by Shiro, August 21, 2022
151

Hoodies, are they just some fabric; a shirt and a hat sewn together, a fashion statement or maybe (as in this case), a perfectly good topic for me who knows little to nothing about fashion, to write a seemingly never ending, but I dare say gorgeous, editorial about? 

 Basically, a hoodie can be defined as:  

"a sweatshirt with a hood" 

(Wikipedia

Jung Hae In wearing a grey hoodie in D.P.

This great piece of clothing was originally made to help workers stay warm in the cold weather in New York, or at least that is what Wikipedia said about them. Earlier versions of the hoodie have been seen in  history books, fairy tales, and more or less everything else most famous probably being the hood on Little Red Riding Hood... but here I am going to completely ignore the earlier versions and the varieties of hoods and instead focus on the great varieties of hoodies with IE or Y in the end depending on how you choose to spell it.

Park Dan Hee/XX

As usual my aim  will be to change the way you see hoodies in Dramaland, I will try to make you fall in love with this piece of clothing making you unable to watch a movie, drama or show without noticing not only the presence of the hoodie but also realizng that they are superior to all other pieces of clothing... Ok I am embellishing here, there are of course a lot of beautiful clothes in Dramaland and I honestly have no ambition of starting a clothing war, I am also willing to admit that most of the  scenes in Dramaland  include some kind of clothing, rain or shine people (and some animals) in Dramaland seem to wear some type of fabric sewn together, some more logically put together than others but - like it or not - they are seldom naked in Dramaland, except for the naked fight scene in The K2, where they are naked enough to cover all of dreamland's needs of nudity.

Hoodies! 

"I can say 100 things great about you"

Screenshot from: Bokura wa Kiseki de Dekite Iru

*If I actually will is, however, a different story....

Before we start sewing this hoodie together you may want to know 

1. I am in NO way associated with the fashion, drama or hoodie industry, nor do I get paid to write this editorial. This is not to be seen as a commercial or recommendation of any hoodie shown.

2. This is purely written for entertainment purposes, and not factual statement.  It  relies solely on my memory, googling skills, wikipedia and charm. I reserve the right to remember scenes inaccurately

3. Though I have tried to avoid spoilers -  just like the yellow umbrella will not guarantee eternal happiness  I can not guarantee that this is completely spoiler free. However, most potential spoilers come with a heads up, or a cover. 

4. Violence, Revenge of The Pastel includes some violence, but other than that there should only be fluff, rainbows and sprinkles in this hoodie feast.

5. This is best viewed in landscape mode but should work for both dark and light mode users. Can be binged as a whole or savoured one hoodie at a time. 

6. All the hoodies shown in this article have information or a link about  the title they were sampled from, either as text or inside the photo/gif. 



* Hoodie  worn in Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko 2, can you count the hoodies in the gif? 

United by hoodies 

The 7 Hoodie-countries of MDL:

 

You may or may not have noticed, but hoodies can be seen in movies and dramas from all the countries on MDL and are even more commonly seen in Dramaland than the umbrella! Like the umbrella, it is there in the first place to protect people from the weather. The weather and culture may very from country to country on MDL but it was not the least bit hard to find covers with hoodies on them. Okay, to be fair, Hong Kong did put up a fight (and made me go through a whole bunch of pages) until I found one, but it was there and that is what really matters! Hoodies have made it to the covers of titles from every single country on MDL and that is not bad! It also made this cover, a cover I think is one of Dramaland's most beautiful covers of all time: 

Just to be on the safe side, I went through a bunch of drama pages on MDL to find one picture of a person wearing a hoodie, all but one of the following pictures were found on the first try, most probably because I actually remembered these scenes. However, as mentioned before,  my achilles heel is Hong Kong - I have seen two titles from Hong Kong and  can not remember a single hoodie!  So I had to click on four whole titles before I finally found one! 

