#Introduction to Taiwan | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

invisiblegarters · 1 month ago

Text

(Absolutely Not) Mircro (Mostly) BL Reviews

I really should find a new title for this. So often none of these are micro nor are they all BL. But I am lazy and bad at titles in general, so it will stay this way forevermore.

With that riveting introduction out of the way, let's just get started, yes?

In no particular order.

Completed

The Loyal Pin (Thai, GL): Enjoyed this one a lot for most of it. I had a great time just looking at it, everyone and everything was so pretty. I swear the show lingered on Freen and Becky's gorgeous faces abnormally long always just to highlight how gorgeous they both are. This is not a not a complaint. The acting was on point, as always, especially Freen who I just loved as Pin. And I loved seeing Becky playing the pursuer and the one who was a bit of a spoiled brat. The plot did get a little meandering here and there - I am not complaining about the length because I would have watched 80 more episodes but it did drag on occasion, and some of the cuts were a little odd. Anin especially seemed to have teleporting powers on occasion. One thing I really did like although it made me furious was how it mostly realistically engaged with the real struggles that Anin and Pin would have to go through to be together. I was furious at Pat more than once for ignoring things that were right in front of her face that spelled out what a shit Kuea actually was and just ignoring it, but the reality of Pin having to marry a man she did not love felt very realistic, especially considering her station relative to Anin's. Not sorry that they went the happy route in the end but I did like that Pin's struggles were real. Kuea was an impressive dick. That guy is really good at sucking, kudos to him. My one real quibble (and what dragged this down an entire point in the end) is the "joke" the king played on Pin when she was removed to her forever house with Anin. I'm not against messing with people but they literally ripped her out of a sobbing Pat's arms, blindfolded and driven off to who knows where. The poor girl was terrified and call me humourless but I didn't find it funny in the least. Not with everything else she'd been through. So final verdict is 8/10.

Kidnap (Thai, BL): This one I actually stopped watching about halfway through and then just binged when it was over. It was okay. I didn't have the ton of criticisms others had, but it also really wasn't my favorite, either. It was a turn your brain off and watch the pretty kind of show, I genuinely do not believe that it ever aspired to much higher than that, and I think that as a show like that it served its purpose. To be honest, unless the show was completely unwatchable I'd have finished it simply because the people losing their tiny minds over the fact that Ohm was paired with someone other than Nanon annoyed the everloving fuck out of me. I am not one who is hugely bothered by branded pairs working together over and over but if I was, the reaction to this would have been a great point in its favor (another is the way far too many "fans" of branded fairs treat the less popular or less liked one, but that's also just people being dicks and would probably happen anyway - it's just having to see the same person get it over and over that is rough). Aside over, the show was fine. It didn't do anything revolutionary but I don't really think it was trying to. Ohm was great as always, other Ohm was a great as the little bro, Leng was fine (he's green and it shows, especially when he has to do some of the more emotional scenes, but he's not bad. And I think he did Q's panic attacks and PTSD related trauma very well indeed). All in all, it was your standard romcom fare. Easy to watch, and easy to forget when it was over. 7/10.

Unknown (Taiwan, BL): Adopted brother trop baby. Don't look at me I don't care I eat it up. I love me a good stepbrothers / adopted brothers who fall in love tale, and so does Taiwan. I had a good time with this one. All episodes were out so I binged it all via Viki which is honestly how I like to do it with shows like this - I just don't have the energy or the mental strength to wait on tenterhooks for another episode when I get super invested and things aren't going well (Jack & Joker nearly broke me and THK kind of puts me in a frothing rage - more on this later maybe), plus it helps when I can consume this type of stuff all on my own. Stuff that I imagine people have Opinions about. Opinions that will probably annoy me. It's why to this day I'm still glad I watched most of MLC in a vacuum and wasn't watching live until the final eps. I just know the opinions on that one would have send me 'round the bend. But this isn't about those shows, it's about Unkwon. I quite enjoyed it! I liked that everyone was kind of a mess, pretty much exactly as you would expect them to be, considering. No one here has their shit together, especially not the one who seems to have it the most handled. I also really liked all the pining and yearning. If you know me at all you know that I am the biggest fan of reverse pining and this show delivered that to me in spades. I could have watched thirteen episodes of Wei Qian missing Xiao Yuan so badly he could taste it. Chemistry was also on point, but honestly Taiwan almost always delivers there, I might worry about the story but I never worry about the chemistry. 8/10.

