The Manchurian Candidate, Bednaya Nastya and Nodame Cantabile: get your damaged men here!

[dangermousie]

I've been rather neglectful of LJ lately. What with being exhausted, various RL commitments and similar, less lj time for me. Am sorry :)

First off, I finished Nodame Cantabile. It's not the kind of drama I have a lot (or any) meta for, but it was a great deal of fun. Two pet peeves: (1) whoeverplayed Straseman. I want to drown him. There is fun

Comments

[meganbmoore]

That and having to stop watching are why I just did a massive, commentary heavy picspam instead of meta. I want mmmmooooooorrrrreeeeee.

And money for the manga.

I feel, though, that there's no way the manga version could live up to Eita...

[dangermousie]

Eita?

[meganbmoore]

The rocker violinist with bleached hair and the amazingly slashtastic concert scene with Tamaki Hiroshi. I mean, 99.9% of the time, even blatant potential for slash goes right over my head(I mean, I don't even see Clark/Lex most of the time...), but that...

[dangermousie]

Heh. I didn't see slash there, but then I thought the whole thing was so OTT, I wouldn't have noticed unless there was a pair of monkeys.

[meganbmoore]

You did not notice the long, long eye exchange, the firm clasping of hands, the huge grins, the borderline hug onstage?

The amazing OTT-ness and the excellent casting(even Staussman did good in the role, even if he was obviously Japanese, which is something they probably couldn't help-granted, it's not a role I'm incredibly fond of, but...) are what made the show good. I occassionally forgot they were actors playing out parts.

[dangermousie]

LOL, nope, it escaped me.

I don't generally like OTT mugging in my dramas (a lot of reason funny bits in wuxia don't work for me, i gave up on Hana Kimi (both versions) etc etc). NC is the exception, and even there I wish they toned it down. Even with OTT stuff, I still liked it. Hated Strassman though. Thought the character/actor/concept was dreadful.

[meganbmoore]

I wanted Straussman to be hurt many, many more times than he was, but the fact that I wanted it so very badly meant the actor did well.

I barely tolerated the ending of TW Hana Kimi whn there was a sequel. Now that there won't be one, I can't even consider reccing it to someone(plus there was a scene later on that I thought was wrong in the extreme)

[dangermousie]

There is no sequel? I thought they were making it.

What scene?

I lost interest in HK halfway through (still,it lasted longer than j-HK where it was one ep :P)

[meganbmoore]

Nope, they've announced they aren't making it, so we get a non-ending with nothing resembling a resolution and several plotlines that were no more than introduced.

As far as the scene goes: They keep the attempted rape earlier in the series almost exactly. Late in the series, to tease her, Quan pretends to be drunk and comes on to her to "tease" her-as in, acting like he's going to kiss her and making her scoot further and further back on the bed until she was practically huddled in a ball in the corner-and he doesn't stop until she's completely freaked out and begging him to stop. I get that TPTB knew that we knew there was no way he'd ever do anything, but I'm sorry, when a person was almost raped, YOU were the one that stopped it and you know how much it traumatized them, you just don't do that to "tease" them.

PS

[meganbmoore]

Unless you've dabbled in other wuxia with humor, I feel compelled to mention that Handsome Siblings isn't really a good indicator of wuxia humor...it (and the entire series) was basically catering to fans of Dicky Cheung's comedy roles. Most that I've seen is much less OTT and actually funny.

Re: PS

[dangermousie]

Well, I didn't find humor in roch funny either. And fast-forwarded humor bits in Damo and Jumong. I think I am just not meant for a lot of drama humor...

Re: PS

[meganbmoore]

I don't think anything in ROCH was meant to be funny...the guy who played YG just overacted so much that parts that were supposed to show YG as being annoying came across as attempts at being funny(what happens when you have a guy playing a character half his age)

Dunno about Jumong, but I don't remember many humor bits in Damo. Just the thief guy. (The silly guy in love with her was more annoying in his puppylike adoration than funny, I thought)

Re: PS

[dangermousie]

Yeah, the thief guy in Damo was annoying. Re; ROCH. I think the weird older teacher guys, as well as kid YG were supposed to be funny. I wantedto drown them all.

Re: Hana Kimi. Weird, I wonder why they dropped the sequel.

Re: PS

[meganbmoore]

I didn't mind the thief guy in Damo because I have a soft spot for most useless but loyal/faithful characters. Oddly, it rarely extends to drama parents(really only Yoo Rin's dad in My Girl)

Kid-YG was, I think, meant to amuse us with his pranks on the monks while still annoying the heck out of us. The old guys were definately overdone. Most wuxia I've seen doesn't have that problem, thankfully(there are a few in SSWRB, but they're Qing Qing's Evil Relatives, as opposed to supposedly endearing misfits...and there are fewer of them)

As far as HK goes, I think TPTB didn't want to promote the bands together anymore. I quit caring. It wasn't incredibly faithful to the manga later on anyway, in terms of character or anything else. I liked it(except for the ending) but...