Btw., seriously don't know what these mean, but they keep coming:D
https://mydramalist.com/profile/8392225/badges

j-drama
k-drama
taiwanese drama
thai lakorn/series   c-drama
philippine drama (teleserye)

Currently: Spending more time listening to music than watching dramas. Music seems to be way more intriguing, it's deep and any "drama" seems to be shallow in compare. Honestly, what kind of story can drama have? It's all pretty banal to me, recently I drop more dramas than I finish. That means before learning how it ends: it's way more important whether I am having fun during it. And after many years, I am bored fast. I am not the kind to be interested in other people's problems, so to become invested in a drama, it has to have quite an atmosphere, or something really fun. And I mean REALLY.

Romance characters should not use guns. On the other hand, kiss scenes, skinship scenes, dancing scenes are more of a treat for me. I prefer romance over detective because I still care who dated whom way more than who killed the victim and why. I prefer comedy over serious dramas and I often laugh during serious dramas anyways. 

In short, I look for something that will either amuse me or excite me (be it whatever... I myself don't know beforehand). That seems to dwindle with each passing year for me. While I do appreciate critically acclaimed good quality stuff, truth is it often bores me. I watched too much.

Why I prefer j-dramas
Males still look male. Well, mostly. There are some weird types which mostly get cast in BL (I do think a regular looking man can be gay, the producers obviously don't), but at least men's haircuts are the closest to normal in all Asia.
They know the right measure. Be it drama, or melodrama, or humour. The feelings hit you the most in j-drama, because they do not cry so loudly. They don't laugh with so much roar, either. Chinese weep, koreans shout instead of talking, Thai make a buffoon theatre. But it's the japanese who really touch you and come with the ideas which other countries then remake.
God is in the detail. One way of assessing the quality of work given in for a drama, is to simply look at the sets. In c-drama, the interies would have insane color palette & designs. Just because in reality, they hardly even have a table and a chair to sit, lol. In j-dramas, the interiers would look like someone lived in them for at least 10 years. The ammassed amount of various objects would silently speak of numerous lifetime stories. But nothing would be as neat, squeaky clean, brand new & borderline product placement, like in k-drama. (Forget about "borderline" with thai, they would make whole "drama" scenes dedicated to characters advertising the product directly, with action and dialogue.)

I don't binge-watch (unless it's a RE-watch).  Episodes exist for a reason. And I say, enjoy it. I always prefer series to movies. There's nothing more enjoyable than happily opening a new episode of a show I already got to... well, enjoy. One way or another. Because that does not come to me right away. I mean, every drama has a slow start with me and I need to kinda forcefeed it to myself at first, till my interest gets piqued one way or other. And then I start like, really watch it. But, opening a completely new series, or starting to watch a movie, I have to force myself to it. I don't truly enjoy it untill I'm already invested in it. On the other hand, I feel that many shows are designed to take them in doses. You are not even supposed to gulp them all at once. Watching them 1 episode at a time, helps to keep them longer a part of your life. Then, opening a new episode, it's like a visiting your favorite friend. That's why I watch so many long dramas (and even soaps/telenovelas, shows with numerous seasons, etc.) in compare to movies.

The Way I Watch: I always watch bundle of shows, which I rotate. Had I not do that, I would drop even more dramas than I do. Because some shows get better with time. Time helps me to let them resonate in me, realize how much/little I am looking forward coming back to them. For decades, I followed my strict rule to watch 1 episode at a time, never less, never more, even if I was "dying to" see more right away (in fact I am SO used to it that I am in/famous for being stoically unmoved by any cliffhanger:-) Despite the fact that I rarely watch "currently airing" series and I usually had all the episodes and all the seasons already available to me and at my immediate disposal! My self-discipline was iron but I had a reason: that way, I managed to always keep a wide pool of stuff with different genres and countries of origin. I watched everything, and found the time to watch it all. Also, shows which have slow start, my system of watching them a bit when it's their turn, then move on to something else, helps me to get through to their good part. I managed to watch quite a load of different stuff, some with numerous episodes or numerous seasons, with my system. Some pretty long shows, I have watched for years: because depending on my free time and the current size of my bundle of shows, which might be 10 or 100, I watched them 1 episode a week/2 weeks/3 weeks/3 days/10 days/other. It always varies:-) And I don't only do asian dramas. Now that I am older, I loosened my iron rule. I just wish to enjoy myself so I no longer self-inflict the 1 episode rule, though I still watch shows in a bundle, in which I rotate them. But I gave myself freedom to watch just as much or just as little, as I feel like. So, I can watch 1 episode or more, I can watch it all in one sitting to the very end if I wish, and if it's physically possible:-) Or, if the episode is boring, or I'm not in the right mood for the particular show, I no longer forcefeed it to myself. I take note of the runtime where I left off, and get back to that episode the next time it's the show's turn again. Good for those 1,5 hour long episodes;-) I can watch just about a half. Or, I can watch just 1 scene. Sometimes, I can watch just 3 minutes, or even 1 minute. I have given myself complete freedom: and what would you guess? Yes, in the end, I still simply watch one episode, and when it ends, I move onto the next show, mostly:-) But not always, so the speed with which I finish the drama, now marks how the drama was successfull with me:-)

