news: another month passed

Yes Toma-sama!  I'm going right along with you!!

Ah yes. Month two was rather successful despite the lack of posting I'd been planning. But plans will always end up out the window when it comes to me anyway. My only fear is that, despite my continued obsession with the Korean entertainment arena, I will be less motivated to write about drama series that I've been watching. But we'll just see how things turn out.

It took me about four months before I got tired of anime and manga and ended up putting animanga zone on hiatus. But during that time, I was still reading a lot of manga even if I'd stopped watching anime. I had so many plans to do short pieces on all the shoujo genre one-shot stories I'd read. But then I just kind of gave up and let it fly... Also, I was in the middle of trying to sort out my life career-wise.

As of the creation of the drama zone, my career is already jump-started and there is very little to keep me from continuing to write about my beloved Asian drama and entertainment. Well... that is, all except for my own motivation, of course. I tend to go through phases of fan-ship, so I can only hope that my love for drama series doesn't dwindle too soon. I've always been a fan of good quality entertainment in the Asian viewing area, so that shouldn't be a problem. After all, I grew up watching Hong Kong drama a la TVB, I will gladly sit and watch any random movie, and Korean drama series have yet to disappoint me. Even if I find something that wasn't very satisfying, I can almost immediately pick up an all new series to enjoy.

As of the start of the next month, my plans have slowed down quite a bit. I had intended to have articles already written and ready to be posted for each month. But currently, August was the only successful planning month. Let's just say... I've gotten quite lazy. But no fear; this is probably better for me than having things planned anyway. I will post articles as I see fit. After all, I've been picking up series left and right without having planned to watch them in the first place anyway. My Girlfriend is a Gumiho is a prime example of a series I had had no intentions of watching, pre-planned, but ended up watching, loving, and blogging about.

But anyway...

Following the ending of My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, my next definite watch will be the highly popular rating's topper, Brilliant Legacy, also known as Shining Inheritance. As the smash hit of 2009, it managed to pull in viewers ratings over 40%, which is pretty much first place material in comparison to other series. My parents started watching it in Cantonese dub and what few random episodes I caught were very interesting, but since I had jumped into those episodes in the middle, I knew that I would need to go back and start from the very beginning just to get the full effect of this brilliant (no pun intended) series. On top of that, I'm a strict "no dub" type of person in which I will struggle through following quickly flitting subtitles with original language audio rather than comfortably watch a series in a language I actually understand. Somehow, dubbed series just don't seem to pick up the full effect of the original (especially a lot that are picked up, dubbed in Cantonese by Hong Kong's major television studio, TVB, because they will also cut random scenes out of the series). As of now, I've already started my dive into Brilliant Legacy and I know I will end up following through to the end pretty quickly.

(This next paragraph includes some slight spoilers.)

It was because of Brilliant Legacy that started watching My Girlfriend is a Gumiho anyway. I was a bit interested in Lee Seung Gi and Han Hyo Joo and happened to come across Gumiho a couple times. And so I finally decided to playfully give the first episode a view and well... refer to my intro info post for how that effect ended up.

To top it off, my October banner is also based off of Gumiho, and those who have seen the series already, I don't know if you'd agree with me, but the Gumiho banner I have up depicts what I feel is the most memorable scene in the series for me. I watched the scene three times: once when I was watching the series itself, second when I needed to copy down the dialogue, and third when I needed to take screen shots. And all three times, I was a rush of emotion and couldn't help but start tearing up again. I've no doubt that no matter how many times I watch that scene, or the other countless heart-wrenching scenes in Gumiho, I will start to get teary-eyed like a baby.

Especially for October when I had been planning on a Gloomy Salad Days banner in celebration of the Halloween month previously, I suddenly had this desire not to attempt a horror-type theme for my blog. Instead, after watching Gumiho, it suddenly occurred to me: What in this world is any more fearful than opening your eyes only to find a loved one has disappeared from your life? Cha Dae Woong's words still resonate through my mind whenever I even think about a proper October, scare-fest-like theme for my banner. Instead of settling on something as "gloomy" as the Death Girl theme, or something cheesy like the Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge banner I'd made for the animanga zone two years ago, or even something freakishly gory like a Saw movie, I decided to settle on a more down-to-earth kind of nightmare: the fear losing a loved one.

But enough of that and enough of the spoiler.

Running Man is a Korean variety program that I have been caught up in lately. My reasons for watching this variety program was rather superficial and shall be explained when I finally finish my "Dedicated to Running Man" page that will be published later on. Look forward to that as I intend to include a lot of information about the show, it's members, and some of my more favorite elements of the show. Also, Song Joong Ki will adoringly be doted on in any post pertaining to him. Look forward to that as well... or not, if you're not a fan of the "pretty boys."


As for other plans I may have....

I have some random "editorial" type of articles written that deal with elements found in drama land as well as just some, well, random thoughts I think about when it comes to Asian entertainment. I plan on having at least two of them published within the next month as I work on compiling some "Top 10" or "Top 5" or "My Faves" or the like lists.

Brilliant Legacy is a rather lengthy series, ending at 28 episodes, and so between that and the other series I need to finish watching (Scent of a Woman, Love Keeps Going, Warrior Baek Dong Soo, etc....) my time will be rather limited. This also includes continued composing of new articles for series I have already seen, practicing my creative brain juices in graphic arts for new banners, and, oh yeah.... my real life job since at least forty hours of my week will be used to make money.

But as a tentative plan, I have the desire to, sooner or later, jump into some other series that I have been interested in since I first laid my eyes on Korean drama series. Included are Secret Garden, Hero, Iljimae, Iris, Athena, and some others. Especially in that list is Secret Garden and Iris due both to their relative popularity and my own curiosity.

But until then, I'm going to try not to put too much on my plate lest I burn out and just completely ditch Asian drama in favor of recuperation.