I Order You

 So, I'd recommended Kiss Goblin to someone and they, in turn, recommended I Order You to me as another short episode drama to try. 

There are just 10 episodes at about 20 minutes each (if you ignore the credits). I've just watched the first two episodes so far and I can't say that I love it, but I don't hate it either. Let me start with what the description on Viki says:

Can a heartbroken divorced man learn to love again?

Yeo Gook Dae (Jung Yunho) is a talented chef who hides his broken heart from his divorce behind his brash attitude. He runs a homemade dosirak (lunchbox) shop, where he creates delicious meals to take his mind off of his heartache. When he meets unemployed Park Song Ah (Kim Ga Eun) at his store, they instantly begin a bickering relationship.

Will Song Ah and Gook Dae realize despite their back-and-forth squabbling that they are meant for each other?

“I Order You” is a 2015 South Korean drama series directed by Ahn Gil Ho. It is based on a web novel of the same title by Plada.

So. Ahem. First of all, Song Ah isn't unemployed. And she is immediately smitten by him as soon as she lays eyes on him. She does, however, wind up working for him part time when a priceless dish is broken after he has to give her the Heimlich. Yeah, really. It doesn't make much sense, but I guess they needed an Ouran High School Host Club type set up to get the two of them to be in close proximity. 

Things I like so far...actually, the other two guys that work at the lunchbox shop. Ahem. Could they do a show with the tall one with glasses instead (Baek Jong Won)? I'd watch that. And the food. Because, you know me and food shows. Production value is good.

But I can't say that I'm enjoying the male lead yet at all. He just seems like a jerk for the most part. Maybe once his past comes out? I dunno. Not loving the female lead so far either -- the character is...kind of...ridiculous. And needy. But flailing. I don't feel like I have a handle on her. Or maybe it's just that I don't have any respect for her? 

At any rate, it's so short that I'll probably finish it. Maybe after some more character development it will improve. I'm probably just trying to assign more value to it than the premise holds, to be fair.

Edit: Okay, have watched a couple more when I couldn't get to Netflix to connect from the shed. It's going okay. They've also introduced a childhood friend now and, honestly, I don't see any reason to ship the female lead with the male lead. Why not the childhood friend dude instead who's a) nice (so far), b) seems to like her and she c) seems to like him a bit, though is definitely more attracted to ML dude (though I really, really don't see why). 

ML dude is...well, he's like the textbook be horrible, have a few moments of sweetness to confuse you dude. And I can't say that I feel his inner conflict much, so I'm kinda meh on him, especially since his nice moments have been very short & often something she doesn't necessarily actually see. So, technically to her, he's a dude who's really rude and mean to her who occasionally cooks her good food (that she never seems to eat more than one bite of). Also, SL dude is kinda cuter. Actually, nice dude who works at the cafe and wears glasses is cuter than all of them. Can we have him instead? He's really nice. Can I have that show?

Edit: Okay, I finished it. Partly because I couldn't get The Tale of Nokdu to play for some reason and I was waiting for subs to be finished for True Beauty and I kinda wanted to finish something and this was short and I was halfway there. I debated updating this post a few times -- mostly as everything I expected to happen, happened...but then, I thought...eh...not worth the effort. 

So...I found this one to be very predictable with all the major plot twists super telegraphed ahead of time. And full of ridiculous coincidences. There were a lot of tears (not mine). I mean, it was okay. It wasn't absolutely horrible or anything. But it was full of trope-age and needless melodrama, a fair bit of which didn't make sense (who calls off a marriage based on one conversation with a bitchy mother-in-law and then disappears for 3 years -- just in time -- thinking they'll come back and boom! everything will be okay?  ALL THE TROPES. I mean, it was all there. Ex-love who reappears at the most inconvenient time. Evil mother. "Big" reveals of coincidental past traumas. Unlikely conjoining of the past. Sigh.

But the actors were all fine. The leads got to showcase their ability to cry on demand. 

Am I glad I watched it? Not really. Did I enjoy it? Er, maybe 50%. It was okay. The food looked good. It was short. I wouldn't watch it again.

Holmes of Kyoto

I started another anime called Holmes of Kyoto which is ostensibly a mystery-solve-cases-Sherlockian series. That said, none of the episodes so far have been remotely surprising or shocking and the "mysteries" have been ridiculously easy to figure out. Even so, I'm enjoying it. It's comfortable and easy. 

In it we meet Aoi, a high school girl going through some heartbreak after moving to Kyoto. Her old boyfriend and former best friend in her old hometown have hooked up and are dating now. She feels angry and betrayed and wants to give them a piece of her mind. She brings in some of her late grandfather's scrolls to an antique shop, intending to get them appraised so she can possibly sell them to buy a train ticket back to her old city and give the traitors a piece of her mind. Instead, she winds up hired as a part time worker.

Which is all a little trite. But, okay, whatever.

The grandson of the store's owner is the eponymous Holmes with Sherlock's uncanny ability to see right through any situation. Except, as I mentioned above, I'm actually 6 episodes in now and...yeah, I'm just as good as you, Holmes-san. These are not difficult mysteries.

He's attending Kyoto University and is nursing his own romantic heartbreak (his girlfriend left him for someone more exuberant). So he feels sympathy for Aoi. There are definitely teasers of possible romance between the two of them so far, though it's fairly innocent. 

Each episode adds to the cast of characters, some of which show up again. A playboy actor type, a new female friend for Aoi, an unlikely judo expert... 

Anyway, I like it. It's not a stellar or outstanding show, but it's good for a casual watch. It's light, though not frothy, if that makes sense. The "enemy" (i.e. the Moriarty of the show) is an odd one -- an art forger that is determined to outwit Holmes. It's kind of an odd dynamic.

As a bonus, I am learning a little bit about the history of various types of Asian art.

Edit: I finished this one. Apparently 2 weeks ago. Ooops. They definitely left it open for another season. I liked it. I wouldn't say I loved it. I could have done without the Ensho (art forger/Moriarty dude) part and just had it be antiques-related mysteries. 

The relationship between the two leads did progress, but very, very slowly. She's realised she likes him (and she's about to enter Uni, so that makes it feel a bit better) but hasn't confessed. Literally EVERYONE (grandma, grandpa, friends, dad...) can tell he likes her and keeps giving him not very veiled advice to get his butt in gear or lose out but he's made no active moves. So that was a little WTF. But, I guess they are modeling him after Sherlock after all...

If I see another season, I will watch it. But I don't think this is one that I'd go out of my way to try and find the manga for or anything like that. I liked it, but I didn't love it.

Today's Menu for the Emiya Family

The other day I was looking for something short to watch while exercising, so I tried out an episode of Today's Menu for the Emiya Family. Probably partly because I'd finished Isekai Izakaya and was in the mood for more food...I do enjoy watching stuff with food & cooking. Living vicariously? I dunno.

I'm not entirely sure about what the overall premise is after just one episode -- there's definitely cooking & a very sweet atmosphere. The description of the show says:

"Fulfilling meal...a familiar view In this story, Fate and food meet in a delicious and gentle world. It’s nothing but an ordinary meal scene... Delicious meals are served at the Emiya’s dinner table every day, through spring, summer, fall and winter. -- Let's see... what's for dinner today?"

And...well, yeah. Hmm. 

I feel like I should have waited to write up something on this until I've watched more as I don't feel like I really know anything about any of the characters yet other than they all seem nice and there's one possible pairing. I have no idea if they are related or how they know each other. And the boy does most of the cooking? And they have a kotatsu that no one wants to leave once they get under it? Actually, that's my big takeaway so far -- I'd really like to have a kotatsu.

Kiss Goblin

 Heh, what a silly name for a show. I'd randomly seen a clip on Facebook for this show & added it to my Viki list...when I noticed that the episodes are really short. Like, 12 minutes each or so. Which made me go Yay! because, while I'm enjoying the shows I'm in the middle of, I also kinda wanted to get through something, you know what I mean?

This is a 2020 series with actors that I've not really seen much, though the male lead looks very like someone else. Anyway, let me start over.

Ban Sook (played by Bae In Hyuk -- he's very new, having debuted in 2019 apparently) is a 160 year old Goblin (someday, I gotta look up exactly what that means in Korean mythology -- they are definitely otherworldly & have shown up in various other shows, but I don't feel like they exactly correspond to fairy tale creatures I am familiar with) and he wants nothing more than to become human. He doesn't want to be alone. So...he's gotta kiss 10 different people to gave an emotion from each, as set out by the Goblin Queen. 

