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Episode 35 H O T D A Y U M.

Unadulterated Gravitas.

Not sure how many mothers would end up basically stalking and harassing the culprit.

Surprisingly engaging. Though Zhao Lusi seems to take on increasingly childish roles the older she gets - lol. Her acting is super as usual, though at the moment she is starting to become a bit of a caricature with the roles she's asked to perform, so I'm hoping over the next few dramas to see some new angles.

Scene.

It's a masterpiece in mediocrity, I'll give it that.

This has basically become a makjang in episode 6, and it's hard to take seriously.

I agree with you on Daigo caring about his family - it feels like, at the bare minimum, he feels an overwhelming obligation to protect his daughter. The nature of that obligation to me seems ambiguous, especially when re-watching the flashback scene in which he tosses empathy aside to almost coldly quiz Mashiro on why she'd go to Tsubasa knowing what he is.

I feel like Daigo will be on the knife-edge the whole way. Looking forward to what's next now, but only 1 ep a week heh - oh well.

(All the best with your exam!)

Right -- his obvious joy in inflicting pain on long-hair-freak, yet in a way he also looked vacant, almost as though he didn't realise the extent of his own excitement in the act. His anger is always simmering on the surface too and he's generally impetuous. There was a sort of disconnect in the way he treated the sentiment of his daughter's letter, and this sort of semi-obliviousness is shown again in the conversation with his wife where he speaks as though he's disconnected from his family, saying she and their daughter might have to leave, speaking outside of himself in a sense. His thinking is definitely not standard.

I haven't read the manga. Will save it for after.

Eps 1 and 2 didn't sell me on this show. Episode 3 is frankly one of the best episodes I've seen in drama over the last few weeks. The pacing, direction, the thought provoking exposition and continued dive into the psychology of Daigo, the very dark and heavy subject matter and the exquisite handling of synchronised flashbacks -- all of it was top tier. There is a remarkable contrast between the core of Daigo and his daughter, which I find very interesting. Daigo himself is an extremely interesting character. Even the way he took no shit after waking up in the hospital and was instinctively aggressive made me wide-eyed - superbly acted thus far from Yuya Yagira. Like yeah, we're really getting to see what the essence of this man is. Ep 3 finally brought me "inside" this story.

Because he's a frikkin' nutcase.

Ep2 already made it pretty clear that Daigo is high on sociopathy in many key facets and ep3 continues to emphatically confirm it.

Maybe this sort of unhinged, hyper aggressive, colossally nutsacked chap can get to the bottom of this miasmic pocket of civilisation.

Yeh pretty much why I give season 2 the edge. Well, it didn't fall hard for me, but compared to the rest I found it to be the weakest phase.

Yeh could have been 10x better. A lot of this didn't work for me.

It's amazing how much criticism Wang Hedi gets on Douban for his looks, being called "crooked", specifically referring to his mouth sometimes. Nobody is perfect but it staggers me that a large number of people would think he doesn't look the part. Guess I don't understand Chinese beauty standards.

Reading about the web, it seems that fans of the novel are really quite upset with this adaptation so far. Probably a good job I never read it then and can't have my expectations tainted. That said, so far this drama is quite enjoyable but for now also feels somewhat aimless.

This drama is abundant with clues and symbolism in the direction, cinematography and wardrobe about Jihyo's voyage of self-discovery about her sexuality. Yeah, it's never explicitly stated, but it's difficult to avoid the blatant signalling in direction. I think reading this even as the most key theme of the drama is a reasonable reading, though hardly the only valid one.

Well. I am a "sageuk enjoyer" and you've made a compelling case here. Curious about the music now, seeing as you've given it a 10. Music is the one aspect I'm most critical of in Kdrama.

That part isn't in question. It's clear what Borderland is presented as and that the survivors were revived from their near-death experiences.

Episode 6 is a special kind of trash. I guess this is the glitch.

edit: Posted this about 40 mins in not realising the episode was about to descend way further still into the deepest and darkest gutter of terribad. This ep will live on in infamy in my mind lol.

The ending threw up more questions than answers. It makes the motivations of face card game creators make dubious sense at best, seeing as they're in that position knowing the reality of what Borderland actually is. On a surface level, it ties a quite neat bow on the series, but delve a little deeper and there are all sorts of psychological and behavioural abysses of nonsense which I'd like to see explored in perhaps a season 3 which would have to go off the beaten path of the manga. There are theories I can conceive to reconcile the jarring fiction of the psychological drives of Borderland citizens... it can be made to work, but I come away thinking that the authors and adaptors haven't considered the deeper ramifications of this web of human psychology in light of how Borderland acts, what its role is in human existence. To fill in the gaping chasms of psychological sense, guess I'll have to invent rule-contingent rationales for a character like the King of Spades. That's unless there's something deeper going down which can be explored in a continuation of this series!