Pictures in order of appearance: China: The Oath of Love,  Philippines: GameboysHong Kong:  A Love of No Words, Taiwan: Someday or One Day, South Korea: My Mister, Thailand: Not Me. Japan: Koi Desu: Yankee-kun to Hakujou Garu.

Everybody has a Hoodie body!

No matter what shape or size, anybody in Dramaland can be found wearing a hoodie! 


By everybody, I mean everybody! 

Be it the alien in My Love from the Star


 

Someone like these noodle serving fighters in The Uncanny Counter

Dead or alive...  does not really matter! Everybody who wants to wear a hoodie, gets to wear a hoodie in Ghost Doctor

 

  Royalty, Dog or God! 

Pictures from: Rainbow Prince and The Bride of Habaek

Kid, youth or all grown up... 

Besides the kids up above and a bunch of other kids in Dramaland, one kid in a hoodie that made a particular impression on me: Lee Eun Hye (Jung Seo Yeon)  who  is shown wearing a hoodie in the best parts of the movie You're So Precious to Me, dancing in the rain communicating, petting animals, you name it, the hoodie is there... 

  

To be honest, the most common clothing among students and teens (besides the school uniform) has to be the hoodie, it is almost as big of an age marker as a school uniform for titles with time skips. Especially titles where the same actor/actress is casted  for both a young and older version of themselves. No matter who plays the role. The older version will often be shown in wearing a suit, while the younger version will be seen wearig a hoodie, helping the viewers understand what age the character on the screen is supposed to be. However, do not let those dramas fool you! It is  often the same actor and everybody can wear a hoodie... Hoodies have no age... All hoodies are good hoodies... Hoodies are Hoodies... I am sure you get the point. 

Gif made  from  gif by  Baby Introverts Warfield

This is just a small selection of youths in hoodies  -as a teaser-  but there are more hoodie wearing youths to come! 

Pictures: A Love So Beautiful, Boys over Flowers, Kieta Hatsukoi, Reply 1988, Semantic Error

These guys in Navillera made such great use of the hoodie and gave us this scene of  two men practicing ballet in matching hoodies, truly the hood on top for this drama. A drama that is both touching and relatable, made just a little bit better by this black hoodie...

Even non-breathing teddy bears get to wear hoodies, as seen in Love Class

EVERYBODY GETS TO WEAR A HOODIE! 

However, I will admit that the older the harder to find... but that may also be a reflection of  who is seen the most as there are a lot more shots of stars the age of  Lee Jong Suk  wearing a hoodie:
W 
Than those the age of Kim Eui Sung wearing a hoodie, (also in W):
But still... 

Love At First Hoodie/Revenge Of The Pastels 

The first time I noticed the significance of the hoodie in Dramaland was probably when I watched Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, a drama where a mysterious girl wearing a pink hoodie saves a bus from falling off a bridge,  setting a fire in young Ahn Min Hyuk's (Park Hyung Sikheart. 
A boy who then went and even immortalised the hoodie as art on a secret passage. In that same drama we get to see Do Bong Soon (Park Bo Young), who may or may not be the mysterious girl who ignited the fire in young Min Hyuk's heart, fight gangsters while wearing a pink hoodie. The hoodie may or may not be the same hoodie worn by the mysterious girl from the bus. However, one thing is clear, Bong Soon wore a pink hoodie as she went off in to the world to kick the **** **** *******  out of a lovely bunch of gangsters, and it was done beautifully, brilliantly, perfectly...  Here is just a tiny little taste bite of the kick ass scene.
She also kicks *** in a black hoodie, a grey hoodie and probably a bunch of  other pieces of clothing too, of course the most memorable one is the pastel pink,  oh so pink hoodie.