Oh Yeon Ah (played by Jeon Hye Won) catches him kissing her best friend (after she saw him kissing another girl the night before) and is righteously angry. But she soon discovers his secret -- honestly, he's remarkably up front about who he is to her -- though she doesn't believe it until an exorcist (played by Jang Eui Su, who was apparently in A Gentleman's Dignity...a show I couldn't finish) shows up trying to kill him. Then she finds herself in the strange place of being his protector (a human shield, if you will) while Ban Sook is on his kissing mission.

As he gains emotions (anger, joy, compassion, emptiness, etc.) things get more complicated for both of them. Meanwhile, there's her ex-boyfriend (who is a supreme ass), a barista that's had a crush on her for 2 years, and perhaps a hidden relationship complication between the Goblin Queen and the exorcist. 

I'm half way through after this morning's exercise session and should be able to finish it off tomorrow. I have hope it will end well, though I can see that it might be one of those things where she's his 10th kiss (and after they've kissed, the girls forget everything about him, so it might be one of those things.) But, it's got a light feel about it, so I'm hoping it wraps up nicely.

Edit: Finished it. And it was exactly like I predicted it would be -- She's his 10th kiss (after they've declared that they'll have their "first day" after he's become human & they've figured out they like each other). She's even fine with it -- says, yo, dude, you're handsome & my type, just ask me out and make me fall in love with you again, you did it once, it'll work (which was refreshing, at least), but the additional wrinkle is that HE also loses all memory of being a goblin (and her). So then he's gonna leave the world instead, but the exorcist dude tries to attack her to get him to come back and Goblin dude goes medieval on him. 

Ultimately, they do kiss and a year later, they're in a class together and the Goblin Queen does a little nudge in the right direction by putting them together for a group project and you know it'll lead somewhere...

So, given what this was & the short episodes, I don't have any real complaints. I mean, there are some serious gaps as far as realistic world building: what, he just comes awake with no memory of ANYTHING & then poof he's in uni? And if he was erased from her memory completely, how does that work? Does she have, like, a month long gap because they were together constantly? And then there's the other people that he didn't kiss -- they would remember him. It's one of those things that you just can't think about too hard. 

That said, it was a nice little diversion. The actors were all good. Their chemistry was nice. It was satisfying, if predictable (to me, anyway...I saw a review where someone was talking about OMG the plot twist!! but nothing about this show surprised me at all. But that's okay. If it had been a full length series, I'd be annoyed. But they packed enough in for the time they had. 

Am I glad I watched it? Yeah, it was a nice bit of fluff. I enjoyed it. 

Love Guaranteed

 I'm not even sure why I'm writing this one up. I don't do a write up on most "normal" movies we watch. But it's D&D night and my character is currently dead as a doornail, so I don't have anything to do other that cheer the others on. So...I watched this last night. Hubby made it about half way through before he was snoring. 

It's got Rachael Leigh Cook (remember her from She's All That?) and Damon Wayans Jr. She's an upstanding lawyer who takes too many pro bono cases to be able to pay her employees, but they love her anyway. He's a physical therapist with a heart of gold and has been looking for love since his fiance jilted him. Basically, he's been on a 1000 dates and wants to sue a dating service called Love Guaranteed for breach of contract. She takes the case because...well, she needs to eat. 

She soon revises her opinion of him (thinking he was just after a payout). Honestly, both of them are impossibly too pure for this world. Everyone loves them. They're too perfect. That's probably the biggest strongpoint and weak point of the movie. They are impossible. They are completely unbelievable, but, of course, perfect for each other.

They take the case to court (Heather Graham features here as the bazillionaire space cadet new-age nonsense spouting owner of the dating service) and it comes down to hinging on them winning IF he doesn't admit he's fallen in love with his lawyer because, while he didn't meet her through the dating service, he met her BECAUSE of it. Cue dramatic courtroom confession. A non-altruistic change of heart of the owner, and yay, happily ever after.

So, it's okay. It's imminently predictable. It works at all only because Wayans is perfectly charming here. Cook is okay as well. I think I watched it mostly because I was interested to see them after not having seen either of them in so long. But it's not a great movie. It won't be a classic. I don't see myself re-watching it again. There's no great depth to it and every move is telegraphed -- which is, to be fair, okay if that's the kind of comfort food you're looking for.

The Garden of Words

 Oops, just realised I didn't write this up from ages ago. So hopefully I remember enough to give it a fair description. Awhile back (um, since we moved, but not within the last 2 months?) I watched the animated movie The Garden of Words. 

I didn't really know anything going into it. Literally, the blurb is "When a lonely teenager skips his morning lessons to sit in a lovely garden, he meets a mysterious older woman who shares his feelings of alienation." I was feeling a bit alien myself.

First off, let me just say that it's quite a lovely anime as far as the style and look. The colours, the rain, the style of it. It's pretty. It was written and directed by Makoto Shinkai.

It is, indeed, about a lonely teenager in Toyko. He's quite young -- 16? which is probably my only quibble at all because, at it's heart, it is a tale of romance and longing and belonging and the female lead is a much older woman (late 20s?). I can't give exact ages as it's been too long, but I did wish it had been him in his LAST year of high school instead of his first. 

He (dammit, I don't remember their names at all either) is a responsible kid; he's gotta be, because his mom seems a bit of a flake and his older brother is moving out to be with his girlfriend. He works a bunch of part time jobs and his dream is to make shoes. He feels school is rather useless and he looks forward to rainy days because on those days, he skips and goes to the park. It's there that he meets a mysterious older woman. 

Why is she there during work hours, nursing a beer and eating chocolate? She's quiet and non-threatening and they don't even exchange names, but they slowly learn about each other. They don't flirt; not at all, but they do take small comfort in each other. She encourages him with his shoe making. It's obvious that they are both hiding, just in different ways. They share a sense of illicit-ness in their rainy day meetings and bring joy to each other. A quiet joy--they are both outsiders and they form a bond that goes beyond that of strangers. She gives clues as to who/what she was, but not any that he particularly picks up on, which is why the reveal much later is such a shock to him.

You see, she was a teacher -- at his school, no less -- and some nasty upper year students had basically bullied and accused her of inappropriate relations with a student (which makes her relationship progression with the boy even more poignant) to the point that she'd had to take off of work. He finally finds out who she is when she returns to school. At this point, he is protective of her and even gets into a fight (that he loses) with the upperclassmen. 

There is a final confrontation where he declares his love and she attempts to reject it, feeling (rightfully enough) that it can't be appropriate for them--something, to be fair, she's known all along and has been fighting with whereas he's only had the sense of age as the elephant between them--but then she chases him and they share one embrace. That's not the start of the romance though; because they aren't in the same place. She goes off to reclaim her life, he continues on with school -- though a voiceover at the end hints at him hoping to meet up with her again when they are on more equal footing. 

I feel like I'm not giving this justice; it's a lovely, poetic and delicate anime and I'm just spouting facts. I wish I'd written it up right after watching it. I mean, I am a bit conflicted with the age difference, BUT this was one of the most realistic handlings of that I've seen. They feel very real; they struggle, they have depths of loneliness to them all out of proportion to the sparse dialogue of the film. It's very well done. It's...like a watercolour of emotion.  I am glad I watched it. 

The Tale of Nokdu

 All of the bandwidth was getting sucked up by hubby downloading something (& little dude playing something), so I couldn't get a signal at all to watch something. So I had to work with what I had downloaded from Netflix. Sigh. I do wish Viki had that option. I was hoping to do a Mystic Pop Up Bar episode, but it wouldn't renew for some reason, so I wound up watching the first episode of The Tale of Nokdu. 

This is one I'd been wanting to watch for a while anyway, so I'm not terribly fussed. 

Nok-Du (played by the lanky but delicate Jang Dong-Yoon) lives on a remote island with his father and brother. He's never been allowed to leave the island & it's obvious there's some story behind that (at a guess, he's the rightful king/prince). One day, they are attacked by a group of female assassins. Nok-du entrusts his father and brother to the care of the village and follows after the one that got away (wounded). He's a talented swordsman. 

He has a run-in with Dong Dong-Ju (played by Kim So-Hyun, who I've seen in Page Turner and Bring It On Ghost) while she is dressed as a man and trying to assassinate the king. Through various circumstances, Nokdu winds up having to dress as a woman to infiltrate a widow's village where he followed one of the assassins to. Dong-Ju, of course, is there as a kisaeng in training.

Now, a lot of the time, it's really unbelievable when characters dress up as the opposite sex, but I gotta say that Dong-Yoon can pull it off. He's tall, but he's pretty. I can buy him as a woman actually more than I can buy So-Hyun as a man; but at least Joseon men's dress is very concealing so you can see that she'd get away with it. 

There's a pretty good mix of action vs. comedy vs. drama and you can see where the romance is going. Fast-paced as well; nothing draggy about the first episode. Looks very promising.

