A Touch of K-Pop: May '13

Get ready for more K-pop monthly ramblings, and I very nearly missed the whole month of May! Self-deadlines are the worst. You only hurt yourself if you don’t keep them, so who cares about that? (Confession: me, deep down). 

2pm, being used and abused

What’s Up This Month?

After a mostly uneventful April, May was just hopping with comebacks and I must say, I fangirled more this month than I have the whole year, and mostly over groups I didn’t even like a month ago. The biggest thing that happened is that 2pm finally showed up on my radar with two new MVs (the titles of which are too long to type, and more troublesome than writing this very long explanatory sentence). The first was just of meh in my books. The second, which I’ll abbreviate as ADTOY, had me going: “Oh s*#t where’d these guys come from - and those falsettos! *squeal*’ 

Maybe the song is standard garden variety, but the overall sex appeal has to be girl-universal. Actually, I don’t even love the MV as much. It’s too… overstated, and while I appreciate chocolate abs, even I feel uncomfortable being forced to stare at 2pm shirtless and surrounded by girls.  (Some things are best left to the imagination, ya know?) The song though made it to *loop-repeat* status on my playlist. And Nichkhun was added to my bias list. Congrats to Nichkhun. If we ever meet, I’ll give you a cookie.

Continue on for my thoughts on B.A.P, EXO, Beast, B1A4 and more!

The Liebster Award!

Woot! Getting this nomination from several sources means a world of awesomeness to me! Thank you Between Wor(L)ds and Lore in Stone Cities! If there is anything I truly love about blogging, it is the blogging community and the friendships (can I say we’re friends?) we have with one another. In that sense, it’s more rewarding than counting stats and pages views, just to know that one or two or more like-minded people and drama lovers care enough to reach out. For that record, every one of you reading this post gets my huge thanks! You’re the best! 

The rules for receiving this award:

1. List 11 random facts about yourself.
2. Answer the questions designated by the blogger (s) who nominated you.
3. Place YOUR nominations for the Liebster Award! Nominate five (or more) other bloggers that have less than 200 followers. Make sure to notify them via comment/email, etc.
4. Make up a set of questions for those nominated bloggers to answer.
5. Display the Liebster award badge on your blog!

Read more for my 11 facts, Questions and Answers!

DRAMA CLUB: Mischievous Kiss, Episode 7

So, who's excited about tomorrow's episode? 

 Kotoko must be excited! That's practically a date! Woot! 

But first, check out my episode 7 reviews here and here on DramaFever

Other members of the Drama Club (Jdrama Reviews and MyDramaTea)

[Blog Fun] Traffic Source Keywords 1

I get a special enjoyment at monitoring the traffic on my blog. How many hits per day, per week, what links brought people in, speculation about how many actual human eyeballs read my blog or if it’s all computer generated. I don’t even understand fully how it works, and believe me – when I started this blog I tried to learn. After several hours on the blogger backpage, I gave up. Come what may and all that.

More than the stats though, I LOVE seeing what actual search results brought people to my page. Some are obvious, and result in a huge amount of daily traffic. For instance, Dream High. One of my earliest posts on this blog and I barely remember writing it now except that it still gets tons of hits. I guess that’s a sign that I should write about more relevant and/or ridiculously popular dramas. (But then, what’s the fun in that?)

Other popular hits are for Cheongdamdong Alice and Bridal Mask reviews or synopses. Some people are apparently looking for some spoilery details on the end. Well, you can have it for Bridal Mask. My Cheongdamdong Alice review is a little more vague and on the professor-lecturing scope of things.

But then there are the hits that either make me laugh, or sigh for the poor people who were more than likely misdirected here. In honor of all you lost wanderers, maybe I can provide a little clarification about what you’ll find here on this little world I call ‘Shine a Light Rose’. At the very least, I can amuse the rest of you who read this regularly. ;)

Here are my Top 10 favorite search results:


#10 Spring Season

Oops. Sorry guys. If you wanted a definition of the spring season or pretty pictures of it, all you’re going to find are flower covered hills on an island off the southern coastline of South Korea. From a drama that has definitely got the sentiments right, I think your search words were a little too broad.

