My Hero: the epic
I know you are thinking to yourself, "Why, Cathy, this show called My Hero, it is pretty cool, and the boys are pretty cute, but I don't understand why you think it is so much better than American Idol/Dancing With the Stars/Wo Xiu My Show/watching a JE musical/etc." So here are 10 reasons why this show is the best thing since bubble gum. It could maybe lose to JE antics, but only because it's only 2-years-old, and JE is already a dynasty.
01. Cosplay. Official cosplay. Official, and in most of the cases, terrible cosplay. As an advertising gambit.
Who in the world is Little Bun? He's the one standing to the right of the exorcist. I feel like I should be able to recognize the one to the left of the Gundam Seed outfit too. It's totally at the tip of my tongue but I have no idea what it is still.
DO YOU SEE THAT AT THE END. I THINK KIMI IS SUPPOSED TO BE AIZEN. NO, FOR FUCKING SERIOUS.
02. The boys.
This is Bo Ran. He is adorable and a babyface. He tends to get really weepy really easily. But he is actually totally mature! Or so the announcers keep telling us, even though I find him sort of sweetly naive. However! How you can go against a dude who adopts Little Bun as a younger brother, wishes for Little Bun to grow into a fine young man, and also hopes for world peace? Not me, anyway.
This is Kimi~! I am bitter against Kimi only because I think he is going to win, and also because since he is from Shanghai, the only My Hero sticker sheets I can get in Shanghai are of him, instead of anyone else. On the other hand, he is from Shanghai, his nickname is Kimi, and he has a great smile and sense of faux-punk fashion. Also he's a great performer. However I predict that the next round when it comes down to it, his popularity and Bo Ran's natural charm are going to edge out Little Bun. Poor baby.
p.s. video of Kimi unpacking best line? "Are you planning on opening a hair salon??" And then the other dude proceeds to imitate Infernal Affairs: "sorry. i'm a policeman."
My baby, Little Bun. He is the one I remembered the best from the final 8 to final 6 round. That was the "everyone gets to meet their parents in the audience!" round, and the announcers brought out this whole story about how and his mother are thiiiiiiis close, and when it was her birthday, he wasn't able to wish her happy birthday. And he cried. And then his mother told stories about how when she was hospitalized-- they are sort of a poor family-- Little Bun was like, mother do you need money? And she joked with him, yes, I don't have a dime left on me, and he's like, okay, and proceeds to take out all his pocket money. And she told him on stage about how she has kept it until now. Also she said that she took out this memory box that was supposed to have a recording of his voice from when he was very young wishing her happy birthday. Since he wasn't able to call her, she opened that box instead. It is broken now, but she felt like she could still hear his voice ;_;
To show you not everyone here looks like a girl-- the manliest of the final four, Zhang Dian Fei. Poor dude for his elimination round had the worst luck ever. But he's not bad-looking, and also he's totes. manly. ♥
My second favorite (well, third if you count Bo Ran, but for me the brothers are a set), Yan An. I love him because, well, he has a fantastic voice. He actually wants to be a musician, and they dress him up like he's really supposed to be a rock artist, which makes me squee because the boy is tiny, tiny, tiny, with a babyface that is like, a manly babyface. His tearjerker story? His dad, a doctor, was against him from the start being a musician, and one day, after Yan An bought a guitar home, actually smashed the guitar. And for the final 8 round, they invited his dad to come on stage, giving Yan An-- yep, you guessed it-- a brand new guitar.
The final 10, all marked off in reverse order of elimination. Final three in the left corner, forming a triangle completely accidentally.
03. The setup.
At the heart of My Hero is an elimination show. Each round, a predetermined amount of people have to leave, and the rounds are named by how many people are left: 19-to-10, 10-to-8, 8-to-6, 6-to-5, etc. After 6, the people leave one by one. My Hero is hosted by two announcers.
I have no idea what their names are. It doesn't matter. They really are only there to keep the pace going and to ask the kids softball questions so that everyone can coo over how cute they are.
