Hi everyone, it’s Jen here and it’s been so long since I have reviewed anything. I am so sorry for not posting any reviews for awhile now and it’s because I  had so much going on so I really didn’t have the head space to write a review of any kind. I’m gonna start being more consistent with my blog from now on  and what I mean by that is I will have a set day to post my reviews. Starting from now on I will post something every Tuesday morning except for this time around. Imaginary Cat will be the show I will be reviewing today. So please sit tight and enjoy this review.

 

Imaginary Cat, where should I begin….I first heard about this show through a friend of mine and the main reason she shared it with me was because I am a die hard Yoo Seung Ho fan and he is the  main star of this drama so it all makes sense in the world for this friend to share this with me.

When I initially heard about it I was so happy because this would technically be a new drama of Seung Ho since his return from his mandatory military service. Also, when I read the synopsis of the show it excited me even more because it was about a young man interacting with a kitty cat and on top of that Seung Ho’s character is supposed to be a webcomic writer which was so quirky.

Imaginary Cat is based on an actual webcomic written by Kim Kyung and I was so happy to know that my favorite actor took the role to play an aspiring webcomic writer, it was so refreshing since I was getting kinda tired of all the melodramatic stuff.

 

Imaginary Cat aired on the 24th of November and it ended on the 12th of January. Yoo Seung Ho is the star of course along with his pet cat by the named Beetle who played Boggil the cat. Jo Hye Jung played the love interest but I enjoyed the interaction between Seung Ho and the cat more than the girl.

The side characters were fun too. The guy that played the bookstore manager; Park Chul Min, brought a lot of laughs as well. The cast was relatively small compared to most dramas and that is understandable since it’s a super mini drama with only 8 episodes total. I wished there were a few more episodes but they could only do so much with it since the webcomic itself was pretty short too.

 

 

Imaginary Cat is a drama about a young man by the name Hyun Jong Hyun (Yoo Seung Ho)  and he is an aspiring webcomic writer who has a hard time relating to other people with his stubbornness but his pet cat Boggil (Beetle) is able to hear him out when he is having problems with life. Jong Hyun struggles with life because he works at the local bookstore barely making his ends meet and he has to be strong when his ideas gets constantly rejected. Jong Hyun goes through an incident that happened during his high school years  and because of that he has a hard time accepting people into his heart but things change for him bit by bit once a girl by the name Oh Na Woo (Jo Hye Jung) comes into his life. This young man is not very good at living his life to the fullest but his pet cat teaches him to go on and become a stronger person.

I really loved how Seung Ho was able to interact with the cat and I thought it was really cute to watch. The joy of watching Imaginary Cat was being able to see a cute little kitty through my laptop screen. I don’t think there are a lot of Korean dramas that have kitty cats as the main star and I thought that was very refreshing. I thought it was time for Korea to do some dramas that are not so melodramatic in nature and also I wanted to avoid one of those typical family dramas I suppose.

I loved the voice of Boggil the cat. Boggil’s real name is Beetle and the lady that did the voice for her is Han Ye Ri. I was expecting the cat’s voice to be slightly on the young and energetic side but later on I realized that the cat is supposed to be a slightly older cat so after knowing that fact, I thought it was fitting for the cat to  have the voice of Han Ye Ri.

A cat by the name of Beetle played our cute little orange tabby cat. This cat was so adorable and for a cat she was an awesome actress. Beetle played Boggil perfectly. This cat was able to bring Boggil from the comic to life and it was great.

I think this cat has a knack for acting and I say that because she seems  so comfortable. I don’t know why but I feel I can tell through the screen if the cat was having a hard time with acting. It’s a lot harder for animals to  pretend than humans or should I say the animals are more honest than humans are so if they were having a hard time it would be easier for us to tell.

Also, the cat’s facial expressions were in harmony with Han Ye Ri’s voice. Han Ye Ri’s voice and Boggil’s face just match too. This orange tabby seemed to be confident and I am basically going by the movement of the animal. When there were scenes of Boggil and Seung Ho looking at each other it felt so natural and didn’t feel forced. The ironic thing about this is the fact that,  Seung Ho had more chemistry with Boggil the cat played by Beetle than female actors that play his love interests in his other dramas. 

