Robin's Random Rambles

A Second Chances Drama in 10 60-minute episodes    Writers: Chien Chi Feng, Sakamoto Yuji  Director: Lee Jae Hoon  Music editors: Cho Seung Woo, Mitsushima Hikari Secondary tropes include sisterhood, music, found family, and personal growth. EPISODES 1-2 The four leads were all in a band together in university. Dae Ji Won (Cho Seung Woo) was the pianist, Kiyohara Yui (Mitsushima Hikari) lead vocalist and writer, Lin Yi Tong (Ko Chia Yen) writer and backup vocalist, and Odagiri Shun (Sakaguchi Kentaro) vocalist and guitarist. In the best tradition of 70s groups like Fleetwood Mac and ABBA, a complicated roundabout of personal relationships saw the band disintegrate and personal ties dissolve for years. None of them kept in contact, going out of their way to put their past behind them. After the back story retrospectives, the drama picks up 15 years after university. Yui now works for a recording agency in the PR department's legal team and Yi Tong, a major SHI...

I never had any interest in watching the K-Drama original of marry my husband. I'm not the biggest fan of the lead actor Park Min Young, and through the course of the drama I read significantly mixed reviews about its progress. Most of them echoed a very common complaint about K-Dramas, that it lost its way in terms of plot toward the end. However when I heard that there was going to be a Japanese remake and that the remake would be a Japan/Korea co-production, I was fascinated. I was thrilled that the female lead role was to be played by an actor who had already impressed me in a couple of roles, and I was fascinated to see how the story would transfer to the shorter, tighter J-Drama format. It exceeded my expectations. At 10 episodes, with a runtime just a fraction under 10 hours, this series highlighted everything that I love about J-Dramas. Tight, taut storytelling with an absolute minimum of padding or fluff. However, it also benefited very much from the strengths of Kore...

  I watched my first KDrama in May 2013, and had completed 100 K dramas seven months later in December of that year. I watched my first J drama in 2014, and it has taken me 11 years to complete 100. That reflects my own increased awareness of what works for me and what doesn't. The last eleven years have proved that overall JDramas resonate with me much better than dramas from China, Korea or Taiwan, as the following chart shows.    The markedly higher average score and markedly lower drop rate reflects that the short, tight storytelling of JDramas is more appealing to me, as is the truly distinctive style and perspective of JDramas. The lower production values and the fact that both characters and storylines can seem somewhat surreal (often reflecting manga/anime roots) can be off-putting to many, but when they get it right, they are my Drama crack. I have scored ten of the 100 JDramas I've completed at 10/10 or higher, versus 17 of the 334 KDramas I've completed. ...

  Continuing a nostalgic look back at OLD OST tracks from various KDramas, CDramas, JDramas and TWDramas I've watched - all released prior to 2010. This episode covers 2007-2008. Again, the Dramas are listed below grouped by year of release and sorted by the order in which I viewed them. 2007 Coffee Prince For me, 2007 was a VERY good year for Dramas. The first of several from then is a true CLASSIC  KDrama Coffee Prince . A very progressive romcom in many ways for its era it remains a VERY rare example of a KDrama romcom that was just that - no serial killers, no noble idiocy separations, no messy love triangles, just plenty of rom & com, with stellar performances across the board. Both the dialogue and the OST have since been referenced OFTEN in countless KDramas since and the actual coffee shop was long a tourist magnet. I don't care if you're an alien - just watch this!   ————   Capital Scandal My favourite Han Ji Min KDrama before Love Sco...

    Concluding  my nostalgic look back at old OST tracks from various KDramas, CDramas, JDramas and TWDramas I've watched - all released prior to 2010. This episode covers the final year of that period, 2009. The Dramas are listed in the order in which I viewed them. 2009 Take Care of the Young Lady   This Yoon Eun Hye starrer Korean Drama goes by several English names, the one I've used is how I watched it and is descriptive of the plot. The Drama was my  first introduction to Kwon Yul, and triggered a remarkably long-lasting antipathy toward him - he always seems to play characters that make my skin crawl. Even though I watched this twice almost back-to-back in my "brand new to KDramas, watch YEH" phase, I was pleased to see when preparing this post that even back then I scored it only 6/10. I doubt it would score that highly today! The MV attached is a favourite of mine for the truly bizarre rarity of an upbeat fun song from the Queens of teary melo, Da...

This blog exists " for whenever 500 characters at Mastodon is not enough " which is reason enough to build a series of posts around a thread I posted at Mastodon. A nostalgic look back at very old OST tracks from various Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese  I've watched. All were released prior to 2010 and all except one I scored at least 6/10. The exception (chosen for its musical rarity), I scored at 5.5/10. Each 'episode' lists two years, except the last, which is exclusively 2009 Dramas. This first episode covers 2003 and 2004, the earliest years from which I've watched qualifying Dramas.  They are listed below grouped by year of release and sorted by the order in which I viewed them. As the title indicates, I have a simple mind, so compiling the list was a lot of fun. It was VERY nostalgic, with some "awww"-inducing entries, and some "eww"-inducing ones. Some of the Dramas that wowed me as a neophyte I would n...