Minitwin

The beginning of the year felt like pure serotonin being injected with each new drama. But then it hit a major wall for a bit and I was drip fed something amazing every once in a while for the rest of the year.

Avenue X mentioned that the number of chinese dramas this year dropped by a huge percentage and it was very felt :( What did air in the 2nd half of the year, there were only a couple where I was able to push through to the finish.

The best cdrama of the year for me is probably The Best Thing. It wasn't perfect but they were so sweet and the show had so much love put into it. After that it's probably Blossom which was super far outside of my drama comfort zone but I was sick the week of new years and binged the entire thing and loved it.

The kdrama with best start and worst end definitely goes to When the Phone Rings, it really matches the horse drawing meme. The beginning was so much fun and the ending was so wtf. I guess by process of elimination, My girlfriend is the man was my favorite kdrama? It was soooo fun and I was so proud of Arin and Sanha. My babiessssss <3 <3 <3 Everything else was pretty good but I only have vaguely warm feelings. I'm still confused by how much I liked Marry You given that it is literally just marriage propaganda.

For jdramas there's a very very clear winner in Chihayafuru Full Circle. My children made me feel so many emotions. I love them so much. It even got me to convince my ex-roommate to watch the anime and then all of the live action movies with me (which were still amazing).

Yearly breakdown:

10 Korean 7 Chinese 16 Japanese

Honestly the number of dramas I watched in 2024 feels like such a disappointment :( There were definitely some good ones but for a lot of the year I felt like there was a large hole in my watch schedule that I would fill with a drama that I would drop half way through.

One surprising thing is how many korean dramas I watched this year though (this number would be higher if I hadn't dropped a bunch 9+ hours in). Somehow I watched half the number of chinese and japanese dramas but then I went from .5 full dramas to 8-10 depending on how you count it?? So thankful that there were finally romcoms that weren't about murder and cheating I swear (lovely runner and when the phone rings being the exceptions to no murder oops).

Honestly I'm not sure that there's any drama this year that I would say is my favorite (compared to last year where there were so many I loved). I guess if I had to pick it would be Hidamari ga kikoeru. I got the college drama that I prayed to the drama gods for but it got so frustrating sometimes. After that would be Family By Choice which was good but felt rushed (due to going from 46 episodes to 16). If When the Phone Rings finishes strong I think it will pass it.

Chae Jonghyup was really good in both Eye Love You and Serendipity's Embrace but both dramas dragged for me at the end so the final impression wasn't that great :(

The January drama line up and March Japanese movie lineup look promising so hopefully 2025 will be off to a good start :)

Counts:

Count for this year:

Cdrama: 13 Jdrama: 13 Kdrama: 5 Short dramas/movies: japanese: 5 chinese: 2 korean: 1

Currently watching/waiting for sub:

K-drama: 2 J-drama: 2

Meet Yourself and When I Fly Towards you are probably the Chinese drama standouts that will stay with me for a long time. Even their OSTs were my 1st and 3rd most listened to songs this year according to youtube music 😅 but it's a bit sad because they're not really dramas that I can convince my friends to watch and talk about so I ended up just crying by myself.

I don't know if I consider Animals a "healing" drama but I felt so touched by the first episode I remember calling my sister crying my eyes out. The playful chemistry and care that everyone in the show had for each other really got me and I hope this drama gets a ton of love now that it's on Netflix (in asia only so far). Thinking about it more, I think this drama really got the couple dynamic right compared to similar dramas and they were so sweet and comfy.

My Second Aoharu falls into that "younger successful guy + woman in a rough spot" bucket too but I think rather than the romance what it did right was the feeling of living with your friends and classmates that you really only experience in college. I still don't understand why there are so few college dramas out there (maybe because the experience is less universal?) but every single one that I've found holds such a special place in my heart. Please drama gods give me more college dramas :pray: :pray: I'm tired of getting my fix from crappy youtube dramas.

I think Love Me Love My Voice is, like many have said, barely a drama but it was so peaceful and relaxing. I love the cast's chemistry and it was so nice to wake up in the morning and have something to look forward to. It brought me a lot of joy in December. :)

I went back and read my post from last year where I said that "maybe Silent would save 2022 jdramas for me" and I think I liked it but I watched it right after I watched Animals which I think was a hurdle impossible to pass.

