Viajero

Personally, I thought this was a very one-dimensional substandard performance from Arthur Chen, though he did improve a little in the later part of the season. But I agree that the FL was very good. She was the most entretaining part of this series.

I agree 100% with all of your criticisms. I was expecting much more given all the praise and it turned out to be a major dissapointment.

I didn't think so, but plenty of others seemed to like it. For me the plot was fairly blah. Seen similar storylines done better before. The only good thing about this one was the female lead.

Exactly. That was the scene I was referring to.

Why? She's ranged from very good to excellent in every action/thriller role I've seen her in.

The problem in Wedding Impossible was that there was no chemistry with the ML, which I mostly blame on him. But also, she may just be one of those actors who excels at thrillers and horror, but not so much at light comedy. She was excellent in The Call and in Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, and pretty good in Ballerina (the Korean film, not the one with Ana de Armas). She should be well suited to her role in Highlander.

This was a very pleasent surprise. You would think that I would have learned by now not to give much credence to MDL ratiings for non-romantic dramas and Japanese series in general. But I let that 8.2 put me off watching this for way too long. Turns out it's one of the best murder mystery series I've watched this year and one with considerable depth. Though not a thriller, it maintains a very high level of suspense throughout with a well-paced storyline and plenty of plot twists. It helps that we get strong performances from the cast (particularly Hashimoto Kanna as the FL), a well-crafted storyline, and the emotional depth of the characters. It's very highly recommended.

I understood the opposite and was very surprised by everyone assuming that the ML identifes as cisgendered and heterosexual. This was because there was a scene late in the series in which he seems to at least strongly imply that he's gender-fluid. Also, at no point in the series does he state that he identifies as heterosexual. It's clear that he likes girls, but he never says he doesn't also like boys or deny that he might be bisexual. Of course, all the above is based on my reading of the subtitles in Spanish. In fact, looking at comentary in Spanish about this show on YouTube, I'm clearly not the only viewer that assumed he was gender-fluid and bisexual. But perhaps it comes across differently in in the original Japanese or in the English translation.

Was the ending really that awful? I get that it wasn't a happy ever after ending, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been had they really wanted to make a point about drugs. I do agree about the leads chemistry. Really good, but not in a romantic way.

But not romantically. Which is fine.

I thought she showed remarkable maturity for a girl in her early teens who went through all that (up to and including watching her father shot and killed right before her eyes). Resentful with good reason, but no over the top hysterics or bratty acting out.

I loved the ending. It had a very fitting conclusion to each character arc, which meant a mostly gray ending for very gray characters. I'm really glad they didn't try to tack on an artificial happy fairy tale ending that would not have fit this story.

This is purely subjective, but so far I would rate it below Head Over Heels, about on par with Melo Movie and Love Next Door, and above Nemesis and Love Scout.

I agree. This was good, but Reset was much better. Part of that was that Reset had a female lead who could not only actually act, but was given a complex interesting personality, to the point where she pretty much carried the show. I also think it helped that the plot was a lot tighter and more straight forward.

I think Mobius is a great show that more than deserves that 8.6 average rating (or higher). But the one really weak part is the minor romantic subplot, which is poorly developed, unconvincing, with little chemistry between the couple, and most of all, completely unnecessary. They should have just left it out. But since they didn't, my guess is that romance fans here on MDL voted the show down.

You need to check out her other stuff. She was really great in a supporting role in the recent Netflix series Glass Heart, but my favorite role of hers was as the lead and narrator in Falling High School Girl and Irresponsible Teacher (available on Viki).

I'm truly stunned at the low rating this movie has recieved here on MDL. While I guess it isn't for everyone, I thought it had an almost perfect genre bending combination of martial arts action, humor, and a certain grounded earnestness. Kensuke Sonomura is really making a name for himself as director of action flicks and lead actress Takaishi Akari only confirms the great impression I had of her from Glass Heart, Falling High School Girl, and the Baby Assassin movies and TV series. She's rapidly become one of my favorite current Japanese actresses. In general, this film well deserves the 96% critics score it has on Rotten Tomatoes.

Meanwhile, the rating on IMDb is a ridiculously high 9.2, though its bound to come down eventually. Wouldn't be the first time with a non-romantic kdrama that the ratings start low on MDL and high on IMDb, before meeting somewhere in the middle by the end of the series. Where you start worrying is when viewers ratings are really low everywhere (unless there are political reasons for this, like in the case of "Tempest" - where pissed off Iraquis and Chinese downvoted the show accross all boards, including even Rotten Tomatoes).

It's on Viki in my region

I used to be a big fan of hospital shows, going all the way back to American shows like ER. But you get tired of watching the same storylines over and over again, whatever language the show is in, and only finally watched this one because everyone was raving about it. Though Trauma Code is well made, the only somewhat unique thing about it is that the hero is not only a top surgeon but can also pilot helicopters, rappel down cliffs, handle a motorcyle like a motorcross professional, and is completely impervious to bombs and bullets, all the while smirking his superiority over everyone around him. I can understand why a lot of people liked the show, but it was a bit much for me.