 

I thought the show stayed relatively true to the webcomic. I ordered the webcomic after a few episodes have aired because I wanted to see if the drama was close to the comic. At first I didn’t think so but the more I read the comic I thought the drama tried very hard to stay true to the original source.

 

Initially I was worried about the drama being too romance centric. I thought it could be possibly going that way at the beginning whether I like it or not but as the episode progressed it turned out to be not the case. I was glad to see enough of the cat to not mind a little bit of the romantic elements of the show. However, I wouldn’t have felt this way if I hardly got to see the cat at all. In the comics a lot of it was about the relationship between Jong Hyun and Boggil.

 

I would like to talk a little bit about the Jong Hyun character in detail. This guy is not very social and he barely gets by as a part-time worker at the bookstore. He could also be very stubborn where he just doesn’t seem to listen at times or rather a lot of the times. Jong Hyun has a lot of things on his mind but he doesn’t like to share them with others, not even to his best friend, Yuk Hae Gong. This guy can be even smug to his own cat from time to time but he does like to share his innermost thoughts with Boggil most of the time.

 

At first I was a little confused about the title Imaginary Cat. Before I started watching this show I thought that Boggil was just in Jong Hyun’s mind or something but I was wrong. Boggil is actually there with Jong Hyun but I think that the Imaginary part comes into place when the young man is communicating with the cat.

 

Yoo Seung Ho’s  acting was very good as usual. He seemed very natural and his strong points are his plentiful facial expressions. Also, Seung Ho has intense eyes that make you feel something whatever he does. I know that acting with an animal is one of the hardest things when it comes to filming but I was amazed that Seung Ho and the cat looked very comfortable with one another as if they’ve been friends for a long time. This all makes sense since Seung Ho is a cat lover in real life, he is the owner of 4 cats after all.

 

I also had a fun time with other minor characters like: Yuk Ha Gong (Kim Min Seok ),

Manager Ma (Park Chul Min), and Dokgo Pd (Lee El). Yuk Hae Gong really cares about his friend a lot and he is almost like his cheerleader in a way. There were times when Jong Hyun looked so down about everything but his friend Hae Gong is there to push him along. Dokgo Pd is kinda like Hae Gong to some degree  because she tries her best to comprehend Jong Hyun’s not so typical artistic abilities. The way Jong Hyun works is very unique and he has his own style and this could frustrate a lot of the editors from different publishing companies but Dokgo Pd is willing to let that slide and tries to just accept Jong Hyun’s unusual philosophy about his art. However, Editor Dokgo will let Jong Hyun know that he can be a bit inflexible but still acknowledges what he is capable of.

 

 

Manager Ma (Park Chul Min) was a lot of fun despite the fact that he made Jong Hyun’s life very difficult. Manager Ma was almost like Jong Hyun’s archnemesis besides the other webcomic artist that’s his rival by the name Park Jin Sung (Kim Hyun Joon). Manager Ma gave Jong Hyun such a hard time that it made me curious about something and that is if this local bookstore manager could possibly be a psychopath?! Park Chul Min is a very fun actor and every single show that I’ve seen him in was entertaining because of this guy. Mr. Park made Manager Ma look even more filled with psychopathy.  

 

I definitely cannot leave out the love interest of the show.  Actually, I did not really want a love interest for this show because I thought it would take the focus away from Seung Ho and his kitty. When I saw the first two episodes of the show I knew that the  love interest would be somewhat of a focus. Maybe, it’s more like before I even started watching the show. When I first heard about Imaginary Cat, I was going around the internet looking for different images of the show so I can get a better idea about it. I saw bunch of photos of Yoo Seung Ho and Boggil the cat and later on I started seeing a lot of pictures of our beloved Seung Ho with and actress named Jo Hye Jung.

 

Jo Hye Jung brought a lot of controversy because a lot of netizens were saying that Jo Hye Jung cannot act and she was able to get the part as the female lead because of her dad who is also an actor. With all this going on I wasn’t sure what to think of Jo Hye Jung going into it. Honestly, I did have some biases after reading a few articles but then I changed my mind about Jo Hye Jung once I saw episode 3. The two episodes that she was in was mediocre at best but that changed after episode 3. I wonder if she worked really hard because people were giving her a hard time about her acting chops. I saw a dramatic improvement in such a short amount of time which was very impressive.

