- The crimes are committed by high schoolers.
- Underage "compensated-dating" [and the resulting trauma] play big roles in the plots and overall moods.
- Unable or unwilling to get outside help from the adults in their lives, being forced to try and resolve things on their own.
- Situations that seem otherwise be recoverable in a vacuum begin to compound exponentially into a death spiral, with every possible turn seemingly being the wrong one.
- Relatively innocent, awkward, lonely male leads.
- Subtle, tragic romance.
- Neither piece of media seems to be afraid to break the mold and toy with your emotions.

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A key difference, though, between the two is that much of the negative actions and crimes in Extracurricular are not with any serious mal-intent, whereas All About Lily-chou chou is much more intentionally malicious.

In both, you have characters committing crimes that many would consider immoral out of desperation, not really with any significant ill-intent. As a result, they manage to make you empathize with the characters.

And in both, you see the anxiety-inducing result of what would happen if, at every possible turn, reasonable mistakes and unlucky decisions, that would otherwise likely be relatively inconsequential on their own, begin to compound and lead to a death spiral, in which each successive mistake has an expontentially worse outcome.

In the same way that, contrary to what may make logical sense, listening to dark, depressing music often provides comfort to someone in a dark place, these shows are both the existential crisis equivalent to listening to Brand New; you'd think that a distraction, like happy, upbeat k-pop would be best, yet in reality, when you're at your worst, what you often really want is to feel that you're not alone.

In a similar sense, these shows are the polar opposite of a distraction for anyone genuinely suffering from true existential crises; the primary focus is all about death, compassion, and what may or may not come next.

They both provide a very similar, for lack of better words, "spiritual" take on the concept of death that seems to be very distinctly Korean--in the sense that, while the depictions are surely more Buddhist than anything else, there is also a bit of a blend of everything, ranging from bits of Christianity to traditional beliefs.

Both shows will make you cry, or rather, help you cry, and yet at the same time, feel a sense of peace and bittersweet relief.

Both focus heavily on caring for both the ones who have passed and the ones left behind--and truly caring; neither show is primarily about revenge, or necessarily even achieving true justice or satisfaction, but rather about having genuine compassion, understanding, and empathy.

Additionally, both shows have a lot of other themes in common. To name a few:

- cold-on-the-outside yet warm-on-the-inside, strong women leads
- compassionate male characters
- 'believable' supernatural elements
- taking responsibility for past actions
- intertwined fates