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animehouse-moe · 11 months ago

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A Sign of Affection Episode 2: To Affection

God, there's so much to talk about with this episode. Ajia-Do and Morishita have absolutely maximized the potential of anime as a medium in expressing this story to its fullest, and that leaves me with endless amounts of things to talk about, so I really just want to get right to it.

How about I talk about Yuki's world first. This is a very very broad topic, but I think it's incredibly important in understanding other aspects of this story.

Yuki herself expresses a very key point: she doesn't want her hearing to define her world. It's not that she detests it or anything, but that she has an insatiable desire to explore a world outside of her own, and the episode expresses that wonderfully.

Also, can I just speak on the visuals for this sequence really quick? Incredible double edged sword. The idea of the glass mural as a reflection of the outside while providing visuals of Yuki's experience at the school for the Deaf that she went to is phenomenal. It alludes to the fact that a greater world exists outside of what she's experience as a person so far, but intends to reflect the protected world that Yuki's only experienced up until now. Really really incredible idea of framing her experience and desire to grow within something so simple.

Anyways, that desire manifests in her decision to go to college, to experience the things that she only saw in TV dramas or manga, to explore a life outside everything that she's known up until now.

So that explains Yuki's approach to life post-secondary school, but there's so much more to her experience of that life. We as viewers are secondary to the characters of this world, and the series continues to express that wonderfully through perspective.

Where you might use visual isolation to express a character's focus, A Sign of Affection takes it a step further, in several senses of the word. The idea of Yuki's "focus" differs from the way that a traditional anime will focus in on something. While both worlds are honed down to their essentials, the idea is expressed much more casually and symbolically with Yuki. And of course, it hinges on her hearing. At times, when with the perspective of another character, we'll hear a lot of background noise- people talking in different languages, the clamor of a busy room, and all sorts of other things- but all the while we'll remain visually isolated from that noise. It's a wonderful expression of the layered approach to Yuki's world. Visually we're meant to follow her experience, but there's time where the episode wants to emphasize the difference that hearing makes in a scene, and it's great. It's a perfect balance of all sorts of things that adds a great deal to how we contextualize the scenes in which Yuki focuses on things like Itsuomi.

And then there's the more explicit and spoken aspects. In the same way that there's style and intonation to speaking, Yuki points out those aspects within sign language to add more depth to the experience. Instead of stumbling over her words, Yuki talks about how her fingers are moving awkwardly, or how Oushi's (her childhood friend) sign language tends to be very pointed but also has more frail and weak pieces that betray his concern over Yuki.

I really love these sequences because in the same way that you might look to a face for emotional expression, they keep that focus on the hands to express the slightest details for viewers to cue in on. It's such a wonderfully conscious execution of the work.

You know what, since we're on Oushi we'll start the dive into his character because boy is it good.

He's meant to be the childhood friend of Yuki, and you immediately grasp the connection that the two share as we begin with a translation of their sign language conversation between one another before moving into fully voiced dialogue. It's really really great at showing the experience and understanding the pair share, and is perfect against the backdrop of the lack of translation when either uses sign language with another person.

It shows the lengths that Oushi goes to communicating with Yuki and Yuki alone, and that his goal is to explicitly meet Yuki where he believes her to be most comfortable.

And that's a hugely important idea. It's not necessarily that Yuki herself prefers talking exclusively in sign language, but that Oushi engages with her exclusively through it. The context clues given in regards to other characters greatly supports this. Her mother talks directly to her and Yuki will sometimes use a white board to communicate, Rin and Yuki use a mix of sign language and typing to communicate, and even with Itsuomi there is a variation in how they converse.

And that idea is perfectly personified by this comment made by Oushi later on.

This series is all about Yuki's world, and how people view and interact with Yuki within that context. And in this case, Oushi believes that Yuki's world needs to be protected no matter what. That she's a frail girl that lives in a dangerous world and that she shouldn't be putting herself at risk like that.

It's just such a great and nuanced idea to place in the series. Oushi's seen Yuki grow and develop from a young girl, maybe even struggle with learning or meeting the world head on. He still sees the young girl that could struggle or be alone out there, and he can't shake that idea from his head. He'll always see Yuki as that even though Yuki has shed that form.

And then the episode places that sentiment against Itsuomi? Incredible incredible idea. Where Oushi represents a closed off world for Yuki, Itsuomi is the representation of her dream to experience something greater. He meets her head on and engages with her in neutral terms. That is, he'll interact with her both in how he's interested in (e.g a lot of physical contact and proximity) and in how Yuki prefers. He puts effort into learning sign language, simplifies his sentences to make it easier to read lips, but then he'll also use text a good deal in the same way that Yuki does.

That value in how the two approach interaction with Yuki creates a wonderful picture that's summarized with how Yuki views her experiences in their respective worlds. Oushi's is a very gray and lonely one, while Itsuomi's is a open and bright blue sky.

And let's not forget Rin! I love her character and her engagement with Yuki, you can really feel the depth of their friendship vs Oushi and Itsuomi.

Rin initiates a lot of conversation with physical touch (like tapping on the table or poking Yuki), and makes sure to use a good deal of visual cues when talking verbally. She also has no issues with conversing over text, but she's a little less inclined to work with sign language. And then there's the idea of Yuki sharing emotions via physical contact, it's a really subtle idea but it's wonderful expression of her character and her familiarity with Rin.

All the same though, Rin is still learning and making mistakes here and there, as Oushi points out. It's a simple piece, but it's really great at showing that while nobody's perfect, it doesn't mean that you can't learn or grow within that context.

And just to tie a neat bow on this before I can go off the deep end and talk even more about things: this little bit of symbolism with birds.

For reference, this bird is a Japanese Wagtail, so the it's not just the idea of freedom that's expressed with these birds.

Of course the first image is meant to embody that idea as Yuki and Itsuomi out in a wide open blue sky, but the second image provides much more detail and value.

For example, the idea that one bird exists in shadow while the other is in light. It's the simple idea of the separation between Itsuomi and Yuki while Itsuomi is in Laos. You can also take the idea of them sitting on tree branches versus in the sky as a lack of freedom or openness because Itsuomi isn't around for Yuki.

Anyways, a Japanese Wagtail is a bird that within Eastern cultures such as Japan, is meant to symbolize the ideas of hope, renewal, and perseverance.

Evidently, the species of bird isn't the piece that symbolizes the romance, but rather the resilience of Yuki within this context. However, you could take the idea of how aggressively wagtails defend their territory from other potential suitors as the idea of the bond or romantic connection forming between Yuki and Itsuomi, but that's a totally different story.

But there it is, another incredible episode of A Sign of Affection. It's really outstanding how well Ajia-Do and Morishita have come together to create such a full bodied experience for viewers. Such a fulfilling and enjoyable experience.

#a sign of affection #yubisaki to renren #ゆびさき��恋々 #yubiren #yuki itose #nagi itsuomi #anime and manga #anime #anime reccs #anime recommendation #anime review

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zodiactalks · 8 months ago

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These Zodiac Signs Think they KNOW EVERYTHING

Some zodiac signs can be true know-it-alls and annoy everyone around them with their desire to show off their intelligence. It is true that some signs were blessed with higher knowledge and a certain panache for conversation, but how much of it is actual intelligence, and how much of it is bravado?

We’re going to see that today, with this list of smart zodiac signs that either don’t know when to shut up or that are too stubborn to admit they’re wrong. These signs have been blessed with a quick mind, a great ability to retain information or just a love for reading and to hear themselves talk. Whatever their reasons might be, never to let people talk in a conversation or just interrupt everyone with facts anyone can spew off the internet, one thing’s for sure: we wouldn’t have it any other way. #1. Gemini

I bet you saw this coming. It is not uncommon for people to keep asking why are Gemini so annoying. Well, the way they carry themselves intellectually is one of the reasons. Ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication and the fastest moving planet of them all, Geminis’ minds are quick and agile, which allows them to think of several things at the same time and express those things with great artistic ability.

However, being the fastest thinker of the zodiac, this sign will get easily annoyed at people that don’t share their curiosity and love for learning new things. This is why you’ll oftentimes see them trolling people for the things they know and stealing the show when it comes to talking about certain topics.

Since they’re ruled by the planet of communication, there’s nothing they love more than talk, talk, talk. And this can quickly get annoying to people who prefer doing.

#2. Taurus

Taureans are a more steady zodiac sign that is generally reserved and somewhat shy. However, they enjoy the best things in life, which generally never come without them using their minds to their fullest potential.

A lot of people can tell about Tauruses that they’re wise beyond their years and give the best advice. This is because they are highly empathetic and can rationalize situations better than their more emotional counterparts.

They are most likely to be the mom friends of the group, stopping their friends from doing stupid things and nurturing them. However, it is also true that a Taurus is going to be the most stubborn zodiac sign.

There is nothing that can show them they’re wrong once they’re stuck in their ways because they regard themselves as always right. And this can make for some really heated arguments, in which their adversaries will quickly see that they can’t win.

#3. Virgo

Just like Taurus, a Virgo is another Earth sign that is completely stuck in its way. Virgos are generally a lot more organized than any other sign, and they usually do their best in school and other academic mediums. They love learning and talking about their achievements, which also makes them the Teacher’s pet most often than not.

Highly rational, these zodiac signs are used to being right, which makes the times when they’re not a true catastrophe for them.

Even if they’re not right, they will fight to the death to prove they are, even if it means distancing their close friends. Lucky for us, they are almost always right, so that doesn’t happen very often. It does not mean they cannot annoy everyone, though.

#4. Leo

Leos love to boast their qualities, and that’s a fact. Of course, there’s a lot for them to brag about, but we can do without their egos from time to time. Getting into any conversation with a Leo, you will quickly realize that you don’t have a word to say and that they think they are always right because they’re just the best.

Being such social creatures, it is easy for them to make conversation, even though sometimes they can take over the discussion with stories starring all them. And since they have such a great opinion about themselves, it is usually tricky to make them see your side of the story.

