Dog days of summer
It's 90+ degrees today and tomorrow looks about the same. After getting up early, we went hiking with Alfie at Hacklebarney since that's good and shaded in the woods. Even then, it got really hot at parts. Now, we're hiding in our air conditioned house until the sun goes down.
Since there's so much time to kill, let's talk about drama! I went through a bunch of them recently since the ones I had on my list were short and I also dropped stuff.
First up, I tried to watch Duolou Continent. Did I spell that right? Who knows. I dropped it after less than 1 episode. On one hand, it's not totally the drama's fault. I watched it on YouTube where I think they do that thing where they block copyrighted material (ie, background music). So there's bits of the drama where the audio is replaced with something else (not surprising, since China hardly cares about IP). Not the worst thing since I can get by on subtitles and the drama isn't really so plot intensive. But after four to five such audio blocks, it just gets a little tedious. I can obviously find the drama somewhere else and watch it, but I'm not that dedicated considering I can already predict everything about the drama from that 1 episode. It's basically a standard hero coming-of-age story. The ML is some bozo "kid" (30 yo Xiao Zhan playing a teenager) living in a backwater town that's told he can never be an awesome magic wielder because his powers are too stupid.
Throwing a mop wig on his head still doesn't make him a teenager.
But whoever's telling him that is obviously lying and ML will turn out to be the most powerful person ever after going through trials and tribulations. And the dubbing is terrible. Asides from the ML, pretty much everyone else's lips don't match their words.
Second up, Henry and I tried Kimi to Sekai ga Owaru Hi ni, or With You On the Day the World Ends. We dropped it after 4-5 episodes. I expected much more out of a Japanese drama. But it's just so irritating to watch with all the standard zombie clichés of dumb-ass people and somehow nobody in this universe had ever seen a zombie movie. Someone on MDL said this is Japanese The Walking Dead. Alrighty then! I hate TWD, so all the more reason to never finish this or watch its second season.
All by myself, I finished The Victim's Game. After Nowhere Man, I was hesitant to watch another drama with Joseph Chang. But this drama turned out to be so much better than Nowhere Man. The story is about the ML trying to solve a series of murders that seem to involve his estranged daughter. First, I like how ML's Asperger's syndrome wasn't treated like some sort of super power in his crime solving.
If anything, it made trying to talk to people during his investigations difficult. In comes the FL, who comes off as a reporter that will try to do anything to get a story but actually is quite empathetic and helps the ML in his investigations. Second, I like how the side characters aren't annoying/stupid. There's the police captain that doesn't quite like ML because their investigation methods differ. But that doesn't make the guy incompetent or stupid. He's still able to arrive at the same conclusion in his investigation as ML, albeit just a bit later. Third, I would say all the acting (with the exception of Ruby Lin) is quite good. And thankfully, Ruby Lin is only really prominent in the last episode or so.
Then Henry and I watched Kaitou Yamaneko. There are parts that I thought were okay but other parts that were just too much. Of the comedy, I think I only truly like the one in the last episode where they were putting on that fake radio interview. Well, at least it was short.
Last night, we finished Futmalls.com (another Taiwanese Black Mirror). I would say that's fairly good for passing the time. I like how it's three-four stories, but they're interconnected so that the story flows fairly well from one to the other (sometimes two stories occurring at the same time).
I'm currently watching Romance of Tiger and Rose by myself, mainly because I need something brainless while I'm coloring. So far, I don't really get this "smart" writing MDL raves about in this drama. There are parts that's amusing, but I don't really get why the ML is so unsuccessful in his two attempts to kill the FL. First, it was poisoned wine but he kept switching the cup on her...why? Second, a bunch of archers getting ready to shoot her while she was walking to his bedroom. At one point, she was just standing there in front of them talking to herself and they didn't shoot her. Why? Can't the writing at least make up something to explain why the ML failed so hard to kill the FL? I do agree that at least the writing is self-aware. At least it's not super offensive so far. There's the ML's stupid dubbed voice.
And his stupid face...which might only be the fault of poor hair styling.
But, China.
For continued lack of dramas I'm excited about, we might foray into the following:
The Player - About people trapped in a video game world? 20 episodes of Chinese workaround the time-travel ban.
The Imperial Coroner - The internet seems to think highly of this drama about an...imperial coroner. 36 episodes of 40 ish minutes.
Mother to Be - I might have watched one episode already, but it's not subbed. 15 episodes of 1 ish hour each.
Tears on Fire - This might be the only drama I'm kind of excited to watch. A story about firefighters sound incredibly uninteresting, but I'm watching for the cast. 10 episodes of an hour each.
Wacko at Law and Love is Science? - Just because they're Taiwanese. Who knows if they're subbed or not.
In news unrelated to drama, I'm going through Watership Down at a fairly good pace. I definitely don't spend as much of my time reading as I used to, but I can still read a good amount if the story is interesting. I had feared that my reading ability was declining. But it turns out I was just uninterested in those Witcher books. That's good to know.