Edit: Finished episode 3 and they just keep getting better so far. A bit confusing in that all of the old dudes have the same fake scraggly beards so it was a bit hard to tell them apart at first, but I think I've sorted it out now. I think little dude would even like it.

Edit: Finished 4 and I was briefly confused about what the heck was going on until I remembered stuff that had happened way back in the first episode that I'd forgotten about. Hey, it was back in November. I was getting a bit annoyed thinking, what are they doing?? But then now it all makes sense. I probably should have re-watched episode one before I re-started. 

Edit: Up through episode 9 now. I was wanting to start Mr. Queen because it looks absolutely ridiculous (and I like the leads), but I'm so far through this one that it made more sense to keep going without starting something new. Also, this one is really good. It has some of the best pacing of any of the Kdramas I have watched. The last couple of episodes have the first hint of oh, come on when Nok-du and Dong-ju keep running into the King while he's out dressed like a somewhat normal person & get to know him. One, it's way too convenient. Where are all his hangers-on? When he's going around the palace, he's followed by, like, a contingent. Am I really supposed to believe that he wanders around at all hours by himself? I can actually get why they don't recognise him as the King -- it's not like there are photographs or newspapers. But, yeah, it is all a bit convenient plot-wise.

On the other hand, it is interesting to see another side of the King. He's obviously not a good man -- he attempted to kill his newborn son after all (still no idea why or what it has to do with the date Nok-du was born) and apparently has killed other people in his quest to maintain power. But he does have some levels to him -- he's lonely, he's afraid, he felt betrayed by his father. He's not all evil, especially in his interactions with who he can only imagine are random strangers. And he seems to know that he's not the best king. But still, yeah, crap person.

Whereas Yul-mu has morphed from second lead nice/annoying dude to full on evil manipulator / schemer not afraid to kill entire villages full of women (not to mention the Grand Prince). He's actually a bit one-note now, though he does have a soft spot for Dong-ju...but, honestly, I don't think he'd hesitate to kill her either if (and when) she gets in his way. He's become the big bad of the show.

Anyway, still enjoying this one and have no serious complaints about it. And, like I said, the pacing is excellent.

Edit: Whew. Finally. Just two episodes to go. Everything's still good. Pacing, characterisation, etc. It is a bit wearying at this point because I kinda just want to get to the payoff now. Very tired of Yul-mu's posturing. Wanna slap the king. Wanna hug Nok-du and Dong-ju and make them talk to each other.

Edit: Okay. Finished it! Yay! I'm not gonna re-hash any of the plot. Overall, it was a great show. The front end is a lot more "fun" than the last half (all the cross-dressing hijinks, etc.), though about half of the last show was pretty much pure fan-service (not in the R rated sense, but in the fluffiness sense) as you get to see their wedding and some happy moments with all the family. In fact, that might be the one weak point -- evil Yul-mu (I never did figure out how to spell his full princely name) knows they are alive and it is extremely out of character for him to leave them be (or let the Queen mother join them once he finally succeeds in his revolt 9 years later). I mean, yeah, I'm grateful because I like a happy ending. But would his character actually do that?

The one "twist" at the end is one I had thought they would have (where Yul-mu's birthday is the same as Nok-du's and so the king's prophecy referred to HIM rather than the king's son and therefore the king was an evil idiot for no good purpose) early on. I didn't expect them to leave it for the last episode. It had been very early on (before Yul-mu showed his true colours) that it was mentioned they shared a birthday. The bad thing about being a writer, I guess. I'd been waiting and waiting to see when they were going to reveal that to the king. 

Anyway, am I glad I watched it? Yes. Would I watch it again? Hm...maybe. After awhile. The last half was a bit grim with all the dying and whatnot. So...maybe once we're no longer in a pandemic? I did really love all the actors, including the side characters. There's really nothing wrong with this one at all. Really well done all the way around. Any weariness is more related to pandemic-world-on-fire-weariness than with the show itself. And I really need to look up Jang Dong-Yoon to see what else he's in.

Dash & Lily

 So, I was feeling kind of Christmas-y today and I didn't want to do a full hour exercising, so I thought I'd try out the first two episodes (just over 20 minutes each) of a show called Dash & Lily, based on a book by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn called Dash & Lily's Book of Dares. I'm not a huge fan of David. Don't get me wrong; I generally enjoy the books he writes (especially the ones with Rachel--like Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was also made into a movie). But I've met him a few times during conferences and conventions and he rubs me a bit the wrong way. It may just be the whole "you must be ON" during a conference thing, but he comes across as very stuck on himself and a bit fake and I suppose it stuck out because most of the people you meet in kidlit are truly just lovely and warm. But maybe he's lovely too. I'm sure he is to his friends. So, anyway, I decided to watch this in spite of that. 

Like his other books, this one is about those particularly jaded beasts known as NYC teenagers--the kind that go to Stuvie (or should). They are clever. Snarky. Well-read. Full of wit and independence. There is, honestly, probably no other city in the world that these rare creatures could live in. 

In this case, we have Dash, who is the very snarky and aptly-described "snarly" teen (played by a 24 year old). He hates Christmas. He's been burned by love. He fancies himself jaded. He thinks he wants to wallow in solitary confinement. His mom thinks he's staying with his dad. His dad thinks he's staying with his mom. He has one good friend (who's awesome) and an ex girlfriend that he can't forget (and is conveniently in town; I suspect she'll pop up at some point to cause some conflict). 

Then there's Lily (played by a 26 year old). She's an old soul in a teenager's body, more comfortable talking to adults than kids her age. She appears to have an endless collection of Christmas jumpers. She ADORES Christmas, but her family (for the first time ever during the holidays) is traveling and she's only got her adorable gay older brother (who has just embarked on a new romance) around. He encourages her to take a journal and set up a trail of clues / dares by leaving it in her favourite bookstore: The Strand.

Dash, of course, is the one that picks it up. At the end of episode two, they've traded it back and forth a few times and Dash in particular has been forced out of his comfort zone. He's not afraid to make a fool of himself, I'll say that for him. I imagine it will be Lily's turn soon. 

So. I gotta say that so far it's going exactly like I expected it would based on what I know of David and Rachel's books together. And I am enjoying it -- it's predictable but cute. Very charming. 

I like that Lily is half-Japanese (with the family to represent that). I love the gay older brother and yay for showing a nice-ish gay Asian couple (though, hey, he coulda met the guy somewhere *other* than Grindr, for heaven's sake). I like all the side characters -- the taciturn, unimpressed bookstore clerk saved as "Cousin Mark" in Lily's phone; the protective "Uncle" that plays a store Santa (that Dash winds up stealing a hat from in order to find out what Lily's name is), the best friend of Dash with the unlikely name of Boomer (if I'm remembering right). 

I'm sure I'll finish it. I just don't think it is going to surprise me. I feel like I've seen it before (Nick & Norah, Naomi & Ely), just set in a different season. I don't mean to sound snarky. I guess I just like to be surprised a little. But, we'll see! Maybe it will! And hey, I need some eggnog!

Edit: I finished it. It was okay. I wanted to like it more. Or, I wanted to hate it more. I landed somewhere in the middle. It was probably supposed to make me feel all warm and fuzzy, but I felt more frustrated. I wasn't even really rooting for them to get together. Was it that they were all ridiculously privileged and unapproachable? Was it that they feel doomed to me as a couple? That neither one of them really deserves the other? I don't know. Was it that every bit of it felt too familiar? I really don't know. Maybe it's just that I watched it at the end of 2020, one of the worst years ever.

Caution, Hazardous Wife

 I'm not sure why I decided to try a new show over the weekend while exercising. Maybe because I'll Go to You When the Weather is Nice is such a slow-paced thing? I'd had Caution, Hazardous Wife on the Viki list for a bit and it looked like it would be cheerful and funny and/or silly. 

And...well, it kinda was. And not. Basically, the lead character, Nami Isayama (played by Haruka Ayase) was an orphan who grew up in a lonely fashion and lived a rough life as a spy. She finally decides she's had enough and fakes her own death. All she wants is a "normal" life, though she's not really sure what that is. Husband, kids, taking care of the house. 

She soon lands a husband -- love at first sight -- at a blind dating event. They marry and she quits her job and becomes a housewife. But after 6 months or so, not everything is as perfect as she'd hoped. 1) She's kinda bored, 2) She's a terrible cook, 3) Her new fellow housewife friends have warned her about signs that the marriage isn't going so well (i.e. he's going out to eat more, they aren't getting busy at night as much...) and she's concerned about that.

