Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda

I guess it's easier to divide things up...


1. Maou
I watched the first episode of Maou last night, and while I did enjoy it, I also found is ridiculously hilarious in quite a few spots. The biggest thing? It's way over-dramatic. Especially Toma's character. Everything he does is SO dramatic, SO passionate. I mean, he runs everywhere. As sn0tcat said, he's just too full of passion and emotion to simply walk. Ohno's character, on the other hand, I LOOOOVED. I LOL-ed a lot at him (come on, Ohno being creepy is kinda funny), but he was damn good. I like evil, conniving, dastardly characters. They make me happy.

Come On, you can't tell me you don't find evil!Ohno hilarious...
( A BUNCH more caps from episode 1 )


2. Misfits
SERIES TWO IS FINALLY HERE YOU GUYS! I've been waiting a freaking year for this show to come back. For reals! It's currently my favorite show (not that LOST is off the air), and I'm so excited for the next episode. I read some spoilers earlier, and watched the pre-air, so I knew what was going to happen, but damn if it wasn't worth watching in HD. This season I'm loving Simon a whole lot more, despite him being a total creeper. And I'm still on the Nathan/Kelly ship. I kinda like how they didn't make them get together right away. These things need to be drawn out. That being said, I wish there had been more time before they dug Nathan up, just to see how everyone (mostly Kelly) was handling it. I seriously could watch this show only for Nathan though. He's such an asshole, and we all know how I feel about the asshole characters...

This makes me wonder about British graves... Are they really that easy to dig up?!
( A few more caps from episode 1, including one that may haunt your nightmares... just warning you )


3. Koukou Debut Movie
I randomly heard about this the other day, while looking for news on the ParaKiss movie. The news came out awhile ago, but I'm kinda slow on the uptake recently. Apparently Mizobata Junpei (who played Shuji-kun in Buzzer Beat) will be acting as Yoh, and Ohno Ito (a new actress, as far as I can tell) will be Haruna. This will either be awesome, or epically bad (see : Love Com). I hope for awesome. Because Koukou Debut is a really good manga, and I'd love to see it done well. While I loved Junpei in Buzzer Beat, I wouldn't have picked him to play Yoh... then again, who knows, he may knock it out of the park.



4. Fated to Love You sequel
Nothing is confirmed about this story, so take it with a grain of salt. HOWEVER, SETTV is looking to make a sequel to Fated to Love You, called 醉後決定愛上你 (Drunken to Love You... odd translation). I AM SO AGAINST THIS IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY. Now, I love SETTV, I love their shows, I love their actors, I just love them. And yes, FtLY is the highest rated drama in Taiwanese history, so I suppose it makes sense to have a sequel. But a sequel without Qiao En or Ethan?! And didn't they already make a tie in with Invincible Shan Bao Mei?! The actors they're looking at are Rainie Yang and Jerry Yan. I just... don't know. I think seeing them together would make me think too much about Meteor Garden, and question why Ken isn't there. But yeah... not really looking forward to this. I loved FtLY, and I don't think there needs to be another one.

For three days and eight episodes I have contained my intense, insane, amazingly love for this drama, but I cannot hold it anymore. I wanted to watch all of the released episodes before I commented. And I JUST finished them.

I am utterly in love with My Queen / Defeated Queen. I haven't been this excited about a drama in a long time. It's amazingly sweet, smart, funny, sexy, and just perfect. It's an adult drama. This one isn't catering to the teenagers.

Plus, it features probably the GREATEST HEROINE KNOWN TO DRAMA-KIND. Shan Wu Shuang (played by Cheryl Yang) is a goddess. She's amazing. She's tough, professional, dedicated, beautiful, rich, fearless, arrogant, and proud. At the same time she's delicate, sensitive, and self conscious. She's perfect. She's who I want to be when I grow up.

That's another important point. Wu Shuang is (almost) 33. Everyone treats her as an old hag. She's defiant, but obviously it gets to her. That's the major point between her and Lucas. Ethan plays Lucas, the love interest. He's 25. 8 years younger. Naturally she kinda flips out about being attracted to him. Lucas is great, he's the kind-hearted, too good to be true hero with the dark past. He's not an ass at all, he's understanding, gentle, thoughtful, and sweet.

The chemistry between Ethan and Cheryl is AMAZING. The OTP is to die for. They argue, they have meaningful talks, they smolder, they STARE at each other longingly. It's really good. Did I mention how amazingly hot Ethan is in this?

The other actors are great too. Another REALLY fun point; About 80% of the side characters are from Fated to Love You or Prince Turns to Frog. Which makes me think it's a J-star drama... I'm surprised they didn't make Qiao En star in it. She's only two years younger than Cheryl...

Another thing the drama has going for it; a GREAT OST. Fish Leong sings most of the songs, and her voice is intensely ethereal.

I first heard of this drama when I read that article on AF about current twdramas. It looked interesting, so I then researched it a bit. I was immediately interest because it was Ethan. And the age different hooked me. I started downloading it, but didn't watch it until I read what seven_trees thought of it. I watched the first episode, and knew immediately that it was going to be my new crack.


