Love as it is in dramas? - POSSIBLE!

The first idea of this post came that Cypsis was confessed by a way that she had heard before - from Asian drama! A lot of people say that in real life you can never have a romance like in Korean drama, but seriously - if you see the small things, you can notice that writers are taking everything from real life.
This is how Cypsis had a romance from a K-drama in real life. (It is also to show that "10 reasons k-dramas will ruin your future love life" are not all true). Gomenne for personal talk, but here are Cypsis 10 situations. (not all have certain drama reference, but feel drama-like).

• Meeting place = another country - "The Heirs"; "King 2 Hearts"
• yes, meeting was in Portugal, even though Cypsis stayed there temporarily for 5 months. The ones who do not know, Cypsis is actually far away from Portugal. Just sometimes the right person might be waiting somewhere else.

• Coming from different backgrounds  - "King 2 Hearts"
• Though usually the difference is all about the money and social position, then I would say that there was no bigger difference than nationalities, language and culture, which made Cypsis really understand Hang Ah feelings in "King 2 Hearts". 

• Confession: "Could it be that I like you?"  - "The Heirs"
•  we all know this great confession from "The Heirs" that is showing that you are not sure about your own feelings yet, but you let her/him know that there is a chance. It is also the sentence that gave the idea of the post when Cypsis was suddenly asked "Can I.. like you..?" 

• Wearing "couple outfits"  - "Playful kiss"
•  it was just a "coincidence" that Cypsis and he happened to wear same hoodies, but it is not like Cypsis did not think about this possibility before as those hoodies were bought from student exchange organization.

•  Fixing his tie  - "Mischievous Kiss ~Love in Tokyo~"
• It is just a small thing, but in reality a lot of guys appreciate it. In addition, there is something "wifey" about it, that just gives you "wife-material" points. 

• Watching fireworks together - many Japanese dramas
• There is nothing more romantic and movie-like than watching the most beautiful fireworks together at the riverside. In Japan, fireworks are big part of summer culture and of course it is usually watched with significant other or friends.  

• Sleeping in different beds while holding each others hands
• Usually in dramas it is more that one is sleeping in bed and other is sleeping next to bed while holding the hand. The situation can vary from hospital room after accident or one character just being sick or hangoverish. With Cypsis, the situation was a bit nicer as there was a lack in sleeping places at friends place and the couches were to small to share. 

• Saying farewell not on their own will - many Korean dramas
• In Korean dramas the couple usually ends up breaking up on different reasons and I am not even starting to list them all. In the case of Cypsis finished her studies in Portugal and had to move back to home-country..  

• Farewell kisses until the train closes its doors at the last second - "Dream high" 
• Okey, in "Dream High" it was a bus and through bus window, but we can draw some parallels.   

• Saying some little words after the train doors are closed so that you can only read from the lips
• Despite not knowing the exact words that were said, this thing is romantic as hell 

I must say that for the first two things every fan should get ready, because most fans want to move to another country, so do yourself a favor and already start learning the language more and more - especially because the parents of other might not speak English!
But basically every K-drama fan can make her/his relationship more drama-like, even those who are not moving to another country. You just need to know what to do - do not be too obvious and overacting - the most important is that all these moments must be natural and a lot of it you will discover only much later when you are recalling the memories.
But for Cypsis nothing was planned before - it just happened this way. And if you are interested what happens to Cypsis now, then only time will show - if there is a red thread or not, time will show us, but at the moment I am just hoping the best for him, because he deserves it. 

Life as a drama-watcher in another country..