She and her new friends, played by Ryoko Hirosue (looks familiar, but can't place her) and Tsubasa Honda (who I'd seen in the live action Full Metal Alchemist) decide to take a cooking class together. There, they meet another lady and Nami immediately senses something is off.

So. Yeah. The lady is a victim of domestic violence. Her husband is a serious serial abuser. So. The majority of the first episode is them trying to help her the "housewife" way (i.e. being there for her, trying to back her up even when the husband lies, etc.) but then that fails and Nami ultimately takes matters (more violently) into her own hands. 

Not exactly funny. Or silly. 

They're showing him beating the lady with an orange wrapped in a towel. Then, when she tries to tell him she wants a divorce, he freaking stabs her and then threatens to let her bleed out unless she begs for help.

So. Yeah. 

And, ultimately, dude didn't get what he deserved (JAIL or DEATH) -- Nami just made him divorce the lady and give her the house and leave town. 

So...

I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling about this one. I'd be willing to give another episode a go, but it's definitely not the FLUFF I thought I was signing up for. It was apparently made into a movie as well (same lead actors) that is set after the end of the drama series (and the husband isn't the IT CEO he claimed to be?). 

Weirdly, Haruka looks like the Japanese version of Jennifer Garner. I mean, disturbingly. Or Jennifer Garner looks like the American version of Haruka Ayase. Not always, but enough that they could just about be body doubles for each other. Especially from Garner's Alias days. Not a thing that affected my enjoyment of the show or anything. Just a weirdness. 

Acting-wise, it was okay but a bit awkward. The leads were decent. The two housewife friends were so-so, especially the one I'd seen in something before. She's just very obviously acting in some scenes. I don't remember that from the movie I saw her in, but it was a live action for an anime, so...

Eh, so I guess I'm a bit 50/50 on this one. I might give it another go, but in a while and when I'm in the mood for something like this (i.e. probably not during a pandemic...). It has potential though. I mean, I do love some ass-kicking. I just wasn't expecting the graphic domestic violence.

Wannabe Challenge

So I haven't posted about any otome for a while, probably because I've been more or less treading water with them. Still playing Mr. Love Queen's Choice, but I haven't actually advanced past chapter 17 even though there are now apparently over 20 chapters and they've even been divided into volumes...basically, I've just been doing the daily tasks. Obey Me I am playing just sporadically. I would actually really LOVE to play through my comfort app -- Mystic Messenger -- but I don't have the kind of time it takes to devote to it (especially the late night chats and phone calls) right now. Gotta get little man up at 6 AM for school. 

BUT I randomly decided to join an otome group on Facebook because it popped up. And that brought a new game to my attention called Wannabe Challenge. Which, okay, I detest the name. BUT it's a Korean made game (like Mystic Messenger) and it uses some of the same voice actors (Jang Kim! Zen!). So that right there was enough to make me download it.

Gameplay-wise...it's more similar to Mr. Love than anything else. There are cards to collect and it looks like there's an avatar to dress up. A gacha to get cards. Not in love with that. BUT the interface is clean and seems easy to use. Storyline reasonably engaging (so far -- I'm still in the first chapter) though a bit young feeling. Basically, you're a 21 year old model who seems to feel (maybe rightly...hard to say) that she's had bad luck all her life and that her mother (who used to be a top model) doesn't love her. However, there's some past lives kind of thing because 3 goblins and 1 otherworldly fox-ish dude are connected to her and now that she's 21, they've come to find her in the real world. 

The guys are Taehee (dark hair), Biho (red hair), Hansol (blondie), Yooha (silvery-haired fox dude). So far they all seem like cinnamon roll sweetness. There are apparently texts, phone calls, and Instagram-y posts where you can interact with them. There are choices you make in the story sections that do seem to change their feelings for you, but no idea yet whether or not it's a true game mechanic (as in Mystic Messenger where you can try and pick a route) or if it's like in Mr. Love where you're kinda a four-timing dilettante. I'm guessing it's probably the latter, given the rest of the app, but I have hope it's more like a traditional otome.

The Wannabe thing -- essentially, it's supposed to be an app like Instagram. And she's trying to win a competition on it to become more self sufficient? Honestly, I'm not totally sure what's up with her other than that she wants to move out from her mom's place but things with her job suck? Though there's hints that's got some otherworldly root cause. I mean, dude, her boss's name is Sloth. WTF. Though, maybe it's the perspective of age, but if she weren't so freaking negative and bleh about life, maybe it would be better...(in a nutshell, not totally loving the MC so far--the MC in Mr. Love is written sort of purposefully dumb and naive, while this one seems like a Debby Downer O Woe is Me. Both are a bit annoying.).

Like Mr. Love, the "story" missions are alternated with task missions; in this case, photoshoots. You can upgrade the cards and the "camera" you use to take the shots. Looks a bit grind-y as you collect items when you do the photoshoots that are then used to upgrade the cards. 

Basically...yeah...I'm totally playing this to hear the voice actors. It's got Zen and 707. The story bits with the voice acting are actually quite long, which is both a good and bad thing. Like I mentioned above, I've not got loads of time at the moment to play (er...I should actually be doing something else right now other than writing this up...) so I am moving very, very slowly through this one. Like, maybe 4 missions a day at the moment? Which is probably okay, I suppose. But you want to be able to have a chunk of time to sit down, because you actually want to listen to the VAs and not skip through it...

There's a bunch of stuff I haven't unlocked yet as I haven't made it out of the first chapter, including the dress up stuff. So I'll report back later. 

But, hey, kudos to an otome app where the girl actually HAS EYES. Though, man, I can't wait until I can change her out of her short shorts outfit. It's ridiculous. I don't even like avatar dress up things but I am too old to look at the MC in that outfit. It makes me cringe. Put some clothes on, girl! The dudes are all wearing winter coats and you're walking around like Daisy Duke! FFS!

I'll Go to You When the Weather is Nice aka When the Weather is Fine

 The literal translation of this one is actually If the Weather Is Good, I’ll Find You, which I kind of like. Anyway, I'd finished the Flower Boy Next Door and I did a few exercise sessions with the Isekai Izakaya (which I really am enjoying), but I thought it would be nice to do another drama. And...you know, I really like Mystic Pop Up Bar...BUT I think I've figured out why I haven't watched an episode in months even though I'm about half way through. I know it's about to head into the angst-y arc. And it's a somewhat formulaic show where every episode features a "problem" that they solve. And a fair amount of those problems feature dead people. Because, you know, heck, half the cast is supposed to be dead. And while the show itself is fairly funny, I just literally can't take any darkness right now. I just really want ALL THE FLUFF. 

And, at this point, I've probably given up on Good Casting and probably also Sweet Munchies, even though I've also made it halfway through both. The one because you know who the bad guys are so there's no real plot tension and the spies are just...so freaking incompetent. And Sweet Munchies because I don't really like how they're handling the whole "pretending to be gay thing" and you know people are gonna get hurt.

Anyway. Back to this show. I'd been hearing for ages how it was slow but sweet. And it's got Park Min Young from What's Wrong with Secretary Kim. And the male lead runs a bookstore. What's not to like about that? 

So, Hae Won (also another bonus that the female lead character has one of my favourite Korean names), played by Park Min Young, is a cellist. She's been teaching in Seoul but has come back to her small home town to stay with her aunt. She's a bit disillusioned with life after some of her experiences in the big city (horrible students with overbearing parents, an unsupportive and unscrupulous boss and probably some other things we haven't even seen yet) and has come back with her tail between her legs and some hidden anger. 

Her aunt, Sim Myung-Joo, (played by a sunglasses wearing Jin Hee-Kyung) runs a dilapidated inn, though Hae is surprised to learn she's in the process of shutting it down. There's obviously some weird history between them (or maybe to do with Hae's mom?). Not really sure what's going on there yet.

And then there's Eun Seob, played by Seo Kang Joon, the bookstore owner who had attended high school with Hae. He's had a crush on her forever and while he tries to play it cool, he's a bit of a flailing mess. Everything I've read about this one is that it's very s-l-o-w paced and I can already see that. The episodes are an hour long and everything, including the artisan-ish coffee making, is slow and methodical. A bit of staring into the void, as it were. 

There's also about a billion other characters mentioned on AsianWiki (some of whom I've seen in other things before). His family, her family, people they went to school with, and then a bunch of others that I have no clue how they fit it.

After the first episode, I can say that it seems like a warm cup of tea on a winter's day, with slow tendrils of steam rising into the air. I think it's going to be good. I like the leads (while I haven't seen Kang Joon in anything but clips, he's in a fair few of the ones I have on my to-watch-list). Park Min Young so far is a bit blank faced and emotionless, but I think that's more of her character trying to not make ripples in the world around her. Quite liking Eun Seob. I like it when the guys flail a bit. And, you know, bookstore.