Feel is more than story. Small, regular human problems touch my heart more than saving the world.

The words LESS IS MORE should be tattooed on all the writer's foreheads.

I rate BOREDOM lower than bad cinematography.

Sound is just important as the picture. Never watch anything dubbed (china is ruining their own dramas that way) /on 2x speed, etc.. Good conversation and interaction means more to me than the plot.

Genres/Tags to avoid starting 2023
- War
- Horror
- Supernatural
- Fantasy
- Sci-Fi
- Historical
- Period
- Cross-Dressing
- Hidden/Switched/Double Identity/Personality
- Arranged/Fake/Forced/Contract Marriage (/of Convenience)
- Food
- Suspense/Investigation

How I Use MDL
Through time, I somehow ceased to Rate dramas on MDL, one reason is that by now I drop like 44% of them, then it's "unfair" to rate them, other thing is that I don't really care. Frankly I don't see much relevance as to how the drama is rated on MDL to the actual quality of the drama, or more importantly to its enjoyability for ME. Also I don't ever actually see any slightest change to to given drama's rating after I add my rating to it. I used to write Reviews, lately I can't be bothered. I started to just leave a Comment instead, but people feel to need to send me a reply on each one of them, it seems. The notifications that someone replied to my comment X days/months/years later are frankly an annoyance, and I don't REALLY care whatever some stranger's opinion is, I only care for my own. Therefore:

I use MDL mainly to keep track (avoid dramas I already watched/dropped at some point) and to check for Genres & Tags. Those are brilliant, brilliant tool to avoid things I wish to avoid. Tags tell me everything I need to know before I devote my time, not the Synopsis, which tries to present the drama this way or that way and is full of things I don't wish to know beforehand. Tags reveal the true nature of each drama in a flash. Tags decide whether I will watch it!

My experience with korean BL
Annoying traits from k-drama: Check
- the haircuts
- women-style makeup on men
- the stupid english nick/names used at WORK
- "depyunim" of a 6-person company (counting in the cleaning lady) is translated in subtitles as CEO (L M A O)
- they need to start working at the same place to finally sort their PERSONAL lives, after YEARS
So, who says that BL k-dramas get discriminated? Apart from being shorter, they're just the same as the straight ones. Once they reach 1 HOUR long episode, they'll be hated just as well as the regular ones, HA HA HA:-D

Favourite & Disliked Tropes & Tags

Nice Male Lead - I'm a sucker for nice male lead. Oddly enough, in contrast to that I also seem to enjoy non-consensual kiss (IRIS Episode 2 RULEZZ, lol) and find it more exciting than offending (sue me).
Bitchy Female / Nice Male - I seem to enjoy this for some reason. I'm a sucker for super nice male lead in general, and when paired with super bitchy female, I seem to enjoy it even more. Bitchy girl is a bitch, but she has feelings, too. Super nice male does not retaliate (well, he may with the forced kiss, lol) and does not give up on her. Even though she might deserve it. Eventually that melts her heart and she falls for him, too (I prefer happy endings just as the next romance viewer). I don't know why I enjoy this so much, perhaps because it's more fun than just watching the obligatory super nice female lead. I have the feeling that type of heroine is practically dragged through the whole story, pushed left and right by everyone else, for the drama to somehow continue. Nothing is her doing. She is not the cause of anything happening. On the contrary, bitchy heroine creates most of her problems herself, with her.... well, bitchiness. She gets life lesson. And love lesson;-)
Friends To Lovers / Staying Friends - I'm not a big believer in friendship between the opposite sex (or same, if one is that oriented). Pure friendship is something brotherly/sisterly and can't suddenly turn sexual, because that would feel like incest. Friendship that DOES turn sexual was never real friendship to begin with. The hidden sexual frustration (which usually drags) creates tension between the characters which causes the stupid behavior we watch in every drama.
Misunderstanding - Generally, I am not fond of drama characters having a misunderstanding. Because it blocks them from interacting with what is actually going on. It would seem that some writers can't write a drama without it, but for me, then it's not a proper drama, just farce. Maybe classic french farce is good, but apart from that, when there is a misunderstanding in a drama, then I only wait for it to be cleared, so I can finally watch the characters to react on the truth. Only then the drama starts.
Sexual Content - Proper drama has sex. If not, then the sexually clueless or sexually frustrated characters just do a lot of walking in circles for the camera, before actually entering the door into life and dealing with it. Like I mentioned, we then get mostly a lot of stupid behavior we watch in every drama, LOL.
Female Chases Male First - I'm sorry if I offend feminists, but when female chases male first, she's never the winner. Even if she succeeds. I'm almost never enjoying this trope ('Itazura Na Kiss' was bearable). Man needs to be the man and woman needs to be the woman.
Calm Female Lead - Almost impossible to find. LOVE it.
Food - Are you one of those artists convinced that warm food makes warm heart and spreads the love all around, etc.? If you love cooking, do a cooking show. Don't make me watch detailed stove videos in A DRAMA.

