📺 Korean Tv Series Review: Psycho, But It's Okay (사이코지만 괜찮아)

Ever since he was a young boy Moon Gang Tae had to take care and protect his older brother Sang Tae, who's in the autistic spectrum, while trying to make the ends meet working as a caregiver in various hospitals and psychiatric centers. 
Because of Sang Tae's traumatic memory of butterflies and his fear of getting caught by them the two brothers and their only friend Jae-Su move from place to place regularly making it difficult to have stable and lasting relationships for all of them.

Ko Moon-Young is a famous and renowned children book author, but her stories are mostly dark and creepy. Her character isn't much different: she suffers from an anti-social disorder so she can be both charming and charismatic and switch to be rude and borderline criminal when she achieves her porpuses. 
Moon-Young is Sang Tae's favorite author so he and Gang Tae go to see her at a fan signing. When Sang Tae has a crisis Moon-Young steps in and reveals how cruel and frightening she could be. She then develops an obsession for Gang Tae and tries everything to have him.

Due to this and other unpleasant events, the Moon brothers and Jae-Su move back to their hometown and rent an apartment from Gang Tae's friend, Nam Ju-Ri.
She tells him that the psychiatric hospital where she works, Ok Psychiatric Hospital, is looking for staff and that's how he ends working there

The job is surely a demanding one and not a boring one, as most of the patients suffer from disorders and mental illnesses that require long-term treatment, so if you add to that the appearance of troublemaker Moon-Young you know things are only going to get complicated...

My Opinion👍👎

"Psycho, But It's Okay" is different if compared to k-dramas about mental health: 

1. firstly, there're no '100% good' characters: the Moon brothers, Ko Moon-Young, the staff and patients of Ok Psychiatric Hospital, and Moon-Young's publishing company's CEO are all selfish in their own way, whether it is because of a disease or their true nature and it's NOT A BAD THING: it makes the viewer relate with them and it's thought-provoking.
2. the realistic and not glamourized portraying of traumas and disorders: a few of the patients struggle with different kinds of abuse, PTSD, and addictions and a few of them will never fully recover. 

Out of all the flawed people, I've been impressed with the character Ko Moon-Young the most: being the lead female with a personality disorder, I kind of liked her strong will and attitude when put in front of any kind of obstacle. What I didn't like was the unrealistic turn of her character at the end of the drama SPOILER because of her heartfelt attachment for the Moon brother, she's willing to risk her own wellbeing and that's something people with anti-social disorders wouldn't do. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm still learning on this matter...

The drama starts with a Tim Burton kind of vibe, all pastel colors and bright settings for themes that are anything but light issues and slowly change in sharper and scarier atmospheres, parallel to the evolution of the characters.
They nailed it BIG TIME with the soundtrack as every song matches with the scenes and helps to increase the emotions in the viewer.
I loved the brotherhood between Gang Tae and Sang Tae and the friendship they share with Jae-Su, who's a constant and steady presence, especially for Gang Tae.

Original and well-executed was the idea of every episode to connect to famous fairytales but in their actual version, not the Disney's we're all well accustomed to and their meaning explained in a realistic but still hopeful way was a fine touch.

The whole aesthetics and wardrobe fit perfectly the concept of a story between dreams and nightmare and I think it will elevate Moon-Young as one of the best-dressed characters in Dramaland.

Mental health and its relative illnesses have been a hot topic these past years, with movies like 'Joker' sensibly raising the people's curiosity so I was glad that also k-drama decided to talk about it as this is still a taboo topic in most cultures.

Keeping in mind that this is still a work of fiction and that reality is quite different, I think it has been developed and portrayed well.

Rating: 5/5

Ph: hancinema.net, my own collage, and kdrama.scene collages HERE