ShortCircuit

Doramas are just dramas, but it's a term used specifically for Japanese dramas. It comes from the way they pronounce some English words, LOL. There's quite a lot of English words that are pronounced definitely different in Japan, and it sounds cute in anime/doramas, and I imagine, in real life :) Things like sararii-man (salary man :D), aisu-kurimu (icecream), waifu (wife) and so on and so forth :)

That being said, I've heard quite a lot of Japanese people speaking in perfect English, so I don't know if it's just a culture thing or something that naturally comes to Japan due to the way their language is structured and/or their words are usually pronounced.

Animation: donghua (China), anime (Japan), aeni (SKorea - though I think most Western people still call it anime)
Drawn art: manga (Japan), comics / graphic novels (the US), manhwa (Korea), manhua (China)

Danmei refers to Chinese BL novels (mostly web-novels) though it might expand to their drama versions too.
Yaoi (Japan) is a much larger umbrella (it's a genre that includes BL under most of its forms - novels, manga and anime. And I guess, movies and doramas, lately.)

Wuxia is a genre of stories that involve martial heroes and are set in ancient China (usually in a recognizable historical period). The world of wuxia stories is the Jianghu (sometimes in dramas they translate this term as "the pugilistic world", which is mighty confusing for a Westerner, because pugilism in the West is boxing). Heroes might be vigilantes - or at least try to help "normal" people who are not martial heroes, and they try to follow a code of action. The fact it's supposed to have some relation to reality doesn't preclude them from ignoring the laws of physics (like walking on water and jumping from the mountain tops unscathed.) One of my favourite wuxia movies is Jet Li's "Hero" - it almost seems an historical movie, but there's all the martial arts in it that definitely moves it over to wuxia.

Xianxia is rather similar to wuxia BUT with a major difference - it involves the world of the immortals or gods too. They get introduced and act as major characters at times, and there's a plethora of supernatural or at least not-quite-natural characters in these stories. "The Untamed" (or at least Mo Dao Zu Shi, the novel it's based on), "Ashes of Love", "Love and Redemption" etc are all xianxia.

Bonus: the BL genre media is usually aimed at women (yes, men are not explicitly excluded, BUT the main target are women who like the idea of BL). Those women are called fujoshi (Japan) and it's not a nice nickname, though that's changing. Men who like BL are called fudanshi (Japan). In China, they're simply called "rotten women", LOL, which is basically the same thing. (I've seen that in a few TL novels.)

It was glaringly obvious by now that he was the one who shot his colleagues. The only question is why. Also it was annoyingly obvious that he and YJI are still working together.

As everyone's phone and each corner of every street seems to be bugged, it makes me almost mad nobody bugged their appartments - they have all their ~secret~ convos in the middle of one of them, at random.

But to be honest, I kind of lost interest since they veered into catch-the-hidden-mole and reduced action scenes to basically zero.

Right now, it's becoming again obvious that Dr. Kang should be the mastermind, because he took himself out of the circle of suspects but HJH is serving him everything up on a platter. If it turns out that it IS him, well...

Finally managed to watch ep 9...

No. Agent goes missing by his own device, comes back with his memory erased and starts looking for moles inside his agency. The enemies are political and among the top dogs of the agency, there's not much personal relationship development, it was all based on action scenes in the beginning and now it's turned into spy-catches-spy-catches-spy twists and turns.

So nope, nothing about what made TBDAW good.

Only The Wolf, and as we all know, they removed basically all supernatural references from that when it went through censorship... But thank you for the rest of the list, I'll have a look :)

Good thing you didn't choose to write about Thai BL or even regular dramas. Dubcon and noncon seems to be the norm in most of them, even the actually good ones.

For a touch of different vibe, this could have mentioned The Romance of Tiger and Rose, which includes exactly the same tropes, but the positions are reversed. I'd be really interested to see if anyone feels that it's in any significant manner different, just because the one doing the manipulation and light abuse-bordering stuff is a cute bubbly girl and we all want them to end up together anyway.

Strange how much the Japanese love vampires, though, huh? There are so many vampire anime, I can't even begin to count them. And some movies/doramas too. Maybe the SK lack of love towards vampires is also linked to how much Japanese media on them there is.