#Zodiac #Zodiac Signs #Zodiacs #zodiac facts #zodiacsign #astrology #astrology signs #Aries #Aquarius #Cancer #Capricorn #leo #libra #Gemini #virgo #Pisces #Sagittarius #taurus #scorpio

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galaxythreads · 10 months ago

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Would you ever write a time loop story? (This isn’t a request! Just wondering if you’re into that type of story)

Maybe. I don't know. I've read a lot of time loop stories, but I've never found one that I wanted to reread. I've always felt like the stories start to feel all like they have the same plot and you're just rereading the same thing happening over and over again (like. unintentionally on the author's part.) It's hard to develop any real meaningful character development when no one else grows with MC stuck in the loop. Maybe I just haven't read the right one. I like well-thought-out time loop and time travel stories, especially ones that use the medium to its fullest potential. but. Idk.

If I did do it, I'd have to think about a way to twist the trope in a way that made it more interesting for me personally. I've always loved the idea of writing a post Endgame fic where Thor goes back in time to fix everything that went wrong and then ends up making it 4000x worse. Hm. I don't know. You've got me thinking about a time loop story now, lol.

#anon answered #galaxy's writing

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the-habbit-reviewer · 4 months ago

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I think that in theory I figured out the issue with most Gen 2 Slenderverse (obviously aside from RRH). The whole idea is that the slenderverse is "art for everyone." The problem is that for most new gen creators it isn't even really art anymore. It's filming for the sake of putting something out there, and or for a chance at fame. A social flex. Its all the old formulas recycled into oblivion. It's nothing creative or thoughtful. There is no meaning behind anything. No groundbreaking ideas, unique shots, or solid acting.

What was something new and refreshing became overused. Not only this, but most new gen creators are either teens or young adults, most of which don't have their lives together. Even if they did (by very rare chance) have a solid theme or story they wanted to get across? How do you produce something stable when you can't definitively say when or how something is going to happen?

Not only this, but in general the fandom is already filled to the brim with toxicity and general crackheadery, and it is apparently for everyone, so people who are /maybe/ not the most sound individuals get big, then get platforms to be egotistical, careless, and otherwise suspicious in their own assorted ways.

It needs to become art again. Not an aimless popularity contest.

see chat? this fella gets it. I love the Slenderverse conceptually, because found footage could be such an interesting medium to express yourself, but no one ever uses it to its fullest potential. they all look at Marble Hornets and think, "what if I did that?"

on its own, that's not a bad thing. doing your own spin on an already existing concept could lead to a ton of creative stuff, but no one ever actually does their own spin on anything. then they get really egotistical about it for some reason.

the only SV series I actually enjoy are EverymanHYBRID and Stan Frederick. They actually do things with the medium they're made in, and actually have characters to care for. Hell, even some series I don't like at least have something that makes them unique. DarkHarvest00 has some really interesting worldbuilding.

I may be helping with the toxicity thing which was *not* the intention of this blog, but if it gets teds goons this riled up then... hehe...

I do try my best to be as constructive as possible, though. maybe I could add an entire segment to my reviews that's just being constructive. Even though being the CinemaSins of the Slenderverse is a little more funny... it's a lot to think about.

#Slenderverse #sv #Slender Man #Hollow Hemlocks #artificial intolerance #new gen slenderverse #slenderverse gen 3

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bobcatmoran · 1 year ago

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I went and took full advantage of being off from work today and Local Movie Theater's "Treat Yourself Tuesday" special to go see "Across the Spider-Verse," and it lived up to everything I'd hoped for and themsome. Amazing characters, both old and new, and it did all sorts of things with animation that I never thought I'd see in a full-length release from a major studio (THE USE OF COLORS AND LIGHTING AND BACKGROUNDS IN GWEN'S UNIVERSE! HOBIE! THAT VERY SUBTLE VISUAL DIFFERENCE IN COLORING AND LINE WEIGHTS WHEN THEY GO TO [GIANT SPOILER]!) It used the medium to its fullest potential, expanding even further on the stylistic range of "Into the Spider-Verse."

I can confirm, though, that this is a very very very bad movie for anyone with visual sensitivities, literally from the first few seconds (they have the studio logos fizzle through alternate versions at a very rapid rate), so heads up on that.

There was one other gal who came alone who was about my age, and we both cracked the eff up at Ben Reilly's introduction. Only complaint is no Toei Spiderman/Leopardon, though I suppose rights to them are a convoluted mess.

I also want to scream about Hobie again, because my gosh, I love the character, love how he's Actually Punk, not just the aesthetic, and I never in a million years thought I'd see a major studio motion picture have a heroic character that looks like him and also that is animated the way he is. There's like, at least 3 different framerates going on with different components, the jaggedy cut-out edges, the occasional bits where it looks like he's been drawn on cut-out magazine and newspaper clippings. So good. (did I mention that this movie is bad for visual sensitivities though?)

Anyway. If you saw the first movie and liked it, GO. Go see it. Heck, if you're ok with flickering/flashing animation and you didn't see the first movie, go watch that first, and then go see this one. Seriously one of the best movie experiences I've had in years.

#across the spider verse

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kellanved-ammanas · 2 years ago

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TF2 Drabbles: Engie/Demo/Soldier - Direct Hit

Summary: the Rogue Science chapter had me thinking about Demo, Soldier and Engie working together on rocket science (propellants are generally explosives, and Soldier's best equipped to test out the rockets).

[A/N] Even though the physics of 'more damage, lower impact radius' don't make real world sense, I had to reference the Direct Hit in this because it's the best rocket launcher. Not objectively of course, stock is more effective in many situations, especially considering my aim with the Direct Hit isn't good enough to make it shine to its fullest potential. But it is the most fun (when popping off with it anyway) and thus is my favourite, making it the best as far as I'm concerned.

Demo and Engie’s elaborate explanations about what made this new launcher and its rockets different made little sense to Soldier. They used too many big fancy science words, some of which Soldier had never even heard before. Listening intently anyway though, he was pretty sure he got the basic gist of it.

“So it fires faster and does more damage,” he said once he was sure they were finished.

“Uh… yeah, pretty much,” Engie said with a slight chuckle. Why he and Demo didn’t just say that was a mystery. But they were smart people and smart people liked to over complicate things whenever possible. Unlike most smart people though, they never talked down to Soldier so he didn’t mind letting them.

“Great. Let’s go test it.” Soldier closed the case housing the new launcher so he could pick it up by the handle and lead the way out of Engie’s workshop.

Out on the shooting range, he placed the case on the table so he could open it again and pull the launcher out and heft it up onto his shoulder. Even if it was still just a prototype, it was heavier than his standard launcher and the heaviest in general, though not by much. That had to mean it was more powerful, as promised.

Demo put down the case containing the new rockets he’d made that the launcher was designed to fit. “All right,” he said as he opened it, allowing Soldier to grab one and load it in. “Same testing rules as always. Shoot a third of these at the nearer targets, and then medium, and then far away.”

“Yep, on it.” Soldier was used to this procedure by now. Sometimes things went great and he got a new rocket launcher to use on the battlefield that filled a slightly different role in his arsenal. Other times, the changes made to the launcher design and/or the rockets themselves didn’t make any kind of substantial difference and thus was a failed experiment. According to Demo and Engie anyway, as long as the launcher worked well it was a success to Soldier. Only once had things gone disastrously bad with the launcher blowing up in his hands after he’d fired it a few too many times in a row. Demo and Engie had been a bit nervous about letting him test any more after that but thankfully he’d finally convinced them not to worry about it.

Thank goodness too because after only firing a few rockets, this was starting to look like it was going to fall into the former category. It fired significantly faster, worth it all by itself, but also it did indeed look like it was doing more damage to the targets. How much that would translate when it came to firing at people couldn’t be figured until taking it out on the battlefield but more damage was always good even if it was just a little bit.

“Looks like the blast radius is smaller,” Engie observed.

Soldier had noticed that too. “That’s okay. I’ll just shoot those BLU sons of bitches in the face.” The faster rocket would make that easier anyway.

“Seems this one might be a success then,” Demo said. “Should probably finish running it through testing and all that anyway though, just in case.”

Soldier was more than happy to do so. He loved playing with all the new rocket launchers they made for him.

#my writing #tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 drabbles #engineer #soldier #demoman #enigedemosolly

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silverskulltula · 11 months ago

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listen I kinda scoff at people who put immersion above all other qualities in a game (like "fun" "quality of life" or "respecting the player and their time") BUT I will say that when it comes to VR I want to be so immersed that I forget the outside world even exists. I can't praise Half Life Alyx enough for using its medium to its fullest potential. Alyx actually made me scared of headcrabs, barnacles, and regular zombies. Half Life Alyx had me scared of THE DARK in a video game. My only personal nitpick is that Alyx went all-in on immersion to the point that it made the gameplay and combat a little lighter than I'd prefer in order to laser focus on what it did excellently. As much as I would've loved a Half Life 2 sized arsenal of weapons, it probably would've ruined the flow and the game would've suffered as a result. Alyx made firefights with small groups of enemies fun (and very challenging against even single heavy Combine shotgunners) so it nailed what it was going for in the end. I hope Valve hasn't gotten bored of VR because I'm dying to see whatever they're working on next. I hate that the only other big entity putting money into VR at the moment is Facebook/Meta because whatever they work on either requires a Quest or is dumbed down to fit its specs. >:(

#texttula #i NEED more quality VR games PLEASEEEE

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eponymous-rose · 4 years ago

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Return of the Revenge of the Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E108-109 (September 15, 2020)

It’s been six months since the last Speech Machine Upper Luminosity (is that right?), so let’s jump right back in like nothing ever happened!

Tonight’s guests are Laura Bailey and Matt Mercer!

Announcements: Talks will now be biweekly, discussing two episodes at a time! Unfortunately, this means fan question submissions aren’t doable yet, since they’ll often be filming Talks for episodes that haven’t aired yet; questions will come from crew, but fanart and cosplay from earlier episodes will still get awards. Dani Carr’s new official title in the company is Lorekeeper!

