10 manga/manhwas I wish were K-Dramas June 23, 2017

Bride of the Water God

July 3 2017 the Korean Drama “Bride of the Water God” will be released and I am pretty excited. This drama is based on the manhwa with the same name by Yun Mi-Kyung. This is one of the first manhwa’s that I have read and I thought the artwork was fantastic and so detailed and beautiful. I always thought it had a unique storyline and would think I would love to see it as a anime or something. I haven’t finished reading the series which makes me even more excited to see it as a live action drama because I don’t know how it ends. I am a little nervous to be excited about this drama because the last time I was excited for an adaptation was Cheese in the Trap and I was disappointed by it. I think what always trips up the dramas is when they take the story that hasn’t been completed and they try to make a drama but even they don’t know how it is supposed to end. The story has been completed so that makes me feel better,  but it is not completed for the English version.

There are other adaptations I would love to see and hope they will be made into Korean Dramas one day!

 

10. Koi to Uso (Love and Lies)

This manga is being made into an anime this summer but I think it would make a good drama. It is also going to be made into a Japanese movie this year but they are changing the story so it is a girl in a love triangle. Maybe it will be adapted enough but I still think it deserves to be made into a drama rather than a movie. I guess it is kinda futuristic because the teens are growing up in a world where the government matches people together for marriage using a formula. It is unheard of to find people that fell in love and got married on their own. Yukari has found a girl that he likes and he confesses to her and then receives his government notice that he has been assigned to another girl. I am a fan of the Lilina and Yukari match!

 

9. Reimei no Arukana (Dawn of the Arcana)

This manga is by Rei Toma from 2003-2013. I think this is a fascinating manga and I have loved the fantasy of it and really found myself enjoying the characters. It is Princess Nakaba who is from Senan and she is forced to marry Prince Caesar of Belquat and their marriage is supposed ease the tensions and bad blood from the two kingdoms. Nakaba discovers that she carries the Arcana of time in her bloodline and is able to see in the past or the future. The story also tells of a people called “Ajins” who are considered below everyone because they are half-human and half-animal. This would be so cool if they had the right technology to work with and be turned into a drama! I would be so excited to watch it. Although I would be okay if they changed some things in the manga because it can get a bit dark at times.

 

8.Ookami-Heika no Hanayome (Wolf’s King Bride)

This manga is by Kauta Mato and is about Yuurin who is from a low ranking family and decides to come to the palace when she hears about a job that has high wages. When she arrives she learns that her job is to be a temporary wife to a wolf-like King who is the ability to scare everyone around him. Yuurin doesn’t realize exactly who he is and the misunderstanding rise around this. I think this would make a great Korean drama especially because it could be done in a historical way. I think this would be a very fun lighthearted drama that could come from this manga.

 

7. Cherry Boy, That Girl

This is a manhwa done by South Ant that was released from 2012 to 2015 and I think this would be a perfect highschool Korean drama. All the characters are named after food, mostly fruit and all the characters are very distinct. The main character is Berry who thinks she is the best looking girl in the school and takes advantage of this status. She has caught the interest of Pear and then has to deal with her ex-boyfriend becoming jealous and going to crazy lengths to win her back. The silliness and craziness of this manhwa is fun and I think it could make for an interesting drama!

 

6. Ouran High School Host Club

This manga is by Bisco Hatori and ran from 2002-2010 and has been turned into an anime, Japanese drama and also a Japanese film. So yes this has been adapted it feels like many times but I don’t think those have given the full possibility of the story. I loved the anime and was excited when I first saw it was also a live action. I was very disappointed when I tried to watch the drama, it was so overacted and tried to seem like a live version of an anime, I couldn’t watch it. I am sorry if there are fans of the drama, I personally did not like it all it was too much. I would love to see a Korean drama remake and focus more on the story line and just make it more of a realistic story line but maybe this manga is just to hard to do that with, the charm of the characters are what makes the manga so beloved. I would love to see this done into a drama and I would love to see the characters in a live action that is more toned down.

 

5. Furuba/Fruba (Fruits Basket)

This manga is by Natsuki Takaya and it ran from 1998-2006 and has been turned into an anime. Fruits Basket was one of the first animes that I have watched and I really loved it and I thought what is this type of genre it really got my attention. This anime and manga is so fun and yet touched my heart in so many moments. The struggles are real and the future is uncertain in this story.  It is about a girl Tohru Honda finds herself alone since her Mother has passed away and with unkind relatives she finds herself homeless. Yuki Sohma and his cousin Shigure decide to take Tohru in when they find her living in a tent. She also lives there with Kyo who is another cousin. What makes this a fantasy story is that the Sohma’s live with a curse that they turn into an animal from the Chinese zodiac when they are in distress or hugged by someone of the opposite sex. I love fantasy stories and I think this could be a very interesting as a live action. I think this would be hard because of the turning into animals and would take a lot of CG or something. I think this would be a hard one to do but I just love the concept of the story.

 

4. My Shiny World

This webtoon is by Maru and it is about a college girl Yurim who has the ability to physically see the darkness when people have evil intentions. She has been avoiding people scared that she will have to witness the evil in others again and things change when she meets June a pink haired guy that seems to be able to break down her walls and she learns to trust others again. I really have enjoyed this webtoon so far and I think it would be a very interesting live action drama. I think it is a fantasy story but wouldn’t be too hard to work into a drama. I love the characters and I think the story is great.