Potential spoiler alert ahead: Night in Paradise

While Bong Soon kicked gangster **** wearing a pastel pink hoodie, my second hoodie crush was no other than the pastel purple hoodie worn by Kim Jae Yeon  (Jeon Yeo Been).  While Bong Soon uses super power strength to fight gangsters, Jae Yeon relies on her shooting skills to make  sure every single gangster in the room takes their last breath, does not live to tell the tale, paints the wall red... You get the point, she kills em all, all while wearing a pastel purple hoodie which aside for a few red dots stays pretty much intact throughout the bloodbath.
And of course the hoodie stays on as she rides away into the beautiful sunset... or death in the ocean, sunset just looks better than writing that she shoots herself at sea, to the sound of sirens. 

It also makes way for this picture that serves as a buffer between this spoiler and the next part.

End of potential Spoiler! 

The similarities between the two hoodie fighters  serve as  muse for my creativity. I get all kinds of ideas. Wouldn't it be really cool to have a drama about an awesome gang-fighting group called: The Pastel Hoodie trio, with Bong Soon in pink, Jae Yeon in purple and a mysterious third member in green? 

Another part of me can not help but compare the two as one is the slightly lighter version of the other...
 
I also find myself wanting to ask people: 

 Who wore it better?

Bong Soon 

Source 

OR

Jae Yeon

Nee, why choose when we can have both? Pair de Pastel... or maybe we should add several hoodie fighters to make a whole fleet of hoodies? Or just go darker and add a hoodie fighter in  black? What type of hoodie fighters would you like to see? 

Note about Night in ParadiseYes I do know that Jae Yeon was terminally ill and killed herself at the end, but in my Dramaland everything is possible, she could just show up as a kick a***  ghost in a hoodie or they could meet in another life. 

Black, Like Pastel, Just a Lot Darker 

While the pastels would definitely be my choice of hoodie, the black hoodie seems to be the more practical choice and is probably more commonly used for revenge purposes. If I were to mention every one of those, this article would never end, however, one person who made great use of the black hoodie was Yoon Ji Woo/Oh Hye Jin  (Han So Hee) in My Name

She is not the only one wearing a black hoodie in this drama, as fellow officer Jeon Pil Do (Ahn Bo Hyun) seems to rock the hoodie as well.
 


I Am Just A Sweet Cuddly Teddy Bear

While some hoodies are there to show us that this person can kick a**, there are those that seem to tell us the exact opposite and are rather adding fluff to the drama, showing us that  the person wearing the hoodie is just a big sweet fluffy, cuddly, teddybear. Among them is this guy: Yang Suk Hyung (Kim Dae Myung) in Hospital Playlist 2. 

Doesn't his hoodie scream hug me?  

Another cuddly hoodie-wearing lead is found in Our Beloved SummerWhile Strong Woman Do Bong Soon made me notice the wonderful role of the hoodie, Our Beloved Summer gave me that final push to go from just thinking about writing about hoodies to actually doing it, since the male lead (a grown man) was seen wearing hoodies in more or less 8 out of 10 scenes (these are just some of the ones I found here on MDL).  I firmly believe that the hoodies in this very painful drama are there to soften and shield us viewers from  the pain the characters are sharing with us as we can feel the comfort from the teddy bear cast in the hoodie. 

 

What I find extra interesting about the use of hoodies in this drama is how the hoodie followed the characters' development. While Choi Woong (Choi Woo Shik) was supposed to be a softie from the start, Kook Yeon Soo (Kim Da Mi) seemed to have to be this super cold, tough character in the beginning, wearing less soft clothing. Yet as her walls came down, the hoodie came on.

Or it could just be me over analyzing, they could very well be sponsored by a clothing company with a lot of hoodies because come to think of it, throughout the show, there was not a single character who was left without a hoodie... hm!
Sponsored or not sponsored by hoodies, NJ's (Roh Jeong Eui) kind of stole the show as she and many other stars often use the hoodies to easily be able to hide away from the crowd. And well, she had a lovely selection of more or less colourful hoodies.
Not only stars but all kinds of people in dramaland seem to have found the secret to  magically disappearing by using the hoodie.  


Now You See Me, Now You Do Not!

