Via scoutmagph
I’m about to say something controversial yet brave: “Start-Up” is still a powerful K-drama even without the romance subplot.
“Start-Up” is a bit different. Although it tackles romance, it is not the show’s heart. Instead, it’s dreams and the real price of following it. Their journey officially begins at Sandbox. Although Dal Mi is a stranger to Do San, she knows him not as a prodigy but as the former pen pal her grandmother connected her with. Little did she know that this character who shares the same name was something her grandmother only made up.
In the series, the second male lead Jipyeong has also gone through impostor syndrome ever since he was a kid. Dal Mi’s grandmother calls him a good boy. He never believes her, not once, telling her, “I pretend to be the smartest in the world, but in reality, I’m just an idiot who knows nothing. I’m not a good boy.”