I thought it would be more befitting to have a more thorough introduction to who I am.
To get the personal stuff out the way, I’m a 20-something year old soon-to-be-graduating college student that lives in the United States. I’m Japanese, Puerto Rican, and African American and enjoy nerdy things like tokusatsu, sci-fi, books and comics. I am a former drama fansubber and an all around critic.
I originally started this blog on my own personal website and moved it to WordPress for simplicity sake. WordPress, at the time (2006) was a pain to maintain on your own personal server and WordPress offered blog hosting that was self sufficient. I wanted a place to talk about my favorite shows and other things that interested me without having to censor myself on a message board or community. But, after a year, I lost interest. I managed to pick it up again around 2008 and began blogging rather ‘consistently’ since then. Though I want to be more diligent, with my current schedule and the way that I blog, it’s impossible.
I have been watching dramas since 2002. My first drama was The Wedding Planner, a Fuji Television drama that aired here on the International Channel every Sunday at 9pm. I caught it by fluke, because I watched Hey!x3 that aired afterwards, and was hooked that moment. Followed by the Wedding Planner was Leave it to the Nurses 4, Home and Away, and on and on. I wanted more and eventually with the advent of broadband was able to fulfill this by watching dramas such as Shinsengumi, Good Luck!! and GTO. This was during a time that there was only three drama fansubbers and the only way to get your hands on these dramas was to log into their IRC channel and snatch from their fservers.
At that time it was hard to get your hands on dramas. By the time you were able to watch them they were already released on DVD. Around 2006, dramas were more accessible and by 2008 you were pretty much guaranteed to watch dramas as they aired. It’s definitely been amazing watching the drama circle grow from a few enthusiasts to a legion of followers.
My favorite kind of dramas usually tend to be police-revenge stories, one against the system, slice of life, and anything that stars my favorite idol group, Kanjani8. I’m usually pretty open to anything, but I try to stick to what I know won’t be so bad. Dramas these days are a hot mess and you don’t know what you’re going to get until you actually watch them.
I blog when I can. Since my schedule can get really hectic at times, I can’t dedicate myself to a lot of shows, so when I do blog its usually one or two shows at a time. I usually write more commentary than actual drama blogging these days. I watch all my drama raw and sometimes with the help of a Japanese closed captioning script if I don’t completely understand a scene, so I usually try to be as fast as possible with my reviews if I am doing weekly reviews.
I’m also a very critical person. To me, watching dramas is an experience and not simply a passing of time. I want to get involved in the story emotionally and mentally and so my writings reflect that. I judge people on their acting, I just screenwriters on their screenplay and I judge composers on their music. If you’re going to go out there and boast your drama as the greatest in the season I expect that quality to be conveyed to me. Which, in the end, may come off as someone who’s hard to please but that’s the way I see it. Time is precious and I do not like wasting it.
If you want a more comprehensive list of what I’ve watched over the past decade, check out MyDramaList.
Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for visiting 🙂