Night Has Come (Korea, gen): This one absolutely had me hooked pretty much from the beginning, and I loved it so much for pretty much the entirety of the drama. The cast is excellent, I was infuriated, I cried, I sat on the edge of my seat wondering what was coming next...and then the end kind of annoyed me and made the story fall apart just a little. Not enough to kill my enjoyment, but enough to drag my overall score down to 7/10. Would still recommend it though, if only for the ride. But man, one thing Kdramas are very good at it making me furious at the characters. Weak Hero Class 1, The Glory, All of Us Are Dead, Squid Game...just to name a few. All of these had me incandescent with rage at some point or another. Kudos?

Peaceful Property (Thai, gen or "bromance"): Oh my gosh this show. I knew I'd like it, but I did not expect to love it quite as much as I did. Home was such a delightful character. Peach, Pang, and Kan (my girl!) were great too, but for me Home is what made the show. He was a little naive and far too unaware of his own privilege, but one thing I loved about him is that he was never cruel or even that greedy. He was a little (a lot) useless in the beginning, but through meeting Peach and Pang and Kan he learned to be less so, and also finally found a place where he could belong - something he was looking for for the entirety of the show. Family. This show did the found family thing so well without making it too treacly, which I loved. These four people needed came into each other's lives, each of them having what the others desperately needed, and I love that for them. This show just had so much heart. I don't know how else to say it. I loved it so much. 9/10

Jack & Joker: U Steal My Heart IThai, BL): Oh, this show. So I only recently watched Love Mechanics for the first time this year, and I had no clue about YinWar until then. I know, right? But hey, I watched it right in time to actually get jazzed for this show. I love that we had two different shows airing about mafia-esque at the same time that took very different tracks. While Kidnap went the more romcom slapstick route, Jack & Joker did engage a bit with the darker side of it. Literally everyone at the top sucked, but Boss was the worst of them all. And the worst part about him was that he convinced himself that he was doing it for great justice. I was amused, though, because Mark was my darling baby who could do no wrong in Love Mechanics but in J & J it was absolutely Jack. I loved Joke too but Jack was my darling boy who was so sweet and hopeful and that just kept getting kicked down by life every time he came close to finding a way out. I felt for that man so much. My one criticism is that I didn't love the end. Everything felt a little too pat and perfect after what had happened. But it's not that big of a complaint. I don't think I would have loved a bleak ending either. So many of the side characters helped make this one - I loved Tattoo, Aran and Hoy, Hope and Save grew on me, and Nang was gorgeous even if sometimes the things she did made me want to scream. Grandma was the best and Toi Ting was a delight and stole nearly every scene she was in. Love that little girl. So often with shows I find myself just wanting the main characters to get back on screen but with J&J I felt like that way less. Also, I didn't even mind the long run time of the eps. One last thing I will say is that I really did wind up enjoying the character of Rose. I know that she was rough for some people - it can be very hard to like someone that has no clue about their own privilege or how their wealth has opened doors for them that are impossible for other people to open, or how the people around her played with the lives of others like it was no big deal - but I do think that her slow realization about it was pretty well done. She may have started out extremely naive but by the end her eyes have been opened and she's committed to making some real changes. I like to think she succeeds - girl's tenacious. Also, even if I hadn't liked her already, the way she reacted to being rejected by Jack would have made me like her. It was classy. 8/10

I went on for so long about High School Frenemy that I eventually gave up and gave it it's own post. Do what you will that that one.

Currently Watching

The Heart Killers (Thai, BL): Came mostly for FK, am staying entirely for JD. This is absolutely going to be one of the shows where it's best if I just watch in a vacuum, I think. Especially because I'm more than a little bitter and it's going to get worse rather than better, if I'm right (and I almost always am It's a curse). I do think that we can all agree that Fadel deserves the world, though.

