loladesu

I'm still not sure whether this drama was meant to be a parody or whether the scriptwriter was a lazy plagiarist and no one called them on it. The whole thing felt like a kdrama version of Not Another Teen Movie.

People keep citing these censorship rules, but MBC aired both Coffee Prince (2007) and I Am Not A Robot (2017). No dead fish or deer-in-headlights there.

Just use a vpn - Viki never detects/blocks it, they really dgaf 🤭

Er, that's funny, I grew up in a "western" country (Australia), we talk extensively about Japan in WW2. Mostly because Japan dropped more bombs on us than on Pearl Harbor, and our grandparents/great-grandparents were beating back the Japanese advance through what's now Papua New Guinea and Singapore.

Eh, I speak more than a little Japanese. It wasn't "really bad", but it was very clearly Koreans speaking Japanese (which was distracting and made it hard to focus on the story, because my brain kept drawing my attention to the weirdness of a room full of Koreans speaking Japanese to each other).

See, I found it pulled me out of the story from the very beginning, due to the obvious Korean accents and intonation. From the very first line, all I could think was "oh, they're speaking Japanese.... but... this person definitely isn't Japanese." They had great enunciation - like you, I could understand without subs - and you could tell they'd worked harder than any other drama I've ever seen to nail the dialogue. But IMHO, if you're going for verisimilitude, just hire bilingual actors, or actual Japanese.

(P.S. I scream "WHY??" at the screen whenever an actor is forced to speak a language they clearly don't know. English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese - kdrama actors have murdered all of them 🫠)

He was 2ML. The music producer.

When governments legalise marijuana, legitimate dispensaries open up, the price comes down, and most people stop buying from gangsters. So rather than putting pressure on people who smoke, put pressure on your government to eradicate laws that benefit organised crime. Remember, the government is there to serve the people. Hold them to account.

Honestly, until the magical day arrives where all Asian dramas (or even just all kdramas) are on a single streaming platform, available equally in all countries, the announcement of a drama's streaming platform is never going to make me overtly happy. But then, I've been watching since before streaming services existed 🤷🏻‍♀️

Makes perfect sense if you understand even a bit of Korean. Some [썸/sseom] is the word used to describe the flirting phase before two people are officially dating (i.e. "we're something, but we haven't defined what it is yet").

This drama has been great listening comprehension practice, and possibly the first time I've felt comfortable watching a drama the whole way through with either Korean subs or no subs at all. Mostly because the plot is so thin, recycled and predictable that even if I don't understand a few lines here and there, I still get what's going on. 😂

Technically there's even more versions of Mo-mi. Six year old Mo-mi, junior high Mo-mi, high school + Mo-mi as Mask Girl (think those were the same actress, just different styling?), Mo-mi post surgery, and present-day Mo-mi.

Kdramas (outside of Korea) have always had their biggest fanbase in the youth market, primarily young women. And the teen/twentysomething demographic is also more likely to be active on sites like MDL and Viki because they don't yet have life commitments that drag them away (a demanding full time job, a partner, kids and/or ageing parents to care for, community involvement, etc.).

All things being equal in script, acting and production: romcoms and fluffy and/or wholesome themes + handsome oppas = high ratings here, and hilariously overblown ratings on Viki. Dark or weird themes + handsome oppas = okayish ratings. Dark or weird themes + no hotties = RIP.

(Edit: typos.)

True (though you probably mean 180, meaning complete opposite, rather than 360, which is a full circle but ends up in exactly the same place 😉). This role is more like her characters in Goblin and Prison Playbook, only darker.

I think it's a testament to what an excellent actress she is (plus the makeup department did a great job on both YHR and AJH, to the point it that I wasn't sure how old AJH's character was meant to be until they threw in the flashbacks).

I think it's a testament to what an excellent actress she is (plus the makeup department did a great job on both YHR and AJH, to the point it that I wasn't sure how old AJH's character was meant to be until they threw in the flashbacks).

Depends on what you find satisfying, tbh. I found it a fitting ending with solid closure to the main storylines, but if you're the type who likes everything to be Disney-fied hugs-and-rainbows, you should probably steer clear of this drama.

Sorry, as a drama ajumma, who's lived in both Korea and Japan, I have to jump in here. I get that there's been an influx of newbies among us, many of whom have never lived abroad, so hopefully the below will help you all understand it a bit better.

Kdramas are produced for the domestic (i.e. South Korean) market. As foreigners, we are not where the profit lies. Koreans hold the key to ratings, which hold the key to how much they can charge advertisers, which hold the key to both drama budgets and network profits.

We're not the customer base for the tsunami of PPL - we might buy a k-beauty product or a ginseng supplement here and there, but we're not ordering from that chicken franchise, or that coffee chain, or choosing that brand of soju while we're out at a pocha.

The vast majority of foreigners in Korea are there temporarily (for education, to make money, or to have an "international experience"). It's not a multicultural country. They don't actually need to change (as much as foreign viewers might like them to), unless a significant percentage of Koreans demand it, and they don't, because frankly, racial discrimination is not relevant to the lives of 99% of Koreans.

What IS relevant to them is gender and class discrimination, which is why (if you've been watching for decades, as I have) you see a marked difference in the narratives on these topics in kdramas over the last few years.

Korean culture is not your culture. It doesn't need to change for your benefit. If you don't like it, and you want to see more diversity, watch content from a diverse country. There's plenty out there. Otherwise, as Shantiece quite rightly said: SHRUG IT OFF.

Re your last sentence: I wish they'd bring in a system similar to what you see over on Reddit (not universal, only certain subreddits do it) - minimum account age + minimum karma threshold (i.e. upvotes). Some subs also have a "too much negative karma" (i.e. downvotes) threshold, too. It's not perfect, but it helps.

Oh, and it would be good to have the "completed" button disabled until the drama finishes airing. A lot of the 1* reviews that have popped up overnight have magically completed a drama that's still airing. I actually think they shouldn't even allow you to rate it unless you've seen half of it, at a minimum. Too many reviews put there that drop a drama after one or two episodes because it's "boring" and give it a 1* or 2* review. Massively skews the ratings.

I've seen too many dramas have their ratings suddenly tank on MDL recently. No point having a ratings/reviews system if people can game it. It's almost as bad as Viki letting people rate shows before they've even aired.

I was in two minds about watching this. On one hand, I can't stand what socials have become (the early days of SNS in the 00s were fun, now it's just shallowness, competition and commerce), and watching a whole drama about it seemed a bit meh. But the trailer was well done and the first few episodes were intriguing, so I kept watching.

(Note: have kept the below as vague as possible to avoid spoiling anyone still watching, or those checking the comments before deciding whether to watch.)

The last 3-4 episodes ran out of steam for me. The usual power dynamics, corruption, truly awful behaviour... eh, seen enough dramas for the plot to feel a bit colour-by-numbers. The FL's decision making at the end didn't seem to match the "cool, calm and collected woman, who studied at Dartmouth (and the school of hard knocks) and built her own empire" character. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes of thinking how it would play out to see who she'd really be hurting - the characterisation didn't really add up.

It was building so well, but then fell so flat at the climax. The last episode in particular felt rushed.