やっぱり日本のドラマが一番好きだ！

(I like Japanese drama the best after all)

I've had a lot of free time recently and so I was able to watch a loooot of Asian drama. And, even though I'm crazy about Korean Popculture at the moment,  I think is still like Japanese dramas more than Korean dramas. Before someone out there in the www starts to go crazy ass fangirl on me: no, i don't hate K-Drama. I love it! ... I just prefer J-Drama.

Let's do a little K-Drama vs. J-Drama to explain why (just my opinion):

The Pros of K-Drama:

• male leads and often even male supporting actors that make me salivate all over my keyboard. 
• better kiss scences (especially recently!!!)
• it seem like they have a higher production budget
• better outfits
• When it comes to romance, nothing beats K-Drama. A lot of super cute scences that make me go all "KYA!"  like this one here: 

The Cons of K-Drama:

• too many episodes (often I'm super hyped at the beginning but loose interest around episode 12 or 13)
• sometimes horrible dialogues. people repeat themselves over and over withouth really saying what they want to say.
• normal girls falls for super rich guy in almost every drama (it doesn't matter if it's the son of a chaebol or the son of a guy who got rich by producing drugs in Thailand xD). This pattern is used soooo often that it starts to annoy me...a lot.Of course it's the secret wish of almost every girl...but...you know I just think romance can happen between two normal-income people, too.
• every K-Drama soundtrack seems to include 10292498 standard ballads...and I HATE most ballads. 

The Pros of J-Drama

• wiiiiiiide range of themes and various different approaches to topics. Bullying, domestic violence, ect... there are no taboos.
• not too many episodes and the episodes are not too long...they just end before you can get bored of them
• J-dramas often have a "message" and I'm the kind of cheesy person who loves that :D 
• I think... I've seen a lot more deep and subtle J-dramas than K-dramas. (please don't kill me)
• many Japanese dramas are based on awesome mangas or books and weren't written for TV purposes. In my opinion those dramas tend to have a better story line.
•  wacky Japanese humor forever! 

Good Example: Hana Kimi (the 2007 version). The humor was so completly off, strange and exaggerated that sometimes I just had to burst into laughter. Here some scences from the Special Episode. Unfortunatly I couldn't find my favourite Hana Kimi Scene.

The Cons of J-Drama

• flooded with Johnnys. Don't get me wrong, there are some awesome actors among Johnnys ( like Ikuta Toma or Ninomiya Kazunari), but some of them lack skills a little. (*gets killed by fangirls* 
• often a little exaggerated and over the top.
• J-Dramas have a wide range of topics....yes.... but some of the topics just make me think: What the actual frog? A drama about the transsexual dog of a panteologist who has supernatural powers... I wouldn't be surprised if that existed.
• horrible kiss scences. often the lips just barely touching and the actors look as if it hurts like hell. come on.

And now... you can agree...or not xD.

Reunion, a traumatizing movie and that awkward moment when one of your favourite songs makes you laugh

Yesterday I met my beloved roommates from Tokyo, Alex and Mio, in Frankfurt. We drank bubbletea, talked about good old times (crazy nights out, the dorkiness in our apartment etc..) and had Tsukemen in an nice Japanese restaurant for dinner.

Tsukemen is a Japanese noodledish. The broth is served seperatly and you dip the noodles into it. This picture was taken by Aimi

It was extremely delicious and I had an awesome time like always! Thank you girls!


On friday I watched the Greek movie "Dogtooth" with a friend. The description sounded kind of interesting and a little freaky.... but the movie turned out to be much more shocking than we expected. I've seen a lot of strange movies, because strange movies come in a package with love for Asian cinema...but this surpassed everything I've seen so far. The idea of the movie is awesome. Three siblings are brought up by their parents being isolated from the outside world. They use the most ridiculous tricks to keep the truth from their children and protect the facade they've built over the years. As a result, the three kids (or better: young adults), two girls and a boy, have developed a lot of abnormal behaviour patterns. I'm not saying it'a bad movie, but it's really shocking, full of perversion and some scences might be hard to handle for some people. I don't really recommend to watch this movie...but some of you will probably think about it now. Actually, when people tell me how shocking they found a movie, I'm kind of tempted to watch it. When a friend of mine told me about the shocking scences in Lars von Triers "Antichrist", I really wanted to watch it...and I did xD

Random change of topic: The Japanese version of SHINee's Lucifer was released recently. I was really crazy about the Korean version in 2010. Before I wasn't really thaaaat much of a SHINee Fan, but after the Lucifer Album I went asdfhsakjdfue for them.
So far all of the Japanese PVs SHINee released were remakes of their successful Korean songs. I liked the Japanese versions so far, and was even content with the new one of my beloved song "Juliette". The MVs were really well done, too... but there's one thing I just can't stand about them: Taemin gets like double as much screen time as the other members. It's not that I dislike him... but I think it's a little exaggerated, sorry. The other members are equally talented, but have been kind of pushed in the background. Even some lines Jong or Onew (the members with the best vocals) sang before were transferred to him. That's just wrong somehow.... Besides I cracked up 10 seconds or so after I started watching the  Lucifer pv, because somehow the Japanese lyrics sounded really strange to me at first. Don't know why. After replaying the vid a few times I'm okay with them x)


