Merry Christmas!!!
Merry Christmas to all my f-list! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and got lots of wonderful gifts. Christmas for me was pretty uneventful since I was kind of sick. There's a nasty sort of cold going around Korea that leaves people bedridden for about a week which I, of course, happened to catch. Because of that I spent quite a lot of my non-working hours sleeping instead of doing more important things, like talking to friends or going online. I only started feeling better on Saturday, and then I relaxed the whole day. Saturday was freezing and I almost didn't go out at all, except for the fact that I was sick of eating the food in my house.
My friend and I finished the Korean drama "You are Beautiful" and started on a Taiwanese drama called "ToGetHer: Superstar Express". ToGetHer is about this famous Taiwanese singer/movie star named Mars who runs into some bad luck and winds up losing his house. He moves in with a girl and her sister, who need the extra money since the older sister spends money lavishly. Basically, he's spending the series trying to let people find out who he is, live a normal school life, get himself caught up in love with a psychotic rival, as well as try to re-establish him as a star so he can afford his own place again. Over the course of the show he falls in love with one of his renters and helps them out a lot with their money problems, despite the fact that he has money problems of his own. It's a cute drama and I love the main actor. Plus, it is teaching me some Chinese!
The main character, Momo. She does not normally look like this. She is dressed up in cosplay in the picture because today is her favorite anime character Prince Kashima's 22nd birthday. In reality she is a university student studying English. She is normally quiet and prefers to stay home and read, but once she meets Mars, whom she originally hates, he manages to coax her out of her shell a bit.
The other main character, Mars. Mars is an unpopular celebrity, and due to company circumstances becomes homeless when the new and upcoming celebrity inherits his house. Mars sends a lot of money home to his mom each month, so he doesn't have much money and he winds up renting a room at Momo's house.
He has a pretty terrible personality when you first meet him, as he's extremely self-centered and convinced that everyone loves him, despite his declining popularity. He's also kind of violent, which is partly why his popularity is declining. But after meeting Momo and having even more bad luck at his agency, he learns to be more humble and turns into a pretty decent guy.
Here is them together. I'm not a fan of Momo's design, but they do make a cute couple. Especially since she basically changes him from being a self-obsessed jerk to a man with real emotions.
The old sister Chu Chu, who is the cause of most of Momo's money problems. I swear she had a nose job or something done. It looks awful, imop. Chu Chu is obsessed with guys and falls for the wrong guy and winds up loaning him money she doesn't haven. When it's time to pay up, he runs off with her money and she's left to fend off the loan sharks. She winds up running away from her problems and leaving her sister and Mars behind to deal with the mess, only returning after Mars figures out how to handle the situation. After that event she becomes a lot more humbled and helpful around the house.
Despite the fact that Chu Chu is the older sister, she mostly acts like the younger sister, but there are times when these roles are reversed. She is very encouraging of the blossoming love between Mars and Momo, despite the fact that she originally fangirled over Mars. She's always trying to hook them up and encouraging Momo to go for him. At the same time, she's courteous of Mars' rival as well.
The "rival", Ah Gan. Gan is Momo's childhood friend, and unfortunately his brain has not developed past an eight-year-old's. Because of this, he is really immature and has problems living in the real world. He refers to Mars as "the bad man" and gets upset whenever he sees Momo and Mars together. When he is upset he gets very violent and hurts himself and others out of rage. He has feelings for Momo, and later on in the series Momo feels really obligated to leave Mars and help him out, since he's her only real friend. Gan is a star swimmer and does swimming competitions in many different countries.
There are more characters, of course, but these are the main four. I'm voting for Mars and Momo, of course, as I really don't think Gan is mentally fit enough to handle having a girlfriend.
After hearing so much Korean, hearing Chinese is really jarring, but it's almost a nice change since Korean is so whiny where Chinese is more musical. Koreans also make this weird noise in the back of their throats that sound like they're going to hack something up when really they're trying to say "really". One of the characters, the really annoying aunt, in "You are Beautiful" always did this and it drove me crazy. Chinese can sounds pretty weird at times, but occasionally I prefer hearing it to Korean. I still prefer Japanese over all the languages, though. To me it's just the prettiest of the Asian languages. Anyway, ToGetHer is my first ever Taiwanese drama, so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.
The December issue of Asuka is the last issue with DNAngel in it. After that Sugisaki-sensei is working on a new series, which will be in Asuka for the next sixth months. I have no interest in the topic after hearing the name. Anyway, people I've talked to who understand Chinese tell me that Sugisaki will probably write a part 2 of DNAngel since there's a lot left to cover in the story. Here's hoping Sugisaki-sensei goes through with it and doesn't leave us hanging or be lame and tell us to watch the anime or something (because I really don't care for the DNAngel anime). I can't wait to get a copy on the Asuka and translate it myself and see what's going on.
