#tbh 2018/2019 when the last 2 seasons were airing was a really bad time for me and i might not have an accurate recollection

[ireallyamabear]

i ran that poll and i do really want to watch black sails, but true to form i'm instead rewatching elementary right now... i love that show, i must have watched the first 4 seasons at least 5+ times by now, and season 5 at least a couple of times. but i've only watched season 6 and 7 once before and the only thing i remember is that the cases in season 6 were stupid as fuck. Sooo... let's rewatch this and see if that was a fair assesment?

[deng-yi-deng]

What have I been doing with my life (2020)

Wrap up of all the dramas I remember watching this year, roughly in order of when I watched them and how much I liked them - totally subjective and not based on quality or anything else. There were LOTS of dramas I meant to watch (Hikaru no Go, Bad kids, Romance of Tiger and Rose) but didn’t get to. This list includes Cdramas, Kdramas and KO One (Zhongji) series which is kinda it’s own thing. Last time I just listed them but this time I’m indulging in a little commentary - titles in bold i might even watch again.

TOTAL HOURS WASTED: 442.5 = 18+ days

Full list after the cut but I’ll give you my

fave cdrama from 2020: Love is Sweet (really? who wrote this? it’s not wuxia?? I hate rom-coms!! wth???) ok, ok, tied with Ancient Detective (phew, that’s more like it.)

fave cdrama I watched this year: Nirvana in Fire (2015)

Ever night (2018) why did no one tell me to watch this before? holy crap real wuxia. the plot, world-building, setting, characters, production were all fabulous. tbh the weakest part was the end (a common lament of mine). secondary characters were all my faves, next to the scenery. cfy was ok, but not amazing so ....that’s how I feel about that.

Nirvana in Fire (2015) glad I didn’t watch this until now because basically all i can think of when I watch a drama is...why the f* can’t this be even half as good as NiF? seriously, now that I know they can make good dramas, it makes the bad ones seem even worse. A classic, you don’t need my recommendation on this one.

The Ghost Bride (2020) based on a YA novel. Super good (tho I didn’t read the novel). I even recommended it to non-drama watching friends because it’s short and on Netflix.

Ancient Detective (2020) I just really really enjoyed this, ok? best friends squad with a little romance. plot rips off English country house mystery format but then has a twist at the end. bonus himbo. sad it likely won’t get a S2 because it ended on a cliffhanger.

Mystic pop-up bar (2020) I laughed, I cried. Fav kdrama this year tho I didn’t watch many, including most ppls’ favorites.

Love is sweet (2020) brainless, tooth-rotting fluff. exactly what i needed in this nuclear tire fire of a year. silly. bai lu and gao hanyu were great. lyx is my emotional support actor (but you knew that already.)

Joy of Life (2019) finished it in January I’m allowing myself to stick it on the 2020 list because it’s so good.

KO One (2005) and KO One Re-act (2013): KO One is my comfort food show now - watched it for the third time due to Reasons. Silly, stupid humor with heart.The theme song is my ring tone. Re-act has been the most enjoyable of the Zhongji series sequels for me. (Fun fact: lyx acted in one of the Zhongji series “Ultimate Ranger.” I WISH I could find a place to watch it.)

Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty (2020) - enjoyable. found family is my jam. great food pr0n, needless killing off of a certain character I will not name

Kingdom S2 (2020): cromulent sequel, annoyingly short season

Wu Xin the monster killer (2015) - a sleeper. I really enjoyed this, looking forward to watching the sequels. Elvis Han and Ian Wang were great, but all the actors were good, plot moved briskly, had lots of humor and action, music was less annoying than most dramas (for me)

Fighter of the Destiny (2017) - not done with this yet but this is the kind of fluffy xianxia I like - again, best friends squad with less emphasis on the sappy romance. Gao Hanyu is adorable. Lu Han is...pretty good?? (downside: Janice Wu’s character is kinda annoying)

Handsome Siblings (2020) - they...did not look at all alike. was that supposed to be funny? supporting characters were A+

The Uncanny Counter (on air) (2020) - amount of emotional gut punches per episode borders on viewer abuse. blatant tearjerker.

Legend of Fei (2020) - so far not compelling (up to ep 12) but i’ll eventually finish it because wyb’s character is fun and i like the supporting characters

Tale of the nine-tailed (2020) - though it seemed up my alley I forced myself to watch it. secondary characters were way better than the leads

The Devil Punisher (on air) (2020) cheap and cheesy, but more fun than Uncanny Counter. Don’t @ me

KO One Re-member (2016) No Jiro, but at least we got Wes back - too bad his character was nowhere near as fun as Huang Zhong in KO 3guo.

KO One Re-turn (2012) Dragged a lot.

And the Winner is Love (2020) - you know how much I love lyx but this is on the bottom of the list because after watching the whole thing I got really really depressed. like really. depressed. it wasn’t just that the drama was a complete let down (it was) idk. i’m always going to associate it with losing that last little bit of my will to give a crap about anything.

