My 2016 In Review

December 18, 2016 by eastasianlover ♥ 1 Comment

Oops! I realise I have taken too long a break! In the meantime, I have accumulated so much to write about. And I am finally a bit free, like comparably. My semester exams are over and I finally have some time to myself. Not that I wasn’t watching anime or k-dramas before.

Anime updates: For fall anime, as usual, I started with a bunch, dropped quite a few. And hence, I am again remaining withslice of life or sports anime with me: Natsume Yuujinchou, 3-gatsu no lion, Yuri on ice, Haikyuu, Days etc. Haikyuu finished quite early, only 10 episodes, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Days was summer anime, I think. Although many people have been disappointed with the anime, I liked it nonetheless. Yuri on ice is a different one, enjoyable though. Natsume, as usual is the best! I will miss Natsume TT_TT

K-drama updates: I watched quite a few k-dramas this year: DOTS, The K2, W (I loved W by the way. Recommended to a friend as his first k-drama and he fell for the plot as well!! ~~Brought another person to this world, yes!~~). This time I have picked up Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo and Goblin. I feel Kim Bok Joo is better than Legend of Blue Sea, it might be my personal preference though. Initial episodes of Legend of Blue Sea were hilarious, but I can’t see where the drama is going now. Whereas, it is easier to relate with Kim Bok Joo. Goblin is utterly hilarious! Tvn and JTBC have made some real gems this year.

Other dramas: In the latter half, I watched quite a few other dramas as well. Love O2O, Virtuous queen of Han Dynasty etc. I don’t remember all the names but for rom-com, love O2O is my recommendation, for now. If I remember any other which I found good, will update the post.

Variety updates: Weekly idol had been my top choice for this year as well. However, I am losing interest in it somehow. I finished whatever English subbed episodes were available for Knowing Bros. I took a bit interest in K-pop star 6 as well. The absolute favorite of mine is however Go Fighting! I started watching it for Lay but the comedy is the best. Highly recommended variety show (I am yet to try running man by the way.)

K-pop updates: Infinite! Infinite! Infinite! Yes, my recent favorite boy band came with an album this year and the title song grew up on me as usual. I got into VIXX as well, courtesy to my sister, and now I am a fan. I don’t really listen to YG groups, but black pink has certainly caught my attention. I like Big Bang’s recent song Fxxk it too. Other than that, Lay and Sistar did a good job. Lay’s ‘monodrama’ has been on my playlist for quite sometime.

Webtoons and Manga Updates: I were to release my translations for some manga but then my college started, and I did not find time to put the text in those blurbs at all. And my sister fried the hard disk of my old laptop, so all my work is gone now Many webtoons ended this year, I dropped almost all of the ones I was reading because updates were really slow. Same with manga. I dropped Dice, Thousand Nine Tails, TAL, City of Dead Sorcerer, Skip Beat, Haikyuu (Damnit! Didn’t know they were these many) I am still waiting for Barakamon updates. I started reading Tsubaki-chou lonely planet, again courtesy to my sister. Another one is Fujiwara-kun no Daitai Tadashii, because I was translating it.

Language Learning Updates: Both of my languages are on hold and whatever I learnt till now went down the drain. The revision is on my agenda right now. I borrowed tons of books from my library for some winter reading, I am going to hoard some more. Let’s get some motivation!!

These are my updates for now. In weather updates, Pitts weather is super erratic. One day, it’s sunny with 15 deg C temperature, next day it’s snowing with -5 deg C temperature. Really weird.

Anyway, I need to get back and do some work so that I can write more tomorrow. I will also update a bit about the courses I took this semester and how I came to love blogging once again. See you all and happy holidays!

And for the customary song in each post, here:

K-Variety Review: Bounce Indo (두근두근 인도)

May 2, 2015April 9, 2016 by eastasianlover ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

One sentence for this show: Hilarious yet as an Indian and k-pop fan, downright embarrassing. Four episodes have been released for this series where some fan is subbing it on youtube, but KBS has started airing it officially on their KBS World YouTube channel with one episode out as of now.

Also known as Fluttering India or Exciting India, Bounce Indo is a variety show where five K-pop idols come to India to “exchange” their culture with ours, to see the scope of bringing k-pop into India. These five celebrities include: Kyuhyun from Super Junior, Suho from EXO, Minho from SHinee, Jonghyun from C.N.Blue and Sunggyu from Infinite.