Even before covid, the stars, the socially awkward and the criminals of Dramaland used face-masks, accompanied by a hoodie and a cap to shield themselves from the world.

So here is  a little game for you: 

Guess The Drama Behind The Hoodie! 

You will find  a link to the respective drama on the picture. This trick is used by characters from all the countries in Dramaland, however for this game I have only used South Korean Dramas (all but one are from the 100 most popular dramas found on MDL).  Do not get discouraged if you can not guess the right title, part of the point of this game is to show that it is hard - and honestly, I would not have a clue if I did not make it myself.

Oh look, lovers hiding behind their hoodies.

Peek a Boo

Here is Greg Hsu (and a guy without a hoodie) rocking his role in Meet Me @ 1006. Words can not describe how well-fitted those hoodies were for the role he played in that drama. 

Probably The Best Mood  Setter in The World! 

Speaking of hoodies that fit the role, sometimes they seem to set the mood perfectly as done in the movie Write About LoveWhen life seems good, hopeful, free and refreshed, the female writer (Miles Ocampo) is seen wearing her hoodie down.
However, when life starts feeling dark and gloomy, the hoodie goes up to shelter her from the world, and yet again soften the pain, giving us viewers the two most powerful and beautiful scenes in the whole movie.
The  female writer in Write About Love is of course not the only one to wear a hoodie whenever things get tough. As there is no better way to get away than to  put on that hoodie and head for the hills, at least not if you ask some of the doctors of Dramaland. These two Drama Doctors, Dr. Gu (Xiao Zhan, Oath of Loveand Dr. Tawan (Fame Chawinroj Likitchareonsakul, My Ride),  were both found on top of hills wearing what?  Yes, a hoodie!
 

 Coincidence? I think not! 

And what did  Nae He Do (Kim Tae Ri) wear when she was ill and sent to the infirmary, or when she needed to cry in Twenty-Five Twenty-One

Of course, a hoodie... 

Mood, tone, in this drama the hoodie served as a great helper to help  us, the viewers, differentiate between her work life and Her Private Life.

When in hoodie: fangirl, when in suit or blouse: serious curator!


The Student Hoodie Challenge!

While hoodies can be seen on  more or less everybody in dramaland, the safest way to ensure you get lots and lots of hoodie content is to watch titles with youths and students. However, there are risks. Most students wear uniforms during the school day. So college or university students are the safer bet, add an athlete to the mix - finding a scene without a hoodie will become a real challenge (more about that further down). As I was wrapping this article up, I decided to test my theory and take to the feeds where I launched : 

"The Student hoodie Challenge",  challenge you are all free to try! 
Here is what you do:

1. Go to  a title listed on MDL, any title with the tags "College Life" or University".
2. Start streaming the episode/movie of your choice
3. Click anywhere within the episode/movie.
4. Is anyone wearing a hoodie in this scene? 
If not, try again.
5. Repost this with a screenshot,  go to the 
original post on feeds or answer below the amount of attempts you needed to get to a scene where someone is wearing a hoodie.

Note: Dramas where students have uniforms are a bit more tricky, but if you stick to it, you will find it.

Here is how it went for me: 

I Promised You The Moon, 2 random clicks: 

Side note: this is another one of my top 5 hoodie scenes in all of dramalands, not only because of the pink hoodie but also because of the aesthetics and the depth of the hoodie. 

Law School, 2 clicks 
Legally Romance, 1 click 

Here are a few I found just casually clicking around the pages of MDL (link to title found inside the photo):

For these, I did not even have to click past the cover:

Walking With a Hoodie 

I rarely watch tv shows, however, the one I have watched was packed with hoodies as Jung Hae In walked the streets of New York in this very sweet black hoodie in Jung Hae In's Travel Log: 

Look, the people beside him were  also wearing hoodies:

Oh Wait! Did you know that  U-Know also wore a hoodie in his TVXQ D-Cumentary? He wore it both for talking, practicing, and of course walking!

Well now, U Know... 