My Hero consists, ususally, of a singing portion followed by an acting portion. The acting portions are filmed during the week, whereas the singing portions are done, obviously, live. Based on the opinions of the three judges (two of whom stay the same all the time, they are Yi Neng Jing and some dude from the musical school, one of which changes according to the whims of the producer) and the number of text messages sent by the viewers (which number, every time, in the ten thousands per boy), the boys are kicked off. The rules are a little more complex than this, but whatever. That's the basic idea.
My Hero contestants are chosen by region for the final 19, I think. Hence why Kimi is the Shanghai finalist, etc. I'm not too clear on this because I've never actually watched My Hero from beginning to end. This will change if I go to China again for the summer. :>
My Hero is in its second run. The dude in the middle, in that awful silver suit, was last year's finalist. He is standing in between the male announcer and Kimi. His name is like, Wen Ba Zha or something, I don't really know (nor, to be honest, care). I don't really care for him because when he performs, he tends to whoop unnecessarily, but! He is actually from a minority group in China, and lives in the mountains somewhere, and is probably more Tibetan than he is Chinese, and he has a great folksong voice. And he also says cheesy philosophical things that people just eat up.
The deaf/mute boy from last year, to whom Kimi is the successor. This is a screenshot of him dancing to Madonna's "Music". I know. It is amazing. You can't tell very well, but he is wearing a pink silk shirt with dots, and amazing white pants. Also, he can shake his ass.
My Hero, though, is not just a elimination show, which is why I say it's American Idol if it were produced by MTV/Real World. That's because on top of dancing and singing and being silly, the boys, from the moment they are officially chosen to be part of the final 19 or something, are basically fish in a bowl for China. They live in a house together. They are monitored 24/7 with the videos available for both Internet viewing and these like weekly segments on television. They are bloggers, fans, cameras following them everywhere. It's not for the shy.
But you guys. This show is the greatest idea China ever had, after paper and dynamite. Everything about it is instant lulz. When the final 10 are being transported to their Prince's Palace In The Clouds, whose name I will nicely not make fun of, they were dragged around in horse-drawn carriages. White ones. While they were dressed in these lacy white costumes that made them look like Cinderella refugees. You guys. It's amazing.
The Princes' Palace, though, is pretty damn neat, if not a little freaky because it is crammed full of video cameras, camera men, and gigantic obnoxious photos of the final 10.
04. The themes.
Every round of My Hero circles around a theme: school days, Hong Kong, Old Shanghai, living for love, ancient China, etc. This gets to be pretty neat, because the acting goes along with it too, so for instance, for Old Shanghai, the 8-to-6 round, they picked films indicative of Old Shanghai and had 2 contestants film the same segment to compare. Really, really neat.
Speaking of which:
My baby being Chow Yun-Fat in Shanghai Beach. He was actually really, really good, and you can't tell from the picture, but in the acting segment, he even kind of looked like Chow Yun-Fat.
The ancient China round. Or martial arts novel round. I don't know, I was on the train back from Beijing when this episode aired. However, how can you take any of this seriously when Bo Ran looks like Gong-Gil.
OH LITTLE BUN. I don't understand this picture but it cracks me up.
Also I guess Zhang Chao was a vampire instead of anything Chinese. Or he was Gackt. Knowing China, I am leaning towards Gackt.
On the other hand, what Kimi was supposed be completely eludes me.
05. The outfits.
Being on My Hero means being subjected to MetersBonwe advertisements out the wazoo. And I think they are responsible, at least partially, for dressing these kids up to look like god only knows what. On the other hand, a lot of it is faux-military inspired, so they all look like Nutcracker runaways, but adorable at the same time. And sometimes they look really good in a run-way crazy way. And then, there are moments where you truly have no idea why they are dressed like that.
IS THAT A TAIL?
06. The crazy stage stunts.
A lot of times I think the producers of My Hero watched tons of JE videos and afterwards got together and said, "THAT IS A GREAT IDEA. LET'S DO IT."