I was actually looking forward to this, despite knowing that the stars were landing in Mumbai and not Delhi (which is nearer to my home town) because I wanted to see my country from their perspective (I love different point of views) and I wanted to know how would THEY like this relatively unknown place to South Koreans. I was utterly disappointed in the show and the cast as there were many other Indian fans which is evident from all the criticism I have read in articles and comments.

If the Indian K-pop fans are to believe, the Mumbaians weren’t allowed to meet their revered idols. I still don’t get the mentality. First of all, you’re coming in India to promote your culture and then you don’t deem the people, who are already familiar with your culture, worthy of the attention they deserve. In my honest opinion, they could’ve just let the fans meet, take pics and autographs and talk to them, off the camera, may be? One cannot deny the already established fan base existing in India. And how uncontrollable can a crowd of 20 odd people be? Agreed, the fans are, most of the times, a little difficult to manage, but we are talking about just a few.

Moreover, as one of the comments on the official video mentions, there were less preparations on the part of the people coming here. If one is going to survey a place for potential market, any common person would know to better equip themselves with at least a little cultural knowledge before diving into unknown waters. They needed it more so, because this was kind of an official expedition. I might be basing this on just first episode, but one can’t be expecting more from a five day trip after watching the first day.

In the first episode itself, they admit that India is not what they used to study about back in their school time. Also, the fan girl Babu, said that there are like a thousand k-pop lovers in Mumbai itself. I am pretty sure there are, a lot more in whole of India (they probably don’t know or are just underestimating the might of Indian population 😉 ) especially in big cities like Delhi and north Eastern States.

I am not criticizing every thing. Even if it was scripted (which I don’t believe), their acting is, no doubt, funny. The convivial environment they create and the way they bear strangers, who don’t even know them, taking pics with them, hats off! (I do envy Babu, who got to show them the way and click pictures with them). I also appreciate the pain they took, coming to a totally unknown country and trying to indulge in their culture (I would personally love doing that).

The major complaint is the way they tried to portray their popularity in India giving a somewhat false representation (Honestly, it was not surprising that they didn’t find a single fan on the Gateway of India. But if they had allowed the fans on airport, there might have been chances of them getting to know places where they could find more k-pop lovers. They did seem a little disappointed because no one recognised them here.).

All in all, with most of the comments and articles I have read from Indian fans, I am pretty sure I can safely say that it came as a little repulsive to Indian fans including me. Some things are embarrassing on our part and some on theirs. Even so, I do recommend it to people for the sole purpose of pure entertainment. As a proud Indian, I cannot give a green light to ALL the things shown in the show, but most of them are correct (It might take long posts to correct such things, which is going to be an excruciatingly painful process, so I would rather stay away from that. But IF someone has got any questions from the videos, or wants to ask something about India or anything else just out of curiosity, I would definitely answer them. Just post them in comments).

Here is the link to watch the official episode 1 from KBS World:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szdx3WOUF9w

Enjoy!

Falling in love with EXO

October 11, 2013January 19, 2016 by eastasianlover ♥ 1 Comment

I may have said this before too, but it takes me time to like a song. The song which I don’t like today may become the only song in my playlist tomorrow. And then starts the journey to explore about the concerned K-pop group. Same thing I’m experiencing this time. And the group’s name is EXO! Although I’ve heard only one song – Growl, but these handsome boys never fail to enchant me with their dance and looks. ~~I’m becoming like those crazy fan girls!!! >.<~~ I have watched the MV again and again over 100 times! I like their dance…….

But they haven’t appeared on many variety shows in Korea which I generally watch and many of them have not been subbed yet or I couldn’t find them. TT_TT I once again finished everything in 3 hours and now I want more. It’s fun! Learning the names and faces through such shows. And a faster and effective way for people like me who can’t remember easily. I’ve done the same with other idol groups too especially bigger ones – SuJu, Girls Generation, Shinee, f(x), DBSK (I know I know, they all are SM groups and last three are not that big but I’m writing other names too!), KARA, SS501, 2PM and I love it!

Anyways, they look so cool in MVs and are sooo cute on screen acting all silly. Then will come other songs (I know I go opposite to what is normally done but I can’t help it, can I?)

Should I post links to what all I watched today?

Beatles Code 2 (130826)

Kangta on I live alone EXO cut