This is what YouTube should be about!

This has nothing whatever to do with drama or manga except that I stumbled upon this while looking at Roy Adeed Hang Ruck (somebody pleeeaaase do an English sub!). There are some vids up about pangea day which I have never heard of but its basically the idea of promoting a day of unity on May 10, 2008 and they have all these short clips of one nation singing another nation’s national anthem. It’s wonderful and very touching. I was particularly touched by Kenya singing to India. They are each about 1 minute long.

YouTube link for Pangea Day YouTube channel and below is the Imagine!Kenya sings for India vid.

Harit is not so bad after all (in comparison anyway)

I’ve been thinking of how best to phrase this because after all I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I condone any of Harit’s actions.

I don’t.

However in light of what I’ve been seeing on Sawan Biang I decided to go back and re-watch some episodes of Jam Loey Rak. What I’ve discovered is that Harit is pretty much a sweetheart compared to Kawee thus far. Episode 8 in particular, in which he discovers that Soraya is not Sansanee, is particularly telling. I’m including a clip here so you can see what I refer to (much thanks to Wishboniko for taking the time to subtitle and upload the lakorns).

If you noticed at about minute 4:05 when she tells him to stay back they make a point of showing him stepping away from her. We at least see that he is trying to respect her space in the face of her distress. And the actor does a good job of appearing sorry at least. He actually seems hurt that she tells him she hates him (I love that by the way, that is exactly what you should be screaming at someone who did what he did).

Rape is wrong obviously. However in the mythical world of drama, Harit did this one time. What is up with Kawee in Sawan Biang? You can’t even really blame it on Leela because except for the slap most of her dangerous personality had not even come out until after the rapes had occurred. Now let us say Kawee suffered some intense rage etc. after the slapping incident and thats why he essentially kidnapped Narin and forced himself on her. Well he still continues the behavior after they get back to the house!

They just appeared to go so way overboard with the amount of times Narin was assaulted and the “reasons” behind each assault. I guess it is to show the contrast when his personality softens later in the drama. In real life I don’t think there is forgiveness for Kawee. His turn around could happen again and he could go back to being an asshole who decides to rape someone because they don’t want to eat their dinner or whatever.

It almost pains me to write this but I guess Harit is better in that way because judging by his remorse and actions etc. I don’t think this is something he would ever do again whereas Kawee just seems really mentally unstable and does not have any healthy outlet for his anger.

The Power of T.M. Revolution, haha

Wow I looked at my blog stats this morning out of curiosity and found readership had increased by 1000% overnight. The power of T.M. Revolution! I looked at the links and search terms and it was mostly people reading about TMR and mostly from Japan. I tried babelfish to see if I could translate what was being said but if anyone has used babelfish before…it is mostly not understandable. I did get enough out of one site to realize they were wanting a set list of what was performed at the concert.

I apologize to fans in Japan who were looking for this but I actually did not expect to even write a post about TMR so didn’t note it and I can’t remember the particular order he sang the songs in but I will list below what I remember of the songs performed.

• Ignited
• Vestige
• Zips
• Web of Night
• Resonance (from Souleater)
• Albireo
• Invoke
• Meteor
• Thunderbird
• Heart of Sword

Anyone go to the concert? I’m thinking he did Hot Limit but I’m not sure and Love Saver during the encore portion?

T.M. Revolution, woohoo!

I thought I would write this while the thoughts/emotions etc. are still fresh. I am just back from the T.M. Revolution concert at New York Comic-Con. He did not disappoint and strangely enough when he got called out for the encore came out even more hyped than before. The encore set was really high energy. When he went to leave the stage he kept blowing kisses at the audience and thanking everyone and he and the band were giving each other high fives due to the audience reaction.

He was pretty good working the crowd with the usual “Hello, New York” and “I love <insert city here>” singers do when they play somewhere. What he did that was great was to tell the crowd that they were great and awesome. Who doesn’t like to the be told those things? He played all his anime/video game songs so that it was easy for the crowd to follow along and sing some of the parts. He ended (before the encore) with Heart of Sword from Ruruoni Kenshin. It was funny for me to see him larger than life up on the stage because just the afternoon before I had seen him walking around the exhibitors hall and he’s really rather short. He actually walked right by me but people didn’t seem to recognize him. It was only when he was about to pass me that I was like omg it’s TMR! At this point it wasn’t open yet to the general public so he seemed to be kind of rushing through looking at things before the general public came through in about 10 minutes. No doubt once the general public came in it would have caused a ruckus to have TMR walking around like that and getting recognized.

All in all it was great. I’m not sure how they scored his first U.S. visit in four years but I’m glad they were able to get him.

What mental disorder is this?

It’s funny how you can watch something and see certain behavior that either doesn’t bother you or that you create excuses for. I find myself doing with this dramas. I’ve mentioned before here, the drama 30000 Miles in Search of My Son. As I watched I found it sort of amusing that he claimed a baby as his son in order to get out of an arranged marriage. In real life it is pretty obvious that you need to turn this child in to social services.