Spare Me Your Mercy (Thai, BL): I am in love with this show. There is so much going on here and every week I'm excited to watch but also not wanting it to be over. Tor and JJ are doing so well and I like that it's making me think. Dr. Kan has never done a thing wrong in his life and I will fight people for him. I also kind of love that neither he nor Wasan are both playing a game and are still managing to fall into the trap anyway, both their own and each other's. Just a great show. Also has me wanting to watch Manner of Death so I will be starting that shortly.

Petrichor (Thai, GL): it's a procedural but everyone's a lesbian. I love it. And everyone is so hot. Like I can barely focus on what they're saying half the time my god. I'm really having a good time with this one.

Pluto (Thai, GL): This show is so fucking good. Namtan is so amazing - I love how different Oom and Ai are, even when they are making the same expressions the way they carry themselves is so opposite you always know who you're dealing with. Film is also doing great as May - a delicious mix of vulnerability and strength, uprightness and manipulation. Also my gosh I keep getting slapped in the face with how ridiculously pretty she is like very five seconds. Did NOT expect the memory loss curveball but I am here for it. Also if the PimJanPang triangle doesn't end in a throuple I might actually cry, but if they all make out with each other a little I will forgive the show if it doesn't end with them all together.

ThamePo (Thai, BL): still not committed but I enjoyed the first episode. Someone should have told me Ciize was in it and I'd have been there with bells on anyway. I love her. So far though it's not like what I thought based on the mock trailer, so I'm cautiously into it.

Looking Forward To

Ossan's Love Thailand: we'll see on the comedy. Sometimes it hits. Sometimes it does not. The more slapstick stuff is iffy for me but I do love EM so.

The Boy Next World: oh my god this looks like exactly my thing. I can't wait.

My Golden Blood: No trailer but I don't even care. GIMME already it's been 84 years.

#the loyal pin #kidnap the series #unknown the series #night has come #jack and joker #peaceful property #the heart killers #spare me your mercy #petrichor the series #pluto the series #thamepo #heart skips a beat #ossan's love th #the boy next world #my golden blood #micro reviews #rambles

24 notes · View notes

yamayuandadu · 1 year ago

Text

The real life inspirations behind new characters in Touhou 19 (Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost) While I haven’t been posting much about Touhou as of late, I felt obliged to put together the customary post about the inspirations behind the new characters. The new game genuinely renewed my interest. In contrast with similar write-ups pertaining to previous games the research is not entirely mine - some of the sections are a result of cooperation between me and @just9art. Without further ado, let’s delve into the secrets of the new cast. Find out if Biten is the first “Wukong impersonator” ever, when a tanuki is actually a badger, and why Hisami both is and isn’t an oni. Naturally, the post is full of spoilers. Also, fair warning, it's long.

1. Biten Son - sarugami + Sun Wukong

Sarugami means “monkey kami”, the monkey in mention being the Japanese macaque.To my best knowledge, the term is actually not used commonly in English - the results on jstor and De Gruyter are in the low single digits, Brill outright has nothing to offer. Translations are much more common.

Sarugami are particularly strongly associated with Mount Hiei. You might have heard of it because of its association with Matarajin, though in this case he’s not exactly relevant. Instead, it is believed the monkeys act as messengers of Sanno (the “mountain king”), Sekizan Myojin and Juzenji. Sanno himself could take the form of a monkey according to medieval texts, while Juzenji can be accompanied by a deity depicted as a man with a monkey’s head, Daigyoji, known from the Hie mandala. Sarutahiko is also associated with monkeys based on the similarity between his name and the word saru. Bernard Faure notes that despite the clearly positive portrayal of monkeys as semi-divine beings in service of these deities, their perception in folklore and mythology can nonetheless be considered ambivalent, because they could be viewed as aggressive. There are even examples of sarugami being portrayed as monstrous antagonists to be defeated by a hero. The best known tale of this variety is known simply as Sarugami taiji. It is preserved in the Konjaku monogatari. Here the sarugami is a fearsome monster who terrorizes a village and demands the offering of one young woman each year.

