Oh, the Insanity
Ahhh~
I am finally on a fast computer. I'm in the comp lab in the Media building, and it's...oh, it's wonderful. So yesterday I found out that my laptop, yeah, it's dead. My only option is to buy a new one and transfer all of my files to it. Sigh...I love my laptop, and I will miss it dearly. Alas, I really need one for school and random fangirling at ungodly hours. I just finished checking my f-list and getting all the latest news, and it was like crack.
In the aftermath of my laptop dying, I totally forgot about the PROPOSAL DAISAKUSEN SPECIAL that aired today. I heard someone watched it through KeyHole TV on their comp, but KeyHole sputtered and died. Still, that was lucky. I couldn't have watched it anyway even if my comp was working because 9:00 PM in Japan is like 6:00 AM here, and yeah, not happening. Not even for ProDai. The RAW video hasn't been uploaded to d-addicts yet, but I'm waiting for LoveSong subs. Lots and lots of great ProDai pics, some from fangirls in Hawaii who went to go spy on filming (hehehe).
Another commercial for Last Friends (haven't seen it yet, but it has more Ryo-chan), and I'm getting more and more excited for this drama. The 45 second commercial looked soooo good. Ryo-chan in a DV moment, though...oooh...I have never seen Ryo-chan that way before. He may be kind of harsh, but he's not like that. That's scary.
As promised, I have written my guide on how to find good dramas. I only watch J-dramas, so that's my target audience for this guide, but a lot of the advice can be applied for K-dramas, C-dramas, or Tw-dramas.
~How to Find Good Dramas~
So, you've discovered the world of foreign dramas. Omedetou gozaimasu! Your life is over. Because once you enter the world of dramas, you never want to leave. This isn't meant to scare you, but encourage you to broaden your horizons to learn about different cultures by watching foreign television. It might kill your hard drive in the process, but at least it went down for a good cause.
I'm kidding, people.
I've only been watching Japanese dramas since September of 2007, so I'm still a newbie compared to most people who have been watching for years. But since that time, I've seen over 40 J-dramas and movies, and I still have another 30 on my list. How did I decide which ones to watch? Where did I find this information? Where do I get my latest drama news? It's all right here in this guide.
What got you hooked into the world of dramas? For me, it was a good friend of mine who also loves dramas. She encouraged me to watch some and kept asking if I'd seen the latest episode. I kept telling her I needed subtitles, but before I knew it, I was searching for them on my own. It started off with Hana Kimi which at the time was being released by SARS-fansubs. I really liked the show, so my friend recommended that I watch other dramas.
I looked up SARS-fansubs and saw they had subbed First Kiss. I started watching. And here I am today, writing this guide.
Where do I start?
The best place to begin is at the beginning. This is obvious. Go back to the first drama you really loved. The drama you can watch over and over again and never get sick of. Is it subtitled? In the majority of cases, yes. Who subbed it? A lot of the major dramas are hardsubbed by drama subbing groups like SARS-fansubs, LoveSong fansubs, JTV subs, Nya! fansubs, and TimeLesSubs. Look at what other projects they've subbed and see if any titles pop out at you.
I want to watch a drama that has so-and-so in it. How do I find them?
Have a favorite actor or actress and want to see more dramas with them? Back when I first started watching, I got really into Yamapi's dramas. So I went looking for his show credits. IMdB is not much help in this area. Websites like jdorama.com, DramaWiki, and even regular Wikipedia give listings of actor's credits from most recent to oldest. The drama titles often have links to pages about the dramas where you can read a summary of what the drama is about.
Okay, so I've seen several dramas, but I really want to get serious and watch more of them. What should I do?
Once my subbed summer dramas ended, I went looking for more. I joined crunchyroll.com, a streaming site that lets you upload foreign TV shows so everyone can watch them. Go the search feature and type in "j-drama" and shows tagged "j-drama" will come up in a list. This can also work for K-dramas or C-dramas, whichever you prefer. Crunchyroll has small summaries of the dramas written on the first page for the drama, so click on any drama and read the summary.
