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Asian TV Shows

Recently, I guess since there was that lull between Xmas and after New Year's where no new shows really came on, I have been watching more Asian dramas than I have had before. I've been downloading them like crazy as of late, but haven't watched too many yet.

It all started on Xmas Eve, when I was at home with the family playing Mah Jongg while watching Chinese programming on channel 26. At some point, the programming changed, and it switched to Japanese programming. It was a bunch of short and boring 5 minutes or 10 minutes shows, and I was getting bored of it, so I was about to switch the channel, but then a new TV drama started, so I decided to keep it on the station for a few more minutes. After watching for a few minutes, I just busted up laughing, and later on, downloaded the entire series.

The name of the show was "Nodame Cantabile", and after doing some searching on the web, I figured out that it was based on a manga series. After downloading it, and watching the first several episodes, I think I am pretty damn addicted to it. At first, I really didn't like the characters, and found it to be a bit annoying, but there was just enough humor and good storyline in it, that it was able to hook me into it. At first, I was turned off by the characters of the story because they are all so damn weird and annoying, but the more I watched, the more they grew on me I guess, so it slowly got me more into the story. Also, the storyline is about a musical academy, and they are all into classical music, so I was a bit turned off by it at first, but the more I watch it, the more I can appreciate classical music.

So after downloading that, there was still a lot of time before the next episode of Heroes started, so I found that there was a 2 hour special for Densha Otoko, and ended up downloading that too. I guess it wasn't too bad, but I think they should have just left that story alone. Seriously... the story doesn't make sense to me... The identity of the densha otoko hasn't been discovered yet, and they're making it out to be this big deal that they shouldn't find out who he really is... not even to his own friends... moreover, the guy already got the girl, but he's still the same, nerdy, nervous wreck that he always had been when he's around her, and you wonder why she still puts up with it? oh well... but I guess that if you're in Fuji TV's shoes, you gotta milk it for all it's worth...

I then noticed that a bunch of people from the cast of Densha Otoko ended up in another show called Sapuri, so I downloaded that series as well. I only watched one episode so far, so haven't really gotten into it too much yet. And then, out of curiousity, I did a search on an actress I used to like, Norika Fujiwara, and found her in another drama called Damens Walker and downloaded that series as well, but stopped watching after the first few minutes because I didn't like her short hair look... yes, I'm shallow like that... I'll probably watch some time later when I'm really bored I guess...

After watching "My Name is Kim Sam Soon" last year, I haven't really gone out to search for Korean dramas, but I'll probably do a search later on. My only thing with Korean dramas is that they tend to get way too emotional and sappy for me, so I end up watching a few episodes and then turning it off. But with "My Name is Kim Sam Soon", it wasn't too bad, and it was more on the humorous side, so I liked that more.

For Chinese dramas, I haven't really ever watched them before, so not sure if I will get into them or not.

Oh... and Kevin asked me to help him download a Japanese anime called "One Piece", but I haven't started watching it yet, but I'm almost done downloading the first 200 episodes...