Looking forward to continuing on, though I wouldn't say it has HOOKED me yet. It definitely has a slow burn kind of feeling.

Edit: Watched episode 2 today. It is a very quiet show, though on the other hand, it's already bringing out some of the past drama. Apparently the reason Hae was living with her aunt in high school was that her mother killer her husband (presumably her dad) and went to prison (!?). And the one friend she'd made, Kim Bo Yeong, let that slip to the other girls & they had a falling out and present-day Bo Yeong wants to talk with Hae about their "misunderstanding". 

Loved the book club scene. It was very sweet. Honestly, I wouldn't even mind if this show really didn't have much drama and it was just the book club and the slow making/drinking of coffee and the two leads slowly getting to know each other. I'd be okay with that. Don't think that's gonna happen, but I can hope.

Edit: Yeah, okay, going slowly through this one. I'm up through episode 8 now? Which means I'm halfway. And they're finally sort of getting together. But given how many episodes are left and the whole O woe, we have so much past trauma, I have the distinct worry that it's gonna get a lot worse before it ends up okay. Besides her whole "my mother killed my father and I was bullied for it," now it looks like his mom is not really his mom (guessing maybe aunt?) and something bad happened to his mom or she abandoned him before dying and it all has to do something with the cabin up in the mountains? And so he's got the whole I'm not worthy thing going on.

So, eh, I dunno. In general, I like all the characters. It's slow going for everyone though. And it isn't nearly as fluffy or happy or warm as I'd had hope for. But I do think I'll finish it. Just slowly.

As an aside, I did like the characters enough that I made them in my Sims game. Wherein they are loads happier.

Isekai Izakaya Nobu: Japanese Food from Another World

 This is an anime I started watching because a) it's very food oriented, b) the episodes are 15 minutes long, so good if you don't have a lot of time. 

This one is very, very light. Basically, there's a restaurant -- Izakaya Nobu -- and it's a normal place...except that the front door opens into another world called Atheria. It seems to be a fairly medieval / Germanic place where they eat a lot of potato and have bad water you have to boil to be able to drink it. There's a castle and palace guards and glass is a rarity. Meanwhile, the Izakaya is modern day-ish with all the regular amenities that come with that -- running water, being able to pop out their back door and go shopping, serving ale chilled in glass.

So, cue lots of pure joy as the various denizens of the parallel world experience Japanese food for the first time and learn how to use chopsticks. It's all very pure.

At the end of each show, there's also a bonus "Nobu Plus" where you get either a young chef that shows you how to make a variation of one of the dishes in the show or an older performer guy who tours restaurants and eats the dishes in the real world. As they even give out the addresses of the places, it all feels very like it is put together by the Japan Tourist Board. It might be, honestly. 

And I'm okay with that. It's just a frothy bit of foodie fun and hey, if I ever go to Tokyo or wherever, I'd look up some of those restaurants. :-) 

There is, actually, a fair amount of character development too, though literally NO questions are answered about the how/why there's this parallel world connection. A lot of the story is around a couple of palace guards named Nicolas and Hans. But, really, you're watching this one for the food. Everything else is secondary. :-) I'm about 5 or 6 episodes in (maybe 7?) and it's just a happy-making little show that makes you hungry.

Edit: I finished the Flower Boy Next Door, so I'm back to this one now. I'm around episode 15? Still enjoying it--though sometimes I wish they'd switch up the Nobu Plus thing so I can get some of the other recipes! 

Edit: I finished it! It was charming throughout and a great light (yummy) show to watch. I'd watch it again even, maybe with little dude. There's not masses of plot or development, but it's a sweet show.

Flower Boy Next Door

 I've been watching more anime than live action lately (will be blogging more on that soon...I'm very behind) but today I felt like I needed to watch something with actual, you know, people. And since the new Internet line was put in, I can actually get Wifi out in the shed where the elliptical is...which means I can watch things on Viki again. AND Flower Boy Next Door finally popped up as available in my region and that decided me.

It's an older show -- 2013? And from a series of unrelated Flower Boy shows (including Flower Boy Ramen Shop). It stars Park Shin Hye, who I've seen in You're Beautiful (and in about a billion other clips--she was in Heirs & Pinocchio). In this one, she plays a reclusive young woman who has been spying on (& living vicariously by doing so) on her neighbour across the way after she fell in love with him at first sight --Han Tae Joon (played by Kim Jung-San).

Though, perhaps strangely, I don't think he's actually one of the Flower Boys that's got a main part in this story. In fact, if I had to guess, I think the guy she probably will wind up with is Oh Jin-Rok, played by Kim Ji-Hoon (who I haven't seen in anything before). He's a webcomic that lives next door to Ko Dok-Mi and has obviously been paying attention to her, even though she barely ever leaves her apartment (he's been drawing her on the sly and has now proposed a new webcomic based on a reclusive female who has a Flower Boy Next Door...). He seems a decent sort. No idea how he's figured out so much about her (like realising the chances of her getting into the elevator with them is nil) when she barely comes out of her place, but no worries. I do always like the stories where the guy notices things first.

His roomate/ work partner is Yoo Dong-Hoon (who I saw, in the few episodes I watched, in Strongest Deliveryman...with really, really bad hair). Don't have much of a handle on his character yet. I'm guessing kind of comic relief? He'll probably be the resistant one?

Yoon Si-Yoon, playing Enrique Keum, who is returning to Korea after being away in Spain (where he has dual citizenship), is the catalyst for the story. He has come to stay with Han Tae-Joon (and there's some drama where the girl that he maybe likes loves Tae-Joon?). He's a sorta famous game designer. Very flashy and over the top and cheeky. The puppy with a bark. He catches Dok-Mi spying and goes to confront her (which is where episode one leaves off).

Watanabe (played by Kouki Mizuta) is a character we're barely introduced to as he is just moving in to the building (though cute intro when Dok-Mi opens her curtains to see him outside her window on a cherry picker, basically). Guessing he's some kind of chef or baker or cook from Japan and he'll definitely be one of the Flower Boys. He's got one of those super smiles, and I'm guessing he'll be the smitten one?

Anyway, that's enough re-cap-ish-ness. 

So far...I really like it! Actually really looking forward to continuing it tomorrow. Acting all seems solid. I like the premise. It's actually the most excited I've been to watch a drama in a while. I still have so many shows that are in progress and even though I was really enjoying Mystic Pop Up Bar, I knew it was about to go into the angsty part, and I just haven't felt up to that. Too much horribleness and angst in the real world. Which is probably why I've been watching a lot of anime instead. Here's hoping this doesn't go all crazy and dark.

Edit: I've seen 3 episodes now and still really enjoying it. There is a level of dark (in the past) where Dok-Mi was bullied in high school (by a girl who has just shown up and is trying her best to attract Jin-Rok...because she thinks he's rich? Unclear...but something is going on there...) and possibly even tried to commit suicide (or at least thought about it).

Enrique has had the majority of the screen time with Dok-Mi and is very much bringing her out of her comfort zone, but we do learn that Jin-Rok is the one that has been leaving her doodled post-it notes (that she thinks are from the milk delivery guy). Watanabe just so far seems like a smile-y pleasant guy, but no idea about him beyond that. Dong-Hoon is apparently a bit of a ladies man, but in rather a sleazy way. 

I'm looking forward to the next one.

Edit: Up through 6 episodes now and it's interesting. It hasn't gone exactly like I thought and now I'm not entirely sure whether Enrique or Jin-Rok is the end game. They are both going about things in completely opposite directions (and Enrique, fresh off the death of his first love, doesn't even really seem to be consciously wooing her), so it's interesting to watch it develop. He's all about pulling her out of her shell and her comfort zone. He prods, he pushes. Whereas Jin-Rok would probably have kept watching from afar for another 3 years.

As for the other flower boys, I have no idea why they've even included Watanabe. He's had no place in moving the plot forward at all so far. I mean, the actor seems okay, but I don't know why he's in this story. Did they just want another pretty boy? Dong-Hoon is there mostly for comic relief and to push the plot forward in very small ways and honestly, I've not a lot of use for him. But I get why he's there from a story perspective at least. 

Anyway, still enjoying it. Would honestly like to watch more than one a day, but I'm keeping it to my exercise time.

Edit: Finished it. I rather wish I'd blogged at the midpoint and when almost done, as I've had some changing feelings on this one. But maybe just as well that I didn't. Words, words, so many words...

Basically -- around the middle...me: oh! Look! It's gonna be the cute goofy guy for once! No way! Aw, how refreshing! I am glad I watched this one! 

