Drama Year 2021

This has been a strange year. In a way it’s just like kfangurl wrote in her year end post – seems like the year went by fast but also it feels like I was stuck in time. It also feels like 2021 has been a continuation of 2020, only worse in some ways.

At the beginning of the year I decided to take a break from dramas and blogging but as the months went by, I realised it was actually more of a break from blogging. I’ve been battling exhaustion all year from ever increasing workload that usually leaves me totally drained. Weekends are mostly spent recovering from the previous week. The saddest part is that I don’t think next year will be any different. Sigh. Writing a blog post takes time, effort and some brainpower, none of which I have in excess and it shows. I made all of 4, yes frour, posts in 2021 and two of them were about GOT7, ha. I also seem to have developed an attention span of a gnat. I tend to “wander off” from dramas I’m watching after couple of episodes, never to retun. Even if it is something I was mostly enjoying. I did manage to stick to few dramas long enough to finish them and there are couple I do intend to continue with (Move to Heaven, Hospital Playlist 2, Luoyang). I’m also currently watching Sword Snow Stride 雪中悍刀行, which is quite entertaining and the cast is grrrreat.

Here’s what I watched this year (as far as I can remember^^):
Korea
Awaken, Forest of Secrets/Stranger (re-watch), Imitation, Navillera, Run On, Sell Your Haunted House/Daebak Real Estate, The Silent Sea (pretty good for a Korean SciFi drama – watched it from behind a pillow 😂 ), The Veil/Black Sun

China
Be Yourself (a nice college/coming of age drama), Definitely Not Today (darkly quirky and fun), The Imperial Coroner (bit of a hidden gem), Nirvana In Fire

Taiwan
Some Day or One Day

Random Musings

Reading through the posts @ Dramabeans this past week, it seems like Drama Slump™ is an epidemic within the intl drama community. So… apparently I wasn’t the only one. I’ve of course had the Drama Drought going for several years now but it’s only recently that I’ve arrived in the Slump territory.

Thoughts On: Black & White

                                  See, it really was black and white. Subtle… not. 😛

What with the Beach Blossom Madness, talking about the charms of Mark Chao with kfangurl @ The Fangirl Verdict, I suddenly got the urge to make a little trip along the memory lane. 🙂 Which lead me to my old Black & White post @ LJ. And that sent me down the rabbit hole of B&W OST songs and clips of promo footage at YT and finally skip-watching bits and pieces of B&W episodes. I have such fond memories of group watching the drama and all the flailing. For some reason I never managed a proper post for B&W but here is collection of my fangirly reaction posts at the time I was actually watching the drama, back in the day. No major spoilers there and I’ve blacked out the bits that reveal a bit too much of the plot.^^

Favourite Drama OSTs

I love music, always have. A good soundtrack can enhance a show’s appeal and when thoughtfully used, adds an extra layer to many of the scenes. Just as a bad one can throughly spoil the whole experience. We all know a drama or two with the bgm so grating that we’d like to strangle whoever made the musical choices. It may be just me, but the kdrama soundtracks of recent years have been kinda meh, filled with generic, syrupy ballads that fade from memory as soons as the drama has ended. Pretty much like the dramas themselves. Which is why most of my faves are from dramas from several years ago. Those OSTs were often themed to go with certain scenes or characters, which I personally love. The music pieces also seemed to be more varied in genre and sound.

I’ve been thinking about doing a post about some of my favorite drama soundtracks for a while now, but there never seemed to be a good time for it. So, I’ve been collecting the material to be used “some day”. Guess that day is now. 🙂 The “samples” are arranged in loose categories, just to keep them in some sort of order.

Drama Year 2016

New year, new tricks and the obligatory ‘in retrospect’ post. *g* Well, I did ponder whether I should actualy write one but here goes…

Drama Grab Bag

With RL sudenly getting awfully busy, it feels like I never have enough time for my dramas. Or blogging. I’m also sadly without that one drama which would compell me to tackle episodes with glee as soon as they air. I miss those days when ‘squee’ was a-plenty. Sigh. So, what have I watched recently?

Drama Grab Bag

Why is it that when RL gets busy, I find myself with more dramas than I can possibly handle? The recent kdrama daught has had me exploring other avenues with offerings from mainland China and Taiwan in addition to what I can pick up from Japan. The thing is, I now seem to have amassed a list of c- and tw-dramas to watch and have couple jdramas queued up too. On top of that are all the new kdramas that look promising… It never rains but it pours.

Drama Grab Bag

I guess having a cold was good for something – I was able to play catch up with the dramas on my roster and check out some of the new offerings. 🙂

Thoughts on: The Pursuit of Happiness

I haven’t really watched all that many TW-dramas as they generally don’t agree with me. They tend to be too cutsey, OTT and with cringeworthy acting. But every once in a while along comes one that totally wins me over. One that is perhaps not the ‘best drama evah!’, quality wise but has a lot of heart and cast of characters that make me root for them. The Pursuit of Happines is one of those. It came highly recommended by Mookie, a blogging pal of mine and as she is even pickier than me with her choices, I was preeeeetty sure I would not be disappointed. 🙂 Which I wasn’t either. I throughly enjoyed my journey with Yi Kang and her lovely Lei Lei.

A bit of this and a bit of that

Another one bites the dust. God’s Gift went out with yet another WTF! ending aaannnd thus it got scratched from my to-watch pile. I’m glad to have dodged the bullet with opting out not to watch it as it aired. My spidey senses told me after the first couple of epis, that it’s better to wait and see. Was I right, or was I right? ;P I wonder what’ll be the fate of Three Days…?

These days is almost more nerve wrecking to wait for a kdrama to end than watching a suspensefull thriller. Sigh. So, thank god for Pan Ahn Seok! I don’t have the smallest doubt that Secret Love Affair will have an ending it deserves.

SLA has more or less spoiled every other kdrama for me atm. I even had to take a break with Wonderful Season, which I’ve quite liked so far. Well, that one is a 50 ep family drama, so a short pause may actually be a good move.

Instead of kdramas I’ve been watching more western tv shows, couple of jdramas and I finally picked up The Pursuit of Happiness, a tw-drama I’ve had on The List of Doom for a while now. TPoH came highly recommended by Mookie, a good blogging buddy who is very hard to please, LOL! She was not wrong about it either, I’m loving the mellow feel of TPoH and a lead pair with lovely chemistry. 🙂 A post will probably appear at some point. I think.

I’m very good at procrastinating, which is why I decided to tinker a bit more with the blog instead of tackling stuff related to my studies. Added a link to my tumbler and a new sidebar widget-thingy that’ll be featuring yt vids of some of my fave songs/performers. XD The group featured atm is the first Korean vocal group I got to know and love; Monday Kiz.