In contrast with the sarugami, I do not think Sun Wukong, one of the protagonists of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, needs much of an introduction. We reached the point where even in the west he is recognizable enough to warrant toys based on him (there’s a Lego Wukong on my desk right now). Biten's design has many callbacks to traditional portrayals of Wukong, including the staff (which in the novel is a pillar stolen from the undersea palace of a dragon emperor) and a very distinctive diadem (in the novel making it possible to pressure the unruly Wukong into obeying the monk he is meant to protect). As a curiosity it’s worth noting that “fake Wukong” is not a brand new idea - in the novel itself, one of the enemies of the heroes, Six-Eared Macaque, actually impersonates him for a time. Wukong is effectively himself a “divine monkey”, seeing as despite his origin as a literary character he actually came to be worshiped as a deity in mainland China, Taiwan and various areas with a large Chinese diaspora. The topic of Wukong worship itself came to be an inspiration for literature, starting with the excellent The Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal by Pu Songling, a writer active during the reign of the Qing dynasty, in the early eighteenth century.

2. Enoko Mitsugashira - “immortal yamainu” + Cerberus

Enoko gets the least coverage here, because there really isn’t much to say. Yamainu, “mountain dog”, isn’t really a supernatural creature, it’s an old term for either the extinct Japanese wolf, a type of feral dog, or a hybrid between these. It can also be used as a synonym of okuri-inu, a youkai wolf believed to accompany travelers at night.

There’s actually a distinctly Journey to the West-esque component to Enoko’s backstory, but I have no clue if this is intentional. In the aforementioned novel, many of the antagonists, who are generally demonic animals, are motivated by the desire to devour the flesh of the protagonist, the Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang, because it is said to grant immortality. Granted, given the obscurity of the figure Zanmu is based on - more on that later - perhaps this is an allusion to something else we have yet to uncover. Cerberus, being probably one of the most famous mythical monsters in the world, does not really need to be discussed here. The illustration is included mostly because I like Edmund Dulac and any opportunity is suitable for sharing his illustrations. I do not think it needs to be pointed out that Enoko's bear trap weapons are meant to evoke Cerberus' extra heads.

3. Chiyari Tenkajin - tenkaijin (+ mujina) + chupacabra

While my favorite animal youkai not yet featured in Touhou is easily the kawauso (otter), I was very pleased to learn we sort of got a mujina since I wanted to cover this topic since forever, but never got much of a chance. Technically Chiyari is actually meant to be a tenkaijin, which is not a mujina but a slightly different youkai (a will-o-wisp or St. Elmo’s fire-like creature, specifically) who in the single tale dealing with it takes the form of a mujina after dying, but as there is not much to say about it beyond that you will get a crash course in mujina folklore instead.

Today the word mujina is pretty firmly a synonym of anaguma - in other words, the Japanese badger. The animal does not substantially differ from other badgers, so I do not think much needs to be said about its ecology. However, historically the term could be used to refer to the tanuki regionally, or interchangeably to both animals, so in some cases if insufficient detail is provided it is hard to tell which one is meant. This ambiguity extends to the folklore surrounding them, and generally if you know what to expect from tanuki tales, which I’m sure most people reading this do, you will instantly recognize many of the plot elements typical for mujina ones. In other words, it is yet another yokai which typically takes the role of a shapeshifting trickster. Some supernatural phenomena could be basically interchangeably attributed to mujina, tanuki, kitsune or kawauso. Mujina are commonly described taking the form of Buddhist monks, which is one of the many similarities between them and tanuki.

The most famous depiction of a shapeshifting mujina comes from Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (The Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past). The accompanying text compares the creature to the supernatural versions of kitsune and tanuki, and states that the artist relied on a tale according to which a mujina was able to successfully impersonate a Buddhist monk until accidentally revealing its tail.

What makes the mujina special is that it is actually the oldest recorded example of a youkai of this sort. A mujina tale already appears in the early Japanese chronicle Nihon Shoki, dated to 627. It reports an incident of a mujina transforming into a human and singing somewhere in the Michinoku Province. I feel like this alone is a good example of why you should be wary of people who seek to present Nihon Shoki or Kojiki as historical truth. Western audiences as far as I know were first introduced to mujina by Lafcadio Hearn. To my best knowledge, the fabulous shapeshifting badgers however failed to gain the popcultural recognition enjoyed by tanuki and kitsune. They did appear in Shigeru Mizuki's stories every now and then, and I found a mascot character based on them, but overall there isn't all that much beyond that.