Courtesy of: 'Halfway Report: Spring Waltz 2006' and 'Final Report: Spring Waltz 2006'

# 9 Full House Take 2

I wonder what people expect when they find this post waiting for them. Instead of relaying any facts about the drama, or even any decent opinions, what you get instead is an extremely snarky retelling of Full House Take 2 taken exclusively from scenes involving cats. There were enough for a whole drama. Don’t believe me? Do read about this adorable little kitten below.

Courtesy of ‘Rosie’s Cuts: Full House Take 2’

Want the see the rest?

Jdrama Review: Kami no Shizuku (2009)

Kami no Shizuku
神の雫
6/10

Kami no Shizuku, or Drops of God, stars Kamenashi Kazuya as Kanzaki Shizuku, the son and presumed heir to a fortune – to a world famous wine collection left by his late father, a renowned wine critic. However his estranged relationship to his father left Kanzaki with a distaste for wine in any form. When a rival heir appears to take over the wine collection, Kanzaki is spurred on to take the challenge set by his father to win the inheritance. Along with spunky new girl buddy Shinohara Miyabi (played by Naka Riisa) sets off to discover the “Seven Apostles.” His only weapons are the written descriptions of each vintage, his own memories, and an inborn taste for wine.

Sound awesome? If you have a thirst to see KAT-TUN’s Kame and/or you want to learn something about wine (and the eloquent prose of wine critics), then this is the drama for you. If you’re also in the mood for a slow, sentimental story with a ‘feel good about family and friends premise’, then this drama is for you. If you get slightly bored by mostly plot-less dramas, overly characterized side characters, and a subdued main lead, I recommend a skip. 

Kami no Shizuku plods along at a pace that is just unhurried by anyone, and seems almost to take itself too seriously. I love reading a good wine description, but it’s mostly for the humor value. Hence, I got a lot of comedy out of what’s not exactly a comedy. The story is honestly not that intriguing, but it’s only 9 episodes! And I was in it for the wine. 

Honest Thoughts About: Block B 블락비 - Part 1

Because I just can’t leave K-pop alone, and I tend to analyze or overanalyze things all by myself, here I am again discussing things I probably have no qualifications to discuss. That said... Do you know what time it is?

It's Block B time!

Here’s the plan:

I take a K-Pop group that I adore to pieces, give you the lowdown, and then attempt to honestly consider their merits, as a group or just individually, through music videos, discography, variety appearances and social media. I’ll test them objectively based on talent, performance, charisma, and charm. 

You said charm???

Charm. And swag. Gorilla swag. 

The Short Story

Block B debuted in 2011 under label Brand New Stardom, with the hopes of emphasizing a strong hip hop flair in the idol industry. They have made 3 comebacks to date, even managing to stay afloat through scandal and controversy. As of early January 2013, they have been battling with their label over supposed non-payment of their earnings for over a year. The group has not appeared together publically during this time, though individual members have been keeping active in other more low key roles. Fans, known as BBCs, are waiting ecstatically for the day all 7 return as one. 

Update 6/7/13: Block B has officially lost the court case, but determines to keep fighting the original case to have their contracts nullified.  They have no intention of working with Stardom again.  Block B, fighting!
Update 8/28/13: They are back! Under new management, with their exclusive contract transferred to 7 Seasons. Comeback for October 2013??? 

DRAMA CLUB: Mischievous Kiss, Episodes 5-6

Walking... stalking... Score! 

Annyeong! Yes, I've been a little quiet of late. Busy life, being sick, having company, and most of my writing time devoted to what is gearing up to becoming [hopefully] one of my favorite dramas this year! Itazura na Kiss: Love in Tokyo, or Mischievous Kiss as DramaFever is calling it. 

Here are a couple of my latest posts from the last few weeks. Btw, can I just say: Thank you, Japan for seriously testing my patience by making me wait TWO whole weeks between eps 5 and 6? If you wanted to kill me, it nearly worked. Yours Truly, Rosie. 

