Oh My Ghost - KDama

As a fan of the supernatural genre I’m always one to be excited to watch what the networks have in store for our eyeballs to consume. A recent drama didn’t disappoint as it catered to my hungry eyes and brought forth a lovely drama that had me engaged in its content from the get go, though I won’t lie and say it doesn’t have me worried at some points.

Oh My Ghost is a very cheeky romance that has me in stitches as I watch the main lead get led by the nose hairs as she gets possessed by a ghost who has nothing but sex on her mind.

The story revolves around a very introverted and skittish woman, Na Bong-Sun who has the ability to see and communicate with the dead, much to her discomfort and misfortune. Things kick off when she crosses paths with a ghost who literally runs into her in order to avoid being captured by a shaman, but this isn’t just any ghost, this ghost- Shin Soon-Ae- just so happens to have the same wavelength as our protagonist making things very interesting.

Because of this coincidence it makes it very difficult for our ghost to leave the body of our lead, trapping her for a while in Na Bong-Sun’s body and forcing Shin Soon-Ae to live her life for a while. Not that she minds though as she soon discovers that our lead is surrounded by more than a few hot guys she wouldn’t mind taking a bite out of.

The possession eventually wears off, but not before our ghost gets to meet with a man with a lot of ‘vitality’, aka our male lead, Kang Sun-Woo, who just so happens to be our poor Na Bong-Sun’s boss.

Kang Sun-Woo proves to be someone our ghost desperately needs for various reasons, while also being someone Na Bong-Sun is rather uncomfortable being around and as you can imagine this makes for quite an intriguing contrast of events as our poor lead’s persona drastically changes due to her possession and tries to crawl into Kang Sun-Woo’s life… and bed.

The story is sweet and funny. I love the characters and I must applaud the lead actress for her complete personality change as she portrays the possessed version of herself versus the ‘normal’ version.

The story itself is also interesting as you start questioning things about our sexually frustrated ghost and how Shin Soon-Ae died. The build-up creates quite a picture that plays brilliantly in the background and nags at my curiosity.

I have to say though, I worry that the ‘possessed’ version of our main lead is overpowering her normal personality. It makes for a worrying thought if I think about how the writers plan to fix that problem or maybe the actress played the part too well, who knows. All I do know is that the character she portrays seems swallowed up by the ‘possessed’ version of herself while the ‘normal’ version drifts slowly into the background.

I’m curious to see how the actress finds a balance between the two that’s both believable and acceptable in the confines of the drama. Still I won’t deny the fact that I hope she stays possessed as my feelings right now are totally with the ghost as she comes across more as the main lead than anything else. But this thinking is wrong as it perpetuates the reality that outgoing and aggressive people are more acceptable and liked than the introverted. As an introvert, I should be worried about that shouldn’t I? Oh well, whatever. I still have to wait for more episodes to come out and grace my eyeballs so I’ll wait and see what the ultimate results are. Hopefully the aspects of both introverts and extroverts will be highlighted and all will be well with the world…

Denpa Kyoushi - Anime

‘YD’ – I can only Do, what I Truly Yearn to do

We all have things we want to do and things we have to do. Most days they tend to be the same, while others… not so much. In the end, however, we’re bound to do one of them simply because we are required to, it’s how we move forward and essentially live our lives. But imagine living a life so listlessly where all you could do was only what you really wanted to and not really what you HAD to do? Wouldn’t that be interesting? or downright agony to get through?

In Denpa Kyoushi I found an interesting character in the protagonist who lives according to a fascinating philosophy that has him unable to muster much motivation for things he is not interested in, but the minute he yearns to do something he turns into a whole other being equipped with smarts and talents that allow him to do whatever he wants.

The story follows Junichiro Kagami, a happy NEET* who lives to update his blog and watch anime along with various other otaku activities, as he gets dragged by his sister into a teaching job where he proves to be surprisingly more useful and likeable than at first expected. Despite his initial reluctance at doing the work Kagami finds interesting ways to pass the time during school as he saves a few students and changes their lives, all while seemingly following his selfish otaku way of life.