Super Annoying Language Things In Dramas

I AM sound oriented person. I love languages. I never watch anything dubbed. Each language has its own melody and atmosphere. Each voice is original and cannot be replaced. It's part of the acting! With all that said, there are few SUPER annoying things for me in asian dramas. I suffer and suffer each time I am forced to hear it.
From Thailand: Saying -t instead of -s at the end of any word. When it is a thai word it did not bother me that much at first, because I did not know enough thai to notice. That changed after several years, and I'm the type of person who gets irritated by things the longer they repeat. Still, it's way worse with english words, which they insist on using. I would SO prefer the characters just use thai word for office, then to hear (hundred times, thousand times...) that they now need to head off back to their "offit".
From Japan: If any word ends on -t or -d, it gets the added o. It's especially maddening with english words, which again, japanese tend to use often, for quite unknown reasons. When japanese wants to say bed, then for some reason they don't use their japanese word for bed, but instead say: "betto". I also don't get why japanese just can't say "arigato" when they're thanking other japanese. No, they'll insist on saying: "sankju" (with very sharp "s"). I remember watching j-drama called 'Attention Please', where I had to hear characters saying cabin attendant at least each 2nd sentence. They like, NEVER considered using their own japanese word for air stewardess, at least for conversations among them japanese. Of course, all of them literally said: "kabin atendanto". 1000 times. It nearly got me mental.
From Japan/Taiwan/Korea/China: speaking in english in general is a pain. I SO wish characters in all asian dramas should avoid it. Japanese tend to be stepping on their own tongues to the point that they say L instead of R and vice versa always, mispelling this and that even after they properly learn the language, which is worse than not knowing it at all. When watching j-drama from the airport's plane control tower, I kept thinking how dangerous it was and that the planes were bound to fall, LOL. The other nations might learn to understand japanese one day, but they'll NEVER learn to understand their english:-D I might laugh but apart from that, it's not actually fun, morelike suffering. Doesn't matter which asian country drama it is, their english, and their USE of english is always awful AND I would not judge them for it (there's nothing wrong with not knowing a language at all: but there certainly is when you botch language of someone else: then it does inadvertently advertise your underdevelopment. And they're still lucky that they do it with english. French would kill. LOL) if not for their stubborn use in situations when it's not NEEDED AT ALL. The more they believe that they mastered it, the worse it is. Ironically, this is relatively reliable sign of a still developing country. Therefore I wait when at least Japan & Korea will cease doing it (when India does it making Bollywood musicals and hindi soap operas, I try to take it as part of the comedy, though their mid-sentence "code-switching" completely disregards that different languages do have different sentence built, therefore botching merrily both language of someone else's AND their own - hard to say which is worse crime - it does sound moronic, but obviously, they SO believe they reached wordliness by it, it's funny).

Philippino Insanity Bonus (I avoid their "dramas"): Philippines went as far as to set english as OFFICIAL language in their country. Despite it NOT being their native language and each individual has to learn it first, up to their individual opportunity and skill level. Yet they are determined to use it among each other at offices, schools, hospitals, administratives, basically govern their state using it. It's humorously tragic.