Time for the annual drama post. haha I think I massively slowed down this year because I couldn't make myself stick with dramas until the end. I think only 5 of these were in september or later? Comparing to last year it looks like K/J dramas stayed about the same but the number of chinese dramas dropped drastically. It's funny to look at 2019 where I thought 15 was slowing down and said things like "I’ve only watched 5 Korean dramas that aired this year which seems so small to me now" half way through the year. *stares at my 7 for the year*

I'm so confused about where my time went but I guess it went to traveling and work? I'm hoping that in the next couple months I can find the gems that I somehow missed this year.

Looking back on the comments that I made about what I was watching and the future, Our Beloved Summer was great and stayed good but I found them so frustrating I don't know if there's any rewatch value. Delicious Romance I loved all of them but the male leads were so crappy that I couldn't take it.

Total dramas: 24 Korean: 7 Chinese: 9 Japanese: 6

I think the dramas that are going to have made the biggest impression on me this year are Reset, Business Proposal and She and Her Perfect Husband (honorable mention to Sh**ting Stars) for a ton of different reasons.

Reset was so fun because I watched it with friends and we would pause to analyze flames and try to get ahead of where they were in the story. The cast was great everything was so well done that I've recommended it to basically anyone that has asked.

Business Proposal was almost a parody but Sejeong and Ahn Hyo Seob but their whole heart into it and it really showed. I've honestly already rewatched it twice lmao.

Finally She and Her Perfect Husband was my light shining at the end of the tunnel for cute modern Chinese dramas this year after all of the ones I could actually finish either had a smart female leads who had turned off their brains or an a**hole for a ML. When it got delayed I was so upset I didn't know what to do with myself QQ. I think the plot got too messy and the second leads were ridiculous but I love the main couple and Li Dai <3 <3

I didn't watch that many movies but of them "And so the Baton was Passed" really got me. I loved how they played with the timeline and all of her parents were so sweet. The romance part of it is pretty meh but I don't think it reduced the quality for me.

There wasn't really a Japanese drama this year that stood out to me above the rest (haven't watched Silent yet so maybe I'm just missing out) but everything I watched was really cute with a lot of heart and made my days better. Kono Hatsukoi wa Fiction desu is probably on the more garbage end plotwise but the kids are soooo cute. i've followed them all on instagram so there's no going back for me.

Time for this blog to go inactive again until next year :) (unless twitter actually dies)

List of dramas that I watched below the keep reading

Time for the yearly tumblr post :)

19 c/tdramas 6 kdramas (should finish hospital playlist s2 this week) 7 jdramas (2 waiting for subs) 6 Movies/specials (4 Japanese, 1 Korean, 1 Taiwanese)

So many dropped, too many to count (see the 19 that made it into my list of MDL before getting dropped/placed on hold)

I had written this whole rant about how I've basically quit kdramas because I just want a romcom that I don't find offensive or boring and then Our Beloved Summer started airing. I'm currently on episode 6 and enjoying it so hopefully it'll save Kdramas for me this year. Otherwise I'll only have watched 2 that aired in 2021, Run On and Imitation (and Run On technically started in 2020).

I think this is the year with the least genre variation in my life. Starting with February where I started reaching for Goong and Hana Kimi and reaching all the way to December I've only been able stomach romcoms and family dramas, anything else I basically dropped before the end of episode one. This resulted in me focusing on Chinese dramas because they kept feeding me with cute novel adaptions haha

There have been multiple stand out dramas for me this year though!

On the Chinese drama side, Moonlight, Love Scenery and Make A Wish had me addicted enough to pay for an IQIYI membership and I LOVED The Day of Becoming You enough for me to rewatch less than 5 months later. Falling into your Smile, Forever and Ever and DT: Appledog's time were all based off of novels I really enjoyed and although each of the dramas had their faults I loved seeing the stories come to life and seeing more fans come to the novels. I'm also really looking forward to finishing Delicious Romance. I hope the quality holds for the rest of the show!