Then: Oh, FFS is she seriously gonna try the whole Noble Idiot Martyr thing and pretend to go for the other guy (that likes her too and is really sweet, so ffs why would you do that to him??) to try and drive cute goofy guy away and then there'll be the stupid forced separation thing and...AGH

Then: Well, okay, at least they nipped that in the bud. Sort of. Though they still did the stupid separation thing but at least they didn't fall out of touch and he was constantly in contact. And he didn't leave because of any stupid Martyr stuff. Why these people don't ever get an on airplane for a long weekend, I dunno.

Okay. Anyway. Am I glad I watched it? Yes. I'll even give that an unequivocal yes because even when they hinted at horribly annoying things at the end of an episode, they dispelled them fairly quickly in the next. And they *didn't* have second lead dude wind up with the horrible friend from the past AND they didn't really give her a redemption arc...that is, she did get a little better, but they didn't try to redeem her completely. 

I did not get why they did these little weird time skip-y sliding-door things periodically. Added tension? That they immediately revoked? I dunno. Not sure why they did that. 

I liked the actors. Enjoyed it overall. Quite happy that it was the non-stereotypical lead that got the girl. End was reasonably satisfying. Quite crap no motion kissing for the most part, but heartfelt story-wise, it was good. That could be because of how old it is though; the stiff kissing things seems better in more recent stuff. 

March Comes in Like a Lion

 After we moved, I needed a shorter show for a bit as there was so much going on. March Comes in Like a Lion had showed up on Netflix (it had been on my Crunchyroll queue for ages, but you can't download things on there) so I thought I would give it a go. Someone had told me eons ago that I'd like it based on other shows I loved.

Well, they weren't wrong. I've actually now gone through the entire first and second seasons and now I'm a bit bereft because there isn't a third one yet AND the manga has not yet been translated into English. Sigh. 

It's a bit of an odd show. A bit slice of life, a bit "coming of age,", a wee bit of romance. So. Rei is a 17 year old professional shogi player living on his own. He's quiet and lonely, due in part to the rest of his family dying in a car wreck when he was young. He'd always been an introspective kid, but when his aunt was ready to dump him in an orphanage instead of taking him in, he jumped at the chance to live instead with a friend of his father's. 

It was a man who had often played shogi with him and it's quite clear that the reason he took Rei in is because of that. He's a professional player himself and sees promise in Rei. However, his two biological kids are a mess, in part because of how their dad treats them. The girl, who is older than Rei by 4 years, is the one that has the longest impact on the poor kid -- she's bitter and jealous and also wildly inappropriate (in an abusive kind of way and in ways that make it obvious she never sees Rei as a brother figure). So poor dude has some hangups. He becomes a professional player in middle school (only the 5th in history to do so at that age) and moves out on his own as soon as he can. He internalises a lot of guilt even though literally nothing is his fault. He's just a good kid (there's a scene late in the second season where he visits the "adoptive" mom and it's obvious she sees it -- her kids aren't good, not like he is and she doesn't know why). 

Anyway. The bright spot in Rei's life is that he's been "adopted" again -- but by three sisters. They are also orphans, though they have each other and their grandfather, who runs a wagashi shop. There's Akari, the oldest, who takes care of everyone. Hinata, or Hina, is in middle school at the start and she's usually unflappably positive. And Momo, who is a toddler and adorable in the same way as Poco from Poco's Udon World. They are exactly what he needs in life. Their relationships together are what family is about and the slowly developing (given their ages; by the end of the second season, Hina is entering his high school) romance/love between Rei and Hina are my favourite parts. He supports them (even though he often discounts his contributions) and they support him. 

There's also the other side of his life -- the people he plays shogi with, including Nikaidō, who, when you first meet him, think he's going to be the mean bully in Rei's life but it turns out he's Rei's biggest cheerleader and probably his only friend his own age. There's another father figure in Shimada, an older man who beats Rei in a tournament but later befriends him and teaches him. There are a couple of comic relief types (love the guy who adopts the kitten). A crazy leader. And Gotō -- another top player in his 40s with a wife in the hospital that Rei's mentally unbalanced adoptive sister is trying to have an affair with. That whole storyline is very frustrating.

At this point, since I've watched all I can watch, I don't want to go and re-cap everything. There's a lot. 44 Episodes! There's a whole bullying arc with Hina (where Rei does his best and begins to really come out of his shell in hopes of helping her), some great bits with the teacher Hayashida (who really supports Rei), the crazy scientist club at the school...I'd have to write a book to cover it all.

So...to sum up, it's a lovely show. I learned a lot about shogi and wagashi. The cats are hilarious. It's a bit slow-paced and there were times where there wasn't enough with the sisters, but overall it's really just a great show. I adore Rei and want to give him a hug. He needs it. 

There's also a live action movie version that I wonder if I should try to watch, though from the summary, it goes on past the point in the anime. I'm assuming it follows the manga? I dunno! Since the manga is still ongoing, I'm not sure. I don't want to spoil it. It's just a treasure.

Takane & Hana

Oh, where to start? I guess where it began. Little dude and I have been reading this manga series since it was released (it's still ongoing). It's by Yuki Shiwasu and as far as I know, it's the only thing she (pretty sure the author is female, though I dunno for sure) has written. I'm not sure how we came across it. And, honestly, given the plot, I'm not entirely sure why I started it...because, let's face it, it's pretty damn dodgy.

Hana is only 16 but her older sister is about 7 years older. When that rather flakey older sister decides not to show up to an arranged marriage meeting with the heir to the Takaba group, Hana is pressed into service because her dad (who, honestly, is a total idiot) doesn't want to lose his job. In this meeting, Takane Saibara (the grandson heir) is...well...kind of a condescending dick. And even though Hana was supposed to just get through the meeting quietly and hopefully unsuccessfully, she can't take it. She literally swipes the wig off her head and throws it at him and gives him a dressing down and leaves, declaring herself completely uninterested in him. 

Takane has never had anyone ever talk to him in this way before. They've always been after his money. And the thing you need to know about his character -- who is 26! 10 years older than Hana! This is the dodgy as hell bit! -- is that he's a bit emotionally stunted. Basically, he's a 15 year old stuck in a man's life with lots of family chaebol-like drama holding him back. This is probably why the story works at all. Anyway, he very adversarily continues to date Hana and they one-up each other all the time, falling in love bit by bit. She brings out the good parts of him, he's helping her grow up. 

Now. In real life I would never ever never be behind a relationship between a 26 year old man and a 16 year old high school girl. Never. The power imbalance is WAY wrong. And I often won't read it or watch it either because...well, because it just squicks me out. And I say that as a once upon a time 16 year old where my mom somehow let me briefly go out with a 20 year old (he was a family friend, but still, mom, WTH). But this is actually a very fun series and overall, it works. There's a crazy blonde uni friend of Takane's, Hana's two best girlfriends + the very lovely Okamon (the childhood friend who's actually a very good fit for Hana and loves her) and even a somewhat devoted underling of Takane's. 

We're up to maybe volume 12? We both like it. There's lots of laughs, a bit of danger, and even though there's the massive age gap, it's actually pretty innocent and not as dodgy as you'd think it would be. 

Which leads me to the next half of this post...there's also a Japanese JDrama live action version. Now, I debated for a long time whether I'd try it or not because there's things that work in manga that just...don't in live action. Like Happy Marriage. 

And, two episodes in, I'd still say I'm a bit not sure of how this one is going but...well...let's start by saying that, in some ways, it does work well because Takane in this does NOT look or feel at all like he's 26 while she's 16. But, at the same time, the actor that's playing him is very wrong. He's the same height as Hana! When the actress is in heels, he's shorter! He's supposed to tower over her. So he feels both right and wrong. He's also not quite handsome enough (not that he's not an attractive guy, just not quite Takane level...but is anyone?).

That said, Hana's friends are all pretty perfect in their roles so far. And the girl who plays Hana is...well, I think she seems okay. Though I wish her hair were pink. HAHA. Maybe a bit more wishy-washy at this point in the story than I think she should be, but that might be because they need to move some things along faster? Or I've forgotten the earlier books? Because it does seem to be following the storyline fairly well from the books (at least, nothing is glaringly obvious and out of place). 

So...in summary, I think I probably will watch this one, though I'm not in a rush to do so. And we'll definitely keep reading it, even with as problematic as the core plot is. Little dude is probably sick of me reminding him that this is something he is never to do in real life. 

Furie

Hubby was still working away last night on his side project, so I decided to watch a movie and one, again, that he might enjoy if he caught any of it. So I decided to try Furie. It's a 2019 Vietnamese movie (and he clocked that right away, which is only fair as he's been to Vietnam twice) starring Veronica Ngo. I've actually seen her in a couple of things before -- she was very briefly in Star Wars: The Last Jedi as Rose Tico's sister (the one that sacrificed herself early in the movie) and in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny.

