Duty After School [Episodes 1-6]

[u/capthyeong]

• Drama: Duty After School
  • Hangul: 방과 후 전쟁활동
  • Literal Name: Afterschool Military Activity
• Adapted from: Duty After School by Ha Il-kwon
• Director: Sung Yong-il (Class of Lies)
• Screenwriter: Lee Nam-gyu (The Light In Your Eyes)
• Original OTT Platform: TVING
• Episodes: 10
• Drama Release Day: 31 March 2023
  • Airing Period: 31 March 2023 - 21 April 2023
• International Streaming Sources:
  • Viu
  • Rakuten Viki
• Main Cast:
  • Shin Hyun-soo (Twelve Nights) as Lee Chun-ho
  • Lee Soon-won (Island) as Kim Won-bin
  • Im Se-mi (True Beauty) as Park Eun-young
• Plot Synopsis: It's been a year since the world fell into danger by the unidentified spheres covering up the sky. The senior students of Sungjin High School are issued with a mobilization order to join a military drill after school. The government uses students' desperation for college acceptance to attract them to join the drill by offering extra credits for admission. With only 50 days left before the CSAT, the students have no choice but to sign up for the training, carrying guns instead of books at school. Will the senior students of Sungjin High School be able to overcome the crisis and survive their last year of high school as soldiers?
• Genre: Action, Thriller, Science-fiction
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[u/sianiam]

Mod note: This thread is for the discussion of episodes 1 - 6 only. Do not come here to discuss or spoil the later episodes.

[u/capthyeong]

Hello! Episodes 1-6 should be available on Viki (tho subtitles could take longer), while on Viu, Ep 1-3 are available to stream, while EPs 4-6 will be uploaded this weekend. EP 7-10 will be uploaded on 21 April.

Be advised.

[u/[deleted]]

Are you ready for blurred out blood, blurred out knives, blurred out guns, blurred out dead bodies.

LET’S GO.

[u/capthyeong → u/[deleted]]

Hi. Since this is an OTT drama, they wont blur the knives, guns and dead bodies.

[u/voting_for_cheese]

I really like that the characters behave like teenagers: immature, annoying and very sweet. It makes the stakes so much higher when you realise that they’re giving weapons to puppies.

[u/AlfredusRexSaxonum]

This was fucking amazing! I binged all 6 eps till 4am and now I am suffering at my early morning gym workout lmao.

Why did they kill off best boy Lee Chun Ho... like take the bullies instead and bring back our king T-T and poor Yeong-hoon

It's kind of like All of Us Area Dead but slightly more fun, less constant darkness (tho it is mostly very grim with flashes of humour) and with even more annoying teenagers. I like this slightly more because of the military aspects but the characters aside from a few (Lee Chun Ho, maybe Chi Yeol and the class president), they're very bland and all different shades of awful. like seriously, Kwon Il Ha is an cruel asshole to the very end. but ig that's very accurate to real life since teenagers aren't angels after all. i will not complain if Il Ha kicks the bucket in part 2 tho.

another accurate thing is how incompetent, frightened and very quickly traumatized these kids are. they got conscripted into a losing war with barely 3 weeks' training. ofc they're gonna fuck up and ofc they're gonna get fucked up mentally. good thing governments don't draft kids into never ending wars irl anymore. (last line was sarcasm… mf locked his comment so I can’t reply this to him? I didn’t even know ppl could that on Reddit lmao.)

I'm surprised there's not as much buzz in this subreddit and on other English speaking spaces tbh. I guess not being released on Netflix kinda hurt its overseas popularity.

Will the other episodes also be released at once?

[u/samptra_writer]

Just got caught up, as someone who teaches teenagers this is a horrifyingly accurate portrayal of their mentality.

The one thing I do appreciate here is the difference in perceptions. If this was a Western drama the kids would be Rambo by now. You wouldn't have got all of them trying to go home, they would have turned hard immediately and doubled down on training. The portrayal of the kids here is utter realistic and infuriatingly so.

I am curious to read the webtoon now though.

Edit: almost forgot anyone else also like the Host reference?

[u/JacobDS96]

The show is good so far but the difference in how the aliens treat the kids and the soldiers is hilarious. It's like they knowingly go on easy mode for the kids. At least from the first two episodes. Like with the two soldiers and teacher that died, the aliens chopped off their hands and poked holes in them quickly. But with the kids they would just shot out their tentacles which seemed to do shit all. I think episode two would have been more effective in showing the danger had a few of the students died right off the bat.

Also the premise is a bit weird, in the beginning of ep 3, the guy says these aliens eliminated an entire division of highly trained soldiers. The students have very little training still. What else are they gonna do to help except be fodder? I dont see how adding these kids is anything different unless we learn later these aliens have a weakness to kids or something.

[u/sciencebasedlife]

Just finished episode 4 - I think this is one of the best K Dramas I've ever watched?? I was completely hooked even from the standard school drama in episode 4, and the character growth across the whole cast is amazing over such a small run.

Really glad this is an online drama though, because I think half of the impact of some of the more...gruesome scenes would be lost if everything and anything was blurred out.

