Farscape, Korean romantics and Boku Dake No Madonna. Yup, still obsessive.
OK, Farscape and I are clearly destiny. I am in a hotel in Curacao, and Mr. Mousie turns on TV and what do we see? "Terra Firma," my very favorite Farscape episode ever.
Oh.
My.
God.
When I am getting back from dinner, it's definitely "Mind the Baby" time.
In other news, I've discovered my new favorite manga, or more specifically a Korean manhwa, Snow Drop. It was recced by the lovely klmorgan who is my newest bestest friend because of it. I've bought all 12 volumes and have taken them on the trip, and oh boy, it's so worth it. Currently, I am in the middle of volume 4, and I can't wait to continue.
What is Snow Drop? The best way I can describe it is, 'Korea's answer to Mars' And if you know my liking for that manga and mad love for that twdrama, you know how just for me SD is. SD is the star-crossed, Romeo & Juliet story of two troubled teens: So-Na and Hae-Gi. So-Na is a headstrong only child of a powerful, and rather scary congressman who blames herself for the death of her mother and who regularly relives the memory of a horrfying kidnapping when she was 12. Her biggest joy is the Snow Drop plant nursery. At least until she meets, and first clashes and eventually falls in love with Hae-Gi, a fellow troubled student at her new school, who is gorgeous but isolated and doesn't let anyone close. Unlike So-Na, who was brought up in the lap of luxury, Hae-Gi is quite poor and is the only support of his family: his somewhat wild younger (and cross-dressing) brother, and his beloved mother who has been in a vegetative state for years, ever since the death of Hae-Gi's idolized older brother. There is some sort of mystery about the death and the coma, but I have no idea what it is yet. Suffice to say, even without extra stuff which will undoubtedly come up, Hae-Gi has a lot to deal with. In fact, in order to earn enough money for his mother's surgery (the latest in the series of futile efforts Hae-Gi made to get his Mom better), Hae-Gi (who, like all manga heroes is hunky with a capital 'H') has resorted to nude modeling (!) for a rich diletante photographer who is 10% about art and 90% about 'human toys.' So here we have it. A congressman's daughter and a nude model. Equally messed up. And that is only the beginning of their troubles as, suffice it to say, their families have a very dark past together. Throw in a cross-dressing brother (who is awesome), So-Na's very platonic best guy friend (who thankfully does NOT nurse an unrequited passion for So-Na), an evil bitch girl after Hae-Gi, and a complicated plot with more than a hint of angsty doom for our poor lovers (I did check the ending so I like how it ends) and gorgeous artwork, and I am in love.
In other news, I started watching jdorama Boku Dake No Madonna, an adorable, funny, whimsical, romantic drama starring the amazingly hot Takizawa Hideaki. BDNM centers around Kyoichi (TH), who is an architecture student who decides to rent an apartment so as to have some privacy from his loving but too-close family (there is a hilarious scene in a montage of scenes where Kyoichi tries to sneak downstairs at night to watch an adult video and hastily shuts it down when his elder sister comes in, but she sees the cover and goes 'I want to watch toooooo.') Kyoichi is a normal, sweet, nice-tempered guy. In fact, that is Kyoichi's biggest problem. He is too nice for his own good, too quiet, too retiring. Too 'normal.' The girl he is dating ditches him for being 'boring,' his boss takes advantage of him being too polite and non-confrontational, and his neighbors always attempt to get into his business. Kyoichi doesn't just want to blend in, but he can't help it: he doesn't take risks, he is unwilling to offend. He is just too nice and too rule-bound. All of this is about to change, however. Because one night, Kyoichi (who works part-time at night) comes home to discover a beautiful girl, slightly older than him, asleep in his bed. It turns out that the girl is actually there to watch her ex-fiance who lives across the street. She is a bit strange, but she is funny, and free-spirited, and an odd but effective friendship/relationship develops between the two. On Kyoichi's part, it's rather more than friendship actually, and you can tell by how TH looks at her, how he leaves her meals in the fridge, how he has this expectancy of a puppy, almost, that Kyoichi is getting in deeper and deeper. As to the girl? You can tell that she has a lot of fun with him, and is beginning to rely on him too...she seems quite lonely and when they have their first fight, you can tell it hurts her as well.
I just love TH in this. This is the third dorama I've seen him in (Forbidden Love and Satomi Hakkenden were the other ones) and I continue to love not just his looks (OMG!gorgeous) but his acting. The drama is very tightly Kyoichi-centric. And most of it are his reactions to things, his character. It would be very easy to make Kyoichi bland, or dull, or a cypher. I mean, he is a character who his ex ditched for being boring, but even before he starts loosening up under the Girl's influence, he is nothing of the sort. He is quiet, and not too given to either interesting angsty issues or drama, but he is no dummy and he is the delightful kind of nice.
And he is an innocent, in so many ways. There is a particular scene that sticks in my mind. They are sitting on his bed, and the Girl goes 'let's kiss.' Not because she likes him that way, but because it's something to do and she is restless and a bit troubled about the fiance thing, and generally she is a bit of a free-spirit. And you see him be startled and then he closes his eyes and he just sits there with this look on his face, very open and expectant and that is the look that stops her. So she doesn't, after all, because she knows it's not a game to him, even though he is not yet truly in love with her.
Or there is a scene where she is somewhat drunk and she convinces him to steal a bycicle temporarily (adorably, they leave a note saying 'we just borrowed it and will return it soon, we promise') and they bike to the seashore and all of a sudden she wants to let of fireworks and after hesitating he gets them and then you see them setting them off and they are both gleeful like children (and that is why I like her. She gets him to have fun, she has an endless capacity for fun) but you see that at least half of his fun is looking at her being absorbed in fireworks.