Episodes 108-109

Brian asks Matt about the tug-of-war with the Moonweaver’s influence: “how much of that did the Traveler and Jester’s interactions influence him not going back to the Feywild?” Matt: “Okay, well, the Moonweaver isn’t necessarily happy about taking on the images and icons and co-opting elements of her worship, but also isn’t a vindictive deity necessarily.” She has a similar fey history to Artagan, “so I knew this encounter, there would be a punishment involved, at the very least to take Artagan down a few pegs.” He wasn’t going to be actually banished; the Moonweaver just wanted to “scare the shit out of him: You think you’re a trickery god? Welcome to the original trickery god, bitch.” There was a possibility of him just vanishing for a while, if there was no sign of humility; but based on their interactions, it was just enough to show the planetar that maybe this isn’t the same “troll of an Archfey” that the Moonweaver had known. “Maybe this is enough of a lesson.”

Laura thought Artagan was going to be “gone-gone, and Jester was going to be left alone”. She thought there was going to be a Feywild rescue, and Jester would have to try to find a new deity.

Laura’s wi-fi conks out. So does mine. Ah, 2020.

Jester would probably have followed the Moonweaver in an attempt to make amends. Laura mentions that every time she sat down to prep something for Traveler-Con, she realized Jester wouldn’t sit still long enough to plan it.

Laura: “If that cult hadn’t been there and she hadn’t seen what a false god could do to people, I don’t think she would have come to the realization that what her and the Traveler were doing was detrimental: oh, we’re fucking over people’s lives, hardcore.” If Artagan hadn’t been on board with picking a different deity, Jester would have stepped down at Traveler Con and she would have exposed the lie.

Matt’s “super happy” because he was purposely making sure he didn’t know what was going to happen at Traveler Con. “Okay, everything around it’s going to be interesting and fleshed out, but as to the actual convention, I have no idea what’s going to happen.” He wanted to balance a complete train wreck with character beats and mini-arcs, and he was satisfied with how that worked out.

Brian asks if Jester ever considered walking away from the Traveler. Laura: “Yeah. It could have progressed to that point. Jester always gave him the benefit of the doubt, and loves him with her entire heart, so if he would have not seen that what they were doing was not acceptable, in his own way, then Jester would have probably walked away. I don’t know if she would have walked away from him, but it would have been a big issue for her. I have no idea what that would have meant for her... my entire character arc.”

How does Jester feel about the Traveler now? “She loves him, but at the same time, she doesn’t adore him without boundaries. She sees a little bit more of who he is, and the worshiping aspect isn’t there anymore. She sees him more like another friend. That’s a complicated relationship for a cleric to have.”

Matt talks about what a fan he is of his players. “I’ve just been enjoying the hell out of this.”

Has Artagan learned his lesson? He’s been living for a long time, and old habits are hard to break. Matt points out that Artagan “is free in a place that he doesn’t have complete domain over, and he’s been humbled a few times. I think he’s definitely learned a series of lessons to some degree. We’ll see how far it sticks and where their relationship goes.”

Brian asks Laura how it’s been to have the spotlight on Jester for a long time. Laura: “It was nerve-wracking. I feel very relieved that it’s on to something else now, but it was so much fun, too. I feel like I kept getting so emotional as her through all this. Having to come to terms with all the things she was going through was crazy. But it felt good.”

Cosplay of the Week: An amazing Yasha by @shiieldmaiden on Twitter, photo by @asheneyed.

Matt: “I took a bath for this.”

Brian notes that Jester found herself caught between her god and the M9. Who would she have chosen if Artagan hadn’t kicked her off? Laura: “Here’s the thing. If Fjord hadn’t jumped on my back, Jester would have gone. But him doing that, I mean, that’s why I froze like I did. I really didn’t know where it was going to go. Thankfully Artie made that choice for me.”

The Vilya reveal’s been waiting since Marisha made Keyleth’s backstory. Brian recalls that the question of what happened to Vilya came up in the campaign 1 recap, and Matt was cagey about it. “When I got the original backstory from Marisha, in my head, I was like, her mother’s probably still alive, just lost to the chaos for reasons that I’ll get to, but I like the idea of an eventual reunion when it made sense.” As they got later in the campaign, Keyleth’s story became about taking on this leadership and stepping into her mother’s footsteps: “I didn’t want to rob her of her journey by bringing her mother into it before it was complete. There wasn’t a beat that felt right for it in the first campaign unless the players actively wanted to go and seek it out.” He knew she was on an island somewhere, and that there was an issue with her memory, but the details were still hazy, and it never came up in the first campaign. “As soon as we got to Rumblecusp as a possible visiting location, I was like, this would probably be the island that Vilya’s at.” He knew the community would pick up on it quickly, but the players would likely be too engrossed in their own story. “Getting to send her home was wonderful, both for an idea of closure, but as a long-waiting gift to Marisha and Keyleth. It’s something that I’ve been looking forward to giving to her.”

On building Vilya’s character: “I wanted to make sure she wasn’t too similar to Keyleth. She couldn’t remember her family, but when she did, it meant everything.”

Brian asks what inspires Jester’s thought process to try and befriend every creature they come across. “Everyone is interesting. Except for Celia, she’s a bitch. If you piss her off, she might just hate you forever, but everybody else she thinks is pretty great. Jester can hold a good grudge.”

Brian asks Matt about the inspiration for Vokodo. “It is a heavily customized version of a Morkoth. I was just intrigued by how they had created this creature that creates this island around it. It has ways of affecting the minds of creatures around it. I didn’t enjoy that the creature was only Medium in size, and I wanted it to be something that was a little bit more changed by its experiences.” He also tied it in with the Astral Sea lore and suggested that it had been changed by its proximity to this volcano, similarly to how Thordak did in the first campaign.

Fan Art of the Week: An amazing Traveler Con Jester and Artagan by @callanthee on Twitter

How about the visions of the living city? Laura: “I don’t know what the fuck is going on with that thing. If it true that there’s a Molly connection, the Eyes of Nine, I don’t know. It’s just too much. We have to look into it.” Matt, blandly: “Weird mysteries.”

Who would the Disintegrate spell have hit if it had ricocheted? “Initially, I would have wanted to choose Caleb, like back at himself, because the immediate threat of that ray towards Vokodo, it would have been just right back at him.” But the runner-up would have been Jester because of the threat of the banishment back to the Astral Sea, the one place he didn’t want to go.

Laura could tell from Liam’s gameplay that he hadn’t realized someone was going to perma-die from that. “I thought it was going to be me, because I had been the one to banish him.”

Dani points out that the group would probably have gone after Artagan if Jester had died right before Traveler Con.

Matt highlights Cad’s Divine Intervention as pretty much the only way they could have learned the important information they used to prepare for the fight with Vokodo. He was torn between frustration at not being able to use this boss to its fullest potential... and pride in his players.

Laura is amused at listening to the characters talking about Jester when she’s not there. “It’s fun to hear but not be able to use that at all in your interactions with them.” Laura points out that even her sister who watches the show doesn’t trust the Traveler. Matt mentions that he’s always being very careful with the relationship between the Traveler and Jester, because it could get into rough territory. “There are unhealthy elements of their relationship, very much so. A lot of her story has been about disillusionment.” Laura: “Yeah. Eyes open.” They’ve set up bumpers to make sure they don’t veer into territory the players find uncomfortable.

“Artagan at the end of campaign one versus Artagan at campaign two are different. He came into this world a purely selfish being of id and impulse. He still has those dark tendencies and can lean down those dark paths. But he went from a purely chaotic, selfish creature to unintentionally beginning to care for people that aren’t him.” Traveler Con definitely left a mark on him. “Aw shit, I let them in.”

Sam starts Facetiming Brian. “How does he know when we’re filming this?! No. I’m not going to do it.”

Matt and Laura are "super excited” for the new landscape of the next part of the journey.

Laura notes that Jester is getting past the point of “needing to put on the mask”, including around her mom. And as that’s happened at Traveler Con, the small breakdowns have been piling up. “That’s what therapy’s like, right?”

On the new goliath shopkeeper (even with the mispronunciations as clues, I got nothing on that spelling), Matt points out that purchasing magical items is tricky because most things were pulled into the war effort. He was trying to figure out how a shopkeeper could build a business in that environment: “with a bunch of really small, shitty enchantments”. As a kid, he loved novelty shops, and took a lot of inspiration from those memories.

So glad everything’s back in business! “As always, don’t forget to love each other. And don’t worry, it’s almost Thursday.”

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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kanohivolitakk · 3 years ago

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send me a fandom and i’ll tell you three things i would fix from canon? Could I ask you Touhou for this one if there's anything? Or any Bionicle series if there's nothing for Touhou

The thing with Touhou is that its a very...transformative franchise. Canon is basically a playground used to play with stuff. As such its rather difficult for me to think of WHAT I would fix in canon (not that the canon doesnt need fixing). The only things I can really think of is: please. For the love of Moriya shrine gods. Actually reuse your characters in the gmes ZUN. Since touhou kinda has the problem where they make 5000 new characters rather than using the old ones. Like sometimes Im just "why didnt they just bring x back instead of making a rando I dont really care for". I get why to an extent (part of it feels like a new idea showcase) but still, the constant making of new characters feels a bit hollow. A lot of the more recent characters feel a bit..uninspired for me so I feel not constantly doing new characters would do wonders. This is only really a problem with the mainline games as the spinoffs and canonical supplementary material like books and comics (yes touhou has canonical supplementary material) are a bit better with that from I read. Theres also a lot of fancontent for most characters, so that fixes the issue as well.

Also on a related note, please bring back ur pc98 era characters ZUN. At least some of them. At least please bring Mima back people have asked so long it isn't funny anymore

Soo, since thats really the only thing I would've fixed when it comes to touhou, Im doing Bionicle as well.

1. Honestly, one of the biggest issues with Bionicle is that some arcs need a bit of a structural overhaul. This is especially true with my favorite arc (2004/Metru Nui arc), thats a bit all over the place due to basically needing three mediums to follow the whole story of that year (not to mention chronologically you need to jump back and forth between said mediums). While I love the multimedia aspect of Bionicle, I feel that sometimes it hurts the story more than it helps.

2. More. Detailed. Lore. What I mean with this is that god, not every character needs to be a new species, they can share you know. Theres also the fact that the Matoran society feels a bit too separate from rest of the world .I feel this is partially the point, but with some stuff it just feels disconnected (like the big twist for instance. It only really makes sense with the matoran society and not much with the rest of the world).

