Tag: RomCom

Webnovel Review: Perfect Fiance (完美未婚夫)

Webnovel Review: Perfect Fiance (完美未婚夫)

by eastasianlover ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Since this is the first Saturday of the year, I did not want to miss the review. I had stopped reading this short novel when the translator had to take a break halfway through. For the review purposes, I ended up binge reading it today itself.

Personally, I am a bit conflicted about this novel. Should it be a review or a recommendation, I still can’t decide. Let me try penning my thoughts here once and I might change my mind.

This is a very cheesy, very corny, full of fluff, short romance story about two people, Su Jin and Lu Xi. Su Jin transmigrates into a novel she was reading while on an airplane when the airplane gets into an accident. Originally an orphan, Su Jin finds herself in the body of a girl who was switched at birth and was supposed to be a rich young lady. Her original parents in the novel had just acknowledged her as their daughter and thus, for original Su Jin, her wealthy life had just started.

She also finds that she had been betrothed to a young mysterious young master of another influential family by her grandfather some time in the past and now she might have to honor that arrangement. The young master turns out to be Lu Xi, an award winning director of movies. Since Su Jin knew the plot of the novel, she knew that she would become a villain and the girl who was switched at birth had feelings for Lu Xi as well. She had, thus decided to remain far away from the guy.

By twist of fate, Lu Xi actually falls for Su Jin and rejects the other girl much to the surprise of Su Jin. From there on, starts Lu Xi’s chase of Su Jin, trying to break the hard shell she had over her heart.

It is initially revealed that Lu Xi might have connections with Su Jin from her original life which adds a really great mystery element to the plot.

Within 59 chapters, I would not really bother about character development as such. Su Jin starts as an aloof girl who doesn’t want to ruin the plot of the novel she was reading and hence, has the door to her heart closed off. But along the way, she starts depending on Lu Xi. Lu Xi, on the other hand, has been shown your typical handsome, breathtaking cold person who only dotes his lover. Other characters are all really likable and there are no villains in the plot. May be one person in the beginning but I don’t even understand what that one incident’s purpose was.

But this novel does pack a bunch of surprises plotwise. You might find some sci-fi stuff later on. Moreover, it is very good at tying all the loose ends at the end.

The thing I like the most about the novel is how it explores different kinds of love; love at first sight, gradually developed love over lifetimes, childhood love and love that is just not there anymore. I would say, the author has used some profound language to describe some of the most mundane things in life. Plus, translator has done really well in conveying those words.

My only complaint was that I had really gone out of touch with it once it stopped updating. As I read some 30 chapters today, there was not as much thrill as there was when I had just started following it. Not that I’m blaming the translator, life happens to everyone and I understand that. Anyway, I am slowly beginning to get bored of webnovels since they all just keep repeating similar plot lines. This one is definitely a bit different and half a day read, so that’s good.

In the end, I still can’t decide if I like it or not. It has its plus and minuses. I will keep it as a review only.

Conclusion: I’ll probably give it a 8/10 and recommend it to those who don’t really get cringed with cheesy dialogues. I liked the mystery part and how it was unraveled, although it was a bit predictable as well but the sci-fi part was something I could not even imagine in my dreams would be woven into it.

Final feelings: ⊙.☉

Read Here: Perfect Fiance on Meraki Translations

Personal Section: Happy New Year Readers. I am still stuck with weekend work in the new year but hopefully that will be over soon. I will definitely lose my overtime but who cares. I will have normal weekends and I would be able to work on my personal projects.

It had been long since I had some time to myself, without the need of going anywhere. And suddenly finding free time today was both surprising and hilarious in the sense, I had not planned on what to do with it. Nonetheless, I will go to bed early.

Did I tell you guys I became an ordained minister two weeks back and now can sign marriage licenses of couples? If you are in NJ (USA) and are looking for a person to officiate your marriage, contact me, lol. I did it on the request of a very dear friend of mine. I was really honored and elated when he asked me to officiate his marriage. This is for you my dear friend, very many congratulations!