Hi, Sweeties! Here is Cypsis, back in fandom! Actually, Yanne asked me to write a post about my experience as a fan living in an other country when one does not have ability to live as a usual fan.
Of course I think that actually these things can happen to you also on your own country when you are just really busy. I hope all of you have read about what happens to a fan when she/he does not have enough drama - because well this is the thing that is going to happen, though for me.. the first point was not true, but about it next time :P

Even though I tried to continue watching dramas from time to time, it was really difficult because I was so busy with trying to handle my social and love life, what were more than crazy; money problems; university assignments, language studies etc.etc...  Sometimes I really thought that I have time to watch, but then one or other thing came up and the times when I actually got to watch something, were moments that I planned like a week before, acted antisocial and stayed inside to watch my dramas. All this calculation I had to do.. wow it was a lot! I had whole lists with months to keep watching and actually for first two months I was even able to follow it more or less, but then everything got messed up. Even if I found a time to watch, I did not have time to write reviews :S Another bad thing is when you do not have dramas in your computer and your net connection is not working, is too slow or some of your favorite sites have been blocked by the administrator - and these all happened to me for some time at least O.o

On the other hand, there were moments where I was really happy to be in this fandom. First of all, it is one more way to find friends - you never know who might be a fellow fan when you are not making it clear that you are one. I actually met one amazing girl who was watching Korean dramas! And I would not have known it, if I would not have gone to talk to her after seeing TOP as her screen saver.
Secondly, when you are watching your drama in dormitory where are living more people than just you, then you can be sure that in one point someone is getting interested in your dramas!! Most surely it is because you are making weird voices and laughing-crying all the time. Sharing is caring, which means that soon you will just grow our fandom-family :D
Thirdly, I was able to go and promote a bit blog, as I went to one anime-convention that happened in my city for the first time. Of course sadly there were not so many drama-watchers and it was really really small, but it reminded me times when I just got into this fandom which was like... 5 years ago??? O.o The craziest thing was that now back in my home-country I met one family from Portugal whose daughter was also on this convention!! World is really small!
So in the end, I do not know what say more. There are moments when you have to make a small hiatus and just go with the flow from other things, because it does not mean that you will never come back. But what I can say - do not be afraid to go and enjoy other things - of course you will miss most airing dramas and you have no idea what is going on in fandom and when you hear something new you feel like crying for hearing it much later than others - but there are a lot of things to gain.

I do apologize for leaving you all waiting all this time and thank you who still stayed :) I LOVE YOU ALL!

Sentences you shouldn't trust

Sorry for the two months hiatus - from exams to work (I got the job I wanted) and personal problems, I was unable to update (I was also unable to watch dramas so we both were on the losing sides). I hope to get back on track from now on.

Some time ago while watching dramas, I noticed that there are some sentences that you should never ever trust. Whenever someone says it - I can say ~80% of times they are lying and some serious stuff is going to happen.

1) "I don't love you (anymore)!"
Seriously? How often have we heard that sentence slip from the lips of poor heroine or the rich and courgeous male lead? Too often I say. Whenever one needs to break up -mostly so he/she could save the other or so that innocent people wouldn't get hurt- there is no way of making a rational explanation of why breaking up would be a good idea - explanation? like what the heck is that? Just forget all those lovey-dovey words you said yesterday and yell at her/his face that suddenly you just don't love her/him anymore.

Lee Jae Ha is not only the king of South Korea -
he's also the king of saying things that are untrue
(seriously I've heard almost everything in this list slipping from his lips)

2) "This is the last drink."
Also comes in variations like "Let's have a drink for a goodbye" and "This will be the last time". This one is my personal favourite. Really, that's the last drink we share? Honey, you said that the last time too. Or are you out to poison me this time?

3) "I can hold my liquor"
If you're so good with alcohol, then why everybody else has to piggyback/ carry you back home? Darling, please be honest with yourself and others - - - unless you really want the hot guy piggyback you home. Hey! I should try this one!

Dear Naoki. You won't have any puking problems with me -
I'm the type who falls asleep when drunk. Sincerely, Yanne.

4) "I do not see you as a man/woman"
Maybe it is true in the start, but we can always be certain that right after telling that they will open their eyes and understand that actually the other person is the only man/woman they see. But for sure, at first let's make things really complicated and cause a lot of heartache to everyone, just because one is too blind to see.