It's delicious and brilliant and I cannot wait to see more. And the opening credits are to die for, not just because he is shirtless.
Oh.
My.
God.
When I am getting back from dinner, it's definitely "Mind the Baby" time.
In other news, I've discovered my new favorite manga, or more specifically a Korean manhwa, Snow Drop. It was recced by the lovely klmorgan who is my newest bestest friend because of it. I've bought all 12 volumes and have taken them on the trip, and oh boy, it's so worth it. Currently, I am in the middle of volume 4, and I can't wait to continue.
What is Snow Drop? The best way I can describe it is, 'Korea's answer to Mars' And if you know my liking for that manga and mad love for that twdrama, you know how just for me SD is. SD is the star-crossed, Romeo & Juliet story of two troubled teens: So-Na and Hae-Gi. So-Na is a headstrong only child of a powerful, and rather scary congressman who blames herself for the death of her mother and who regularly relives the memory of a horrfying kidnapping when she was 12. Her biggest joy is the Snow Drop plant nursery. At least until she meets, and first clashes and eventually falls in love with Hae-Gi, a fellow troubled student at her new school, who is gorgeous but isolated and doesn't let anyone close. Unlike So-Na, who was brought up in the lap of luxury, Hae-Gi is quite poor and is the only support of his family: his somewhat wild younger (and cross-dressing) brother, and his beloved mother who has been in a vegetative state for years, ever since the death of Hae-Gi's idolized older brother. There is some sort of mystery about the death and the coma, but I have no idea what it is yet. Suffice to say, even without extra stuff which will undoubtedly come up, Hae-Gi has a lot to deal with. In fact, in order to earn enough money for his mother's surgery (the latest in the series of futile efforts Hae-Gi made to get his Mom better), Hae-Gi (who, like all manga heroes is hunky with a capital 'H') has resorted to nude modeling (!) for a rich diletante photographer who is 10% about art and 90% about 'human toys.' So here we have it. A congressman's daughter and a nude model. Equally messed up. And that is only the beginning of their troubles as, suffice it to say, their families have a very dark past together. Throw in a cross-dressing brother (who is awesome), So-Na's very platonic best guy friend (who thankfully does NOT nurse an unrequited passion for So-Na), an evil bitch girl after Hae-Gi, and a complicated plot with more than a hint of angsty doom for our poor lovers (I did check the ending so I like how it ends) and gorgeous artwork, and I am in love.
In other news, I started watching jdorama Boku Dake No Madonna, an adorable, funny, whimsical, romantic drama starring the amazingly hot Takizawa Hideaki. BDNM centers around Kyoichi (TH), who is an architecture student who decides to rent an apartment so as to have some privacy from his loving but too-close family (there is a hilarious scene in a montage of scenes where Kyoichi tries to sneak downstairs at night to watch an adult video and hastily shuts it down when his elder sister comes in, but she sees the cover and goes 'I want to watch toooooo.') Kyoichi is a normal, sweet, nice-tempered guy. In fact, that is Kyoichi's biggest problem. He is too nice for his own good, too quiet, too retiring. Too 'normal.' The girl he is dating ditches him for being 'boring,' his boss takes advantage of him being too polite and non-confrontational, and his neighbors always attempt to get into his business. Kyoichi doesn't just want to blend in, but he can't help it: he doesn't take risks, he is unwilling to offend. He is just too nice and too rule-bound. All of this is about to change, however. Because one night, Kyoichi (who works part-time at night) comes home to discover a beautiful girl, slightly older than him, asleep in his bed. It turns out that the girl is actually there to watch her ex-fiance who lives across the street. She is a bit strange, but she is funny, and free-spirited, and an odd but effective friendship/relationship develops between the two. On Kyoichi's part, it's rather more than friendship actually, and you can tell by how TH looks at her, how he leaves her meals in the fridge, how he has this expectancy of a puppy, almost, that Kyoichi is getting in deeper and deeper. As to the girl? You can tell that she has a lot of fun with him, and is beginning to rely on him too...she seems quite lonely and when they have their first fight, you can tell it hurts her as well.
I just love TH in this. This is the third dorama I've seen him in (Forbidden Love and Satomi Hakkenden were the other ones) and I continue to love not just his looks (OMG!gorgeous) but his acting. The drama is very tightly Kyoichi-centric. And most of it are his reactions to things, his character. It would be very easy to make Kyoichi bland, or dull, or a cypher. I mean, he is a character who his ex ditched for being boring, but even before he starts loosening up under the Girl's influence, he is nothing of the sort. He is quiet, and not too given to either interesting angsty issues or drama, but he is no dummy and he is the delightful kind of nice.
And he is an innocent, in so many ways. There is a particular scene that sticks in my mind. They are sitting on his bed, and the Girl goes 'let's kiss.' Not because she likes him that way, but because it's something to do and she is restless and a bit troubled about the fiance thing, and generally she is a bit of a free-spirit. And you see him be startled and then he closes his eyes and he just sits there with this look on his face, very open and expectant and that is the look that stops her. So she doesn't, after all, because she knows it's not a game to him, even though he is not yet truly in love with her.
Or there is a scene where she is somewhat drunk and she convinces him to steal a bycicle temporarily (adorably, they leave a note saying 'we just borrowed it and will return it soon, we promise') and they bike to the seashore and all of a sudden she wants to let of fireworks and after hesitating he gets them and then you see them setting them off and they are both gleeful like children (and that is why I like her. She gets him to have fun, she has an endless capacity for fun) but you see that at least half of his fun is looking at her being absorbed in fireworks.
It's delicious and brilliant and I cannot wait to see more. And the opening credits are to die for, not just because he is shirtless.