We Watch Challenge 2024

3rd challenge completed!

Hi jenn

No hard feelings? I really wanted to like the drama you recommended but no matter how hard I looked, there were so few things to like about it in my opinion! Sorry!

Would you like to watch Moonlight Chicken? It is a thai bl taking place in and around a chicken restaurant. It is a cute, fun watch, not too long either!

I am ready for the next challenge. As usual anything goes except for the horror (zombies, gore, viruses, cannibals, monsters etc). Dramas I completed are spread over three lists: completed, on hold(short c dramas) and dropped(bls). My little complicated organization. ;-)

EDIT Thank you ElBee. I noticed that drama was highly regarded on Feeds but was never really in the mood for it....Here's my chance to check it out and confirm what I heard! Juvenile Justice, here I come! LOL

FINAL VERDICT Juvenile Justice

Thank you ElBee for making me watch this incredible drama. It did take me two weeks to go through 4 first episodes and one day to finish the rest! It is heart breaking, rage inducing, tragic and optimistic at the same time. The FL is something else, I liked her a lot (in which I seem to be a minority! LOL). The songs are fantastic: I've had them on loop for a week now! I really did not expect to like it; the subject matter is difficult and I find it hard to watch when kids are involved in crime or are victims. But, this drama showed us life, the cutthroat society and the neglect these kids are made to suffer through. The world needs more judges like the FL.  I have only one issue: did they really need to cast a 27 year old actress to play a 13 yr old boy? It really looked weird!9/10

2nd challenge completed here

I recommend to watch ElBee to watch Moonlight! Firstly, no dubbing in this drama, both Yu Shuxin and Ding Yuxi are using their own voices. Secondly, I truly feel this is quite an underrated gem in the cdrama world ;;  Lastly... Maybe it's because he's an author but some of his lines are so romantic to me (spoiler: ep 21!!) Hope you will give it a try and like it :) 

I accept SKYLINE's recommendation to watch  Run On! Actually not v sure if I will like this but this recommentation is a push to try smth new hehe

Status: Completed - 7/10! 

I enjoyed this drama more than I thought I would! Thank you for the rec :)) I love how well they blended many elements (e.g running and movie metaphors)

And of course SSK's iconic "fk you" scene - I watched it well hhh

1st challenge completed here :)

I recommend SKYLINE to watch When I Fly Towards You. It's a bittersweet chinese drama that showcases different slices of life and how bonds stay even when you grow up. I recommend not watching any spoilers on this since it literally makes you more excited for more episodes.

Open to recs! Preferably a short length, korean or a chinese drama, one around 10-15 eps. If possible, kind of like a school romance or a youth drama :)

Accepted Tanii's recommendation to watch Blue Birthday.
Status: PTW

5th challenge complete!

Tanii, it looks like you got me again! This time, I’m going with a show on your PTW that might’ve easily been my favorite from 2021, Beyond Evil. It is gritty, full of deeply disturbed people enduring a hellish long term situation full of pain… but the bromance, an unexpected pairing by all accounts, is brilliantly executed by Yeo Jin Goo who I’ve seen since he was a chubby cheeked 5 or 6 year old and veteran star Shin Ha Kyun. Some find it slow, but it felt essential to really dive into the troubled mentality of locals in this nowheresville village. I hope you like it!

Open for recs! My only requirement is no dubbing, and maybe this round keep it under 20 hours, but other than that, I am up for anything! My completed list is a better indicator of what I’ll like than my mess of a PTW one. :)

I accept Saygo’s challenge for Gaus Electronics (mostly bc I am waiting for Gannibal’s second season to drop before I throw myself over and hang off a drama cliff)!

Rating/thoughts: Overall 8/10
My reaction to this was mixed. Some of it I really loved, and at times it felt like the writer was determined to throw more wordplay in than it could really handle and still keep it coherent, so the flow felt disrupted by the writing getting too heavy-handed, making some scenes feel forced/unnatural even though the whole thing was intentional over the top slapstick humor. Even though I caught most of the wordplay without needing to rely on subs, at a few points it stopped being funny, and I love wordplay (Pegasus Market is my favorite pure comedy, but it uses it with a really clinical level of precision and doesn’t get so stuck on rewriting the same joke but builds and injects it carefully to keep the eccentric characters feeling human even in an absurd situation)… I wanted to love this as much, but sometimes it just got kind of tedious. The epilogues/fake ads at the end were slick and the right kind of silly, and the cast did well even though the leads weren’t the most interesting ones to me and I’ve probably overdosed on stories with clumsy leads getting semi-bullied and belittled at work so it detracted from the charm the characters otherwise had. I did enjoy (as I usually do) them nodding to other dramas here and there, too.

