ShortCircuit

After episode 16...

Drop it anyway, probably. As I said, I'm just sticking with it for two more eps (at most) just to see what direction the writer's picking. Even if it's something completely different than what I'm imagining, it's still a bait-and-switch story that still struggles to make sense, 4 (long) episodes in.

I mean, the gene expert died - his body not found yet - because why? The doctor is the one he was investigating. The friend who got tricked into showing the HH's son isn't innocent is dead - because why? His death is pointing a finger at HH's son, not taking suspicion away. The cop couldn't have done it, he's in the hospital.
The granny is dead because she saw the picture - is the writer going to pretend that she - the granny - died because of an "innocent" pic that the doctor got (showing a dead body, picture not publicly released as far as we know), but that the cop is the actual killer, as per the last scene of ep 4, and snips of the preview?
The room that the stairs lead to and the picture panel is in the doctor's house (and he went down it in perfectly good steps, so the kid is NOT there), but the cop is the one keeping the kid hostage? Then why would the doctor kill granny?

There are way too many lying plot lines, and scenes I suspect will get retconned in the next few episodes for this to be an honest mystery drama.

If it wants to be a thriller, well then, let it be a thriller. But it's already a plot mess and I don't want to get lied to for 16 more 1.5 hour-long episodes in order to have some kind of resolution.

And I have to admit it - the ONLY one I am interested in learning about is KMC, and that's because of Lee Hee Joon's acting. I never saw him in anything, but he has presence and is rather convincing - all the rest of the drama is from another movie, as the saying goes. But one good character and a lot of twists and turns do not a good drama make.

TL: DR. Yes, I'll probably drop it very soon - unless there's an actual story that gets my interest going again... which I don't hold much hope for at this time.

Edit: just checked the writer - I've actually seen two of her 4 credited dramas (Mouse is the third). Black's ending was a total mess, Iljimae turned kind of too melo even for me, despite Lee Joon Gi and Lee Moon Shik's presence (LMS is one of my favourite support chara actors ever). I am not ready to credit her with the know-how of delivering a good, well-plotted, sense-making ending at this time. IF - a big IF - I don't drop this.

We'll see how it goes.

That dreamy, a bit lost-in-his-world hyde voice... mmm. It's so easily to recognize. I knew about them from RuroKen, too, but oh I went obsessed with Daybreak's Bell (yup, Gundam fan here). And they HAD to go and have an OP for FMA too (I mean... one CANNOT not watch FMA if one's an anime watcher, LOL.). I had a crush on hyde at the time :D

And TMR... Also met through anime OP songs - but that voice and that scene presence, he's incredible. I can sing along with INVOKE too hehe. And also with INNOCENT SORROW, and JAP, and Howling, and From Dusk Til Dawn (had a crush on Hei, too :D)

I feel I'm missing a lot, not having found so many new anime series that I want to watch these last few years. The only band I found that was at least in some way related to anime was One OK Rock, and that was only because of RuroKen again...

I want my mecha anime back and those awesome OP songs!! T_T

OMG I know - and can hum along pretty well with "Change the World"! I feel so old now, LOL.

Then again, it's been 25+ years, and I seriously did not expect a boy-band to survive into a man-band, they had a long streak! Wishing them all the best and success in their individual careers!

Now, if you're going to tell me Takanori Nishikawa (of TM Revolution and Abingdon Boys School fame) is retiring, I'm going to actually cry. (Just so you know, I checked already, he's still releasing music in all kinds of combos, LOL.) So is Gackt, and so are L'arc-en-Ciel, and so many more, happily.

I need to go back to more anime and anime music...

I wish I was part of the survey. But lacking that, it's not too late to answer now :D

I do not NEED a happy ending (not even to a romance drama). It just NEEDS to make actual sense. None of that non-communication misunderstanding leading to forever separation, please. No last-minute wonder drug to save someone who's in love and dying. (Though I won't be mad if it happens, it's just going to detract some points LOL).

For ratings, and for more watchers, a HEA for beloved characters makes sense too. I mean, the producers want return on investment right? So they'll feed us soma and HEAs. Though if I may add, some of the most successful stories - even romances - were tragedies. Just look at Romeo & Juliet's timelessness. It only needs to be presented in such a way that the watcher agrees with the ending, even if painful.