3. More hidden depths for characters, especially the villains. As much as I love my Bonkle villains, I feel a lot of them fall into the "scheming bastard who tries to overthrow everyone" trope. And dont get me wrong I LOVE villains like that and not every villain needs to be sympathetic (esp in the year of 2021 where ppl think writing sympathetic villains means automatically good writing). But the thing is, every trope gets tiresome when done a lot of times, and I feel by the end of the story theres a bit too many keikakuing bastards. As such I wouldve loved if the series had a bit more tragic or sympathetic villains (we only really have one explictly sympathetic villain and a few arguable bastards), or at least given some bastards a bit more deprh and layers. I also feel that some characters were under or misused, and didnt reach their fullest potential. A good example of this is the organization Dark Hunters as whole, as for a powerful mercenary organization they never really played important role in the main story, only being important in the overarching plot and backstory rather than the main storylines. Seriously in the main storyline they only matter in 2004 (where the two villains for the arc were part of the organization and hired by the main villain of the franchise), 2005 to a lesser extent (where the boss of said organization made his first appereance and that was in an epilogue story for sais arc) and 2006 (where the villains of that arc were ex members of the organization so they dont really count). In addition several members only are glorified flavor text, the only ones that play an actual role besides the 2004 and 2006 arc villains are the leader of the organization, his lietnuant (and even he was done very dirty as guy was un eremoniously killed off in one storyline), the best ninja assaasin knife girl and maybe one or two others.

But aaa thank you for asking and hope you enjoyed.

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starblazerm31 · 5 years ago

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Apprentice April Asks #1 Azalea/Imalia

Here are my answers to my Apprentice April Asks #1. Thanks so very much to @leis-main-blog and @verysoftthings for sending me asks! I honestly wasn’t expecting it. ^^; I tend to write books about these two, so I made a separate post.

1. The Basics. What is your character's name? How old are they? How tall are they? Skin color? Eye color? Hair color? Gender identification?

Azalea Larinya Nevra. 30, female. 5'6"; medium skin tone; eyes blue with gold around the pupils; hair aqua to coral ombre; medium length

Imalia Vilyana Gabriev. 36, female. 5'10"; fair skin tone; eyes crimson; hair brown with burgundy ends; very long (art by @carowhitewolf)

2. Love Interest. Who does your character love? What attracted them to that particular LI?

Julian/Lucio (different universes).

Julian - she loved how kind he was, and she adored his bumbling. She was compelled to help him because his cause was right. He couldn't be guilty, he was too much of a good man. She really wanted to help him with his own inner demons as well because he didn't deserve to suffer, even at his own hand. That glorious chest didn't help either, lol.

Lucio - she thought he was overall adorable. Yeah, he was hot as hell, but it was his personality that got her heart thumping. He really was brave and skilled, and she had a feeling that not many others had appreciated it much. Yeah, he had done some horrendous things; but Azalea could see the actual changes happening in him and she knew that he had hope.

Asra. She had known Asra since she was 15 and he was 8. They had a good 20 year friendship and she knew him very well. She fell for him when that friendship veil lifted after the events of The Arcana story and she finally really noticed how beautiful he was. "He's smart, kind, talented, awesome...AND hot?! THE WHOLE PACKAGE?! I'm such an idiot..."

3. Familiar. Does your character have a familiar? How did they meet?

Corva, a white raven. She met Corva when Malak led her to an alley where Corva was lying on the ground with a broken wing. Azalea nursed Corva back to health, and Corva refused to ever leave. (image c. Mike Yip)

Balthazaar, a phoenix. Balthazaar was one of the phoenixes in the magical menagerie at the University of Prakra. He was ornery, and the handlers had a hard time with him. Imalia liked how stubborn he was and over time developed a rapport and closeness with him. The university allowed her to claim him as her familiar and take him home. (image c. Kiss Clip Art)

4. Hobbies. What kinds of things does your character like to do for fun?

Parquor. She loves running around, slipping up buildings, jumping over rooftops and sliding down poles. XD She's a very high-energy person and parquor keeps her healthy and mentally sharp. She also enjoys writing. She will write on just about anything that has her attention at the moment. Magical theory is one of her favorite subjects, but she does enjoy writing fiction.

Her hobby...is harassing bandits. She gets perverse joy out of robbing robbers blind. If she can find the original owners of things that were stolen...awesome. If not...hey, this is an ancient Drakrian fertility statue! I'm gonna put this on my shelf at home. Oh, and leaving off-color messages in ancient languages in ruins. "Here I sit all broken-hearted..."

5. Hidden talents. Is there something neat that your character can do? Tie a cherry stem into a knot with their tongue? Say any word backwards perfectly?

Azalea is kinda like Sherlock Holmes. She can look at a person and form their entire story in her mind. She never uses it against someone; she just uses it to be more friendly. But if you're annoying her and won't go away...she will scare you with what she has figured out about you.

Imalia secretly loves to sing and isn't terrible at it. She's one of those people who will sing in the bath, and if someone mentions it, she acts like it didn't happen.

6. Magical talents. Is there a specific type of magic that your character excels at? Any magic they aren't so great at? Or do they actually shy away from magic altogether?

Lightning. She's good at conducting the currents and utilizing its explosive capabilities. She also uses lightning as a personal shield while in battle. She is also really good at enchanting things; like her hair. She makes enchanted dreamcatchers that actually catch nightmares. Both Julian and Lucio appreciate this ability. (Lucio's dreamcatcher needs to be cleansed more often than Julian's)

Fire and Darkness. Imalia is in tune with fire and is extremely good at using it to its fullest potential; absolute destruction. As for the darkness...that will be explained in number 12.

7. Interaction. How does your character typically interact with people?

She is very polite, but not overly so. She tries to come off as someone you can actually have a conversation with. Sometimes if she's feeling nervous, she will go into overly-polite mode, but if the vibe starts to feel calmer, she will loosen up. She is very energetic and sometimes hyper with her friends.

She is ingratiating and very proper until you piss her off. Then you get things like "Why don't you get a horse, move up to the mountains, and don't bother anybody? You have the personality of a dead moth." (RIP Don Rickles) With friends, she's very laid back and frank with what she says.

8. Romance. What is something that your character and their LI love to do together? How do they show affection?

Azalea x Julian - They LOVE to read together. They have spent hours cuddled up together over a good book. Azalea shows Julian affection with gentle touches, kisses, and koala hugs. (she really loves how tall he is) She also makes sure he eats and gets plenty of rest. More than once, she has brought him dinner to his clinic while he was working late.

Azalea x Lucio - They love to spar. They are so different in fighting style that sparring really helps them improve their skills. Also, the prize at the end for the winner is quite nice. ^_~ Azalea shows Lucio affection by listening to him and holding him. She also likes to try to out kiss him. He reaches for her hand, she spins away and plants two on his cheek instead.

Imalia and Asra love to travel the Magical Realms together. They get into really long and in-depth conversations about the things they see and experiment with how their willpower affects the realm around them. Imalia shows affection by constant words of praise and sneaky touches and kisses. The more she can surprise him, the better. She also keeps a hefty supply of Lapsang Souchong tea at her estate for him and loves giving him little trinkets and things she has found on her travels.

9. Travel. Does your character like to travel outside of Vesuvia? How often? For how long? What kinds of things do they do away from home?

Yes. She loves to see more of the world and meet new people and see different cultures. She will travel maybe once every year or two. When traveling, she will typically stay away for 1-2 months. She loves adventure, but she does love her home more. Azalea loves to learn new types of magic or new methods of spellcasting from different cultures. She finds that certain techniques make her own magic stronger.

Definitely. She herself is originally from the northern hemisphere, so travel isn't something new to her. She gets wanderlust sometimes and has to get out into the world. She will be gone typically for six months when she decides to travel. She has been gone for three years before. She HAS to investigate old ruins wherever she goes. Who knows that treasures or knowledge lay inside? She must find out!

10. WTF. Has anything just...weird ever happened to your character? Something that made them stop and go "What just happened?!"

She was trying to brew a potion that would allow the drinker to become a mermaid for a short while. She ended up spilling it on a plant before it was done. The plant sprouted tiny muscular hairy legs and arms, stood up, walked to the window, shook its fist at her, and jumped out. Turns out she had forgotten a key ingredient in the early stages of brewing the potion. Mazelinka made fun of her for a solid week.

One time, she and a rival mage were about to have a battle. Right before they were to begin, this strange fellow wearing a sentient red cape fell from the sky and landed in between them. He promptly stood to his feet, apologized for the intrusion, and left. (Yes...I do mean Doctor Strange fell from the sky)

11. Crime. Has your character ever been arrested? If so, what did they do? Have they ever helped stop a crime?

She has never been arrested, however, she is guilty of petty larceny. It's not something she does often...just when some jerk needs to be taught a lesson. They always get their stuff back, but she will make sure they are thoroughly inconvenienced. She has stopped another thief before. The thief took the purse of an elderly individual who was trying to buy food. Azalea scaled up to the rooftops and cut the thief off, holding him down until the guards caught up and arrested him. She gave the money back to its owner.

Yep. She's been arrested plenty of times. Usually for assault and/or destruction of property. Hey, that jerk deserved to have his carriage set on fire. She has stopped several assassination attempts on her cousin, Queen Dreen Suval of Seiruun. She has also stopped dark plots at the Magical University in Prakra.

12. Secrets. What is a secret your character has? Are they in line for the throne in a far off land? Was there this one time at band camp...? Are they secretly involved in an assassin's guild?

Azalea secretly writes smut. She loves it. And her actual hair color is gray. The aqua-coral is an enchantment.

Imalia actually is in line for the throne of Seiruun; second in line, to be exact. But she HATES this. It's why she continues to live in Vesuvia rather than her home country. Imalia is also no longer entirely human. During an adventure that went terribly wrong, she summoned the Lord of Nightmares while inside the Magical Realms. (The Lord of Nightmares or "Lon" is an eldritch goddess) Lon then proceeded to implant herself inside Imalia. Lon is a being of pure darkness and nightmare, so Imalia has control over darkness when she taps into Lon's power. Through some creative wording, the contract between the two of them allows Imalia to use Lon's power and form when she needs to; however, Imalia is forever plagued by terrible nightmares that not even Azalea's dreamcatchers can stop. The dreamcatchers just catch on fire.

