If you know me then you know that I’m a huge nerd. I track the shit out of everything that I do so that I can keep track of what I’m spending my time on. When I was reading a hundred books a year, I tracked what I was reading, what genres I was reading the most and least of, and now that I’m really into watching k-dramas, as you can guess, I tracked my k-drama watching.
I’m on year three of my k-drama adventures and I’m still a nerd so I’m still tracking the shit of my k-drama watching. I’m tracking a lot of things, to be honest. What kind of dramas I’m watching, which tropes, which actors & actresses I’m enjoying, and all sorts of other things as well. I thought that 2022 was a quality year in dramas and there weren’t a whole lot of dramas that I absolutely hated. I’m counting that as a win.
Quick Stats of the Year
Dramas Watched: 64 | Dramas Completed: 47 | Dramas Dropped: 14 | Episodes Watched: 808 Favorite Drama: Alchemy of Souls | Least Favorite Drama: Love is for Suckers
This year, I went with the format of drama watching that I used last year. I watched more new shows instead of binge-watching older ones and I really enjoy watching shows that way. I find that I watch more shows with this format so I think that I’m going to stick with it. November was my best month in k-drama watching with February being the worst month in k-drama watching. I should say that those numbers are for dramas that I completed and I was still watching a bunch of dramas in February, I just didn’t complete any so that one is a little tricky.
2022 was the year that I jumped in and fell down the Suspense k-drama rabbit hole and I’m here for more of these kinds of shows. I’m still pretty solidly stuck in the romance genre and being the kind of person that I am, that is probably never going to change. I’m all about romance!
By Source
Disney Plus: 1 HiTV: 9 Hulu: 3 Netflix: 24 Prime Video: 1 Viki: 25
I didn’t know that Hulu and Prime Video had newly released k-dramas but I know now and I will definitely be watching more of their offerings in the new year. I’m low key excited about that. It’s not surprising to me that I watched most of my dramas on Netflix and Viki. That’s probably not going to change either. They both offer most of everything that I want and need to watch so I will probably continue watching most of my stuff on those platforms. Hopefully this year I’ll give more of the other platforms a shot.
I’m a list person. I have a list for every single thing in my life from a to-do list, a list of books that I want to read, a running shopping list, and in the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing different k-entertainment lists that I’ve been keeping track of. You’ll be seeing my top 5 lists of stuff like my current celebrity crushes, my favorite k-drama female protagonists, my favorite k-drama male protagonists, my to-be-watched k-dramas, and you know, stuff like that.
This week’s Wednesday Five will feature five of my favorite second leads.
1. Nam Seon Ho from My Country: The New Age
Watching this beautiful man act his ass off made my viewing experience of this drama, all the more pleasurable. This man is fine as hell and his character was much more interesting to me than the first lead. This was the first drama where I was actively cheering for the second lead over the first lead to get the girl. I loved the first lead and felt for him and his hardships but for me, Seon Ho won me over. It was so easy for the viewer to hate Seon Ho because of what we’re given of his character but as the show progresses my love for him grew and grew and grew. I absolutely loved this guy and that is why he’s my top favorite second lead.
2. Kim Jung Hwan from Reply 1988
Man did I adore this guy. I loved his character and how he quietly took care of his loved ones. He wasn’t always easy to understand but he was absolutely always easy to adore. Even though I didn’t cheer for him to get the girl, that didn’t take away from how much I loved him. I loved him, his family, and I loved seeing him care for those around him. His personality was fantastic and though I felt bad for him in the end, I still loved the hell out of him.
3. Han Seo Jun from True Beauty
Han Seo Jun was my introduction to Hwang In Yeop. Even though his character annoyed me in the beginning, he did his very best to turn things around and absolutely did. I loved the hell out of him and my heart for him when things didn’t work for him with the girl. I think he knew that it wasn’t going to end the way that he wanted though. He had so many sweet moments throughout this show and I just loved the hell out of him.
4. Baek In Ho from Cheese in the Trap
This guy was the second second lead that I actively cheered for to get the girl. He deserved her so much but in the end, I didn’t think that she deserved him. He was too good for her and I wanted to punch the girl in the vagina for not seeing the gem that was right in front of her. Man, I loved this guy so much but just take my word for it because the drama itself was trash.
5. Han Ji-Pyeong from The Start Up
Oh man, this was my introduction to Kim Seon Ho and I’m super grateful because holy hot damn I love this guy. He got on my nerves in the show and I wanted him to be more upfront with Dal Mi but I can’t deny that his character appealed to me because the lengths he went to keep his promise melted my heart. His relationship with Dal Mi’s Grandma was such a wholesome ass relationship and I was here for it all. I love love love this guy!
So which second leads did you fall head over heels in love with? Share your favorites in the comments!
