I'm your Venus, I'm your fire,
At your desire - Bananarama
Welcome to my own personal portal to cultural connotation. I literally couldnāt even read the title of this drama without the chorus to Bananaramaās Venus zap through my head. I have no regrets.
And I definitely donāt regret watching this show. It is hours of drama, comedy, and passion. Oh My Venus centers around lawyer Kang Joo-eun deciding, after a breakup with her boyfriend of over a decade, that she wants to lose her tubby figure and make him eat his words. To do this, she convinces Kim Young-ho, who is also known as John Kim in the States, a fitness instructor to train her. It ought to surprise no one that these two eventually fall in love. The plot itself is very straightforward and has amazing pacing, so it never feels like you have to slog through an episode.
The characters of Joo-eun and Young-ho are also very complimentary. Joo-eun is very intelligent and resilient. Sheās the type of person that buckles down to prove people wrong when they tell her she canāt do something, which is a personality trait that I greatly respect (and hope I have a little of myself). Even as her relationship with Young-ho evolves, her core personality remains, she just becomes happier with her life, which I like.
Young-ho, meanwhile, is a genuine nice guy who appears to be as prickly as a bear. I was worried for a second that he would be an asshole-turned-adorable, but that never happened. Even in the first episode, it was made very apparent that Young-ho cares about people, especially people who are in pain, a lot. I just wish they didnāt have to actually have him say it. Breaks the rule of show vs tell, I tell ya.
The side characters are also fantastic. Young-hoās fatherly relationship to Jang Joon-sung and Kim Ji-woong is amazing. I love when Young-ho and Joo-eun start joking about the ākidsā being around because it really highlights just how close this friendship group is. They are a little family, which is fantastic for Young-ho especially because his relationship with his family is a tad strained. Additionally, Joo-eunās friendship with Lee Hyun-woo, who is a chef and single mother, is also amazing. It is really nice to see a whole cast of characters that are balanced and have each otherās backs.
The āantagonists,ā such as they are, Im Woo-shik, who is Joo-eunās ex-boyfriend and a retired professional swimmer, and his current girlfriend, Oh Soo-jin are great characters to follow. Although they both do bad things, neither one feels villainized. They arenāt given the crazy-rival makeover, and genuinely seem to love each other. Itās really refreshing to follow their story as if they are a separate set of protagonists instead of as antagonists.
If I had to think of a complaint, it would have to do with the final scene of the series, so spoilers ahead. After a time skip, we see that Joo-eun is a few months, I believe it was three, pregnant and she has gained a lot of weight. So much so that it looks like they are practically back to square one. While Iām not a huge fan of Young-hoās reaction to seeing her (he looks at her like itās a problem he has to fix stat, which is in character, so I canāt complain too much but I still donāt like it). My main issue is that a pregnant woman isnāt that big after just three months! She looked closer to six months pregnant, at minimum. It wouldnāt have been hard to push the time skip back longer if they wanted this joke to land and not distract a large chunk of their female audience.
All in all, I really enjoyed this series and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone. It has a fantastic cast and amazing characters, great comedic timing, a fun plot, and enough drama to satisfy most fans of the medium.