 

Jo Hye Jung played Oh Na Woo and she was a big time cat lover just like Hyun Jong Hyun. They were able to make connections because of Boggil, although they had a bad start. The two were not all that close. However, Na Woo tries to be really sweet to him but Jong Hyun kinda pushes her away because he has a hard time getting close to people.

 

Jong Hyun seems more like a cat person than someone that would need a girl to fulfill his life. In the original comic, Jong Hyun’s social life is almost non existent but there is this girl that likes to visit him from time to time. Both the comic and the drama pretty much has Jong Hyun being this awkward guy and he has a hard time opening up to women, including others. Boggil is the only one Jong Hyun completely opens up to.

 

There was a slight triangular relationship going on with Jong Hyun, Na Woo and Wan (Choi Tae Hwan). I thought this was a little awkward but I am glad that they didn’t spend too much time on the triangular relationship between the people above. Most Korean dramas I have seen thus far always seem to have some kind of triangular relationship so when I don’t see it happening it is so refreshing and I love it. Imaginary Cat is such short show that it would be impossible to bring on a triangular thing on full force. They just lightly gloss over it but it’s more or less a one sided thing where Wan kinda likes Na Woo and of course you could tell that is oblivious to it. Besides, she likes someone else anyways right?

 

I enjoyed the background music a lot. There wasn’t that typical K-drama music trope which is sappy ballad music that they play in between all the episodes. This show had mainly cute little jazzy types of instrumental music. And when they are at the cafe they play a lot of easy listening music type of stuff. The only time you hear a sappy ballad music is at the end which is closing theme for Imaginary Cat. I was so happy to hear a song by one of my favorite British Band called QUEEN in one of the cafe scenes. 

 

I think the most important thing about Imaginary Cat is respect for the animals. There were some parts that made me sad and that was when the kitties were being abused by the neighborhood man. The writer for the original comic is an animal lover, especially cats so he got inspired to write something to bring awareness to the Korean society regarding animal rights.  There have been a lot of Korean dramas getting ideas from webcomics and this Imaginary Cat is one of them and I am so glad that the producers decided to make this into a tv show. The story of Imaginary Cat is not just about a young man trying to make his dreams come true in a difficult world but also befriending an animal that can be a true companion throughout your life.

 

I am glad that they casted Yoo Seung Ho for this project and I am not saying just that because I am his fangirl but this guy is perfect for this show. For one he is an animal lover and he has four cats of his own. Also, like about 10 years ago he was in a movie called Hearty/Heart is and even  there he interacted with a dog so this is Seung Ho’s second time acting with an animal. I think this is why he looked so natural with Boggil throughout 8 episodes. Seung Ho looked a bit on the awkward side with Jo Hye Jung but that was just at the beginning, she kinda grew on me as the episode progressed and before I knew it the show was already over!

 

I really liked Oh Na Woo’s outfit. Most of the girl characters in these shows either dress super fancy or something that’s totally tacky but the female lead dressed almost like me so I was able to relate to her because of that. Also, I liked the way Hyun Jong Hyun dressed because he wore clothes that made him look like a boy next door which made me feel at ease.

 

I was so sad that this show was over just like that. I knew it was gonna be short going into it but as I was watching the last episode I wanted to cry even though I didn’t. This will remain as one of the most special K-Dramas I have ever watched. Even if Yoo Seung Ho wasn’t the star in it I would have felt the same way since I really love cats and I think it’s awesome to bring awareness about our furry friends.

I have one more thing to mention before I end this review. Imaginary Cat reminded me of an American cartoon called Garfield. Garfield is orange and a bit tubby like Boggil. Garfield’s owner is a young man and they talk to each other. Also Garfield’s owner John Arbuckle goes through his day to day struggles and he has a hard time with women just like Hyun Jong Hyun. 

Thanks for reading this review. I really appreciate your support. I hope to see more readers leaving comments. I would like to get some feedback from the people that visit my blog. Right now, I am still trying to work on my craft but your feedback will help me improve as a blogger of Korean dramas/movies.