#this makjang is a makjang indeed

[what-breaks-my-heart]

Wait wait wait so Oh Serin who was adopted must be the younger sister of Ju Aera who got separated from her since there is nobody else whose birth origin remains unknown at this stage!

Oooooh imagine the torment Aera (Hyeonjeong) is going to experience the moment she learnt she was partly responsible for the death of her own sister 🤌🤌🤌

[moondrama]

Penthouse Season 3 Episode 12 (VERY MAJOR SPOILERS)

Writing this knowing that things could turn out very differently in the next episode.

I guess this was a great fan service episode for fans of bAdAsS lead Shim Su Ryeon soo0 str0nG quEEEnn.

I'm glad that it was JDT who destroyed Hera Palace (if that indeed happened?) and not SSR - really it was his building and I kinda wish he got Lot 27 (or 57?) in Cheonsoo District as well.

idk I always find that the typical revenge where the villain gets sent to jail is far more satisfying than what was done here but also it's a makjang so they gotta make it as weird and crazy as they can. Oh and I don't get the obsession with America. Hope they don't send BRN or anyone to America to wrap things up.

I think I'll watch the remaining two episodes together so I gotta wait till Saturday.

(i hope shim su ryeon goes to jail)

[tomorrowsdrama]

Updated Drama Finished/Drop/Watch list

So even though I haven’t been posting as much, I’ve still been watching quite a few dramas.  To be honest, I think I might have burnt out on binging. When every other day is spent watching a drama for long periods of time, it kind of becomes monotonous.  That’s probably the quarantine talking though.

Finished since my last drama update

Psychopath Diary - Love, love, love.  What a fun drama to watch.  The characters were so beyond dumb but that was the joke.  Yoon Shi Yoon and Park Sung Hoon had amazing chemistry and their serial killer/amnesiac-confused-wannabe-killer-but-not-really romance was hilarious to watch.

Hot Stove League - Loved this drama.  Didn’t really go in expecting much but was pleasantly surprised.  It’s written in a way where even if you’re not into baseball, it’s still interesting.  More than a sports drama, it’s an underdog/rag tag team kind of story.  Each week it was fun to see how Nam Goong Min would outmaneuver the bad guys with his brains.  There was no romance (even though they totally could have!) but still enjoyable.  Nam Goong Min continues his streak of picking good projects.

Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim 1/2 - I finished both seasons and I’m not entirely sure why lol.  This drama was nice enough and had some cute moments but didn’t leave much of an impression otherwise.  But somehow there was also something about it that compelled me to keep watching until I finished.  I guess that’s why both seasons had such high ratings.  If I had to pick which series to recommend, I’d probably pick the first season.  If you hate annoying hospital politics and unrealistic violations of proper medical procedures, stay away.  

Live Up to Your Name - Very cute and romantic with a side of sageuk.  Kim Nam Gil is hot.  Kim Ah Joong is hot.  Together they save people and have hot make outs.  I think this was the drama that kind of lightened up Kim Nam Gil’s image.  Before that he specialized in angsty characters who were usually set on revenge and/or died.  I kind of wish he’d go back to those roles from time to time.  Haha, predictable, I know.

Tell Me What You Saw - Watched this solely for Jang Hyuk.  It’s the first serial killer/procedural I’ve watch from OCN but from what I can tell, it follows the usual pattern of other OCN dramas of the like.  I’d describe this drama as just fine.  If gory scenes aren’t your thing, probably stay away from this drama.  Some of the murders in this drama were truly disturbing.

Hyena - First drama I ever recapped.  I was interested in this drama purely because of the Ju Ji Hoon/Kim Hye Soo pairing and I was not disappointed by their chemistry.  The story could have been improved and I would have liked more time spent on the relationship but overall, the flaws were not enough to detract from the good.  I need JJH and KHS to do a romantic drama on a cable network like TVN so we can get all the makeouts we deserve.  If you’re looking for a fast-paced fun drama and don’t care too much for plot, this is worth a watch.  Some people may find Geum Ja incredibly unlikable in the first four episodes but it gets better after that I promise!

Story of Minglan - Omg, where do I even begin about how good this drama is?  This was actually my second time watching this drama.  I think I finished all 73 episodes in 4-5 days (kids, don’t try this at home).  I can go on and on gushing about this drama.  Actually, I think I might have to do a separate post to properly talk about how much I loved this drama.  Anyway, if you like strong and smart heroines, period dramas, fully-fleshed out characters, and an otp completely devoted to each other with brains and brawn, this is for you.  It’s 73 episodes at 45 minutes each but I swear it still doesn’t feel like enough.