Today’s song: Well, since I posted SKZ song last week, I ended up revisiting the whole playlist again and now they are the only artists in my playlist once again. I guess I’ll post another song from them, hopefully I haven’t posted this one before:

Love the lightness of this song ❤

Webtoon Recommendation: Super Secret (슈퍼 시크릿)

Webtoon Recommendation: Super Secret (슈퍼 시크릿)

by eastasianlover ♥ 1 Comment
Super Secret Webtoon

This post was supposed to be the first post of 2019 but I somehow ended up reviewing a webnovel first. So, although I had written this post in the first week of January, I had to change the whole intro again, (basically write everything again). Oh well. I have moved some parts of my intro to the personal section of the post, if anyone’s interested

Anyway, today I bring this super cute 4-panel webtoon for you guys. Completed just a month back, it’s one of my favorite webtoons, kind of. I feel so happy for the characters. But damn, I’ll miss my Wednesday update every week.

Written by author by the name of “eon”, it is a rather short webtoon with 144 chapters only and a webtoon rating of 9.82!! So I guess it comes highly recommended from webtoon readers?

It is a heartwarming slice of life romcom (interesting combo tbh but I am seeing this combo popping up again and again these days) about a clumsy girl called Emma Ji whose parents live abroad and her childhood friend Ryan Nam who has been taking care of her, performing all duties of a mom, a dad and her best friend.

Super Secret funny 2
Lol, Emma admits it herself

As *two childhood friends who fall in love with each other but the girl doesn’t have a clue* cliche as it sounds, what sets it apart from other stories like this is that Ryan and his family have a secret. They’re supernatural beings. Ryan himself is a werewolf, his two sisters are witch and a nine tailed fox (Trust me, it’s not a spoiler! It is just a secret for Emma, not the readers XD XD). These guys helping Emma with her normal life while trying to keep their super secret a secret from everyone including Emma and her friends create real hilarious situations.

More than that, you really feel for Ryan. He is hopelessly in love with her. While our airhead Emma tries to just live her life, she’s totally obvious to Ryan’s or her own feelings. Added to the mix are problems that arise from Ryan’s secret, since in this universe, humans are not allowed to know about the existence of the supernatural beings.

There are of course ways to evade that rule but it involves so many complications that it often poses danger to Emma and her other hooman friends. Her friends also get involved with other super beings.

Super secret funny
Like you’re ever gonna do it >.>

What I really like about the webtoon is the art, which is super cute and fluffy despite being based majorly on humans (super beings in the form of humans, but you get my point, right?). And the author has really not bound the story and characters by any boundaries in the sense that even Ryan’s family contains all kind of beings, which is interesting in terms of procreation (Can you think of a Frankenstein and a Korean spirit/ Goddess with children who are nine tailed fox, witch and a werewolf? Unless they’re all adopted? No information there). I mean, it’s fine, don’t wanna go into nitty gritty stuff.

I also liked the comedy part. It’s not laugh out loud kind of comedy but just funny. You feel good reading it. I wouldn’t comment on character development because it’s not really a plot driven webtoon. I mean there is an overarching theme of how Emma discovers Ryan’s secret and their feelings for each other. But it’s not like you get to see people grow beyond their flaws and stuff.

Super secret 5
From the author’s postscript…

What I don’t like about the webtoon is that it wasn’t originally supposed to be this long. Near the end, there was a lot of stuff in the plot which seemed unnecessary to me, and the author admits it in the last chapter. They had planned it only for 50 chapters but it went on to become almost 100 chapters more. They’re not unbearable and I won’t know how it would feel to binge read it. Perhaps it would make more sense reading it all together?

But somewhere I did get lost in the plot. It seemed to be like every Korean drama where a point comes and you just want to skip to the end. It was not possible for me because I was obviously following it while it was publishing and reading one chapter per week.

Super secret funny 3
Uh, I might be slave to this cutesy art too XD

Conclusion: Personally, despite my reservations about the unnecessary additions of characters and plot to keep the editors happy and just for the sake of it, I really like it. In my weekly schedule, for months, this was the only webtoon that I followed that updated on Wednesday (I have started 2 new webtoons now, so Wednesdays don’t seem empty anymore). And I really looked forward to it every week.

So, I would still recommend my readers to give it a try. It’s not that long that you would feel that you’ve invested too much time reading it anyway.

Final feelings: (o˘◡˘o)

Read here: Super Secret on Webtoons.com

Personal Front: Well, as I mentioned earlier, this post was to go up in mid-Jan as I came back from India to US after a vacay of 3 weeks. I was feeling a bit of non-belonging-ness to either US or India, although I have lived some 23 years in India and 2.5 years in US (time indeed flies!!).