For instance:
Other times, I think their military enthusiasm gets a little out of hand.
Then there are the ritualistic dance moves they go through, because My Hero is silly like that:
...And then, there's the shit that I can't explain even if I'm watching it.
For that last category? Don't ask. I don't know. I have no fucking clue. I just watch it and laugh my ass off. Which I think is kind of the intention.
07. Outrageous photo shoots.
It's inevitable. You put a bunch of attractive guys together, you take pictures of them until they faint from exhaustion and boredom and/or the crack you are feeding them for amusement purposes. But I think My Hero takes it to a different level. For one, the photoshoots literally happen weekly. For another, they are, well, for lack of a better word, bizarre.
Then there are the ones taken when they throw them into a pool and tie one of them to the bottom of it and I guess the idea is they're supposed to bring him back up. In the meantime, it's like Tamaki says-- water has never hurt a handsome man!!
Or they make the final three into, uh, statues. Except not really. And then cover them in a sheet.
I think this photoshoot gives Japan a run for its money re: absolute random fanservice. BATHROOM ANTICS? SHAVING CREAM? Real men use nosestrips, you know!! God I love this show.
But before this all freaks you out-- rest assured. They have normal photoshoots too, where they look really cute and all illict poolboy affair, when they're not being so cute you want to eat them.
They put so much eyeliner on Bo Ran all the time ._.
God Kimi and Dian Fei are attractive in this photoshoot. ♥
08. The cute. And the cute gay. It happens. But it happens a lot on My Hero.
Just to start off, the stuffed animals in the palace:
Then. The boys. Being themselves.
I love how the final four are like, being themselves so well: Bo Ran and Little Bun are being gay (notice the hands around the waists!!), Kimi is all COME ON LET'S CAN CAN and Dian Fei is like uh, no i think i'll go over there for a minute!!
And this leads me nicely into...
09/10. ...why I love My Hero so goddamned much. Official nicknames, and my two favorite boys together.
Babyface and Bobo. That's Jin Bo Ran and Fu Xin Bo-- Little Jin and his little brother Little Bun.
I can read some Chinese, or at least I'm attempting to, but most of the text on the My Hero official blog just seems to overwhelm me. HOWEVER. By closely reading an entry (and surprisingly not having to turn to a dictionary) I found out that Bo Ran and Little Bun definitely made chocolate together. And the article takes great length to inform you that they are, uh, terrible cooks but put their heart and soul into making that chocolate! Personally I think they are trying to tell me that my babies are girls at heart!! That's okay, cheesy blog writer!! I already know, and love them for it.
Bo Ran's has the character "jin" on it-- as in his last name!
BUT LITTLE BUN'S IS A BUN.
What I love about these two is that everyone involved in My Hero loves them too. It is like the officially condoned pairing of the show. Or at least, the photoshoots make it seem that way.
(p.s. video of one of that photoshoots. I kind of have no words, except I love Little Bun's expression when Bo Ran pops right back up. "No. Seriously. It's nothing. Sit back down.")
But what is the best thing about them is when they're naturally charming and a pair together, whether posed, on purpose, or just something accidental. They have that cute little jun-ai brotherly feel to them, but they're also such a pair that sometimes it makes me wonder if "little brother" has a connotation I'm not aware of in Chinese. In any case, whether they're playing badminton together, singing together, or just goofing off, they make my heart go dokidoki, and I think that's why they're my heroes. ♥
(it's like they're trying to be IniD rejects!!)
I love Little Bun's expression here. It's either a "how you doin'?" or a "yeah my hand is exactly where you think it is. On Bo Ran's ass."
I'm just going to end this with the story of this video:
BOBO sings "Today You Will Marry Me" again.
I guess at this point, the two were up against each other, or something, and then Little Bun sang this song with his brother. On the blog, Little Bun has this to say: "I saw a lot of [my fans] crying, I didn't want to make you cry, I didn't want to cry either, I wanted to leave smiling. But then I saw Jin Bo Ran crying, I didn't think he would cry for me, seeing that even his eyes were red, I couldn't bear it anymore, and so I turned my face away."