5) "You're not sexy"
Also comes in variations like "You're uncute", "You're ugly" etc. Don't be too sad - being beautiful in the inside is much important than appearance - so just show them how sexy your soul is and in the end the person saying it will still love you and not his bitchy supermodel "friend".

a bag of sweet potatoes in your hand makes you especially attractive to Kang Joo

I know you can't trust my "every-monday-post promise" either but there is one sentence you can trust: "From this week on Cypsis Blog (and second blog) will run smoothly again as Cypsis is returning from Portugal."

Not. Enough. Drama.

There are tons of posts in the Internet about fangirls who watch too much dramas - we've all heard about the woman who lost her eyesight after a drama marathon, we've all experienced having last night's drama replaying in our head during lessons or work time, we've all suffered from lack of sleep and aching body parts (me after last Tuesday - 16 hour-marathon - my back still hurts from all the sitting). But there is a topic that I feel is still uncovered: What happens with fangirl who can't watch dramas for a longer period of time? So I'll try to write it down - based on my own experiences (work+uni+social life= drama watching) + Cypsis time in Portugal

1) You start to watch your own life like it's a drama. During first minutes of the first episode you understand it's a total crap and want to drop it.

The face that captures perfectly how it feels like to see/hear ultimate crap
thankfully Bride of the Century wasn't anything crap-like

2) You laugh less and get more easily depressed. It's easier to worry about the problems of a fictional character than your own. Also there's nothing funny about your real life.

3) You have 5 free minutes? Yes, let's watch this actor's picture the whole time.

4) You end up scribbling lists of "want to watch dramas" or "best dramas" or any other list to your textbook or work papers more seriously than you do your actual work.

you mean writing drama lists isn't what my job is about?
My whole life has been a lie.

5) You're becoming a mathematic genius thanks to all the "Tomorrow I can get home 6 PM and I have no commitments or plans. I have to wake up at 6 AM. So if I were to start watching Jdrama right away - 11 eps - 10 eps are 45 minutes, 1 is whole hour, meaning it all together is 510 minutes, making it 8 hours and 30 minutes. So I'd finish in the middle of the night and still could sleep for at least 2 hours." Your only miscalculation is that you fall asleep as soon as you hit your bed.

As you can see drama-watching is good for fangirls mental health. So whenever someone says it's bad for your health - tell them that it helps you to hold your sanity.

The eternal battle: Jdrama vs Kdrama PART 2

Some birds told me that they want to read the next parts of this topic, so I decided to give you the second part. Again I must remind you that the point of this post is to show the typical differences between Korean and Japanese dramas and the things written here cannot be said about EVERY drama (there will always be the awesome unique ones). You can read the first part HERE.

3) EMOTIONS (hate, sadness and love)
 In a way I already wrote about it in the PLOT section in previous post, but I felt that I have more to say about this one. Especially as plot and emotions are really tightly related.

First of all Japanese dramas are more complex in the area of emotions. 

Director Bang from Marry me, Mary!
I've never met that self-centered person in real life.

While it is easy to hate the “evil character” in Korean drama because the b*tch really is a b*tch, then in Japanese drama you can’t hate her as she is portrayed like a normal human being who just is confused or tries to achieve happiness. Of course when you thoroughly analyze a character you can come to understand its actions, but in many cases in Korean dramas their stubbornness and "need of hurting others" is just too non-human like. The reason why I say "Japanese dramas are more complex" is that at many times I feel like I want to hate someone (I mean character), but as I understand her/him too much, then I am unable to do so - the complexity  forms inside the watcher. In Korean dramas what you see is what you get and so the watchers feel the emotions that they are told to feel.
In Korean dramas “the family problems” are made into huge mess like a bowl of ramen - it's not complex, but just messy and spicy – most usually the parents of two families are high school friends and one family’s father had an unrequited love towards other’s mother resulting in the main character being unable to be together– did I forget to mention that at least one character’s mother is dead or abandoned her child? A lot of melodrama I must say. 

