Boyfriend on Demand is a romantic comedy about a busy and tired webtoon producer (Jisoo) who signs up for a “Monthly Boyfriend” virtual reality service where she rediscovers the possibility of love with impossibly perfect virtual men. In her real life, she doesn’t get along with a rival webtoon producer (Seo In Guk) who has a secret.
Jisoo plays Seo Mi Rae who is a tired webtoon producer. After a bad breakup, she hasn’t dated much. Then she gets the opportunity to us a virtual reality dating service which sparks the possibility or romance again.
Seo In Guk is Park Gyeong Nam. He works with Mi Rae as another webtoon producer and has a cold demeanor that puts off Mi Rae. But there is more to him than meets the eye.
Boyfriend on Demand is a fun romantic comedy with a bit of a more novel premise that really fits with themes of our time as it centers around the concept of virtual dating. The show is pretty straightforward in its plot as we go along with Mi Rae on her journey in the world of virtual boyfriends and how that impacts dating in the real world.
The first half of the drama really leans into the virtual dating as we see Mi Rae go on various dates. It’s lighter and more fun as the dates check a lot of the boxes of classic drama leads from the cold, rich chaebal to the college sweetheart to the secret agent. It’s fun seeing all of the scenarios play out.
While I did enjoy this, I was a little slow to warm up to it as the virtual dates obviously didn’t mean anything since they weren’t real. But it all serves to set the stage for what’s to come. The show really is about Mi Rae’s journey. So, first, we see her adapting to the world of virtual boyfriends and having fun with it.
She even gets very involved with one of them, Eun Ho (Seo Kang Joon) as real feelings develop. This eventually brings in some complications as she has to really look at what it means to date a virtual boyfriend. At the same time, we see Mi Rae in her office job as a webtoon producer. There’s normal office life, dealing with issues with authors and her boss, and socializing with her friends.
Now, this is where we introduce our real life male lead, Gyeong Nam. Honestly, we don’t see that much of him in the first half of the drama. He definitely has interactions with Mi Rae, but they tend to be brief.
Which leads me to one of my other issues which was the lack of screen time that he got combined with his overall persona. He has a distinct lack of affect and always has an emotionless face. His interactions with Mi Rae are typically brief and curt. We really don’t see anything from his point of view. So, I was not really feeling him at all as a potential romantic partner for Mi Rae.
Then we move into the second half of the drama where things rapidly improved. Gyeong Nam starts having more of a presence, and we also finally get a window into his thoughts and who he is. This vastly helps to see him as Mi Rae’s romantic partner. And this is where the drama delves into a lot of the deeper topics at hand.
Mi Rae has her own issues with dating stemming from a bad breakup which influences why she enjoys the virtual dating world. Then it complicates things as she begins considering her potential feelings and dating in the real world. Some of her fears from real partners can be solved with a virtual partner.
But she runs into many issues with her virtual partners too. There’s a lot to sort out. Also, the virtual dating is a bit of a secret since there’s some stigma around the concept. All that being said, there’s a lot for Mi Rae to work out as she begins considering a relationship with Gyeong Nam. I did enjoy the exploration of these issues.
Spoilers Below
Once it got going, I was quite invested in Mi Rae and Gyeong Nam’s relationship. Gyeong Nam became quite endearing as we got more of a window into who he was. There was definitely a lot of communication issues between this pair which brings in some needless suffering, but the two are quite adorable as their relationship develops. Once things do get serious between them, they make a pretty great couple.
Of course, there’s the looming secret of the virtual boyfriends, including one of them looking exactly like Gyeong Nam, which does eventually surface. I was glad that they did touch upon what that meant to her as well as their relationship. It would have been nice to go a bit deeper, but it was handled well. I was glad to see that he accepted it, and they were able to resolve it.
And overall, I really liked the journey that Mi Rae went on as she began to heal from her past relationship hurts. In this way, despite its shortcomings, the virtual world was presented in a positive light. It definitely served a purpose for her in her healing.
Aside from the social stigma, I don’t think the drama really touched upon how potentially bad the virtual dating world could be for someone’s mental health and life in general if someone were to become too reliant on the virtual world. It would have been a nice topic to explore. But this is a lighter drama, and we could only do so much.
END OF SPOILERS
So, in the end, I found Boyfriend on Demand to be a mostly light and fun drama. It touched upon some interesting concepts that are a bit more unique in nature. It also featured a slow to start but sweet romance. It’s a fairly simple show, but it executes things well at a breezy pace. With just 10 episodes, it makes for a nice, quick watch.
My Rating: 7.5/10
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