Welcome to my weekly blog post where I give short thoughts on dramas I’m watching but not recapping.
I’m currently recapping Bad Buddy and Love Between Fairy and Devil so you can check out my thoughts on individual episodes there.
I’m still watching and enjoying Between Us and I Will Knock You. To see my general thoughts on any of these shows, which haven’t changed, you can read my post from December 10th.
This week I started watching Ameiro Paradox, a currently airing Japanese BL that seems very low-budget and I’ll keep watching out of curiosity. We’ll see if I feel like talking about it anymore later.
Other than that I didn’t start much this week to post about but, perhaps since the year is ending, I finished a bunch.
Summer Strike – Korea 2022
A recently aired South Korean modern romance with 12 episodes.
From what I see online this show worked for some people but it stopped working for me about midway through. The FL didn’t have much character growth and characters would behave horribly or have horrible things happen to them and the show would just glide over it. I don’t mind that in a dramatic, soap opera-style show but it’s not what I want from my healing rural dramas.
Koi to Dangan (Pictured) – Japan 2022
A recently aired Japanese yakuza romance with 9 episodes total.
In contrast to the drama above, this show was nothing but non-stop dramatics about a yakuza and his college-age lover. It worked for me because it leaned in and everything from the lighting to the sets to the acting was played over the top. The plot got repetitive towards the end, but it’s a short series with short episodes so it didn’t overstay its welcome. If there were a season two I’d watch it.
My Tooth Your Love – Taiwan 2022
A recently aired Taiwanese BL with 12 episodes.
I burned through this show and really enjoyed it but it didn’t quite stick the landing, though it didn’t ruin the show either. The two leads had good chemistry and as I mentioned last week, I enjoyed seeing two average-ish guys working on themselves and becoming a couple. As the series went on though, it kept bringing in new conflicts when I would have rather seen it go deeper into the original issues. Especially at the end the plot just ran past some problematic issues and hand-waved them away. Still, I enjoyed 90% of the show and would recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of thing.
Jitenshaya-san no Takahashi-kun – Japan 2022
A recently aired Japanese yankee romance with 8 episodes.
This drama ended faster than I expected (MDL doesn’t always have the right episode counts) but I thought it was a perfect little romance. It wasn’t an ambitious show, but as a short fluffy romance about a yankee and an office lady who both change for the better together, it was lovely. I’m always looking for good shows about people learning to be a couple (rather than just becoming one). Both the leads were perfect for their parts. I also especially liked how they depicted the FL’s mother and their relationship. This is going into my rewatch list.
Shiko Funjatta! – Japan 2022
A recently aired Japanese college sumo club drama with 10 episodes.
Also called Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t on some streaming services.
This show about misfits joining a college sumo club won me over with its central message about doing a sport because it’s fun, not to win. The show was centered around a team that had only just gotten together for less than one year, and their skills reflected that. But despite that, they were able to make the show feel triumphant and exciting and the sumo matches were fun to watch. There was also some interesting messaging about women being included in sumo.
To Sir, With Love – Thailand 2022
A recently aired Thai drama with 17 episodes.
This is one of my favorite Thai dramas of this year. With the premise of an older son being unacceptably gay in 1940s Thailand, it could have been really dark and dreary. Instead, the drama was full of fun soap theatrics, and most of the characters behaved horribly. In the end, the conclusion to most of the characters’ horrible behavior was satisfying.
There were also corpse-grown mushrooms and insect-related potions and murder and other fun craziness. If you drank every time someone mentioned “Tian’s secret” you’d be sloshed the entire time you watched the show. There were also magnificent woman characters who drove the plot.
The core of the show was sweet Tian, who just wanted to love who he wanted to love, and those who loved him. The show had a lot of positive messaging about the power of love amidst all the madness. Despite all the death and betrayals, it made me feel great. A definite rewatch.