Well, I've finally finished Winter Sonata and frankly I feel a bit relieved its over. It felt like a marathon.

So here are my thoughts: It's got all the cheese and predictable drama you would expect from a TV drama (which it was)... but in Anime form.

Out of the good few romances I've seen, it's difficult to not compare them to this and feel how mediocre Winter Sonata really was because, okay, I don't have much of a problem with any of the story, but I'm not a raving fan of it either. As far as story goes - surely it's much better to feel for it, be it love or hate the way a story develops, than to not feel at all. It's all just... fine.

Character development was decent, but the jumps in time  and situations they find themselves in (as much as they are made out to be helpless) are too convenient.. like a lot of the story was too convenient but yeah I already mentioned it felt too much like a TV drama.. and I think that was the problem.

There are some good aspects - I liked the voice acting (most of the time), the characters were unique enough and it had good story development, even if it did sometimes feel like it was going a bit slow with its innumerable flashbacks which were laced through the entire series.

I grew very fond of the animation in Winter Sonata, it was very well done and didn't seem to drop in quality at many points, but the overall production was let down by the soundtrack which was terribly repetitive, relying on it's main melodies all too often for emotional scenes that couldn't prevent me from yawning.

So, overall, I was quite disappointed but I kinda guessed how it was gonna pan out half way so my expectations were low enough for the live-action ending to be a high point, leaving me with a smile on my face as the credits rolled during a song I heard too many times throughout the series.

Heartwarming and emotional at times, it had a strong first half then it waned during the second to a point that made yourself wonder "are they back together yet?" - and that's what leads it to being irrecoverably average, perhaps leaning towards the good side.

6.5/10