That all said, thank you for pushing me to finally cross it off! It was easy casual viewing and while I don’t think the jokes/humor will stay with me like some others and things like the OST seemed a bit lacking, it was a nice easy breezy watch to mix in with the heavier dramas I am watching. :)

6th challenge complete!

My recommendation for Saygo is Boyhood. It stars Im Si Wan who is mentioned on your profile, and it is a fast-paced, high-energy blend of action, comedy, and coming of age shenanigans… I also think the OST is perfect for this particular series and don’t mind that some became a long-lasting earworm infection. :)

Open for recs! No dubbing but otherwise wide open for any kind of story if it is told well! :) 

I accept JulyMoon’s recommendation for 3 Nen A Gumi: Ima kara Mina-san wa, Hitojichi Desu. I will have to watch it somewhere a bit unlawful since Nflix didn’t license it for where I live which is why I couldn’t start it initially. :( I found it available in a less legal form. (Will also probably watch Definitely Not Today since it is available, but you already picked a cover and triggered my Jdrama weakness/fave actor of his generation Suda Masaki lol). 

Rating/thoughts: In short, I loved it! I won’t repeat my feed post about it, but I gave it a 9.5 (while the tokusatsu/student camcorder/phone videos make sense to be low res, I was a little frustrated by them opting, in the land of Panasonic and Sony, to use mediocre equipment for the main camerawork, so it is a half point of “it is 2019, not 2009” minor angst, still, though, masterful work). My post is here: https://mydramalist.com/profile/elbee/feeds/qzjmAhp Thanks for pushing me to go to the dark underworld of illicit streaming sources! It started my February off with a bang (and many booms)!

4th challenge completed

Thank you ElBee for recommending an amazing though difficult drama: Juvenile Justice which fully deserves great reviews!

Hello JulyMoon!

This challenge seems to have slowed down a bit but never fear: the new recommendation is here. Mama Gogo is a thai drama by GMMTV so many familiar faces are in the cast as dancers in a bar! The drama is funny, sweet and sexy in a cute way! I saw it on your PTW list: it lived on mine for a long time until I decided to give it a look! Two days later I was starting the last episode and regretting it was the end! I hope you like it just as much!

As for me, please give me a new drama to watch. The only genre I cannot watch is the horror so: NO zombies, NO killer viruses, NO cannibals, NO extreme bullying, NO monsters....well, NO HORROR! Ghosts are OK! I love ghosts! LOL

EDIT: Hello dearuto, I gladly accept your challenge and it will be Love You Seven Times. I quite like short costume c dramas (I only watch those and I saw The Untamed and Word of Honor,that's it) so it is going to be a novelty watching a regular long drama!. I have trouble with modern c dramas because of the propaganda and I read and dropped the webtoon of See You In My 9th Life so, I am lucky not to have to choose that! LOL Thank you for the recommendation!

FINAL VERDICT: Love You Seven Times  Well, now I know why I only watch short c dramas! LOL Not that this one was bad, but it was draggy: I did spend a lot of time playing games on my phone (not a fan of FFWing!)! On the other hand it should be made the recommanded starter watch for c costume dramas: the seven stories cover all kinds of ancient historical dramas, it is full of obligatory red herrings (the bad guys wear white!) , coughing blood of varied colours, beautiful CGI sets and nice music. The main actor is so pretty and cute: those dimples and that smile are to die for! Nevertheless, the dragginess prevailed and therefore only 7.5/10.

4th Challenge completed - When I Fly Towards You

I recommend dearuto to watch either Love is Color Blind or To the moon and back.

I'm again being indecisive while recommending you. You haven't watched much from other countries except Korea and China. So, I'm giving you a Filipino Movie and a Thai Drama, make a choice. If you wish for replacement message me.

Accepted Sweetsis_warrior's recommendation - Vigilante

Status - Completed - (6.5/10)

This wasn't as intriguing as expected of a dark hero fiction, haven't read webtoon so no bias. Story was one-dimensional flowing with steady pace, nothing that can be called as a big twist or wow factor. Very predictable and random. I don't know why but I found the climax fight scene funny despite being something of immense importance to plot, there was little to no tension. I saw no character development.