From getting rid of bullying, to helping students overcome their low self-esteem and emerge from their closed off selves, you see a variety of scenarios that, if I had to be honest, gives a hint of nostalgia from shows like G.T.O [Great Teacher Onizuka] and Gokusen, except our frail teacher has the stamina of a stick…wait, no the stick might actually win…

Either way, as a fan of both those shows, I must say I liked this anime. Though I don’t see it getting a live action anytime soon, unless they revamp it thoroughly, I think it was a pretty enjoyable watch for the weekend.

But I must be honest, the show’s main protagonist barely has any character growth aside from a few hints we are given that maybe he isn’t as shallow as he is made out to be initially and by the look of how they keep changing his interactions with students, it would seem like the creator of the story preferred new situations always being introduced as opposed to developing the ones they already had in play.

Like a kid always wanting new shoes, we see new students popping out the woodwork as the old students, are pushed aside as the focus is blatantly shifted to the newbies and their new scenarios. It’s a bit sad, really.

But in the end I guess it has its own quirks that make you like it or hate it, so what can you do but just enjoy it as it comes?

*NEET - a young person Not in Education, Employment or Training*

Hello Monster/I Remember You - KDrama

Everybody likes to think they’re crazy, even if it’s for a little moment. There’s just something freeing about the idea that we could go bat-shit crazy and do something unbelievable and plead insanity afterwards, even while we’re still grinning like we belong in the madhouse. In a recent Kdrama that I started watching, a lot of talk of psychopaths has been covered and I can’t help myself but do the research and my, is it interesting.

The Kdrama, Hello Monster/I Remember You, takes a look at the minds of psychopaths and tries to twist and turn a few serial killings into its storyline and I must say, though it was tough to keep up at first, now that I really took a moment to look into it, it’s fascinating how the drama plays out. The story follows the main protagonist, Lee Hyun, who is a gifted child so much so that he actually comes across as a bit of a concern to his father who coincidently deals with juvenile criminals, one of which is a psychopath.

Because of this Lee Hyun goes through a somewhat unconventional childhood and then, due to unforeseen circumstances he is confronted with the murder of his father and the disappearance of his younger brother. Traumatized by these events, his memory becomes fragmented and he is raised by a family friend and grows up to become a genius criminal profiler with a somewhat sketchy personality.

Years later, he is drawn to a crime scene that reminds him of his forgotten past and here he crosses paths with detective Cha Ji-An. But this isn’t our female lead’s first time meeting the oblivious Lee Hyun as she has been effectively stalking him since their childhood, for various reasons.

The two officially reunite over this first case which leads them to working together and a mystery is discovered as Lee Hyun tries to discover who it was that reached out to him through the crime scene, while Cha Ji-An investigates case after case and continually seeks out Lee Hyun’s help as she hopes to keep him in her line of sight for her own reasons.

The drama is entertaining to watch. I especially like the whole ‘stalking’ detective that was pretty hilarious for me. Another aspect is the criminal profiling that is done by Lee Hyun’s character. It’s a unique take on detective skills that I haven’t yet seen in Kdrama’s and it’s pretty intense and I like it, definitely works. As for the story, I’m very curious to see where it goes. Having only watched six episodes I can only hope it gets better as I anticipate who the bad guys really are and how they get revealed.

On that note, I really hope they go into depth about mental illness and other details about psychopaths and I don’t mean the made up stuff, I’m hoping they do their research and they use some real world cases and all that. I mean after all, mental illness isn’t something to joke about at the end of the day and if they can spread some awareness that would be great too, just saying.

*I suppose we can’t forget that there needs to be romance, right!?…*

[Just for kicks, here is an interesting article I found recently that covers psychopaths and what professions they're most likely to have.]