• Episode 6 Review

• Playful Kiss vs. Mischievous Kiss (Only a slight comparison through ep 5) 

• Episode 5 Review

So who's watching this [totally awesome!] drama?

Kdrama Review: That Winter, the Wind Blows (2013)

That Winter, the Wind Blows
그 겨울, 바람이 분다
6/10

I suppose I should address it, because after all this drama did capture the attention of most drama watchers I know – for better or for worse. In my case, it’s definitely the latter scenario. Perhaps I’m just not feeling the melo these days. Innocent Man captured my heart, and then I was done. By the time I Miss You came around, it was an automatic skip. I actually thought skipping one Kdrama ‘season’ would be enough, and was ready for a new dramatic show – ready to be swept away by the atmospheric wintery landscape and stunningly gorgeous leads. Jo In Sung wasn’t someone I’d seen before, but Song Hye Kyo still gives me fond memories from her performance in the tragic makjang of 2000 Autumn in My Heart. On top of that, she’s so beautiful it almost makes my eyes hurt. (He is too, for that matter.) What’s not to love?

The Plot, oh – Lord the plot. In a reverse rich girl poor man situation, add a blind girl, and… not much else. And what do you get? Loan sharks and mobsters more dangerous than most, mistaken identity and enough fauxcest to get your feels all in a tangle (until you start feeling the ick factor). Jo In Sung as Oh Soo wheedles his way into tricking Song Hye Kyo’s Oh Young that he is actually her long lost brother. His aim? To cheat her out of money, of course. In a nicely done drama set-up though, Oh Soo isn’t just a bad guy with aims of making it rich. He’s desperate and his life is literally on the line if he doesn’t pay back a serious debt that an ex-girlfriend (that b****) managed to invent. 

Heads up - I'm going to make some weird decisions in the drama.
그래요? I'll count myself as warned. 

Seems legit, right? It’s actually a plotline that I bought for a while. However I think I was just mistaken by the beauty of the scenery and leads into thinking the writing would hold up to the end. What started out as a nice, romantic melodrama ended up annoying me to no end. I guess it’s just a case of the drama wanting to take itself so seriously, for too long. 16 episodes of does-she-know/doesn’t-she-know and I just want everything to be revealed and have them kiss for real! Get on with it already! – says me with a not so enthusiastic tone. 

Spoilers Ahead! 

Note: This isn’t really a great review. It’s just me showing some appreciation for the good stuff, and ranting about the rest. /End Note

Kdrama Review: God's Quiz Season 1 (2010)

God’s Quiz
신의 퀴즈
7/10 ♥ 

Oh dear. It’s another episodic crime scene investigation story – my least favorite genre ever, thank you American TV over-saturation for my dislike of the genre. Why on earth did I start this one then? Because I’m a glutton for punishment. Also, I like to branch out a bit and pretend that I don’t just watch mushy rom-coms. Also, after dropping Faith by episode 4 I was genuinely intrigued by the one actor that didn’t seem to annoy me. Oh well, this was only 10 episodes long.

Synopsis:

Ryu Deok Hwan plays brilliant doctor Han Jin Woo, who for some reason has consented to take a post as a medical examiner at the ‘National Scientific Criminal and Investigation Laboratory’ established in a regional Forensic Scientist office in Hanguk University. This is a fancy way of saying he works in what amounts to a morgue, doing autopsies on bodies that (in this case) almost always had bizarre or extremely rare diseases. The team is joined by detective Kang Kyung Hee, played by Yoon Joo Hee, who for the sake of viewers serves as the outside perspective, to whom all medical terms need to be explained.

Without using spoilers, I’m going to do this review a little differently, because I think we can look at God’s Review in two separate lights: generally, and by individual episodes. My verdict is that some episodes, particularly the early ones are not very good. But like all episodic shows, it takes a little time for viewers to get attached to the general cast. The dynamics of an investigation team are always the heart of this genre, and looking past the formula of disease/death-of-the-week episodes, God’s Quiz’s overarching plot and its characters are especially well done. 

A decent medical investigation drama? I guess I can deal with that...