Thank you for taking time to read this article and comment!I understand completely about seldom as your reasoning…
I do listen a a reasonable amount of music, less than most here, I suspect, and mostly Western classical (Beethoven, Mozart etc), or songs from old Hindi films. THOSE I do pay attention to, and my views on the importance of good OSTs in Hindi films is not far from your expressed here about East Asian Dramas. So it could be about the level of understanding - I get more out of Hindi songs than East Asian ones. This might be why the one "10+" Drama on my list which I rave about for its music has a soundtrack that is 95% English songs :) I think you've raised a very perceptive point here - most of my favourite Dramas do not rely much on music, at least not vocal music. The K Drama I'm watching right now, at this moment, is Forest of Secrets 2, and I don't think it even HAS an OST as such. Dramas like Yeah That's How It Is, Goodbye to Goodbye, Mr Fighting, etc, all rely much more on dialogue than music - BGM for mood perhaps, but no songs that leap into my memory. The only 2 K Dramas I can think of whose whole OSTs really stuck were Goong and Queen In Hyun's Man, along with a handful of TW Dramas - In Time With You, In a Good Way, My Queen and Love Contract come to mind.
Thank you very much for your thought-provoking reply to my comment. It's always interesting to take a step back and analyse WHY some things resonate while others don't and to be reminded of the endless variety of experiences that draw people to the world of East Asian Dramas.
What a delightful first article, well done! It's always a joy to see enthusiasm expressed so vividly.
A well-chosen and well-designed OST really can make a difference, but for me it seldom makes THE difference. Of the 15 Dramas that I've scored as 10/10, or even higher, in the case of 10 of them, I can't recall a single song, and 3 of the other 5, just the title track. I enjoyed Clean With Passion For Now, and REALLY enjoyed Life, but I don't recall a single track from either one. This would be true for at least 80% of the 360 or so East Asian Dramas I've completed so far, not counting the 60 or so dropped.
Then there are the other cases, like the VERY disappointing Best Hit (Hit the Top) - A drama that ended up eminently meh and forgettable, except for Yoon Mirae's gorgeous "Sky" . School 2015 was a colossal bomb for me, except for "Reset".
I'm more likely to be impressed by carefully and thoughtfully selected BGM, which often really strengthens the given scenes, exactly as intended, but which doesn't stand on its own.
Great to see MARS get a plug, simply an AWESOME Drama. My lasting takeaway from TW Dramas is the delightful Ariel Lin, from classics like ISWAK/TKA to turkeys like Tokyo Juliet (ugh!) . Some of my other faves are Back to 1989, In a Good Way, My Queen (SO MUCH better than the ultimately limp K remake Witch's Romance), and of course In Time With You.
For me, there are basically NO upsides to watching airing Dramas, which is why I gave up doing so years ago, with only VERY rare exceptions, like the currently airing Forest of Secrets 2.
The biggest downside of watching airing Dramas is one that relates to a disadvantage you understated: "The Fear of the Drama Not Living Up to the Hype"
In my experience "Fear" can be replaced with "the 99.9% CERTAINTY" The Dramas I watch don't tend to generate much hype anyway, but those that do almost invariably fall flat. Again, you did a good job of highlighting why, the sad fact that writers often don't write right to the end (pun intended). For those reasons, 9/10 I'm happy to wait until they're done, download them, and be ready to drop and walk away if they tank.
Age gaps don't bother me at all in dramas as long as the people are of legal age. Just like in RL. You don't know…
"Age gaps don't bother me at all in dramas as long as the people are of legal age" THIS! Many of the "age gap" issues above, teen actors aside, relate more to poor writing or story construction. I agree with many of the summaries in terms of the characterisations, but once people are legal adults, a ge really IS "just a number" And some weird numbers too, in Korea. :)
Neko Zamurai at Number 1? AWESOME! A very under-appreciated Drama I feel. Season 1 was definitely stronger than season 2 , I think the Neko FL (feline lead ) was more noticeably the ML (main lead) in the first season :)
What a delightful article! It reminded me of the joy of discovery and the delight in the freshness and difference of it all when I started in 2013. It took me 3 months to watch 50 K Dramas, 7 months to get to 100, then another 3 years to get to 200, and another 3.5 years to reach my current total of just over 250. I started watching TW Dramas (36), C Dramas (31) and J Dramas (57) along the way and also started dropping a lot more, averaging 1 Drama dropped for every 6 started now. So I hope your fresh enthusiasm can keep alive for a long time yet, thank you for such a positive and happy read!
