ShortCircuit

Yeah so now imagine this. The SML is actually after the ML and not the FL. Heh. A lot of bromance and eventual platonic forever friendship (unless they end up enemies or one of them goes away) translates to hidden homoeroticism (because it sells like crazy, even in freaking male-oriented media - just take a look at any shonen anime. Just sayin'.) BUT we can't have more than bromance (*wink*) in an Asian drama (unless it's Thai, LOL), therefore... love triangle, quadrangle, harem, whatever - happens. (Also applies to SFLs but they're actually after the FL LOL). Just my two cents.

On a more serious note, though. Yes, I did get SLS in "The Wolf". The ML was a complete and total idiot, the FL used to have a brain but it evaporated whenever the ML came into scene, the SML was basically the guy your mom tells you to bring home - cute, polite (well, when he paid attention), a bit of a rogue (nobody likes a dull person), rich (a freaking prince, too), manly (a warrior, not afraid of the big bad wolf, LOL). And what did happen? Yes, he's the SML. He doesn't get the FL. Happily the ML and the FL were both such big idiots, they actually deserved each other.

Which brings me to the second point of this comment. Who would WANT the SL to be with the L (male or female) if those are complete idiots?! Not me. They (the SLs) would be better saved for someone who deserves them. So I don't count them not getting the leads as a personal failure, but as a task successfully failed - next mission oncoming :D

I would go, if it was close enough, LOL. And in the EU ('cause now the UK is out, it's harder to go there). It's one of my long-lasting regrets I didn't go to Germany to see Abingdon Boys' School*** when they were touring there, and I was SO into their music! So I don't plan to have another similar regret if I can help it :D

***It's another band that Takanori Nishikawa started after TM Revolution, mostly to sing rock. They had lots of great original songs, and used some for anime - I love, love, LOVE "Howling" from Darker than Black. I so wish I would have gone... but before I realized it, time was gone and all close avenues were basically sold off :(

Taka Nishikawa can REALLY sing. You should give him a try :)

Here's a sample:

Howling (from Darker than Black): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOhMCMM78r4

Innocent Sorrow (from D-Gray Man): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=177FLqKfqoA

And as TM Revolution (can't help myself, I'm a Gundam fan :D) - Invoke (from Gundam SEED): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpyfCaBgqJI

I should stop here, before I get to UVERworld and SID and L'Arc-en-ciel and Gackt and Kalafina and...

Did you ever watch Highlander the series? I took a peek at Bulgasal's first episode, and it gave me SUCH a deja-vu impression of Highlander, I just couldn't convince myself to watch it in the end.

And then I told myself not to be biased, and took another peek at one of the mid-series ep, and the deja-vu hit me again, LOL.

Is it a glitch in the matrix or is an original that just happens to be somewhat look-alike to Highlander? (Which wouldn't be so bad, actually, since that series too was a hoot, particularly in the first few seasons.)

So far, Hwal = Duncan MacLeod, Eul Tae = Methos, Sang Un = Tessa (or maybe Cassandra, but I like Tessa more), Do Yoon = Richie, I just can't stop comparing them :(

I think The Beginning came in the trailer first, but it was released before the movie got into theatres (I know I went berserk looking for the song in the trailer, and so did everybody else :D). So it's a split thing, LOL. OOR are amazing in their live shows, I wish there was some way that concerts could happen again, soon, and that they could tour in Europe too, but oh well...

The Beginning's MV did look like a movie, too - and it told a story, a good one :) All of the RK songs have MVs unrelated to the movies, too - and some FMVs - and they all have different background stories. The Beginning and Mighty Long Fall are my favourites - it might have something to do with how good the band performed them in live concerts. From their non-movie related songs, I think I like Clock Strikes best, LOL. But I do tend to recognize movie or anime-related songs better :D

The RK franchise definitely chose the best rock songs - they did it for the anime too. The third ED of the anime series was Heart of Sword - Yoakemae - sung by another amazing vocalist - Takanori Nishikawa of TM Revolution (another Taka, LOL). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObWAo9BP9Sc This (older) Taka also sang a lot of the best Gundam SEED and Gundam 00 OPs and EDs.

But oh, the old anime OST... besides the amazing OPs and EDs, they had that AWESOME Departure Theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1xbRNRKQ0k by Asakura Noriyuki. And the OVAs cheated and had Iwasaki Taku write them Ko-To-Wa-Ri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVCudROQGwE

It won't be long until the anime is 30 years old, where did the time go?!

Taka!! One OK Rock is the RK movie franchise's mascot, LOL. There can't be a RK movie without an OOR song. I was preeeeetty sure the first movie was going to be good when they released the trailer feat. The Beginning - it just set the right atmosphere (and well, real-life Kenshin in the body of Sato Takeru, and then there was my always-favourite, Saito Hajime! WCGW, right?)

Pipeline, LiarxLiar and Super Me sound interesting, I might look them up.