( Rather random picspam )

So yes. THIS is my new drama, and I love it dearly. The next episode comes out this Sunday. I think it plays at the same time as Superstar Express. Thus SE being a ratings failure makes sense to me. In my opinion, My Queen is far better than SE (not that SE isn't amazing as well, just not as good, IMO of course). It's been at the top of the Taiwanese ratings charts for it's entire run. It's no real surprise, actually. It's really a great drama. Can't WAIT for Sunday!

And, for the record, I've already witnessed quite a bit of twdrama cliches. It has 6 so far, a respectable number;
Drinking/getting drunk (almost always the female lead)
Motorcycles
The setting is Taipei
Girls passing out all the time
Token shot of the 101 (This one earned bonus points. The first token shot was at night. The second token shot was the new years fireworks at the 101!)
The same scene being filmed from about 5 different angles (This is the most prevalent. Not as bad at YY3+1, but still highly present)

Several things;

- I've been MIA for awhile due to my recent obsession with A Game About Love. I ADORE it (but then, don't I adore everything?!). It's so sweet, and lovely, and friendship-ey! Qiao En is really good in this role. Her character, Duo Li, is sweet and sincere. More like Xin Yi from Fated to Love You, than her characters in Prince Turns to Frog, or Ying Ye 3+1. Sam and Xun Jie are great too! Their friendship is portrayed so well. And both are fantastically adorable and hot in the drama. Yu Qiao, who plays Qiao En's sister in the drama, kinda annoys me though. I think it's her voice.

- Randomly speaking of Fated to Love You, I read somewhere that there is probably going to be a sequel! Sequels are rare (the only ones I know of are the Meteor Garden sequels, and They Kiss Again (sequel to ISWAK)), but it's not terribly surprising, considering FtLY is the #1 twdrama ever. I guess they originally were going to do a period piece, but then decided against it. That would have been awesome though!

- Haven't started my Love Contract project yet, but I will soon (maybe even tonight!). I've actually been taking notes to start my NEXT project... but that one is still a bit away.

- I just read about a kdrama called Love Story in Harvard that I so want to watch now! How could I NOT... I mean, it takes place in HARVARD. It's be so freaking awesome to watch an asian drama where the setting is a place I see EVERY DAY (yes, I see Harvard everyday... it's on my way to work, and very hard to miss).

- I've become more sure that my plan to study Mandarin in Taiwan is the right thing for me. It's still a ways away, so I have plenty of time to reconsider. Plus, one of the community colleges near me offers Chinese... so I might sign up for a beginners class. And apparently they don't teach hanzi in the class, which is good, since they'd probably teach simplified anyway. So this way, I can learn some basics, and then I'll be slightly prepared for Taiwan. Also, I want to learn in Taiwan specifically because they teach traditional hanzi. Right now, more than anything, I want to do Chinese studies (in particular, Taiwanese studies).

- It's also really annoying learning mandarin in simplified, and then having to translate it into traditional via my trust dictionary. Stupid simplified!

- Lastly, found a car today! Very possible that I will buy it. It's cheap, and looks nice. So yeah!

( Drama/Anime/Manga List update 11Oct08 )

OMG! I forgot to mention! In Fated to Love You, one of the characters gets a nosebleed! So cute!!!!

And they just referenced The Devil Wears Prada in WtSYA!! So cute! I love it when they reference Western things in Asian dramas (because I can understand the reference)!!

I've recently been having and interesting experience.

Basically I've been learning Mandarin though various sources, but mostly the dramas. But a lot of times I memorize or remember words/phrases in Mandarin, but forget what they mean in english. But at various times I'll randomly mumble them in a situation that seems appropriate.... It's odd.

Also, I FINALLY found the characters for "okay"/"alright"... it took me forever, for some reason. 好了 (hǎo le, it's kinda pronounced like "holla", except with tones... so it's hard to describe accurately). 了 is actually a particle, like 嗎. Yay for random Mandarin grammar learnings!

I'm close to the end of Fated to Love You (I just finished ep 19/24... so I have eps 20 and 21 downloaded, and I can get the rest off youtube). But, luckily, I started (and finished...) downloading Wish to See You Again, so now I have all the raws, and 11/16 of the subs for them.

I'm also still downloading MG2, because I WILL eventually watch it. I'm still angry at it now though. Maybe after Wish to See You Again, when I'll want to see another Zai Zai drama.

Though I've had difficulties finding some dramas, I've never come across one I wan't able to get in some form. I think the hardest was/is Goong, since it won't freaking download! I've been downloading it for like, several weeks now, and it's STILL at 95.7%! I could always buy it, but meh. Maybe I can find the missing pieces from youtube or something. Meteor Garden 1 was also difficult to find. And I can't, for the life of me, find Marmalade Boy in decent quality (the one I have is HORRIBLE). ANNNNNND I'm exhausted. Seriously exhausted. I'm going to sleep now!

I started watching Fated to Love You, and OMG! It's sooooooo cute!! Apparently the main female actress is in several other shows on my list (Prince Turns to Frog, Lavender, etc), so I'm really glad I like her! She's super cute! And the main male actor is REALLY hot. And he's in Summer x Summer with Joe Cheng! But yeah, it's super cute!

Also, I have bangs now.