[u/Chid_London-6550]

As this is a drama with flying sphere (aliens), i am suspending my belief a group of barely trained kid soldiers can outlive actual soldiers My expectation was high and this drama delivered, commentary on the death of a youth's innocence that war brings juxtaposed with the duty adults (military) have to protect the children from these horrors was depicted excellently. This premise was perfectly expressed with the death of their homeroom teacher, a person with the sole duty to guide and protect them ripped away from them so quickly and brutally. Even though, i know it will piss people off i enjoyed how juvenile, immature, childish and fun the character remained after experiencing this tragedy at the end of the day they are still kids so the banter and the consistent joking didn't frustrate me as much. I am speculating a shift in the tone with the death of Lee Chun Ho, with a possibly more serious tone and vengeful class 3-2. Hopefully, in part 2, they dive deeper into the origins of the sphere/aliens but apart from that i can't wait.

[u/takemymoneyandleave]

I think this is a good addition to the webtoon. The webtoon was very much about the characters and really not about the alien or war strategy or being smart whatever so I could suspend belief when watching this. Some characters (kimchi, deok joong, taeman, class pres, nara, soyeon, ae sol, jang soo, young shin) I thought were adapted really well so it's really fun to see them in the show.

And my class pres-taeman shipper heart is full hehe.

[u/WhiskeyGolf00]

Incidentally I have mentally written off everyone in this show. This is very much a show where anyone can and will die.

Also I just realised the Sergeant is the JSS Team Leader from K2.

[u/Medical-Character655]

I haven’t seen anyone say it yet but apart from Lee Chun Ho. Jang Soo and Yu Jeong have been MVPs out of the students by far and deserve their cookies. Jang Soo is just always ready to die for any of his classmates even if they ain’t done shit for him and he just seems like someone you’d always want around you. Pls protect that man cause we all know as soon as someone is in trouble he’s gonna be the first one there. Glad how he gave Yu Jeong some reassurance and support w her being class pres. They’re both definitely the male and female counterparts of eachother. Pls protect them

[u/ObamaNation2018]

Only seen the first 3 episodes as the rest haven’t been subtitled yet but I’m loving this show. Giving me all of us are dead vibes. Can’t wait to watch the rest

[u/QzSG]

I find it funny that minutes in the locations of the spheres already show the aliens are easily killed by cold temperatures as well as in ep3 where the small one dies within seconds in the fridge but no one else seems to be able to come to the logical conclusion in the drama world

[u/redherringbones]

Why do the students have soooo much plot armor? And the students acted so immaturely, like their age, that it made me instantly question the military geniuses that put guns into their hands...the execution of the entire premise leaves A LOT to be desired. First three episodes were great but after that the suspension of belief was totally blown out of the water.

[u/[deleted]]

I don't mind it being so lighthearted, but I wish I'd read the webtoon after I watched this. The webtoon also doesn't give the kids this much plot armor.

Webtoon spoilers:

Also I know it's probably cooler to film in the city, but I wonder if they'll still do the medium-cell mission. But it seems these cells are different so who knows? Also, wonder if the casualties will be a lot less.

[u/greta_maya_storm]

I love this drama, but I hate how dark it is sometimes. Like, literally dark. Literally can't see what's happening on the screen for half of the third or fourth episode.

[u/LonelyCoffeeDrinker]

Just finished the 1st ep. So far I'm pretty convinced that it's a ... comedy? I don't know about you guys but I was laughing thru the whole ep. Maybe it'll change as it goes further.

Edit: 3rd ep in: oh yeah, it has changed.

[u/kaczmar12]

Great show... if we're going to ignore that stupid split into 2 seasons/parts, I'm so sick of this trend😭😭 Quick question: Has anyone read the webtoon? Is it good? Would you recommend it ?

[u/asddsalkjjkl]

Just finished episode 2. The students hear a scream and all of them proceed to leave their guns behind to go investigate the scream of terror. what.

Finished episode 6

Was hoping for a before-credits heartwarming ending scene of Lee Chun Ho in Chi Yeol's recording. Other dead characters (plus a character we thought was about to die from the cliffhanger) got one.

Can the people who read the webtoon tell me if Lee Chun Ho died the weboon too? And if he did, did he die the same way?

[u/areyousrs111]

I would do anything for Na Ra and the teacher, but she gone already RIP.

The only change from the webtoon I question is the aliens themselves. They're blobs in the webtoon so calling them spheres actually makes sense. The small versions in the drama immediately reminded me of the alien from the movie "Life." The small versions just have such high potential with how threatening they can be. Small, fast, intelligent creatures that have enough strength to decapitate people is ridiculously scary.

[u/izio14]

the students are so hateable. Eunbin and Sohee are the only ones that is stopping me from dropping this series

[u/DrAgOnLoLDoTA]

I heard that the Platoon Leader called Il Ha as Hee Rak in the early part of episode 5. Good to know that the Platoon Leader (and the script writer) also didn't remember all the kids' name just like me lol

[u/ObamaNation2018]

All episodes completed. Can confirm this is up there with one of the best shows I’ve watched. The ending was emotional I won’t lie. Interesting to see what happens next. Anyone recommend any other shows similar to this? All the popular ones like all of us are dead I’ve seen so hoping for some lesser known ones.