Naturally, there isn't much mujina in Chiyari's design, and she instead most likely owes her distinctly spiky appearance to the other inspiration behind her character, the chupacabra. Mujina are not really portrayed as bloodthirsty, but the poorly documented tenkajin apparently is, which is presumably why ZUN decided to connect Chiyari with the chupacabra, the best known modern blood-drinking creature, who first appeared in tall tales from 1995 and subsequently took popculture by storm after spreading from Puerto Rico to mainland USA and Mexico. I am not a chupacabra aficionado so I have little to offer here, sadly.

4. Hisami Yomotsu - yomotsu-shikome

Judging from what I’ve seen on social media and on pixiv, Hisami is shaping up to be one of the most popular new characters (she’s my fave too). In sharp contrast with that, her basis is pretty obscure. So obscure that there isn’t even any historical art to showcase, as far as I can tell (note that this blog claims night parade scrolls might have something to offer, though - I was unable to verify this claim for now, sadly). As we learn from her bio, she is supposed to be a yomotsu-shikome. They’re called the “hags of Yomi” of Yomi in Donald L. Philippi’s Kojiki translation. The term shikome can be literally translated as “ugly woman”. Nothing about them really implies femme fatale leanings we are evidently seeing in Touhou but I’m not going to complain about that. Yomotsu-shikome appear only in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, and in both of these early chronicles they are portrayed as servants of Izanami after she died and came to reside in Yomi, the land of the dead. Nihon Shoki states there are only eight of them. The distinct grape vine motif present on Hisami’s clothes seems like an obvious reference to Izanagi’s escape from Yomi following his meeting with Izanami, portrayed in the myth recorded in both of these sources. When the yomotsu-shikome started to pursue him, he threw a vine he used to hold his hair at them. The plant instantly bore fruit, which the entities started to eat. They later resumed the chase, but were once again held back, this time by a bamboo shot. According to the Nihon Shoki, they eventually give up after he creates a river from his piss (sic) to keep them away.

Yomotsu-shikome are sometimes compared to oni by modern researchers. Noriko T. Reider in her monograph about oni argues that alongside hashihime and yamanba (pictured above) they can be effectively grouped with them. Another researcher, Michael D. Foster, is more cautious, and states that despite clear similarities it’s best to avoid conflating oni-like female demons with female oni proper, especially since the latter have a distinct iconography and a distinct set of traits. Norinaga Motoori, the founder of kokugaku or “national learning”, a nationalist intellectual movement in Edo and Meiji period Japan, claimed that oni were based on yomotsu-shikome, which is a pretty dubious claim. It is ultimately not certain when the term oni started to be used, but it is safe to say it has continental origin. And, of course, oni permeate Japanese culture in a way yomotsu-shikome do not.

5. Zanmu Nippaku - Zanmu

This was the toughest mystery to solve, and I am fully indebted to 9 here, since they figured it out, I am merely depending on what they directed me to. Research is still ongoing, and it feels like we just started to untangle this mystery, so you can safely expect further updates. Zanmu appears to be based on the Buddhist monk… well, Zanmu. You can learn a bit about him here or on Japanese wikipedia; it seems there are quite literally 0 sources pertaining to him in English, and even in Japanese there is actually very little. Their names are not written the same, ZUN swapped the sign for “dream” from the original name for one which can be read as “nothingness”. If the unsourced quote on wikipedia is genuine, the reason might be tied to the personal views of the irl Zanmu. What little we’ve been able to gather about him is that he was active in the Sengoku period, and apparently was regarded as unorthodox and eccentric. This lines up with Zanmu’s omake bio pretty well. Seems the real Zanmu was also unusually long lived, and was able to recall events from distant past in great detail, though obviously the figure of 139 years attributed to him in a few places online has to be an exaggeration.

Yet more puzzling is the reference to Zanmu’s familiarity with Ikkyo you might spot in the linked article. Whether the famous Ikkyo who you may know from the tale of Jigoku Dayu is meant is difficult to determine. The chronology does not really add up; on the other hand the logic behind associating one eccentric semi-legendary monk with another in later legends isn’t particularly convoluted. As 9 pointed out to me, if ZUN was aware of this link, and the same Ikkyo really was meant, it is not impossible the connection between Zanmu and Hisami is meant to in some way mirror that between Ikkyo and Jigoku Dayu. As you can easily notice, it’s pretty clear the historical Zanmu was male. It does not seem his Touhou counterpart is, obviously. I would say we should wait for more info until declaring that we have a second Miko situation on our hands, with a male historical figure directly reimagined as a female character without any indication we are dealing with a relative rather than the real deal. There’s still relatively little info to go by so I would remain cautious (though naturally this is not meant to discourage you from having headcanons).

