Yoon Seol Chan is a member of the idol group Men In Black. After receiving some bad press his company decides that the best way to change his image is to send him to school. Also new to school is Min Se Yi who transferred after spending time in New Zealand talking to sheep. The two become desk mates and are joined by a silent gangsta, the 'cool' class president, a bullied nerd with a passion for singing, a tough bully and the token fat girl to form a band. They're blackmailed by they're teacher and must cooperate to get their performance ready in time.
Since Monstar is the first drama produced by Mnet (a Korean music channel) and features not one, but two idols and cameo like appearances from other stars I was expecting a cash cow full of fan service and a poor plot. I wasn't far off the mark! All the characters are presumably bought together by accident. But of course all of them posses talent! They just need to unleash the talent locked away inside them and discover who they really are! Yes. It really is that cheesy! That's only the beginning though, the cliches don't end there! Oh no, we've got reunited child hood friends, dead parents, bullying, betrayal and the love lines are more tangled than my hair in the morning! Indeed, it would appear that every k-drama convention has been abused in the making of this drama to the point that if it turned out one of the characters has been cross dressing all this time, I would not be surprised.
But that doesn't mean it's a bad plot...... Well, OK it does really. But at least the characters are realistic! Wait, what was that? The characters are also just a jumble of cliches with not sincerity? Oh, well this is awkward. They are more back story than character really. I understand that the idea is to have a group of 'broken' teenagers who get healed and it's all very feel-good. But it's terribly overplayed! I don't watch soap operas for a reason you know! And that's before I get into the fact that they are all more dense than your typical shojo heroine! Worst of all is Min Se Yi.
Min Se Yi heard her two admirers talking about her and from their conversation came to the conclusion that they were gay for each other? The number of ridiculous conclusions this girl jumps to is unbearable! I believe she is supposed to be a 'cute ditsy' girl and she's pretty, don't get me wrong, she is absolutely lovely. But I swear over 50% of her screen time consists of staring gormlessly. She seems to have little of her own character, just an incredibly over the top back story (I'll let you find it out for yourselves). Also, how many times does she need to show off that she talks to sheep? Really, is that something to be proud of?
Then there's our male lead: Yoon Seol Chan. You know, I'm getting incredibly tired of these aggressive figures. Why can't anybody talk calmly and honestly in dramas? Of course, it's not Yoon Seol Chan's fault. He's had such a tragic life but he's locked it all away in his temper. He's not as bad as Min Se Yi, but then we haven't found out about his misfortunes yet, give him time!
I can't say I don't like it, but then, I like Sailor Moon and we all know that that's a bad anime! It's funny and entertaining. The musical aspect does make it a lot more interesting because there is such a variety in the things played and lots of them are very nice arrangements! But the music part of the plot is just plain silliness so there's little justification there other than: "Look, we're Mnet, we can use what eve kpop song we want in our dramas because we're a music channel!". Oh dear. Did you even try Mnet? Did you? Or are you relying on rabid fans? Well anyway, I think that's enough
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