Which leads me to CHEMISTRY. Even with no HEA/HFN, if the characters have chemistry together... we're all set to have a beautiful experience. I've endured dramas that ended not so great for everyone just because of chemistry, and also dropped or barely ended series/dramas that actually made some sense plot-wise because the actors were painful to watch together, despite most of them being very talented. For a quick example: Gu Family Book (loved the intro and everything about the gumiho's story, was meh about almost everything about the half-gumiho son's story.)

Anyway, one last thing: regarding understanding certain dramaland situations because I'd been there. Are we watching the same dramaland stories?! Real life is actually pretty tame, considering. I've yet to witness or be part of any whirlwind romance between pauper and rich, or cutely stalk/get stalked by my love interest, or having the free cash to wave around a huge mall buying stuff I don't need, or be part of a police investigation of any kind etc. I'm watching dramas FOR these things lacking in my life, LOL. There are way too few real-lifelike stories that I've seen in dramas, and most of them aren't there as a main plot (like bullying and the like.)

My 2 cents.

"I'd also like to note, that people who may have psychopathic tendencies don't always know that they are different from the rest. You don't just wake up one day and realize 'oh, I'm this kind of person.'"

I would ALSO like to note that EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US ARE DIFFERENT. And that - particularly in psychological analysis - motivation and behaviour CANNOT be judged based on a common standard. Yes, there are easily made associations that can be recognized and used in dealing with other people, and there is mental health awareness that identifies more "normal" and less "normal" behaviour... but there's no set-in-stone standard.

And the society changes over time, too, so what's normal or not also changes over time.

But each and every one of us is learning by mirroring what other people behave like in most situations, and our own minds supply the rest of the behaviour, which COULD have abnormal results, and they're not WRONG anyway. Because the normal is always changing too.

I hate it when certain asocial acts are linked to "certain mindsets" - more people were ever killed by perfectly - by all societal standards at the time - "normal" persons who were either drunk or drugged or having a fugue episode due to anger and/or stress or frustration than any killed by "abnormals". But TV and movies always point out that there's something that was always "wrong" with someone comitting a crime, and that something usually - in TV land - turns out to be psychopathy or sociopathy, so basically, NOT something that a NORMAL person could ever do. That's one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves.

Also struggling with this drama - but not necessarily because of the "psycho gene" thing. But I seriously, really-really HATE bait-and-switch (wrote a longer comment above). I had hopes it found its groove around episode 3, but now it's back to stupidland and I don't really want to follow it to the end. Will probably wait to see if any of my possible scenarios happen... but it's a miss for me. Too bad for Lee Hee Joon, I'd stay for him if possible.

This can go more than one way right now, but most of the ways will not be pretty.

A) An all psychopath fest - the psycho gene boys got together and decided to have a party because that's how psychos act and they're all evil inherently anyway, in the writer's head. Which means the doctor and the goody-two-shoes officer will combine forces to make a fool out of first psycho's dad's only surviving victim, KMC. Which meh. It's been done before, it's not a favourite trope for me.

B) Goody-two-shoes is only there with the boy because original psycho called and roped him into it in exchange for the boy's life. This is another bait-and-switch. KMC will identify his reasons and they'll be wrong, so the boy dies. But then, goody-two-shoes could very well release the kid - if GTS isn't evil himself - UNLESS the original psycho has someone hostage over GTS. Probably the niece with the dead grandma.

C) The third piece of the psycho act - the newswoman who's in a relationship with the doctor would turn out to be someone who creates news instead of finding it or something, and they're all helping each other while also fulfilling their need to do evil stuff. Which also meh.

Edit, thought of another:

D) All these psychos are acting INDEPENDENTLY, because why not, and all of them just HAPPEN to be close to KMC one way or the other. Which would be the suckiest plot twist to ever suck.

Which all being kind of obviously obvious, there might come something later on that links back to KMC after all, and he's the only central piece all the possible and impossible psychos in this drama focus on. That will either have his brother become the final psycho probably, or himself cleaning house LOL.

What I am raving MAD about is that any of these little scenarios imply that the scenes we were shown were invented - like if GTS is actually a psycho killer, then he didn't chase the doctor after the granny died, but we were fed this storyline and "presented" with the doctor as the killer anyway. IF GTS isn't the killer, then the doctor killed his friend who got fooled by the policeman into letting him give a call... etc.

If this is supposed to be an honest mystery show, then let all the scenes be true and don't feed us lies, writer.

But then, I'm about really fed up with it anyway and I repeat, I do not like being made to follow a bait-and-switch even if I actually like KMC as a main leading character. The rest of it is too sloppy and edgy for my tastes and I predict a close drop of it in the future, for me.