Like you know, I have mentioned this before but I don’t really get attached to places. Not my undergrad college, not Thailand, not my previous place of work, not here. And Pittsburgh is actually the place where I have spent 3rd longest time of my life at one place. It all seems very interesting to me.

Anyway, there is nothing much to tell on personal front otherwise. I am 1/5th through this book called “Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits” and I am loving it so far, more so because I finished those 60+ pages in 2 hours, thanks to an online friend.

I asked her to work for an hour on some project without getting distracted and being accountable to each other for the work we decided upon. It actually feels good to be accomplishing something like that. I see myself using this technique of productivity more often in the future.

Today’s song: Somehow got hooked to Taemin’s new song. Although I don’t like how changed he looks with regards to body (too thin and a bit shorter compared to before? I feel like he doesn’t have bones in his body anymore!), I am loving the sound. It feels okay putting on repeat and listening at length, plus the lyrics are so narcissist, that it inspires some confidence in otherwise under-confident me (Today I realized that the meaning of the song could be quite sensual as well):

Disclaimer: All the images used here are property of author eon and webtoons.com and have directly been taken from the website. Nothing belongs to me or the blog.

My love saved my life….

My love saved my life….

by eastasianlover ♥ 2 Comments

Yeah, yeah. The title seems like I was going to commit suicide. My depression was not that bad but those times were not very good either. My grades were dropping despite me studying (I think I was studying but God only knows!). I was feeling out of the group because I didn’t join any club or department (being an introvert) and my hobbies were different from the friends I had made, so I couldn’t talk to them too. There were no common topics for us. All in all, I was very lonely (Don’t take it in wrong way!) I used to sometimes think if I was not fit for this place or how much better it would have been if I was born in some anime world.

Then one day, I stumbled upon K-Dramas. Now, if you are talking about K-Dramas, I have watched only two kinds – RomCom and Historical. My first drama was Dae Jang Geum (The Jewel in the Palace), a historical drama, which is about a girl, who becomes head kitchen maid even after being conspired against, by a lot of rivals again and again. After watching it, I was like how can people work hard like that? Just to make some dishes, she would keep awake for whole night. (I can’t have a night out even if I haven’t studied for an exam the next day at all, even today!) After watching some more dramas which were mainly romantic comedies, I realized, modern people are like that too. If you think they are just dramas and they don’t contain reality, then there are real instances too. Like, if you talk about their entertainment industry, the people are very hardworking. They sometimes keep going on without sleeping for days. For example, Super Junior’s 6th album’s title song – Sexy, Free and Single was shot in 3 days where the members didn’t get any sleep and had to keep dancing for long hours. Same thing happened for Girls’ Generation (SNSD)’s song – Gee.  Well, yeah that’s something you can’t verify but why would they lie about something like this. You can actually see such things from their makings. Other than music videos, their schedules are very tight – Concerts, Hosting, Acting, Variety Shows and what not. And when you hear such things and actually watch their very well made music videos (even the reality shows videos have a lot of video edits – small small cartoons and gags in writing etc.), you start wondering about hundreds of people behind and besides the entertainers – directors, technical staff, stylists and more who have to put lots of efforts too. Because I can’t do such things, I obviously get impressed. How can such things and people not inspire you?

Another thing which I watch are variety shows and reality shows.  The people are too funny. They don’t hesitate to make fun of themselves just to make the audience laugh and it’s the scene in almost all such shows out there in South Korea (Oh man! I have watched too many.)

Now coming to my main point, yes, when I was feeling very low in life, I came across such treasure by chance and I am very thankful for that. Even now when I am feeling even a little bit dispirited, all I need is some variety show episode with my favorite girl/boy groups or their songs. They make my day! (Yes, my day starts and ends with them only) I know you must be pondering how crazy I am. But I am sure; you also must have some songs like that in your life (not necessarily Korean).

With that I’ll post aforementioned songs today:

PS : From my next post I’ll start with the reviews. Enough with the stories!

Girls’ Generation’s Gee (Kor Ver.) : 

Girls’ Generation’s Gee (Jap Ver.) : 

Super Junior’s Sexy, Free and Single :