Getting some great suggestions on C-dramas, I've been searching for new good ones , I am looking forward to checking…
It's the only C Drama I've rated 10/10 and completely different in tone and feel to any other C Drama I've watched. It could have been 6 or 7 episodes shorter, but that's my only niggle.
Lovely to see several of my favourites listed, thank you! I hate fantasy and supernatural elements, and don't watch historical Dramas because I have zero tolerance for violence, so Go Go Squid, Put Your Head On My Shoulder, The Love Equations, My Love Enlighten Me are the sort of C Dramas I enjoy the most. I just wish they abandoned the awful dubbing. I really HATE dubbed voices, it's my number one bugbear with C-Dramas. But to end my comment on a positive note, I will say that one of the most OUTSTANDING Dramas I've seen in 7 years of watching East Asian content is one that very seldom gets mentioned, sadly. I wish more people would watch Mr Fighting to see how well China can do realistic low-key Dramas that focus on powerful acting and intelligent writing.
She lost her powers for a while, and only got them back thanks to "the love of a good man", so that one DEFINITELY fits the profile I'm talking about. It is a particularly noxious example, actually, and one reason why I hated and dropped it.
most actions by the ML make sense when you realize he has the "too much" gene. too much money, too entitled, too…
I definitely agree with "too much money, too entitled, , too annoying, too jealous, too loud, too much complaining," - after four episodes, I'd seen "too much" of him. Another drop.
Another actor who chose acting as a "2nd choice" career" after injury (6 months in a wheelchair after a broken pelvis) was https://kisskh.at/people/6493-wang-ji-won - it seems like she may have returned to ballet as a teacher now
I will wait on this one - if I had a yuan for every "female bodyguard" show where the FL ended up needing to be PHYSICALLY protected by the ML, I could shoot my own Drama. If this Drama DOESN'T go there, it will earn my respect.
An interesting list, thanks for sharing. the Korean ones in particular include many sad or bitter stories, which might be why I avoided most of the ones you mentioned and dropped several others - the parents in both Ojakgyo Brothers and Marry Me Now a very big part of why I dropped them :) . Being a brony and a sucker for happy endings My personal favorite parenting Drama is Bara No Nai Hanaya, the 'love story' between the father and child the real heart of the Drama. :)
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I think you've raised a very perceptive point here - most of my favourite Dramas do not rely much on music, at least not vocal music. The K Drama I'm watching right now, at this moment, is Forest of Secrets 2, and I don't think it even HAS an OST as such. Dramas like Yeah That's How It Is, Goodbye to Goodbye, Mr Fighting, etc, all rely much more on dialogue than music - BGM for mood perhaps, but no songs that leap into my memory. The only 2 K Dramas I can think of whose whole OSTs really stuck were Goong and Queen In Hyun's Man, along with a handful of TW Dramas - In Time With You, In a Good Way, My Queen and Love Contract come to mind.
Thank you very much for your thought-provoking reply to my comment. It's always interesting to take a step back and analyse WHY some things resonate while others don't and to be reminded of the endless variety of experiences that draw people to the world of East Asian Dramas.
A well-chosen and well-designed OST really can make a difference, but for me it seldom makes THE difference. Of the 15 Dramas that I've scored as 10/10, or even higher, in the case of 10 of them, I can't recall a single song, and 3 of the other 5, just the title track. I enjoyed Clean With Passion For Now, and REALLY enjoyed Life, but I don't recall a single track from either one. This would be true for at least 80% of the 360 or so East Asian Dramas I've completed so far, not counting the 60 or so dropped.
Then there are the other cases, like the VERY disappointing Best Hit (Hit the Top) - A drama that ended up eminently meh and forgettable, except for Yoon Mirae's gorgeous "Sky" . School 2015 was a colossal bomb for me, except for "Reset".
I'm more likely to be impressed by carefully and thoughtfully selected BGM, which often really strengthens the given scenes, exactly as intended, but which doesn't stand on its own.
The biggest downside of watching airing Dramas is one that relates to a disadvantage you understated: "The Fear of the Drama Not Living Up to the Hype"
In my experience "Fear" can be replaced with "the 99.9% CERTAINTY" The Dramas I watch don't tend to generate much hype anyway, but those that do almost invariably fall flat. Again, you did a good job of highlighting why, the sad fact that writers often don't write right to the end (pun intended). For those reasons, 9/10 I'm happy to wait until they're done, download them, and be ready to drop and walk away if they tank.