Devil Beside You 惡魔在身邊 is the fourteeth drama watched. It is also the first Taiwanese drama I've ever watched as well as one set in modern times. Devil Beside You is based on the Japanese shoujo manga of the same name. Devil Beside You was a highly popular drama that I knew several friends had watched. I decided to take a quick break from all the Korean dramas I had been watching and check out this drama.
Devil Beside You's story revolves around Qi Yue (Rainie Yang) is an ordinary high school student. It begins with Qi Yue planning on giving a love letter to the captain of the basketball team, Yuan Yi (Kingone Wang). However, Qi Yue doesn't realize Yuan Yi walked past her and in front of her is Jiang Meng (Mike He), the troublemaker at her school. Ah Meng decides to blackmail her by asking her to do favors for him and in return, he would not tell the whole school about the love letter. Next thing you know, Qi Yue finds out her mother is going to marry the school chairman. The school chairman is no other than Ah Meng's father, which will result in Ah Meng being her new stepbrother. As time passes and events have taken place, both Qi Yue and Ah Meng start to have feelings for each other. Both are hesitant because of they will also become future stepsiblings.
Devil Beside You is structured very similarly to a manga novel. Every couple episodes can be considered a story arc made to test the relationship between Qi Yue and Ah Meng. The other characters seemingly come and go throughout the drama. It's dramas such as Devil Beside You that make me wish I had grown up in Asia. Being an Asian American is probably insufficient to throughly understand some of the things the drama featured. An example is the scene where Qi Yue tries to give Yuan Yi a love letter. Love confessions typically come from the guy to the girl. However, it's generally more acceptable for a girl to confess first in Asian cultures than Western cultures. This also ties into my next point: I've never seen anyone confess their feelings through a love letter. One can easily make the argument that it is only a gesture seen in movies and television series. However, I strongly feel it is simply a difference in culture. On a more positive note, I did notice that regardless where people grow up, school girls still fall for the tough, bad boys.
Rainie Yang herself sang one of the songs for the official soundtrack to Devil Beside You. Her song "Ai Mei 曖昧" is the ending theme. Another one of her songs featured on the soundtrack is "Li Xiang Qing Ren 理想情人". Both are ballad tracks that she is typically known for. Chou Nan Ren 臭男人" is the opening theme to the drama. Unlike many other tracks typically found on drama soundtracks, this song is a rock song.
Admittedly, this isn't one of my favorite dramas. Without revealing the final conclusion, even midway through the drama I found it difficult to figure out the possibility for a happy ending. That would mean Qi Yue and Ah Meng would be together, but still labeled as step-siblings. Understandably, they aren't siblings by blood. Still, family vacations would be a little awkward in my opinion. Too weird for me. Following up with some opinions from other friends, I've concluded that Devil Beside You is simply a drama only for girls. I cannot see any way a guy would enjoy watching this drama. Dramas such as Devil Beside You, give girls too many hopes that the even if the guy they were dating in real life mistreats her, she still thinks he would change for her. Although it's true for many dramas, I felt this one was particularly strong at giving that false hope. In fact, one of the only reasons I continued to watch anyway was because I found Tsai Pei Lin (who played Qi Yue's best friend, Qing Zi) to be very attractive. Devil Beside You would become one of several dramas where my attention was on the supporting actresses rather than the lead actress. It's not to say that this is an awful drama but rather, the targeted audience would only be young girls. I recommend Devil Beside You, just not for any male drama fans.
