Harassment Game (Japanese Drama, New)
Resigned to make the best of it after being banished to a rural supermarket as a manager, our hero is unexpectedly called back to the corporate headquarter and given the assignment to deal with harassment incidents that are threatening to destroy his company’s image. Surprising his co-workers with his unconventional methods, our hero manages to solve each issue in his own unique but passionate manner.
This sort of drama is not usually my cup of tea, but I actually quite enjoyed the first episode. It of course helps that Toshiaki Karasawa is such a seasoned actor and it is a lot of fun to see him playing a hilarious and eccentric hero.
Saint Young Men (Japanese Drama, New)
This is the live action of the popular J-manga of the same name. The story is set in a small Tokyo apartment where Jesus and Budda are living as roommates while they are on a vacation. The show is a slice of life comedy so it features our two heavenly beings doing normal everyday thing (eating, going to amusement parks, reading comics, etc) while trying to hide their “special identities.”
I was speechless when I first figured out the premise of the story…then I couldn’t stop laughing. The episode is super short but worth it if you are in need of a laugh.
An Oriental Odyssey (Chinese Drama, New)
Set in Tang Dynasty (not the real historical Tang Dynasty though since this is a fantasy), our heroine is a spunky young girl who ends up teaming up with a straight-laced constable and a slave she rescued to solve many crimes. Our hero- the slave our heroine rescued, is actually a prince who lost his memory and will fall in love with our heroine during their many adventures together…although our heroine will have a crush on the handsome constable first before she figures out who is her Mr. Right.
This one dives right into the crime mystery cases right from the get-go so the romance part will take its time to develop…which is not a bad thing when the show is 50 episodes long.
The Love Story OR The Best Meeting (Chinese Drama, New)
For some strange reason, this show seems to have two English names (the promo poster uses The Best Meeting while the show’s info uses the other.) Ming Dao plays a businessman who accidentally knocks out our heroine with a cup when he finds his fiancée in a compromising position with another man. Getting ready to marry her own college sweetheart of 7 years herself, our heroine shakes her head at our hero’s pain…until she is confronted with her own boyfriend’s new girlfriend.
This one looks super messy since BOTH of our leads’ ex are still in love with our two leads so there will obviously be a lot of entanglements all around. Despite the messy storyline though the show does have a comedic tone to it. I usually stay far away from something that looks this messy but I am strangely in the mood for this sort of messy plot so I will probably follow this one for a bit.
Entrepreneurial Age (Chinese Drama, New)
Based on a novel of the same name, this one tells the inspiring story of a computer programmer who dares to dream big even when success seems impossible and foes who are determined to destroy everything he worked for surrounds him at every side. Thanks to a small group of true friends and our heroine’s unwavering support, our hero will learn that tenacity is the key to success.
This one is getting crazy bad reviews from viewers…but I am really liking it. Angelababy plays the heroine and she seems to get an unusual number of criticism on her projects. To be honest, Angelababy is certainly not one that comes to mind when I think of actresses who are good at acting but I do think she does a decent job when she picks roles that suits her. As it happens, I actually think Entrepreneurial Age is such a project. I had gone into this show thinking “Here we go again, our heroine will be a super girlfriend who will fall in love with our heroine when he is just a college nobody, supports our hero to his quick success, faithfully stuck by him when he falls from grace then finally gets her happy ending once our hero manages to climb back to the top…” That was NOT the plot. In fact, our two leads would not even meet face to face for a long time. Our hero ends up communicating with our heroine via phone/e-mail while believing she is someone else…which is just awesome because it really is a twist that allowed the romantic tension to prolong much longer than most C-city romance.
The 60 episode count does scare me a lot but I really enjoyed the last 20 episodes so I would probably count this one a winner even if takes a nose dive from this point on.
The City of Chaos (Chinese Drama, New)
In a fictional Southeast Asia country where gangsters and corruptions are the way of life, our hero voluntarily enters into a prison that has an infamous reputation that matches the hardened criminals that are locked up there. Weary of the new prisoner who obviously has a special agenda for being in his prison, our other male lead, the prison warden is determined to make our hero’s life difficult…that is until he finds out our hero actually knows his little brother who he hasn’t been able to get in contact with for a long while.
The production quality of The City of Choas looks awesome! I was prepared to be content with just our two leads’ bromance since this type of show usually is slim on the romance end, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that our hero will actually end up in a love triangle with TWO beautiful women. (The first one is a sizzling sexy female lawyer and the other one is our hero’s first love who is now a doctor.)
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The only one available to me (U.S.) is Oriental Odyssey. It’s so bad it’s good. The production, CGI, acting, terrible. There’s one hilarious scene where a female has to dive into the water to save someone but all she manages is a belly flop. And not on purpose to be funny. But I’m still enjoying it. Why? I have no idea.