This post is made courtesy of the 2007 My Hero blog and Fu Xin Bo Fen Si Wang. And Aja. Even though she doesn't know it.
01. Cosplay. Official cosplay. Official, and in most of the cases, terrible cosplay. As an advertising gambit.
Who in the world is Little Bun? He's the one standing to the right of the exorcist. I feel like I should be able to recognize the one to the left of the Gundam Seed outfit too. It's totally at the tip of my tongue but I have no idea what it is still.
DO YOU SEE THAT AT THE END. I THINK KIMI IS SUPPOSED TO BE AIZEN. NO, FOR FUCKING SERIOUS.
02. The boys.
This is Bo Ran. He is adorable and a babyface. He tends to get really weepy really easily. But he is actually totally mature! Or so the announcers keep telling us, even though I find him sort of sweetly naive. However! How you can go against a dude who adopts Little Bun as a younger brother, wishes for Little Bun to grow into a fine young man, and also hopes for world peace? Not me, anyway.
This is Kimi~! I am bitter against Kimi only because I think he is going to win, and also because since he is from Shanghai, the only My Hero sticker sheets I can get in Shanghai are of him, instead of anyone else. On the other hand, he is from Shanghai, his nickname is Kimi, and he has a great smile and sense of faux-punk fashion. Also he's a great performer. However I predict that the next round when it comes down to it, his popularity and Bo Ran's natural charm are going to edge out Little Bun. Poor baby.
p.s. video of Kimi unpacking best line? "Are you planning on opening a hair salon??" And then the other dude proceeds to imitate Infernal Affairs: "sorry. i'm a policeman."
My baby, Little Bun. He is the one I remembered the best from the final 8 to final 6 round. That was the "everyone gets to meet their parents in the audience!" round, and the announcers brought out this whole story about how and his mother are thiiiiiiis close, and when it was her birthday, he wasn't able to wish her happy birthday. And he cried. And then his mother told stories about how when she was hospitalized-- they are sort of a poor family-- Little Bun was like, mother do you need money? And she joked with him, yes, I don't have a dime left on me, and he's like, okay, and proceeds to take out all his pocket money. And she told him on stage about how she has kept it until now. Also she said that she took out this memory box that was supposed to have a recording of his voice from when he was very young wishing her happy birthday. Since he wasn't able to call her, she opened that box instead. It is broken now, but she felt like she could still hear his voice ;_;
To show you not everyone here looks like a girl-- the manliest of the final four, Zhang Dian Fei. Poor dude for his elimination round had the worst luck ever. But he's not bad-looking, and also he's totes. manly. ♥
My second favorite (well, third if you count Bo Ran, but for me the brothers are a set), Yan An. I love him because, well, he has a fantastic voice. He actually wants to be a musician, and they dress him up like he's really supposed to be a rock artist, which makes me squee because the boy is tiny, tiny, tiny, with a babyface that is like, a manly babyface. His tearjerker story? His dad, a doctor, was against him from the start being a musician, and one day, after Yan An bought a guitar home, actually smashed the guitar. And for the final 8 round, they invited his dad to come on stage, giving Yan An-- yep, you guessed it-- a brand new guitar.
The final 10, all marked off in reverse order of elimination. Final three in the left corner, forming a triangle completely accidentally.
03. The setup.
At the heart of My Hero is an elimination show. Each round, a predetermined amount of people have to leave, and the rounds are named by how many people are left: 19-to-10, 10-to-8, 8-to-6, 6-to-5, etc. After 6, the people leave one by one. My Hero is hosted by two announcers.
I have no idea what their names are. It doesn't matter. They really are only there to keep the pace going and to ask the kids softball questions so that everyone can coo over how cute they are.