Plastic Memories - Anime

Memories are a funny thing, a very funny thing indeed and with the most recent anime I just finished watching I’ve discovered they can be somewhat of a bittersweet thing too. Not that I didn’t know it, but I suppose it’s good to be reminded of such things every now and then. However, you have to admit it’s pretty interesting how something so intangible can be so integral in shaping how we function as well as how we choose to process the consequences that arise from simply just ‘functioning’ in our day to day lives.

Plastic Memories was a very curious anime to watch as the main story revolved around the creation and termination of memories. Already as you go into the anime there existed something melodramatic about it in the undertone to the whole thing that screamed at you to keep that box of tissues at hand.

The story is set in a future where androids exist alongside humans with relatively the same rights as them all except for the fact that they are owned by people for certain reasons and, most importantly, have limited lifespans. The story goes on to follow a new recruit who would be working in a branch of a company that deals with the collection of these androids once their lifespans are up and they need to be ‘terminated’ or as one of the characters so emphatically states that they deal in the ‘ripping apart of memories’.

The reason for such harsh words would be due to that fact that these androids, known as ‘Giftia’, are each gifted with unique souls and personalities and in effect are their own individuals that live their lives, however limited, making memories with their companions and various other significant people and thus the termination process can be quite a reluctant one, as the new recruit soon discovers.

Sadly, there are consequences for the androids that go beyond their allotted time and the results can be damaging for both the human and decaying Giftia.

The story is very moving as it follows the recruit and his new partner, who herself is a Giftia as per company regulations. Watching their relationship grow and deepen was entertaining, especially as I found the Giftia’s personality and clumsy nature adorable. I also found the struggle she underwent very intriguing as she fought against the idea of making memories. The change in her character was evident as she opened up due to our protagonist’s insistent prodding and it made for interesting arguments on what the true value of memories could be.

The character development was definitely well done as you watched the protagonist face multiple challenges of ‘ripping apart memories’ and how that affected him. Then you had his partner affected by his presence and moods and instead of just functioning like an android and avoiding things for fear of making memories that would be taken from her, you had her turn into a brighter individual okay with smiling just a bit and stepping out of the gloom of what is going to happen and just experiencing what can happen now.

Overall it was a bittersweet anime that I enjoyed watching. Albeit, I didn’t shed as much tears as I expected, though that was most likely due to the fact that the punch was given early and they let it linger for a bit before letting you go. But that wasn’t a bad play, in my opinion.

Border - JDrama

Where do we go when we die? It’s an interesting question, one with many varying answers that I find quite intriguing and tend to research from time to time just to kill time. But whatever the answer may be, I’m sure the recent drama I watched would make it one very dark and gloomy place.

Border is a Japanese drama that was released in 2014. One of the many JDrama’s that was on my backlog, I find I’m glad I finally got around to watching it. The series has a somewhat dark tone to it and despite my expectations, which weren’t much aside from the general good acting I always know to expect from the lead actor, I found this drama quite surprising.

The series follows a detective that gets shot while on duty but survives the fatal wound with one strange twist; the bullet that gets lodged in his head allows him to see dead people. Though a fairly predictable plot twist, this drama takes the scenario and paints it with a dark and gloomy brush as it follows our detective as he goes back to work, using his newfound ability to solve crimes and confront the evil that exists in the world around us.

The episodes were interesting and each one seemed to take the detective deeper down a dark path as he strayed further and further from using ‘normal’ methods of solving crimes and instead turned to much sinister ones that aided both his ability and efforts to catch the bad guy. That is until it led our poor strung out detective to the ultimate cross roads.

It’s an interesting observation as you watch the detective’s character change so drastically due to his newfound ability that he seems to attach a somewhat curious responsibility to, very interesting indeed and very engrossing to watch. It reflects a rather sad reality that sometimes the bad guys might just beat the good guys, despite the supernatural advantage on the good guy’s part and that maybe, just~ maybe knowing that little detail might just drive you over the edge more often than we’d like to admit.

Yeah, this was a very thought provoking drama. It might have been dark and gloomy, but I guess that helped as it brought its solemn message across. I reckon it’s worth watching, I mean it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves the bad guys have their good days too, right?