I'm European and vampires are still definitely not my thing. At all. I will diligently avoid any and all vampire stories (in Western or Asian media either, I don't care, I don't like them. Or zombies, though those are of a Haitian origin.)

Werewolves are Central and Eastern Europe-sourced, though. France had some really interesting (based in real massacres) tales on loup-garous, there are some stories in Germany around the Dark Ages, and then there's the Eastern take on it - they wouldn't necessarily eat the people but the Moon or Sun during eclipses. Werewolves really are very interesting critters of the dark of the Western world, much more interesting than the old dry blood-suckers. But then, wolves really were widespread throughout the whole continent for ages, and even now they still inspire stories all over Europe.

I wonder if SK really ever had anything to do with high density of wolf packs. The terrain would allow their existence, but maybe they never spread that far to the south and east of the continent and establish a foothold, and that's why foxes are way more present in Korean and Chinese folklore.

That's why I had such high hopes of Search :D but nope. My hopes were dashed to the ground and destroyed. *Sigh*

No. no, no... I like Choi Jin Hyuk a whole LOT (I mean, nobody can forget Daddy Gu!) but zombies really are not up my alley. Even handsome ones. If he were a werewolf though...

Seriously, why isn't anyone doing any TV series with werewolves? Though not sparkly ones, thanks (or those were vampires? Anyway). Aside from A Werewolf Boy, I don't remember any of them in SK dramas or movies. It's about time, I'd say...

I liked the idea of werewolves, and in that drama, they would definitely had been zombies created by radiation. But in the end, there were none... (/sad).

I don't hide from horror movies... I mastered the remote control heheh.

This is me perusing the list so that I never watch these dramas, LOL. Talk about scaredy-cats, I am at the Super Sayan level of scaredy cats.

...That being said, I did watch Search and it didn't hit me as horror. Except for the creepy Radioactive Zombie Werewolf (there weren't any Radioactive Zombie Werewolves in the drama, though, SADLY - yeah, I'm still salty about that), there wasn't much to be scared of.

So, it was only today while reading another c-web novel (unrelated to GMDC) that I realized that there's an actual trope of going into a cave and finding a lost book of martial arts that turns the protagonist's life around. All this time, I thought that scene when WWX cheekily tells JC and LWJ he went down a cave and studied a secret martial arts book was just an inside joke between the three of them, but it turns out, it's an insider's inside joke of the plot writers too :D

Good job, team! I love finding small gems like this even after so many re-watches :D (That might mean I need to be watching/reading more wuxia/xianxia, because it never occured to me it was such a nod to the world of tropes, LOL. Live and learn :D)

I felt they put all the small bits in there, just to make sure they get put in, LOL. Like it was a trade - tone down the reveal fest in order to get to squeak in the WangXian moment past the censors.

... But somehow it kind of works.

Though I have to say it - I think they did JC wrong, in the end. He DOES come around, and they DO talk, in the novel and in the drama. The donghua leaves them in limbo. I wish WWX could have heard him be heartbroken about the way their paths diverged. Someone in the donghua plot team doesn't like JC at all :D

That man saying they'd get 3-5 years of peace... Is that a teeny-tiny thread of hope we'll get some more GMDC seasons? Even if WangXian is more reserved, and the actual xianxia takes first place, I'd be all for it. After all... there are all those extras in the novel :D

Oh, so you (also) get into dramas with great OSTs? :D Let's see if I can tempt you into trying a few more, then :)

Have you watched Love and Redemption yet? Here's one of the main themes (no spoilers, engsub and pinyin subs, too):

Love like Coloured Glass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxOcvaDdvbc

From Ever Night, there's a great song (in two versions; the official one is sung by a woman, but I think the male version is just as good if not more impressive, particularly while actually watching the drama):

Darkness (female ver.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUA1zbsd2NY
Darkness (male ver.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juuwNU0O5gY

Another huge favourite of mine is part of the OST of Ashes of Love, an amazing song on its own, but the drama deserves a shoutout too :)

Upwards to the Moon (engsub/pinyin sub): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpan9yLmsgI

For so many years I was completely certain Chinese was too hard for me to ever learn any word, LOL, and now I tend to recognize certain phrases, words, and anticipate replies or questions :D (though mostly in period dramas, not really in the modern-era set ones :D)

Thai is still impossible for me, though, despite learning some great songs through their BL dramas :D, like Skyline from I Told the Sunset About You (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvRtrDdF3rI and Thai ver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJeEOzEZstU) or Wind from A Tale of Thousand Stars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CeABlP5g3w).