I gotta say, she kicks ass in Furie as Hai Phuong, a single mother with a shady past who saves her daughter from organ harvesting kidnappers. Well. That was a mouthful. 

So, Hai Phuong has had a hard life. She more or less ran away from home and fell in with the wrong crowd when she was young. But once she became pregnant (and we have no idea who the father is--it never figures in the story at all), she left Saigon and went to the countryside where she ekes out a living as a debt collector. When we meet her, Mai, her daughter, is maybe 9 or 10. They are a bit like pariahs in their neighbourhood between Hai's job, her standoffish attitude, and the fact that she's unmarried. 

She and Mai are close, though Mai wishes her mother would do something else as a job--something safe. When Mai is accused of thievery (falsely) and Hai doesn't immediately stand up for her daughter to the marketplace busybodies, Mai is crushed and runs off. Coincidentally, she's kidnapped soon thereafter. This is the one place where things do fall a bit apart plot-wise. There are hints that Mai is targeted because she's Hai's daughter and because of Hai's past, but it's never explained. But, as a viewer, the action sweeps you along so you don't notice too much. 

To be honest, plot isn't the thing that holds this movie together anyway. It's purely Veronica Ngo and the action sequences. And they are intense, man. Hai immediately gives chase and viewers get a breathtaking (if breakneck) look at the beauty of Vietnam as she chases them down a waterway and through a bamboo forest and then on to the big city. 

It's basically one big fight after another as Hai frantically claws her way through the underbelly of the city looking for her daughter. There are a few interesting (atypical) choices that the movie makes -- it's a very female led film. The men in it are either disposable (after tough fights...but not so tough that you think they have a hope of stopping this tiger mom) or minimally effective (the brother that doesn't help, the cop that's always a step behind). The big bad boss is another woman who is the only one that really puts up a big enough challenge to add tension to the film. And boy oh boy, she's seriously scary. A bit one note scary, but scary. 

I did like that Hai isn't just tough. She's also very vulnerable and desperate in her search. You get glimpses of her childhood that go towards explaining why she wound up the way she did as well. So even though the why of the main plot driver (i.e. the daughter being kidnapped) isn't really explained, it still works and has depth. 

Am I glad I watched it? Hmm, maybe glad isn't the word. It's too violent for that. But yes, I did enjoy the ride. Wait. That doesn't sound right either. You can't really say this is a movie that you enjoy. I appreciated it, perhaps. It was gritty. It wasn't one of those stylised fighting movies where you never feel that there's any real danger or the lead always looks freshly showered. Nah. This is a movie of desperation and trauma and while the fight sequences are fluid and elegant, they feel real. So, yeah, the movie works. And it's all on Veronica Ngo's shoulders that it does.

Also, mad respect to Veronica Ngo. She's 41 (born in 1979) and she could wipe the floor with just about anyone.

Vagabond

Was in a bit of a Lee Seung-Gi mood (so enjoying him in Twogether) and the hubby was possibly going to pay attention while he worked, so I thought I'd try out a Kdrama I thought he might actually watch: Vagabond. 

And, whoa. Like, Keanu whoa. All I knew going in was that he plays a stuntman that gets involved in some spy stuff after some tragedy. I had vague inklings that the tragedy involved his brother.

So. Okay. Lee Seung-Gi plays Cha Dal-Geon. He's an aspiring stuntman and has been taking care of his young nephew after something happened to his older brother. He's struggling a bit -- he's young and trying his best to take care of his nephew properly. He dreams of being the next Jackie Chan / Bruce Lee, but has decided to put that dream aside so he can concentrate on being a good uncle. Nephew Hoon, for his part, is grateful but also feeling guilty when he realises his uncle's struggles. So they're in a bit of a spat right before Hoon is to go off on a government sponsored trip to Morocco to participate in a taekwondo exhibition. 

The flight crashes, killing all onboard. A last video of Hoon was uploaded to the Cloud telling Uncle he caught him throwing out his stuntman stuff and telling him how much he loves him and he'll eat all the eggs next time Uncle makes them. So, yeah, tear jerking.

Meanwhile, viewers catch glimpses of machinations behind the scenes involving defence companies vying for a huge trillion dollar contract for fighter jets. A guy (who worked for one of those companies; the one who was probably NOT going to win the bid) had tried to warn Incheon airport that the plane was going to crash; he's killed as he runs. The woman that took the call is knocked out/down. The airport's computers all crash. And the plane goes down. It's pretty obvious to the viewer that the one company is behind it; they want the contract and aren't worried about collateral damage.

Dal-Geon and the families travel to Morocco for a funeral service at the beach as the bodies couldn't be recovered from the sea. At the airport there, he sees a man he recognises from the video his nephew sent him and immediately gives chase. Who is this man that was on the plane? Why is he here, alive? The guy fights him off, assuming at first that he's an agent or something. There is a terrifically choreographed fight scene where Lee Seung-Gi (or his stuntman, I dunno) is going all parkour over the rooftops and jumping onto a moving car. It is unrelenting. The guy gets away, but only after Dal-Geon is literally tossed off a cliff (that he climbs back up at the end of the episode). 

I'm sure he'll wind up somehow working with Go Hae-Ri (Bae Suzy) who we already know is an NIS agent based at the embassy in Morocco. She's working undercover. 

It is very obvious that this was a high budget production ($20 million, apparently). Production-wise, it's like a movie. They didn't pull any stops here. And all the actors are great so far -- I'd only really seen Lee Seung-Gi in You're All Surrounded before and Twogether (but that's just him being him). This show is leaps and bounds beyond that from story to execution. The only slight dodgy bits were some English speaking non-Korean actors in the beginning that were not stellar (was the one dude trying to do a Russian accent? I dunno what that was). 

Hence, whoa.

Incidentally, young Hoon is played by the child actor Moon Woo-Jin who I've seen in SO many things (What's Wrong with Secretary Kim, The Beauty Inside, My ID is Gangnam Beauty, etc.) This kid really gets work! He's good, though his part was small in this one. And Shin Sung-Rok is in this one too, though I haven't seen him yet. No idea if he's a good guy or a bad guy, though he's mostly known for bad guys (like in My Love From the Star), so I'm guessing he might be bad.

Anyway, pretty impressed with this one so far. It's very intense. And hubby did take peeks at it. Maybe I"ll someday get him to watch something with subtitles. 

The Missing Menu

Hubs was working the other night and said to "watch anything" while he typed away, so I thought I'd try something that he might also enjoy if he caught glimpses of it. It's The Missing Menu. 

I'd thought it was a mainland China show and so was very confused when I could only catch a word or two until I realised it was a Malaysian show about a Hakka family. Whew! I mean, I know my Chinese isn't very good at all (the little I learned growing up was Cantonese and I've since learned a spattering of Mandarin) but, still! I suppose I should have paid more attention before starting it, though it doesn't really matter; what I was looking for was a show that featured some cooking. At any rate, I don't know exactly what they are speaking in this show; a Hakka dialect? Mandarin with some differences? I dunno. 

It really is kinda sad that I can tell Korean and Japanese a lot more. Anyway.

In this one, a single mother / owner of a restaurant has 4 grown up children, with the youngest being at university. They're all supposed to come home for dinner (once a week? Maybe once a month?), but they keep getting busy. The oldest son seems like a total slacker and very unreliable, as we see him get fired almost as soon as we meet him (for being lazy and eating off customer's plates before delivering them). The next oldest son is some type of professional computer engineer-y person and seems busy / type-A (but just as bad at communicating with mom). Daughter works as a producer and seems responsible, but very busy. Youngest son seems the most dutiful and was the one that was really trying to get home, but his professor made him stay over for a seminar because his grades have been slipping.

So none of them make it home this particular night. Mom cooks up their fav (esp. eldest slacker son) Hakka pork dish but then winds up eating a little herself and putting the rest up. Then she slips and falls and breaks her arm. Youngest son and onliest daughter rush to the hospital (daughter finally being off work). And then the rest is trying to figure out how to care for mom, with eldest slacker son not wanting to be imposed on, even though he's the one with the easiest schedule. He really is pretty awful. 

There's some other stuff going on -- mom trying to set up oldest slacker son with a friend's niece (who we glimpsed early on in the bit where son was fired from restaurant; she was at the table he stole food from). And mom not wanting to admit she needs help, etc.

The pace of this show is very different from what I'm used to. It has a different rhythm. It's almost more like watching a documentary? Does that make sense? And there was a bit at the end when the actress playing the young version of the mom (farthest right upper corner in picture) cooks up the dishes used, almost like it's a separate cooking show. Very 4th wall breaking. I actually did really like that part (I know, I know, I love cooking stuff). 