From Korea: Calling each other "Team Jang Nim" which means "teamleader" (again, PARTIALLY english) is something k-drama characters seem obsessed about, to the point that they keep calling themselves that even after they sleep together AND no longer work together. If not this, then it's "director" (you can hear them saying "depyunim" even if the subtitles don't mention it - perhaps because it IS weird in the given situation), or smth.
From Korea/Japan: calling social media SNS. I would respect them more if they were to invent their own word for it rather than creating their own "english" abbreviation which is again incorrect because social NETWORKING is different from social MEDIA. But of course, they would keep using ENGLISH words with the wrong context (like japanese "yankee" and many other).
From Korea/China: CEO. Another super annoying use of incorrect english term. CEO seems to be any kind of any boss in asian drama. DO OPEN A DICTIONARY and look up what CEO means! Sorry, but a guy supervising a company of 6 employees including the cleaning lady is NOT a CEO. Deal with it!! To be fair, this is mostly done by the people who make drama's subtitles/drama's english titles, not the dramas. They often also put  their weird dollar conversions into subtitles instead of yen or won when characters are talking money. They don't seem to understand that other countries have their prices and their cost of living. Putting dollar amounts is stupid and tells you sh*t.

Super Silly Bonus from Thailand: the nicknames for all people. People in Thailand usually are thai. So, naturally it's not cool enough for a person to have a thai name. So, everyone has a cool english nickname like 'Book', or 'Candle' or 'Table' or 'Stool' to be cooler. It applies to both people in dramas and in real life.

Of course, even the thai names need to have "chic" english spelling, resulting in various lovely, just lovely sounding names. Check out this thai woman cook:

She doen't mean that. LOL
Had she - and all the "english" subtitle makers - spelled her name 'Pu', instead, they would have done better. It would make it clear it's something exotic (from the english viewpoint) and it would also avoid the unnecessary actual-word-meaning connotations. But, who am I to tell them what to do? I just had to watch the several hundreds of serious, romantic thai dramas I chose to watch with the main characters having such names, and try to take it seriously. Please, release soft-subtitles next time, so I can auto-correct them before viewing, lmao.

To understand all asian dramas in general you need to take note that the people in asian countries all believe that karaoke is FUN, not suffering(!) They like, really enjoy it.

Other thing is the necessity of constant hard work in your mind, trying to imagine the men COULD actually be attractive, if not for all those undercut haircuts. It remains UNFATHOMABLE why they need to do all that to MEN's hair. First, dye it some obvious unnatural shade. Like he's a girl. (NO NEED for that, but that's not the worst of it.) Then, SHAVE AWAY the lower parts of his hair, often also the sides all the way above the ear (especially chinese/taiwanese), like they were first going for punk haircut and then changed their mind (again and again, I catch my gaze wandering to those almost skin-head shaven areas, away from even the handsomest faces, thinking that it's ugly), while leave the upper parts overly long, so that they need to be complicately combed into some stupid quiff (because if they would NOT fix it with a ton of hairproduct - remember how we all used hair gel? but that was 80's or early 90's for us - then it would fall all across their face) so as a result, he looks like someone previously shaved his head except the top part, which looks unnaturally long, like he's wearing some slimy, ill fitting tupé. Sadly that's a standard in Asia (in c-dramas, you need to count also the CLOTHES, which are usually horrible to the point they are comedic). Whatever happened to evenly short hair for males? NEVER I will understand why asians forsaken SIMPLE, SHORT, MANLY haircuts!!

THIS IS GROSS!

PLEASE, STOP SHAVING THE BOTTOM HAIR, AND DO CUT THE OVERLY LONG TOP HAIR! IT'S MASSIVELY UGLY BOTH!!

Problems with k-dramas
K-dramas are great. The only slight problems:
1) The names. I seem to NEVER remember korean names though I started watching k-dramas almost two decades ago. I am never quite sure when the characters talk about someone not present, no matter if it's episode 1 or 16. And not only that: I can't even distinguish whether the names are MALE or FEMALE. You can imagine how my head boiled watching complicated detective dramas, LOL. I had to literally take notes.
2) The male haircuts. Korea seems to have invented a special haircut for males that looks like some kind of a weird helmet. I don't know how else to describe it because it's undescribable. You can see it in 2005 dramas and unfortunatelly, you can see it in 2020 dramas still. Only some cases, if the drama's role requires the man to not have "standard haircut", the vieweres are spared. It puts a strain on romantic dramas especially, because it's exhausting to keep trying to imagine how the man COULD actually be attractive without it. It needs to be noted that the state of men's hairdressing is awful in asia in general, but korea is the worst.
3) Males often look feminine. Ugghh... Enuff said. Lesbian viewers (or latent lesbian) must be way happier with k-dramas than straight girls. K-dramas should probably aim for GL (girls love) stories more than anything else. Simply because the girls don't look so gross (while wearing the same style make-up as males). They also have natural, loose hairstyles in compare to males: no forcefully weird shapings.
4) People screaming instead of talking. I sometimes think korean politics need to advocate for extra thick walls in all korean houses, LOL. Watching k-dramas, you need to set the volume lower to spare your eardrums. Not only is very loud talking common, also it's considered part of the "comedy".
I'm only listing k-drama problems because they are SO worth watching even despite those. Doesn't mean taiwan, china or thailand don't have problems. Boy they're on completely different level.