 

3. Skip Beat

This manga is by Yoshiki Nakamura and it started in 2002 and is still ongoing. This manga has been turned into an anime which I really enjoyed but was too short. It was also turned into a Taiwanese drama which I did like but I of course it wasn’t long enough for the long story line in the manga. I would love to see it redone in a Korean drama style but I wish they would make it longer and get the full story out of the manga. I don’t like it when they just do the first couple of books. That was what I found lacking in the Taiwanese drama. The story is about a girl Kyoko Mogami who runs away with her childhood friend who becomes a famous singer and has been using her as a maid and friend. She decides to take revenge and she enters the show business as an actor and to bother him. Along the way she meets Ren who is older actor and he warns her not to become a actor out of revenge and she learns to fall in love with acting. I really like the parts where Kyoko learns about acting and how she takes on every role that she takes on. I wish there would be a drama that would delve deeper into the story and show more about the acting side of the manga.

 

2. Spirit Fingers

This webtoon is by Han Kyoung Charl  and is about a girl that struggles to find her place and she meets a group of people that are in a drawing club. She meets them coincidentally and they invite her into the group and she finally finds a place that she can make her own. I think this is a lovely webtoon and find it quite funny as well. It feels quirky and silly and yet it deals with issues that can be serious. I really wish this could be turned into a drama, I think it would be a lovely story.

 

1.Nana

Nana is by Ai Yazawa and is a manga that ran from 2000-2009 and has been on a hiatus ever since. Apparently Ai Yazawa has an illness and has not been able to draw since. This makes me sad because I would like to see a resolved ending for this manga. This manga has been turned into a anime which I really enjoyed. It has also been turned into 2 Japanese movies which I don’t think did justice to the story. The story is about 2 girls names Nana that come to be roommates. One is a punk rock singer that wants to put together a band and the other came to Tokyo to find her boyfriend and has a more naive way of thinking. It is a story about love, friendship and heartbreak. I really think that it suits a Korean drama especially with so many boy and girl groups they could easily find a great cast that could sing. I think it could be great if they could finish the story properly in a drama since there may never be a resolution to the manga. I think this manga has all the elements for a great drama and would love to see it happen.

 

 

May-June 2017 Korean Drama Reviews June 20, 2017

I finished watching two dramas earlier this month, the first one is Chicago Typewriter. So first of all this was a fantasy drama with a ghost and past lives. I typically stay away from such things but it looked interesting and I wanted to see Yoo Ah-In in a drama again, the last one that I watched was Fashion King with him in it and it was truly terrible. He has a really distinct growly voice and I wonder now if it is because of cigarettes? I really hope that he has quit smoking and that it isn’t affecting his health.

Chicago Typewriter is about Han Se-Joo who is in the present time a successful celebrity writer and his work is beloved. He acquires a typewriter that he found in Chicago and he soon finds his life has become complicated and that he has gotten involved in more that he wanted to. Jeon-Seol who is Se-Joo’s biggest fan gets to meet him and their lives become entangled and they both begin to see visions of their past lives which is intertwined and is in the era of the 1930’s where they were living in turbulent times with the Japanese ruling over Korea at that time. They slowly learn of their past lives and try to figure out what happened to them.

I really enjoyed watching all these actors and characters and I know that some people have complained that the show was to slow moving and that nothing was happening for the first half. But I think there was plenty in the story line to keep you interested the whole time. There are mysteries that slowly get unraveled and always keeping you guessing about what happened in the past. I like being able to compare the past and present and see how the characters were related.

In the first half of the drama I found Se-Joo to be yelling and angry all the time which was slightly annoying to me and kinda turned me off. Thankfully he turns into a nicer person and stops yelling all the time. I thought the chemistry was good between the actors and was finding myself really enjoying the drama.

I also found it interesting to learn about how the Japanese had taken over Korea and how hard those times were. I wish they would have gotten into the history a bit more and how it affected the country and how Korea got rid of the Japanese regime. I would have liked to see a bit more history and significance in the drama.

Overall I thought this was a well made drama and it was very emotional at the end of the drama which made me cry! It is a bit of an open ended drama but I was satisfied with the ending. I would recommend this drama if you like a mystery with some fantasy!

The second drama that I finished was Man To Man. I was really surprised when I started watching this drama because the plot line made it seem like the story was about a bromance between a celebrity and his bodyguard. It did not say much about the story and so I was expecting it to be more of a comedy. I was also excited to see Park Hae-Jin in a drama again, still love him from “Family Outing.” The storyline was more about a secret agent who needs to go undercover as a celebrity’s bodyguard so that he can use him to get into a party to steal a wooden statue. The story is much more about secret agents and CEO abusing their power and making bribes. Their is some romance more between Hae-Jin and Do-Ha who is the manager to the celebrity.

I felt like they tried to use the bromance gimmick and that was like for one episode and then just kinda disregarded that story line which I thought was weird when they tried to make it seem like it was the focus. I thought Park Hae-Jin was playing the same role from Cheese in the Trap, he was just a stoic handsome guy and he didn’t show much emotion. I didn’t really care for the chemistry between him and Do-Ha. I think I preferred it between him and the celebrity more than the romantic couple. I also thought Hae-Jin’s face looked a bit strange in this drama, like he had some weird wrinkles in his chin and face. I thought it was weird?

At least the secret agent part of it wasn’t terribly unrealistic and actually found it interesting after a while and was wondering why the wooden statues are so important! I know that there was a lot of complaints about Do-Ha and how she wasn’t attractive and that they didn’t like her. I don’t think that was the problem, she was a fine actress but I think it was the characters that they were being forced to play. I think because Hae-Jin was so stoic and Do-Ha wasn’t this incredibly bubbly and over the top girl character which is usually the case, people didn’t like her. I personally didn’t mind that she wasn’t over the top and played a more realistic character was not a bad thing. I think it was the storyline that was the problem. I think they were having a hard time balancing all the different factors that they put into the story.

I did not enjoy this drama that much but if you are bored and want to watch something this would do, and it is nice because it is on Netflix. I really didn’t like the ending, I didn’t really get the point of it? It just seemed strange and I didn’t really get what was happening?