1 litre of tears - the classic about family handling a problem

You want to know how things are in Japanese dramas? “The family problems” mean that the family is having hard time overcoming grief, the head of the family has been made redundant or one of the kids is having an incurable disease – that’s a family problem. In overview we get much more hate-emotions from Korean dramas and much more cry-emotions from Japanese dramas. Yet in a way hate-emotions are more about "other people" as they are visible only while the loathed person is involved in some activity/ talk. Cry-emotions are about "the person itself" as they are about what that certain character feels at the time (even though they are caused by other characters - "others" are not that important in showing the emotions). Remembering that K-dramas focuses on how people interact with each other and J-dramas on how a person interacts with society, then it becomes logical that the former has more exterior emotions and latter inferior emotions.
On the other hand Korean dramas have the upper hand in making viewer’s heart beat faster – all this handholding and hugging and kissing (even though most of them are fishes)  - and I cannot not mention the almost kisses and accidental kisses and accidental groping and 

even though "You're my pet" is a movie
it still carries the same pattern as dramas

– yeah Korean dramas do a lot more fanservice. In this area Japanese are more conservative - if you get more than 1 kiss scene then it’s already a success. Again I must remind you that the percent of love-related dramas is much higher in Korea than in Japan so it's logical to have more smooching in Korean dramas. As I wrote in PLOT section - Japanese dramas have more realistic love (if you ignore the skinship part - heck if I were married to some hot Japanese actor, I would take my advantages from it). Even while being in love the characters still do what they are supposed to (work, school etc.) - they have their own lives to take care of. I've seen a lot of Japanese dramas and I can name on my one hand the women who live for the man they love. I cannot say the same about Korean ones. Maybe I haven't been so deeply in love, maybe I'm too self-centered, but I feel like it's more natural to be concerned about my own life rather than thinking about someone else 24/7.
In summary: Korean dramas try to portray characters, their emotions and the emotions that watchers should feel in a black and white way. Those emotions usually involve "the one who feels" and "the one who is the reason of those emotions".  Japanese dramas are in the grey area - every watcher decides for herself/himself whether she/he likes or dislikes the character. The emotions usually involve only "the one who feels" as the cause is not that important. That makes the emotions we get from Japanese dramas more real.

4) VISUALS (celebrities, clothing and make-up)

In majority Korean actors are better looking (can't say the same about actresses). There I said it. Maybe it is because plastic surgery is more common in Korea, maybe because Japan is less hospitable towards “foreigners” (mixed blood has better qualities) – dunno the reasons, but Korean people shown on dramas are better-looking than Japanese ones. The easiest way to compare it is with remakes:  “You’re beautiful” and “Ikemen desu ne”, “Hana yori dango” and “Boys over flowers” ETC. (I'm sure to have hate comments about that one) But I cannot say that it's always a bad thing -  in a way for me that makes Japanese celebrities kind of more 

can you imagine your life without T.O.P?
well if he hadn't worked out for months to lose weight
you'd know only the life without him

human. I've lived in Japan for some time and  I've also met with a lot of Korean people - so in my opinion Japanese dramas are more similar to reality: not every guy you meet on the street looks like a underwear model - the same goes to South-Korea, but somehow we can't see that in Korean dramas. Korean entertainment industry is more about looks than Japanese one. If it weren't then there wouldn't be cases like "T.O.P from Big Bang was not accepted to the agency at first attempt, because his body shape was "too round""- yeah the talented man we all know and love was rejected by the entertainment industry because he was considered to be too fat. I can name a lot of Japanese actors who can never pull off being added to the list of world's sexiest men, but as they are enormously talented they get a lot of roles and are loved by the public.
Even if you disagreed with the whole “looks” thing, then you can’t disagree with the fact that Korean dramas have better stylists – while most of the characters (except the main poor girl) in Korean dramas walk around in clothes from fashion shops, 