99.9 keiji senmon bengoshi - my first jdrama in yeaaaaaars and probably a decade since I’ve seen one starring matsujun. Fun, easy to watch, legal procedural with matsujun playing against type as a oddball attorney. Also, reunion of matsujun and eikura nana who last starred together in a movie about twins falling in love (wow the early 2000s were a wild time). I think I finished this in two days. If Japanese humor or recurring wacky side characters/gags isn’t your thing, probably skip this.

Dropped

Diary of a Prosecutor - This was fine but a bit too slice of life for my current tastes.  If humorous slice of life without much drama is your kind of thing, I’d recommend this.

Meow the Secret Boy - Dropped after episode 10.  Yes, I know what you’re thinking.  Why not just finish watching the last two episodes?  I didn’t drop this drama because I disliked it or anything.  I just felt like I didn’t need to continue watching.  When I first heard about the premise it squicked me out to be honest.  Cat?  As lover? Buh? I had no intentions of watching but then gifs for the first episode looked promising so I ended up watching it after all.  And it was cute and fluffy, with a touch of magical whimsy, which was what I needed at the time.  But as the episodes continued, it really didn’t go anywhere.  The characters were one-dimensional and story was as paint-by-the-numbers as you can get.  I hear that the webtoon it was based on was even less developed which...I don’t know how that could be possible.  Anyway, I peeked at the last 10 minutes of the final episode and well, that ending was a choice hahaha.  Still, I think this drama is harmless and dumb fun.  It’s not something you should take too seriously.  I mean, the cat literally turns into Kim Myungsoo.  

World of the Married - Oh boy.  Wow.  This drama.  Another drama I initially had no interest in after I read about the premise.  Another dark drama about cheating and divorce?  No thank you.  The world is grim enough as it is right now.  But then I saw posts about the drama on tumblr and it looked more makjang than grim.  Hey, sometimes makjang can be really fun to watch.  And the ratings were pretty high so I thought, there must be something entertaining about it?  So I watched the first 3 episodes fully and I admit, it was pretty addicting if not infuriating.  After episode 3, they really ramped up the infuriating parts of the cheating husband and his mistress so I watched a lot of episodes 4-7 on fast forward.  The over the top makjang was indeed fun.  But then it was at episode 7 that I realized the female lead was kind of a terrible character too.  She was just as obsessed with the husband as he was with her.  I read up on Doctor Foster, which is what the drama is based on, and seems like the husband and wife are just going to continue being terrible to each other.  Watch two terrible people obsessively try to ruin each other’s lives?  No thank you, I’ll save myself the heartburn.  It doesn’t help that every other post about this drama seems to be people being pissed at the characters hahaha.

Good Casting - I’m going to have to quit this after 4 episodes.  I tried since it seemed like a fun premise but I just couldn’t.  This is the third drama with Choi Kang Hee that I’ve had to quit and I think I just can’t gel with her acting style.  I know the tone is supposed to be hokey/comedic and they’re supposed to be bumbling on purpose.  However, my problem is that they’re just really, really, bad spies even when I think they’re not supposed to be.

Currently Watching

Ever Night - I have the last 11 episodes to finish and I’m kind of sad about it.  I know there’s a second season but it just doesn’t seem like the same drama.

When My Love Blooms - A lovely drama about second chance at love with the always great Lee Bo Young and my hot tall ahjussi crush Yoo Ji Tae.  It feels kind of like an old school jdrama in how quiet it is.  Might be too slow for some people though.  I can’t believe I dropped one drama about adultery just to unknowingly pick up another one hahaha.

Six Flying Dragons - I haven’t started yet but I will definitely start it soon!  Bang Won came to me in my dream so I think it’s time I finally watched this drama after putting it off for so long.

Will Probably Binge Later

The King: Eternal Monarch - Although I like the week to week excitement of watching an airing drama, I think I will probably enjoy this best by binging it.  People seem pretty divided about this drama but you know what?  Lee Min Ho’s hotness helped me make it through The Heirs so I have faith that it will help get me through this as well.  Some dramas you watch just so you can stare at hot people doing romantic things, ok?

Born Again -  The plot seems pretty convoluted so I think this will benefit from binging and fast forwarding.  @dangermousie seems to be enjoying it and our tastes align for the most part.  Plus, have you seen how hot Jang Ki Yong looks?  Unless the ending is completely horrible, I’ll probably binge this once it’s done.

The Untamed - I mean, gay epic wuxia love?  Count me in!  I’m trying to limit the number of dramas I watch so this will have to wait until I at least finish Ever Night.  

[overthinkingkdrama]

hi! love in sadness anon again. if you can rec some good melos i would be thankful.

[Oh my gosh, anon. I suck. Seriously. I’ve been trying to sit down and get this done from the moment I got your ask and I just haven’t been able to do it. Anyway, hopefully you see this. Thank you for your patience.]

