Rants and Weekly Raves #221 (RAWR)

'Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring nor opening their mouth. Kakashi was writing more fanfic, we're sure, and Panda's been busy with shopping and chores. Trot has her test and Ms. Saki's just bored, while JoAnne keeps on falling asleep - and she snores!
kakashi: I snore too. My daughter complained the other night. She said it sounded like "I'm doing it deliberately", but "at least you did not speak in your sleep". YAY! Holidays!!!!! Can't wait to frolic in the snow.
SakiVI: I don't celebrate Christmas, so it should be a cleaning and organizing day for me. Except I'm pretty sure I'm going to sleep. Also, Jaehyo went to the army to be a public service worker in the water sanitation. That's right, that super-clean water you'll drink when you go to Seoul? That'll be my man's work. Booyah!
Shuk: I've been trying to clear up some of my projects that have been languishing for months, if not years. Thankfully, with a lot of focus I finished a few.  Now I'm spending the rest of the year drama watching for fun.
As this posts, of course, it's the night before Christmas - for those who celebrate, hope your holidays are merry!
When Jaehyo caught and ate Lanshang

KOREA

Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter 

I think we just have one more week and this is such a good show!  I seriously have loved each week.  I wonder how they will fix that creepy stalker kid?  He's been a bit pointless, but I suppose he filled some time.  And the Egg Oppa is actually a dragon!  So cool.  I love him, he's the cutest, politest little worm right now.  Best kdrama this year. 

While I wouldn't go THAT far, I have enjoyed this and am looking forward to the final pieces of the story falling into place.  I especially want to see who the little dragon worm is in human form - great opportunity for a cameo!

Less than Evil 

Ah geez, he really did screw her over back then...and in the process of saving his own family, pretty much destroyed it, and then has spent all the years since regretting how things played out for everyone.  Everyone can understand wanting to save your own family before another, but at what point does that choice become immoral? He substituted someone for his own sister, but he didn't expect that to cost anyone their life.  He didn't know what the other cop was going to do.  Does that make it less wrong?

Just Dance 

The dance girls are getting closer to having to make real decisions about their futures, which seem pretty bleak.  We get more insight into their family lives, which are very bleak. They fight to hang on to the one hopeful thing in their lives, an upcoming dance competition, and their friendships deepen as they gain more understanding of one another.

My Strange Hero 

We have pretty much the entire picture of what happened in the past and it's pretty sad - but we expectd that right?  I think I'm seeing hints that our hero will eventually become a school teacher, though - and that his awful ex-friend the current school director does have genuine interest in helping students, though he is personally one messed up individual who caused a lot of damage in the past and still has the potential to do it now.  I do feel sorry toward him though because we can see how awful his mother is and how she shaped him.  Imagine defining food allergies as 'picky eating' and then serving your child food that could kill him!

Encounter 

I'm really enjoying this show - I love the way it frames our leads as the calm center of a world with everyone else flitting in and out bringing varying degrees of upheaval or concern with them.  Each time, our OTP assesses, calibrates, and moves forward with confidence.  They're not pushed into intimacy by a false sense of 'us against them' but they're also not afraid of the warnings of everyone around them.  Yes, we see flashbacks to the key moments often, but they're brief and are meant to show us the leads looking back at events and confirming their belief in each other as they step forward into new phases of the relationship.
Shout out to Manager Nam, too, for being the ONLY person in either of their circles who genuinely cheers them on and believes they can handle whatever comes at them.  They do have people who genuinely care about them but don't believe the relationship is a good idea, but it seems like the biggest crowd (and the one with the most power) are the folks who only view this in terms of how it disrupts their own plans.  Nam is the only person who genuinely considers it in terms of whether it is working for them or not.

The Last Empress 

Ari just rocked this week.  She is the only female relative of the Emperor's to have won against Yura which goes to show she really is Daddy's Little Girl, even if he tries to deny it.  I really hope she ends up Empress.  Honestly, if South Korea had been a constitutional monarchy, I would have hoped they would have allowed girls to be in line to the throne.  They did have a Queen Seondeok once.  

For some reason Viki has been exceptionally slow to sub the episodes for this week, with all other shows progressing normally. Hopefully I'll be able to see this afternoon.  Update: watched and LOVED.  No one could ever say this show was boring, that's for sure.  I think Oh Sunny is my new hero, too!

Children of Nobody 

Of course that suicide is just going to convince everyone it's Woo Kyung coordinating the murders, isn't it? From our vantage point as a viewer though, it should have done the job of convincing us that she ISN'T Red Cry, which is a relief.

Memories of the Alhambra 

I really enjoy this show though I must confess I like solving the mystery of the game by far the best.  It would have been better to have Park Shin Hye team up with him to solve it, rather than be the weepy beauty he feels guilty toward.

CHINA/TAIWAN

Can't Buy Me Love

MiniOrchid got me started on this.  It's a Hong Kong TVB comedy from 2010 and crikey it is so funny!  Hong Kong comedies are gold!  A difficult princess played by Charmaine Sheh marries a gold merchant to avoid being married off to Tibet, and him to settle family financial problems.  Naturally, all sorts of hijinks happen before they truly fall in love. 

Rise of Phoenixes 

Love it. Also love the fanclubs on Twitter. I'm really going to write fanfic for this one too, by the way. Need to get into a different mode for it since I can't write a new story like in the case of 3310. So I'll do little add on to scenes from the drama, at least for now

I'm at the part where they're messing with the one prince with a sorcerer and a bird that keeps pronouncing him the future crown prince.  Love it!

Lost in 1949 (New)

More Chen Kun!!!!! In a double role. It's not new-new, but now subbed new.

JAPAN

Frankenstein's Love

Is this a Japanese school drama?  If so, I'll try it, since I'm on a roll with those.
Not a school drama, no. They're adults. I haven't watched in a bit, but I'll likely finish this up in time for the next RAWR. I hear it doesn't end well.