Ron Does Stuff

I was never really a K-Drama kid before, only watching what was on television at the time — Boys Over Flowers. When I stopped watching television, I stopped watching K-Dramas.

With the advent of Netflix and me realizing the beauty of Park Seo-joon’s abs, I got into it very quickly, cycling through a number of romantic comedies that I have mostly enjoyed.

While I’ve mostly been a romantic comedy person, the teaser for Alchemy of Souls got me interested because, well, male tiddies. So I decided to try it out!

Alchemy of Souls stars Lee Jae-wook, Jung So-min, and Hwang Min-hyun, only one of whom I know since Minhyun is also a K-pop idol. It’s about “young magicians dealing with heaven and earth” which I am already sold on to be honest.

Okay so just like The Untamed, Alchemy of Souls just gets right into it with the mystical stuff, with a woman bringing a poor family to her home so that her soul shifter son can feed off of them. The poor family is saved by a magician named Geon, who apparently is the one that did this to him. And it’s ~forbidden~ to do so. What exactly a soul shifter is isn’t exactly explained, but hopefully they do down the line. The graphics are already better than some of the other fantasy dramas I’ve watched though!

There’s an explanation as to why soul shifters turn into stone when they run wild, but honestly I still have no idea what soul shifters actually are. And apparently this is the eighth one Geon has made the rascal.

But all of that is pushed aside at the moment as Geon is called to the palace to give the king an update about the new spell he’s mastering. But ~ta-da~ it seems like the king already knows that Geon can switch the souls of people into different bodies, and he wants to switch into a younger body because he’s dying. I am guessing the soul shifters are people Geon has experimented on? It’s giving Jink High by Mercedes Lackey to be honest.

Maybe because he’s the king, but Geon inexplicably agrees to swap bodies with the guy. Which, of course, leads to disastrous results, because the king is apparently much more sick and went on to impregnate Geon’s wife and man you really should have seen this coming.

It then jumps to 20 years later, where Naksu — I’m guessing the fruit of that impregnation — has been going around collecting mage heads and is now being accosted by troops of the king, whose asses she handily kicks. The fight scenes are not bad! Especially since the special effects are good enough to hide any holes in the choreography. Eventually, Naksu is cornered and it’s hinted that maybe she was unable to successfully transfer her soul into another body but come on now there are still 19 episodes of this to go.

We leave Naksu’s storyline for now and head on over to Minhyun’s who is playing Seo Yool. And maybe I am just biased because I’m familiar with him the most but damn he’s tall??? And the deep voice???

Alas, we don’t find out much about Seo Yool. We do find out that Naksu has transferred to the body of Mu-deok, who used to be blind but can now see ever since the soul shifting. We also get to see Jang Wook, who might actually be the fruit of the impregnation several paragraphs up. Try to catch up guys!

This new body allows for a lot of well-executed comedy, but the best thing it brings plot-wise is that we get introduced to the Four Seasons, of which Seo Yool is a member.

The Four Seasons are the children of the four most powerful mage families in the country — the Jin, Park, Seo, and Jang families. Jin Cho-yeon represents spring, Park Dang-gu represents summer, Seo Yool represents fall, while Jang Wook represents winter. And all four families were at the scene of the crime commited on Naksu’s family, but it’s not yet explained in the episode so far. But Naksu starts thinking of a plan to get close to the Four Seasons to exact revenge.

We also find out that Naksu and Seo Yool had a thing when they were kids, something that was hinted at when Seo Yool talked about the whistle that was found on Naksu’s body when it was finally recovered. Even Seo Yool remembers it later on in the episode, but refuses to believe that Naksu could be that same girl he gave the whistle to. Of course this is not going to end well because Seo Yool is the second lead, poor guy.

Eventually, Naksu finds herself a servant at Jang Wook’s household after Jang Wook pulls some strings, and there’s a nice comedic montage of Jang Wook trying to push her to the limit because I think he’s already figured out that Mu-deok is actually Naksu and he wants her to teach him that magic. But it’s Naksu who manages to get an advantage because she discovers that Jang Wook has a spirit plaque that’ll let her get inside Songrim and exact her much-delayed revenge.

However, the night Naksu enters Songrim is also the night where it’s invaded by minions of the same guy who taught her everything she knows. It’s not revealed who he is yet, but I am suspecting he’s Geon who you really can’t blame for wanting to get back at everybody let’s be honest. There’s some nice fight scenes here too! Although it looks like they’ve scaled down the special effects budget at this point.

The attack, of course, was a distraction so that Naksu’s body and sword could be recovered, which she intuits quickly enough while she’s hiding from all the guards. However, Seo Yool finds her hiding, and chases after her until Jang Wook pulls her aside to hide her from him. As the first episode ends we finally get confirmation that, yes, he does know that she is Naksu, and one question was also immediately answered. The reason why there’s no telltale blue mark on Mu-deok’s body showing that her soul has been swapped is because the mark is on her eyes. Genius!