My Hero consists, ususally, of a singing portion followed by an acting portion. The acting portions are filmed during the week, whereas the singing portions are done, obviously, live. Based on the opinions of the three judges (two of whom stay the same all the time, they are Yi Neng Jing and some dude from the musical school, one of which changes according to the whims of the producer) and the number of text messages sent by the viewers (which number, every time, in the ten thousands per boy), the boys are kicked off. The rules are a little more complex than this, but whatever. That's the basic idea.
My Hero contestants are chosen by region for the final 19, I think. Hence why Kimi is the Shanghai finalist, etc. I'm not too clear on this because I've never actually watched My Hero from beginning to end. This will change if I go to China again for the summer. :>
My Hero is in its second run. The dude in the middle, in that awful silver suit, was last year's finalist. He is standing in between the male announcer and Kimi. His name is like, Wen Ba Zha or something, I don't really know (nor, to be honest, care). I don't really care for him because when he performs, he tends to whoop unnecessarily, but! He is actually from a minority group in China, and lives in the mountains somewhere, and is probably more Tibetan than he is Chinese, and he has a great folksong voice. And he also says cheesy philosophical things that people just eat up.
The deaf/mute boy from last year, to whom Kimi is the successor. This is a screenshot of him dancing to Madonna's "Music". I know. It is amazing. You can't tell very well, but he is wearing a pink silk shirt with dots, and amazing white pants. Also, he can shake his ass.
My Hero, though, is not just a elimination show, which is why I say it's American Idol if it were produced by MTV/Real World. That's because on top of dancing and singing and being silly, the boys, from the moment they are officially chosen to be part of the final 19 or something, are basically fish in a bowl for China. They live in a house together. They are monitored 24/7 with the videos available for both Internet viewing and these like weekly segments on television. They are bloggers, fans, cameras following them everywhere. It's not for the shy.
But you guys. This show is the greatest idea China ever had, after paper and dynamite. Everything about it is instant lulz. When the final 10 are being transported to their Prince's Palace In The Clouds, whose name I will nicely not make fun of, they were dragged around in horse-drawn carriages. White ones. While they were dressed in these lacy white costumes that made them look like Cinderella refugees. You guys. It's amazing.
The Princes' Palace, though, is pretty damn neat, if not a little freaky because it is crammed full of video cameras, camera men, and gigantic obnoxious photos of the final 10.
04. The themes.
Every round of My Hero circles around a theme: school days, Hong Kong, Old Shanghai, living for love, ancient China, etc. This gets to be pretty neat, because the acting goes along with it too, so for instance, for Old Shanghai, the 8-to-6 round, they picked films indicative of Old Shanghai and had 2 contestants film the same segment to compare. Really, really neat.
Speaking of which:
My baby being Chow Yun-Fat in Shanghai Beach. He was actually really, really good, and you can't tell from the picture, but in the acting segment, he even kind of looked like Chow Yun-Fat.
The ancient China round. Or martial arts novel round. I don't know, I was on the train back from Beijing when this episode aired. However, how can you take any of this seriously when Bo Ran looks like Gong-Gil.
OH LITTLE BUN. I don't understand this picture but it cracks me up.
Also I guess Zhang Chao was a vampire instead of anything Chinese. Or he was Gackt. Knowing China, I am leaning towards Gackt.
On the other hand, what Kimi was supposed be completely eludes me.
05. The outfits.
Being on My Hero means being subjected to MetersBonwe advertisements out the wazoo. And I think they are responsible, at least partially, for dressing these kids up to look like god only knows what. On the other hand, a lot of it is faux-military inspired, so they all look like Nutcracker runaways, but adorable at the same time. And sometimes they look really good in a run-way crazy way. And then, there are moments where you truly have no idea why they are dressed like that.
IS THAT A TAIL?
06. The crazy stage stunts.
A lot of times I think the producers of My Hero watched tons of JE videos and afterwards got together and said, "THAT IS A GREAT IDEA. LET'S DO IT."
For instance:
Other times, I think their military enthusiasm gets a little out of hand.
Then there are the ritualistic dance moves they go through, because My Hero is silly like that:
...And then, there's the shit that I can't explain even if I'm watching it.