13. Overcompensation. Is there something that your character just HAS to do better than anyone else? Or are they just that dang good without trying? If they see someone else showing off, what is their kneejerk reaction?

She's actually quite humble. If she sees someone showing off, she really just concerns herself with their safety. "Please don't be careless and die, please!" But she IS gifted. Her magic is insanely strong, she just doesn't like to make a big deal out of it. She gets embarrassed.

She is the best in the room, and you'd better damn well know it. Unless she respects you. Then she will tone it down. But if she sees a showoff...she's got to mess with them. She's got to show them that they aren't all that and a bag of chips.

14. Fight Club. Is your character a good fighter? What kind of skills do they have?

She's pretty decent. Her attack magic is awesome, but her physical fighting mainly relies on how quick and squirmy she is. Her punches hurt, but they don't incapacitate.

She can fight pretty damn well. Her father made sure of it after most of her family was killed by assassins (it does sometimes really suck to be royalty). She is a heavy hitter and her intent is to end a fight with one strike. It doesn't always work, but hey...second, third, maybe fourth time is the charm. Or maybe you should just blow it the hell up.

15. The Arts. Is your character a creative type? What kinds of things can they create? Can they act? Street perform?

She is. Like mentioned earlier, she writes and makes dreamcatchers; she also gets into stage acting with Julian (when he's her LI). She's not a solo performer though. She has to be in a troupe or else she gets massive stage fright.

She can draw very well, almost photo-realistically. She mainly uses this skill for documentation when she's studying something. But every great once in a while she will draw a political cartoon making fun of some noble. Once she drew a penis on the face of one of Lucio's statues. He snapped back "I'd never put something that small in my mouth!" She retorted by drawing a full body penis on a different statue. It got misinterpreted by many townspeople as "Hey, look! Lucio is a dick!!"

16. Goofy. Is your character a clown? Do they like to make people laugh?

She does. She doesn't see herself as funny, but when she slips in something humorous into whatever she's talking about it usually takes whoever is listening by surprise. Spit your drink kind of humor.

YES. She has such a strange way of speaking sometimes that you can't help but snort at the things she says. Yes, it is entirely on purpose. She loves to crack jokes and has a self-deprecating sense of humor at times. She will also be hilariously over-confident as well.

17. Language. Is your character multilingual? How many languages do they speak? Do they have an accent? Is it sexy? Is it silly? Do they have the multilingual lisp?

No. She only speaks her native language.

Yes. Imalia speaks ten different languages. In her normal language, she doesn't have a multilingual lisp; but in about four of her other languages, she does. It drives her nuts, but she just can't seem to fix it.

18. Embarrassment. What is something really embarrassing that your character has done/said?

Azalea can't remember this, because it's part of the memories she lost. But Imalia remembers. One time she was going to meet one of the magisters of the Magical University of Prakra to see if she would be accepted. She spent weeks preparing how to introduce herself. On the day of, she mentioned how excited she was to meet Magister Asshole. Imalia blinked and said, "It's pronounced Ah-shole."

One time she said something quite rude about Lucio in front of Azalea (when Lucio is Azalea's LI). Azalea proceeded to tear her a new rectum, claiming that for someone so smart, she was incredibly closed-minded.

19. Memory. Has your character gotten any of their memory back? If so, what? Did it change them?

No. She insists that she doesn't want her memories back because she likes who she is now. She gets the important information from Asra and Imalia...her parents’ and aunt's names, what they were like, and how they died. That's all she feels that she needs.

*looks at me* "I'm exempt from this question. I'm your OC, not your MC." *walks out*

20. Family. Talk about your character's family. Who were they?

Her mother (Etoile) and father (Galen) were traveling merchants. Her mother was the one with magical talent. Her mother's sister (Sylvaine) owned the shop and taught Azalea most about magic. When Azalea was 13, her parents were robbed and killed by bandits just outside of Vesuvia. She lived with Sylvaine until she died of pneumonia when Azalea was 20.

Imalia's father was Vitalric Gabriev and her mother was Narsial Trevallan. When Imalia was 14, her father's family (the Sairuun royal family) were murdered by assassins sent by a rival country. Only Vitalric (and Narsial), Imalia, Vitalric's older brother Rhemun and his daughter Dreen survived. Rhemun and Dreen remained in Seiruun to run the place while Vitalric and his family moved to Vesuvia as a failsafe in case there were other assassination attempts. Vitalric started studying to become a doctor, while Narsial started grooming Imalia to wed into a noble family. Narsial was extremely abusive. Long story short, King Rhemun died of a hunting injury, and both of Imalia's parents died in the Red Plague.

#apprenticeapril #azalea nevra #imalia gabriev #the arcana asks #fan apprentice

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odanurr87 · 5 years ago

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2019: My year in K-Dramas - Part 1

I’ve been getting into kdramas for a few years now, but I usually only watch one or two at a time. This year I watched a lot more (and that’s not counting The Bride of Habaek, which I dropped when it became clear it was a very bad adaptation of the manhwa; Crash Landing on You, which started airing a couple of weeks ago; nor Tomorrow With You, which I haven’t yet finished, what’s probably not a good sign), a few being rewatchs of old shows that I like. Seeing as it’s unlikely I’ll ever write up full reviews for each like I did for Goblin (you can read my review here), I decided to compile this list to tell you what I liked and didn’t like about each, what I feel worked and what didn’t. I’m also including a qualitative metric (Rewatch meter) that tries to gauge how likely it is that I’ll find myself returning to the show in the future (Low, Medium, High). Naturally, your very own meter may differ from mine.

For future reference, these are the shows I watched in 2019 and that I aim to cover in this series of posts:

While You Were Sleeping (2017)

W (2016)

My Strange Hero (2018)

The Secret Life of my Secretary (2019)

Angel’s Last Mission: Love (2019)

Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon (2017)

When the Camellia Blooms (2019)

Bring it on, Ghost (2016)

One More Time (2016)

My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (2010)

My Love From The Star (2014)

Descendants of the Sun (2016)

Regardless of which show did better, overall, I find myself drifting more and more towards Korean dramas than your run-of-the-mill American TV show, save for a few bright exceptions, such as The Expanse. Heck, they’re better than most Hollywood movies nowadays.

Since I’ll probably end up writing a lot, I’ve decided to split this review list into two parts. Let’s start with the last kdrama I watched and work my way backwards... if I can remember, that is.

WARNING! There will be spoilers so read at your own risk.

While You Were Sleeping (2017)

Bae Suzy as Nam Hong-Joo, and Lee Jong-Suk as Jung Jae-Chan.

Release Date: September 27 - November 16, 2017

Episodes: 16

Available on: Viki

Summary: Nam Hong-Joo is a young journalist who has had bad dreams about the future since she was a kid, but she has never been able to change the outcome. Jung Jae-Chan is a rookie prosecutor who moves in across the street with his younger brother. When Jae-Chan has a prophetic dream of his own about Hong-Joo being involved in a car accident, and the tragic events that follow, he makes an impulsive decision to interfere, changing Hong-Joo’s fate and that of police officer Han Woo-Tak in the process. When the three of them start having dreams of one another, they realize their lives are somehow entwined. Together, they decide to use their knowledge of the future for good, but changing someone’s fate is never straightforward, and the consequences for doing so may be more than they can handle.

What I liked:

The concept and writing. This is the second show I’ve watched, in chronological order, with Lee Jong-Suk as a lead where I’m really attracted by the concept. Imagine if you could take the precogs from Minority Report and give them (relatively) normal lives inside a kdrama. This is the result. Even better, having Hong-Joo and Woo-Tak have different and often contradicting dreams about the future makes for an interesting twist, as we see prosecutor Jae-Chan struggling to navigate these prophetic waters in search for the best outcome. Curiously, the show makes a point early on about how Jae-Chan’s the variable upon which their dreams diverge, but nothing really comes off it. Naturally, the concept of multiple diverging futures gives the show’s cinematography a chance to play around a bit, often comparing the same event in alternative timelines, or in the same timeline but at different moments in time. It may sound complicated, but it’s pretty to grasp once you start watching. Furthermore, the writing’s pretty tight all around, what’s not a mean feat when you’re juggling multiple realities, with some very emotional payoffs as the show draws to a close. Perhaps its weakest point is exactly how this prophetic dream ability is transferred from person to person (a theory is put forward which doesn’t entirely convince me), and the unnerving (and unexplored, fortunately) implications should someone less honourable were to have these dreams.

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When The Nightmares Started. This is the best track in the entire show and if it’s not the main theme, it damn well should be. It has moments of calm, a hint of romance and hope, and that awesome shit-is-about-to-get-real cue starting at 1:38 that never fails to make a scene tons more epic. Your dish-washing experience will be 100% more epic playing to this track, guaranteed!

The Justice League (and friends). This show could’ve probably gotten on my bad side real fast if it had created a villain with the same superpower as the heroes (depends on the execution to be honest) and, indeed, I thought that was the direction it would inevitably take, revealing at some point that (evil) defense attorney Lee Yoo-Beom also had prophetic dreams and had been using them for his benefit all along, muahahaha! Instead, the show gave us three average people, connected by their prophetic dreams, who decide to team up and use these visions for good. It’s not always easy to change the future, as it has many ramifications, and therein lies the show’s narrative potential that it manages to exploit, perchance to its fullest. Even in the very last episode there’s a hint that maybe the people they’ve helped throughout also have dreams of their own that they use to help others, sort of a pay-it-forward chain. It may be somewhat unrealistic, but it’s a good note to end the show on all the same.

Kim Won-Hae as Choi Dam-Dong. Easily the best supporting character in the show, delivering a stronger and more rewarding performance than in Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, where he played two characters (he was pretty funny as the over-the-top head of development planning at Ainsoft), veering towards the more serious/dramatic/emotional end of the spectrum, although with some comedic elements mixed in. I was surprised by how strong his arc turned out to be, and my respect for his character went up by several points when his arc comes to a close and we finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together. This man can do both comedy and drama, so kudos to him.

