When/How/Because of Who did you discover Asian Dramas?

I was just wondering what the defining moment was for everyone out there in MDL world when they "discovered" or became aware of & interested in Asian dramas/films/music etc. I know MDL is a pretty diverse & multi-cultural and I am curious (ok downright nosy :p ) as to how people from other cultures/countries got interested & then obviously obssesed with Korean dramas for example like I am.

When i joined MDL I posted my on my Profile page my first Korean experience and because I'm lazy I will cut/paste here:

Hi I'm Rosie living in England. I hadn't heard of Korean cinema/drama until I saw a couple of films by pure chance - Ninja Assassin & The Good The Bad The Weird - I was so impressed with the latter that I decided to check out Korean film/dramas I was trying to find something starring Lee Byung Hun as I thought he was excellent in GBW when I stumbled across A Love to Kill, my first Kdrama & that was it I am totally hooked.

My Sky+ box which is similar to TIVO in the States saves a selection of various programmes/films & you can then watch them within that week before they get deleted one of the films happpened to be Ninja Assassin the info blurb on the film mentioned South Korean popstar Rain, at this point I had no clue South Korea even had any popstars & the most pertinent fact i knew about South Korea was that they had hosted the football (soccer) world cup jointly with Japan lol. The title of the film piqued my interest (& who doesnt love Ninjas heheh) & i decided to watch it & the rest is history....ok over to you guys ......what was your route to Asian dramas?

About two years ago I lost my job. I would be at my computer every day, furiously searching job sites and putting my resume out there to every place I could think of...but there are only so many hours in a day you can job hunt. During down time I would get on Hulu and watch episodes of TV shows I liked. One day, by chance, I came across this strange but cute looking link to a show called "My Lovely Sam Soon" (I think that is what Hulu names it). I started to watch it and ended up LOVING IT. As soon as it was over I was hungry for more. I think my second drama was My Girl, then I watched Goong. I started furiously searching for other sites and other shows and my obsession grew and grew. To the point I barely watch regular US programming anymore! I ADORE Asian dramas. I'm completely hooked. Much to D's chagrin...who now comes into the room, shoots me a hairy eyeball, shakes his head and says..."Get up...I'm taking you out of this house for some Sushi" and I say..."Okay Yeobo" ..and he says... "Shut up now". ;)

Around the end of 8th grade one of my friends introduced me to manga. Haha I remember seeing her read them everyday and she let me borrow them. My first manga was W Juliet and it's the series that started it all for me haha :p [How many novels are out there that involve cross dressing guys but also a wonderful funny cute love story?] That was my introduction to manga and later anime. I forget what was the first anime I watched [not counting the ones I unknowingly watched as a kid haha], but the first one I watched in Japanese with subs was Ayashi No Ceres. I couldn't watch English dubbed after that haha. But I got hooked onto a lot of anime music, and that later led to my finding of Jpop and Jrock music. Then later I was searching to see if there was a Hana Kimi anime [because I'd finished the manga and absolutely loved it]. Instead I came across the Taiwan version of it. I remember I don't think I could find subs for it but later discovered Mysoju.com and found out there was a Japanese version of it - so I watched it first and absolutely loved it [Nakatsu!!!!!! :p] even though it was off from the manga it was just so original and different from any dramas I've seen on tv here in America. Later I branched out to watch Taiwan dramas and then later on, Korean dramas. My one friend is obsessed with Kpop and I blame her for me going back into my drama phase haha. Now I just can't stop watching them :p

LibradaJ wrote: I fell into KPop about 2+ years ago via YouTube. Super Junior's SORRY SORRY was featured on the front page. By nature, I love boy groups, I have since my Mom introduced me to boy groups from the 60's. I was fascinated by how large the group was, so I had to look at the SuJu video, and counted the members ... and I was hooked on KPop within days.

After a little while I discovered my all time favorite KPop group, 2AM. After awhile it was put out by JYPE that one of the members, Im Seulong, would be making his acting debut in "Personal Taste" along some dude named Lee MinHo. WHO?? Who cares about him? Who even knows who that dude is?

