Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #338

Trotwood: So many new dramas! I'm not able to keep up with everything. I mean I suppose I should be happy that people were able to work so much with everything that has been going on in the world, but I'm also feeling like I am being slowly overtaken by a drama flood. Joseon Exorcist and Navillera started this week (hopefully, I'll be able to start reviewing for next week), but 12 episode of Palace of Devotion (with seven subbed) and A Love Story: You are the Greatest Happiness of My Life just dropped 14 subbed episodes all at once 14 hours ago after premiering last week! I have a regular job, people. How does anyone manage to watch all these shows and still work? I might be able to catch up with the Korean shows, but I've already given up on the Chinese ones. I'll never catch up with being 12 episodes behind from the beginning.

kakashi: I'll be watching Joseon Exorcist too! (Wooooow, I'm going to start a KDrama, wish me luck!) I watched both Yin Yin Master movies over the weekend and will do a post about them (hopefully before the end of the year, let's see how that goes) - and I continued watching Seven Deadly Sins / Nanatsu No Taizai with the kid. It's very funny, I like all the characters but my favorite is probably Ban.

And since I know I'm not even going to try to watch Palace of Devotion, I'm just going to post the drama poster here, which I saved thinking I would be able to add it to the list below.

KOREA

Will You Leave?/Must You Go? (final)

Granted, it is difficult to pull of time travel dramas, especially if you are adding historical figures and or anyone who might have a larger impact on the world like a politician. However, this show didn't do itself any favors by having the time travel also include reincarnation with multiple people so there was never going to be enough time to complete any of their stories in the short time frame it was given. As much as I hate sad endings, I would have preferred the show to end with the sad selflessness of our hero than to have the odd ending that I'm assuming that we are supposed to see as happy even though we have no proof of who the heroine is really with at the end.

How to Be Thirty?/Not Yet Thirty

I'm still watching this show because I love the friends and because the episodes are only 20 minutes, but the main couple is just weird. I get that relationships aren't smooth, but I don't get what I'm supposed to be "getting" about the fact that her first love comes back and though he seems to be perfect, he is giving her and us weird vibes even before we find out about that other woman (whoever she might be). Ji Won's previous boyfriend was a jerk, and a lot of the men in this drama seem to be in relationships as business deals with sex attached. Thank goodness for the puppy. And what is Song Jae Rim doing? Why have his character in this show at all with a couple of lines each time?

Miss Monte Cristo (daily)

I cackle like a gleeful crazy person while i watch this show because it's just repeated revenge. There are twists here, but only right now in the ways in which the terrible people try to be terrible but only end up setting themselves up for more public humiliation. I love how self-righteous the horrible people are so far getting upset by being treated the way they treat others. They are not that self aware yet, so they are still raging at the heavens. This is fine. I don't want them to learn their lessons yet. They still need to suffer. The ex-fiancé who was tricked into marrying head evil is pitiful, but I don't know yet if he is going to be pitiful enough for the show to allow him to get back with his true love or if doofus chaebol son is going to turn it around and become the end game. It's too early to tell.

I call this the handshake of hate.

You Make Me Dance (series review)

For a show with one of the main characters being a loan shark, this was completely lovely and warm. Korean BL is the land of soft loan sharks apparently. This is the story of Song Shi On, a dancer who is in debt trying to pay for everything after his mother remarries and leaves the country. His debt collector is Jin Hong Seok, who wants to get out of the business and makes a deal with his boss to get this payment so he can quit. She clearly doesn't want him, too.  He sees Shi On dance once and is completely moved. There are eight episodes and each is only about 15 minutes, so you could binge the whole thing or wait for the inevitable "movie" version. The whole thing isn't completely innovative, but it was nice nonetheless. You'll want them to be happy forever.

CHINA/TAIWAN

Word of Honor

I've been not only sucked into the world of this show, but also getting great tidbits about the production and the writer. I'm impressed that this is the writers first drama, and there are some interesting things being revealed about the story and casting through her interviews. You can read some of the translated interviews here. I really liked reading about her process and her ideas about the casting. I will also admit that now that I've watched up to episode 15 (don't laugh all you people who are ahead!, I'm treading water here), that in the last couple of episodes I've grown fond of Gu Xiang. At this point, I just want that poor Cheng Ling to get away from everyone but our heroes. I'm also glad that Wen Ke Xing know about the nails. I really need him to start to understand the depth of Zi Shu's guilt and pain to help him out of his own. 

