#drama lists

[melonatures]

carrying a gorgeous unconscious man home on your back:

some women have all the fun

[tomorrowsdrama]

2021: daddies will make it better aka the few (and I mean FEW) good things

EDIT: wow another post that sat in the drafts for whatever reason

2021 was a crap year drama wise but it wasn’t a total loss all thanks to these few gems 

Ultimate daddy: The rebel princess / monarch industry - my one/ultimate drama pick for 2021. The watching experience and the collective thirsting on tumblr was so fun and deceived us into thinking that the rest of the year would be just as great.  Just go through my tagged posts for this drama and you can see how totally obsessed I was.

Xiao Qi - number one daddy. Thank you drama for showing me the light and introducing me to sex on legs Zhou Yiwei

His dramatic entrances are my sexuality

Helan Zhen - daddy number 2 who we keep in the shadows/meet up with on the down low because he’s bad and not in the sexy way (but because it’s Yuan Hong, yes in the sexy way, but we’re ashamed to admit it)

Crown prince aka potato - not you, this conversation has nothing to do with you

Asu aka Turnip - also not you; but talk about daddy issues

Zilu/Second prince - not my daddy but I’m happy for his girl

Zitan - I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you how dare you pt 1

General Song Huaien - I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you how dare you pt 2

Gay Jane Eyre AU Daddy: The Devil Judge - Kang Yohan’s entire vibe is Daddy

And a bunch of other random dramas that didn’t have any daddies but I still enjoyed in 2021:

Jdrama - the comeback kid - it’s been over a decade since I regularly watched jdramas but they’re slowly but surely coming back into my life 

Promise Cinderella

Utsukushii kare

This happened in 2021? - I totally forgot this aired in 2021.

Mr Queen / Queen Cheorin 

[melonatures]

"she's his religion" romances

tvn happiness

light beyond the reed

my liberations notes (*note: i've yet to watch this)

honorary mentions:

the tower of whispers

[melonatures]

I'm curious to know which cdramas you'd recommend/are your favourite? I've watched a few over the years but I'd like to watch more of them so I thought your recommendations would be a good place to start 😊

!!

i only just started watching them a couple years ago so i don't know much about them in general, but here are my favs and why:

a dream of splendor - a historical romance featuring a female lead who's a member of an underclass because her father did something to offend the emperor/nobility and so she got sold into what i think was a kind of slavery. what i enjoyed was how gorgeous crystal liu was, and how mature the romance was--it really felt like something between two adults. like most historicals, the guy is some kind of cop, but he's got an empathetic past and i really enjoyed the actor's performance. also in general it's just a great looking drama, and there's lots of women being the closest of friends and supporting each other through thick and thin. there's a silly and frustrating break up in the last quarter, but over all a strong romance in my book.

blossoms in adversity - this is my most recent binge watch, and i'm definitely gonna go back and watch it at a slower pace, maybe this summer. the romance is just okay for me (mostly because the actor for the male lead cannot act), but i really appreciated seeing the female lead, hua zhi, choose to save and protect her family full of women after all the men are banished because her grandpa defied the emperor. she's smart and resourceful (most of the cdramas i'm attracted to are competence pron for women), but this drama's a bit different from the others like it in that it shows us that hua zhi *is* very young and in some cases naive. hua zhi learned all she knows from her grandpa, but over the course of the drama she grows closer to her grandmother, and i loved seeing that relationship develop. as for the romance, while the male lead actor was kind of a bore, the dynamics of the romance were compelling: yan xi's the only person hua zhi really confides in and finds reliable, and her rival for him isn't another woman but the emperor himself. also the second leads' romance in this is soooooo cute and fun.

the double - watched this live. incredible experience. you wanna watch something where a woman outsmarts every single person and gets revenge against her vile husband who framed her for infidelity and then buried her alive, all while saving her family and getting with a rich ass guy who matches her in intelligence, pettiness, and vengeance but never steals her spotlight? then watch this. also this may just be me, but her vile husband is played by a hot actor who is really good at acting and like...well that worked for me.