What I didn’t like:

Mr. Perfect (also known as Han Woo-Tak). It’s not that I dislike him, far from it. Woo-Tak is so good, smart, selfless, and even good-looking, that he kinda undermines the OTP just by existing. He’s really setting unreasonable standards for any man to compete against. I mean, he even plays Cupid for the OTP... while also being in love with Hong-Joo! On the plus side, the show doesn’t really try to push the romantic triangle angle, what usually has mixed results. The one thing I did mind is how the show hints at him potentially being a better attorney/prosecutor than the main lead since that’s kind of Jae-Chan’s thing. I mean, if you take everything that makes the lead special and give it to someone else, is he still the lead?

OTP: A stronger performance from Lee Jong-Suk than in W, complemented by a relatively (and I cannot stress this word enough) weaker performance by Suzy in some aspects (I think Han Hyo-Joon’s Oh Yeon-Joo in W does sad love better than Suzy as Nam Hong-Joo, but it’s a matter of preference), results in a better pairing with more chemistry. Suzy is great and lovable at being the quirky Nam Hong-Joo (watch the video below if you’re unconvinced) and Jung Jae-Chan is a lot more vulnerable than Kang Chul ever was, but I was left wondering at times whether this couple would’ve gotten as much traction were it not for the strength of their past connection (especially with Mr. Perfect around).

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Verdict: What can I say? While You Were Sleeping was an excellent show from beginning to end. If I were to nitpick, I would’ve chosen the end wedding to be the one between Jae-Chan and Hong-Joo since that honestly makes more sense, and maybe I would’ve made Woo-Tak more of a bro than a somewhat-but-not-entirely romantic rival (think Seo Dae-Young in Descendants of the Sun).

Rewatch meter: High

W (2016)

Han Hyo-Joo as Oh Yeon-Joo, and Lee Jong-Suk as Kang Chul.

Release Date: July 20 - September 14, 2016

Episodes: 16

Available on: Viki

Summary: W is a bestselling webtoon by cartoonist Oh Seong-Moo that follows the adventures of Kang Chul, an Olympic gold medalist framed for the murder of his family, who’s eventually acquitted and becomes a multi-millionaire who fights crime (think Bruce Wayne but without the costume). Tired of his creation, Seong-Moo decides it’s time to kill the protagonist and put an end to the series (much like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decided to kill Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls). Oh Yeon-Joo is Seong-Moo’s daughter, a doctor and passionate fan of W, who is one day mysteriously transported to the world of the manhwa, where she sees a dying Kang Chul and saves his life. Intrigued by his mysterious saviour, Kang Chul decides to learn out more about her and Yeon-Joo finds herself constantly returning to the world of the manhwa. Will Kang Chul learn the truth about her and his world? And if so, what will be the consequences?

What I liked:

The concept. It’s not an altogether original concept, and I’m reminded of Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero (Who Framed Roger Rabbit before that), but it’s also not one that you see often on the screen, big or small. The idea of being able to enter the world you’re reading about and meeting the characters you know and love is extremely appealing and there is some fangirling from our protagonist initially. Naturally, since she knows everything about this world, it’s good fun to see her inadvertedly reveal something that she couldn’t possibly know and deal with the reactions/consequences. What’s better is how Yeon-Joo tries to figure out the laws of the manhwa world by applying the real-world concepts of cliffhangers and dramatic revelations, often to hilarious effect. Seeing how the manhwa continues to write itself to reflect events in W’s world, and the reactions by readers (and by Yeon-Joo) in the real world is really entertaining, especially those from the more passionate W fans.

The transition between animation and live-action. I love the blend between animation and live action, as in the example below. There are more subtle transitions, like when a character’s hand oscillates between the real world and the cartoon world. Perhaps it’s a very simple filter but it looks good. Also, what little we see of the manhwa is very well drawn.

Han Hyo-Joo as Oh Yeon-Joo. Despite the fact that Yeon-Joo’s character becomes less proactive in the second half of the series (as I will discuss below), she was the one who really carried the show for me, certainly on the emotional side of the spectrum, where Kang Chul felt a little flat throughout (to be fair, he’s more the analytical type and he’s a manhwa character). She was also able to convey humour quite well, especially in the earlier, funnier, episodes.

The execution (of the first half). The first episode doesn’t waste a second setting up the story and there is never a dull moment. Watching Yeon-Joo read the latest episode of the manhwa and witness her reaction as she sees herself in the comic was gripping and I was eager to see what the next episode would bring. The show was also fairly consistent with the rules of travelling back and forth and what one could and couldn’t do in the cartoon world. We were witnessing an epic struggle between the cartoonist who wanted to kill his creation with his stylus and the daughter who wanted to protect him so much that she had willed herself into his world (if that’s not a good setup for a love story, I don’t know what is). And all the while, Kang Chul was putting the pieces of the puzzle together in his universal and unrelenting search for truth. Every episode brought something new to the table and, much like the manhwa, ended with some revelation or cliffhanger that kept you on the edge of your seat asking for more. Unfortunately, I think that was also its downfall.

What I didn’t like:

The execution (of the second half) and the overall pacing. I think the (relative) downfall of this series was trying to do too much too early. It worked for the first half because the show had a lot of material it could burn through and, in a way, it was refreshing that it was willing to do so. Sadly, my thoughts eventually turned from, “What’s going to happen next?” to “What can even happen next?” The story was moving so fast that I began to wonder where exactly it was going, and that’s when some of the flaws started to seep through. Episode 9 focused on the aftermath of Yeon-Joo resetting events, thus making Kang Chul forget all about her. While I certainly felt for her when she met her amnesiac husband, this was largely thanks to Han Hyo-Joo’s performance (and good track selection), for Kang Chul had been her husband in name only. Had we previously seen more episodes of their life together, this scene would’ve been a lot more impactful, and her desperate crying outside the operating room more heartfelt. Then, the plot thickens as we move into the (overly) dramatic second half of the show, with the introduction of a villain who knows about the real world and starts manipulating events in the manhwa for his benefit... by possessing cartoonist Oh Seong-Moo! What? This was never established as even remotely possible! (not to mention it doesn’t make sense) As you can imagine, this is whereabouts the rules of this universe start to break down and anything goes. Furthermore, when this villain is defeated in Episode 13, the show suddenly remembered it already had an antagonist perfectly cast for the part and finally decided to put him to use, although too little too late for my taste. As if that weren’t enough, a character is killed because drama, since any other explanation would make no fucking sense. This death is entirely nonsensical and I was beginning to conclude the show should have ended a lot sooner.

The amount of flashbacks/dreams/recaps/plans. I don’t mind a good recap or a flashback every now and then, but there came a point where the show started abusing this narrative device a little too much. The show spent a lot of time either: going over things we already know; featuring lengthy dream sequences that are very transparent and serve no purpose (although, incidentally, would make for a better ending); or laying out how events are supposed to go only for them to go in a completely different direction. While they are sometimes necessary, most of the time they were just padding that actually detracted from the story.

How secondary the supporting characters in the manhwa truly are. I know Kang Chul is supposed to be the protagonist but his bodyguard and secretary aren’t given a whole lot to work with throughout the show. I wish they had been active participants in learning the truth of their world rather than passive bystanders.

How Yeon-Joo becomes less proactive in the second half. Maybe it’s just a feeling, but I think our female protagonist became more reactive and less proactive in the second half, with Kang Chul being the one who mostly directed the course of events. It didn’t help that she kept fainting every now and then, what meant she had to spend some time in bed, what was a shame since she was the more interesting character. To be honest, I think the whole father arc should’ve been over and done with in the first half, with Yeon-Joo stepping up to be the new cartoonist.

OTP: Undercooked, but Han Hyo-Joo manages to almost convince me.

Verdict: It’s hard not to say W is one of the most refreshing shows I’ve seen in a while, even despite its more prominent flaws in the second half. I don’t like how powerful the drawing tablet became, especially after it was established that the manhwa could, at times, overrule the will of the real world, as clearly depicted when Kang Chul refuses to commit suicide. I’d rather the manhwa characters had resolved things on their own, aided by Yeon-Joo, without having to resort to some ultra-powerful plot device. Furthermore, I think the show should’ve taken things a bit more slowly rather than try to surprise us every episode, and use that time to build the relationship between Yeon-Joo and Kang Chul. Another thing I feel the show didn’t exploit to its fullest was the fact that Yeon-Joo knows just about everything that’s transpired in W’s world, what maybe could’ve aided Kang Chul in his investigation (sadly, this is undermined by the fact that the murderer really has no identity, what I find odd). Last but not least, Kang Chul never remembering his “past life” was a missed opportunity.

Rewatch meter: Medium

My Strange Hero (2018)

From left to right: Jo Bo-Ah as Son Soo-Jung; Yoo Seung-Ho as Kang Bok-Soo; and Kwak Dong-Yeon as Oh Se-Ho.

Release Date: December 10, 2018 - February 4, 2019

Episodes: 32

Available on: Viki

Summary: When Kang Bok-Soo was a high school student, he was falsely accused of committing acts of violence and ended up expelled from school. Those who brought the accusations against him were his first love, Son Soo-Jung, and a fellow student, Oh Se-Ho. Nine years later, Bok-Soo saves Soo-Jung’s life and suddenly finds himself a mediatic sensation. In order to improve the school’s somewhat tarnished image, he’s invited back to finish his studies. Bok-Soo hesitates, but when he learns Soo-Jung is a teacher there and Se-Ho is the new director, a latent desire to get revenge surfaces. Will Bok-Soo finally get his revenge on the people who wronged him nine years ago? Or will he spend most of his time doing anything but? The latter.

What I liked:

Teacher Park. He’s the kind of teacher everyone would like to have in high school and an example of moral rectitude that Soo-Jung tries to follow. You can tell he really cares for all the students and always tries to be fair and just, no matter the personal cost.

Soo-Jung’s arc. Probably the character who experiences the most growth throughout the show, in no small part thanks to her starting point. She’s the only teacher who stands up for her students, is willing to expose the corruption in the school, and goes so far as to quit her job because she feels she didn’t earn her spot fair and square (despite Oh Se-Ho telling her she was hired because of her qualifications). It is worth noting that when Mr Park gives the other teachers the chance to own up and resign honourably nobody does.