Lee Gon mourns the tragic death of his father. Lee Lim goes on the run – and finds escape when he comes across a door to a parallel universe.
I’m not even going to front. I didn’t watch this show because of Lee Min Ho. I wanted to watch this show because of Woo Do Hwan. This guy is really good looking so watching him in another show (My first show with him was My Country: The New Age) was a must on my to-do list. I also saw that my girl Kim Go Eun aka The Goblin Bride was in this one so it was definitely going to be watched and I’m glad that I gave it a go because this reminded me of Goblin so it was a lot of fun.
So this show is a fantasy romance that takes place in a world with parallel worlds and a young King who can travel between those worlds. Lee Gon, the King of the Empire of Korea, is mourning the tragic death of his father, searching for the person who saved him on the night of his father’s murder, and plotting revenge against his father’s killer. When Lee Gon meets Jung Tae Eul, a police detective from the Republic of Korea, they come together to try to catch the bad guy and take him down once and for all. It appears that the bad guy is squatting in Tae Eul’s world so Lee Gon goes back and forth between their worlds to try to find him. It takes some time for him to get Tae Eul to trust him enough to help him. He knew immediately who she was when he first meets her but she didn’t know who he was so there was a struggle at the beginning with him trying to get close to her.
There’s a lot going on in this show and I was invested in pretty much everything. Trying to puzzle through chasing the killer down, the romance brewing between Lee Gon and Tae Eul, the going back and forth between worlds, getting to know both people from both worlds and just, you know, everything. As much as I was invested in all of those things, my favorite part of the show were these guys…
Woo Do Hwan’s portrayal of both Jo Eun Soeb and Jo Young rocked my mother freaking socks. Both of them charmed the hell out of me and it’s been weeks and weeks since I’ve seen this show and I still can’t choose a favorite. I thought Woo Do Hwan’s portrayal of the two characters was fan-freaking-tastic and I loved the hell out of both of them. I swear everything else took a back seat once these guys showed up on scene. They totally stole the show from right under both Lee Min Ho and Kim Go Eun. As great as they were, what I looked forward to the most while watching this was seeing what shenanigans Eun Soeb was going to get into and seeing his younger siblings interact with Jo Young.
The romance between Lee Gon and Tae Eul was subtle and in the background but I enjoyed seeing them come together. They complimented each other well and when we finally get to this scene, I was all about it.
Overall, the show did a great job of sucking me in with the charming cast, keeping me interested in the storyline and making me a little swoony with the romance. You can’t really ask for more in a drama so I’m a happy camper with this one. This one was definitely a good one so I recommend.
The DNF Round Up is a round-up of the books, movies, and k dramas that I did not finish in the last little while. Sometimes it’ll be a list of all books, all movies, or all k dramas and sometimes it’ll be a mix of the three but if I didn’t finish it, it’ll be featured here. I need the reminder because I be forgetting a whole lot of shit and I’ll start dramas or books that I quit without even knowing. This is my effort in fixing that.
18-year-old Kang Gyung-Joon’s spirit suddenly finds itself in the body of 30-year-old Seo Yoon Jae. Seo-Yon-Jae is a successful doctor and engaged to high school teacher Gil Da-Ran. Gil Da-Ran just so happens to be the teacher of 18-year old Kang Gyung-Joon. More problems ensue when 30-year-old Seo Yoon Jae falls in love with another woman.
I should have read a blurb about what this drama was about. I only started watching it because it stars Gong Yoo (because, *swoon*) but ugh, I hate student/teacher romances and this one plays with that trope. I didn’t enjoy it, at all. So our main character is Gil Da Ran and she’s a teacher. She’s engaged to a doctor that has gone cold on her. She’s trying not to think about what that means but he keeps blowing her off so one day, while she’s out for a ride with one of her students (yeah, seriously), she gets a call from her fiance, who wants to meet with her so bad that he’ll come to wherever she is. She tells him where she is and he makes his way to her. While she waits for her fiance, the student leaves and the student and the fiance get into a car accident together and their souls swap. Haha, it sounds ridiculous but I was hooked by this part. So, one of them dies but their souls are still trapped in the other body. So the fiance’ is in a coma in the student’s body and the student is alive and well in the fiance’s body and Gil Da Ran helps the student navigate his life as a 30-year-old doctor even though he’s a 17-year-old high school student. I forget what exact age he is but he’s around that age.
Once they started developing feelings for each other (the student and the teacher), and Gong Yoo’s adult character started turning into a complete douche, I tapped out of this one. I’m not on board this teacher and student love crap and I wasn’t on board with Gong Yoo’s fine ass being a dickface. Haha, yeah that’s why I’m not going to finish this one. Nope, not me.
