The Devil Beside You

Day Eleven and Day Twelve.

I didn’t intend to keep merging two days in one entry a habit, but I couldn’t help it. Tuesday was just too uneventful and I had absolutely nothing to talk about. I woke up around 5 or 6 in the afternoon, did a bit of work, watched TV and loaded a bunch of D.Gray-man episodes. I guess the only good thing about this day was the discovery of a new Asian drama to be obsessed about. You see, I’m Japanese so naturally I love Jdoramas more than other Asian dramas. But aside from me being Japanese, I love Jdoramas because the best Asian dramas I’ve seen were almost all made in Japan. Unlike other Asian dramas, Jdoramas only have a maximum of 12 episodes per series (Sometimes 13 but that’s very rare). Jdoramas are very straightforward, fast-paced and incredibly creative. They don’t drag on the story just to keep extending the series because of high ratings. You see, no matter how good a drama is, if there are too many episodes and they just keep on inventing new sub-plots to keep extending the series, the audience would get tired of it and the show would be a failure. So that’s why Jdoramas are so brilliant. They get straight to the point and you don’t have to wait for centuries to see the ending. And that’s exactly why I haven’t seen that many Chinese, Taiwanese and Filipino dramas. But I did watch a lot of Korean dramas because some have very good story-lines and they usually only have 20 plus episodes. But one flaw of Korean dramas that I’ve noticed are the repetitive stories. Most Korean dramas I watched have a lot of similar elements. They may have different characters and settings but they usually have the same story. Korean dramas were mostly about childhood friends, a first love they couldn’t forget, a guy and a girl fighting like cats and dogs at first only to fall in love with each other in the end, a long-term unrequited love etc…But they are quite hilarious and easy to relate with since their culture is quite similar to the Japanese culture so I love watching them. Plus they are getting more and more creative as time goes by and they are beginning to come up with really interesting and unique concepts. Filipino dramas are out of the question. Most of them have hundreds of episodes and there are very few subtitled Tagalog dramas online. I mean, who would translate a drama with 100 plus episodes anyway. Plus I heard from my Pinoy friends that their dramas drag-on forever. Some lasts for years and years and end up being pointless. But I did watch one Tagalog drama recently, it’s called “Whoever you are…Book 2″. It’s in tagalog so I couldn’t understand most of it but there are two characters who speaks in English all the time so I only watch their scenes. I think their names are JB and Celine. And their story was quite touching and the two actors have great chemistry; although the guy could use a little bit of acting lessons. Taiwanese/Chinese dramas are not my particular cups of tea though because they could be frustrating sometimes. There are too many flashbacks and that takes on too much time. Sometimes they do flashbacks of a scene that happened just minutes ago or sometimes they show one scene over and over throughout the episode. Like in the series, “Silence”, they showed the scenes at the hospital when the two lead characters were kids a million times in every episode. It was exasperating! So it’s no surprise that I haven’t seen that many Chinese/Taiwanese dramas. In fact the only Chinese dramas that I liked are the ones based on Japanese mangas. I guess it still points back to Japan in the end. And speaking of manga turned Chinese drama, let’s go back to my original topic: my new drama obsession.

A few months ago, I watched Yukan club and I loved it. In that show, a Taiwanese superstar guest-starred in one episode. And yes, that’s none other than the gorgeous, Mike He. I don’t have many Chinese crushes but Mike He definitely captured my attention when I saw him in Yukan club. So I did a bit of research about him and found a list of all the dramas he was in. And there was one that stood out, “Devil Beside You”. The title was catchy, the synopsis seemed interesting and it was based on a manga. I was hesitant to watch it at first but Mike He was reason enough to go through with it. Unfortunately, I got caught up with a lot things and completely forgot about it. I only remembered it when I accidentally stumbled upon it on the web. So I watched it and I was so glad that I did! It was like no other Chinese dramas I’ve seen before. It had that Hana Yori Dango feel. Mike He’s character “The Devil” was a hotter, more bad-ass and more adorable version of Doumyuji of Hana Yori Dango. Rainie Yang’s character was also a lot like Makino Tsukushi. Kingone was also as kind and gentle as Rui (although he’s not as hot as Oguri Shun). I loved everything about this show! The story was really interesting, the characters were all very unique and colorful, the settings were perfect and the actors all did amazing jobs, especially Mike He. Who would have thought he would be so good at being bad!? He nailed the role of “The Devil”! His piercing gaze, his wicked smile, his fierce fashion-sense…everything says “Prince of Darkness”. And he was insanely hot in this series! But what I really love about this series was that every character had a different side. You know, Mike He was not just the evil spoiled brat, Kingone was not just the kind prince charming and Rainie Yang was not just the sweet and naive girl. The prince of evil had a kind and gentle side too, the prince charming had a scary dark side and the innocent girl showed her fierce and brave side on several occasions. The characters were not just these two-dimensional beings, they actually evolved and grew as the story progressed. The pace of the story was really fast too, which I loved. In episode one alone, so many thing happened that I felt like I’ve been watching several episodes already. This series also tackled one of my favorite topics in a drama: “forbidden love”. I’ve mentioned this in my previous entries before: I love stories that are about people who go against society’s standards and rules for love. So here I am again, blabbing about my new obsession. I better stop now before I end up writing this until dawn.