Little do you know how long I have been waiting for this moment. This is my time to shine! Jk, but I would be happy to give recs. It’s a delight. I started going through my MDL and realized just how many dramas in this genre I have actually seen and realized I would probably have to trim my recommendations somewhat not to seem like a crazy person. Also I have subcategories! Yay!

(I’ve included the *** next to titles that I have watched multiple times or that stand out from the rest of the pack.)

First of all, Movie Melos.

Sometimes you don’t have time for 16-30 hours of drama. Sometimes you want to get all your feels out in a single sitting and move on with your life. That’s where movies are so helpful. My favorite bite-sized melos are:

Always*** – An ex-con trying to get his life together falls in love with a blind woman, but his efforts to help her recover her sight might drag him right back into the violence he’s tried to escape.

Shoot My Heart – A young heir is forced into a mental hospital by his rich family where he meets a disturbed young man. They become friends, try to protect each other, and eventually escape. This one has a bit more of a comedic element to it than the other movies I’m recommending, but there’s plenty of the melo tone as the movie goes on.

Will You Be There? – After finding out that he’s dying of cancer, a man travels through time to beg his younger self to save the life of his first love.

Butterfly Sleep – This is a Japanese movie, but it also stars Korean actor Kim Jae Wook, who recently got a boost in popularity from Her Private Life. The movie revolves around a poor young man from Korea who ends up living with an older woman, a novelist who has just discovered she is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and the passionate relationship that develops between the two as he helps her finish what will be her final book. #tragedy_tag

High Quality, Human Melodramas

So, this category is for if you want something with all the emotional gut punch of a really wild family drama, but you also want your melos to have actual artistic merit so when you tell your non-drama watching friends and family members about them they don’t end up losing respect for your taste.

Just Between Lovers – This is the story of two young people involved in and scarred by the same horrific accident, but survived and end up finding solace in one another as they deal with their combined traumas. If you’ve seen this drama around the kdramasphere on tumblr you might have seen a lot of gifs of the soft romance. Don’t be fooled though. The romance is indeed wonderful, but the themes are heavy and it can be rough sit.

My Mister*** – I really am just looking for every possible opportunity to recommend this drama. It has supplanted my former favorites and become my top drama of all time. It’s about two people, a troubled young woman in her 20′s and a structural engineer in his 40′s who have become beaten down and broken by life. Their two lives end up intersecting and they develop a really complex friendship that changes both of their lives. Acting, writing, directing…I have nothing bad to say about My Mister. This drama is actually perfect. 

The Smile Has Left Your Eyes – Do you like your melos a bit murdery? I know I sure do. Give me a sociopath any day of the week and I’ll say, “Thank you. I’ll take two.” This drama is about a young man who might be a monster. He becomes a detectives prime suspect in a murder investigation. At the same time he meets the detectives younger sister and they begin to fall in love. #tragedy_tag If this sounds like your thing, but you don’t like super sad endings check out Hello Monster, also starring Seo In Guk.

Secret Love Affair – I think it’s probably safe to say this drama is considered a modern kdrama classic, and for good reason. A story revolving around a woman who gave up her dreams for security, trapped in a loveless marriage, who meets a piano savant from an extremely underprivileged background and he sets off a spark for passion, music and love that she hasn’t felt in a long time. This is a quiet, pensive drama with a lot of wonderful music and atmosphere. YMMV depending on your tolerance for cheating and a slow-burn pace.

Alright, Cut the Crap Jona, Show Me the Extra Soapy Guilty Pleasure Dramas We All Know You Like…

Maybe you don’t go in for this type of self-conscious, “serious” drama watching. You’re going to watch these things in the sanctity of your own room and never tell a soul about them. Or perhaps you’ve evolved past needing other people’s approval to enjoy the things you like. Good for you, I say! As it should be. In that case, I have some top shelf makjang crack to deal you. This is the part of the list where the sliding scale of quality gets a little wobbly. Most of these shows contain a little, if not a lot, of crazysauce. All of them are over-the-top melo fun.

Baker King Kim Tak Gu – A drama about the illegitimate son of a conglomerate CEO who has inherited his preternatural baking abilities looking for his place in a family that will never acknowledge him. Yeah, the premise is pretty “what”? When I first watched this drama I thought it was supposed to be a satire of the makjang genre. To this day I’m not sure how seriously this drama actually takes itself. What I will say is it’s hella entertaining, even as it piles on more than it’s share of craziness (machinations, murder, affairs, chaebol fuckery, love polygons, gangsters, birth secrets, and on and on.) I was surprisingly invested and remarkably satisfied by the ending.