Running With a Hoodie

Hoodies are great for catching people. So when on the run make sure to fasten your hoodie or you may just get caught by some dude who wants you to confront your feelings... 

In the screenshot above you get to see Akaza Yukiko (Sugisaki Hana in Koi Desu: Yankee-kun to Hakujou Garu) wearing a lovely pink hoodie as she is running a half marathon (if my memory serves me right) with the help of her boyfriend and guide Kurokawa (Sugino Yosuke). To be honest, the hoodie she wore the most was this lovely white one, but since this section is about hoodies worn by people who are  running, the pink hoodie grabbed the spotlight from the white one here, but just to be clear, in the show it is all about the white hoodie seen on the right. 

Athlete + Hoodie = True

While Yukiko  was more of an amateur, the following hoodie carriers have all been  athletes at some point or another, and it seems to me that athletes like hoodies slightly more than most people in dramaland. Leading me to the conclusion that if the title has an athlete in it, be it boxers as in Move To Heaven and Always, robot programmers as in Go Go Squid 2: Dt. Appledog's Time, dancer (You Make Me Dance), fencer (coach too, Twenty-Five Twenty-One), swimmer (Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, My Mr. Mermaid), a weightlifter (Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo), go player (Reply 1988), badminton player (Racket Boys), some kind of skater (Skate Into Love).

All will be seen wearing a hoodie once or a hundred times, if the athlete is a student the amount of times shown in a hoodie probably doubles, unless it is the movie Always, where Kang Chul Min (a boxer played by So Ji Sub) is literally seen wearing the same hoodie for most of the entire movie, and not a scene is shot without it. It is so significant to the movie that  when he disappears, the female lead takes over his hoodie. 

But other than Always, I wonder if anyone can beat Shen Zheng Yi (Song Zu Er) in To Fly With You who has by far the biggest selection of hoodies I can remember seeing in Dramaland, even bigger than the collection in Our Beloved Summer

The following two hoodies may look similar but are actually two different hoodies if you look closely. Her hoodie closet must have been HUGE! 

This drama also showed us that no matter what situation the athlete is  in, be it the ice, a date, a workout or an apology:

Or why not have them as a couple outfit:

I mean, this couple's hoodie... and there are too many to count (feel free to try, hey, why not make a game out of it). 

They, you, we, anyone...  in this drama, there is a hoodie for every occasion, so inspiring, so for all of you out there who do not know what to wear? When in doubt, wear a hoodie, you can never go wrong with a hoodie! 

Time to put that hoodie in the laundry

And well this article may not have a lot of substance, however, both this article and Assistant of Superstar are flooded with hoodies. I have  probably seen hoodies used for every single type of occasion imaginable, as I have even seen hoodies used for funeral photos (I AM U)  as well as a hoodie used in a wedding video (Boku mo Aitsu mo Shinrodesu) and anything in between.  Believe it or not, I actually have a whole lot more hoodies on my hard drive and memory.  However, I will spare you and let you find them on your own.

So please fell free to share your memorable hoodies, answers to the game (use the spoiler tag), the colour you prefer, or I do not know.... come up with who you wish would wear the green hoodie?



◀︎ Should it be this guy? He Is Psychometric* after all, and has one of his own, he also has a pink one.

*Also the name of the drama 


Or should it be a strictly a  girl group like BlackPink, but fighters instead of idols? 

◀︎Or this guy? He also has a green one of his own, can sing, deliver babies and look, he  has a purple one, too ►

*Hospital Playlist 2 

Source


Maybe

you

want

to find fighters

outside

South Korea



Well, whatever you feel like sharing, I will probably read it, just keep it civil, so till next time... I leave you with  Xiao Zhan running wearing a hoodie.


Credits: All images are either from MDLs database, made/taken by me or will have a link to their sources under them. Same goes for other sources outside me or MDL. Special thanks to AnQuat, AnaTechWr and the editors for all your help! 
Edited by: devitto (1st editor)

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