Since there's so much time to kill, let's talk about drama! I went through a bunch of them recently since the ones I had on my list were short and I also dropped stuff.
First up, I tried to watch Duolou Continent. Did I spell that right? Who knows. I dropped it after less than 1 episode. On one hand, it's not totally the drama's fault. I watched it on YouTube where I think they do that thing where they block copyrighted material (ie, background music). So there's bits of the drama where the audio is replaced with something else (not surprising, since China hardly cares about IP). Not the worst thing since I can get by on subtitles and the drama isn't really so plot intensive. But after four to five such audio blocks, it just gets a little tedious. I can obviously find the drama somewhere else and watch it, but I'm not that dedicated considering I can already predict everything about the drama from that 1 episode. It's basically a standard hero coming-of-age story. The ML is some bozo "kid" (30 yo Xiao Zhan playing a teenager) living in a backwater town that's told he can never be an awesome magic wielder because his powers are too stupid.
Throwing a mop wig on his head still doesn't make him a teenager.
But whoever's telling him that is obviously lying and ML will turn out to be the most powerful person ever after going through trials and tribulations. And the dubbing is terrible. Asides from the ML, pretty much everyone else's lips don't match their words.
Second up, Henry and I tried Kimi to Sekai ga Owaru Hi ni, or With You On the Day the World Ends. We dropped it after 4-5 episodes. I expected much more out of a Japanese drama. But it's just so irritating to watch with all the standard zombie clichés of dumb-ass people and somehow nobody in this universe had ever seen a zombie movie. Someone on MDL said this is Japanese The Walking Dead. Alrighty then! I hate TWD, so all the more reason to never finish this or watch its second season.
All by myself, I finished The Victim's Game. After Nowhere Man, I was hesitant to watch another drama with Joseph Chang. But this drama turned out to be so much better than Nowhere Man. The story is about the ML trying to solve a series of murders that seem to involve his estranged daughter. First, I like how ML's Asperger's syndrome wasn't treated like some sort of super power in his crime solving.
If anything, it made trying to talk to people during his investigations difficult. In comes the FL, who comes off as a reporter that will try to do anything to get a story but actually is quite empathetic and helps the ML in his investigations. Second, I like how the side characters aren't annoying/stupid. There's the police captain that doesn't quite like ML because their investigation methods differ. But that doesn't make the guy incompetent or stupid. He's still able to arrive at the same conclusion in his investigation as ML, albeit just a bit later. Third, I would say all the acting (with the exception of Ruby Lin) is quite good. And thankfully, Ruby Lin is only really prominent in the last episode or so.
Then Henry and I watched Kaitou Yamaneko. There are parts that I thought were okay but other parts that were just too much. Of the comedy, I think I only truly like the one in the last episode where they were putting on that fake radio interview. Well, at least it was short.
Last night, we finished Futmalls.com (another Taiwanese Black Mirror). I would say that's fairly good for passing the time. I like how it's three-four stories, but they're interconnected so that the story flows fairly well from one to the other (sometimes two stories occurring at the same time).
I'm currently watching Romance of Tiger and Rose by myself, mainly because I need something brainless while I'm coloring. So far, I don't really get this "smart" writing MDL raves about in this drama. There are parts that's amusing, but I don't really get why the ML is so unsuccessful in his two attempts to kill the FL. First, it was poisoned wine but he kept switching the cup on her...why? Second, a bunch of archers getting ready to shoot her while she was walking to his bedroom. At one point, she was just standing there in front of them talking to herself and they didn't shoot her. Why? Can't the writing at least make up something to explain why the ML failed so hard to kill the FL? I do agree that at least the writing is self-aware. At least it's not super offensive so far. There's the ML's stupid dubbed voice.
And his stupid face...which might only be the fault of poor hair styling.
But, China.
For continued lack of dramas I'm excited about, we might foray into the following:
The Player - About people trapped in a video game world? 20 episodes of Chinese workaround the time-travel ban.
The Imperial Coroner - The internet seems to think highly of this drama about an...imperial coroner. 36 episodes of 40 ish minutes.
Mother to Be - I might have watched one episode already, but it's not subbed. 15 episodes of 1 ish hour each.
Tears on Fire - This might be the only drama I'm kind of excited to watch. A story about firefighters sound incredibly uninteresting, but I'm watching for the cast. 10 episodes of an hour each.
Wacko at Law and Love is Science? - Just because they're Taiwanese. Who knows if they're subbed or not.
In news unrelated to drama, I'm going through Watership Down at a fairly good pace. I definitely don't spend as much of my time reading as I used to, but I can still read a good amount if the story is interesting. I had feared that my reading ability was declining. But it turns out I was just uninterested in those Witcher books. That's good to know.