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Hi claraelisaestrella! How have you been? So, by your recommendation I watched Queen In Hyun's Man. Thanks for the rec. I enjoyed it since I managed to finish it in about 3 days. Everyone is talking about the chemistry between the leads, but somehow I only felt the chemistry from her side but not from his. Maybe she is just a better actress. Now that I watched it, what did you like about it?

Hi omnichelle! Sorry for the silence, I was traveling, so I mostly watched movies on the plane. Have you seen Midnight FM? This was the best out of all I watched. There are some good new Japanese movies: Girl (or Girls for Keeps) and Kagi Dorobou no Method (or Key of Life). Have you found anything new and interesting?

So Vampire Prosecutor is good. I'll get to it at some point, but it takes me a while before I get to the vampire thing again. I only watched Twilight so far and because it was on the plane, so it was ok. I couldn't wait for the rest of the movies so I read the books and that was enough for me.

I restarted Maou again. I think I'm not into jdramas, I feel like actions and consequences come too quickly. There is not enough suspense. This one is like that too, but the actors are pretty good, so I'll see what happens next.

Hi Juniko, how have you been? I was away, but managed to finish Faith. So, in the end, what do you think? I personally think without LMH it would not be very good.

I haven't watched the jdrama or read the manga before watching this movie, so I didn't have any preconditions about it. And I really enjoyed the plot and the acting. From what I can tell about JGS, this character is the most similar to his personality, so it was a good match. I can also see why many people are upset about this movie. Men in Korea are not used to this kind of twist, that's expected. But the girls who want to be saved by the prince on the white horse would be upset since their precious JGS was acting so unmanlike. And the girls who think they like strong women should really go out to the real world and try acting like strong women. We'll see what kind of man they will get. So, overall, it's a great social satire, probably more suitable for Western viewers.

Hi Juniko! You've watched the last episode of Faith, right? It's so good I thought. Finally LMH got out of this comatose state his been in the previous episodes. What do you think?
So 3 of your favorite actors were born in 82. I was always wondering how close the age of the actor/actress should be for a viewer to like them better. Obviously dramas are catered towards different age demographics. Would you enjoy a drama with the main leads much younger or older than you?

Cool, so we have dancing in common :) I used to do all 10 ballroom dances, but now I don't have time for that anymore, so I just occasionally do it socially or dance salsa. I love salsa too :)
Interesting about Chinese sounds. I started with tdramas and it was hard for me to switch to kdramas initially because of Korean sounds. But now I can tolerate both. But yes, you have to get used to how tdramas are acted out. It's very over the top loud sometimes. But they have some hansom guys there, like Vic Zhou (the second guy in Meteor Garden) :)
I agree about the Greatest love, btw. I rated the drama low because of the main guy.
So, are you still watching Vampire Prosecutor? I started Maou, I think I'll enjoy some crime/investigation/revenge drama.

Hi Bladey! It's been a while :) Hope you can fix your computer soon. I've been exploring some blockbusters of this site and it's been hit or miss for me. Interestingly, Korean ones were good while I pretty much hated the Japanese ones. So, among top viewed/top rated were Koizora the movie and Paradise Kiss. They were pretty stupid teenage girl fantasy. Then I watched You're My Pet (also one of the top here). This was a great social satire and the fact it got so many men in Korea upset just speaks a lot about the culture there. Among dramas, one of the blockbusters here is 49 Days. I really enjoyed the drama, I recommend you to watch it actually. It has some things I didn't like, but it's very clever. Now, I'm watching Maou (not a blockbuster). I see you watched The Devil, Maou is the Japanese version of that. Want to compare?

Haha, the 2nd season ends with a terrible dancing scene. I know how to ballroom dance and every time they have a ballroom scene in a drama I just want to cry. Why don't they just behave like normal people who don't know how to dance and that's fine. No, they probably hire some bad pro dancer who puts them into this uncomfortable position and they all look so stupid.
Anyway, I know many people say they wished the girl went for the 2nd guy, but HYD's 2nd guy wasn't even hansom. To me, the 2nd guy from Meteor Garden was the best, I even wished she would end up with him in the 2nd season. But then, the 1st guy wasn't so stupid and ugly in MG, so it was hard. But HYD was the first one I thought to show the 1st guy right and that's why I could understand why she was confused.
I see you don't watch T dramas, any reason?

I actually quite enjoyed season 2, but it also was 2nd drama I ever watched, so everything was still new. The only strange thing was that the main leads never spent any time together on screen. You know how many people are saying they wished the main girl went for the 2nd guy, I didn't feel it in the 1st season, but definitely felt like it in the 2nd. The actors just had so much more connection, which was further proved by Mars. And the second girl was great too. Did you like it?

It's sad and touching and all, but seriously, people, do all girls fantasize about being raped, have an abortion and have their boyfriend tragically die of a terminal disease? I'm saying this since it was originally a cell phone novel, so I guess this is what the teenage fantasy is.