On to day twelve. I didn’t sleep during day 11 because I had to leave early on day twelve. And I never sleep when I have an early appointment the next day because I might not wake up on time. So I left the house around 10 am to get my money. Yatta! I finally have my money! No more days of cutting corners to make ends meet! With my voracious appetite these past few days, I already spent almost all of my cash so this money came just in time. That morning I got a call from my mom too. When I told her that I got my salary, she was all excited and told me to buy a new dress. She gave me this long lecture about how she couldn’t understand why I waste all my money on buying anime figures, manga, books and other nonsense. I had to say yes to shut her up. Man, she was annoying sometimes. She even asked me to send her a picture of me in my new dress to prove that I really bought one. Well, since she never really asked me for anything, I thought, one dress wouldn’t hurt. I only have two dresses in my closet anyway. The first one was the dress I wore when I turned 16 and the other was the one I wore during graduation. Well, shopping for clothes was never my forte. Let alone, shopping for a dress. I spent hours trying on stuff and ended up buying this depressing gray dress that’s 3 sizes too big for me. Oh well what the hell, at least I bought a dress. It’s not like I have anywhere I could wear it to. I don’t go to church, I don’t go to parties and I haven’t been on a date for centuries. so I guess, it’s pretty much useless. At least my mom seemed pleased. I used clothes pins to make the dress look more tight-fitting in the picture and she didn’t notice a thing.

Anyway while I was at the mall, I also watched a movie. As I’ve said before: Going to the mall is not complete if I don’t watch a movie while I’m there. Since I have already seen almost every movie at the mall, I ended up watching “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”. It was a strange and somewhat boring movie. Don’t get me wrong, there were some pretty interesting and really intense scenes there but the lack of sound almost lulled me to sleep. The pace was too slow, there were scenes that only showed sceneries while a Narrator spoke in the background. It reminded me of those weird Nokia commercials. You know, the ones with a creepy voice saying: “A princess finds a unicorn, a knight slays a dragon blah blah blah”. The actors did a pretty good job. I never thought cowboys cry so much. But apparently, in this movie, they do. There were some blood and gore every now and then but not enough to eliminate the dull atmosphere of the movie. The script was really good and there were a lot of good lines although some of them are in Western Cowboy jargon so I couldn’t understand them. Brad Pitt’s a brunette here and he’s sure was a better Jesse James then Collin Farell. Casey Afleck was successful in being the most irritating man alive in this movie. He reminded me of someone I know back in College. Overall, this movie had a very unique way of story-telling and a very interesting storyline. The sceneries were breath-taking and the sets looked like they came straight out of a history book. But I would have appreciated it more if I wasn’t so sleepy. I guess I shouldn’t have watched this today because I didn’t sleep last night at all. Oh and I know it ain’t right but whenever I saw Brad alone with Casey or Sam Rockwell in this movie, I immediately have a “Brokeback Mountain” flashback. And it didn’t help that the music in the background was similar to that on “Brokeback Mountain.”

Oh well, that’s all for now. To sum things up: during these past couple of days, I gained a new drama obsession, I fell in love with a Chinese guy, I saw Brad go Brokeback, I bought a dress for the first time ever, and I earned a shit-load of money to keep me afloat for another couple of months. In short, it’s all good!

End of Day Twelve.