falling into your smile - totally ridiculous idol romance fun

the legends - this was made on like a 3 dollar budget. but it's a great intro to what i think are called wuxia dramas (?). anyway my fav part is bai lu saving xu kai and him then being devoted to her forever.

my journey to you - gorgeous costumes and i really loved the main romance, though 98% of the audience liked the second leads way more. i admit i watched this cause zhang ling he could ask me for my bank account information and i'd hand it over to him, but the story is truly gripping, until about the last quarter when it logically kind of just falls apart. the fight scenes are really good, though.

new life begins - my favorite cdrama. so much so i don't yet have the words to explain why. but i'll try: you know makjang kdramas? well, melodrama historical/palace cdramas have certain tropes--scheming, malicious women; unfeeling, cruel men; death, suicide, murder; one crazy ass thing happening after another. new life begins is a romantic comedy set against that background in that it takes everything you (or rather i) expect(ed) about a palace drama and just did the opposite. women loving each other all over the place. bonds of friendship so deep they overcome every obstacle. it's just very cute and deeply sincere, and also has a satisfying romance.

nothing but you - age gap sports romance with an older woman and younger man where youan leaves her job and starts a new career as the manager of a tennis club, and recruits san chuan (who she at one point she calls "the embodiment of love" !!!!! oh my god) who just quit being a badminton player to become a tennis player. not too much angst here, even with san chuan's issues with his mom, just a whole lot of sweetness and exercising montages (and some office work stuff). this whole show was basically made with me in mind.

you are my hero - this is straight up military propaganda. however. the romance is so, so sweet, mi ka (the female lead) is so, so sweet and cute and smart and fun, and the secondary romance is between the main guy's older sister and her past flame who's mi ka's mentor, and i liked them a lot too.

now all of these are things i just enjoy cause i like romance and hot people, but for actual recommendations, i'd say check out new life begins and my journey to you.

[melonatures]

noona romances where he's a rookie actor and she becomes his manager and helps him make it big:

shoot for the stars (2002, sbs)

search www (2019, tvn)

[melonatures]

if i ever make a list of the best/my fav wigs in cdramas, xie yun's will be at the top of it. it's so flouncy and moves so well it its ponytail, and then when he switches to another one for his half up half down look it's real thick in the back (though cluld be longer imo), and so far no matter the wig his bangs are excellent--long and curled.

i'm pretty sure the actresses where loads of extensions, (when they're not wearing head pieces--those must be wigs) and for them fan changyu would be at the top of the list, cause her hair was always braided with some bit of colorful cloth plaited in, and when it was up it was nice and round.

[melonatures]

jock girlfriends:

zhou fei (legend of fei, cdrama)

kang so bong (are you human too?, kdrama)

kim nana (city hunter, kdrama)

yoon sae bom (happiness, kdrama)

do do hee (hogu's love, kdrama)

ha neul ae gu reum (luca the beginning, kdrama)

gil ra im (secret garden, kdrama)

luo na (falling into you, cdrama)

fu yixiao (fated hearts, cdrama)

yun weishan (my journey to you, cdrama)

wei lin (my lady general, cdrama)

fan changyu (chasing jade, cdrama)

he jiu ling (the inextricable destiny, cdrama)

lu zhao yao (the legends, cdrama)

li chang ge (the long ballad, cdrama)

honorable mentions:

song eun jae (hospital ship, kdrama)

chu xuanji (love and redemption, cdrama)

[melonatures]

he lost his memory and she takes care of him till he gets it back:

love story in the 1970s

shopping king louis

coming to myself

the inextricable destiny

honorable mentions:

queen in hyun's man (no memory loss but he's from the past, which serves the same dynamics--dependence, trust, protection and (slightly) inverted gender dynamics, and usually cohabitation)

are you human too (no memory but he's a robot and so all his memories are taken from his human counterpart; his pinnochio-ness serves the same dynamics (see above))