Killer and Healer

I spend much of my time tweeting about the clothes of one of the shows villains, so that is the pictures I will share here. I know that I am supposed to hate him, and he's an excellent villain because he appear cool and kind and can get everyone else distracted by the minor villains. I can already tell Jia Ban's story arc is going to be painful because he already has a twisted relationship with our favorite probably going to die soon opera singer. Seriously, I've never watched and liked a show so much fully expecting most of the people in it to die before the end. This is exactly the kind of show I usually drop, but I keep watching anyway. 

HIStory 4: Close to You

Sigh. We were all so excited about the HIStory franchise continuing even with the ultimate betrayal that was the ending of the previous installment in the series. But it makes you wonder when a franchise that seemed to pride itself on presenting a wide variety of stories falls into one of the most criticized tropes of the drama world--love between stepsiblings. And then they make the stepsibling a obsessed stalker? Really, show? I said to someone last week that maybe the HIStory franchise should be put into the witness protection program. I think the most frustrating thing about the way the writers set up this trop is that nothing depends on the two characters being stepbrothers. Everything that happened to them in the past that causes Young Jie to fall for Xing Si could have been because they were neighbors, for example. I'm fond of the friendship in this show between Xing Si and the other two guys who are in a fake couple relationship to woo a fujoshi girl (another tired trope). I actually wish these three could become friends with the three women in How to Be Not Thirty. I think all their lives would be better. Friends for the win!

JAPAN

Shichinin no Hisho (finale)

The final episode was finally subbed. For those of you who don't remember, the last episode was subbed on December 8. I had lost hope that I'd ever be able to finish this drama. I actually had to rewatch episode 7 to remember the details that set up the finale. I must say that I was initially disappointed. Not because they don't finally get the bad guy. They do, but it was all fairly anti-climatic maybe because it seemed inevitable and also rather simplistic. However, I've come to realize that main idea wasn't even really about these secretaries getting the big bad but them triumphing over corruption and each other as well as building their team stronger. The "cases" really are secondary to that. I wonder if there is going to be a sequel because the end lends itself to one.

Attack on Titan - The Final Season

LEVI!!! TT________________TT 

Do we like where the manga is headed? I never liked Eren, haha, and I have absolutely no compassion for Mikasa, so.... 

 

Nishiogikubo Mitsuboshi Youshudou

Kobayashi is the semi-jerk friend of the bar trio, who's bitterness is often correct but difficult to accept because his timing is often off and selfish. Still, you know there is good in him and that his story may be the saddest of them all. He gets to shine in this episode with his interesting combination of hopelessness and hope. I'm fascinated by the quietness of this show, and how much emotional punch they can get out of a finite space, limited time (episodes aren't any longer than 25 minutes), and a revolving door of characters in and out of the bar. This is the one show I am watching that really makes me think about life and my own choices, but not in a painful way--more contemplative and also like it wouldn't judge me.

THAILAND

A Tale of a Thousand Stars

Despite the fact that we are definitely into the angst portion of the drama, it is still my happy place of the week. The whole story is revealed to the villagers, so of course everyone, especially the chief who has clearly completely fallen for Tian. And just because we would see the hurt coming from a mile away, it didn't make it so that it hurt less. What did surprise me though is how Tin blames himself for what happened despite the truth. I was also expecting the show to drag out the misunderstanding longer. I was pleasantly surprised, so though the cliffhanger didn't surprise me (we saw this in the trailer), I was surprised at other bits of this episode. Shout out to Dr. Nam as the our truth reveal character throughout this show!

Talay Luang

Thank goodness that Talay isn't going through anymore head injuries. There is just so many more episodes of various versions of his memory recall I can take. We are close to the end of this show, and the good guys are finally together as a team, but the downfall of the bad guys I don't think is going to be Talay really but the fact that his evil stepbrother, Korn, is in love with Moya, and his mother sent someone to kill her who accidentally shot him. He's not going to mad about being shot, but he is going to lose it when he finds out hiss own mother tried to kill her. I'm looking forward to this confrontation. If he wasn't so evil, I'd almost feel sorry for him. It's funny that when I was watching, I saved the picture below to use because I was really happy that the lead are finally together and are going to work together to uncover the truth, but now days later all I remember is the inevitable payback part.