What I didn’t like:

The series meanders a lot early on. Initially, I watched till Episode 14 and dropped it because nothing was really going on. Bok-Soo says he wants to get revenge but his heart really isn’t into it. He certainly doesn’t have a plan like, say, Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo, or Emily Thorne in Revenge. In fact, for those first 14 episodes, it only seemed he went there to suffer some more at the hands of the same people who wronged him all those years ago. What leads me to...

Son Soo-Jung isn’t a very likable protagonist initially. I don’t know if this is done on purpose to get us to side with Bok-Soo, but it doesn’t seem like a very smart strategy to have us dislike the lead’s main love interest for almost half the length of the series. I mean, that’s what the antagonist is for. It seems like at every opportunity she twists the knife on Bok-Soo’s back a little more, so much so that a hurt Bok-Soo outright demands, “Why don’t you just ask me what happened instead of constantly making assumptions?” (I’m paraphrasing) Her response, basically telling him to fuck off, didn’t win her any points in my book. That’s about when the writers probably realized their mistake and started filling us in on how Soo-Jung’s life was also miserable after Bok-Soo was expelled so please don’t hate her. They also pull a 180 when she stands up for Bok-Soo during a disciplinary hearing, what I thought was quite out of character for her at the time. The two seem to patch up their relationship awfully fast, what struck me as odd as they didn’t seem to have much chemistry. Having said that, Soo-Jung’s character certainly grows after Episode 14 and has a very satisfying arc, ultimately being the only teacher worth a damn in this school, other than Mr Park.

“Is Kang Bok-Soo’s revenge finally starting?” After I initially dropped this show at the Episode 14 mark, a video popped up in my YT feed with that title (only they used the actor’s name instead of the character’s). It was a scene where Bok-Soo went about exposing the many deeds of corruption within the school. Great, I thought, shit is finally hitting the fan... in Episode 26. I resumed watching from that mark until the end. The series had finally managed to get me invested, almost as it was over, and I decided to watch the episodes I’d missed.

OTP: There are some cute moments but I still didn’t feel the chemistry (what, ultimately, is my entirely subjective take).

Verdict: I don’t feel this is a true romance drama like others on this list, if ever it tried to be, what’s decidedly strange because there are many episodes dedicated to exploring the relationship between Bok-Soo and Soo-Jung with little else going on. Instead, I see it as more of a critique on the Korean education system and the immense pressures students are subjected to in order to meet unreasonable standards, with some romance elements sprinkled on it so that it’s not too depressing. That’s my take on it anyway. As such, it has some enjoyable aspects to it, like seeing Bok-Soo share nuggets of wisdom every now and then, or the students standing up for Bok-Soo and their school, or the revenge/investigation finally kicking into high gear. It’s just unfortunate it took so long to get there and didn’t really encourage me to do so.

Rewatch meter: Low

The Secret Life of my Secretary (2019)

From left to right: Koo Ja-Sung as Ki Dae-Joo; Kim Young-Kwang as Do Min-Ik; Jin Ki-Joo as Jung Gal-Hee; and Kim Jae-Kyung as Veronica Park/Park Ok-Sun.

Release Date: May 6 - June 25, 2019

Episodes: 32

Available on: Viki

Summary: The story follows Do Min-Ik, a prominent director at T&T Mobile Media, and his secretary, Jung Gal-Hee, as together they deal with the onset of an illness that prevents Do Min-Ik from seeing faces, the result of a possible attempt on Min-Ik’s life by some unknown party. On the corporate drama side, this undermines his shot to succeed his (jerk of an) uncle as Chairman of the company, and we see Min-Ik and Gal-Hee struggling to hide the truth of his illness and overcome the many obstacles set on their way to chairmanship. On the romance side, his inability to recognize faces causes him to mistake his secretary for Veronica Park, a rich heiress and leading figure in the film industry, whom he eventually falls in love with... what is kind of a problem since the real Veronica Park develops a crush on Min-Ik’s best friend, Ki Dae-Joo (also a director at T&T), while Gal-Hee falls in love with her boss. And, just in case we didn’t have enough corporate drama, we learn early on that someone may be embezzling from T&T and all the signs point to Dae-Joo. How will this all turn out?

What I liked:

Do Min-Ik and Jung Gal-Hee working together. Min-Ik is one sharp boss, and the moment he’s unable to recognize faces, he starts devising other strategies to recognize people, such as identifying them by their height. Gal-Hee pitches in with the different directors’ hairstyles, and eventually Min-Ik is even able to recognize them by their specific tics. Another example is the first stockholders’ meeting where they team up to prevent Min-Ik’s dismissal. Everything goes so smoothly that it prompts Veronica Park to ask Gal-Hee, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Did you write the script to this play?”

What I didn’t like:

The deceit lasting so long. Min-Ik doesn’t start as the best of bosses, we see that in the first episode, but that very same episode opens the door for him caring for Gal-Hee more than he’s willing to let on. The show does a good enough job of explaining his rather rude behaviour towards his secretaries and why he always fires them within a year, what makes the deceit all the more hurtful. However, the problem I have with Min-Ik not realizing Gal-Hee was pretending to be Veronica Park, is that this happens for 24 episodes! That means we only have 8 episodes left for him to feel betrayed about the whole thing yet also recover in time to start dating Gal-Hee. I don’t feel this was enough time to successfully explore their relationship.

How weak/bland every other story is. The attempt on Min-Ik’s life and the police’s investigation of it is handled abysmally, with the detectives only appearing from time to time to create what some writer thinks is drama. They’re so useless that the perpetrator actually has to turn himself in! I thought Dae-Joo was a bland character throughout, so I had zero interest in his relationship with Veronica Park. The same goes for Gal-Hee’s family. Even Min-Ik’s mother somehow pulls a 180 out of the blue. The only other plot thread that caught my eye was the possible embezzlement and that was wrapped up horribly, what leads me to...

No one facing the consequences of their actions. No matter how much the writers want to frame this secret organisation within T&T as Robin-Hood-like, the fact remains that they were stealing. Not only that, but they can be directly tied to the assault and attempted murder of Do Min-Ik, among other crimes. Sure, they’re all fired at some point, but they all get hired back thanks to Min-Ik. Nobody faces any jail time except for the guy directly responsible for Min-Ik’s accident who actually apologizes to him and turns himself in. The leader of this shadowy organisation comes out unscathed and has her machinations to see Dae-Joo become chairman of T&T rewarded when...

Dae-Joo becoming the chairman of T&T. What a payoff. The blandest and most uninterested character in the entire show becomes the chairman when the character we’ve been rooting for throughout, the only one who’s willing to put everything on the line to help the downtrodden secretaries, gets the short end of the stick. I guess it’s true when they say no good deed goes unpunished.

OTP: There is some chemistry there and I wish we had seen more of it, but sadly the (official) relationship between Gal-Hee and Min-Ik takes place a little too late.

Verdict: Usually, most of the kdramas I’ve watched and liked, to some extent, have some scenes that are imprinted on your mind (much like Gal-Hee’s face is imprinted on Min-Ik) and that you find yourself returning to from time to time. With this show, I honestly had to struggle to recall any such scenes, even with the aid of YouTube playlists. This is not helped by the fact that I can recall none of the music used, and that’s not a good sign. Memorable scenes and songs usually go together, as the next show in my list will prove. Ultimately, The Secret Life of my Secretary, while entertaining enough, didn’t live up to my expectations and, as such, it’s unlikely I’ll be rewatching it any time soon.

Rewatch meter: Low

Angel’s Last Mission: Love (2019)

Shin Hye-Sun as Lee Yeon-Seo, and Kim Myung-Soo (Infinite L) as Kim Dan.

Release Date: May 22 - July 11, 2019

Episodes: 32

Available on: Viki

Summary: Kim Dan, a troublemaking angel with a kind heart, is 24 hours away from Heaven when he meets the beautiful, talented, yet cynical and arrogant, prima ballerina Lee Yeon-Seo. Recently blinded by an accident during a performance, Yeon-Seo somehow manages to spot Kim Dan, who should be invisible to any human. His curiosity sparked, he follows Yeon-Seo around and eventually, in a fit of impulsiveness, saves her life in a car accident. However, for having interfered and saved a human’s life, Kim Dan is fated to turn to dust... unless he’s willing to undertake one final task. His mission? He must help Yeon-Seo find true love, but will he be able to keep from falling in love himself? Obviously not. And, naturally, Yeon-Seo has some evil relatives who are out to get her, because it wouldn’t be a kdrama otherwise.

What I liked:

The songs. I can’t vouch for the entire OST for I haven’t listened to it all yet (Correction: I’ve now since listened to all of it and it really has a lot of good tracks), but there are at least a handful of songs that will stick with you like glue. I can’t say if I like the songs more because of the scenes in which they play, or if I like the scenes more because of the songs that are used, but I can say the songs play an important role in engraving these scenes into my mind. Songs like ‘Sweeter’, by Jess Penner, that play when we’re playfully exploring the relationship between Yeon-Seo and Kim Dan; or ‘Pray’, by KLANG, when some important relevation or dramatic scene is about to transpire; or ‘Oh My Angel’, by Chai, that plays during the more romantic moments; these songs have made it into my Spotify list and are a must-listen on a daily basis for now.

The humor. Beyond the interactions between Kim Dan and Yeon-Seo, which sometimes make for very humorous situations, my hat’s off to the characters of Archangel Hoo, Dan’s senior (played by Kim In-Kwon) and Chung Yu-Mi, Yeon-Seo’s butler (played by Woo Hee-Jin). The former has dozens of opportunities for humor as he’s able to take the form of any human and keeps surprising Kim Dan by keeping tabs on him. The latter is probably the closest thing Yeon-Seo has to a mother (or maybe an older sister), and can be playfully mischievous when she starts noticing our leads may have feelings for each other. There are two scenes that perfectly embody the show’s humor that I would be remiss if I didn’t direct you to. Be aware they contain spoilers.