If you'd like, write down the names of the ones that sound interesting. Create a "Dramas to Watch" list. If it helps, put a small description next to the name such as "Gachi Baka!--school drama" or "Long Vacation--Kimura Takuya drama" Go back to jdorama or DramaWiki and look up your favorite actor's credits and add their dramas to the list. KEEP TRACK OF THE DRAMAS YOU HAVE SEEN. You'll have fond (or maybe not-so-fond) memories of watching each. You don't have to watch your list in order if you don't want to, but cross them off once you do. It'll give you a sense of accomplishment.
I can't find some dramas on Crunchyroll because they're licensed. Where can I find them?
Ahh, this is the main question. It's both easy and difficult. Sometimes dramas are licensed for DVD or will be released in different countries, so they're not available...on some sights. Aznv.tv is a great streaming website that you can join for free. Simply search for a drama such as "Stand Up!" and titles with those words will come up. I always save the streams so I can open them if I want to rewatch something instead of having to go back to the website. The only catch is you must have WinAmp, which can also be downloaded for free.
Now, if you want to download, really the best place to go is D-Addicts. D-Addicts is a torrent-based site where people upload both RAW and subbed videos. The files are large, though, and require a torrent service such as BitTorrent in order for you to download them. Depending on your download speed and the speeds of the uploaders, it can sometimes take two or three days for a large file to download. However, if it's something that just came out, you can bet the speeds will be incredibly fast. If the download is really slow, post a message requesting someone to seed the file you're downloading. Seeding will speed up the download process.
I found a drama I really want to see, and it's subbed, but I can't get it to download through D-Addicts.
I had this problem when I was trying to download Gachi Baka! No one at D-Addicts was seeding, it wasn't on Crunchyroll or Aznv, and I really wanted to see it. So I did a little creative searching.
I always use Yahoo! search engine unless I can't find it, in which case I turn to Google. The trick is to type in exactly what you need. "gachi baka+download" produced a website that had uploaded the subbed series in four parts per episode. I downloaded the files and joined them together with HJSplit. Occasionally, I couldn't find an episode, so I went back to Yahoo! and typed in "gachi baka+download+megaupload". Of course, you can also type in Mediafire or Sendspace in place of Megaupload, but sometimes people will upload their subbed episodes to their accounts.
A drama I want to see isn't hardsubbed! What are hardsubs anyway? And how do you use softsubs?
Not to worry. Your drama may actually have subtitles already. How is this possible? Hardsubs are dramas that come with subs attached. They are usually done by subbing groups that encode and "burn" the subtitles onto the RAW video. They're hard to remove, hence being called "hardsubs."
Softsubs are subtitle files you can put on your own RAW files. How is this possible? Go back to d-addicts and click on "Subtitle Index" or "Subtitle Forum." Members will sometimes sub dramas doing only the translating, editing, and timing, and create a subtitle file. Softsubs are very versatile because if a drama isn't hardsubbed in your native language, for instance, Italian, you may find someone who has softsubbed the series in Italian.
Save the softsub file to your computer. Then go download the RAW video. The softsub file name will tell you what file to download. For instance, if the subs are for 1024 hi-def or DivX. Download the same file the subs are for. The file is now downloaded. How do you play the subtitles? I use VLC player (again, it's free) because it's easy and plays pretty much anything. Go to File-->Open File. A box should come up where you can choose the file you want to play. Get the file you want, but HOLD ON. Before you click OK and start watching, look over to the left. See the little box that says "Use a subtitle file"? Put a check in that little box. Underneath, it will ask you for the subtitle file. Go find it through the Browse option and get it ready. Click OK.
Softsubs should already be timed by the subber, so the subs will play along with your file. Try not to mind grammatical and timing errors. Some softsubbers aren't as picky about it as hardsubbers, but there are some really good quality softsubs out there.
I finished my drama list. Now what?
