Asian Dramas

[AdamFTF]

I started posting about one of these shows in the anime thread, but figured that it didn't really fit there. So, since we now live in an age where even North Americans can watch kdramas (and also jdramas and cdramas) on streaming services, I decided there should be a thread dedicated to Asian dramas. To give recommendations or just mention what you're watching or whatever.

Personally, I've been watching a Japanese drama titled Map for the Wedding on Amazon Prime Video.
MapForTheWedding.jpg

It's based on a manga I've been reading online titled Are You Really Getting Married?: 365 Days to the Wedding.
AreYouReallyGettingMarried2.jpg
The basic gist is it's about two extremely quiet, introverted coworkers at a travel agency who decide to fake an impending marriage to avoid getting transferred far away for work. But things start to become complicated when they start to develop real feelings for each other. All the while, they're dealing with events in their coworkers' lives that show them the pitfalls of married life. The show is mostly the same as the manga. Some details were changed (in the manga, they were avoiding a transfer to Siberia. In the drama it's Anchorage, Alaska). They also added a potential rival for Takuya. But the heart of it is still there.

I also recently finished a couple of different Korean dramas, Extraordinary Attorney Woo and One Upon a Small Town.

[Zauriel]

I have watched several jdramas and kdramas. and a few cdramas on streaming services, and I find some of them very entertaining to watch.

Korean Dramas:
Coffee Prince portrays the story of an unlikely romance between a tomboyish woman, who dresses like a man in order to get work, and a young food empire mogul. It contains homoerotic elements, as the man does not initially know of the tomboy's true sex.

Pasta is an unconventional love story that revolves around the kitchen of an Italian restaurant, La Sfera.

Japanese dramas:
Re:Mind is a drama about eleven high school classmates who, after awaking in an old European-style room, find themselves sitting at a large dining room table, with their feet shackled to the floor. They find that their situation could be related to another classmate named Miho who had disappeared months before. As they try to figure out how to escape, some of the girls start disappearing from the table one by one. The girls realize they each share a checkered past with Miho, but also suspect one of them could be behind the trap.

Zetsumeshi Road
Tamio Suda is an ordinary salaryman. He experiences various stress throughout his daily life. His only pleasure is to set out on trips to find "Zetsumeshi." Zetsumeshi refers to endangered meals, that may no longer exist in the future. While his wife Kanae (Wakana Sakai) and child go attend concerts by their favorite idol groups, he leaves home on Friday after work and returns home Saturday night.
https://asianwiki.com/Zetsumeshi_Road

Atelier
Fresh out of college and having majored in textile, Mayuko Tokida (Mirei Kiritani) begins her first day of work at Emotion. The company specializes in custom made lingerie and is a trailblazer in its field. Mayuko Tokida doesn't have interest in fashion, but she hopes to work with new fabrics at the company. At Emotion, she is immediately met with the frenetic whirlwind pace of the fashion industry. The company has a trunk show in only 5 days.
https://asianwiki.com/Atelier

Legal V - Ex-lawyer Shoko Takanashi
Shoko Takanashi is a former lawyer. Due to an incident, she was disbarred from the law profession. Shoko Takanashi persuades a university professor, who is accredited as a lawyer, to open a law office. She hires a lawyer and a paralegal to work at the law office. The team goes after for legal victory. They go up against a large firm in a civil suit. While working on the suit, the team experiences difficult situations.
https://asianwiki.com/Legal_V_Ex-lawyer_Shoko_Takanashi

Kantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman
Kantarou Ametani works as a salesperson for a publishing company. He does his job efficiently and has the trust of his boss and coworkers, but he has secret. He skips work and eats sweets during the work.
https://asianwiki.com/Kantaro:_The_S...ooth_Salaryman

Kou Kou Kyoushi (1993) is a forbidden love story about a male high school teacher whose fate is sealed when he falls in love with one of his female students, with a passion that seems to intensify in the face of social mores. This drama explores the complex emotions that lead to forbidden paths of infatuation.
https://mydramalist.com/2114-kou-kou-kyoushi

Kou Kou Kyoushi 2003 ("High School Teacher") is a sequel to the 1993 series. Hina, a student at Nikko High School, goes out one evening with her classmate Beniko. They get split up and Hina ends up in a strange meeting with a man named Ikumi in a game arcade. The next day, Ikumi turns up as the new teacher at her school. Ikumi doesn't seem to recognize Hina but the wheels of fate are slowly moving to reunite them in what is a passionate story of forbidden love.
https://mydramalist.com/790-kou-kou-kyoushi-2003


Taiwanese dramas:
Shia Wa Se (2016)
The drama will revolve around a popular Japanese restaurant in Taiwan that sells food using the “family-business concept” but in fact, the so-called family members are are all fake family members who is hired by the owner of the restaurant. Will the fake family become a real family in the end?
https://mydramalist.com/13308-shia-wa-se
https://mydramalist.com/13308-shia-wa-se

