Dramas that deserve more love
Sometimes a drama happens to have it all - the adoration of the fangirls, the stupendous ratings, maybe even an international mania (East of Eden, Hana Yori Dango, Goong, It Started with a Kiss). Whether said adoration is deserved differs from drama to drama, but there it is.
Sometimes the fangirls lack interest but producers do not mind as they are busy counting the chunk of change they get from huge ratings - whether June and Jane obsess over it on-line as they download it in Canada and New Zealand makes little difference to them as long as ajummas and ajusshis make their drama a phenom crushing competition (think most any Korean period drama - Jumong and Queen Seon Deok might not get much discussion on soompi or lj but their ratings were/are insane. Taiga dramas do quite well without the English-speaking part of the internet paying much attention to them).
Or we get the inverse - the ratings struggle but a dedicated core of fans, sometimes smaller, sometimes larger, are devoted to it with mad love - you can always find discussions of it and soompi threads for those dramas go for pages and pages (think my particular favorites Worlds Within, Mawang, or Capital Scandal with hundreds of pages devoted to them on soompi. Sapuri is something half my flist was watching at one time.)
But sometimes there are unlucky dramas that get nothing of that - no decent ratings, no critical love, no fangirl drool. You do not see them generate pages on soompi, you have to dig through d-addicts to find a mention, and your livejournal friendslist is as silent as the grave about them.
For a lot of them, it is richly deserved (I am quite happy with Tamra's pathetic ratings and barely-existent fanbase, and even if I enjoy Dream, it is nothing to write home about).
But for some it is not. What are the dramas you think deserve to be known/loved/received better?
For me there are two, both jdramas.
1. Utahime - in my top 3 Japanese dramas, it is a CRIME Utahime is so poorly known. There aren't even any fanvideos on youtube and vew people have watched it. But it's brilliant, like a Jorge Amado novel transplanted to Japan - the story of a soldier washed ashore in a small remote village with no memory is everything you want a drama to be but it so seldom is - funny and tragic and romantic and brilliantly written and acted.
2. Tatta Hitotsu no Koi - it is also in my favorite jdramas list. It's an old-fashioned romantic story that I couldn't tear my eyes from. My problem with a lot of Japanese dramas is that I find them oddly unimpassioned - lacking in ability to convey love that transcends, unable to make me swoon. Tattakoi makes my belief wrong - it is gossamer delicate and achingly romantic and it made me cry and it made me laugh. It deserves to be better known.
Do you have any you would rescue from the dust heap?
Sometimes the fangirls lack interest but producers do not mind as they are busy counting the chunk of change they get from huge ratings - whether June and Jane obsess over it on-line as they download it in Canada and New Zealand makes little difference to them as long as ajummas and ajusshis make their drama a phenom crushing competition (think most any Korean period drama - Jumong and Queen Seon Deok might not get much discussion on soompi or lj but their ratings were/are insane. Taiga dramas do quite well without the English-speaking part of the internet paying much attention to them).
Or we get the inverse - the ratings struggle but a dedicated core of fans, sometimes smaller, sometimes larger, are devoted to it with mad love - you can always find discussions of it and soompi threads for those dramas go for pages and pages (think my particular favorites Worlds Within, Mawang, or Capital Scandal with hundreds of pages devoted to them on soompi. Sapuri is something half my flist was watching at one time.)
But sometimes there are unlucky dramas that get nothing of that - no decent ratings, no critical love, no fangirl drool. You do not see them generate pages on soompi, you have to dig through d-addicts to find a mention, and your livejournal friendslist is as silent as the grave about them.
For a lot of them, it is richly deserved (I am quite happy with Tamra's pathetic ratings and barely-existent fanbase, and even if I enjoy Dream, it is nothing to write home about).
But for some it is not. What are the dramas you think deserve to be known/loved/received better?
For me there are two, both jdramas.
1. Utahime - in my top 3 Japanese dramas, it is a CRIME Utahime is so poorly known. There aren't even any fanvideos on youtube and vew people have watched it. But it's brilliant, like a Jorge Amado novel transplanted to Japan - the story of a soldier washed ashore in a small remote village with no memory is everything you want a drama to be but it so seldom is - funny and tragic and romantic and brilliantly written and acted.
2. Tatta Hitotsu no Koi - it is also in my favorite jdramas list. It's an old-fashioned romantic story that I couldn't tear my eyes from. My problem with a lot of Japanese dramas is that I find them oddly unimpassioned - lacking in ability to convey love that transcends, unable to make me swoon. Tattakoi makes my belief wrong - it is gossamer delicate and achingly romantic and it made me cry and it made me laugh. It deserves to be better known.
Do you have any you would rescue from the dust heap?