Congratulations! Now keep looking for dramas. Keep checking websites. If you're on LJ, join communities like j-dorama, news_jpop, or johnnys_ent which frequently update drama news. The fans are always the best news carriers. Check other people's blogs or news sites like Tokyograph and Baidu. Join communities for your favorite actors. If there isn't one, make one!
Some last words of advice:
1. Excessive downloading and streaming video can be hard on your PC's memory. If you choose to download, it'd be wise to invest in an external hard drive. Mine is an 80GB on which I have at least ten dramas, both RAW and subbed. If I could, I'd invest in a 500GB where you can store practically everything.
2. On finding drama news, I get my news from other fans. There's no trick to it. I just check my communities a lot and click on links and read stories and see what other fans are saying. I also check DramaWiki and FanSubWiki to see which dramas will be subbed by whom. If I'm really looking for something, for instance last week seeing if the Hana Kimi SP might be filmed in CA, I actually went to the Berkeley city website to see if there was anything about it.
3. Don't be afraid to ask others for recommendations. You can find lots of great dramas you may not have even seen on websites or heard of before through fans.
Edit: I forgot to add this in, and reading back over it, I realized one thing I forgot: TRY TO STICK WITH A DRAMA. I've seen a lot of people give up on dramas after the first few episodes because they find it boring. The thing with dramas is that it usually takes two or three episodes before the real plot picks up. Those first few episodes are introductory and give us a good idea of the characters and how the show is formatted. Believe me, it took me weeks to finish Tiger and Dragon because I couldn't get past the first episodes. But after that, I found I liked it a lot, and it was a really funny drama. At least make it to the 4th episode and then decide if you want to stop. You could miss out on a great drama if you quit before it really gets started.
Wow, that took way longer than I thought it would. I hope if someone reads it, it helps them.
Tomorrow I have a play analysis due (I'm so thinking about skipping class) and a rough draft of my one-act play, so yeah, should be interesting since I have no comp. But hopefully by next week I will have one and can go back to regular news/non comp-related/fangirling/link-filled goody goodness.
Ja ne!
I am finally on a fast computer. I'm in the comp lab in the Media building, and it's...oh, it's wonderful. So yesterday I found out that my laptop, yeah, it's dead. My only option is to buy a new one and transfer all of my files to it. Sigh...I love my laptop, and I will miss it dearly. Alas, I really need one for school and random fangirling at ungodly hours. I just finished checking my f-list and getting all the latest news, and it was like crack.
In the aftermath of my laptop dying, I totally forgot about the PROPOSAL DAISAKUSEN SPECIAL that aired today. I heard someone watched it through KeyHole TV on their comp, but KeyHole sputtered and died. Still, that was lucky. I couldn't have watched it anyway even if my comp was working because 9:00 PM in Japan is like 6:00 AM here, and yeah, not happening. Not even for ProDai. The RAW video hasn't been uploaded to d-addicts yet, but I'm waiting for LoveSong subs. Lots and lots of great ProDai pics, some from fangirls in Hawaii who went to go spy on filming (hehehe).
Another commercial for Last Friends (haven't seen it yet, but it has more Ryo-chan), and I'm getting more and more excited for this drama. The 45 second commercial looked soooo good. Ryo-chan in a DV moment, though...oooh...I have never seen Ryo-chan that way before. He may be kind of harsh, but he's not like that. That's scary.
As promised, I have written my guide on how to find good dramas. I only watch J-dramas, so that's my target audience for this guide, but a lot of the advice can be applied for K-dramas, C-dramas, or Tw-dramas.
~How to Find Good Dramas~
So, you've discovered the world of foreign dramas. Omedetou gozaimasu! Your life is over. Because once you enter the world of dramas, you never want to leave. This isn't meant to scare you, but encourage you to broaden your horizons to learn about different cultures by watching foreign television. It might kill your hard drive in the process, but at least it went down for a good cause.
I'm kidding, people.