I'm so MAD at myself for even starting this show. And not for the right reasons. This is going to be not so great for me, too bad for Lee Hee Joon's performance (so far, only his storyline isn't completely FUBAR). I HATE bait-and-switch stories, and this will be one of them. Considering dropping it, just need to confirm a hunch about the next two episodes.

I hope it was "Word of Honor"'s obvious success that pushed the airing date forward, and I hope to whomever that "Immortality" performs to expectations. Keeping fingers crossed the date is respected, and that the drama is up to par to what it should be.

Jiayou, team! I'm SO ready to see LYX become Chu Wanning!

On episode 9.... OHshit! WKX, NOW you've done it!!

Particularly LSG's way too overdone mellowness. Nobody's that sickly sweet unless they hide a secret, and the show so far doesn't particularly make me want to discover it.

KMC so far is the one interesting character - and I don't mean his take-him-away-from-me-or-I'll-kill-him approach to catching criminals. His rather easy lack of conscience when disclosing investigation details to a NEWSWOMAN, just because she happens to have a picture or two to threaten him with (not that it seemed he cared about his career so far) - that's the most interesting thing about him.

Older brother being (probably crippled?) the Head Hunter's prison priest, well, that could go the way of him proving to be the HH's disciple, or him trying to "save" him from perdition. No Castiel vibes so far.

The HH is overacting his bit, too (he was rather okay in the first episode) and the overacting detective from episode 1 returned too... quite too much overacting there.

There's a somewhat lacking professional acting attitude for a few main and support charas that keep getting me out of the mood. And the episodes are way too long for what they have to say, so far.

I WANT to enjoy a LSG good drama again, dammit. This might not be it, though. We'll see.

After episode 2, still not convinced... I might give it another episode before my final decision, but something's not gelling right for me.

WKX: I am MODEST, and well-read, and handsome and wealthy...
ZZS: *eyeroll*

WKX: Gu Xiang, take this pest of a boy away from here, so my soulmate wouldn't keep chatting him up while I'm around to see it.
GX: *shows him her tongue*
WKX: *shows her his tongue right back*
ZZS (who has just finished singing praises to the interloper for the elegance of his sect's disciples): WHAT IS THIS I CAN'T EVEN *epic eyeroll, tsunami warning from the winds created by his eyelashes*

WKX (a little bit later, heartbroken): But you're MY soulmate!!!

This show. This is what I come here for.

After episodes 7 & 8...

When I first read the synopsis, I had strong vibes of Psycho-pass (a really good anime with the same premise - violence (caused by psychopathy) is genetic, and should be dealt with before it manifests. I loved the anime.

So far, based only on episode 1, they don't look that similar... yet.

First episode was kind of cute, the story is interesting, and I admit, I started watching it for Saint, but I'll stick around to find out more of the tale.

Anyone who watched the Korean original, are they doing the same script?

PS the girls' school bathroom ghost was pretty creepy in the end... ewww. I hope the two clueless ghost hunters don't get this much airtime again, it was becoming kind of repetitive...

Also, there's a bit of overacting involved too, particularly on the side of the actor playing the detective with the missing sister. I've seen him before, but here he's just not up to par. I hope - if he keeps being in the story - he improves.

As far as I can tell... the older brother who was attacked in the bus will survive and either be the good cop guy, or the killer. Since LSG is the main lead... I'll take the killer for the other brother, probably.

Or if not, then LSG will twist into the killer and older bro will be the good cop.

I want to be proven not right on both fronts. And please let's not have the killer's child be a daughter presented as the love interest... just... let's not.

The first episode was kind of convoluted. I have no real grasp of what it wants to be, yet. TBH, some parts of the story presented so far seem needlessly complicated, but then, it hasn't really started yet. I'll give the second episode a chance to convince me.

I find it that this drama is right up my pace. Loving the slow development, the time they take with the support cast characters, the music, everything basically. I appreciate that this is not rushing over anything just to make things snap, like some other dramas try to do - and fail to develop naturally. I hope they maintain the rhythm, they're really making every episode count... and it feels so good to go along with it.

I seriously want to give the novel a try. Is there any TL, anywhere?...

LOL @that moment when you're so unimportant in the scheme of grander things that WKX just casually steps over your cadaver just to get close enough to ZZS and flirt with him. Poor dead body!

How did WKX learn ZZS's name? And how come he's so cute when flirting? I like him a lot. And ZZS is vibing him off, LOL. Like that ever worked in a BL story.

We can see you guys. Don't try to fool us!