We Watch Challenge 2024

16th challenge completed!

Hi again, Sweetsis, 

I have a few recs that are psychological but still plot-centered that you may like based on what you’ve recommended:

Life on Mars: An investigation team leader gets into an accident investigating a serial killing and gets thrown back into the 1980s as a detective in a small city.

Revenge of Others: Set in school, it revolves around a sister investigating the death of her brother (she doesn’t believe is suicide) who fell to his death; she transfers to his school to investigate, meets someone claiming to be a witness to it, and discovers there is someone at the school avenging bullied students which she thinks might’ve been done to her brother. 

Bad Guys: A detective who was suspended for using excessive force is tasked with teaming up with criminals serving time, a young genius serial killer, gangster, and contract killer among them, to combat the rise of violent crimes with, ahem, experts in that field.

Open for recs! I prefer something fast-paced and thrilling this time around. It can be funny and thrilling or dark and thrilling or a mix, but let’s stick to a 20 hour limit (some kdramas are 20 hours long at 16 eps, older ones more often 60mins long). Can be from anywhere; my requirements=no incomplete (ie Hellbound, Gannibal-they are on hold til the next season is actually out), dubbing, or romanticized violence (ie “he only hit her bc he loves her so much” from the writer’s POV-beating up baddies who do that $#¡t, though, is a-ok lol, as my list shows)!

Ignore my PTW; my completed Iist shows what I like best (it is long, so sorting it by rating and searching is easier than scrolling forever).

I happily accept Tanii’s recommendation for Under the Skin! (That pic you chose with the kitty is absolutely adorable?.) I am SO glad you enjoyed Beyond Evil! It is, along with kdrama Mother (the 2018 one), especially precious to me, so I recommend to people I feel will really appreciate how carefully they were crafted! :)  

Chinese thriller (with a sequel being filmed even as I type this?!), here I come!❤️

Thoughts/rating: Wow, this was a phenomenal watch with awesome performances across the board! I really hope the second season gets released (please no scandals, cast!) and that it keeps the same tone as this (I especially don't want the artist ML getting a romance line in my viewing time though his cop partner might make for some amusing scenes if the blind dates happen for less case-centered reasons-I would prefer them to stick to cases and colleagues and not veer off into another genre like several dramas have done)... 

I kept hovering between 9.5 and 10, my personal rating a 9.7, and my only reason for ultimately giving it a 9.5 is that there were some flaws in the science that made me wish the author had consulted with a forensic doc or biology professor (or few) to make sure they were not writing anything erroneous into the script since this IS so technically detailed. I am fine exaggerating the skill level of the genius and loved the stories of the two male leads unfolding-I actually wondered early on if the skill/too-perfect perceptiveness of the artistic lead would be a problem, but the acting was so nuancedand lovely I was all in on the occasional superpower level perfection that was the artist's skill set. The science oopsies only briefly made me go back a few times to see if I misread something and furrow my brow at the technical details here and there, but they didn't make me like it less bc the characters were so well-portrayed! Had those been consistently accurate, it would easily have gotten a 10 (can't get the decade of science centered uni and decades of work, research, and teaching out of me, so medical dramas and others with science involved are scrutinized more harshly than emotional stories that are fully character driven-ie Hospital Playlist is judged less harshly than Doctor X or Dr. Romantic bc HP is all about characters and not throwing us into operating rooms.

This might just be my fave rec from this challenge (I still keep thinking I should round my 9.7 up to a 10, but I hope the silver border will suit it just fine?)! Thanks for such a perfect-for-me title suggestion!! ???

4th Challenge completed! Thank you ElBee for the wonderful recommendation! (Edit: I loved both Mother and Beyond Evil and they were both recommended by you! ❤️)

I recommend ElBee to watch Under the Skin. I'm not sure if you watch that many C-Dramas so I thought to recommend UTS since it's one of my favorite thrillers.

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Edit: I'm so glad you enjoyed it! ?

I accept Sweetsis' recommendation to watch 3-papas.

Status: Completed 2/10. It was cute because of Haruto but these kind of shows are just not my thing, unfortunately. Sorry! ?

Starting this challenge ^.^

For Sweetsis I recommend the Unnatural (japan), Copycat Killer (taiwan) and Remember you  (thailand). This theme isn't really up my sleeve and I usually watch true crime (non-asian) if I watch something similar. But from a little bit of research these are in the right area, but different from each other. Hope one catches your interest (*^▽^*)

Unnatural with the crime-solving and medical aspect.
Copycat Killer with the psychological take.
Remember you as a remake of Hello monster (korea) with investigation, crime and murder as the theme. I know you preferably didn't want korean recs, but from the reviews the original sounds more promising and better made.

This is a rec I did before but they wanted something else, so they above are my new try. Thai drama Manner of Death. A drama that revolves around a medical doctor that moves back to his home town and also performs autopsies for the police. It starts with a sudden death of a young girl with some unusual "signs" on her body. Later when another death occurs these "signs" also appears on this person and it doesn't seem to be a coincidence. From there the doctor does his own investigation and faces different obstacles.
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Thanks for the recs neriya (✿◠‿◠) I accept the Vigilante for the challenge. I think this will work with my short attention span at the moment and seemed pretty easy to follow.
Status: Completed
Rating: 8.5

Aftermath thoughts: First time watching a drama with NJH and I really liked his acting, will probably watch another drama of his.
Overall I like the drama. The story reminded me very much of the serie Arrow. And honestly I wish this drama would of been produced earlier, I would have absolutely loved it and given it 10/10 in the era when I watched Arrow. There were some things I had a hard time liking and couldn't see past it that bothered me too much for higher score. It went a bit fast in the end and seemed to leave a door open for another season or just more of an open ending, but I didn't mind it as much. Overall I liked it. It matched well with my mood and patience at this time and my ratings are always vibe based and barely logical or analysing so I gave it a 8.5.