I've only been watching Japanese dramas since September of 2007, so I'm still a newbie compared to most people who have been watching for years. But since that time, I've seen over 40 J-dramas and movies, and I still have another 30 on my list. How did I decide which ones to watch? Where did I find this information? Where do I get my latest drama news? It's all right here in this guide.
What got you hooked into the world of dramas? For me, it was a good friend of mine who also loves dramas. She encouraged me to watch some and kept asking if I'd seen the latest episode. I kept telling her I needed subtitles, but before I knew it, I was searching for them on my own. It started off with Hana Kimi which at the time was being released by SARS-fansubs. I really liked the show, so my friend recommended that I watch other dramas.
I looked up SARS-fansubs and saw they had subbed First Kiss. I started watching. And here I am today, writing this guide.
Where do I start?
The best place to begin is at the beginning. This is obvious. Go back to the first drama you really loved. The drama you can watch over and over again and never get sick of. Is it subtitled? In the majority of cases, yes. Who subbed it? A lot of the major dramas are hardsubbed by drama subbing groups like SARS-fansubs, LoveSong fansubs, JTV subs, Nya! fansubs, and TimeLesSubs. Look at what other projects they've subbed and see if any titles pop out at you.
I want to watch a drama that has so-and-so in it. How do I find them?
Have a favorite actor or actress and want to see more dramas with them? Back when I first started watching, I got really into Yamapi's dramas. So I went looking for his show credits. IMdB is not much help in this area. Websites like jdorama.com, DramaWiki, and even regular Wikipedia give listings of actor's credits from most recent to oldest. The drama titles often have links to pages about the dramas where you can read a summary of what the drama is about.
Okay, so I've seen several dramas, but I really want to get serious and watch more of them. What should I do?
Once my subbed summer dramas ended, I went looking for more. I joined crunchyroll.com, a streaming site that lets you upload foreign TV shows so everyone can watch them. Go the search feature and type in "j-drama" and shows tagged "j-drama" will come up in a list. This can also work for K-dramas or C-dramas, whichever you prefer. Crunchyroll has small summaries of the dramas written on the first page for the drama, so click on any drama and read the summary.
If you'd like, write down the names of the ones that sound interesting. Create a "Dramas to Watch" list. If it helps, put a small description next to the name such as "Gachi Baka!--school drama" or "Long Vacation--Kimura Takuya drama" Go back to jdorama or DramaWiki and look up your favorite actor's credits and add their dramas to the list. KEEP TRACK OF THE DRAMAS YOU HAVE SEEN. You'll have fond (or maybe not-so-fond) memories of watching each. You don't have to watch your list in order if you don't want to, but cross them off once you do. It'll give you a sense of accomplishment.
I can't find some dramas on Crunchyroll because they're licensed. Where can I find them?
Ahh, this is the main question. It's both easy and difficult. Sometimes dramas are licensed for DVD or will be released in different countries, so they're not available...on some sights. Aznv.tv is a great streaming website that you can join for free. Simply search for a drama such as "Stand Up!" and titles with those words will come up. I always save the streams so I can open them if I want to rewatch something instead of having to go back to the website. The only catch is you must have WinAmp, which can also be downloaded for free.
Now, if you want to download, really the best place to go is D-Addicts. D-Addicts is a torrent-based site where people upload both RAW and subbed videos. The files are large, though, and require a torrent service such as BitTorrent in order for you to download them. Depending on your download speed and the speeds of the uploaders, it can sometimes take two or three days for a large file to download. However, if it's something that just came out, you can bet the speeds will be incredibly fast. If the download is really slow, post a message requesting someone to seed the file you're downloading. Seeding will speed up the download process.
I found a drama I really want to see, and it's subbed, but I can't get it to download through D-Addicts.
I had this problem when I was trying to download Gachi Baka! No one at D-Addicts was seeding, it wasn't on Crunchyroll or Aznv, and I really wanted to see it. So I did a little creative searching.