I find the reactions to certain characters in lakorns just as interesting. I don’t speak thai so if I happen to be looking at something raw on YouTube I will usually look at comments just to get a general idea of what is going on in that segment of an episode. I took a glance at Wimarn Sai comments where people were talking about how hot the lead was etc. Imagine my surprise when there was a rape scene in that ep. No one even mentioned it! This was only episode 2 mind you who knows what he’ll engage in, in later episodes.

I find the same sort of thing in Sawan Bieng. I’ve seen a lot of discussion around blogs and stuff excusing Kawee’s behavior. This guy is engaging in mental torture and already several rapes. Saying that he doesn’t have his father’s love is not quite enough to excuse this kind of behavior. It wouldn’t be a lakorn without the craziness I guess. It’s not so much the behavior that I find interesting but the reaction to it. In real life I say this kind of person needs to be jailed or committed.

What disorder is it that Kawee is displaying exactly? Is he a sociopath? Is he a danger to society in that he can’t seem to engage in a healthy outlet for his anger? One that doesn’t involve hurting someone. Maybe it would be a less acceptable character if it were not for the fact that Ken is playing him.

I guess thats the point of watching dramas. It’s real escapism from what is (or is not) acceptable in society.

Btw, Kawee’s craziness aside its good to see Ken playing this kind of character and stretching his acting skills beyond the adorably good natured characters I’ve seen him play.

Irritating characters in dramas

It’s only one character in particular I am thinking of and that is the mom in Sawan Biang. Kawee is going around harassing her daughter in her new marriage. You can see the obvious animosity he holds towards everyone. Now in episode three in a fit of pique he hurt his dad to the point that he had to be hospitalized. It wasn’t intentional on his part but never-the-less it did happen. Yet through it all she’s telling her other kids that they shouldn’t speak badly of Kawee.

Huh? Is he your child, that you are defending him so much?

I understand wanting to give someone the benefit of the doubt but he’s pretty much beyond that point now and it’s annoying to see her reprimanding her own kids in his favor. I wonder if in the original the mom was like this?

30,000 Miles in Search of My Son…underrated drama

I recently had the opportunity to see this drama (with incredibly sucky subtitles). Unfortunately no fansubbers that I know of have picked this drama up and it’s kind of a shame. I actually decided to watch this drama because Soh Yoo Jin was in it. She was in Bean Chaff of My Life a few years ago which I actually did not get to watch but am intrigued by the concept of musical drama. Because of this, when I saw her in the pics I was curious as to what her latest project was.

Soh Yoo Jin plays a young single mother who has spent the past six years trying to locate her kidnapped son. What she doesn’t know, that the audience does, is that it was actually her then husband who orchestrated the kidnapping. Due to his ambition he wanted to marry another woman to advance his position in the company and had his son kidnapped so that he could blame Soon Young (played by Soh Yoo Jin) and use it as an excuse to divorce her.

Due to a series of circumstances the child winds up in the car of Kang Kye Pil who decides to claim him as his illegitimate child in order to get out of an arranged marriage. Kang Kye Pil is a very interesting character in that at the beginning of the story he is very immature, as evidenced by his decision not to report to the police about this child. As the show progresses you really get to see Kang Kye Pil’s progression to a more mature person and his genuine love for his son. I found this drama also gave real insight into why Kang Kye Pil’s personality developed the way it did.

It wasn’t the storyline so much that caught my attention, in this case it was the acting. Lee Hoon was believable as Kang Kye Pil who is in essence the result of growing up emotionally abused by his stepmother.

The “bad guys” in this drama were really unlikeable and this is actually meant as a compliment. Though I don’t agree with the lack of consequences for the stepmother’s actions it was interesting that they actually chose to have the character basically explain her reasoning and the emotions behind it.

Emotion is a very important part of this drama, not just in the sense of the normal melodrama but in the sense of the long term consequences that result from negative treatment of others.

Big kudos go to the gentleman who plays Soon Young’s ex-husband (anyone know the actor’s name?). This guy was evil personified. The acting was a little too good there, it really made me wonder… :)

The actor did a great job of expressing this character’s greed and contempt of those around him. He feels absolutely no remorse for what he has done to his son and the way he has destroyed his ex-wife’s life.

It’s a drama that no one seems to be talking about, on Soompi at least. I have no idea what the ratings in Korea were like but I think it’s worth a look. Not the greatest plot ever but some fine acting and a really convincing (too convincing!) bad guy.

The Onion on YouTube

Okay how the heck did I miss that The Onion had a YouTube presence? I’ve been laughing hysterically watching the clips. I’m not sure what is funnier, their serious “news stories” (if I was one of the actors I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face). or the comments of the viewers. Here is a clip of the The Onion News Network. Oh, and just in case anyone is concerned. No it is not real. The Onion is all about satire.