Ms. Perfect – This drama is something of a gothic romance/makjang melo mash up. It involves a woman whose marriage shatters just as she loses her home and finds herself desperate to take care of her family. She’s enticed by a mysterious woman to live with her in her huge house, but this stranger has eerie motivations of her own. Really fun, weird show. But brace yourself to be blue-balled by the romance. It’s one steamy make out session from being noona-romance catnip. 

Money Flower*** – I unironically love this drama. It’s very close to the platonic ideal of the Revenge Melo. It involves a Dantes-esque male lead, Kang Pil Joo, who is willing to destroy himself to enact his multi-decade revenge on a wealthy family that took everything from him. He is the shadow of a spoiled young heir who he plans to use to take down the whole evil empire of Chungha group, but in order to do that he has to orchestrate the heir’s marriage with the innocent daughter of a powerful politician, the woman who Pil Joo himself is in love with.

That Winter, The Wind Blows – This one is a lurid conman tail about a gambler who, in his attempts to pay back a dangerous gangster out for his life, pretends to be the prodigal brother of a blind heiress. He tries to get the money and skip town, but ends up falling in love with the mark which comes with a host of other complications, not the least of which is she thinks he’s her brother. This one is high on the guilty-pleasure-o-meter for me.

Come and Hug Me – Some people might disagree with my putting this one on here, but for me the premise is too wildly melodramatic to omit. The leads start out as childhood sweethearts, but the problem is his father is a deranged serial killer and her parents end up two of his victims. As adults he becomes a detective trying to make up for his father’s legacy of cruelty and she becomes a famous actress like her mother. Traumas resurface when she becomes the target of an apparent copycat and their past connection becomes the fixation of a ruthless tabloid journalist.

Thank You – After his fiancee dies of cancer, a Doctor travels to a remote island to fulfill her last wish–to help the family of a little girl the late fiancee was responsible for inadvertently infecting with HIV. Unexpectedly he finds himself attracted to the girl’s single mother. However, he will have to contend with the prejudices of the island people about AIDS and the reappearance with the girl’s father. This one is as heavy as it sounds, and the oldest drama on this list, from 2007, with all the idiosyncrasies that go along with older dramas. But it’s remarkably well done. From the same writer of a bunch of classic melodramas (I’m Sorry, I Love You; A Love To Kill; Innocent Man; Uncontrollably Fond, etc) but this is my personal favorite of hers.

The Last Empress – Okay, I couldn’t omit this one. I tried. Average musical actress Oh Sunny winds up married to the Emperor in an alternate history version of Korea and becomes embroiled in the machinations of the corrupt royal family. With a nice side helping of revenge plot. It’s demonstrably not a good show. It’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. But it had me hooked early on and then I couldn’t get myself free. What a magnificent train wreck this drama was. If you’re looking for problematic nonsense melos that were MASSIVE hits in Korea and you’re torn between this and Baker King, go with the silly bread show and keep this one in your back pocket.

Fated to Love You – This one is probably the most off-brand on the list, because it leans heavily on the comedic tone, especially for the first half. There’s a definite turn at the midpoint of the drama where it becomes MUCH more melodramatic (with all the tropes you expect to go along with that), but I think it pulls of the transition impressively well. Besides, it’s a fun watch with a fluffy feelgood ending with a bow on top. It’s a dash of sugar for your melodrama sojourn, a genre that admittedly can be a bit of a bummer.

There it is. I tried to do an extra good job with my list because it took me so long to get it out. I’m sorry again. Happy watching!

Jona

[catmaid-san]

Can't believe that there's actually a real racist out there who simply rated all Chinese fan translation novels in NU a 1 star, or another racist who rated all Japanese fan translation novels with 1 star, as well as another homophobic dumbass who got a stick shoved in their ass who diligently check every single shounen ai or yaoi novels in NU, again to rate them 1 star.

Like, why??? Just why?? Even if I hate harem and I despise dogblood and makjang drama, in my normal logic, I wouldn't be so leisure to patiently give a negative rate to every single novels or manga/manhwa/manhua In one day, forget about doing it everyday at all. After all, can't I just use those wasteful time to read something I enjoy and make myself happy instead?

Did they have a sad life? Why are you so pitiful , young man or young girl?? Why did you have to spend your time and put your diligence into something that honestly, a vain and ridiculous action?

Was it to spite others? To make others feel annoyed so that they can feel happy? Ahh perhaps, it's indeed a happiness for others, a distorted and unhealthy satisfaction...

Then again...I realize, there's actually a lot of haters and keyboard warriors who constantly slandered and curse public figures diligently every day, as if their life depend on it.

Sometimes, even if I already know and understand, I just really can't believe such people with weird brain circuit actually exist.

[what-breaks-my-heart]