They are probably making an episode per week and with this kind of speed they probably don't have time for anything. You can see the actors look more tired now.
I think I watched the beginning of the Chinese version of Hana Yori Dango right after Meteor Garden. I could not stand it so didn't bother. But I just finished season 2 of HYD and I think it's very good. This is the first version that I understood several things about this, like the title for example. Also, I realized the actors are much more suited for the story, especially the girl. And the main guy is not likable so you can see why she is so unsure most of the time. What are all these final and special movies? Worth watching?

That's the first time I've heard about these dramas. So I had to look them up and apparently they are pretty popular here. Will give them a try, they are short too :)
BTW, just finished Hana Yori Dango 1 and 2. I see you only did 1 and hated it, I pretty much hated it as well, but still watched season 2. Actually, it was pretty good. They basically took BOF and split it in 2. So, together, they are pretty good, but season 1 sucks.

Yeah, Bad Guy's ending was very strange. But sometime in the middle I was so fed up with the main guy that it was painful to watch even before the end.
I just started watching jdramas and so happy that they are so short as well. There is only 1 round of push and pull whereas it's usually like 15 in kdramas. I'm trying to watch some older jdramas since I hear the new once are pretty superficial and glossy...

This is very interesting. Actually, when I watched episode 18 I had to stop and rewatch exactly the scene you described. I wanted to see again why it was so long. My conclusion was that director waited for LMH to show some tears. But LMH was a bit slow, so they didn't cut earlier. My only question was why they did not reshoot it. So while I agree it was director's mistake, but I also thought it was LMH's. What do you think about the king/queen couple?
So I finished Hana Yori Dango and thought it was the most shallow version of the 3 I watched. But, this is the first version I had no sympathy to the main guy and it was very clear why the main girl was so hesitant about him.

Haha, I'm not always objective with my opinions about dramas either. So I totally agree with you that there must be some element of irrationality while watching all this. I mean I must be irrational to start with to watch the dramas :) But I just don't want to be upset if I like some dramas while others like different ones. So, the mathematician in me always calculates the rational explanation. Like for example, in the spirit of introducing myself to jdramas, I picked one of the blockbusters here Hana Yori Dango. And while pretty much all comments are like "OMG, this is the best drama I ever watched!" I'm sitting here and thinking, what a crappy version is that? But then, I think I need to be either into manga reading or much younger to appreciate this. So with this, I'm totally happy I watched it. Want to pick up some blockbuster as well?

I see. I looked at the statistics for TBM. It's true that 50% of people who watched gave it a 10. However, there are still people who did not. And those people might not be as vocal as the ones who gave it 8-10. 11% of the people gave it 7 and below and they might be intimidated to voice their opinion. BTW, even though it's a 10 point grading on this site, in reality it's actually 5 point. There are only 20% of the scores that are equal or below 6. So even though you gave it a 5, you really gave it the lowest score. And people who gave 7 are not that much far off from you. So, what I'm saying, not everyone is glossy fan girls here :)
BTW, I finished Pride and I really enjoyed it. It was a great intro to jdramas. Though I think they screwed the ending up.

Bad directing in Faith? Hmm... I didn't think about that. It's very possible, but what is an example of that? BTW, I see that this drama is on your plan to watch list and you might enjoy The world that they live in. It's about how the dramas are made.
I liked MARS very much. And Meteor Garden is the best out of the 3 versions. I'm actually finally watching Hana Yori Dango, which makes me also want to rewatch Meteor Garden, it's much better I think. Also, if you like MARS, I'd recommend you Pride.
Black & White is a very good drama. There is not much romance, but Mark Chao is hot there. Vick Zhou acts a little like in Wish to See you Again. So if you haven't seen something like that from him, you might be surprised.

As I remember, in MSOAN the second lead acts a bit stiff, but in both Bad Guy and Antique Bakery, he is so bohemian, it's pretty cool. I haven't heard about Hotaru no Hikari before, so I had to read the description. She does sound a bit like the girl from Personal Taste. But do the leads look as good looking as in Personal Taste ;)? I wonder which one you'd like better, that one or Nodame Cantabile.

Definitely, watching Pride doesn't make me think Japanese men are unmanly :) Actually, I was thinking it's a huge difference with a lot of kdramas where they show pretty boys and average looking girls (maybe to connect with the audience). In Pride it's all reversed. The guys don't even have visible make up on, they look pretty wrinkly too. It was in Bad Guy that I first noticed that they actually blur out the skin in the close ups to not show the large pores of the actors. In Faith that I'm watching right not as well, the faces look so smooth! I know it can be achieved by make up too, but this is so obvious since everybody has that.
So MDL slumber? What was so bad about The Bridal Mask and why do you think that showed you MDL crowd are all just blind fans?

So you're studying English literature and Asian dramas :) That's cool.
I'm now watching Pride. It's very different from kdramas. The only other drama I can compare it to is Mars. At first it felt a bit old, like a movie from the 80's. I guess it's the music. But is it supposed to be actually 2000's? The style of clothing is similar to what kdramas had around 2002, though. I generally don't sympathize with talented but rebellious people, so I didn't really like the main character. But now by 3rd episode the show is kind of very soothing and I started to enjoy it. What did you think about it?