Kwon Shi-Hyun bets his life on a dangerous game to seduce Eun Tae-Hee. His target is 20-years-old and believes people that are swayed by love are pathetic. After Eun Tae-Hee meets Kwon Shi-Hyun, her view on love changes.
I started this show because of Woo Do Hwan. I had just finished Save Me and adored him in that show so I wanted to keep the Woo Do Hwan party going. Unfortunately, the immature shenanigans that he gets into with his high school friends pissed me off pretty early on so I stopped watching it. I just wasn’t in the mood for teenagers being little shits and ruining people’s lives though I know that Woo Do Hwan’s character grows into a decent chap in the end. That’s why I stopped this one but I’m really interested in seeing Do Hwan in a main lead role so I’ll definitely be back for this one…I’m sure of it.
Year Released: 2016 Number of Episodes: 20 Number of Episodes Watched: 2 Genre: Historical, Romance Country: Korea Where I Watched It: Viki Recommended By: Park Seo Jun Who I Watched It For: Park Seo Jun
An elite group of young men called Hwarang discover their passions, love and friendship in the turmoil of the Silla Kingdom.
Can you believe that I DNF’d a Park Seo Jun drama? Yeah, I can’t believe it either. But, I did. I wasn’t in the mood for a historical drama and the first couple of episodes of this one were low key boring. All Seo Jun’s character did in the episodes that I watched were yell and fight. When I watched this though, I didn’t know Park Hyung Sik so I didn’t even appreciate him in this. AND V from BTS is in this show too and I didn’t even meet him yet so I know that I’ll be going back to finish this one, I just don’t know when. There’s a great cast for this show so how could I not go back and finish?
At the end of the Goryeo period there are those who lead the charge to proclaim a new age, among them two friends who become enemies when they disagree on the direction of their country.
I watched this show at the recommendation of my nephew, Chance. He’s different from Chase. He’s more into political thrillers, historical movies, and what not so because I had such a great reaction to Chase’s recommendation, I thought I’d give Chance’s a go too. While I enjoyed this one, Chase wins in the recommendation department.
This show is a period piece that follows our main lead, Seo Hwi, and his best friend, Nam Sun Ho, as they struggle with the cards that life has dealt them. The show centers on them, their friendship and the different directions their lives take them. The power of friendship is seriously tested in this show and I was here for it.
My boy Hwi really went through it. After his father dies in disgrace, Hwi is left to care for his younger sister and it’s just the two of them. They struggle through life because they’re poor and they’re banking on Hwi getting into the military so that he can really start making money to care for his sister. She’s sick too so that’s another obstacle that he has to figure out every time she runs out of medicine. Through everything that Hwi goes through, you can see him struggle with his dignity and at times, his integrity. It would be so easy to let his guard down and really do whatever it takes to, shady or not, to get what him and his sister need but that’s not what he’s about. It’s not the son that his father raised so with his head held high, he deals with whatever hardship comes his way as best as he can.
My other boy, Sun Ho wasn’t poor, he actually grew up rich but his life wasn’t a walk in the park. For one, he’s the bastard son of a high ranking member of the military and Sun Ho spends a whole lot of time trying to win his father’s approval but he always comes up short. His friendship with Hwi and Hwi’s younger sister are the highlights in his life and he thought that they would always be by each other’s back but fate wouldn’t have that and the older they get, the further the distance between them becomes but you can see that though Sun Ho means well, his actions don’t always come across that way so the connection between him and Hwi is tested hard. It wasn’t enough for their lives to divide, they had to fall in love with the same girl to further complicate their already complicated friendship.
This was my introduction to Woo Do Hwan and Yang Se Jong and I was super happy about that. They acted their tails off in this show and I really connected with both of their characters. I really loved Hwi in this show so he was the one that I rooting for to get the girl but Woo Do Hwan won me over completely that I made a list of shows/movies he was in and I’m making my way through them.
This show is filled to the brim with political thrills and a whole lot of suspense that had me at the edge of my seat but it also left me frustrated through a good portion of the episodes because damn, they really kicked Hwi down and held him there with their foot on his neck. I got so mad at the bad guys and super frustrated with Sun Ho’s actions throughout the entire show. I did enjoy the romance and thought the female lead was a boss who was a perfect fit for Hwi. These Koreans are loyal as hell to their loved ones and I really dug that in this show. No matter what was going on between Hwi and Sun Ho, their shared love for Hwi’s sister was never questioned and Sun Ho did his best to care for her while Hwi was away and I really dug that. This show really engaged my emotions because I happy sighed just as much as I ugly cried and while it wasn’t my favorite show, it was still an enjoyable one and one that I would recommend to those looking for a historical political thriller. Lots of eye candy, too. 🙂