So I watched the 2AM/2PM websites, who were just cutting and subbing Seulong's parts in the show. I think I made it to the 4th show before it made me scratch my head because I was not understanding his role - and why is his part so small? So I found the show online, with subs, and started watching it from the beginning. It was all downhill from there. I gathered a list of recommendations and dove in head first to "the newbie must watch list".

Hi! My name is Ali and I am an Asian drama addict. *waves*

I love that drama, and he is my favorite 2am member. ;D

i am well aware of asian drama since kid cause i live in an asian country. our local tv channel shows korean/japanese/taiwanese drama and i got to watch a few that i like. i only got hooked to it when i discovered Secret Garden. i got itchy waiting for a single episode everyday so i did my research until i discovered drama world online. from that point onwards, i'm always with my laptop from day to night! :)

but now i have been converted from a drama addict to a fangirl. i still do watch dramas but not the same as before like finishing a drama within 2 days. ^^

LisNoir wrote: My name is Ari and I have been watching anime and Asian films since I was a kid. BUT I was too obsessed with American TV to look into more Asian programming. Around two years ago this changed. A dongsaeng I met at a Sims site was watching Coffee Prince. So, curious person that I am, I ask "What is this CP you speak of?" She gave me links, I loved it, and now I barely, if ever, watch American programming...

Mine too! And Jo Kwon...lol

Can we take turns? lol

LOL, this thread does sound like a Asian Drama Addicts Anonymous meeting....lol

I love 2AM. Love every single member. I am more than willing to share, because Jo Kwon is enough to wear anyone out! LOL

Can you imagine if the people at MDL all went to a drama convention? Someone better bring a lot of cash because someone might get arrested. Wait, might? WILL. LOL :D

LibradaJ wrote: I love 2AM. Love every single member. I am more than willing to share, because Jo Kwon is enough to wear anyone out! LOL

Can you imagine if the people at MDL all went to a drama convention? Someone better bring a lot of cash because someone might get arrested. Wait, might? WILL. LOL :D

ROFL! So true!

My story has several roots and really should have lead to me discovering and being obsessed with Asian dramas much earlier. It all started when I was very little.

My mom and I would go to the library every week where I would get tons of books and 2 video tapes (then DVDs when they became popular). My mother is not american, so I was very accustomed to seeing international content.

When I was bout 9 or 10, my mom started to let me watch more adult movies including subtitled foreign films. We always liked weird movies. Things that were "out there" were always more interesting. This meant we watched a lot of french, german, and east asian films.....but i didn't know about dramas.

Fast forward to college...I was registering for classes for spring semester my freshman year, and I needed an extra class. By chance, I saw a flyer for a Japanese literature class in my dorm. From that point on, I filled in every empty class around my double major with Japanese literature classes. I watched tons of Japanese movies, read lots of Japanese books in english, and first read manga and watched an episode of an anime. (I didn't watch cartoons when I was little unless it was educational, lol). However, I never took a Japanese language class because I was already double majoring in other stuff. So, I still didn't know about dramas....lol.

Fast forward to my first year of graduate school. One of my classmates was really into Hulu and Bleach and used to watch it in the student lounge. One day, I watched it with her and thought "this is pretty cool." I have never gotten into anime, but this event introduced me to watching Japanese media online. But still...didn't know about Japanese dramas.

It wasn't until two years later that I decided I wanted to read all of my Japanese books in Japanese. While googling ways to learn Japanese, I came across a lot of people who used anime as a way to supplement their studies. I watched a decent number of anime series, but wasn't really into it. At that moment, I FINALLY discovered Japanese dramas, lol.

One of my friends suggested a site that had anime, but it also had Japanese dramas. Looking for something new, I watched Call Center no Koibito. I thought it was funny and different and wanted to learn more about Japanese dramas. I watched a few more without getting hooked until I saw Love Shuffle. The combination of hotty-hot-hotties and smart storyline/dialogue won me over....

Hi, everyone. My name is Kawaii, and I am a drama addict :-p