Monday, August 16, 2010

You and One


I've been following the Korean entertainment industry for quite a while. Oh, maybe about 2-3 years? I've learned quite a lot of things and understood at least to some degree how things work. Here's a little note of how that happened. About 4 years ago, an Indonesian TV station started to show Korean dramas, pop hits like Full House, Coffee Prince, and Princess Hours. Just recently, the Korean entertainment industry experienced the phenomenon called Boys Over Flowers. It was everywhere. For a moment, housewives who used to watch sinetrons (something like Indonesian soap operas. And yes, with the overall mediocre quality in set, story, and acting) started drooling over the F4 boys. They became the covers of tabloids. Then Boys Over Flowers continued on to more pop hits like Shining Inheritance and You're Beautiful, or so I'm told. I might talk more about this in another post, but this isn't what I came to write about.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

5cm/s

I'm actually not an avid manga/anime fan and those I like, I love. But besides that, I don't catch up as easily as, say, Korean dramas and movies. Maybe because I'm not that familiar. After watching Chibi Maruko-chan which is exactly the type of things I'm enjoying now, I begin to wonder about what Japan can do with their animes. I can't point my finger to any because I don't know any, besides Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky which are the works of Japan's Walt Disney, the famed master, Hayou Miyazaki. So, I decided to search for quality Japanese anime films with a story I might enjoy, or at least universal. I know that people who watch say Korean movies or dramas might not be able to enjoy some of the storyline because of cultural differences. Realizing that I don't really know much about Japanese cultures, I chose 5cm/s.