RomCom, and Sci-fi, and Deception? Oh my!

For this drama, I took a chance. To start a RomCom, Sci-fi mashup about someone who pretends to be a robot was risky. I’m not the biggest fan of deception dramas, and I actually hate when an entire relationship built on trust is destroyed. I'm Not a Robot destroyed all my doubts within the first episode. The cast consists of mainly Kim Min-kyu (played by Yoo Seung-ho), Jo Jiah (played by Chae Soo-bin), and Hong Baek-kyun (played by Um Ki-joon). Min-kyu is a man who has an allergy to humans, more specifically, the skin-to-skin contact. He is contacted by Hong Baek-kyun, who is a scientist that has been shunned out his community and has made a AI robot that looks exactly like a human. After Min-kyu learns that he can touch the robot with his bare hand, he agrees to fund the scientist. As Baek-kyun and his team works on the robot, an accident occurs and the battery is fried. Luckily, Baek-kyun had based the robot off of someone he knew, and that someone is his ex-girlfriend, Jo Ji-ah. jo Ji-ah is a passionate young entrepreneur who's stuck with a large debt from all her failed projects. She agrees to pretend to be a robot and thus, the relationship between her and Min-kyu forms. He believes that she is a robot, and after some incidents, he falls in love with her. This causes confusion, as he knows that he shouldn't be in love with a robot, but his love and trust for her causes his allergy to humans to disappear when he looks at her.
Objectively, this show is well produced and the special effects used are the highest quality in South Korean dramas. The plot is paced well according to the emotions in the shows, and the use of comedy and suspense keeps the flow even. With a 32 episode count (Each episode is 30 minutes), this show does a great job with pacing and writing the scenes.
Subjectively, I can't express how much I love this show. After watching many, many dramas, I've grown used to the annoying tropes of deception and cliches. I've also learned how to predict what will happen to characters before they even speak. An extreme plus to this show that made me love it so much is that it had consequences. It's hard to find consequences for actions in any form of media, but everything that happens has an affect on something else. To be specific this show didn’t glorify deception and manipulation, but instead showed the consequences of those actions as well as how painful it can be once you find out the truth. When Min-kyu finds out Ji-ah is human, he goes into shock, both literally in figuratively. An allergic reaction takes place and he has to go to the hospital. Instead of him getting immediately better when he wakes up, he struggles with his allergies again and can't touch anyone. He spends some time feeling both hurt and humiliated, but it isn't only him. Ji-ah had also fallen in love with him, and seeing him in pain hurt her just as much. With her determination she forces her way back into his life by cooking for him, even when he yells at her to get out and throws her food out right in front of her, she stands her ground. She was determined to make things right. He also wasn't in the wrong for what he was doing, since he was simply acting out of the hurt and embarrassment he felt. The emotions expressed throughout the entire drama were all shown in amazing ways. The strength of all of the actors talents, as well as the well-written script conveyed such strong emotions, that I could feel what the characters were going through.
Another thing that I loved was that this is one of the few dramas I’ve scene that the main couple communicates with each other. Instead of just sulking away in their rooms until one of them confesses their love and everyone lives happily ever after, they talk about how the honestly felt during the who "robot" experience. They meet up and talk about everything, asking and answering both personal and emotionally vulnerable questions.
The most extreme subjective enjoyment I felt was how child-like Min-kyu was. There’s a difference on being child-like and being immature, and this shows it. In other shows, people could argue that it’s the same thing, but for this one, Kim Min-kyu shows an innocence and naivety that  I haven’t seen done as well in countless other dramas. A smaller pro to this show is that there is also no love triangle, since the only “option” for that love triangle was Baek-kyun, and they had broken up. No love triangle and an amazing cast makes this a dream show! I LOVE how the ending ties back to the first episode, and since everything is tied up and there isn’t an overbearing pressure of angst related to Min-kyu’s work politics, this show ends on a very high, and very good note.
The message of this show was brought through in such subtle ways, that I didn't catch it until the very end. It's about trust in a relationship, and how important it is to be open and honest, as well as how everything has a consequence, even if you are feeling happy in the moment.
To end things off, this show was a definite Good-Good and I will highly recommend this to anyone and everyone.