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The leads and their chemistry. You cannot make a kdrama work if the leads don’t have some sort of chemistry (well, I suppose you could but it would be a bit of an uphill battle) and Shin Hye-Sun and Kim Myung-Soo have that in spades. This shows not only during the more romantic scenes, what’s expected, but also during their fights, what’s even better (if that makes any sense). This isn’t the first time I’ve seen L acting, in fact, he played the character of Yoo Tan in the short kdrama One More Time, with actress Yoon So-Hee playing his love interest, Moon Da-In. He sold me on that show then, as did Yoon So-Hee, but I feel his acting’s improved in this, or maybe the script and length of the show allows him to flesh out his character more, showing us more sides of his personality as the show draws to its end. And it’s really amazing to see how effortlessly Shin Hye-Sun can don the skin of the strong, cold, and harsh Yeon-Seo in one scene, and then swap it for the playful, romantic, and vulnerable Yeon-Seo that Kim Dan falls in love with in the next. Just watch more of those KBS World TV clips if you don’t believe me. These two steal every scene they’re in, but I feel Shin Hye-Sun is really the standout here. (At the time of this posting, Shin Hye-Sun has won the Top Excellence Award (Female) in KBS’s 2019 Drama Awards for her role in this show, so congratulations to her on an award well deserved!)

What I didn’t like:

How the show meanders towards the end. I laid out the plot in the most succinct way possible, but it’s hardly that straightforward. Dan’s mission should, in theory, be over when Yeon-Seo learns to love again, but then the show would then be over a lot sooner than Episode 32. The writers know that so they move the goalpost, at some point revealing that Dan also had to learn to love for the mission to be truly over. Not only that, but they both had to be willing to sacrifice everything for their loved one in order for God to believe their love was sincere or something, what leads one to think they need to commit suicide and the other to think they need to commit murder. I don’t know, by this point the show’s either stretching things out to reach the 32-episode mark or they’re milking each scene for every ounce of drama they can get, probably both. This problem gets compounded by the fact that...

Some (other) things don’t make a whole lot of sense. To start with, the theology and consistency on this show is all over the place. The same God that apparently ordered a couple of angels to shoot someone, gangsta style, because an angel broke the rules and fell in love with a human, is moved by our lead couple’s Romeo-and-Juliet love story and by Yeon-Seo’s ballet performance. Oh, and by the way, shooting someone is not how unruly angels are dealt with, God can simply pull a Thanos and have them vanish into mist, so why did he decide to use a gun that one time? Because drama! God also decides that the best time to send Dan to Heaven is when Yeon-Seo is lying commatose in the hospital (what a dick), to which Dan says, “Fuck it, I’m staying here,” and God lets him return as an angel so he can help Yeon-Seo wake up, interfering once again and thereby ceasing to exist... except he’s still an angel an episode later! What the f*** is going on here?! Archangel Hoo broke the rules once and he got the Thanos treatment, so how come Kim Dan gets so many second chances?

Some characters are either superfluous or their arcs are unclear. As an example of the latter, there’s the character of Ji Kang-Woo (played by Lee Dong-Gun), Yeon-Seo’s ballet instructor and Kim Dan’s rival for Yeon Seo’s affection. It’s revealed early on that he’s an angel-turned-human after breaking the rules and falling in love with a human himself... whom the gangster angels promptly killed. It’s never explained why she had to die while Yeon-Seo and Kim Dan are allowed to stay together, but apparently Kang-Woo is satisfied that his pain was necessary so he could help them trick God or something. I’ve no idea. But the award for the most superfluous character has to go to Ni-Na’s secret ballet instructor who only appears when the script dictates and is not developed at all. I can’t even remember if she had a name! What was her point even?

OTP: Probably one of the best pairings of the year (says the guy who’s watched maybe 4-5 2019 shows out of who knows how many).

Verdict: This is a case of the pros outweighing the cons. There’s simply too much that works for me, so many scenes and songs that stayed with me thanks to the strong performances of our leads and some of the supporting cast. I was never unaware of its more glaring flaws, what prevents this show from reaching Goblin levels of quality, but I could easily find myself rewatching it from time to time.

Rewatch meter: High

Strong Woman Do Bong-Soon (2017)

From left to right: Park Bo-Young as Do Bong-Soon; Ji Soo as In Guk-Doo; and Park Hyung-Sik as Ahn Min-Hyuk.

Release Date: February 24 - April 15, 2017

Episodes: 16

Available on: Viki, Netflix

Summary: Do Bong-Soon has a secret: she is insanely strong, a superhuman ability that has been passed down to the women in her family for generations. She also aspires to create a video game with herself as the main character. When Ahn Min-Hyuk, the CEO of gaming company Ainsoft, chances by her as she’s beating up half a dozen thugs, he’s instantly mesmerized by both her beauty and strength. The recent target of anonymous threats, Min-Hyuk decides to hire Bong-Soon as a bodyguard (she ends up being more of a secretary) and she accepts with the promise of joining the planning department of Ainsoft once the culprit is caught. Meanwhile, detective In Guk-Doo, Bong-Soon’s secret crush and childhood friend, investigates a series of strange kidnappings and murders in Bong-Soon’s neighbourhood. When the culprit targets Bong-Soon’s best friend, Bong-Soon and Min-Hyuk find themselves involved in the hunt for the criminal.

What I liked:

Gangster Bong-Soon. Okay, maybe saying she’s a gangster is a bit too much, but after beating a bunch of school bullies into submission, they soon look up to her as their new boss, taking orders from her and even looking out for her so that her secret isn’t exposed. It’s pretty funny then that Bong-Soon has to save her crew from being harassed by the new neighbourhood bullies, acting the part of a gangster for a short while.

The need for training. I appreciate the fact that Min-Hyuk foresaw the need to help Bong-Soon have full control of her strength, although he also created routines to bolster up her endurance, not to mention some of the moves she learned could have come in handy when she was depowered (sadly, she doesn’t use them). And all of this training does indeed pay off, as we see Bong-Soon fight smartly and using only as much strength as is needed to get the job done, as opposed to her Episode 1 self who used way too much strength with hilarious results. You can witness the results of Min-Hyuk’s training in the fight with the “new bullies” I mentioned previously, as well as the one at the beginning of Episode 9. Beyond fighting, her training also had positive results in her everyday life, like now being able to hug people without worrying about choking them.

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The leads and their chemistry. The chemistry of these two is off the charts (it’s over 9000!!!). Everything about Park Bo-Young as Do Bong-Soon screams cute, from her short height to the way she talks, and even her glares of disapproval when Min-Hyuk does something he shouldn’t have. She’s also confident when she needs to, but not afraid to show vulnerability around the people she loves. I could shower similar praise on Park Hyung-Sik as Ahn Min-Hyuk, especially where the vulnerability department is concerned. Male leads tend to be more stoic (like In Guk-Doo), so it was quite refreshing to see how devastated Min-Hyuk was when he learned the identity of the one threatening him, or how crazy-in-love he is around Bong-Soon (she’s his kryptonite). Min-Hyuk is never afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve and it shows in every single scene. These two can just stare at each other in silence and convey more emotion than any spoken word.

The humor. I’m not talking about the dumb hospital scenes that feature humor more similar to what you’d find in a crappy Hollywood “comedy” (peeing jokes, really?), but things like Hyung-Sik’s ad-libbing throughout the show (he’s having a blast), or the more funny interactions between Min-Hyuk and Bong-Soon, even the ever-changing Romeo and Juliet scenes as Bong-Soon’s feelings for the different characters evolve.

What I didn’t like:

The sudden disappearance of Min-Hyuk’s family. Initially, the show has two distinct storylines: the string of kidnappings/murders, on the one hand; and the threats to Min-Hyuk, likely related to the question of who in his family will become the new Chairman of Ohsung Group. As expected, Min-Hyuk has several brothers who are a bit jealous of his success with Ainsoft and intuit their father will name him the Chairman, so it makes sense one of them is behind the threats. Once the storyline is resolved however, Min-Hyuk’s family is completely out of the picture, even during his marriage, what I find extremely odd.

The randomness of the depowering rule. Very early on the show explains that, while the women of the Bong-Soon family are blessed with superhuman strength from birth, they can easily lose this ability should they try to use it for less than honorable pursuits. It can be something as simple, and apparently harmless, as using this strength to become an Olympic weightlifting champion, as Bong-Soon’s mother soon found out, but it’s usually tied to using this ability to hurt innocent people. Naturally, once this rule was made known, it was only a matter of time before Bong-Soon would lose her powers as well, and this did indeed happen towards the end of the show. The problem I have with it is two-fold: its execution and its consistency. Bong-Soon doesn’t purposefully hurt an innocent man, she’s tricked into doing so by the villain. One could argue that whatever higher power granted this ability can’t tell the difference, except that argument falls apart entirely when you realize Bong-Soon has already purposefully used her power to hurt innocent people, like that one time she crushed Min-Hyuk’s foot to keep him silent (among multiple examples). That this event is played for laughs should have no bearing on the outcome. Furthermore, we later see Bong-Soon pleading for her strength to return so she can save Min-Hyuk, so it would appear that whatever higher power was listening is intelligent. At the end of the day, we all know this happened because the writers didn’t want to limit the fun possibilities of Bong-Soon abusing her power a little bit, saving it for the right moment to amp the drama. So, in reality, I was aware of it, and decided to roll with it.

OTP: Cuteness overload.

Verdict: This is one of the strongest shows in this list (no pun intended), more so given how much it’s able to pull off in 16 episodes as opposed to other shows’ 32, which is why I’m more lenient in terms of its writing. This is simply a good, fun, show, easily rewatchable thanks to the cute OTP. While its soundtrack may not be on par overall with the one from Angel’s Last Mission: Love, it still features some solid, memorable, songs (’Heartbeat’ by SURAN being the most obvious, but also ‘Double Trouble Couple’ by MAMAMOO, or ‘Super Power Girl’ by Every Single Day), not to mention a highly effective and comedic use of sound effects. Definitely one of my favourite shows.

Rewatch meter: High

And that brings us to the end of Part 1. I hope you had a good time reading through this post, maybe even found a show to your liking. What were some of your favourite shows in 2019? Stay tuned for Part 2!

#kdrama #while you were sleeping #kdrama w #my strange hero #the secret life of my secretary #angel's last mission: love #angel's last mission #strong woman do bong soon #strong girl bong soon #netflix #viki #kdramas

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