Powerful Men

Ahhh!! Some crazy news today, well more like this week~ All in the world of Asia as well.

So starting with some old news, our happy-go-lucky Lee MinHo is becoming the ever so famous City Hunter, the Japanese manga about a detective/cop who is a womanizer but also trips when he sees a beautiful woman. I was reading that he was preparing for the City Hunter role by 'becoming a powerful man' since his last two dramas, Boys Before Flowers and Personal Taste, he was rather fruity and a pretty boy in both.

Lee Min Ho from Boys Before FLower

I haven't seen any images of the City Hunter drama nor know if they have even started shooting it, but since another Hallyu star, Rain (Ninja Assassin, Full House), aka Bi [in Korea], came out with his drama, Fugitive Plan B, there have been lots of talk that Lee Min Ho cannot live up to the 'powerful man' standard. The Rain drama not only has a 'powerful man' in the story, but the stories are both so similar, in which womanizing detective/cops are carefree and go the own way to solve cases while falling in love with a beautiful woman,' the station producing City Hunter is scrambling to find ways to counter such early critiques. Then again, I don't believe there have been any dramas of such nature (detective, thriller, unsolved cases, womanizing, action, etc) that it's really easy to compare these two.

...and then changing into a cop detective in the upcoming City Hunter

But I can see how City Hunter may fall where the current Fugitive Plan B is successful. Besides Rain's all-encompassing stardom, not only within Korea, but internationally as well, he has got to be in most people's eyes, a pretty good image of a 'powerful man.' I mean, his worked out body for Ninja Assassin blew me away. And even if his English was terrible, at least it was super eye candy for me. Lee Min Ho on the other hand, is purely face-eye-candy. I mean, unless in the past 6 months he's also been working out like mad and gained 50 lbs of muscle, I am not sure if he will be able to get City Hunter the 20-30% ratings that Fugitive Plan B has been enjoying until the very end.

Rain's workout for Ninja Assasin

Kdrama: Fugitive, Plan B

Well, I guess it'll just have to wait and see.

Onto more pretty boys~ in the currently airing Secret Garden, which has also been enjoying 20% ratings, I've just found out that Hyun Bin, the leading man who plays a powerful and rich asshole from the nethers of the Asshole Kingdom (joke) is going to be singing the male counter version of "That Man" by Baek Ji Young. I love this song and since I'm rarely a fan of many love songs, I think this is a song with a melody sung in Korean with a beautifully haunting and little sad voice, that fits so perfectly for the theme of the drama which seems to revolve around the idea of The Little Mermaid (the unhappy version).



Speaking of Hyun Bin, on that note, it seems that another sad thing is that he's to be leaving early next year for his military service for South Korea. Because of this, he's been giving it his all to the Secret Garden drama, and it shows, from the body swaps to the complete asshole role, to even kissing his male cousin on the lips (in the story that is, not real life). I think it's pretty crazy but I guess artists need to go all out and crazy on their work before going through the kind of discipline such as military service.

Poster for the drama Secret Garden

I'll miss you Hyun Bin.... 

but not THAT much. 

Heh.

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J-drama is back!!

For a while there, I thought the run of good J-dramas saw its end nearly after the Boys before Flowers boom was over. There weren't a lot of strong, captivating storylines surfacing and nearly everything was trying to milk the teen romance/comedy theme until the dead horse was just  a bloody pulp.

So I guess it explains the few Korean culture and drama posts I had written. Korean dramas are always good to fall back on when nothing good is on tv or I've exhausted my Youtube surfing. But now awaiting the next Korean dramas (Secret Garden, City Hunter with Lee Minho!!OMG, and trying to work on Fugitive Plan B with Rain), I delved back into trying out some new season premieres of J-drama this fall~ it looks like the writers in Japan realized they needed to work on better plots and characters and they did deliver!



First up is ギルティ 悪魔と契約した女。 Besides having Tamaki Hiroshi in it which is always a total sell for me no matter how bad the drama is... well, hmm, no, I wouldnt finish the bad drama but I'd still like to see his work; This drama is all about revenge! yes, good old revenge 12 years in the making. And any revenge story that takes over 10 years to craft, should always be good. Let's hope...




