Backstreet Rookie is a South Korean romantic drama of 16 hour-long episodes. The story revolves around Dae-hyun (Jo Chang-wook) -- a young man who runs his own franchise 24-hour convenience store in a sort of minor street of his city -- and his new part-time employee Saet-byul (Kim You-Jung) -- a parentless high school dropout supported her younger sister.

In episode 1 we start with a scene 3 years previous when Dae-hyun met a high schooler Saet-byul and her two friends and she ended up kissing him unexpectedly. Now it's three years later and she's back in his life with the secret agenda of winning his love. But Dae-hyun has a girlfriend, Yeon-joo (Han Sun-hwa), and they're in a happy relationship, though later it turns out there are people who want to break them apart because they think he is beneath her (financially and socially) and the rift that causes gives Saet-byul her window of opportunity.

As these shows go things move slowly. Bits of kindness and thoughtfulness pile up until Dae-hyun realizes he like Saet-byul more than as just a good employee. There is lots of cool character growth for both and some amount of sad moments (Kim You-Jung is good at being sad, tearing up and have a few tears roll down her cheek). There are no big setbacks so it's mostly a rocky but steadily progressive journey to love (I didn't notice but they never kissed and almost did at the end then it was a "psych!" moment).

There is also a good B plot romance with Dae-hyun's best friend Dal-shik (Eum Moon-suk) -- a struggling but passionate web toon artist -- and Saet-byul's best friend Geum-bi (Seo Ye-hwa) -- still in high school because she failed a grade and rather feisty. They hate each other due to some bad encounters but online the web toon artist and #1 fan love each other but don't know their real identities.

I guess the last subplot of note is with Saet-byul's younget sister Eun-byul (Ahn Sol-bin), still in high school but causing trouble for Saet-byul by hanging out with the bad girls and skipping class to audition and eventually becoming a member of an idol girl group. She's more trouble in the first half but disappears in the last few episodes.

The only problem I have is that at the end of episode 15 there are so many things unresolved. Episode 16 resolves all the plots by being a longer episode, doing half a slow episode then rushing through the last half to resolve everything. But in the end those plots are resolved and everybody is happy, even Yeon-joo.

Both protagonists are attractive and charming. Lots of closeups. Kim You-Jung is kind of stunning and they go all out to shoot good angles and plenty of closeups of her face and smile. Great chemistry between the two.

Overall a really good romance series.