Neither me nor 9 were able to find any connection between the historical Zanmu and oni… so far, at least. Therefore, what motivated ZUN to make Zanmu an oni remains to be discovered. As a final curiosity, on a semi-related note it might be worth pointing out that while not as common as their male peers, female oni are not a modern invention, and already appear in setsuwa from the 13th century. A particularly common motif are tales describing a woman turning into oni due to jealousy or anger. Further reading:

Jason Colavito, The Secret Prehistory of El Chupacabra (2011)

Bernard Faure, Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 1-3 (2015-2022)

Michael Daniel Foster, The Book of Yokai. Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore (2015)

John Knight, Waiting for Wolves in Japan. An Anthropological Study of People-wildlife Relations (2003)

Noriko T. Reider, Japanese Demon Lore (2010)

#touhou #touhou spoilers #unfinished dream of all living ghost #udoalg #touhou 19

279 notes · View notes

lazzarella · 20 days ago

Text

2024 Roundup - BL edition

It's done!! I spent WAY too long on this post and I have no idea why, but I've done it now haha

2024 was the year I started watching live action BL series (I went over how I got here a bit in this post, so I won't go over it again; I also reflected a little on how nice it's been to watch all these shows), so my focus wasn't on watching what's new (everything was new to me) but mostly playing catch up. That said, I did watch enough 2024 releases to let me do a top ten, so why not?

In all honesty, I'm a little embarrassed to be posting this. Like I said, I only started this year, so I'm not really sure my top shows of the year are particularly valuable or interesting to anyone but me, but I do love me a list! And I spent all this time on this post, so, here we go?

First, some numbers:

I watched around 25 or so 2024 releases (some spanned 2023 and 2024, but I don't feel like double checking all the 2023 releases I've logged on MDL to check when they started and finished). Of those 14 are Thai, 4 are South Korean, 5 are Japanese, 1 is Taiwanese, and one (Meet You at the Blossom) is a Thailand/Taiwan co-production iirc

My ratings ranged from 7.5 to 10, but honestly there was nothing I hated. Some I felt 'meh' about (which I won't talk about here) but even those had aspects I thought were really good. Maybe I'm just easy to please, but I'm happy. Anyway. Onto the list!

More details under the cut (with possible spoilers, but it's most personal reflection rather than any kind of analysis), but if you want just the list:

Cherry Magic Thailand

Wandee Goodday

Century of Love

Kidnap

Happy of the End

Monster Next Door

Love for Love's Sake

Boys Be Brave!

Love is a Poison

We Are

CHERRY MAGIC (THAILAND)

(This spanned 2023 and 2024, so I'm counting it!) Image from BL Watcher, edited by me

This is such a special show! Being new to BL this year, I watched this not long after I watched the Japanese live action version, and I was kind of worried it might suffer for it, but I loved it just as much. They both had aspects I liked better than the other, but I love this show so much. I've watched it three times now I think? It was my introduction to Tay and New and I fell head over heels for them haha

I really enjoy the friendships in this, but, as I'm here for the romance, I have to say Achi and Karan's love is one of the sweetest and swooniest romances I've seen maybe ever! That beach scene lives rent free in my head <33 it's also nice to see a romance with characters (barely) in their 30s

WANDEE GOODDAY (THAILAND)

Image is my own cap

This was the first show I watched week by week and I had a blast. It's been a long time since I've done that, but it was really (mostly) fun to see everyone's reactions as each episode aired

But it was a delight from start to finish—a very joyful, fun show, that I thought handled most of the heavier aspects well and all that dreamy neon was so pretty to look at. Great and Inn have excellent chemistry and their acting is really incredible. I can't wait to see them in Memoir of Rati!

(My posts on Wandee Goodday)

CENTURY OF LOVE (THAILAND)