Sorry for the link spree, I get enthusiastic about OSTs LOL.

If you haven't seen the drama yet, I recommend it :) It's cute, it has lots and lots of fluff, a pretty great scifi/paranormal thread (nothing scary, I promise), and well, Lee Jong Suk. And Suzy, in one of the roles I actually kind of like her in. There's also Jung Hae In (of the Prison Playbook and D. P. fame :D, in his breakout role, IMHO)

I still go back and watch parts of it time and again. (But you also should be warned that I am a LJS fan :D)

My latest favourite OST is The Devil Judge's. I think the songs are all memorable (and I keep returning to that OST), but the best piece there, IMHO, is HuckleBerryfinn's "The Nights". I could keep playing it on and on all night. So soothing. So calming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GTWb9NFrAY

Also, another obsession of mine's, even if the drama has good and bad parts - the OST shines! - is the "While You Were Sleeping" OST. Can't choose the most favourite between Eddy Kim's "When Night Falls" and Henry's "It's You." Right now I'm leaning toward the latter, but it's a very close contest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fAU7dewivI

But I pick my OSTs based on the BGM too, and going by that, the ABSOLUTE favourite so far is definitely The Untamed's OST. Not that "Bu Wang" or the duo version of the main song aren't amazing, but the "Grass/Cao Mu" theme can't be beaten. And talk about perfectly scoring such a drama - I love it from top to bottom (heh!) and back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtqfVypKDCM

I'm basically only watching it for Nuna. She's cute.

Yup, they definitely left the core problem to the last episode. I hope it gets the focus it deserves, but I have no idea how it could get as intense as in the book/drama - after all, JC took a while to come to terms with it all, and then to admit his own shortcomings and help WWX in the temple. Having him finding the secret and immediately accepting it could go awry.

But I have faith that the plot would respect the spirit of the story if not the letter, and they'll deliver. After all, it's the finale. They probably intend to tie all loose threads and wrap it all up nicely.

As long as WWX and LWJ end up together, I'll be happy. My heart broke in the minute that they split in the ending of the drama, LOL. (Though, going by the setting and the clothes they were wearing, they were supposed to be reunited and THEN go to that rock in the middle of the river to compliment each other on being exactly who they are, THE END. I... am being a bit contrary here and I'll say I actually like the actual last scene better.) If we can't have a tumble among the bushes, then that's okay LOL - just keep them together :D

WWX keeps telling people who he is, and showing them, too. It's not just any one moment. And he keeps growing as a character - from the carefree young lord (whose only major problem is Mdm Yu, the Jiang siblings' mother) to someone caring for all the world's problems yet still not crushed by them.

The first episodes are only the ending of their past lives, and serve as an anchor for the second half of the series. They're supposed to make you wonder how did they get there, and they don't show a whole picture - there's nothing in there to suggest that LWJ and WWX have any closeness (as WWX is basically running away from LWJ each time they get to the same area, LOL)

IMHO, the script does a good job of linking the two parts - as the second part is a lot less dramatic and heroic and turns into an investigation seeded with a lot of bonding moments.

Well, my favourite episode is the one with the snow scene, when LXC tells WWX LWJ's backstory, and then they have that heart-to-heart discussion. The cinematography is the best in the series, the moment is poignant (as it shows WWX is completely aware of what's been going on and even accepts the outcomes of his life choices, good or bad, as LWJ is also completely aware of what's going on in WWX's mind and accepts him as he is.) If I were to choose, I'd choose that episode as the best in the series.

Finally!! It's been so long. Now a shorter wait begins :D