At the end of this post I want something that eat your kimchi's Martina wrote in their latest post (If you don't know eat your kimchi you should check out their blog and videos!). She's saying what I've been trying to say about Kpop and other music many times before, but in contrast to me she doesn't fail at it:

"We’ve taken a lot of flack from people who live in Korea and HATE kpop. They feel like they can only support everything which is Indie, and any support of a mainstream band is some kind of devil worship. We firmly disagree with this perspective and the snobby attitude towards kpop and anything mainstream. We, too, listen to many crazy Indie bands that are loved by a small groups of elite fans (do we announce that fact as if it’s some proud badge to be worn? No) but we also really love and respect kpop.

How can we come to grips with these two extreme positions regarding music and culture? To us, it’s the talent and passion of the members of the band that matter. Not everyone in the world can play an instrument, or sing, or dance, or write music. If you grow up playing the guitar and you form a rock band in your garage and fail for 10 years and make it in the 11th, we’re happy for you, but does that mean a kpop idol who trained to sing and dance for 10 years is any different? Yes, they have a label supporting them with money to get their names out there, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that kpop idols ARE talented. Opera singers don’t write their own music and are usually discovered only after appearing in many musicals backed by companies, but does that mean they’re not talented because they weren’t found singing Opera in a tiny university bar? Absolutely not. The same goes for many talented singers throughout the decades (even Elvis Presley).

The point of this long rant is that even though we can acknowledge that BEG and other kpop groups have big wig companies backing them, I’m tired of people immediately writing off kpop (and pop in general) because of that fact. I think the deepest irony in this whole situation is the very musician wants to be in the position of popularity that kpop bands have, but once they reach it (by their own means or via a record label) many fans will desert them, saying that they “sold out”. What you want to say is, “I’m jealous my special band no one knew is now know by many people. I’m sad they’re making money and supporting themselves.”

So true! 

A nice place for growing up + recent gets

Yesterday my best friend from Japan left and of course... I cried at the Airport. I'm so baaad with Goodbyes, even though I should be kind of used to them by now.
However, we had a lot of fun in those five days.  Even though we hadn't seen each other in 1 1/2 years...things between us haven't changed. We went sightseeing in the region around my hometown and it opened my eyes a bit. This area is more beautiful than I could see, or more than I wanted to see and coming back here in my holidays always puts my soul at ease (sounds cheesy... I know xD). Or as my friend said: "This seems like a really good place for growing up, but you can definitly not stay here". My friend took around 500 photos (of basically everything...and she paparazzied me all the time xD) but she isn't really in for sharing pictures on the internet, so I wan't upload any!

Instead I got inspired to do my first "recent gets"-post by hyacinth dream :) I always enjoy this kind of posts from the people I follow on blogger, but I never did one myself, so here we gooooo! (sorry for the blurry pictures.... it's getting obvious that my digicam is almost 5 years old and has traveled all around the world)

 

I got another Kapibara-san plushy <3...

.....and funky flavoured  Kit Kat from my friend as a gift

I asked her to get me some books to study for the JLPT. I'll finally take level N4 in December. Some say it's to easyto even take it, but I want to take it easy this semester, so I'm following a teachers recommendation and start with N4.

super cute strawberry cookies. my friend bought those for my parents. Why are Japanese things always so cute?!?! I can't even... xD

I think it's the first time I buy clothes for fall on time... usually I start buying t-shirts in September, but this time I actually bought cardigans. sorry for the horrible picture. I got the striped one in Vancouver (it's cashmere baby) and the leo-print one at "Review" (I think it's the flashiest item I own xD).

art post cards by a canadian first nation artist I got in tofino and stationary stuff I got a super cute store on Granville Island (Vancouver)

close up because it's just tooo beautiful

Wah I miss my friend so much already. It was such a good thing to see her again. I hope I can visit her in Japan soon. She taught me to sing the Japanese Sailor Moon Opening song (xD) and it's stuck in my head now xD Aaaaand.... this girl has such a power to motivate me! Even though the last semester was horrible and I'll take it easy this semester, I'm finally looking forward to the things that are coming instead of being afraid and stressed. Ganbareee JLPT, ganbareeee Nihongo, ganbareeeee Muk, ganbareeee weight loss, ganbareeee writing, ganbareeeeee and so on.... (romance?! xD)

Going to meet Alex and Mio in Frankfurt on Sunday...can't wait <3