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    Dogged by pain and misfortune from the very beginning, Shin-Ae decides she wants nothing to do with people nor anything to do with romance. Although content with her unsocial, boring, loveless existence, her lifestyle is challenged after she ruins an unsuspecting strangers' clothes. "I Love Yoo" is a featured romance webtoon comic produced by Quimchee. Shin-Ae, the main character, lives a tough life. She decides on her own that romance is a no-no and people "kinda suck". After soaking a strangers' clothes with orange juice, her life changes. Suddenly, she is thrown into the lives of rich bois Kousuke and Yeong-Gi Hirahaha. Will she ever be able to have a normal life after this? ILY is a drama centered around character development, and it also wants to subvert romance tropes (like when Shin-ae got taken by sangchul and we all thought one of the brothers will rescue her but no, Shin-ae can rescue herself!). Because the storytelling is subversive, we can't expect the story to go through the typical romance milestones or tropes or whatever.

 

    And we also can't assume that the main protagonists are the ones whom Webtoon features.

 

    First of all, who was the first guy we see with Shin-ae? Dieter! We all assumed he was a red herring played for laughs to introduce Shin-ae's character, but as the story went on and Dieter's character got more fleshed out, we can't assume he's just a side character. What if there's a dark horse in the series? Since the comic doesn't play like your typical romance, it would make sense to have Shin-ae have a fluffy drama-free romance simmering on the sides - a slow burn that will catch the audience off guard. Lord knows she needs a break from all the drama of the Hiraharas.

 

I personally feel that the readers should enjoy the story as it unfolds and expect the unexpected, instead of holding on to preconceived notions of how the story should be told. Reading is an experience, and it's good that ILY is not a beat-per-beat kind of romance, and we are not given something that's been done before.