon falls for her, the mother who hates the poor girl because her rich son will ruin his future being with her, the group of evil girls set to make the scholarship girls life an absolute hell locking her in rooms, dumping food on her head, etc.
And while they were the 만화’s leads who had their own story being told, our leads were Dan-O and Haru. Haru is adorable and all around loveable. I’m not just saying that because it’s Rowoon. He is basically experiencing things for the ‘first’ time with Dan-O. He is becoming someone, his own person, not just a no name in the background of the 만화. And as their relationship grows, we learn this is in fact not their ‘first’ time.
The plot adds a trope that I find tends to be overused in fantasy-esque dramas. That being that these characters were ill fated in the past and them coming together in the present will also end tragically. But for these characters it wasn’t the past but in fact another 만화. They were even some of the main characters in the previous story.
More characters from the 만화 start to become aware of themselves and the one that stole my heart and the heart of many other drama fans was Baek Kyung. He had some of my favorite character growth and it broke my heart he didn’t get the girl. Even when I wanted and knew Haru was the one for Dan-O.
Baek Kyung was evil. But that was his character ‘on stage’ in the 만화. When ‘off stage’ and as he slowly becomes aware of himself he becomes sweet, caring, kind, and you see his family trauma. That family trauma off stage brings to light why he is the way he is. But the scenes that really had me screaming for him to get the girl, was him remembering ‘bibbidi bobbdi boo’ when he would be with Dan-O in the hospital as young children and she has to take her medications, and when you realize the flowers he would bring her every time he visited her in the hospital meant she is the only one who knows his true self and feelings.
OH! And how can I forgot when she reverts back to a character who forgets what happens off stage and is all lovey dovey with him while forgetting Haru exists?! That whole thing broke my heart. He had finally acknowledged his feelings and now his love was acknowledging them back, but he knew the truth. He knew he wasn’t the one for her, and she was in love with Haru even if she couldn’t remember. He enjoyed the small bit of time with her before making the right decision and helping Haru to get Dan-O back.
I really think this show skyrocketed both those two male leads into their future shows and careers. And the female lead is currently in a new drama I am obsessed with which I will be talking about in a future post.
All-in-all, this drama really caught and kept my attention for the entire show. Initially it was through the laughs of watching 만화 characters not know what or who they were, but by the end, the stories of the real people, not their on stage presence is what really kept me intrigued and excited for the next episodes. Which is why this is Extra-Ordinary You is and will stay on my rewatch list and I hope you will give it a shot as well.