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Hi Neriya

Hope you don't mind recommendations from me again! xD  I have been watching BL's currently and saw few of those in your completed. Let me know if you want we to recommend something else. :))

1. A Tale of Thousand Stars (BL) -A 10 episode Thai BL drama  with a strong storyline, amazing chemistry and praise worthy OST's. My first BL. A lot of issues handled perfectly. Earth and Mix (both the leads) have undeniably phenomenal chemistry. This was the 1st BL where 10 episodes were enough for me and story didn't feel rushed or choppy.   

2.  Hidden Love - A 25 epi Chinese romantic drama. Alot of fluff with amazing acting and chemistry between ML & FL. One of the few Chinese drama I absolutely love. 

3. Light on Me - 16 episode Korean BL drama with slow burn romance and one of the few dramas where love triangle and cliché troops (enemies to lovers)  was done right. Romance starts a little late between the leads but the journey is filled with self realization and valuing yourself.  

Open for reccs. Been watching BL's recently. So wouldn't mind few of those with good storyline. No horror or anything too dark please!

Accepted Recommendation From Tanii - Never Let Me Go

Status: Completed

Rating :  7

-1: High school students running mafia??!!  Was very hard to connect to the story and a few actions just seemed like unnecessary plot devices and fillers.  Profusing love and promising to stay together, then vanishing by writing just a note seemed too lame and this being done numerous times in the story just annoyed me. Had they portrayed them as high school confused teenagers it would have somehow worked but them handling adult mafia business and behaving like this didn't sit well with me.

-0.5: The editing and the colour scheme of this drama made it a bit melancholic - even the happy scenes (The ones on the beach were very dull even though it was supposed to be fluff!)

-1: The leads were GORGEROUS yet acting was a bit lacking for me from both of them. They had their moments with good chemistry but seemed pretty rigid and one-dimensional to me. 

-0.5- The choice of OST was confusing to me and sometimes was too loud so couldn't hear the dialogues properly.

Overall a BL with distractingly handsome leads who could not distract me from the plot holes and weak writing of the story.

1st challenge | 2nd challenge

Hello Tanii! I don't know what kind of genre or type of series you like, so I'll let you choose any of these series I saw on your watchlist. 

Alchemy of Souls - It has 20 episodes, but it's really good. If you like a series with supernatural powers and historical elements, you should watch this. 

Hidden Love - I haven't finished this, but there are a lot of good reviews. It's a light series about first love/crush. This has 25 episodes. 

Home School - This has 18 episodes. It's about troubled teens who were sent to a boarding house. I won't spoil it more, but it's pretty much like that. It's a good watch.

If you're not interested in any of these and prefer something else, just let me know so I can choose more :>

Open for recommendations! My PTW list is long so you can just recommend me anything but I'm slow with watching longer series, so if possible, please recommend a short-length one. Thank you!

I accept Sweetsis's recommendation to watch Enigma. I'm a fan of both of them so I think I might enjoy this series. 

Status: CW

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Sweetsis  I recommend the following:

1. Gifted -has these genres ( Thriller, Mystery, Psychological, Supernatural) and its thai.

2.  Vagabond-  just in case  Korean crime and thriller.

3. Todome no Kiss-  japan - thriller

4. 3 Nen A Gumi: Ima kara Mina-san wa, Hitojichi Desu ; japan -thriller

open for recommendations. Looking for short ones at the moment because my attention span has weaken at the moment. NO HORROR.

I accept to watch 7 First Kisses

Status: Completed
Started: 05.20.24
FInished: 05.20.24

Rate: 7

It had all my favorite actors but no development of any of the characters, so I could not rate it higher. It's a cute show to have in the background for sure. 

Leafless 7, I recommend......  Clean With Passion for Now

I really liked it. I hope you do too. It's a cute rom-com.

I prefer Korean or Chinese with some romance. But don't let that stop you from recommending another country. My completed list is here.

I accept Jojo77's recommendation of Descendants of the Sun. I look forward to watching it.

Status: PTW CW   COMPLETED

Rating:  9/10

* I've thought about watching this drama for a long time. I'm not really in to war dramas so I've been putting it off. But I have high expectations for this drama because I have heard from so many people how good it is. Thanks Jojo77 for recommending it! I guess I needed a little push

*I am currently on episode 10. It was hard for me to get into at first because as I said before I don't usually enjoy military settings. However, at this point, I've gotten more into it. So far I rate it 8.5, but that may go up. I'm still glad I finally decided to watch it.

*I finished watching the drama. I have to say I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The story and acting were great.  I think the ML and FL had great chemistry. There were some moments where I was disinterested simply because of the military setting, but for the most part I stayed interested. I would recommend this drama to others. Thank you Jojo77.