I always use Yahoo! search engine unless I can't find it, in which case I turn to Google. The trick is to type in exactly what you need. "gachi baka+download" produced a website that had uploaded the subbed series in four parts per episode. I downloaded the files and joined them together with HJSplit. Occasionally, I couldn't find an episode, so I went back to Yahoo! and typed in "gachi baka+download+megaupload". Of course, you can also type in Mediafire or Sendspace in place of Megaupload, but sometimes people will upload their subbed episodes to their accounts.
A drama I want to see isn't hardsubbed! What are hardsubs anyway? And how do you use softsubs?
Not to worry. Your drama may actually have subtitles already. How is this possible? Hardsubs are dramas that come with subs attached. They are usually done by subbing groups that encode and "burn" the subtitles onto the RAW video. They're hard to remove, hence being called "hardsubs."
Softsubs are subtitle files you can put on your own RAW files. How is this possible? Go back to d-addicts and click on "Subtitle Index" or "Subtitle Forum." Members will sometimes sub dramas doing only the translating, editing, and timing, and create a subtitle file. Softsubs are very versatile because if a drama isn't hardsubbed in your native language, for instance, Italian, you may find someone who has softsubbed the series in Italian.
Save the softsub file to your computer. Then go download the RAW video. The softsub file name will tell you what file to download. For instance, if the subs are for 1024 hi-def or DivX. Download the same file the subs are for. The file is now downloaded. How do you play the subtitles? I use VLC player (again, it's free) because it's easy and plays pretty much anything. Go to File-->Open File. A box should come up where you can choose the file you want to play. Get the file you want, but HOLD ON. Before you click OK and start watching, look over to the left. See the little box that says "Use a subtitle file"? Put a check in that little box. Underneath, it will ask you for the subtitle file. Go find it through the Browse option and get it ready. Click OK.
Softsubs should already be timed by the subber, so the subs will play along with your file. Try not to mind grammatical and timing errors. Some softsubbers aren't as picky about it as hardsubbers, but there are some really good quality softsubs out there.
I finished my drama list. Now what?
Congratulations! Now keep looking for dramas. Keep checking websites. If you're on LJ, join communities like j-dorama, news_jpop, or johnnys_ent which frequently update drama news. The fans are always the best news carriers. Check other people's blogs or news sites like Tokyograph and Baidu. Join communities for your favorite actors. If there isn't one, make one!
Some last words of advice:
1. Excessive downloading and streaming video can be hard on your PC's memory. If you choose to download, it'd be wise to invest in an external hard drive. Mine is an 80GB on which I have at least ten dramas, both RAW and subbed. If I could, I'd invest in a 500GB where you can store practically everything.
2. On finding drama news, I get my news from other fans. There's no trick to it. I just check my communities a lot and click on links and read stories and see what other fans are saying. I also check DramaWiki and FanSubWiki to see which dramas will be subbed by whom. If I'm really looking for something, for instance last week seeing if the Hana Kimi SP might be filmed in CA, I actually went to the Berkeley city website to see if there was anything about it.
3. Don't be afraid to ask others for recommendations. You can find lots of great dramas you may not have even seen on websites or heard of before through fans.
Edit: I forgot to add this in, and reading back over it, I realized one thing I forgot: TRY TO STICK WITH A DRAMA. I've seen a lot of people give up on dramas after the first few episodes because they find it boring. The thing with dramas is that it usually takes two or three episodes before the real plot picks up. Those first few episodes are introductory and give us a good idea of the characters and how the show is formatted. Believe me, it took me weeks to finish Tiger and Dragon because I couldn't get past the first episodes. But after that, I found I liked it a lot, and it was a really funny drama. At least make it to the 4th episode and then decide if you want to stop. You could miss out on a great drama if you quit before it really gets started.
Wow, that took way longer than I thought it would. I hope if someone reads it, it helps them.
Tomorrow I have a play analysis due (I'm so thinking about skipping class) and a rough draft of my one-act play, so yeah, should be interesting since I have no comp. But hopefully by next week I will have one and can go back to regular news/non comp-related/fangirling/link-filled goody goodness.
Ja ne!