BTW, we have a blizzard outside :D The wifi has been coming and going, but - I have to admit it - I love winter and snow, and even snow storms, so that's just fine with me :)

For some strange reason, I liked this better in the first half, when the crazy was upped to 100 but the police stories actually made sense. The second half is more personal, and there are basically no more police side stories, which deducted from its appeal power for me.

But overall, not too bad (not great either). At least in the bromance section we got OGT/JS interractions that were the cutest, LOL, and also one of the most badass female villain's arc of revenge. I'm fine with it all.

The FL still ended up not serving any purpose, though, IMO. Oh well...

Do you imagine how many white pants and cream shirts BJT went through, though? :D He got cut, stepped on, had to fight on the bus floor, LOL, those definitely were different shirts and pants each time they "rewinded". And the FL's too - though black pants maybe are easier to clean :D

What about the buses though?!! I guess they made do with replicas, because you CANNOT have even one huge bus go off on the bridge like that, not even for a TV series. Maybe one, in a sound stage, but definitely not as many as exploded.

I am thoroughly amazed :D

Maybe there was no remote then - though it definitely looked like she didn't pull the plug each time the bomb exploded and they didn't collide with the fuel truck, either. Maybe it just happened that someone's phone happened to ring at that precise time before the explosion, so it got involved in the loop too.

I didn't get to any eps that the remote was clearly talked about yet, or not ones that were TLed. If it turns out there's no remote, why would it set off though, once she couldn't reach to pull the plug out? Maybe the plug is unstable enough that a close vibration - like the one of a phone's ringing nearby - would make it go off?....

Episode 12, OMG. Did the loop end?! But there are 3 more eps... I'm gonna spoil myself with the raws.

I just finished ep 12 (it's on YT, on YoYo TV), I'm not so sure any more. Unless Mr. Ma was on the bridge and hit her there - but I had this impression he was in prison for longer than 5 years. Might be a coincidence he did kill another kid in a hit-and-run. But maybe not...

Mr. Ma is the guy with the watermelons (they checked him out in a previous episode). He killed a kid - I'm assuming the attacker and the driver's kid at this time - in a hit-and-run accident, hid for a few years then was apprehended and sentenced to jail. His family left him after he was imprisoned, and he was alone when he was released. He's traveling the bus because he wants to give some watermelons to his son, working in the city, and has found out where the son works.

The bomb was set off manually, remotely and because of crashing into the fuel truck. I guess that when the phone connects, there's a timer or switch on the bomb to make it explode. When she pulls the plug manually, they never get to hear the sound, or when the bus hits the fuel truck, either.

So she was a chemistry teacher, now a chemical factory worker. Makes sense she would eventually be able to build a stable enough chemical bomb. Plothole closed for me.

The target is definitely Mr. Ma, who killer their child. And theory no. 3: the phone call tone that sets off the bomb (when it's remotely activated) is the one that the dead phone (that I'm guessing is their child's) would play if it would still be working. Wanna take my bet on that? :D

I see no obvious way to get more info from Cpt. Zhang - though the police will definitely find out LSQ and XHY checked out the driver's personal history. Maybe if they tell Cpt. Zhang about the loop this time, he'll trust them enough to tell them the details - and they get to learn about the dead kid.

XHY was so cool drawing the plan to the police station, LOL. Cpt. Zhang thought he had him in a bind then - and so did I - but he definitely has a good memory and he's been to the station a few times already, LOL. I could SEE the tension going off their stances when he was so accurate.

This is one great series - I just hope nobody dies in the end - or that they get most of the people off the bus and the loop ends then for them. Keeping fingers crossed!

Argh the ending to episode 11!!!!!!!

Also, does anyone know the title of the new OST song playing at the end of the episode? I loved the singer's raspy voice, sounded a bit like XueRan Chen, but can't be him, can it?

Halfway through the series, and I'm craving Chinese food something fierce. And I've never had Chinese food.

This might be a sign. (Or I might be hungry, who knows. But it sure looks delicious, each and every plate of it.)

The best thing I ever watched dealing with baseball is an anime - Ookiku Furikabutte (Big Windup) https://anidb.net/anime/4923

I guess there are many other series (live action, anime or even movies) about it, but I came out of that anime knowing the rules of the game, LOL, and thoroughly entertained. Most of the plot was set around the game itself too, with some splashes of management, but as the MCs were the teen players, not a lot of managing.

As I look back, it feels like it was a billion years ago, LOL. But still, if you like the game and haven't watched it, and you're okay with teen players, this is one to watch (even if you don't usually like the game too much) :)

Myself, I like ice hockey (that's probably why Pride hit so well with me :D) and ice figure skating (but in real life, not through dramas. I mean, watching Plushenko do a spin or Yuzuru Hanyu defying gravity is a work of art in itself and doesn't need any plot :D)

I come a bit biased about American football (in Europe we call football a completely different game, that the Americans call soccer and I'm not a fan of that either). To me it looks totally uninteresting - a lot of running, and hitting the opposing team's player for no good reason (why hit them?!), and lots of desperate teenagers trying to make it big because it could save them from poverty or ensure their access to college? That's dystopian already, by European standards :( I'd rather watch some good old rugby (not that my country's national team has any results any more, LOL, but it definitely looks a LOT more interesting than "football". No offense intended. )

As for watching more sports dramas, I recently started a SK teen sports drama, Racket Boys, about badminton players. But I got stalled because I discovered Lee Jun Ho, LOL. I'm making my way through his dramas, I'll eventually return to RB, probably :D

Thank you for the recommendation!