I'll probably give it another episode or two at least, though I'm not in a rush. I didn't love it. None of the characters particularly spoke to me. I mean, I know it's about the mom re-connecting / teacher her children, but honestly, the mom didn't excite me either? I didn't hate it though and I found the cultural differences intriguing, so I probably will watch at least one more and see if it grabs me. They do, at least, all feel like very real people. 

Samurai Gourmet & Flavorful Origins

So, hubs was working on something and I'd read enough of my book (re-reading Uprooted by Naomi Novik, as it's a beautiful book), so I thought I'd watch something. 

I started with a few episodes of Flavorful Origins (and, man, it's weirdly hard to type that without the extra "u" ... I've become British for sure), which is a Chinese show that explores the culinary traditions of China. The episodes are all very short -- about 12 minutes. It seems that series 1 is set in the Chaoshan region, which is part of Guangdong...which is, likely, where my family originated from. I suppose I find it doubly interesting because of that. 

Like when I went to China (Shanghai and Suzhou), everything feels very foreign. I grew up very separated from my mother's heritage in so many ways. Perhaps if we had stayed in San Francisco around the rest of the family, it would have been different. As it was, my exposure to "real" Chinese food growing up was from the few dishes mom would make (egg rolls, shumai, won ton, fried rice, sweet & sour pork...) and a yearly care package from the Aunties.  

In later life, I'd have to say I am by far more Asian than my mother was; I know more of the language and the food than she did. Though I've not stuck to China -- it's maybe sad, but I probably know more Korean and Japanese than I do Chinese. And not just the language either -- but food as well. We probably cook more Japanese than anything else. 

So I find shows like this interesting in a way that makes me a little sad. Does that make sense? Anyway, I always try everything at least once. Well, maybe everything. Not entirely sure what I would do when faced with monkey brains. But I would definitely try the marinated raw crab that's apparently a speciality of Chaoshan, as well as the interesting Chinese olive dishes (totally didn't know this was a thing -- olives are not something I associate with Chinese food at all!). So I'm glad I started this show. It's like a little window into what could have been.

I also tried the first episode of Samurai Gourmet. It's a Japanese show, also with short episodes (about 20 minutes each). It's...slice of life? About food? I'm not sure how to describe it exactly. 

So, we have a newly retired salaryman who finds himself at loose ends with no where to rush off to. He spends his first day of retirement a bit aimlessly, winding up at the train station by rote. On the way back, he stops at an old-fashioned diner for lunch. 

There he's tempted by the set meal and the possibility of an afternoon beer. Should he? But he feels that guilt; drinking in the day? How can he? He fantasizes about a ronin (i.e. samurai without a master) showing up and enjoying a sake & nearly getting into battle with some poor schmucks who have to answer to someone and decides, hey, what the hell, I'm retired! I can do what I want!   

Anyway, it was just a charming little snippet of a show. Ridiculous, but in a good way. It also made we want to have some Salisbury steak (which they just call hamburger steak in Japan). It's been YEARS since I had one. And that wasn't even what our wannabe samurai ate -- he had some eggplant thing. 

So, in a nutshell, another good food related show that's silly but charming. Why is it I like to watch so many shows about food? Now my healthy yogurt lunch is feeling particularly bland.

The Half of It

I turned in Book 2 yesterday to my editor -- and I wanted to get it out before the afternoon, so instead of doing my workout in the morning, I got right to it. So I wound up just doing some yoga in the afternoon. Which is a long way around saying that I needed to do an extra long workout today...so I thought I'd watch a movie instead of a drama. I'd added The Half of It to my Netflix queue as soon as it popped up. Why wouldn't I? Chinese teen in a small town? What's there not to relate to?

It's yet ANOTHER riff on the Cyrano story. Which, okay, I had a bit of a sigh about that, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. It's not that I hate that story...it's just that there are so many of them.

Ellie Chu is smart but cash strapped. Her dad had a PhD in engineering in China, but wound up taking a job as a station manager for a (very) small railway station when they immigrated. But when her mom died when she was 13 (she's 17 now), he pretty much fell apart. He spends the greater part of the film in his bathrobe while she's actually doing a lot of his job. 

She makes extra cash by writing school essays for all the white kids. Wait, what am I saying? They're all white kids. She's, like, the only non-white person in the movie. Which, yeah, I've been there, except I was the only one who wasn't white or black in a place where everyone was one or the other and the twain never met (or talked, if they could help it). Anyway, a sweet but not overly clever second string football jock guy named Paul hires her to write a letter to the most popular girl in school that he's got a crush on: Aster.

And...well...let me just skip to my thoughts because I don't actually feel like hashing out the whole plot. Most of it is pretty typical and exactly what you'd expect, other than there's the lesbian twist to it when Ellie is also falling for Aster. 

When I finished it, I had mixed feelings. Actually, I had mixed feelings when I was about 1/2 way through. This review on Vox actually covers some of my thoughts pretty well. 

There's some really good parts but there are other bits that, honestly, either don't make sense or just don't work. I really wanted to like this more. Partly, it feels like a film from someone who never attended high school and has no sense of when things happen. This is most obvious towards the end when there's the end of year talent show (in which seniors are forced to participate) but there's weirdly also a huge football (American football, if that wasn't obvious) game where Paul scores a touchdown for the first time in some game against some school we don't know/care about and had no idea this was a thing since it had never been mentioned before. Like a homecoming game kind of feel? Except those are in Fall... And Ellie is definitely most definitely NOT applying to the college she wants to go to in another state for literally the entire movie (methinks she doth protest too much), even though her sassy English teacher (who knows that Ellie is the one writing the papers for the cheaters but doesn't care because otherwise she'd have to read more crap) but then, suddenly, she's going. In, like, a couple of days.

Wait. Let's just talk about what I liked instead.

I liked the two lead actors: Paul and Ellie, played by Daniel Diemer (who is 24, but felt passable for a HS senior) and Leah Lewis (23, same). Aster, played by Alexis Lemire (also 24, but who looks more like a 20s girl) had a few nice moments, but she wasn't given as much to do. Honestly, she spends most of the movie as "The Love Interest." I liked the burgeoning friendship between Paul and Ellie. I liked the weird but sad thing going on with Ellie and her dad and their dinners in front of the TV, though I probably liked Paul's relationship with her dad more. I did like the sassy English teacher.

I didn't like the end. It doesn't resolve anything, really and completely drops some of the plot threads (of which there were too many). Maybe it's because they (I say they, I have no idea who "they" are in this instance -- the writer? the director?) seemed to flip a coming of age/friendship movie into more typical teen romance territory but there were no happy endings there? Is Ellie gay or questioning? Are we supposed to surmise something from her terrible fashion sense (though, to be fair, kudus for it being a teen movie that did NOT feature a makeover for once)? Is Aster possibly gay? She doesn't seem to show any leanings this way at all other than the one scene where she randomly invites Ellie out to a natural spring (Sappho, anyone?) -- which could have worked, but as up until that point they've barely said two words to each other (that Aster knows about), it felt really...weird? In fact, most of Aster's angst in the movie is over whether she should marry this dude named Trig. Who she's been dating for ages. Probably. Except she's gone on dates with Paul. Which no one in this VERY small town has gossiped about. Even though she's the pastor's daughter. And Trig...WTH. He's like a caricature of a person. Like someone took Steve Harrington and robbed him of everything other than good looks and then made him really dumb.

(I have to make a small digression there that the actor that plays Trig is named Wolfgang Novogratz. Dude. You go, Wolfgang. Wolfgang. I just...heh. Wolfgang. He's also in another sort of romantic comedy called Feel the Beat on my Netflix list and now I'm going to have to watch it because HIS NAME IS WOLFGANG NOVOGRATZ.)

I'd make a comment about the stupidness of high school seniors proposing and planning marriage except, eh, that happens in small towns. I knew people on their second marriage in their senior year. So, yeah, I won't complain about that. 

And Paul -- he goes immediately from O, la! I love Aster because she's pretty! And nice! And pretty! to Whoa, hey, I think I actually love Ellie because we're such excellent friends and she supports my sausage-making innovations! Even though I kissed Aster just last night and grinned like a fool! Now I want to kiss Ellie!

WTH, Paul. You're too much of a nice guy for any of that. WTH, movie. 

Anyway, it did have some lovely moments. Small moments, a few perfect little scenes. But it mostly felt like a hot mess. I still liked it because, like I said, Chinese girl/small town. But I definitely didn't love it. I wish it'd been MORE. I say that as a writer. I say that as a Chinese (former) American.