[Zauriel]

I forgot to mention I have watched another j-drama called Midnight Diner (深夜食堂, Shinya shokudō) It focuses on a late-night diner called Meshiya in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, its mysterious scarred chef known only as "Master," and the lives of his customers. The setting of Midnight Diner is a nameless 12-seat Izakaya in Shinjuku Tokyo. Despite being open only from midnight to 7 am, it is popular amongst Shinjuku's busy and diverse nightlife.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnig...ese_TV_series)

[dornwolf]

Got really into K-dramas. Just a few months before the pandemic I just started randomly watching them. Favourite so far has been Hometown cha cha

[kidfresh512]

I watched half of Alchemy of Souls on Netflix. Thats fun I need to finish. I saw the second part starts airing Dec 10th.

I watched almost all of The Legend of Xiao Chuo on Amazon Prime. Love it. I think I have 3 episodes left.

I am watching Love In flames of war just because I loved the lead forgot his name he was in Legend of Xiao Chuo.

I started checking for specific names of actors I like to see their other stuff.

[AdamFTF]

Got really into K-dramas. Just a few months before the pandemic I just started randomly watching them. Favourite so far has been Hometown cha cha

I liked that one too. And Hello Me!. I'm going to have to look through this thread for recommendations later.

[Zauriel]

Recently, I watched the first episode of a J-drama called Hotaru no Hikari: It's Only A Little Light In My Life (English title). It is good. Funny and entertaining to watch about a recently divorced man returning to his parents' house only to find a female stranger living there.

[Toreador]

I've watched Hotel de Luna, Tomorrow, All of Us are Dead, Safe at Home, Extraordinary Attorney Woo and the Sound of Magic. Just started watching Love in Contract. Would like to see Girl Gun Lady but don't know where to watch it.

[marshal88]

if you like hotel del luna , you should watch goblin which possessed a lot of similar traits - both series protagonist got cursed , became supernatural beings , possesses powers , both series have a grim reaper as a character , both series have an evil spirit antagonist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMCOtZVqhKs

[Panic]

I've watched so many K-dramas I don't think I can remember them all.

Some of my favourites are:

It's Okay Not to Be Okay
A selfless care worker and his autistic brother become entangled with an incredibly selfish children's book author. This show is about working your way through past emotional traumas, which makes it sound like it's very serious and worthy but in fact it's lots of fun. There's a murder sub-plot that gains momentum as the show progresses, too.

A Korean Odyssey
This is the Chinese mythological character Monkey living in present day Korea dealing with demons and his desire to eat the female protagonist. Lots of fun.

The Uncanny Counter
A young man finds himself the newest grim reaper in a team of reapers who keep the city safe from escaped evil spirits. Lots of action and a compelling plot.

[AdamFTF]

I've started watching The Sound of Magic. I like it so far. They've managed to evoke some real wonder in this show.

[LordMikel]

I've watched Hotel de Luna, Tomorrow, All of Us are Dead, Safe at Home, Extraordinary Attorney Woo and the Sound of Magic. Just started watching Love in Contract. Would like to see Girl Gun Lady but don't know where to watch it.

I love Hotel De Luna, it was so good.
Been watching Tomorrow, one episode left. Very heavy, can't watch it too often.
All of us are Dead was great.

I did not like Sound of Magic. I got about halfway and just decided other stuff was more interesting.

I plan on starting attorney Woo.

I also am watching Alchemy of Souls, which I've been enjoying.

[Zauriel]

I recently finished watching the first two episodes of a TV drama called Million Yen Women. It has a good plot premise. The premise was also well-executed and the pacing of the story was excellent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Yen_Women

[Zauriel]

I just watched the last episode of Re:Mind. It was good and nice. Actually it was a special episode. The conclusion was in the previous episode. The series didn't conclude well for me. It raised new unanswered questions, left many loose ends that were not tied. I am disappointed about not knowing what actually happened to the characters.

[Reviresco]

I used to watch a ton of Japanese shows when my Mom had TVJapan, but it's been several years since then. But I've always liked a variety of Asian shows and movies. Anyway, doing some cord cutting, and I wandered into the Chinese Costume Drama REBEL PRINCESS on Amazon Prime, because it had Zhang Zi Yi, who I'd seen in several popular movies before. It was wonderful, if you like Asian costume, semi-historical, romantic, melodramatic, martial arts media, and like a Japanese Taiga drama, it has buttload of episodes -- 68 to be exact. The huge cast was fantastic! Zhou Yi Wei played the charismatic male lead, a stoic, honorable general defending the northern frontier, who gets dragged into Imperial politics. And boy, are there Imperial court intrigues. Yu He Wei as Zhang Zi Yi's father and prime minister, was amazing.

IOW, I really enjoyed it and it's started me on a CD journey, as well as watching a bunch of Asian movies.

If you've watched it, do you have any recommendations for similar shows?