On the Japanese drama side, I think my favorites were Horimiya and Kikazaru Koi niwa Riyuu ga Atte. Horimiya really hit me hard one night and Kikazaru Koi niwa Riyuu ga Atte had some really inspiring points.

On the Korean side, there's not much to talk about :( As a fan of the Imitation webtoon I didn't like the plot changes but the music was really good and I loved (some of) the cast!

The obvious winner across all of the specials/movies I watched was An no Ririkku: Sakuragi An Haiku Hajimetemimashita. It was just SO CHARMING. I've totally fallen in love with Hirose Suzu and Miyazawa Hio.

Full list in keep reading below

Yearly wrap up post entirely for myself lol 

Full Length Drama count:  kdramas: 18 (last minute binge watching on days off strikes again) cdramas: 15 jdramas: 5 Total: 37 I definitely spent more time on Cdramas this year (god why are so many of them 40 episodes) but I’ve spent the last week or so going back to the end of year kdrama list and picking up some of the things I’ve missed (i.e. Chip-in, Black Dog, and A Piece of Your Mind). 

I dropped a ton this year but didn’t really bother to keep track of it. I think my favorite start that then fizzled was Begin Again QQ Maybe I’ll finish it someday (or one day).  I don’t think I have a favorite drama of the year but I think the ones that stayed the most strong all the way through for me were Unfamiliar Family, Into the Ring, Love is Sweet, Some or One Day, Hikaru no Go (this may be my nostalgia talking), Hospital Playlist, Nobody Knows, and A Piece of Your Mind (haven’t actually watched the last episode yet but I’m close enough and I love it).  Currently watching Run On and Shanai Marriage Honey (and technically You Complete Me but I can feel the drop coming).  Watched: 

Drama breakdown: 14 kdramas 12 chinese/taiwanese dramas 12 Japanese dramas Since the mid year one I’ve watched 15 more dramas so I guess I slowed down lol but I spent a lot of time watching short dramas on youtube that I refuse to count in this list if you look at the second half breakdown it becomes 8 Jdramas 4 cdramas 5 (really 4 because I was almost done w/ angel’s last love) kdramas where # of jdramas > # of cdramas == # of kdramas  (although I definitely spent more time watching cdramas due to their insane number of episodes and the fact that I made it 20+ episodes into multiple dramas before dropping/taking a break *cough* Kings Avatar, Love is Deep *cough*) Currently watching

Love the way you are, Melting Me Softly, Nee Sensei Shiranai no?, The King’s Avatar, The Romance of Hua Rong

Will probably end up dropping love the way you are but we’ll see. I don’t know what it is but I haven’t been able to to actually watch an airing kdrama since the end of the summer (thank you to my roommates for making me watch extraordinary you) so I’ve been filling the time they would take by rewatching Mad Dog, A Poem A Day, Come and Hug Me and a bunch of others from last year. A lot of my dramas watched this year are not from 2019 which makes sense because overall I think last year’s dramas were much better than this year’s oof

watched in 2019:

Attempting to make my yearly drama dump easier and doing a halfway dump (also thought it would be good to talk about them while I still remember them.

I guess I’ll start with the ones I live watched:

About is Love, Sky Castle, Romance is a Bonus Book, Put Your Head On My Shoulder, Her Private Life, Le Coup de Foudre, The Secret Life of My Secretary, In Youth

Even though this blog isn’t actually active anymore, I thought it would be nice for future me if I did a summary of this year! (See bottom of post for actual list)

Normal Length dramas watched (12-50 episodes lol):

17 Korean + (maybe Vampire Detective I really can’t remember if I watched it this year) 6 Japanese 6 Chinese/Taiwanese

which is a lot lower than last year I think. I think it’s because I dropped a TON of shows (at least 12 where I cared enough to put it on my drama list)

Currently watching 6 but 1 may never get subs: 

Clean With Passion For Now The Smile Has Left Your Eyes SKY Castle God’s Quiz Season 5 Top Star Yoo Baek Kemono Ni Narenai Watashitachi

watched in 2018: 100 million yen women a love so beautiful lion pride radio romance my name is kim sam soon Aishite tatte, himitsu wa aru best lover   Signal Pretty noona who buys me food