Then, just today as I was refreshing the Mysoju site, I saw  獣医ドリトル which stars Oguri Shun and Inoue Mao (both stars from Boys before Flowers) and i just love Oguri Shun because of his chill personality! After blogging this, I am gonna go watch the first episode! heh!




And lastly, or thirdly really, is 黄金の豚 which stars Shinohara Ryoko, the heroine from the popular Unfair series and movie. I'm not really a fan of her, well, somehow I don't think she's really star material because she just doesn't seem unique or beautiful to me but maybe that's the attractive point about her to people in Japan. Well, nonetheless, as far as acting skills I think she is better than the average J-actor and for females out there, she certainly does a good job with the masculine tomboy type. So I'm curious to see how she will do in this drama. The story is interesting but not sure where it will go. (long story short: Ex-con woman hired by gov to catch ppl who cheat on taxes, etc.)

I'm so happy about having some good stuff to watch and kill time with again! (since the failed ffxiv doesn't keep me as occupied as I would have liked... but that's another blog post for another time)
And so happy Tamaki is playing sexy, badass and cool!!! <3 XoXOoxXOXXoXx drool....

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Conan O'Brien, American Express: Extended Cut

I do enjoy Conan O'brien over that 'other tv dude' and am so glad he's back in the business and using what happened to him in the last year to his advantage! I think he's in a higher and better place this time than if he had stayed host of the Tonight Show to this day. And he gets to be his own creative now too! Now creativity! that's the best stuff!

This commercial just rocks!

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POLL, Please cast your vote!

Would you play a religious MMORPG over the mmorpgs available out there?

• Yes
• Maybe
• Not Sure
• Definitely not
• What is a religious MMO?

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

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Thought on FFXIV

It's already been about 2 weeks for me on FFXIV on Mysidia server and I have to say, the graphics are really stunning and amazing. But.... the game really sucks.

I'm so very disappointed and thinking, I should cancel my characters and wait a few months until Square Enix adds some improvements and more "fun" to the game. Of course, you can't really 'add' more 'fun' to a game but they really do have some fundamental concepts changed and might need an overhaul to get their fans back in place.

Just take a look at this review from Gamespot... it is a little harsh and I don't agree with everything the guy says, but he does nail down the basics on that it is clearly a very unintuitive interface (menus nested within menus of menus), and after learning how to play, there's just nothing left to do after doing the quests given to you which is limited to 8 within a 36 hour period. Then, the game just becomes a crafting grind which... who wants to play that kind of game from a huge mmo?? Moreover, who wants to PAY for a game where you craft?

Even the Japanese community is flaming down on SE... the fanboys of SE are most definitely very, very, very nervous... They tried to analyze where the game failed in 2channel and the consensus was just: PHAIL.

I feel sad and sorry for SE because they've had a wonderful chance, or chances to make great games. People say since Enix merged with Square, the quality started to go down. I don't think this is the case as the Dragonquest games and Kingdom Hearts series are very popular and I enjoyed them myself!

But perhaps SE needs to get off their high horse and listen to the community, then listen to the feedback from a more general audience and improve on constructive criticism, not make things that they like and fit the Final Fantasy series feel. Game are changing at a really fast pace now, and social networking is the next big thing to hit the smartphones... where will gaming take SE if FFXIV fails in the next 3 months??

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ミシディアサバー入れないの？？

FFXIVでミシディア（Mysidia)サバーに金剛寺サクヤのキャラを変わったけど、SquareEnixはこのサバーをもう終わったかい？？もう１つキャラ入れない。。。

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FFXIVにやっと入ったぜーー！

今日FFXIVにやっとINできました！「Corneliaのサーバ」　けどーーーすっごい疲れましたから、早くキャラを作ってリムサロミンサに入ってまだ何もしませんでしたｗ　もう寝ますからｗ
キャラ作るのは複雑なーと思っていました、６時間かかりましたよーーー　すっげーメンドクサカッタ！
ま～　明日続きますー頑張ります！Σd(ﾟ∀ﾟd)！

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