Speaking of DNAngel, the next volume is coming out in January! It will feature Satoshi and Krad!! This is the second time Satoshi's appeared on a volume cover and a first for Krad! I'll most likely be able to pick it up before I leave Korea, so I'm pretty happy about this.
Hope everyone has a good night and a good remaining Christmas (if anyone is still celebrating it)!
My friend and I finished the Korean drama "You are Beautiful" and started on a Taiwanese drama called "ToGetHer: Superstar Express". ToGetHer is about this famous Taiwanese singer/movie star named Mars who runs into some bad luck and winds up losing his house. He moves in with a girl and her sister, who need the extra money since the older sister spends money lavishly. Basically, he's spending the series trying to let people find out who he is, live a normal school life, get himself caught up in love with a psychotic rival, as well as try to re-establish him as a star so he can afford his own place again. Over the course of the show he falls in love with one of his renters and helps them out a lot with their money problems, despite the fact that he has money problems of his own. It's a cute drama and I love the main actor. Plus, it is teaching me some Chinese!
The main character, Momo. She does not normally look like this. She is dressed up in cosplay in the picture because today is her favorite anime character Prince Kashima's 22nd birthday. In reality she is a university student studying English. She is normally quiet and prefers to stay home and read, but once she meets Mars, whom she originally hates, he manages to coax her out of her shell a bit.
The other main character, Mars. Mars is an unpopular celebrity, and due to company circumstances becomes homeless when the new and upcoming celebrity inherits his house. Mars sends a lot of money home to his mom each month, so he doesn't have much money and he winds up renting a room at Momo's house.
He has a pretty terrible personality when you first meet him, as he's extremely self-centered and convinced that everyone loves him, despite his declining popularity. He's also kind of violent, which is partly why his popularity is declining. But after meeting Momo and having even more bad luck at his agency, he learns to be more humble and turns into a pretty decent guy.
Here is them together. I'm not a fan of Momo's design, but they do make a cute couple. Especially since she basically changes him from being a self-obsessed jerk to a man with real emotions.
The old sister Chu Chu, who is the cause of most of Momo's money problems. I swear she had a nose job or something done. It looks awful, imop. Chu Chu is obsessed with guys and falls for the wrong guy and winds up loaning him money she doesn't haven. When it's time to pay up, he runs off with her money and she's left to fend off the loan sharks. She winds up running away from her problems and leaving her sister and Mars behind to deal with the mess, only returning after Mars figures out how to handle the situation. After that event she becomes a lot more humbled and helpful around the house.
Despite the fact that Chu Chu is the older sister, she mostly acts like the younger sister, but there are times when these roles are reversed. She is very encouraging of the blossoming love between Mars and Momo, despite the fact that she originally fangirled over Mars. She's always trying to hook them up and encouraging Momo to go for him. At the same time, she's courteous of Mars' rival as well.
The "rival", Ah Gan. Gan is Momo's childhood friend, and unfortunately his brain has not developed past an eight-year-old's. Because of this, he is really immature and has problems living in the real world. He refers to Mars as "the bad man" and gets upset whenever he sees Momo and Mars together. When he is upset he gets very violent and hurts himself and others out of rage. He has feelings for Momo, and later on in the series Momo feels really obligated to leave Mars and help him out, since he's her only real friend. Gan is a star swimmer and does swimming competitions in many different countries.
There are more characters, of course, but these are the main four. I'm voting for Mars and Momo, of course, as I really don't think Gan is mentally fit enough to handle having a girlfriend.
After hearing so much Korean, hearing Chinese is really jarring, but it's almost a nice change since Korean is so whiny where Chinese is more musical. Koreans also make this weird noise in the back of their throats that sound like they're going to hack something up when really they're trying to say "really". One of the characters, the really annoying aunt, in "You are Beautiful" always did this and it drove me crazy. Chinese can sounds pretty weird at times, but occasionally I prefer hearing it to Korean. I still prefer Japanese over all the languages, though. To me it's just the prettiest of the Asian languages. Anyway, ToGetHer is my first ever Taiwanese drama, so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.
The December issue of Asuka is the last issue with DNAngel in it. After that Sugisaki-sensei is working on a new series, which will be in Asuka for the next sixth months. I have no interest in the topic after hearing the name. Anyway, people I've talked to who understand Chinese tell me that Sugisaki will probably write a part 2 of DNAngel since there's a lot left to cover in the story. Here's hoping Sugisaki-sensei goes through with it and doesn't leave us hanging or be lame and tell us to watch the anime or something (because I really don't care for the DNAngel anime). I can't wait to get a copy on the Asuka and translate it myself and see what's going on.
Speaking of DNAngel, the next volume is coming out in January! It will feature Satoshi and Krad!! This is the second time Satoshi's appeared on a volume cover and a first for Krad! I'll most likely be able to pick it up before I leave Korea, so I'm pretty happy about this.
Hope everyone has a good night and a good remaining Christmas (if anyone is still celebrating it)!