Okay, I will elaborate, then.

Problems with c-dramas
Mind you, this won't be such a fun read. Although, let's start with the most funny...
The clothes people in c-dramas usually wear & the hairdos are utterly horrendous. Do they all come from some wildly gay cabaret or are all the chinese stylists crazy? Isn't it that you're prohibited to be gay in china? I wonder whether the flamboyant wardrobe is the way of chinese gay to silently protest. When the characters come from middle class, or "upper class" especially, then males wear incredible pastel color tops, vests & suits. Including characters like thugs who are attacking a girl in a club, LOL. They look like parrots. Or some other animal considering the weird haircut shape.
GIRLS can have SO simple haircuts! You can tell it can get pretty untidy if she makes a wilder moment. Yet a MALE has his hair fixed with ton of hairproduct every second. THAT IS SO WEIRD. Females wear natural brown shades, males dyed. Every single male wears the same invention, where someone SHAVES sides of his head, all above each ear, brutally. The top of their hair, it looks morelike something a short-haired GIRL would wear. Some kind of curled-up quiff from all the excess top hair, like contrast to those shaven hair. It's hard to take any drama seriously, if the main guy looks like a rat gnawed on his hair all around his ears. The front hair sometimes stand up so high it looks like it will fly off all the way to the airport, making the poor guy (who might be young OR old) look like some kind of a weird bird. The skinhead-shaven areas look UGLY up close. SO complicated & weird. Whatever happened to EVENLY short hair? I can't make out if the guy is actually handsome or not.
Other "slight" problem is that c-dramas are a product of a country that does not know democracy. All their dramas are censored. Nobody can be religious, nobody can be gay, nobody can wish for freedom... Hell, nobody can even speak dialect! There are always the mandatory subtitles, showing the standard chinese. If you happen to wish to subtitle their dramas, you have to place your subtitle OVER their subtitles, lol. The "dramas" tend to have many episodes. Those are mostly filled with vague, plot-elusive mixture. There's also quite enough of the history/mythology/wuxia sh*t, which is almost incomprehensible for a western viewer... China is not the first go-to country for dramas to be sure. China (just like Russia) needs to dissolve into small, democratic states, then it will no longer be considered a tragedy that someone speaks in dialect. And then, for the first time, they will be able to stop producing dramas where the sound does not connect to the picture and the whole thing does not connect to the viewer.
From the viewer's point, c-dramas have the disadvantage of the missing SOUND. They're practically all dubbed (by the so-called "voice actors", who might be 45 years old, while dubbing a high school drama:-). You never hear the original sound, you never hear the actual actor's voice. You can't really judge their acting performance. The tone of voice, and sometimes the whole meaning of what was said (remember the censorship) is changed. Occasionally, the "landscape shots" show some english letterings in "chic" places or they show a building housing a branch of "Starbuck Coffee" to appear that they are "just like the rest of the world", but don't let that fool you.
Taiwanese dramas share the same problem with male haircuts, but at least the people have natural diction and way of talking!

By the way, the best drama I've ever watched is not even listed on MDL, because it's the 1996 anime version of 'Hana Yori Dango'.

I'm not on MDL to find friends. I don't look for friends online. I'm not on any so-called "social media". I find it ridiculous.
Therefore, If I can beg you, please don't send me Friend Requests (I used to have just the previous 4 sentences here, yet people did not take the hint). Recently one more arrived saying, that they read everything on my profile and it's so fascinating (lol) that they had to ask me to be "friends". Well, clearly they did not read everything, lol. Don't necessarily reply on my Comments, I don't write them for endless discussions, you might as well write your own if you disagree. Just as I did. The notifications that someone replied on a Comment are pretty annoying, I'm considering that I'll no longer write them (I only write them because I pretty much ceased to write Reviews). Don't send Messages because those are deletable without reading so I mostly do that (I learned that during the period I tried to add Edits to dramas, to contribute to MDL. All the notifications to yet more various reasons for rejection of that edit - I've completely given up now, let the "staff" do those - were pretty annoying). I don't like notifications in general. Thanx.

Re-watch quality is the true quality.