Winter Begonia (2020) - abandoned after 3 eps. I just wasn’t in the mood for this, though I like jing ju. may try again another time

The Wolf (2020) - abandoned after 3 eps. if you’ve read this far down I’ll let you in on a secret - Darren Wang looks terrible in a wig.

My roommate is a detective (2020) - abandoned after 2 eps. for some reason this did not hit me.

[anime-scarves]

Summer 2018

It’s a couple weeks past when the summer season ended, but I got around to finishing the shows I was watching since then. So I’ll do that thing where I write about them.

Boku no Hero Academia

The 3rd season of Boku no Hero finished up and like always it was pretty spectacular. There was necessary character development, training arcs, big fights, game changing moments, some nice fluff along the way to keep things from getting too dark, etc. Really Boku no Hero is the full package. It hasn’t done much of anything that I would consider new or innovative for what is setup to be a long running shounen, but it has executed on existing frameworks almost perfectly. It was the show I looked forward to the most each week. Bones killed it with some of the fight scenes. 

8/10 

Hanebado

Hanebado is a show about badminton which already sets it apart from your average seasonal ‘cause who has every seen an anime about badminton (let alone actually played it). The visuals during the badminton shots were incredible and the studio/animators responsible for it produced some stunning sports animation. Sadly pretty much everything else about the show fell kind of flat for me. The characters were ok, but nothing that interesting; the drama part of the plot was almost nonsensical and definitely didn’t help the show; poor character development or background for some of the sideish characters didn’t do much good either. All in all a very mixed bag. There were bursts of incredible animation unfortunately associated with an otherwise forgettable production. The last two episodes were pretty great though.

5/10

Asobi Asobase

I thought this was going to be just another cute girls doing cute things show, but I was deceived. The show starts with a really cutesy OP that has a bunch of imagery of purity and that kind of nonsense. The show immediately subverts your expectations by presenting the girls as straight up assholes to each other (in that loving high school way) and deliberately uses “ugly” reactions of the girls as part of the punchline. The comedy was pretty good for the most part, but leaned a little too hard on some of the shock value of the faces and what not. Had me laughing quite a bit, and sometimes guffawing out loud. For a comedy it gets my approval. 

6/10 

Hataraku Saibou

This was certainly a unique entry. The story follows a red blood cell (yes in your body) as she goes through her daily life of well being a red blood cell and delivering oxygen to cells and then taking CO2 back to the lungs. David Production (JoJo) did some great work with the art style. The character designs, and particularly the pathogens, were very reminiscent of older character designs and were really quite nostalgic in some ways. What is really remarkable about the show is that it is basically perfectly accurate to how the body works. While it was airing there were threads or videos from doctors commenting on how surprisingly accurate the show was; some have even suggested using parts of it as educational material. To that ends the staff decided to put up some HQ content which can be used free of charge for educational purposes. Part action? part biology lesson, Cells at Work positioned itself in a spot that I haven’t seen a seasonal show do before and the uniqueness of that wins a lot of points in my book. At times it could be a little dry, but overall I had a fun time with it. Also the platelets are soooooo adorable. 

6/10

Attack on Titan S3

Initially this was supposed to be back to back 2 cour I think. That’s since been changed and the 2nd part is expected to air in Spring 2019. That aside, this was more of the great show that many of us have come to love. The beginning of the season featured some stunning sakuga shots that absolutely blew me away. This arc of the story is a lot more political intrigue than it was titan slaying, and it worked out pretty well. There was a lot of world building and reveals about the nature of the titans, character back stories, etc. etc. From what I’ve heard the mangaka used the anime as a way to redo a lot of the pacing in this arc and that it was very much for the better. Not too much to say other than that I enjoyed this a lot and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it. The last episode’s ED was something wild and gave us what can only be described as a fiendish glimpse into the future. 

8/10

Shows I dropped or didn’t finish:

Harukana Receive: What I thought was going to be a somewhat interesting show about beach volley ball ended up not being that. It was more about their butts than it was volleyball. At least that’s the impression I got early on. 

Grand Blue: The much anticipated, and hyped, adaption of Grand Blue didn’t really do it for me. I’m not sure why tbh. When I was watching it I was laughing along, but I never really felt like continuing. I’ll probably read the manga at some point. 

Starlight Revue: The first episode can only be described as wild and I very much enjoyed it. However, I got caught up in the rest of the season and the subs from HIDive were pretty miserable. I was waiting for fansubs and I think a group did it, but I just never got back to it. Maybe I’ll pick it up again sometime, but I wouldn’t be surprised it it stays unfinished. 

That one demon lord Isekai: I watched part of the first episode. It is not for me. If you want some mad wish fulfillment isekai then be my guest. Sometimes it can be fun, but this was just not my cup of tea. 

Banana Fish: I watched the first episode and wasn’t really hooked. Nothing seemed bad about the show, and it was kinda interesting. Just never got back to it. Heard it ended up pretty good though. 

Anyways that’s my take on last season.