I'm not one for US shows either, any more. They've become too formulaic since quite a long time ago, and I can almost always see what's going to happen from a distance. And then there's the (usual) HEA with not really much of an effort on the part of the MCs... US shows are the reason I've come to appreciate Asian dramas. At least here I can't always guess what's going to happen next.

I'm also not one really for sports dramas, usually. My go-to is Pride (JP), though I've watched some, here and there. It's just that this one is kind of not showing the sport much, instead showing over and over bureau talking and political maoeuvring that's already bordering on the unbelievable at times. Not a bad drama, in the end, but not as gripping as I imagine it could have been.

I might take a look at that US show, though, sometime in the future :)

For a few repeats, the police didn't even know they were dealing with a bomb, only when ShiQing called them did they check beforehand. Then they had a hard time finding proof of explosives every time the bus hit the gas tank truck. (That's why it's surprising to me it's even a pressure cooker bomb, I thought the results from that would be relatively easily found, as opposed a gas cylinder being set off.)

Mr. Ma's son wouldn't even begin to have an idea what the family of the victim would do, would he, though? He didn't even keep in touch with his own father, and neither did his mother, really, especially in the later years of his sentence. Mr. Ma had to dig around social media to even get some kind of news about his family. I think the victim's family definitely changed too - this is from the time of the one-child policy, right? So that child would probably had been their only one. Even if there wasn't such a thing, losing a child would be an immense wound (under yet not really explained circumstances too - imagine if the child was still alive after being hit, and quick aid would have saved them, but Mr. Ma just left and let them die alone? If I were their mother, I'd have stored huge amounts of hatred and a wish for revenge, too.)

I think if she really is the victim's mother, she just doesn't give a damn about anything else but getting him for sure, no chances for him to escape. She could try and knife him (maybe that's why she's carrying the knife, too?) but she has the bomb as a secondary option and she keeps using it, I think she just went off the rails in those hours riding the bus together with him being so "normal" while her kid is dead.

I keep thinking of the kid in the car, too. I read somewhere in this comment section that the loop might eventually be cut, but two more persons will be caught in another loop of their own. I hope it's not the kid and his father, the kid is too cute with his demands LOL. (Well, as I'm not in that car with them being assaulted with frequent and changing demands anyway LOL).

I could see HeYun completely in shock and mad at the same time - the previous iterations they would have both ended up dead even if the bomb hadn't gone off. And with a knife, too, I guess they are still in shock - after all, this is reality for them every time. At this time, if I could still function, I'd be spitting mad myself - because "why them"? Why would they have to die over and over again in a time loop and never manage to stop it in time?

I expect - still didn't spoil it with the next episodes' raws - they'll sit out at least one or two iterations, if they can escape the police for a while. Just to clear their heads.

The bomb seems pretty heavy - the bomber herself could barely move it. ShiQing and HeYun couldn't move it fast either, before she gets a chance to pull that plug. And I think HeYun decided the loop shouldn't end here, with him a killer and just let it proceed to get another chance at solving it. Or it might be he just suddenly went IDGAF mode and just wanted out. After all, these people who were looking at him as if he grew two heads suddenly are the ones they came to know and they're sacrificing themselves for, over and over. Lu Di included (I so wanted him to come into the loop, LOL, his mind works in mysterious ways :D )

So theory no. 2: obviously the bomber is the mother of the teen whom Mr. Ma killed in an accident. How would she know he'd be on the bus that day, though?

So now the bomb still exploded, so the loop will rewind sometime soon. But when the police gets them next, Xiao HeYun is going to be so much more suspect than ever before - people saw him get off the bus that immediately exploded, covered in blood. Even if nobody survived to tell what he was doing on the bus before getting off, the videographer was still sending out a live, wasn't he? So the whole world could have seen what happened.

Will the police finally tell them something workable to use in the next loop? I think the only way to stop it is to have Mme Bomber not set off the bomb.

Also, how did she know how to make a pressure cooker bomb and do they really explode so powerfully?! I first believed she had a gas cylinder set up with some sparky thing, which would explain the whole huge firebomb, but a pressure cooker exploding seems to be based on shrapnels (if one loads it with pieces of metal beforehand). Or so I read on wiki. Maybe that's where she read how to make one, too. Would she have spent all those years preparing for a chance to kill her child's killer?...

3 more days til the next subbed ep... I'm probably going to crack and spoil myself on the next raw episode at least T_T