For that last category? Don't ask. I don't know. I have no fucking clue. I just watch it and laugh my ass off. Which I think is kind of the intention.
07. Outrageous photo shoots.
It's inevitable. You put a bunch of attractive guys together, you take pictures of them until they faint from exhaustion and boredom and/or the crack you are feeding them for amusement purposes. But I think My Hero takes it to a different level. For one, the photoshoots literally happen weekly. For another, they are, well, for lack of a better word, bizarre.
Then there are the ones taken when they throw them into a pool and tie one of them to the bottom of it and I guess the idea is they're supposed to bring him back up. In the meantime, it's like Tamaki says-- water has never hurt a handsome man!!
Or they make the final three into, uh, statues. Except not really. And then cover them in a sheet.
I think this photoshoot gives Japan a run for its money re: absolute random fanservice. BATHROOM ANTICS? SHAVING CREAM? Real men use nosestrips, you know!! God I love this show.
But before this all freaks you out-- rest assured. They have normal photoshoots too, where they look really cute and all illict poolboy affair, when they're not being so cute you want to eat them.
They put so much eyeliner on Bo Ran all the time ._.
God Kimi and Dian Fei are attractive in this photoshoot. ♥
08. The cute. And the cute gay. It happens. But it happens a lot on My Hero.
Just to start off, the stuffed animals in the palace:
Then. The boys. Being themselves.
I love how the final four are like, being themselves so well: Bo Ran and Little Bun are being gay (notice the hands around the waists!!), Kimi is all COME ON LET'S CAN CAN and Dian Fei is like uh, no i think i'll go over there for a minute!!
And this leads me nicely into...
09/10. ...why I love My Hero so goddamned much. Official nicknames, and my two favorite boys together.
Babyface and Bobo. That's Jin Bo Ran and Fu Xin Bo-- Little Jin and his little brother Little Bun.
I can read some Chinese, or at least I'm attempting to, but most of the text on the My Hero official blog just seems to overwhelm me. HOWEVER. By closely reading an entry (and surprisingly not having to turn to a dictionary) I found out that Bo Ran and Little Bun definitely made chocolate together. And the article takes great length to inform you that they are, uh, terrible cooks but put their heart and soul into making that chocolate! Personally I think they are trying to tell me that my babies are girls at heart!! That's okay, cheesy blog writer!! I already know, and love them for it.
Bo Ran's has the character "jin" on it-- as in his last name!
BUT LITTLE BUN'S IS A BUN.
What I love about these two is that everyone involved in My Hero loves them too. It is like the officially condoned pairing of the show. Or at least, the photoshoots make it seem that way.
(p.s. video of one of that photoshoots. I kind of have no words, except I love Little Bun's expression when Bo Ran pops right back up. "No. Seriously. It's nothing. Sit back down.")
But what is the best thing about them is when they're naturally charming and a pair together, whether posed, on purpose, or just something accidental. They have that cute little jun-ai brotherly feel to them, but they're also such a pair that sometimes it makes me wonder if "little brother" has a connotation I'm not aware of in Chinese. In any case, whether they're playing badminton together, singing together, or just goofing off, they make my heart go dokidoki, and I think that's why they're my heroes. ♥
(it's like they're trying to be IniD rejects!!)
I love Little Bun's expression here. It's either a "how you doin'?" or a "yeah my hand is exactly where you think it is. On Bo Ran's ass."
I'm just going to end this with the story of this video:
BOBO sings "Today You Will Marry Me" again.
I guess at this point, the two were up against each other, or something, and then Little Bun sang this song with his brother. On the blog, Little Bun has this to say: "I saw a lot of [my fans] crying, I didn't want to make you cry, I didn't want to cry either, I wanted to leave smiling. But then I saw Jin Bo Ran crying, I didn't think he would cry for me, seeing that even his eyes were red, I couldn't bear it anymore, and so I turned my face away."
This post is made courtesy of the 2007 My Hero blog and Fu Xin Bo Fen Si Wang. And Aja. Even though she doesn't know it.