I loved the clothes in Buzzer Beat
they were so common and natural for the characters

Japanese one’s wear whatever one can find from its closet. At times it feels like Japanese characters are so normal human beings that if they were to pass you by on the street you wouldn’t think much about them. Maybe it's because a lot of Korean dramas are involved with the world of "rich and fabulous" and Japanese more involved with "ordinary and casual".
The last most visible difference is make-up! Of course foundation is the almost a must in basically every film industry so no problem with that part. Also mascara and eyeliner are acceptable for female characters. Yet noticeable difference is that mostly in Japanese dramas make-up for females are mostly used as a narrative device - make up is done only when 1)there's an important date/ event for which make up is the most logical thing (for example Riko having an important recital in "Buzzer Beat") 2) when there is need for a "make-over" (usually done by males, for example "Hana yori dango", "Yamato nadeshiko shichi henge") 3) the characters that 

Dear, you are really beautiful in Heirs,

but that lipstick belongs in to the recycle bin

are considered to be cute and pretty. In Korean dramas we can see make up on different characters even when it makes no sense - the most known is the "purple lipstick" or as I like to say it "the lips of dead people". I can accept it when one female character per drama wears it, but when I see it even on MALE characters, then I really have to grin and bear it. I consider it to be a fashion crime especially when the lipstick is accompanied with toooooooo white powder. In East Asia (Japan and South Korea, Thai etc) white skin has been the beauty ideal since the olden times, but when it is done by powder that is too visible, then it is far from being beautiful. If you need that desperately having something on your lips (other than someone else's lips), then wear a simple lip gloss that makes them shiny and doesn't make you look like you died yesterday.
In summary: Korean dramas have better visuals, while Japanese dramas portray more of "the real life Japan". Also Korean dramas use much more make-up - sometimes it even looks like 16 hours of commercials for make-up, cars, cellphones, clothes etc.

I thought this post will be shorter, but once I started writing it I just couldn't stop. So again I had to cut some sections (meaning: in the future there will be PART 3). I hope you had fun reading it. If there is anything you disagree about or have an interesting idea, then feel free to share it!

The eternal battle: Jdrama vs Kdrama PART 1

If you follow us in Facebook, then you already know that I'm enjoying my one week holiday back at home, :3 but that also means no wifi so I hope you forgive me my late post.

To be honest I was really hesitant about writing this post - as it has torn the "drama fandom" into constantly battling "K-drama fandom" and "J-drama fandom". I find it rather funny as I enjoy both of them (even  though I watch more Japanese dramas) and with this post I hope to stay more "academical" about the analysis of them both. The point of this post is to show the typical differences between Korean and Japanese dramas. Of course there are dramas that do not fall into these measurements.(This is only Part 1 so only a little  part of this topic is being discussed). But I am ready to get the hate-comments.

1) PLOT(career, love and relationships)
Japanese dramas are more down to earth - in many cases it is because Japan does a lot more “career-dramas” in which the plot is simple: a person doing its job. End of story. 

RESCUE - drama about rescue workers

If you checked the list of dramas of the airing season – I can bet that 50% of them are “career-dramas” (it is only 2% for Korean dramas). There has been the faze of medical dramas (Code Blue, Juui Dolittle), detective/police dramas (JOKER, BOSS, Deka Wanko), teacher dramas (Gokusen, GTO, Dragon Zakura) and of course the legal dramas (Legal High, Hokaben) and they keep coming and coming. Even though they all have moments of comedy and romance and so on, those are never the main points of the storyline – in many cases the romantic sidelines are never developed and basically stay the same from the beginning till the end. If not career-drama, then usually Japanese dramas tend to be rather slice-of-life. Yet even in romance dramas the fairy tale stories are quite rare - Japanese romance dramas are realistic about characters emotions. Yet most romance jdramas lack of actual skinship even between couples - when it happens, it is usually unintentional or done because of male characters overwhelming emotions (I am not going to go further into this as I bet none of you want to read about "the theory of Japanese uniqueness" - I wrote an essay on the topic "Skinship in Japanese society"-just some months ago - got an A :D) Of course Japan also has its perfect melodrama stories, but as they belong to the "older part of dramas" it almsot makes me feel like the era of Japanese melodrama ended some years ago.
On the other hand Korean dramas are the opposite: most of the dramas airing are centered on romance and relationships (as I mentioned earlier - 2% of dramas airing in one season are "career-dramas" - others are about romance and family). 

You're beautiful - a good example of cinderella stories

When work is brought into the story it is always to build up the love story. Even when the synopsis says that it’s about “young people trying to make their dreams come true” – the main emphasis still goes on love and relationships. And don't we all love those Cinderella stories of rich arrogant main lead and the poor hardworking girl that somehow through all the screaming and tears fall in love? Oh and also skinship is much more frequent in Korean dramas (have you ever counted how many times "hand grabbing" or "pulling clothes" happens in Kdramas? well a lot more than in Jdramas!).
So in summary: While Japanese dramas focus on person and how she/he manages in the society, then Korean dramas are about love and family. Of course there are a lot of exceptions for both of them. Now that I think about it - it would be fun to do a research about why there's this kind of difference - and my "academical brain" went flying again -.-

2) FACTS (average length, beauty shots and budgets)

The average length of Japanese dramas is 11 episodes (45 minutes each). The average length of Korean dramas is 16 or 20 or 24 episodes (1 hour each). So basically you can watch one Japanese drama with 9 hours while for Korean drama it is at least 16 hours. It does make a difference. 

as much as I love staring at Jung Yong Hwa
his beauty shots in Heartstrings were too much

I've heard a lot of people say that as Korean ones are longer, they have more time for character and story development - I'd say that for many dramas it just gives extra time for unnecessarily complicated relationships and for “beauty shots” – things I loathe in Korean dramas. By beauty shots I mean those long annoying scenes where character just looks at some uncertain direction while dramatic OST is played over it – sometimes it’s even two characters doing it at the same time close to each other WITHOUT seeing each other – and we are not talking about this happening once in a drama – it’s more of a once in a episode thing. Probably those are the 15 extra minutes that Japanese dramas do not have.
Also I have to mention the difference in budgets. Korean entertainment business has a lot more money to spend - meaning more shooting locations (you think filming in California was pocket money  for the making of "Heirs"? It's probably the drama with biggest budget in years - if not in the history of dramas), a cast full of notable names (the bigger the name, the bigger the paycheck), 

"Chiisana koi no Uta" by Mongol800 in Proposal Daisakusen
was part of the story as Rei borrowed their album from Kenzo

longer episodes (the filming of every scene costs money - the more one has to film, the more it costs - and every NG is wasted money) and of course more promotions. Japanese ones do not have that big budgets. It can also be seen while comparing the OST's. In Japanese dramas usually the opening and ending are done by an artist and the other ~20 soundtracks - that are all instrumental pieces - are done by the musical director - of course at times 2-4 more lyrical songs are added to the OST but mostly then they are somehow related to the story. Korean drama OST consists of about 10 songs by different artists and more 10 instrumel pieces. Remember that every singer wants its share (even using "old songs" means paying for the copy rights).
In summary: Korean drama industry has the means to do longer dramas, but that doesn't always mean better quality. And of course the basic calculation of lengths: 1 Kdrama= 2 Jdrama.

At first I wanted to do only one post about it, but it got so long that Cypsis said, it's better do cut into parts. So sometime later I will post also other parts of this post (I still have to analyze CHARACTERS, EMOTIONS, VISUALS, etc).
I hope it was interesting to read. If you have anything to add or something that you disagree about, feel free to comment! :D